Mike Pence enjoys extended ski vacation in Vail as pandemic deaths soar

The United States is facing still-rising pandemic deaths and both a federal government shutdown and the end of supplemental unemployment checks to those newly out of work, but Donald Trump is, of course, currently on vacation. You may be wondering where the ostensible head of the White House coronavirus "task force" has gotten to, since we haven't heard much from him either.

Alleged vice president Mike Pence is in Vail, Colorado. We're in the middle of a nationwide crisis and the guy "in charge" of it is takin' an extended family ski trip. One you're not supposed to know about, apparently.

Fortunately, Pence will not particularly be missed. His primary pandemic task force duty appears to have been reducing media access to government disease experts who had been upsetting Trump's delusional claims with far grimmer facts; given that Dr. Anthony Fauci is on television warning of those grim facts today, it seems Pence is phoning in even his duties as White House Fact Inhibitor.

Of special note, however, is that Pence evidently plans to stay on vacation and out of his Washington office through New Year's. He'll pop back at some point after that to awkwardly chair the joint session of Congress that will accept the votes of the Electoral College, formally confirming Joe Biden's presidential victory. He will then on the same day bolt off to Europe and the Middle East for one last government-funded tour.

In other words, Pence seems to be rather intent on not being in Washington for any more days than he has to, between now and Biden's inauguration on January 20. As Dear Leader rants, rages and threatens to shutdown government in one last pointless tantrum, Mike Pence will be in hiding. As Dear Leader consults with the nation's least competent attorneys as to whether or not he can call out the actual military to have voting redone in states he lost, Mike Pence will be in hiding.

Good. Finally, we've found something he's good at.