Wednesday, October 05, 2016

The Truth the Public Needs to Know About Mike Pence


As I predicted last night prior to the vice presidential debate, Mike Pence, Donald Trump's fellow fascist, largely hid his virulent homophobia and Tim Kaine only addressed the issue in passing.  The most obvious thing about Pence's performance was his willingness to lie - a prevailing trait among Christofascist - and deny that Donald Trump had made all of the statements that Tim Kaine accused him of.  Never mind that Trump's vile statements about Muslims, minorities and women and/or praise of Vladimir Putin are all captured on video or Trump's own tweets.  (Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway's attempts at spin after the debate were equally false and made a tawdry whore look like the height of truthfulness in comparison).  Truth be told, Pence favors a form of Christian Sharia law - just like the Taliban and ISIS seek for Islam.  The man is dangerous.  A piece in Salon looks at the real Mike Pence who in many ways is a small scale clone of Trump.  Here are excerpts:
Most voters outside the Hoosier State know fairly little about Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a lifelong social conservative who served in Congress for 12 years, as governor for three years and is a favorite of the Koch Brothers.
As a young lawyer, Pence ran for Congress in 1988 and lost. When he ran again two years later, he used political donations to pay for his home mortgage, his personal credit card and grocery bills, golf tournament fees and his wife’s car payments, reports The Washington Post. While the payments were not illegal at the time, The Post reports “it stunned voters — and undermined Pence’s strategy to portray the incumbent, Rep. Philip R. Sharp, as tainted by donations from special-interest political action committees.” The article goes on to describe how the mistake transformed Pence politically and led to changes in national campaign finance policy.
During his 12 years in the House, Pence introduced 90 bills and resolutions, though none became law. “His interest was more in preventing things from happening — spending, taxing, expanding liberal social policy,” reports Hulse. He fought against several of President George W. Bush’s policies, including No Child Left Behind and the extension of Medicare Part D.
A post by the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Rothfeder — “Mike Pence’s Free Market Ideology: An Awkward Fit for Trump” — describes Pence as a “fervent anti-Keynesian” who “firmly opposes government spending on jobs programs and private-sector initiatives.” As a congressman, Pence voted against every federal stimulus package. As governor, he cut taxes for corporations and individuals. 
Pence is (surprise, surprise) a climate change denier — just like Trump. . . . “Pence helped kill Indiana’s successful energy efficiency program” and his incredibly low lifetime rating (4 percent!) on the League of Conservation Voters’ National Environmental Scorecard.
While Donald Trump now claims he never supported the war in Iraq, Pence supported it all along. On Libya, the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein writes, Pence “praised Hillary Clinton for her handling of the chaos” in the early days of civil unrest and backed the administration’s intervention. As time went on, however, Pence “soured on the mission.” Last week, Pence claimed that Clinton didn’t “send help” during the Benghazi attacks, which Politifact deemed false.
 In an interview with “60 Minutes” this past weekend Pence said he is in favor of “enhanced” interrogation techniques [i.e., torture] — just like Trump.
Before Trump’s VP announcement, Pence did not have the name recognition of someone like Chris Christie, but many may remember that in 2015 he signed into law Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay patrons based on their religious beliefs. After many businesses and others protested, Pence signed an amended version of the law that was intended to provide protection for sexual orientation and gender identity.Mother Jones’s Hannah Levintova reports on this and other anti-gay-rights bills he supported while in Congress.
This past March, Gov. Pence signed a measure “prohibiting women from obtaining an abortion because of the race, gender or disability of the fetus.” Indiana is the second state in the nation to implement such laws. While in Washington, Pence pushed for defunding Planned Parenthood and as governor slashed funding of clinics that provided STD testing, which led to an outbreak of HIV, Mother Jones reports.

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