PENCE Gov VP

SEE 3

<div>see REP for earlier career</div>

congrat feck, tag vpence 419capt pence419=<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pence-hhs-special-report/as-trump-rewrites-health-rules-pence-sees-conservative-agenda-born-again-idUSKCN1T0176">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pence-hhs-special-report/as-trump-rewrites-health-rules-pence-sees-conservative-agenda-born-again-idUSKCN1T0176</a>shad net alice nelson...
Conservative and fundamentalist talk radio served as

both the training grounds and meeting place for a new generation of

leadership. One beneficiary was a young Indiana lawyer named Mike Pence.

Pence, a Catholic who converted to fundamentalist Christianity in

college, made two unsuccessful runs for a Congressional seat in 1988 and

1990. In 1991 he accepted a position as president of the Indiana Policy

Review Foundation. This was the Indiana affiliate of the State Policy

Network, whose members were described as a “mini-Heritage Foundation in

each state,” concentrating on influencing state legislation. The State

Policy Network funds its state affiliates, and is heavily funded by the

Charles Koch Foundation and the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund,

whose major backers include the Koch brothers and the CNP’s DeVos

family.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote34sym" name="sdendnote34anc">34</a>

From 1994 to 1999, Pence worked as a host for conservative radio

programs, many of them syndicated across the state. Pence used the job

to hone his public speaking skills, build a following and promote his

image as a self-described “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.” His folksy baritone

was well-suited for radio and his youthful face, prematurely white hair

and “aw-shucks” manner sold him as a “safe” baby-boomer who respected

his elders and drank milk for a nightcap. But he was a stalwart opponent

to abortion, Planned Parenthood, and same-sex marriage.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote35sym" name="sdendnote35anc">35</a> His

mild exterior belied a bigoted streak. While he was president of the

Indiana Policy Review, it published an article called “Military

Necessity and Homosexuality” stating, “The homosexuals are not as a

group able-bodied. They are known to carry extremely high rates of

disease brought on because of the nature of their sexual practices and

the promiscuity which is a hallmark of their lifestyle.”<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote36sym" name="sdendnote36anc">36</a>

In 1998 Pence invited a 35-year-old Louisiana state legislator named Tony Perkins to appear on his radio show.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote37sym" name="sdendnote37anc">37</a> Perkins

had come to Indianapolis to testify before the state legislature on the

“covenant marriage “ law he had drafted in Louisiana, which created a

voluntary marriage contract restricting the right to divorce. Like

Pence, Perkins was a fierce opponent of gay marriage and abortion. He

was also one of nine Louisianans who belonged to the Council on National

Policy.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote38sym" name="sdendnote38anc">38</a>

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Perkins and Pence

shared a talent for broadcasting and a thirst for power, though it

wasn’t initially clear who would pursue each path. In 2000 Pence ran for

Congress again, and this time he won. His radio expertise made him a

hot commodity among Republicans on Capitol Hill, and his reactionary

position on social issues won him favor with the Council for National

Policy.

In 2003, 14 fundamentalists, including CNP stalwarts Paul Weyrich,

Donald Wildmon, Gary Bauer, Richard Bott and James Dobson, regrouped in

Arlington, Virginia. Worried they were losing ground, the group focused

on three issues: abortion, gay marriage and gun rights. Polling showed

that the topic where they could get the most traction was same-sex

marriage.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote39sym" name="sdendnote39anc">39</a>

James Dobson, nearing 70, was slowing down, and he was ready to bring

in some new blood. The landscape had changed. The Family Research

Council’s new visibility as a Washington lobbying force could undermine

the non-profit status of Focus on the Family’s multi-million-dollar

operations. In 1992 he separated the two organizations again, creating

an independent board that shared three members, including Dobson

himself.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote40sym" name="sdendnote40anc">40</a>

To direct the new FRC in 2003, he turned to Mike Pence’s friend from

Louisiana, Tony Perkins: fresh-faced and honey-voiced at 40, with a

Southern variant of Pence’s “aw-shucks” manner. Perkins left his tiny

hometown of Cleveland, Oklahoma to serve in the Marine Corps. He moved

to Baton Rouge, where he joined the police force, then got a job

reporting for the television station run by Woody Jenkins, the founding

executive director of the CNP. Along the way he attended Jerry Falwell’s

Liberty University (though he didn’t graduate until he was nearly 30).

In 1995 Perkins ran successfully for the Louisiana state legislature

and was reelected four years later. The CNP’s Richard Viguerie was one

of his fundraisers.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote41sym" name="sdendnote41anc">41</a> Perkins

also managed the unsuccessful Senate campaign of former CNP director

Woody Jenkins. There were bumps along the way. A 1999 federal

investigation revealed that Perkins, on behalf of the Jenkins campaign,

had contracted the services of a media company partially owned by Ku

Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. Perkins later reported that he was

“profoundly grieved” to learn of the association.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote42sym" name="sdendnote42anc">42</a> In

2001 Perkins gave a speech to the Baton Rouge chapter of the white

supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (sometimes called the

“Uptown Klan”).<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote43sym" name="sdendnote43anc">43</a> Dobson

was unconcerned by the negative press. Such events set a pattern that

would be played out in the future. The Council for National Policy and

its affiliates would be revealed to associate with unsavory characters,

and they would be shocked that such nice folk could harbor such nasty

ideology.

As soon as Perkins was hired by the Family Research Council, he

launched a new radio program, broadcast on Bott Radio and the American

Family Radio network. In the past, the Family Research Council had tried

to maintain good relations with Democrats, but “Washington Watch” was

unabashedly political, celebrating conservative Republicans and

excoriating their Democratic opponents. For all practical purposes, the

CNP had anointed the Family Research Council as its public lobbying and

organizational front.

Nonetheless, the IRS assigned tax-exempt, 501(c)3 status to both the

Family Research Council and American Family Radio—in keeping with the

FRC’s stated mission to advance “faith, family and freedom in government

and culture from a Christian worldview,” and the American Family

Radio’s calling as an “educational organization” devoted to “spiritual

development.”<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://flux.community/anne-nelson/2021/05/disinformation-factory-how-christian-fundamentalist-media-brainwash-millions#sdendnote44sym" name="sdendnote44anc">44</a>

<hr />

In recent years, the CNP media affiliates have

continued to modernize and proliferate. It’s difficult to say exactly

how many there are, or to track all the platforms where they appear.

Salem Media, rebranded as the Salem Media Group, has acquired various

digital platforms, including TownHall, RedState, and PJ Media. 
The Daily

Caller, co-founded by CNP member Neil Patel and Tucker Carlson, lists

Clarence Thomas’s wife Virginia (another CNP member) as a “special

correspondent,” and Tony Perkins makes frequent appearances on its video

channel “American Voices.” CNSNews (originally the Cybercast News

Service) was founded by CNP executive committee member Brent Bozell

III in 1998 as a division of his Media Research Center. Like many of the

other organizations mentioned, MRC is designated a tax-exempt

“non-partisan” 501(c)3 organization, despite its unrelenting stream of

partisan content.

The movement has been focusing on developing social media platforms,

especially since Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in the wake of the

January 6 Capitol riot. On May 14 the Wall Street Journal reported that

Donald Trump <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-considers-contenders-to-be-his-new-social-media-outlet-after-big-tech-crackdown-11621013567">may launch his own platform</a>

on July 4, although it’s unclear what form it might take. Tony Perkins

has endorsed a relatively new social media platform called Gab, which

has been widely reported for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/11/gab-social-network/">providing a haven for QAnon supporters and other extremists</a>.

Other contenders, such as Parler and Frank (launched by My Pillow CEO

Mike Lindell) also vie for attention. The CNP has tried to develop its

own “celebrity spokespersons” to cultivate specific target audiences,

such as CNP member Charlie Kirk, who has his own YouTube channel and a

radio program on Salem Media targeting youth. CNP member Alveda King

(MLK’s niece) is <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/connormcnulty/2021/04/07/panel-of-prominent-black-leaders-blasts-hr-1-and-the-lefts-racism-of-low-expectations-n2587565">prominently featured</a> on Salem’s TownHall as an African-American opponent to HR1 and voting rights initiatives.

In the distorted mirror of this media system, the violent storming of

the Capitol was a “tourist event,” and the illegal efforts to overturn

the electoral results were exercises in “election integrity. Tragically,

these media initiatives have not limited themselves to political

misinformation; they have also been disseminating deadly misinformation

about Covid for over a year, and sowing manufactured doubt about the

safety of vaccines.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The battle against Covid may have

peaked, but millions of Americans are still vulnerable. The 2022

midterms will determine the fate of the House and the Senate, and in

many ways, the future of the nation. These information systems create a

growing chasm in America. Thanks in large part to their efforts,

Americans are more sharply divided than they have been in our lifetimes —

and as Abraham Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself cannot

stand.”=
no lnx gul“Brought to Jesus’: the evangelical grip on the Trump administrationThe influence of evangelical Christianity is likely to become an important question as Trump finds himself dependent on them for political survivalJulian Borger in Washington
Fri 11 Jan 2019 07.00 GMT Last modified on Fri 18 Jan 2019 21.51 GMTIn setting out the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, one of the first things Mike Pompeo made clear to his audience in Cairo is that he had come to the region as “as an evangelical Christian”.In his speech at the American University in Cairo, Pompeo said that in his state department office: “I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and his word, and the truth.”The secretary of state’s primary message in Cairo was that the US was ready once more to embrace conservative Middle Eastern regimes, no matter how repressive, if they made common cause against Iran.His second message was religious. In his visit to Egypt, he came across as much as a preacher as a diplomat. He talked about “America’s innate goodness” and marveled at a newly built cathedral as “a stunning testament to the Lord’s hand”.
['Toxic Christianity': the evangelicals creating champions for Trump Read more]The desire to erase Barack Obama’s legacy, Donald Trump’s instinctive embrace of autocrats, and the private interests of the Trump Organisation have all been analysed as driving forces behind the administration’s foreign policy.The gravitational pull of white evangelicals has been less visible. But it could have far-reaching policy consequences. Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo both cite evangelical theology as a powerful motivating force.Just as he did in Cairo, Pompeo called on the congregation of a Kansan megachurch three years ago to join a fight of good against evil.“We will continue to fight these battles,” the then congressman said at the Summit church in Wichita. “It is a never-ending struggle … until the rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight.”For Pompeo’s audience, the rapture invoked an apocalyptical Christian vision of the future, a final battle between good and evil, and the second coming of Jesus Christ, when the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest will go to hell.For many US evangelical Christians, one of the key preconditions for such a moment is the gathering of the world’s Jews in a greater Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. It is a belief, known as premillenial dispensationalism or Christian Zionism – and it has very real potential consequences for US foreign policy.It directly colours views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indirectly, attitudes towards Iran, broader Middle East geopolitics and the primacy of protecting Christian minorities. In his Cairo visit, Pompeo heaped praise on Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for building the new cathedral, but made no reference to the 60,000 political prisoners the regime is thought to be holding, or its routine use of torture.Pompeo is an evangelical Presbyterian, who says he was “brought to Jesus” by other cadets at the West Point military academy in the 1980s.“He knows best how his faith interacts with his political beliefs and the duties he undertakes as secretary of state,” said Stan van den Berg, senior pastor of Pompeo’s church in Wichita in an email. “Suffice to say, he is a faithful man, he has integrity, he has a compassionate heart, a humble disposition and a mind for wisdom.”As Donald Trump finds himself ever more dependent on them for his political survival, the influence of Pence, Pompeo and the ultra-conservative white Evangelicals who stand behind them is likely to grow.“Many of them relish the second coming because for them it means eternal life in heaven,” Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University said. “There is a palpable danger that people in high position who subscribe to these beliefs will be readier to take us into a conflict that brings on Armageddon.”Chesnut argues that Christian Zionism has become the “majority theology” among white US Evangelicals, who represent about a quarter of the adult population. In a 2015 poll, 73% of evangelical Christians said events in Israel are prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Respondents were not asked specifically whether their believed developments in Israel would actually bring forth the apocalypse.The relationship between evangelicals and the president himself is complicated.Trump himself embodies the very opposite of a pious Christian ideal. Trump is not churchgoer. He is profane, twice divorced, who has boasted of sexually assaulting women. But white evangelicals have embraced him.Eighty per cent of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016, and his popularity among them is remains in the 70s. While other white voters have flaked away in the first two years of his presidency, white evangelicals have become his last solid bastion.Some leading evangelicals see Trump as a latterday King Cyrus, the sixth-century BC Persian emperor who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity.The comparison is made explicitly in The Trump Prophecy, a religious film screened in 1,200 cinemas around the country in October, depicting a retired firefighter who claims to have heard God’s voice, saying: “I’ve chosen this man, Donald Trump, for such a time as this.”Lance Wallnau, a self-proclaimed prophet who features in the film, has called Trump “God’s Chaos Candidate” and a “modern Cyrus”.“Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful,” said Katherine Stewart, who writes extensively about the Christian right.She added that they welcome his readiness to break democratic norms to combat perceived threats to their values and way of life.“The Christian nationalist movement is characterized by feelings of persecution and, to some degree, paranoia – a clear example is the idea that there is somehow a ‘war on Christmas’,” Stewart said. “People in those positions will often go for authoritarian leaders who will do whatever is necessary to fight for their cause.”Trump was raised as a Presbyterian, but leaned increasingly towards evangelical preachers as he began contemplating a run for the presidency.Trump’s choice of Pence as a running mate was a gesture of his commitment, and four of the six preachers at his inauguration were evangelicals, including White and Franklin Graham, the eldest son of the preacher Billy Graham, who defended Trump through his many sex scandals, pointing out: “We are all sinners.”Having lost control of the House of Representatives in November, and under ever closer scrutiny for his campaign’s links to the Kremlin, Trump’s instinct has been to cleave ever closer to his most loyal supporters.Almost alone among major demographic groups, white evangelicals are overwhelmingly in favour of Trump’s border wall, which some preachers equate with fortifications in the Bible.Evangelical links have also helped shape US alliances in the Trump presidency. As secretary of state, Pompeo has been instrumental in forging link with other evangelical leaders in the hemisphere, including Guatemala’s Jimmy Morales and the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.Both have undertaken to follow the US lead in moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem.Trump’s order to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv – over the objections of his foreign policy and national security team – is a striking example of evangelical clout.[Sheldon Adelson: the casino mogul driving Trump's Middle East policy Read more]The move was also pushed by Las Vegas billionaire and Republican mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson, but the orchestration of the embassy opening ceremony last May, reflected the audience Trump was trying hardest to appease.The two pastors given the prime speaking slots were both ardent Christian Zionists: Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor on record as saying Jews, like Muslims and Mormons, are bound for hell; and John Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel (Cufi), who once said that Hitler and the Holocaust were part of God’s plan to get Jews back to Israel, to pave the way for the Rapture.For many evangelicals, the move cemented Trump’s status as the new Cyrus, who oversaw the Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.The tightening of the evangelical grip on the administration has also been reflected in a growing hostility to the UN, often portrayed as a sinister and godless organisation.Since the US ambassador, Nikki Haley, announced her departure in October and Pompeo took more direct control, the US mission has become increasingly combative, blocking references to gender and reproductive health in UN documents.Some theologians also see an increasingly evangelical tinge to the administration’s broader Middle East policies, in particular its fierce embrace of Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, the lack of balancing sympathy for the Palestinians – and the insistent demonisation of the Iranian government.[US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria, says Mike Pompeo Read more]Evangelicals, Chesnut said, “now see the United States locked into a holy war against the forces of evil who they see as embodied by Iran”.In a speech at the end of a regional tour on Thursday, Pompeo reprised the theme, describing Iran as a “cancerous influence”.This zeal for a defining struggle has thus far found common cause with more secular hawks such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and Trump’s own drive to eliminate the legacy of Barack Obama, whose signature foreign policy achievement was the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, which Trump abrogated last May.In conversations with European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May, Trump has reportedly insisted he has no intention of going to war with Iran. His desire to extricate US troops from Syria marks a break with hawks, religious and secular, who want to contain Iranian influence there.But the logic of his policy of ever-increasing pressure, coupled with unstinting support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, makes confrontation with Iran ever more likely.One of the most momentous foreign policy questions of 2019 is whether Trump can veer away from the collision course he has helped set in motion – perhaps conjuring up a last minute deal, as he did with North Korea – or instead welcome conflict as a distraction from his domestic woes, and sell it to the faithful as a crusade.<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/the-terrifying-possibility-of-what-a-christian-nationalist-america-could-look-like/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/the-terrifying-possibility-of-what-a-christian-nationalist-america-could-look-like/</a>
The terrifying possibility of what a Christian nationalist America could look likeChauncey DeVega / Salon July 23, 2019The most compelling speculative fiction takes something about the world as it exists and alters it in such a way that the familiar is made into something provocative. This disruption of the familiar lies at the heart of the best speculative fiction.America at present is already a surreal nightmare. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/06/21/psychiatrist-john-gartner-two-years-ago-i-compared-trump-to-hitler-people-didnt-believe-me/" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">A mentally unwell</a> ignorant violent <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/07/15/trumps-racist-outburst-was-unbelievably-vile-but-why-is-anyone-surprised/" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">racist</a> sexist greedy and cruel reality TV show host is president. He leads a political cult. Christian Nationalists and Christian Dominionists <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/11/trump-administration-evangelical-influence-support" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">want to transform the United States into a “biblically correct” society </a>in violation of the United States Constitution and its guiding principle that church and the state should be separate. And Donald Trump, a proud and resplendent sinner, is viewed by right-wing Christians as god’s prophet and their savior. And the so-called resistance and other people of conscience are still struggling to create a cohesive and coordinated movement to oppose American fascism as birthed by Donald Trump’s adminstration.<div class="post-entry blockquote-style-2" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 75px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><div class="inner-post-entry entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div id="content-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="p2_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></div>Michael Pence — Trump’s vice president — <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pence-hhs-special-report/as-trump-rewrites-health-rules-pence-sees-conservative-agenda-born-again-idUSKCN1T0176" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">is a Christian Fascist</a> who does his movement’s bidding as he and the Republican Party work to overturn women’s reproductive rights and freedoms as part of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/05/31/alabama-obscenity-infamous-new-law-equates-abortion-with-crimes-of-hitler-and-stalin/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">an overall assault on human rights and human dignity</a> in America and around the world. Pence and the Christian Right’s obsessions with supposedly “protecting the unborn” and “living the principles of Jesus Christ” (their distorted version of him) does not extend to having any empathy or sympathy for the brown and black babies, children, and adults being held in Trump’s concentration camps and otherwise terrorized by Trump’s regime.<div class="p3_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The corporation increasingly has power which rivals if not surpasses the nation-state. New technologies are radically altering the labor market and how people make sense of and perform their own identities. For example: the algorithm distributes resources and shapes individual’s desires, wants and life chances — all the while it remains invisible to most people. The American people are amusing themselves to death in a society where there are very high levels of loneliness but they are also “hyper-connected” to one another online. In total, the American people are under constant surveillance by corporations and the state. But <a href="https://fpif.org/participatory-totalitarianism/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">most Americans do this willingly through participatory totalitarianism</a>.<div class="p4_34" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://darcyvanpoelgeest.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Director and screenwriter Darcy Van Poelgeest’s</a> powerful new graphic novel series <a href="https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/little-bird" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Little Bird’</a> (from publisher Image Comics) is some version of this present-day America and its malignant reality projected forward into the future."lil  Bird” (with art by Ian Bertram and colors by Matt Hollingsworth) tells the story of a Christian nationalist America led by the religious zealot “Bishop” who rules from the “New Vatican” in a decades-long war of conquest against Canada....</div></div></div></div></div></div></div>omg mint pressWhile Hagee’s influence and the influence of his organization CUFI are stronger than ever with Trump in the White House, his political clout with the Trump administration is, at least partially, due to the presence of staunch Christian Zionists in two of the top offices in the executive branch: vice president and secretary of state.<h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pence and Pompeo push “holy war” </h2>Though several Trump officials spoke at the recent CUFI summit, two stand out — not just for their high-ranking positions but also for their open admissions that their Christian Zionist beliefs guide their policies. These officials are Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.After Trump chose his running mate, Pence’s religious fervor <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/evangelical-agenda-avatar-mike-pence-heartbeat-away/231933/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">came under media scrutiny</a>, with several outlets noting that he was known to be an ardent Christian Zionist. Pence’s faith gained particular attention owing to his past statements on Israel, which he <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-pence-jerusalem-christian-zionism-connection/235612/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">has often described</a> in prophetic terms. Though raised Catholic, Pence gradually transitioned to an “evangelical Catholic” and then to an evangelical Protestant and has since become a key political figure representing the fundamentalist Christian movement that promotes “dominionism,” an ideology that varies in its interpretations but ultimately seeks to see the secular nature of the U.S. government shift towards one governed by “Biblical law.” Pence’s association with this movement has led prominent voices in the media <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/evangelical-agenda-avatar-mike-pence-heartbeat-away/231933/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">to accuse him</a> of supporting a theocratic form of government.Though many of the initial concerns about Pence revolved around his likely effects on domestic policy, much of his influence has instead been seen in foreign policy, including the administration’s<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/vice-president-mike-pence-travel-egypt-jordan-israel/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"> Middle East policy</a>. His <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/17/what-you-need-to-know-about-mike-pences-speech-to-christians-united-for-israel/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">public identification</a> as a Christian Zionist and his speech to the 2017 CUFI summit, the first vice president to ever speak at the annual event, have led some to worry that the Christian Zionist view of prophecy is guiding Pence’s political actions.<div id="attachment_260542" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 130%; margin: 0px 0px 24px -106.797px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 1410px;">
[ pix Pence visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site in Jerusalem’s Old City, Jan. 23, 2018. Oded Balilty | AP</div>Following Pence’s first speech at CUFI, Daniel Hummel, a scholar and fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/17/what-you-need-to-know-about-mike-pences-speech-to-christians-united-for-israel/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">told the Washington Post</a>:<blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 40px;">Christian Zionism has a long history in American politics, but it has never captured the bully pulpit of the White House. Past administrations often used general biblical language in reference to Israel, but never has the evangelical theology of Christian Zionism been so close to the policymaking apparatus of the executive branch. By identifying with Christian Zionism while in office, Pence risks the Trump administration’s ongoing search for an ‘ultimate deal’ to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and erodes the U.S.’ claim that it can be an ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East.”</blockquote>Concerns that the U.S. is under the influence of extremist religious Zionism and Christian Zionism that would prevent the country from acting as an “honest broker” in the Israel-Palestine conflict have, unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-deal-of-the-century-sanctions-military-threats-palestinian/258312/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">been proven true</a>. In fact, Pence’s religious beliefs are believed to have been <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-pence-jerusalem-christian-zionism-connection/235612/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">a major factor</a> in Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy to the contested city.Though Mike Pence is the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration who is openly a Christian Zionist, it is Pompeo that is the most overt and open about how his religious beliefs regarding the end times guide his decision-making as head of the U.S. State Department.For much of his political career, Pompeo has framed U.S. counterterrorism policy as a “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/01/mike-pompeo-trumps-pick-for-the-cia-wants-a-holy-war.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">holy war</a>” between Christianity and Islam, which he believes is the earthly equivalent of a cosmic battle between good and evil. In 2017, as CIA director, Pompeo claimed:<blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 40px;">Radical Islamic terror [will] continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior [and] truly the only solution for our world.” </blockquote>That same year, Pompeo <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/middleeast/cia-iran-dark-prince-michael-dandrea.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">created</a> a new CIA “mission center” targeting Iran headed by Michael D’Andrea, whose CIA nickname is “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/middleeast/cia-iran-dark-prince-michael-dandrea.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">The Prince of Darkness</a>.” Pompeo, like many Christian Zionists, believes that war between the United States and Iran is part of the end times, a belief that is outright alarming given his prior control over CIA covert operations and his focus on Iran, as well as his current role as the U.S.’ chief diplomat, in which he has also been laser-focused on promoting an aggressive policy towards Iran.In addition to his views on “holy war,” Pompeo also frequently discussed his views on the rapture while serving as CIA director. <a href="https://legacy.tyt.com/2018/04/23/pompeo-discussed-rapture-at-cia/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">TYT reported</a> last year that Pompeo had spoken about the rapture so frequently that it had reportedly frightened top CIA officials. According to Michael Weinstein — founder of the<a href="https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"> Military Religious Freedom Foundation</a>, a watchdog group on issues of religious freedom in the military and intelligence community — who was quoted in the TYT report: <blockquote style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 40px;">He [Pompeo] is intolerant of anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist Christian. The people that worked under him at the CIA that came to us were never confused — they never had time to be confused. They were shocked and then they were scared shitless.” </blockquote>A 2015 video of Pompeo that surfaced while he was CIA director also shows the former congressman <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/15/17117298/mike-pompeo-trump-secretary-of-state-politics-battle-evangelical-holy-war-christian" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">describing politics</a> as “a never-ending struggle … until the rapture.”More recently, a New York Times article published in March again brought Pompeo’s obsession with the end times back into public view. Titled “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-policy.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">The Rapture and the Real World: Mike Pompeo Blends Beliefs and Policy</a>,” the article detailed how Pompeo has made it standard operating procedure to mix his Christian Zionist views with his approach to foreign policy. That article also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/politics/pompeo-christian-policy.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">referenced the statement</a> Pompeo made earlier this year, in which he opined that it was “certainly possible” that President Trump had been sent by God to “save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace.”Pompeo made those statements during an official trip to Jerusalem that was also controversial for other reasons. Indeed, in a state department video shared on social media and meant to publicize Pompeo’s trip, <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/454534-temple-mount-pompeo-israel/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">footage of a model of the Third Jewish Temple</a> was included while footage of the Al Aqsa mosque was notably excluded, despite it being the most iconic building in Jerusalem.[ vid]Given that Pompeo had also visited the tunnels that have worn away the historic mosque’s foundations, many Palestinians took the video as a sign that the Trump administration was colluding with the Temple Activist movement in Israel, which was discussed in detail in <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/third-temple-activist-movement-israel-theocracy-civil-rights/260142/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Part II</a> of this series. <h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Joining forces to target Jerusalem</h2>Well before Theodore Herzl founded political Zionism and published The Jewish State, Christian Zionists in the United States and England were already seeking to direct and influence the foreign policy of both nations in service of a religious obsession with ushering in the end times. The historical record clearly shows how Christian Zionists have influenced events throughout history, particularly in regard to the founding of the state of Israel and subsequent developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the pursuit of these dispensationalist end-times prophecies, Christian Zionists have forged alliances with Jewish Zionists and each has opportunistically used the other in order to usher in the common events that are believed to facilitate the coming of their respective apocalypses or to aid more secular, political goals. From Hechler and Herzl, to Scofield and Untermeyer, to Begin and Falwell, these alliances have shaped the policy of Western governments, particularly the U.S. and England, for over a century.Today, only one such prophecy has yet to be fulfilled, the construction of a Third Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, which is currently occupied by the Al Aqsa mosque compound. Now, more than ever before, Israel’s government, as shown in Part II, is filled with high-ranking officials who openly call for Al Aqsa’s destruction and seek to hastily construct a Third Temple. Similarly, as this report has shown, the Trump administration is greatly influenced by Christian Zionists who also seek the mosque’s destruction, in hopes that the Third Temple will soon be built.Yet, the Trump administration’s ties to this apocalyptic ideology go even deeper than has been discussed in this article, as many other influential members in the Trump administration — especially top Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman — also share and actively promote this extremist religious Zionist ideology that seeks to rebuild a Third Temple. As will be seen in the next installment of this series, this ideology is also a driving factor for top Trump and Republican Party donors such as Sheldon Adelson. The end result is that the hold of this apocalyptic ideology on both the governments of Israel and the United States appears to be stronger now than ever, meaning that the danger currently facing Al Aqsa mosque, and with it world peace, looms large.no lnx<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/mike-pompeos-pro-women-human-rights-panel-packed-with-abortion-foes">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/mike-pompeos-pro-women-human-rights-panel-packed-with-abortion-foes</a>Mike Pompeo’s ‘pro-women’ human rights panel packed with abortion foeswritten by Igor Derysh / Salon July 12, 2019Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new “pro-women” human rights commission is filled with members who have been outspoken advocates against a woman’s right to choose while praising governments accused of human rights abuses.Pompeo announced the creation of the Commission on Unalienable Rights in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. Advocacy groups like Amnesty International immediately accused the Trump administration of using the commission as a way to limit the scope of human rights by not using the “global framework that’s already in place.”The 12-person commission will be chaired by Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon, a former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican who was once honored as a “hero” of the pro-life movement. Though the State Department claims the group will not deal with abortion, according to The Daily Beast, the commission’s membership has alarmed pro-choice advocates.
“Appointing these ideologues to a commission purporting to safeguard human rights will have the opposite effect and will endanger the health and well-being of countless women,” Michelle Kuppersmith, who heads the advocacy group Equity Forward, said in a statement. “This is a clear extension of the Trump administration’s anti-women, anti-reproductive health campaign, and a blatant attempt to restrict the rights of vulnerable populations around the globe.”
Glendon, who led the Vatican’s delegation to the UN Conference on Women in 1995, told the New York Times at the time that she “could not agree more” with Pope John Paul II in his opposition to abortion and contraception.‘The whole question about abortion is related to the coarsening of the social fabric,” Glendon told the Times. “It promotes a certain callousness which has frightening implications for the future.”
Other members have also been outspoken in their opposition to abortion.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the president of Zaytuna College, called abortion an “assault on sanctified life” just last year. Attorney F. Cartwright Weiland helped write Supreme Court amicus briefs in support of Texas’s laws restricting abortion and was a member of a Council for Life panel. Author Christopher Olaf Tollefsen co-wrote a book that decried stem-cell research because, the authors claimed, life begins at conception.
“There is nothing potential about the life of the fetus, the embryo, or the zygote: it is actually alive,” Tollefsen wrote in a 2010 journal article. “Nor is there anything potential about the humanity of that life: it is an actual human life.”Jacqueline Rivers, another Harvard lecturer on the panel, spoke at the university’s Law Students for Life Panel, called “Why We Are ProLife: Dignity, Equality, Human Rights,” where she talked about her anti-abortion views. Fellow commission member Paolo Carozza spoke at the University of Notre Dame’s Right to Life Panel about taking a “pro-life approach” to foreign policy, the Daily Beast reported.
Asked whether any members of the panel supported abortion rights, a senior administration official deflected the question, telling the Daily Beast that the commission would “not discuss” issues like abortion.
“The commission is the most pro-women commission in the world, because it doesn’t distinguish between men and women,” the official said.
Advocacy groups rejected that notion. The Center for Reproductive Rights called the panel a “part of a comprehensive effort by this Administration to erase sexual and reproductive health and rights from global discourse.”
“Contrary to its asserted purpose, there is no need to redefine or develop foundational principles on human rights,” the group said in a statement. “There is a clear and unequivocal consensus by U.N. human rights treaty bodies and independent experts that reproductive rights are human rights, grounded in the right to life, health, equality, non-discrimination and freedom from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, among other rights.”Human rights advocates are also concerned about statements Glendon and other members have made in praise of governments accused of repeated human rights abuses.
Glendon argued in an article earlier this year for “flexible universalism,” urging human rights activists to respect other countries’ traditional concepts of human rights, PBS News reported. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., a former State Department human rights chief, told the outlet that this policy would allow countries like China to further their abuses under the guise of “economic and social rights.”
Yusuf, the anti-abortion Zaytuna College president, praised the United Arab Emirates, a country accused by the State Department of extensive human rights abuses.Last year, he called the UAE “a country that is committed to tolerance,” according to PBS. “This is a country that is committed to civil society. It is one of the safest countries on the earth,” he said.
Yusuf also praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to seize new powers in a move objective observers have called “authoritarian.”
Yusuf didn’t see it that way, writing that Erdogan’s “desire to increase the executive powers of the president’s office is simply to move toward an American model as opposed to the current European one.”
Another commission member, Stanford professor Russell Berman, said last year that criticism of Saudi Arabia over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was politically motivated.“The hue and cry about [Khashoggi] has really been — no surprise there — about the upcoming election, another effort to get at President Trump,” Berman said in an October interview with the Hoover Institution, before praising Saudi Arabia for being more moderate than Iran.
A senior administration official told PBS that the commission should be judged “on the work it produces rather than prejudging it based on selective quoting.”
But members’ beliefs matter when it comes to a commission tasked with redefining human rights.
“This effort looks particularly deliberate,” Masha Gessen wrote at The New Yorker. “If the United States asks the international community to redefine human rights as religious rights, it will have the support of a vast coalition of very different countries — a coalition of which Russia has, for a decade, been the informal leader. The subsequent reframing of human rights could change the work of international bodies — and the lives of millions of vulnerable people — for a long time to come.”<div>=</div><div>quite good at sticking to the talking pts</div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>jake  Tapper laughs in Pence’s face: ‘We don’t have the cleanest air and water in the world’</div><div>
</div><div>written by Aldous Pennyfarthing / Daily Kos June 23, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>On CNN this morning, Mike Pence tried to summon as much gravitas as he could — veering dangerously close to the event horizon of fatally constipated — in order to sell a few of those common-sense homespun lies that play so well in the heartland.</div><div>
</div><div>He sounded like an ass — but, significantly, not a braying ass like his Sith Lord. He simply sounded like a “Christian” greasing the skids for the destruction of God’s creation.</div><div>
</div><div>In the wake of the Trump administration’s rollback last week of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Jake Tapper asked Pence if he thinks climate change is a threat to our country.</div><div>
</div><div>Pence danced around the question like Ricky Martin at a gay conversion camp:</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: Do you think human-induced climate emergency is a threat to the United States?</div><div> </div><div>PENCE: Well, what I will tell you is that we’ll always follow the science on that in this administration …</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: The science says ….</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: But what we won’t do — and the Clean Power Plan was all about that — was hamstringing energy in this country, raising the cost of utility rates for working families across this country …</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: But is it a threat?</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: … while other nations like China and India do absolutely nothing or make illusory promises decades down the road to deal with it. You know, the truth of the matter is that with the advent of natural gas, with the natural gas explosion that’s developing with clean coal technology, we’re seeing a significant reduction of carbon emissions all across this country.</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: But is what people are calling the climate emergency, is it a threat? Do you think it’s a threat — manmade climate emergency, is a threat?</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: I think the answer to that is going to [in the future?]  be based upon the science.</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: But the science says yes; I’m asking you what you think.</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: Well, there’s many in the science …</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: The science community in your own administration — at NOAA, at the DNI — they all say it’s a threat. But you won’t, for some reason.</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: What we’ve said is we’re not going to raise utility rates. Remember what President Obama said, he said he had his climate change plan, he said it’s necessarily going to cause utility rates to skyrocket and that would force us into these green technologies. Now you’ve got Democrats all running for president that are running on a Green New Deal that would break this economy …</div><div>
</div><div>TAPPER: So you don’t think it’s a threat, it’s all I’m saying, you don’t think it’s a threat.</div><div>
</div><div>PENCE: I think we’re making great progress reducing carbon emissions. America has the cleanest air and water in the world. We’ll continue to use market forces …</div><div> </div><div>TAPPER: That’s not true. [laughs] We don’t have the cleanest air and water in the world. [laughs] We don’t. Will you get back to me with some statistics to show it?</div><div>
</div><div>Vice President Mike Pence refuses to say whether the climate crisis is a threat, when asked repeatedly by CNN’s Jake Tapper. https://t.co/w5qUrTzAl7 #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/b7g5ouc9PD</div><div>
</div><div>— CNN (@CNN) June 23, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>For the record, Pence is wrong about our country having the cleanest air and water in the world. I know you’re all shocked.</div><div>
</div><div>Hey, I’d like to laugh in Pence’s face, too. Wouldn’t we all? But climate change is serious, and this administration is not taking it seriously.</div><div>
</div><div>Needless to say, our planet can’t afford much more of this willful ignorance.</div></div><div class="mag-post-box hentry" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; width: 374.545px; overflow: hidden; display: table; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><div class="magcat-thumb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; float: left; position: relative; transition: opacity 0.3s ease 0s;"><a class="penci-image-holder penci-lazy small-fix-size" href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/trump-crowd-ignores-a-hurting-veteran-and-shows-exactly-what-his-supporters-really-think/" title="Trump crowd ignores a hurting veteran — and shows exactly what his supporters really think" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; position: relative; width: 120px; background: url(" https="https" www.alternet.org="www.alternet.org" wp-content="wp-content" uploads="uploads" trump-supporters-780x516.jpg="Trump-Supporters-780x516.jpg" center="center" cover="cover" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb" display="display" inline-block="inline-block" vertical-align="vertical-align" top="top" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" /></div></div><div class="mag-post-box hentry" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; width: 374.545px; overflow: hidden; display: table; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236); font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><div class="magcat-detail" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: bold;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-style="font-style" normal="normal" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/jake-tapper-laughs-in-pences-face-we-dont-have-the-cleanest-air-and-water-in-the-world/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" line-height="line-height">Jake Tapper laughs in Pence’s face: ‘We don’t have the cleanest air and water in the world’</a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/aldous-pennyfarthing/" title="Posts by Aldous Pennyfarthing" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Aldous Pennyfarthing</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Daily Kos</a></div></div></div>why?Vice President Mike Pence was the target of an organized protest at one of the nation’s oldest evangelical Christian colleges. Dozens of students and faculty members walked out on the Vice President as he prepared to deliver the commencement address at Taylor University, in Pence’s home state of Indiana on Saturday.
At issue for some of the graduating class are Pence’s conservative Christian views, WTHR reports.
True to form, Pence offered an extremist Christian message to Class of 2019 graduates.
“Throughout most of our American history it’s been pretty easy to call yourself a Christian, but things are different now,” Pence told the 500 or so graduates, USA Today reports. “Lately, it’s become acceptable, even fashionable, to malign traditional Christian beliefs.”
“So as you prepare to leave this place and build your life on the Christ-centered, world-engaging foundation poured here at Taylor University, be prepared to stand up,” Pence added.
Thousands signed petitions urging the university to replace the Vice President with a more appropriate speaker. The administration refused.
 Faculty members voted 61-49 to oppose the choice of Pence to deliver the commencement address.
Watch the walk out:is he building a indep power base in cheney model? out front-ish on madura venezuela with other vulcan neo-con ?

==funny

i thought of trump as indep of kochs, since they hated him? one said

vote for hillary, but pence their midwest golden boy gov, and of course

since trump swamp full of koch ppl early lewandoski?

<div>

<a href="http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/mike-pence">http://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/mike-pence</a>

<a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/in/Mike_Pence_Environment.htm">http://www.ontheissues.org/in/Mike_Pence_Environment.htm</a>

=
<div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042019/trump-omb-secret-science-policy-memo-pollution-health-studies-heritage-foundation-vought">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042019/trump-omb-secret-science-policy-memo-pollution-health-studies-heritage-foundation-vought</a></div><div>
</div><div>
Donald Trump's administration has launched yet another attempt to

control the use of science in federal policymaking—this time with a

memorandum to government agencies from the White House budget office.

The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/M-19-15.pdf">memo</a><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-for-agencies/memoranda/">,</a>

quietly released on Wednesday, appears aimed at putting into effect

some long-sought goals of industry foes of environmental regulations.

Described as "guidance" for executive branch agencies, it offers

numerous new avenues for regulated industries to challenge the science

used in policymaking. The memo was signed by Russell Vought, a former

top official at the political arm of the conservative Heritage

Foundation who is now acting director of the White House Office of

Management and Budget (OMB).

Observers say the OMB is seeking to implement by fiat restrictions on

environmental and health science that have failed to garner support in

Congress and have foundered in a formal rulemaking <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032018/epa-air-pollution-soot-rules-scott-pruitt-secret-science-policy-health-regulations">process</a> begun last year by the Environmental Protection Agency."There's been no consultation with the scientific community, no

opportunity to comment, no analysis on the costs or impacts," said <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/andrew-rosenberg/four-ways-white-house-is-trying-to-restrict-science">Andrew Rosenberg</a>, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.<div class="content"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">

Vought's memo, titled "Improving Implementation of the Information

Quality Act," sets out new guidance for all federal agencies on

identifying and using "influential scientific, financial, or statistical

information."

It says that such data should be held to higher standards than other

information, with a more in-depth peer review required. That review

should evaluate "the objectivity of the underlying data and the

sensitivity of the agency's conclusions to analytic assumptions," with

additional peer review required in some circumstances.

Data of this kind, such as health surveys, are often used to support

controls on pollutants, including those like smog and soot that come

from burning fossil fuels. The guidance could also affect how limits on

greenhouse gas emissions are devised.

Vought writes that influential analysis must be disseminated to the

public "with sufficient descriptions of data and methods to allow them

to be reproduced by qualified third parties who may want to test the

sensitivity of agency analyses."

<h3>Echoes of EPA's 'Secret Science' Effort</h3>

The OMB memo appears aimed at achieving the same goals as EPA's proposal last year, the so-called <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082018/epa-secret-science-rule-opposition-health-environmental-data-public-comments">"Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule,</a>

which sought to prevent the EPA from relying on public health studies

where the raw data had not been made public due to confidentiality

concerns. It mirrored legislation sponsored by <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/lamar-smith-congress-climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-house-science-committee">former Rep. Lamar Smith</a>

(R-Texas), then chairman of the House Science Committee, that was

passed by the House of Representatives three times but never been taken

up by the Senate.

Under the guise of transparency, the EPA rule would have excluded

from environmental policymaking some of the seminal studies linking air

pollution to increased mortality.

The EPA received more than 500,000 public comments on the transparency proposal, including an extraordinary outpouring of <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082018/epa-secret-science-rule-opposition-health-environmental-data-public-comments">opposition from the scientific community</a>—including

the presidents of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and

Medicine; the leaders of physicians' groups like the American Academy of

Pediatrics; health organizations like the American Lung Association;

and the editors of major scientific journals.

No further public action has occurred on the rule since the comment

period closed last August. An EPA spokesperson said in an email that the

agency "is considering the new OMB memorandum as we move forward with

the 'Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science' rulemaking."

<h3>'It's About Delay'</h3>

It is not clear exactly what impact the OMB guidance will have—in

part because this kind of guidance doesn't have the force and effect of

law. (In other words, the requirements and deadlines of environmental

statutes would weigh more heavily before a judge.) Also, Vought does not

specify what the EPA or other agencies are to do about influential

scientific studies that do not meet the new requirements. But Rosenberg

said it appears to offer the regulated industry new avenues to challenge

actions that rely on science.

"It's about delay," said Rosenberg. "Every piece of this allows

industry to make a claim that will delay the process of regulations.

"It essentially says that anyone—mostly industry—can challenge the

data or technical information, and the agency then has to develop a

response to every challenge, and then the person who challenged the data

can appeal, and you have to go through this cycle again, apparently

endlessly."

Vought, known as a conservative firebrand who served as an aide to

Vice President Mike Pence when Pence was a member of Congress, played a

key role in the budget controversies that engulfed the White House early

this year. He reportedly designed Trump's initial proposal for border

wall funding and led the decision to continue processing tax refunds

during the government shutdown.

Vought's memo on information quality portrays the new guidance as a

good government measure. "Prudent decision making depends on reliable,

high-quality information," Vought wrote. "Congress has long recognized

that federal agencies should make decisions using the best data

reasonably available, and Congress has entrusted OMB with the statutory

role of ensuring that federal agencies collect, use, and disseminate

information that is fit for its intended purpose."</div>

      </div>

</div>

    <div class="tagged-with">
    <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><label>Published Under:</label></font>
        <div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
    <div class="field-items">
          <div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/regulation">Regulation</a></font></div>
          <div class="field-item odd"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-science">Climate Science</a></font></div>
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    <div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
    <div class="field-items">
          <div class="field-item even"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a></font></div>
      </div>

</div>

</div></div><div>=</div>aha: trump admin rtwing will sacrifice legis to help women over ideological purity NRA guns domestic violence and here:<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/how-the-trump-pence-administrations-pro-life-agenda-is-killing-thousands-in-the-us-and-globally/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/how-the-trump-pence-administrations-pro-life-agenda-is-killing-thousands-in-the-us-and-globally/</a>
title 9 ct ~? also

GOODMAN: I wanted to ask about the global gag rule.

Shortly after his inauguration in January 2017, President Trump

reinstated this controversial global gag rule, the policy originating in

the Reagan era banning U.S. funding for any international healthcare

group that performs abortion, advocates for the legalization of abortion

or even mentions it, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S.

money. Then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer commented on that

decision.=
A few months ago, Katherine Stewart—whose reporting focuses on the intersection of politics and religion—<a title="wrote something" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote something</a> pretty jarring about the white evangelicals who dominate Trump’s base.<div class="p1_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(245, 245, 245); border: medium none !important;">As the Trump presidency falls under siege on multiple fronts, it has become increasingly clear that the so-called values voters will be among the last to leave the citadel. A lot of attention has been paid to the supposed paradox of evangelicals backing such an imperfect man, but the real problem is that our idea of Christian nationalism hasn’t caught up with the reality. We still buy the line that the hard core of the Christian right is just an interest group working to protect its values. But what we don’t get is that Mr. Trump’s supposedly anti-Christian attributes and anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction.<div class="p2_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Today’s Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America’s founders, but at bottom they sound as if they prefer autocrats to democrats. In fact, what they really want is a king.</div></div></blockquote>Stewart wrote that in the context of noting that some white evangelicals have compared Donald Trump to King Cyrus, who ruled the Persian empire in the 6th century BC.<div class="p4_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(245, 245, 245); border: medium none !important;">Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.</blockquote>Now we learn that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo <a title="is comparing" href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/politics/mike-pompeo-donald-trump-israel-golan-heights/index.html" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">is comparing</a> Trump to another biblical figure.<div class="p6_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(245, 245, 245); border: medium none !important;">In an interview in Jerusalem, the Christian Broadcast Network’s Chris Mitchell asked Pompeo, “could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” Esther is the main heroine of the Jewish holiday of Purim, which was celebrated this week.<div class="p7_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo said.<div class="p8_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pompeo added that he is “confident that the Lord is at work here” when he sees the “remarkable history of the faith in this place and the work that our administration’s done to make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains.”</div></div></blockquote>According to the Book of Esther in the Old Testament, she became queen of the Persian Empire during the 5th century BC and saved the Jews from being exterminated. Notice that, for the reporter from the Christian Broadcast Network, Esther saved the Jewish people from the “Iranian menace.” That is exactly how Christian nationalists like Pompeo are framing the threat today: Donald Trump is defending Israel against the current-day Iranian menace.<div class="p10_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of this is cultish and disturbing on many levels—not the least of which is the fact that our foreign policy is being managed by a man who thinks he’s playing out some kind of biblical prophecy. But the most dangerous part is that cults are inherently authoritarian, which takes me back to what Stewart wrote.<div class="p11_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none medium; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: none 0% 0% repeat scroll rgb(245, 245, 245); border: medium none !important;">"I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years. And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trump’s character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.<div class="p12_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.<div class="p13_15" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.</div></div></blockquote>The fact that Christian nationalists have anointed the most amoral man to ever occupy the White House as their savior tells us that their allegiance to him isn’t grounded in principle, but in authoritarian power that puts them above the law. That’s the kind of political leadership they’ve been looking for.<div style="">=</div><div style=""><div>
</div><div> Pence claims ‘freedom’ ended slavery in ‘historically dubious’ CPAC speech</div><div>written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams March 2, 2019</div><div>32</div><div>Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics. Speaking in front of a packed house…</div><div>Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics.</div><div>
</div><div>Speaking in front of a packed house at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Pence said that “freedom”—an apparent stand-in for capitalism—was the reason for the major global and American victories of the past two centuries.</div><div>
</div><div>“It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won two world wars, and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world,” Pence declared.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Aaron Rupar</div><div>?</div><div>@atrupar</div><div> · 23h</div><div>Replying to @atrupar</div><div>Pence gets tepid applause after he says: "Last night President Trump returned from a 2nd historic summit w/North Korea in Vietnam. As the president said it was a productive 2 days... [But] as President Trump said as he departed -- sometimes you have to walk."</div><div>
</div><div> Embedded video</div><div>
</div><div>Aaron Rupar</div><div>?</div><div>@atrupar</div><div>PENCE makes this historically dubious claim: "It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won 2 world wars and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world. pic.twitter.com/362zzAwWqK</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>As people quickly pointed out on social media, that interpretation of the past was unique—and not quite accurate.</div><div>
</div><div>“An interesting perspective!” said HuffPost national reporter Christopher Mathias.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Christopher Mathias</div><div>?</div><div>@letsgomathias</div><div> Confusing quote from Pence earlier at #CPAC2019: </div><div>
</div><div>"It was freedom not socialism that ended slavery..." </div><div>
</div><div>Think he's arguing that capitalism ended slavery which is... an interesting perspective!</div><div>
</div><div>Newsweek</div><div>?</div><div>@Newsweek</div><div> Mike Pence says "freedom, not socialism, ended slavery," doesn't mention what started slavery https://trib.al/9PGZuSu </div><div>
</div><div>In an essay, Newsweek politics editor Jason Le Miere pointed out that Pence’s quote cut both ways, even though the vice president didn’t acknowledge the other side of the coin:</div><div>
</div><div>If it was freedom that ended slavery then presumably it was also freedom that allowed it, with a provision written into the Constitution that specifically referred to slaves and the “three-fifths compromise,” whereby they were counted as less than free people. Moreover, Southern states continued to argue for the freedom to keep slavery in place as the country descended into the Civil War.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s also worth noting that before and during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters with a strong supporter overseas—a German living in London named Karl Marx.</div><div>
</div><div>Pence wasn’t exactly telling the truth about the 20th century either, La Miere continued.</div><div>
</div><div>Pence’s claim about the ending of the World Wars is also historically questionable. The Soviet Union, under communist control, played a crucial—to some historians the most crucial—role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. The country also paid the heaviest price during the war as it battled Germany on the Eastern Front, losing an estimated 26 million people, including about 11 million soldiers.</div><div>
</div><div>Irrespective of the truthfulness of Pence’s speech, it got a rousing response from the crowd at CPAC.  The vice president also talked about President Donald Trump’s Space Force, anti-Semitism, and abortion.</div><div>
</div><div>“Pence played the hits,” wrote Rolling Stone‘s John Hendrickson. “Low unemployment, strong economy, tax cuts, and an extended riff about infanticide.”</div><div>
</div><div>Watch Pence’s speech:</div></div><div style=""></div>pence book; anti birth control!  evang in MI and WI are swing inside swing? = leverage?perry, perdue, price all pence guys, he steped up to staff/ do transition when djt still stunned by win; lots of trump admin loyal to VPbig $ raiser<a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-february-18-2019/">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-february-18-2019/</a>=hmmn iran nuke deal<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/mike-pence-visibly-shook-as-nobody-claps-at-his-applause-lines-during-disastrous-european-trip/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/mike-pence-visibly-shook-as-nobody-claps-at-his-applause-lines-during-disastrous-european-trip/</a>=v<a data-ga-action="Widget: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/23/headlines/venezuela_vp_pence_calls_for_overthrow_of_president_maduro" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px none;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" text-align="text-align" center="center">enezuela: VP Pence Calls for Overthrow of President Maduro</a><div style="">=</div><div style="">https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/pence-and-the-apocalypse-the-vp-and-mike-pompeo-juggle-work-and-doomsday-rituals/</div><div style="">
</div><div style=""> Trump’s vice president and secretary of state appear to have a conflict between their private religious beliefs and their public duties, according to a financial journalist.<div class="p0_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo are each a “genuine, end-of-days, believer in the apocalypse,” and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/53087e90-174d-11e9-9e64-d150b3105d21" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Financial Times</a> journalist Edward Luce said their religious beliefs about the end times exerts a troubling influence on their duties.“Generally I believe a public figure’s beliefs should be irrelevant to their job,” Luce wrote. “Whether they’re atheist, Opus Dei, Buddhist or Muslim, should have no bearing on our assessment of their fitness for office. Yet I can’t help but feel anxious that both of Donald Trump’s main global envoys, Pompeo and Pence, have a conflict between their private beliefs and what they publicly claim to be doing.”<div class="p2_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Luce argued that both Trump administration officials were part of a “millenarian cult,” and he worried their “militant creed” would influence their public policies to spark a “final conflagration in which the righteous will vanquish the wicked.”<div class="p3_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Call me a serial fretter, but I don’t take comfort from the fact that Pence is a heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief,” Luce wrote. “Nor do I see Pompeo as one of the grown-ups restraining Trump. He’s an enabler, not a preventer. Where Trump goes, Pompeo will follow. Let’s hope Trump never gets religion.”<div class="p4_6" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more of Luce’s column <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/53087e90-174d-11e9-9e64-d150b3105d21" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">here</a>.</div><div style=""></div><div style="">=</div><div style=""> Trump’s haphazard foreign policy is driven by a lot of factors. His rollbacks of free trade, for example, are motivated by his pathological obsession with America being “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/09/trump-trade-war-china-tariffs-702292" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">ripped off</a>,” and his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement was motivated by his desire to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/11/donald-trump-barack-obama-legacy" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">erase everything related to former President Barack Obama</a>.<div class="p0_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of his more conventional, but no less disturbing, influences could be that of right-wing evangelism.Trump’s close relationship with evangelical politicians and voters (or more specifically, <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2018/12/theyre-more-white-than-christian-evangelicals-of-color-push-for-greater-voice-in-their-faith/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">white ones</a>), is well-known. Vice President Mike Pence is a well-known fundamentalist culture warrior who tried to make it legal to <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/04/25/rfra-indiana-why-law-signed-mike-pence-so-controversial/546411002/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">refuse service to LGBTQ couples</a> and vowed to consign abortion rights to “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-democratic-convention-2016-live-pence-says-roe-v-wade-will-be-1469737388-htmlstory.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the ash heap of history</a>.” Other senior members of his administration have hardline views about religion, like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has said she wants to use America’s schools to build “<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary/4/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">God’s Kingdom</a>.”<div class="p2_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the less-noticed influencers is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical Presbyterian who once defined his view of the world as “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0opXYM52w" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a never-ending struggle … until the rapture</a>” in a speech at a Wichita megachurch. As America’s top diplomat, he more than anyone else brings these views into the foreign policy sphere — and as an analysis [lnx] by The Guardian shows, that has profound consequences:<div class="p3_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">For many US evangelical Christians, one of the key preconditions for [the rapture] is the gathering of the world’s Jews in a greater Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. It is a belief, known as premillenial dispensationalism or Christian Zionism – and it has very real potential consequences for US foreign policy.</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">It directly colours views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indirectly, attitudes towards Iran, broader Middle East geopolitics and the primacy of protecting Christian minorities. In his Cairo visit, Pompeo heaped praise on Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for building the new cathedral, but made no reference to the 60,000 political prisoners the regime is thought to be holding, or its routine use of torture.</blockquote>The Trump administration has instituted a number of sweeping policy changes in these exact areas, from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44120428" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">going back on the Iran nuclear deal</a>.<div class="p6_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A political worldview that is based on a belief in the near-term destruction of the world and the salvation of a chosen few poses obvious dangers. It can, for instance, make <a href="https://religionnews.com/2018/05/16/to-my-fellow-evangelicals-what-youre-cheering-in-jerusalem-is-shameful/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">certain people’s human rights</a> seem less legitimate.<div class="p7_9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is important for the American people to understand the ideology underpinning our current foreign policy — and to have a serious discussion about whether everyone is represented in it.
</div><div style=""></div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-freaked-out-when-he-learned-his-presidential-transition-team-cost-millions-fck-law-i-want-my">https://www.alternet.org/trump-freaked-out-when-he-learned-his-presidential-transition-team-cost-millions-fck-law-i-want-my</a>puzder for labor sec ~ christieeh
<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/its-gods-will-conservative-george-will-lays-out-mike-pences-twisted-religious">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/its-gods-will-conservative-george-will-lays-out-mike-pences-twisted-religious</a>drollinger scary prayer mtgs
=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/pence-believes-god-wants-him-be-president-and-trumps-scandals-are-how-hell-get-there">https://www.alternet.org/pence-believes-god-wants-him-be-president-and-trumps-scandals-are-how-hell-get-there</a>...In an interview promoting his new book -- "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-President-Truth-About-Pence-ebook/dp/B07DHLFQQ4" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence</a>" -- D'Antonio claimed that Pence is preparing himself to take over as president should Trump's scandals consume the rest of his first term."Absolutely everything Mike Pence does is oriented toward him becoming president," D'Antonio said. "His decision to accept Donald Trump's offer to be his running mate -- it even goes back much further. By the time he had left high school, he had decided that he was going to be president of the United States... He thought God was calling him to, now, be vice president and function as a president-in-waiting."...// pruitt, #2 might be worse b/c competent insider<a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/vice-president-pence-faces-heightened-scrutiny-over-his-relationship-paul-manafort">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/vice-president-pence-faces-heightened-scrutiny-over-his-relationship-paul-manafort</a>...Amongst the bad news for Trump last week was the indictment of Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Manafort was found guilty last week on eight counts of financial crimes in his fraud trial.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;">It was Paul Manafort who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/politics/mike-pence-donald-trump-vice-president.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">chose Mike Pence as Donald Trump</a>'s vice president, with the president reportedly preferring Chris Christie for the role.The link between Manafort and Pence is leading to additional scrutiny for the vice president, as people ask just what Pence knew about Manafort and his connections.Many are also curious about Pence's involvements with former adviser Mike Flynn, questioning if he lied to protect the general in January of 2017 when <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-the-nation-transcript-january-15-2017-pence-manchin-gingrich/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">he declared</a> that Flynn had not discussed, "anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia" with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.Flynn, in his guilty plea, admitted to discussing sanctions with Kislyak, and that he was following the instructions of "a senior member" of the campaign.Representative Elijah Cummings had also warned Pence about possible conflicts of interests surrounding Flynn in light of his visit to Russia and his ties to Turkey.It is possible that, when Mueller concludes his investigation, that both Trump and Pence, amongst others, would be unable to fulfill the office of the Presidency.It is worth noting that the last Republican president to face impeachment, Richard Nixon, also lost his vice president as the administration became mired in controversy. Vice President Spiro Agnew pled no contest to a charge of tax evasion and resigned on the 10th of October 1973, several months prior to Nixon's own resignation.<a href="http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/pence-leads-under-the-radar-attack-on-unions/">http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/pence-leads-under-the-radar-attack-on-unions/</a>S<a href="http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/trump-measure-allows-companies-to-ignore-labor-laws/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none 0px;">ince he took office</a>, Vice President Pence has been working with high-level Trump backers to develop a comprehensive strategy to weaken labor unions. The strategy he is developing revolves around so-called “right to work” laws that have already been rammed through numerous state legislative bodies. Among the GOP bright lights attending the closed-door sessions with Pence have been Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.Pence’s role as architect of a new federal assault on unions is one of the topics tackled recently in an excellent article* in the March/April issue of The Voice of the ILWU, published by the union’s local 142 in Hawaii. The article, entitled “Trump backs attack on union,” delves into the history of “right to work” and how it has been used to bash workers and their unions.After a January 28 meeting with Pence and Gingrich, it is noted, Walker bragged that he showed how “bits and pieces” of what he did in Wisconsin to “reform” union law and civil service, can be “applied at the national level.”The advice Walker gave to the Trump administration is to begin the attack on labor by first going after public workers and their unions. Pence and Trump are likely to oblige that advice since they had already promised to do just that during their campaign.“So-called right to work laws are designed and funded by big business to weaken unions,” the Voice article says. “They force unions into an impossible situation by making them legally responsible for representing all workers in a shop, while stripping the union’s ability to collect enough fees to cover those representation costs. Strong union shops where everyone is a paying member would be outlawed under the proposed law and replaced with ‘open shops’ where division, disunity and financial hardship weaken the union and leave workers with lower pay, meager benefits and little say over working conditions.”Perhaps the most powerful feature of the piece is a hard-hitting section on the “ugly origins of right to work.”The first “right to work” laws, it is noted, were instituted in 1936 by a Texas organization, “the Christian American Association.” The Voice describes the group as a racist outfit run by Southern oilmen and Northern industrialists. Today, their work is continued by organizations like <a href="http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/pence-heaps-praise-on-alec/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none 0px;">ALEC</a>.“A top associate of the group once explained her hostility toward workers by criticizing what President Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor, had done to help workers, especially African Americans: “…Roosevelt stands for a $15 a week salary for all n house help, Sundays off, no washing, and no cleaning upstairs,” adding, “My  n* maid wouldn’t dare sit down in the same room with me unless she sat on the floor at my feet!”The first right to work laws, the article points out, were passed in 1944. The first two states to approve them were Arkansas and Florida and by 1947 they were law in some 14 southern states. That was the same year that the GOP-controlled Congress passed the infamous Taft-Hartley law which removed from unions and workers numerous rights they had gained under the Wagner Act, passed during the tenure of President Roosevelt. “The anti union laws were popular in the South,” the ILWU article says, “where segregationists warned that union shops and civil rights would lead to ‘race mixing and communism.’”The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. waged a campaign against right to work laws in the 1960’s. He is quoted: “We must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and our job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights.”Another interesting part of the article is how it treats the conservative and right wing reaction to the civil rights gains of the 1960’s including the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, drawing the connection between the attacks on civil rights and the attacks on labor rights:“Richard Nixon won in 1968 with a ‘Southern Strategy’ that used racist code language, including talk about ‘welfare, less government, violent criminals and states right,’ to win white votes in the South – plus blue collar votes from whites in the Midwest and Northern industrial cities. Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldemann, explained: ‘You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really Blacks. The key is to develop a system that recognized this while not appearing to.’ Ronald Reagan’s campaign strategist, Lee Atwater, explained how racist appeals had won white votes:“You start out in 1954 by saying, “n, n, n,” By 1968 you can’t say “n”- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff…”“This is how,” the ILWU article concludes on this point, the term “right to work” became one of the many racist code words that white politicians used to communicate bigotry and win elections; beginning in the South, and now throughout much of the country.”We all know all too well that, unlike Las Vegas, what happens in the South does not stay in the South. As of today 28 states, a majority of the states in the country, have “right to work” laws on the books. And we have Vice President Pence working hard on a strategy to make “right to work” national law.The ILWU’s president, Robert McEllrath, remains <a href="http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/labor-leaders-grapple-with-how-to-halt-the-trump-agenda-2/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: currentcolor none 0px;">undaunted</a>, however. Interviewed for the article in the Voice, he said, “Workers and unions have never gotten anything handed to them on a silver platter, because progress only gets made by pushing the powerful to do what’s right. That’s the way it has always been. And that’s what we need to be doing now and in the future.”[Mie Omori,  the editor of the ILWU Local 142 newspaper The Voice, informed PW that the article that appeared in The Voice is actually from the Dispatcher, ILWU’s headquarters’ newspaper. Roy SanFilippo is the editor of the Dispatcher and most likely wrote it. — Eds]<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/pence-gas-stations-indiana-2587295715.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/pence-gas-stations-indiana-2587295715.html</a>=<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-15/club-for-growth-tea-party-patriots-support-pence-pick">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-15/club-for-growth-tea-party-patriots-support-pence-pick</a><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" rgb="rgb">“Mike Pence would be an outstanding vice president,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh says in release.<ul style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit;" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" list-style="list-style" none="none" color="color" rgb="rgb"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative;">Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund also praises Donald Trump’s choice of Ind. governor as his GOP running mate<ul style="font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none;"><li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative;">Trump-Pence ticket could “unite the party,” Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund Chairman Jenny Beth Martin says</li></ul></li><li style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative;">Earlier: <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-07-15/trump-picks-indiana-governor-as-vice-president" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(92, 66, 171); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump Names Indiana Governor Mike Pence as Running-Mate Pick</a></li></ul>thus ~ judicbig win gop:  pence tie break<a id="ORGOV0000134" title="U.S. Senate" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Senate</a> voted Tuesday night to kill a controversial rule that would have allowed Americans to file class-action suits against banks instead of being forced in many cases into private arbitration.The move by the Senate followed a similar action by the House in July to rescind the rule. <a id="PEBSL000163" title="Donald Trump" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/donald-trump-PEBSL000163-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">President Trump</a> is expected to sign the repeal legislation, providing a major victory for the financial industry.Vice President <a id="PEPLT005131" title="Mike Pence" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/mike-pence-PEPLT005131-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Pence</a> cast the deciding vote after the Senate tied 50-50. All but two <a id="ORGOV0000004" title="Republican Party" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/republican-party-ORGOV0000004-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Republicans</a> — John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — voted to repeal the rule. No <a id="ORGOV0000005" title="Democratic Party" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/democratic-party-ORGOV0000005-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Democrats</a> or independents supported the move.The White House said Trump “applauds” Congress for voting to repeal the rule, which would have given consumers “fewer options for quickly and efficiently resolving financial disputes.”<aside class="trb_ar_sponsoredmod" data-v-ntidd="1069557" data-adloader-networktype="nativo" data-withinviewport-options="bottomOffset=100" data-load-method="trb.vendor.nativo.init" data-load-type="method" style="margin: 5px 0px 25px; clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The rule was <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cfpb-arbitration-20170710-story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">unveiled</a> in July by the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/u.s.-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-ORGOV00000233-topic.html" id="ORGOV00000233" title="U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</a> and praised by Democrats and consumer advocates as giving average people more power to fight industry abuses, such as <a id="ORCRP016609" title="Wells Fargo" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/financial-business-services/wells-fargo-ORCRP016609-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Wells Fargo</a> & Co.’s creation of millions of unauthorized accounts.But banking lobbyists argued that the rule would unleash a flood of class-action lawsuits, and that the cost of fighting those suits would be passed on to consumers. Republicans quickly moved to repeal the regulation.“The entire purpose of this rule is to promote class-action litigation and stop arbitration resolution when there is a dispute,” said Sen. <a id="PEPLT001375" title="Mike Crapo" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/mike-crapo-PEPLT001375-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Crapo</a> (R-Idaho).The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the repeal vote, saying the rule “would have benefited the class-action trial bar at the expense of American consumers and businesses alike.”<aside class="trb_ar_sponsoredmod" data-adloader-networktype="yieldmo" data-v-ymid="ym_1606464552242100545" data-role="delayload_item" data-withinviewport-options="bottomOffset=100" data-load-method="trb.vendor.yieldmo.init" data-load-type="method" style="margin: 5px 0px 25px; clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Set to take effect in March, the rule would not have banned clauses in checking account, credit card and other banking agreements that say disputes between companies and customers must be dealt with privately or in small claims court.Instead, there would have been a ban on provisions that block consumers from banding together to bring class-action cases. The CFPB argued that such cases help hold banks accountable.The determinations of an arbitrator are binding and consumer advocates say most decisions favor the company. The private proceedings also allow banks to deal with individual problems quietly rather than address widespread abuses.Bureau Director <a id="PEPLT00008731" title="Richard Cordray" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/richard-cordray-PEPLT00008731-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Cordray</a> called the Senate vote “a giant setback for every consumer in this country” and urged Trump to veto the repeal legislation.“It robs consumers of their most effective legal tool against corporate wrongdoing,” Cordray said. “As a result, companies like Wells Fargo and <a id="ORCRP005319" title="Equifax" href="http://www.latimes.com/topic/business/equifax-ORCRP005319-topic.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Equifax</a> remain free to break the law without fear of legal blowback from their customers.”...----Born and raised in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,Indiana" title="Columbus, Indiana" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Columbus, Indiana</a>, Pence graduated from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_College" title="Hanover College" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hanover College</a> and earned a law degree from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_University_Robert_H.McKinney_School_of_Law" title="Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law</a> before entering private practice. After losing two bids for a U.S. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Congress" title="Member of Congress" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">congressional seat</a> in 1988 and 1990, he became a conservative radio and television talk show host from 1994 to 1999. Pence was elected to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress" title="United States Congress" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">United States Congress</a> in 2000 and represented <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana%27s_2nd_congressional_district" title="Indiana's 2nd congressional district" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indiana's 2nd congressional district</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana%27s_6th_congressional_district" title="Indiana's 6th congressional district" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indiana's 6th congressional district</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">United States House of Representatives</a> from 2001 to 2013. He served as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Conference_Chairman_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Republican Conference Chairman of the United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">chairman</a> of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Republican_Conference" class="mw-redirect" title="House Republican Conference" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Republican Conference</a> from 2009 to 2011.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Republican_conference-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> Pence positioned himself as a principled conservative and supporter of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement" title="Tea Party movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Tea Party movement</a>, stating that he was "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-McFarlanKimberly-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a>=<div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="46" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQFQguKAEwAQ"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Pence - SourceWatch</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&oq=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&aqs=chrome..69i57.13632j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b1" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQ7B0IMDAB" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQqR8IMTAB" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;">
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</li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=related:www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence+Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQHwgzMAE" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Jump to </a><a class="fl" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence#Ties_to_the_Koch_Brothers" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">Ties to the Koch Brothers</a> - Koch Wiki ... including the American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN).</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">...Koch Wiki</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include: Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, American Encore, and Freedom Partners.</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Pence Holds Secret Meeting with Charles Koch, June 2017</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Vice President Mike Pence held a secret meeting with Charles Koch the day before the Koch network's regular donor summit in Colorado Springs in June 2017, according to The Hill. The meeting was not on his official schedule, and a spokesman for the vice president's office denied that he would be meeting with the Koch brothers' network earlier in the day during which the 50-minute meeting occurred. Also attending were Marc Short, President Trump's director of legislative affairs and Pence's former chief of staff; Marty Obst, who leads Pence's new political action committee; James Davis, a spokesman for the Koch brothers' network; Mark Holden, Koch Industries' general counsel; Tim Phillips, president of the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity; and Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute.[22]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Through Pence, Koch Network Establishes "Beachhead" in Trump Administration</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">The Koch brothers' political donor network "rivals the Republican National Committee in size, scope and budget." And while Charles Koch "has been openly critical" of President Trump since he entered the Republican Presidential Primary, according to Politico,[23] refusing to back his presidential bid,[24] Pence has a much longer history with the Kochs,[22] who reportedly had picked Pence for president.[25]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">So it is through Pence that the network has "established a beachhead" in the Trump administration:[23] Senior Trump staffers with Koch ties include Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager and now White House advisor, who consulted for Americans for Prosperity Foundation and a couple of its regional chapters and was a board member of the Koch-backed Independent Women’s Forum; Marc Short, Trump's director of legislative affairs and Pence's former chief of staff, who previously led the Koch brothers' dark money non-profit Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce; Donald McGahn, Trump's campaign attorney and now White House counsel, who advised Freedom Partners, Americans for Prosperity, and several other outside Koch groups; Ann Donaldson, McGahn’s chief of staff, worked for McGahn’s law firm and consulted for some of the same Koch groups, according to The Intercept;[26] and "other former members of Koch advocacy groups have joined the administration as top aides to Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin and Veterans Affairs chief David Chulkin, among others," according to The Daily Caller.[25] (The appointments were disclosed in personal financial statements released by staffers and reported on by the New York Times.)[27]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">AFP's President Tim Phillips Expresses Love for Mike Pence</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Top Koch Brothers Operative: "I Love Mike Pence"</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">In an interview with Lauren Windsor of The Undercurrent outside the 2016 Republican National Convention, Americans for Prosperity's President and Koch lieutenant Tim Phillips expressed his "love" for Gov. Pence, but declined to endorse the Trump-Pence ticket.[28]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Pence to Appear at Freedom Partners Big Donor Retreat</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">The Guardian reported that Gov. Pence would be a "featured guest" at the Koch network's semiannual donor retreat to be held at a resort in Colorado July 30-August 1, 2016.[29] Along with Pence, other featured guests at the Freedom Partners event include: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), and Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ).[29]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Koch Operative Marc Short Joins Trump-Pence Campaign</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Koch operative Marc Short was to continue his support of Pence as he joined the 2016 Trump-Pence campaign as Pence's communication advisor.[30] Previously, Short was advising Pence in Indiana. Short had left his role as president of the Koch-backed Freedom Partners in February of 2016 to serve as a senior advisor to the Presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).[31]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">At an Americans for Prosperity (AFP) two-day summit in Dallas in 2014, Pence praised Short:</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">"Marc is a friend and we had the opportunity to work together when I was serving in the Congress of the United States, and I have immense respect for his integrity and his judgment.”[32]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Pence Attends Republican Governors Association at Koch Mansion</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">On April 17, 2016, Gov. Pence attended a Republican Governors Association (RGA) luncheon at David Koch's mansion in Florida with "about 60 wealthy backers."[33] In addition to Pence, Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM), Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), Gov. Bill Haslam (R-TN), Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ), Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL), Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), and Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) were in attendance, according to The Washington Post.[33]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Pence Is "Grateful" for Americans for Prosperity and David Koch</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">In August of 2014 while attending a two-day AFP summit in Dallas, Gov. Pence praised David Koch and David Koch's astroturf group AFP.[32] Pence said,</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">"I’ve met David Koch on several occasions. I’m grateful to have enjoyed his support and the support of many of the people that support Americans for Prosperity across Indiana and across this country."[32]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">At the same event, The New York Times reported that Pence called AFP "the finest grass-roots organization in the United States of America."[34]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">According to Politico, Pence also discussed foreign policy with Charles Koch, the other main funder of AFP, at the summit.[32]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Koch Network Funding</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Who Made the Right Choice for Indiana?</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Over the years, the Koch network has contributed large amounts of money to Gov. Pence. In terms of individual donations, David Koch's $300,000 makes him the third largest donor and Senior Vice President of AFP and General Counsel of Koch Industries Mark Holden's $202,500 makes him the sixth.[35] The largest contributor to Gov. Pence is the Republican Governors Association (RGA), which has given $2,691,425 to his campaigns.[35] The Kochs are some of the largest funders of the RGA.</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Before running for Vice President in 2016, Gov. Pence received support for his gubernatorial reelection from Americans for Prosperity in the form of TV spots praising his rejection of Pres. Obama's Clean Power Plan.[36] As the Indianapolis Star reports, though,</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">"The ad, however, ignores the fact that if Indiana does not submit a plan to comply with the federal rule, the Environmental Protection Agency will impose one on the state. So any of the negative effects the group says will result from the Clean Power Plan would come regardless. And the utility industry has told the Indiana Department of Environmental Management it’s better to have the state figure out how to comply."[36]</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">
</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">Controversies</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">...</div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;">------</div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="53" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQFQg1KAIwAg"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/11/koch-allies-in-the-white-house_partner/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">The Koch Brothers' most loyal servants are serving in Donald Trump's ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.salon.com/2017/01/11/koch-allies-in-the-white-house_partner/</cite></div>Jan 11, 2017 - According to Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., Pence will be in ... [and] much like KochIndustries, Mike Pence … picks the right fights,” said ...</div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="56" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQFQg4KAMwAw"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/donald-trumps-cabinet-choices-reflect-koch-influence" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump's Cabinet choices reflect deep Koch influence — High Country ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.hcn.org/articles/donald-trumps-cabinet-choices-reflect-koch-influence</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&oq=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&aqs=chrome..69i57.13632j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b3" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQ7B0IOjAD" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQqR8IOzAD" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;">
</li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:I8oBL2ljaAMJ:www.hcn.org/articles/donald-trumps-cabinet-choices-reflect-koch-influence+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Dec 15, 2016 - A rundown of the people with ties to ALEC, the Koch brothers and federal land ... ALEC is closely affiliated with the State Policy Network, a right-wing network of ... Vice President Mike Pencehas had Koch ties for many years.</a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="62" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQFQg-KAQwBA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/vice-president-mike-pence-would-be-a-dream-for-the-koch-brothers/" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Vice President Mike Pence Would Be a Dream for the Koch Brothers ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">https://www.thenation.com/.../vice-president-mike-pence-would-be-a-dream-for-the-k...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&oq=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&aqs=chrome..69i57.13632j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b4" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQ7B0IQDAE" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQqR8IQTAE" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;">
</li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rdWfY_BLfYYJ:https://www.thenation.com/article/vice-president-mike-pence-would-be-a-dream-for-the-koch-brothers/+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Jul 14, 2016 - Vice President Mike Pence Would Be a Dream for the Koch Brothers ... but as a Center for Media and Democracy report explains, SPN affiliates ...</a></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="68" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQFQhEKAUwBQ"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><h3 class="r" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/07/13126/alec-2016-agenda-boosts-charters-coal-and-other-corporate-funders" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">ALEC 2016 Agenda Boosts Charters, Coal, and Other Corporate ...</a></h3><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 18px;"><div class="f kv _SWb" style="height: 18px; line-height: 16px; white-space: nowrap;"><cite class="Rm" style="font-style: normal;">www.prwatch.org/.../alec-2016-agenda-boosts-charters-coal-and-other-corporate-fun...</cite><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="Fmb ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&oq=Mike+Pence+ALEC+spn+koch&aqs=chrome..69i57.13632j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b5" aria-label="Result details" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQ7B0IRjAF" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none; user-select: none; background-image: none; border: 0px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 0px 0px; filter: none; width: 13px; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block;"><span class="mn-dwn-arw" style="border-color: rgb(0, 102, 33) transparent; border-style: solid; border-width: 5px 4px 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; margin-left: 3px; top: 7.5px; margin-top: -4px; position: absolute; left: 0px;" /></a><div class="action-menu-panel ab_dropdown" role="menu" tabindex="-1" jsaction="keydown:m.hdke;mouseover:m.hdhne;mouseout:m.hdhue" data-ved="0ahUKEwiM5Nuh9LTWAhUSwmMKHQuCDiIQqR8IRzAF" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); padding: 0px; position: absolute; right: auto; top: 12px; z-index: 3; transition: opacity 0.218s; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 2px 4px; left: 0px; visibility: hidden;"><ol style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><li class="action-menu-item ab_dropdownitem" role="menuitem" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; list-style: none; user-select: none; cursor: pointer;">
</li></ol></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:57Ea3wTJTE0J:www.prwatch.org/news/2016/07/13126/alec-2016-agenda-boosts-charters-coal-and-other-corporate-funders+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Jul 26, 2016 - Pence Pushed ALEC Agenda in the Hoosier State ... ALEC is funded by Koch Industries, Peabody Energy, huge global tobacco and drug ... of special interest groups that are part of the State Policy Network (SPN). ... bond fraudster felon Michael Milken, has a seat and a vote on ALEC'scorporate board.</a></div></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:57Ea3wTJTE0J:www.prwatch.org/news/2016/07/13126/alec-2016-agenda-boosts-charters-coal-and-other-corporate-funders+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/pence-hires-fixer-chief-of-staff-as-trump-falls-apart">http://www.thedailybeast.com/pence-hires-fixer-chief-of-staff-as-trump-falls-apart</a>see ayershttps://www.ecowatch.com/mike-pence-environmental-record-2445585444.html<div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;">4 Things to Know About Mike Pence's Environmental Record</h1></div><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="article-body body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url selectionShareable" data-url="https://www.ecowatch.com/mike-pence-environmental-record-2445585444.html" data-headline="4 Things to Know About Mike Pence's Environmental Record" data-elid="2445585444" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="article-description body-description" style="margin-bottom: 10px;">By Keith GabyThe investigation into Russia's interference in our elections is critically important, but some have noted that it could be squeezing out media attention for other serious issues—including the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Trump administration's</a> damaging environmental policies.Case in point: Mike Pence, our usually unobtrusive vice president, who last week drew headlines for hiring a personal lawyer in wake of the Russia probe.In reality, Pence has been an important figure in the Trump administration's policymaking all along—not the least because his relative credibility with Republicans in Congress makes him a key lobbyist for the president's policies.All of which means his views on the environment are worthy of our attention.1. His environmental score as congressman: ZeroUnlike his boss, Vice President Pence actually has a long and specific history on environmental issues.As congressman, he voted for pro-environment positions just four percent of the time, according to the League of Conservation Voters scorecard.That means he chose the path of stronger health and environmental protections, on average, once every 25 times he had the option. His annual score peaked in 2003 at lucky 13 percent.During half his years in Congress, he earned a zero. In short, he spent his time in the House representing the view that polluters should have few restrictions and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">clean energy</a> should get less support.2. As governor, he sided with pollutersPence continued on the same track as governor of Indiana.He and the legislature canceled the <a href="http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/06/26/before-being-dismantled-indianas-efficiency-program-was-effective-2/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Energizing Indiana program</a>, which reportedly resulted in energy savings of about 11 million megawatt hours, significant cost savings and nearly 19,000 new jobs.Energizing Indiana was established with support from the state's previous Republican governor, Mitch Daniels, so it was far from a program pushed by wild-eyed environmentalists.3. He's a foe of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/epa" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">EPA</a>)In a 2014 <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2014/06/06/mike-pence-epas-anti-coal-plan-will-devastate-indiana-economy/10069035/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">opinion piece</a> in the Indianapolis Star, Pence argued against two critical EPA pollution limits.He opposed the <a href="https://www.edf.org/climate/mercury-and-air-toxics-rule-power-plants" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Mercury and Air Toxics Standard</a>, which limits toxins that damage the brains of development of children before and after birth.Pence also attacked the <a href="https://www.edf.org/climate/defending-cross-state-air-pollution-rule" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Cross-State Air Pollution Rule</a>, which protects states from pollution that drifts across borders. His criticisms were based on traditional scare tactics about the economic impact of these safeguards—which have since been proven false.4. He rejects accepted climate scienceFinally, Pence apparently disagrees with NASA, the National Academies of Science and all major American scientific organizations on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">climate change</a>.In 2009, for instance, he told MSNBC inaccurately, "I think the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">science</a> is very mixed on the subject of global warming."Unsurprisingly, as governor of Indiana he sued the EPA to block the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/clean-power-plan" style="text-decoration-line: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Clean Power Plan</a>, the Obama-era landmark plan to reduce climate pollution from power plants.The influence of vice presidents is often overlooked. But these days, the job involves far more than attending funerals and christening ships. The record suggests that Pence, the only member of the administration who can't be fired, is likely to use his influence to re-enforce Trump's zeal for tearing down key clean air and water safeguards.It's time to take Mr. Pence seriously as a threat to our environment.</div></div>6/17<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" margin-top="margin-top" background-color="background-color">Vice President Mike Pence popped in for a visit this weekend with Charles Koch, the billionaire GOP donor hosting his semi-annual confab of like-minded business leaders assessing their priorities for the White House and Congress.<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color">The meeting was not listed on Pence's official schedule for the day.<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color">President Trump never much enjoyed backing from Koch ’s sprawling, secretive, political enterprise, which has emerged as a libertarian-leaning power center, sometimes overshadowing the traditional Republican Party apparatus with its high-dollar donors and vast operations. Koch’s group did not endorse the GOP presidential nominee.<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">But the network has always had close ties with Pence. The vice president had previously attended the exclusive gathering of donors, held this weekend at the luxurious Broadmoor hotel. And his top staff was plucked from a key Koch organization, Freedom Partners. <p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color">Pence and Koch and their top aides spoke for nearly an hour late Friday, according to a Koch spokesman. They discussed tax reform, the GOP’s healthcare overhaul and other heavy legislative lifts that have run into resistance in the Republican-controlled Congress. The aide described the talks as casual.<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color">Pence was in the area making other stops, including at the Air Force Academy and an evening fundraiser for GOP Sen. Cory Gardner. <p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">Even without investing in Trump, the Koch network has made impressive strides in advancing its agenda this year. Congress swiftly rolled back more than a dozen regulations, including some intended to protect the environment, that Koch-backed groups complained were too rigorous and invasive in industry operations.  <p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" px="px" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">The Koch network groups, including Freedom Partners, a free market-oriented, chamber of commerce-type organization, is pushing the Trump administration and Congress to pass tax reform and overhaul healthcare.<p style="font-family: Georgia, " droid="Droid" serif="serif" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color">Both those efforts have stalled in Congress amid Republican infighting, but the Koch groups is able to put their army of resources – money, staff and volunteers in the states – to pressure lawmakers to act. naomi klein 2017<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">create instability to make $, dereg eg dodd f<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; and<span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> trump team will use shocks/fail to push pro corp agenda;not consp theory but rerun: trump breakthru built on NYC crash; steve menuchin made bank for foreclosure; pence chair RS gp? heritage free mkt plan to fix new orleans<div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rachel-maddow-unravels-mike-pences-overlooked-role-mike-flynn-scandal">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/rachel-maddow-unravels-mike-pences-overlooked-role-mike-flynn-scandal</a></div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/revealed-mike-flynn-hid-russian-state-media-payments-us-government">http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/revealed-mike-flynn-hid-russian-state-media-payments-us-government</a></div><div>
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==reb mercer outside group mtg 12/16:On December 14, there was a meeting to discuss the outside group in a glass-walled conference room on the 14th floor of Trump Tower. Brad Parscale sat at the head of the table. Around him were roughly 12 people, including Rebekah; Kellyanne Conway; David Bossie; Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer; Jason Miller, then Trump’s senior communications adviser; and Marc Short, Mike Pence’s senior adviser. Parscale was known to be livid that Alexander Nix had gone on a PR blitz after the election, exaggerating CA’s role. Even worse, Parscale had heard that Nix had been telling people, “Brad screwed up. We had to rescue Brad.” (Nix denied this, saying, “Brad did a brilliant job.”)And so when Rebekah pushed for CA to run the new group’s data operation, Parscale pushed back. “No offense to the Mercers,” he said, according to multiple attendees. “First, this group is about Trump, not about the Mercers. Second, I don’t have a problem with hiring Cambridge, but Cambridge can’t be the center of everything, because that’s not how the campaign ran.” (He did, however, suggest that Rebekah be on the board.) “No offense taken,” Rebekah replied.But she would subsequently complain about the exchange to Bannon and others, and continued to lobby for CA to be at the center of the new organization. The situation became so testy that before the inauguration, Jared Kushner brought in Steve Hantler, Rebekah’s friend, to referee. Hantler, a quiet, gentlemanly sort, proposed that the venture be led by someone he knew would be acceptable to both sides: Nick Ayers, a senior adviser to Pence. The “outside group” is now named America First Policies. Parscale is a member, and its first national TV ads have appeared. Ayers has also been cultivating a friendship with Donald Trump Jr., who, sources say, may eventually want to lead the group himself.

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For decades, the Kochs had pursued their goals by sinking tens of millions of dollars into wonky research and advocacy groups. It was only during George W. Bush’s presidency that the brothers and their allies began to question whether the power of their ideas alone could carry the day. A movement that started with 15 rich conservatives gathering in Chicago and a single main group — Americans for Prosperity — by 2008 became a congregation of roughly 100 major donors backing a handful of think tanks, grass-roots advocacy networks and political organizations.

In 2012, the newly created Freedom Partners — the umbrella group for the Kochs’ political operation — raised and spent roughly $250 million. Headed by Marc Short, a former top staffer in the House and Senate, Freedom Partners dispenses funds and expertise to myriad affiliate groups in the network. This year, it began wading into political and policy fights on its own — spinning off a super PAC that spent at least $24 million boosting Republican Senate candidates.

Heading into 2016, the Koch network — under the auspices of Freedom Partners — has in many ways surpassed the reach and resources of the RNC. And, unlike the party, it isn’t bound by rules requiring it to maintain neutrality in primaries. Though the network has yet to engage in primaries, that could be the next logical step in its progression from apolitical think tank consortium to aggressive privatized political machine.

With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment.

The Kochs and their donors and operatives have been sought out by most of the leading 2016 GOP prospects – from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas. Their allies are acutely aware of the potential for the Koch groups and their donors to sway the primaries — even if they don’t formally back a candidate.

A key adviser to one of the top GOP presidential prospects said: “If I could have Karl Rove or Marc Short to run a presidential campaign today, I’d take Marc Short. He understands all the technical tools available to a modern campaign and how to apply them to the nominating process. He also has a deep understanding of the political dynamics of the GOP base vote.”

Short’s connection to another potential GOP presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, is among the biggest reasons that the Kochs are considering whether going all-in on a presidential campaign would be a good investment. Short was chief of staff to the House Republican Conference when then-Rep. Pence was the chairman, and Short remains a close adviser to Pence.

Veterans of GOP presidential campaigns say that while the Kochs could not, by themselves, provide the credibility necessary to create a candidate for president, their weapons could make a decisive difference for someone who was already running a viable campaign for the nomination — someone like Pence, whose record could make him a bridge between the GOP’s evangelical and establishment wings.

A candidate favored by the Kochs and their allies could potentially benefit from the full range activities of groups in the Koch network. The biggest presence is AFP, which spent $130 million in the midterms, with 550 paid staff, including 50 in Florida alone.

The LIBRE Initiative, a network-backed group aimed at Hispanics, has 40 staff at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters and 40 field staff (25 of them part-time) in seven states. Generation Opportunity, the Kochs’ outreach arm for 18- to 34-year-olds, has 30 full-time, paid grass-roots staffers running boots-on-the-ground activism in 10 states. Concerned Veterans for America, another Koch-backed group based in Arlington, has 60 paid staff in 14 states.

Pete Hegseth, an infantry captain in the Army National Guard who is the group’s CEO, says veterans are “reflexively conservative, and they know how to organize.”

“With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment,” Hegseth said. “They could be much more powerful than they are. There’s no reason veterans can’t be the unions of the right.”

</div>

<div><a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359">http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359</a></div>

==

SCAHILL: I’ve been covering Mike Pence for almost a decade, and my initial gateway into covering Pence is because he was one of the candidates that received the most funding from Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, who during the Bush-Cheney years operated what amounted to a Christian supremacist neo-Crusader militia. And Pence was actually the member of Congress that invited and welcomed and threw a party for Erik Prince in the aftermath of the Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007, when Blackwater operatives killed a dozen and a half Iraqi civilians, including small children. So, Pence sort of was on my radar because of looking at who Erik Prince and his family were funding.

You look at Pence’s evolution as a political figure, and in many ways it is the story of how the radical religious right gained such prominence and now is in an unprecedented position to wield power. Some may say, "Oh, well, wasn’t George W. Bush the same mentality?" These guys are more extreme than George Bush on issues of religion, on issues of women’s right to choose, on immigrant rights, on gay marriage—a slew of issues. I mean, they really make Dick Cheney look like a reasonable guy on some of these policies. And, in fact, Mike Pence says that Cheney is one of his mentors and examples and whose footsteps he wants to follow in as vice president, combined, though, with a really radical Christian agenda. Mike Pence—

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well—

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: When you say Christian supremacist, as opposed Christian fundamentalist, what’s the—

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, part of what I write—well, so, part of what I was doing with this article was playing with the way that so many people have used these terms to describe people that are perverting the religion of Islam in the name of ISIS or al-Qaeda, etc., and I sort of did it as a social experiment, and I got inundated with people demanding that I retract these labels. And some of those people, in their emails to me, actually use these same terms to describe the religion of Islam.

So, but what I’m getting at is that Mike Pence is not just against gay people being together in a relationship; he wants to legislate a ban on those issues. He wants to repeal Roe v. Wade. As he said, he wants to put it in the ash heap of history. Their primary agenda, on a social level, is basically taking us back to medieval times when it comes to the rights of women, the rights of immigrants, the rights of the poor, the humanhood of all of these sort of vulnerable, targeted groups.

And, you know, Mike Pence, his personal history is interesting. He was raised in an Irish Catholic, Kennedy Democrat household, and then he was converted, on the spot, at a Christian music festival in Kentucky while he was in college. And he sort of now describes himself as an evangelical Catholic. But his sort of intellectual role models within this, what I call a Christian supremacist world, are people like the famed radical right-wing Catholic priest Richard Neuhaus, who was an evangelical and converted to being a Catholic, Gary Bauer and James Dobson, you know, ferocious right-wing, anti-woman activists. These are the people that sort of populate the world that Mike Pence comes out of. And Pence has always been viewed as one of the prized warriors of the radical religious right.

In Indiana, his state was one of the most—had one of the most restrictive, draconian rules on abortion, in the criminalizing of abortion. He actually tried to ram through a law that would have required fetal tissue or fetuses that were aborted to receive a proper burial. And, you know, a judge intervened, a federal judge intervened, the day before this was to take hold, and said this is quite likely unconstitutional. He denied—he held up HIV medication and treatment funding, trying to put on it a requirement that it come with a therapy that would preach against the evils of gay sex. He has said that he believes that the only safe sex is no sex, and he chided former Secretary of State Colin Powell for suggesting that people should use condoms when having sex....

</div>

</a>

<a href="https://democracynow.org/2016/11/21/jeremy_scahill_mike_pence_has_militant">https://democracynow.org/2016/11/21/jeremy_scahill_mike_pence_has_militant</a>

--

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/mike-pence-loves-alec-and-keeps-pushing-public-school-privatization-despite-lousy">http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/mike-pence-loves-alec-and-keeps-pushing-public-school-privatization-despite-lousy</a>

... Pence is a hardcore right-winger playing the long game, especially when it comes to privatizing public schools.

It’s not just that the Republican vice-presidential nominee and Indiana governor last weekend <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/07/29/pence-addresses-bikers-ahead-alec-speech/87680158/" style="text-decoration: none;">told</a> a roomful of deregulation-obsessed executives and lobbyists in Indianapolis, “You are the model for Washington, D.C., after this election. You really are.”

The nation is “at a fork in the road,” Pence said at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual meeting, referring not only to who would be president for the next four years but who would control the Supreme Court for the “next 40 years.”

The choice is “whether we will have justices appointed to the Supreme Court, as my partner in this endeavor is committed to doing, that reflect the brilliance and the greatness and the principles of the late justice Antonin Scalia,” he said. “So I would say to all of you, for the sake of the rule of law, for the sake of the sanctity of life, for the sake of our Second Amendment and all of our God-given liberties, we must ensure that the next president making appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States of America is President Donald Trump.”

Pence was no stranger to the stage of ALEC, a corporate-funded behemoth that drafts bills and finds right-wing lawmakers to carry them. He’s been an ALEC<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence#cite_note-mg-9" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">fixture</a> for years, touting deregulation, privatization and extreme social conservatism. But he’s best-known for a personal focus on <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Privatizing_Public_Education,Higher_Ed_Policy,and_Teachers" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">supplanting</a>traditional public education, notably embracing taxpayer-funded vouchers so parents can send kids to K-12 private schools and aggressively expanding privately run charter public schools.

As is typical at ALEC, Pence praised enterprise and deregulation, and said a Trump administration would <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/07/29/pence-addresses-bikers-ahead-alec-speech/87680158/" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">result</a> in "empowering states with resources and flexibility.” But a closer look at his Indiana record of privatizing education, where the ALEC model has been in play, has shown it to be a brazen and failed experiment.

Charter School and Voucher Problems

A recent National Public Radio <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/07/20/486654015/what-did-pence-do-for-schools-as-governor-heres-a-look" style="text-decoration: none;">profile</a> of Pence’s education record noted that he has been one of the leading governors pushing K-12 privatization. “Under Gov. Pence, the growth in the number of charter schools and the use of private school vouchers have exploded,” it said. “After the voucher program survived a state Supreme Court challenge in 2013, it's grown into one of the largest in the country. Pence helped to do that by advocating to expand the program to include middle-income, not just low-income families, and also by removing the cap on how many students qualify.”

Yet this May, when WTHR, Indianapolis’ NBC-TV affiliate, looked at the charter school experiment, it <a href="http://http//www.wthr.com/article/nearly-half-of-indianas-charter-schools-doing-poorly-or-failing" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">found</a> that “nearly half of the state's 76 charter schools are doing poorly or failing.” The scores were based on the state’s new accountability standards.

In one example, reporters quoted sources from Indiana Science Academy West who said, "Nothing is taught... nothing is learned,” and cited "unlicensed teachers,” high staff turnover and a textbook shortage. But under Indiana law, it<a href="http://http//www.wthr.com/article/nearly-half-of-indianas-charter-schools-doing-poorly-or-failing" style="text-decoration: none;">noted</a>, “Those [charters] failing year after year, not only get a second chance but can fail six consecutive years before the state steps in.”

That investigative report was not unique, but it is quite a counterpoint to the rhetoric from Pence and the K-12 privatization movement that traditional schools are failing and that charters and vouchers are the <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Privatizing_Public_Education,Higher_Ed_Policy,and_Teachers" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">answer</a>.

At ALEC, the education agenda also includes tax credits to send children to private schools, impeding and dismantling labor unions, and creating new state agencies to overrule locally elected school boards and communities. Soon after Pence <a href="https://ista-in.org/pence-headlining-at-alec-policy-summit-promotes-corporate-takeover-of-schools" style="text-decoration: none;">gave</a> a keynote at a 2013 ALEC summit, the group published its annual “Report Card on American Education.”

Pence wrote the 2014 <a href="https://www.alec.org/publication/report-card-on-american-education/" style="text-decoration: none;">report’s</a> introduction, boasting, “We enacted the most ambitious school choice program in the country in 2011. Last year, nearly 20,000 low-income Hoosiers used vouchers, or what we call Choice Scholarships, to attend the school of their choice—a 500 percent increase from the year before. This year the number of applications has grown to nearly 30,000. In addition to the School Choice Scholarships, more than 35,000 Indiana students are attending public charter schools across our state.”

But Indiana’s record on vouchers has been problematic. A May 2016 Brookings Institution <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/" style="text-decoration: none;">report</a> on vouchers in Indiana and Louisiana slammed the programs. In both states, “research… has found that public school students that received vouchers to attend private schools subsequently scored lower on reading and math tests compared to similar students that remained in public schools. The magnitudes of the negative impacts were large.”

Moreover, traditional public schools were doing a better job than voucher counterparts when it came to educating poorer students. “It is at least plausible that Louisiana and Indiana public schools have surpassed their private schools (for low-income students),” Brookings <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vouchers/" style="text-decoration: none;">said</a>.

Nonetheless, this year Pence is <a href="http://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2016/07/18/school-voucher-program-cost-state-18-million-year/" style="text-decoration: none;">spending</a> more money on vouchers than his state legislature appropriated, underscoring his zealotry as a pro-privatization ideologue.

Protecting Investors, Not Students

Meanwhile, under Pence the state has gone out of its way to keep failing charters from closing. Like many states that have granted the industry wide license, under Pence the various players in his state’s charter sector—a mix of private and public institutions—don’t want to close failing schools but instead look for new managers to run the schools and new regulators to sign off.

One Indiana public radio station, WFYI, <a href="http://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indiana-laws-limiting-charter-school-authorizer-shopping-could-get-first-test" style="text-decoration: none;">called</a> this tactic “authorizer shopping.” The highest-profile example was Thea Bowman Leadership Academy in Gary, Indiana, where problems <a href="http://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/state-ed-board-oks-new-charter-for-troubled-gary-school" style="text-decoration: none;">ranged</a> from low student test scores to deep governance issues, such as high staff turnover, not satisfying federal education standards and no terms for charter board members.

As WFYI reported this year, in 2013 seven “chronically failing schools were denied reauthorization from Ball State [University, their founding sponsor], yet three of the schools were granted new charters from a different authorizer to remain open.” That led the legislature to pass a law to require the state Board of Education to approve any such reprieve, a policy that sounds like state accountability but in practice minimizes input from locally elected school boards. The state Board <a href="http://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/state-ed-board-oks-new-charter-for-troubled-gary-school" style="text-decoration: none;">approved</a> it in June.

But the negative impacts of these privatization experiments go beyond vouchers and charter schools. Diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to private, often religious schools takes resources away from traditional public schools. Pence, additionally, has created new state low-interest loans to benefit charters, and his last state budget included a new $1,500-per-student allocation to charters for non-academic expenses. His GOP majority legislature scaled it back to $500 per student.

According to the Washington Post, the cumulative negative impacts of privatization have created a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/13/indianas-got-a-problem-too-many-teachers-dont-want-to-work-there-anymore/" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">shortage</a> of qualified public school teachers in Indiana. “What’s going on? Pretty much the same thing as in Arizona, Kansas and other states where teachers are fleeing: a combination of under-resourced schools, the loss of job protections, unfair teacher evaluation methods, an increase in the amount of mandated standardized testing and the loss of professional autonomy,” the Post's education blogger wrote last year.

“According to the <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2015/07/30/indiana-faces-shortage-first-time-teachers/30906573/" style="text-decoration: none;">Indianapolis Star</a>, the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate education committees have asked General Assembly leaders to approve having the legislative education study committee review what is causing the drop and how the state could respond,” the Post continued. “For one thing, they can look in the mirror. The Republican leadership of the state—including Gov. Mike Pence—showed their respect for teachers by working very hard this year to strip power from Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz, a veteran educator who won election to the post in 2012 (by defeating Tony Bennett, the incumbent who was a protege of former Florida governor Jeb Bush). Oh, by the way, she is a Democrat.”

The pattern under Pence continues. Under the state’s new public school funding formula, richer school districts will get more money and poorer districts less, another education blogger <a href="http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2015/04/30/wealthiest-schools-thrive-under-new-state-budget-while-poor-ones-mostly-get-less/#.V6I4hI7Qi9J" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">noted</a>. WaPo's education blogger <a href="http://https//www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/13/indianas-got-a-problem-too-many-teachers-dont-want-to-work-there-anymore/" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">summed</a> it up like this: “For 2015-17, the state legislature gave less funding to urban schools and more to charter schools and private schools that accept students with vouchers.”

In other words, while Pence preaches privatization as the cure-all for K-12 education, his state's traditional school system is being undermined and supplanted, and the privateers' gains are the public's losses.

In recent years, Pence has been a featured speaker at libertarian forums to promote this agenda; audiences love the rhetoric but pay little attention to the resulting reality on the ground. Before Pence was named Trump's running mate, he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/19/new-mexico-gov-susana-martinez-makes-sharp-critique-of-trump-at-rga-donor-event/" style="text-decoration: none;">attended</a> a Republican Governors Association luncheon at David Koch's mansion in Florida with "about 60 wealthy backers.” And since joining the ticket, he was a "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/16/mike-pence-koch-brothers-fundraising-donald-trump" style="text-decoration: none;">featured guest</a>" at the Koch brothers network's semiannual libertarian donor retreat in Colorado.

Which means Pence has become perhaps the nation's top evangelist for ALEC and education privateers across America.

Steven Rosenfeld

</div>

==

alec conf

<a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> will push bills to protect failing charter schools, silence political speech, and obstruct environmental protections in the ALEC 2016 agenda introduced at its annual meeting in Indianapolis this week.

ALEC faces renewed public attention as it gears up for the annual meeting, where corporate lobbyists sit side-by-side with state legislators in luxury hotels to vote as equals on "model bills" that then get pushed to become law in states across the country.

As the Center for Media and Democracy <a href="http://www.exposedbycmd.org/2016/07/21/koch-brothers-fingerprints-can-found-gop-convention/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has reported</a>, Donald Trump chose an ALEC ally, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, as his running mate, while his party's 2016 platform was clearly stamped in the Koch-fueled ALEC mold.

Pence Pushed ALEC Agenda in the Hoosier State

As Governor, Pence appointed an ALEC staffer to his cabinet, and pushed parts of the ALEC agenda into law, such as anti-worker bills like <a href="http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/pence-signs-repeal-of-common-construction-wage/article_ba0c883c-1ee8-5403-824c-3af2c1eb36c8.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">repealing the prevailing wage</a> and <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/behind-closed-doors/2014/10/29/conservative-alec-names-indianas-education-policy-best-in-nation/18075837/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">privatizing public schools</a> in various ways. He even sent a letter to state legislators urging them to join ALEC, which is widely described as a corporate bill mill. ALEC is funded by Koch Industries, Peabody Energy, huge global tobacco and drug companies, and other corporations that pay a premium to access ALEC lawmakers.

Conveniently for him, this year's meeting will be held in the <a href="http://www.jwindy.com/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">snazzy J.W. Marriott</a> in downtown Indianapolis. Pence is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at lunch on Wednesday, then is slated to speak at an <a href="https://www.alec.org/meeting-session/kemp-forum-on-expanding-opportunity/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">evening reception on school "reform"</a> jointly hosted by the Center for Education Reform (CER) and the Jack Kemp Foundation (JKF).

If Pence had time to stay for a few task force meetings, here are some of the new "model bills" he would find voted on behind closed doors by ALEC legislators alongside corporate lobbyists and representatives of special interest groups that are part of the <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/04/11909/reporters%E2%80%99-guide-%E2%80%9Cstate-policy-network%E2%80%9D-right-wing-think-tanks-spinning-disinform" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">State Policy Network (SPN)</a>.

Second Chances for Failing Charter Schools

The for-profit education companies that help fund ALEC, like K12, Inc., have <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13009/k12-inc-tries-pivot-virtual-school-failures" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">a track record</a> of poor results that tends to result in a high rate of school closures. K12, which was founded in part by <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/10/12257/junk-bonds-junk-schools-cyber-schools-fleece-taxpayers-phantom-students-and-faili" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">junk bond fraudster felon Michael Milken</a>, has a seat and a vote on ALEC's corporate board.

Two new bills being considered by what ALEC now dubs its "Education and Workforce Development Task Force" could help poorly performing charters stay open without having to improve.

Under the <a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/the-assessment-choice-act/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Assessment Choice Act</a>, instead of using a uniform assessment for students statewide, charters' authorizers would take their pick from a "menu" of tests, unlike traditional public schools.

If propping up test scores isn't enough to save a charter from closure, the "<a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/student-and-family-fair-notice-and-impact-statement-act/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Student and Family Fair Notice and Impact Statement Act</a>" promises to add new hurdles. Before closing or restructuring a charter school, this act would not just require that families be notified. It would also create a public hearing process in which parents, teachers, and "experts" could give testimony about the school, and the charter board would be allowed to suggest a response plan.

In case it wasn't obvious that the bill is meant to keep the charter in operation, the drafter of that model bill added:

"[drafting note: it should be clear the school can present an alternative for supporters of the school to rally around.]"

</blockquote>

School privatization proponents have slowly been <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/07/12869/alec-school-vouchers-are-kids-suburbia" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">dropping the pretense</a> that the "school choice" movement is about helping underprivileged children. At a workshop titled "<a href="https://www.alec.org/meeting-session/workshops-5/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">The Path to Universal Choice: From Theory to Passage to Implementation</a>," lawmakers will be schooled on how to "open up more options to the middle class."

ALEC Aims to Silence Political Speech With Anti-Divestment Bill

While ALEC purports to support "limited government," its bills show that is code for unlimited corporate power, even from democratic control by stockholders.

For example, ALEC bills have leveraged right-wing ALEC control of state legislatures to try to stifle political movements that are winning the battle for public opinion, as CMD has <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13029/2016-ALEC-local-control" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">previously</a> <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/03/12782/alec-backed-war-local-democracy" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">reported</a> in its coverage of ALEC's preemption strategy, among other areas.

This ALEC meeting includes a proposal opposing the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2015/0612/BDS-Is-growth-of-anti-Israel-boycott-all-good-news-for-Palestinians-video" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">has been</a> growing in strength, especially on college campuses.

The BDS Movement is an international campaign to use economic pressure to push the state of Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories and to allow Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homes.

While a healthy public debate is ongoing about the pros and cons of BDS, ALEC's proposal <a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/draft-shell-model-peace-israel-act-protection-and-enforcement-against-the-commercial-exclusion-of-israel-act/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">as described</a> doesn't merely express opposition to the movement. Instead, it apparently aims to silence political speech and activity:

"The goal of the resulting model policy will be to create disincentives to engaging in (and prohibit to the extent possible) secondary boycott activities."

</blockquote>

ALEC host Indiana and a handful of other states <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/world/israels-allies-in-us-challenge-boycott.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">have passed</a> similar anti-boycott bills, which the American Civil Liberties Union <a href="https://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2016/06/08/anti-boycott-bill-harms-speech-creates-blacklists-aclu-nj-sa" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">has criticized</a> as unconstitutional limits on speech.

This is all par for the course for ALEC, which opposed anti-Apartheid sanctions, as CMD's Nick Surgey <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12338/shilling-profit-case-study-alecs-campaign-against-divestment-apartheid-south" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">uncovered</a> with Calvin Sloan. ALEC <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12338/shilling-profit-case-study-alecs-campaign-against-divestment-apartheid-south" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">has long opposed</a> citizen stockholder movements to urge socially responsible investing.

Still Attacking Public Sector Unions After Losing in the Supreme Court

Earlier this year, a split U.S. Supreme Court <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/03/opinion-analysis-result-but-no-guidance-on-public-unions-fees/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">left standing</a> a lower court's decision to uphold public sector union fees in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. As CMD <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13010/friedrichs-v-california-teachers-funding-alito" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">documented</a>, ALEC sibling group SPN organized anti-union protests at the Court before the case was decided.

Undaunted, ALEC's "Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development" Task Force is presenting a combined version of its long-standing "Right to Work" Act and Public Employee Choice Act. The new version has been re-branded the "<a href="https://www.alec.org/model-policy/friedrichs-public-employee-freedom-act/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Friedrichs Public Employee Freedom Act</a>" to try to get more mileage from the case. Its namesakeRebecca Friedrichs is a photogenic school teacher and rightwing activist who tried to pave the way for free-riders to get out of union dues. Friedrichs herself is an invited speaker at the conference.

To advance this agenda, the task force meeting will hear just from proponents at a presentation <a href="https://www.alec.org/meeting-session/commerce-insurance-and-economic-development-task-force-meeting-3/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">titled</a>, "A State Strategy to Protect Public Employees' Free Speech Rightsin the Wake of Friedrichs v. California Teachers' Association." The presentation will likely unfold the next steps of ALEC's Koch-y anti-union strategy.

Leaning Hard on Attorneys General to Block Climate Change and Environmental Protections

==

Pence must feel right at home. After all, he's called global warming "a myth," fought wage increases, and claimed that "smoking doesn't kill."

And topping the list of sponsors at the ALEC conference where Mike Pence is speaking? ExxonMobil. Even though Exxon claims to support climate science and climate solutions, they proudly sponsor ALEC — to the tune of at least $1.7 million between 1998 and 2014.

If Exxon says they support climate science, why is the company a top supporter of one of the most influential climate change denial groups? Either Exxon's so-called support for climate solutions is a PR stunt, or they will denounce ALEC's denial and end their sponsorship.

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/pences-partners-against-climate-regs-tax-dodging-utilities

In Mike Pence, Donald Trump has picked a running mate who could be relied on to take a chainsaw to President Obama’s signature environmental policy.

In 2015 the Indiana governor <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.in.gov/activecalendar/EventList.aspx?view%3DEventDetails%26eventidn%3D221567%26information_id%3D215753%26type%3D%26syndicate%3Dsyndicate&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNGcIDQtvVg6MjdrFwq6EGhabgigEw" href="http://www.in.gov/activecalendar/EventList.aspx?view=EventDetails&eventidn=221567&information_id=215753&type=&syndicate=syndicate" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">told</a> Obama in no uncertain terms that his state would not be complying with the Clean Power Plan, which sets targets for reducing power plant emissions in each state. Pence joined a lawsuit that has succeeded in tying up the plan in court.

He and other climate crisis-denying policymakers have benefited from a well-coordinated network of industry front groups, conservative think tanks and law firms bent on blocking the Clean Power Plan. A good chunk of the funding for this cabal comes from some of the country’s largest electrical utilities companies.

Where do they get all that extra spending money? It turns out public utilities are champion tax dodgers—the dodgiest of all U.S. business sectors, in fact.

According to a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.ips-dc.org/utilities-pay-up/&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNEEz2iY25gxblG96B80hc7CmMXX5g" href="http://www.ips-dc.org/utilities-pay-up/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">new report</a> by the Institute for Policy Studies, 23 of the 40 publicly held utilities that were profitable in 2015 paid no federal taxes that year. Sixteen of them paid no state income taxes. The most extreme example last year was Southern Company, which reaped $210 million in federal and state tax refunds, despite $3.6 billion in pre-tax income.

This Georgia-based firm, with nine million customers in the southeastern United States, is a fierce Clean Power Plan opponent. In <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.regulations.gov/document?D%3DEPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602-22907&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNEloeiUlVrzyjpwSgm_mX7fOo6NIg" href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602-22907" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">comments to the Environmental Protection Agency</a>, the firm warned the plan would result in “a complete deconstruction of the nation’s electric sector.”

Southern officials also did their best to make their customers’ hair stand on end by claiming the CPP would put $35 billion in upward pressure on their rates over the next 15 years. By contrast, the administration forecasts <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-clean-power-plan-benefits-cleaner-more-efficient-power-sector&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNFqCzaARtFbVKPuBvxfy5i6DaS3Hw" href="https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-clean-power-plan-benefits-cleaner-more-efficient-power-sector" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">$80 per year</a> in average savings per household through increased efficiency.

Southern CEO Tom Fanning pocketed $11.8 million in compensation last year and steered a good share of the rest of the proceeds from tax-dodging into blocking the Clean Power Plan through various industry groups, such as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. That outfit is in turn a member of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2475751-utility-air-regulatory-group-brief-for.html&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNEnl6eO5fIUOYiYSR0l-2Qv73NI0A" href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2475751-utility-air-regulatory-group-brief-for.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Utility Air Regulatory Group</a>, a petitioner along with Pence’s state of Indiana in the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.chamberlitigation.com/sites/default/files/cases/files/2015/ESPS%2520Litigation%2520Tracker%2520for%2520February%25209%25202016.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNGtNhxljEwNNpRe0u1etLP0V7j-Gw" href="http://www.chamberlitigation.com/sites/default/files/cases/files/2015/ESPS%20Litigation%20Tracker%20for%20February%209%202016.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">lawsuit</a> to overturn the Clean Power Plan. The company is also a major Capitol Hill presence in its own right, having spent more than <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id%3DD000000168&source=gmail&ust=1468953144262000&usg=AFQjCNEmEt1R5mNbqytd2U2vTpwtt-bTdg" href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000168" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$25 million</a> in federal lobbying in 2013-2014.

Pence and his utility industry partners against the CPP say they’re looking out for the public interest. They claim the EPA’s rules will be expensive for ratepayers and cost jobs. And yet if they were truly interested in what’s best for ordinary Americans, they would be investing much more in energy efficiency, the cheapest and fastest route to reducing carbon emissions.

Utilities are required by law to invest in “demand-side” energy efficiency at the consumer end, but the patchwork of state and federal programs have not gone nearly far enough to mitigate climate change and move the country toward a clean energy future.

Most of these programs also require home and building owners to invest significant upfront capital and so poor households often cannot participate. And since such programs potentially reduce utilities’ profits by reducing energy demand, the firms have had little incentive to do more.

It would make far more sense to plug the loopholes that have allowed these highly profitable utilities get away without paying their fair share of taxes. Then invest the revenue in projects that would benefit everyday Americans, especially low-income and communities of color. If Southern had paid the full statutory federal and state tax rates last year, for example, they would’ve contributed nearly $1.5 billion to public coffers—enough to fund 9,000 good jobs for people in retrofitting homes or building wind turbines.

If all 40 profitable utilities had paid their fair share at the state and federal levels in 2015, they would’ve paid about of $14 billion in additional revenue. That would’ve been enough to create 88,000 energy efficiency jobs or weatherize homes for up to three million low-income families....

==

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<div>http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/will-koch-brothers-fave-mike-pence-deliver-trump</div>

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News reports announcing the likely nomination of Mike Pence as the running mate of Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, found many on the coasts scratching their heads, asking, “Mike who?” But at AlterNet, we’ve been watching the Indiana governor for years, since his glory days as a Tea-Partying member of Congress.

In Pence, Trump finds a twofer who may soothe two key Republican constituencies that harbor doubts about him: the religious right and the Koch brothers. Pence is close to both.

And while they may never admit it, the Koch brothers may need Trump in order to maintain the effectiveness of their i360 voter data operation, which is on its way to supplanting the voter data platform operated by the Republican National Committee. A voter data operation is only as good as the data it collects, so if the Kochs want i360 to benefit from the data mine that will be the presidential campaign, they may wish to lift their <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/kochs-freeze-out-trump-120752" style=" text-decoration: none;">ban on Trump’s use of it</a>.

The billionaire brothers, who run a network of donors to their vast infrastructure of Republican-allied political operations, so loathe Trump that Charles Koch described the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as voting for either “<a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/charles-koch-compares-hillary-clinton-192216014.html" style=" text-decoration: none;">cancer or a heart attack</a>.” David H. Koch, meanwhile, is <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/rnc-begs-adelson-for-6-million-to-cover-convention-shortfall-225571" style=" text-decoration: none;">reported by Politico</a> to have withdrawn his $1 million donation to the Republican National Convention because of the party’s new standard-bearer.

Having built no ground operation of his own, Trump desperately needs the ready-made, plug-and-play infrastructure built by the Kochs, the mightiest entity of which is Americans for Prosperity, whose president just loves, loves him some Mike Pence. And why wouldn’t he? Phillips’s boss, David Koch, has given some $300,000 to Pence’s campaigns, <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?f-core=1&c-t-eid=10245969&gclid=CjwKEAjw8Jy8BRCE0pOC9qzRhkMSJABC1pvJ_i4tCW2ihhQI9Bay4Rbp1h54ONUZFR5gxBNRO3kg_hoCdxfw_wcB#%5B%7B1%7Cgro=d-eid" style=" text-decoration: none;">according to the website Follow the Money</a>.

“Governor Pence spent more than a decade leading the fight for economic freedom from inside the halls of Congress,” wrote AFP President Tim Phillips in a <a href="https://americansforprosperity.org/gov-pence-to-speak-at-defending-the-american-dream-summit/" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">release</a> touting one of Pence’s many appearances at the group’s conferences. “Our activists are looking forward to hearing how he’s using those experiences to serve the state of Indiana, grow its economy and defend the American dream.”

In August 2014, Phillips, appearing on a C-SPAN show, called Pence “one of our favorite governors.”

When Pence initiated legislation for a massive tax cut that was opposed even by some Republicans in the Indiana legislature, Americans for Prosperity foot the bill for a <a href="http://www.indianaeconomicdigest.net/main.asp?SectionID=31&subsectionID=135&articleID=68899" style=" text-decoration: none;">six-figure television ad buy</a> to support it.

Pence describes himself as "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/14/10-things-you-should-know-about-mike-pence-who-may-join-donald-trump-on-the-gop-ticket/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b" style=" text-decoration: none;">a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order</a>." That Pence, who has attributed the nation’s woes to moral failure in the nation’s families, would choose to so ally himself with a thrice-married, foul-mouthed character like Trump speaks to the governor’s ambition to be president. If Trump wins the presidential election, of course, Pence would be next in line. But even if Trump loses, Pence positions himself by taking the national stage, and looking oh-so-reasonable by comparison to the showman at the top of the ticket.

In 2010, Pence emerged as a <a href="http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/24/tea-party-meet-religious-right-everybody-meet-ayn-rand" style=" text-decoration: none;">favorite speaker</a> on the high-profile stages provided by the neo-libertarian astroturf group FreedomWorks and the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity. Yet when the overlap between the Tea Party movement and the religious right began to show itself, Pence remained conscious of the Tea Party branding as a secular movement—a strategic ploy by right-wing leaders to broaden the right’s appeal beyond the boundaries of evangelical Christianity.

In the fall of that year, he went to the Values Voter Summit, a religious-right gathering, he stuck to his Tea Party messaging, simply infusing it with the key words right-wing evangelicals love to hear. As I reported for AlterNet at the time,<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148246/religious_right_to_tea_party%3A_join_us_or_die%21" style=" text-decoration: none;">Pence said</a>:

“We must not remain silent when great moral battles are being waged," he said. "Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life, marriage, religious liberty have forgotten the lessons of history. As in the days of a house divided, America's darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles. Men and women, we must demand, here and now, that the leaders of the Republican Party stand for life, traditional marriage and religious liberty without apology.”

</blockquote>

When I approached him on his way out of the hall after that speech, I asked him whether the Tea Party movement was secular or religious. He replied:

"I think it's an authentic movement of the American people that are wanting to see our national government return to the common sense and common values of the majority of the American public," he said.

I pressed him. "Are you saying it's neither secular nor religious?" I asked.

"I think it's an authentic American movement," he replied, before hurrying off to catch a plane.

</blockquote>

That’s some awesome message discipline right there—a political virtue that the Trump campaign has yet to display.

But despite Pence’s hard-core anti-woman, anti-LGBT stances—he signed into law one of the nation’s most <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/indiana-governor-mike-pence-signs-abortion-bill.html" style=" text-decoration: none;">draconian anti-abortion statues</a>—not every leader of the religious right is crazy about him.

Tony Perkins, who leads the Family Research Council, fell out of love with Pence when, after the Indiana governor signed into law a so-called “religious freedom” that would have allowed businesses to refuse services to people whose morals their owners disagree with, the governor succumbed to ferocious backlash and watered down the law. The bill clearly targeted LGBT people.

....

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<div>While Mike Pence is a vigorous fundraiser who is popular with many of the right’s deepest-pocketed donors — including some in the Koch brothers’ orbit— it’s not clear whether his addition to Donald Trump’s ticket would thaw the frigid relations between the Manhattan billionaire and the GOP’s elite donor class.</div>

<div>The network of advocacy groups helmed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch has all-but foresworn big-money spending in the presidential race out of distaste for Trump, instead focusing its spending down ballot.</div>

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<div>And an official at the network’s central group, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, on Thursday said Pence’s potential ascension to the ticket wouldn’t change the network’s approach.</div>

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<div>“Our efforts will remain focused on the Senate,” said James Davis, Freedom Partners’ executive vice president for communications and marketing.</div>

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<div>Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-pence-koch-brothers-225549</div>

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<div><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-mike-pence-through-the-years">https://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-mike-pence-through-the-years</a></div>

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Indiana Gov. Mike Pence served five terms in Congress and worked his way up to a leadership role in the House. Since he has <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-pence-sealed-records_us_5786778fe4b03fc3ee4edf55" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">sealed his Congressional records</a> until December 2022, we’ve done what we can to dig up the best reporting on Donald Trump’s would-be vice president.

Pence describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” He may be best known outside his state for his defense of Indiana’s religious freedom restoration law, which allowed businesses to deny service to gays and lesbians.

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<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">He started his political career as a Democrat who kept <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100217091452/http:/www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061115/15pencefacts.htm" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">clippings of John F. Kennedy</a> in his Indiana home as a boy. But in law school, his views shifted to the right. By 1988, at the age of 29, he ran as a Republican to try to unseat the Democratic incumbent in Indiana’s 2nd district and <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19881109&id=RXBPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qyQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5084,1715798&hl=en" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">lost</a>. He <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-08-23/news/9003110195_1_central-indiana-district-congressional-races-campaign" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">lost</a> to the same candidate in 1990 after an ugly race that featured an ad with an actor dressed to look Arab thanking his opponent for foreign oil support. Pence’s campaign paid for his <a href="http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/news-opinion/incoming-mike-pence/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">car payment and golf fees</a>. (A year later, he wrote an essay called “<a href="https://craigfehrman.com/2013/01/06/mike-pences-confessions-of-a-negative-campaigner/#more-2700" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Confessions of a Negative Campaigner</a>” and repudiated his own style.)

Pence found his niche in talk radio in 1992 with “<a href="https://libraries.indiana.edu/mike-pence-congressional-papers" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">The Mike Pence Show</a>,” which was syndicated across the state two years later. From 1995 to 1999, he hosted an Indianapolis political <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20000611101202/http:/www.wibc.com/people/pence/mradlist.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">talk show</a> on television. In 2000, he re-entered the political arena and finally won his seat to Congress (later redrawn as Indiana’s 6th district). An envelope with traces of <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/557623/posts" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">anthrax</a> welcomed Pence to the Capitol during the 2001 scare.

The Hoosier quickly became known in Congress as a small-government, small-budget purist, fighting against many of then-president George W. Bush’s initiatives. He derided the No Child Left Behind education reform as “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jan/12/20070112-120720-6739r/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">more red tape</a>.” He opposed Bush’s push to extend Medicare Part D and subsidize senior citizens’ prescription drugs. As the Great Recession began, he <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/reps_ackerman_pence_on_the_aut.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">vehemently</a> opposed the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/23/congress.bailout.reax/index.html?eref=onion" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">2008 bailouts</a>.

Pence waded into the immigration battle in 2006 with a proposed compromise that would focus first on border security and, once that was accomplished, incentivize undocumented immigrants to “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/25/AR2006072500618.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">self-deport</a>” and reapply to be guest workers. The proposal quickly brought the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/washington/29pence.html?mtrref=wordpress.redirectingat.com" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">scorn of the right</a>. Pence’s proposal failed, and he ultimately<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Immigration-deal-earns-right-s-scorn-left-s-2593519.php%20http:/articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/guest-worker-program/recent/3" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">opposed</a> the 2007 deal that never passed.

Unlike his counterpart at the <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">top of the ticket</a>, Pence has repeatedly backed protections for the press, introducing and reintroducing a <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/federal-shield-law-introduced-house-once-more" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">federal shield law</a> that would protect reporters’ confidential sources, with exceptions including national security. “Without the free flow of information from sources to reporters, the public is ill-equipped to make informed decisions,” he said in 2011.

<h2 class="pp-int-hed" style=" margin: 25px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The Most Terrific Reporting on Trump</h2>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">A rundown of the best reporting on Donald Trump over the years. <strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-most-terrific-reporting-on-donald-trump" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Read more.</a>

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1.4; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Clinton has been in the public eye for four decades — and there have been investigative stories about her for nearly as long. <strong style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-hillary-clinton-over-the-years" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Read more.</a>

</div>

He flirted with a bid for the <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Pence2012/2011/01/27/id/384176/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">2012 GOP nomination</a> and ultimately decided to run to be <a href="https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2011/may/05/bc-us-pence-governor3rd-ld-writethru/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Indiana governor</a> instead. He <a href="http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/tfp_archive/2012-11-07/pdf/IN_JG.pdf" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">won</a> the governor’s mansion in 2012. The governor took his tax-cutting chops from Congress to the state budget, signing the <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/pence-profile" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">largest tax cut in Indiana history</a> into law and axing the estate tax.

Pence is known for his strict views against abortion — which could help temper the worries of the GOP’s conservative base about the one-time “<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/trump-in-1999-i-am-very-pro-choice-480297539914" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">very pro-choice</a>” Trump. While in Congress, he called Bush’s initiative that allowed limited stem cell research “<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0DA1230F932A25752C0A9619C8B63" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">morally wrong</a>.” As governor, Pence signed one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the nation in March 2016, which <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/11/fetal-anomaly-is-the-most-extreme-abortion-bill-yet.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">banned abortions based on fetal anomalies</a> like Down syndrome. Even some Republican lawmakers in the state <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-indiana-abortion-ban-20160309-story.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">opposed the law</a>. (Hoosier women responded by calling Pence’s office and giving detailed descriptions of their<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/08/473518239/periods-as-protest-indiana-women-call-governor-to-talk-about-menstrual-cycles" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">periods</a>.) He also pushed a bill to cut off <a href="http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/02/18/20110218house-blocks-planned-parenthood-money18-ON.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Title X grants to Planned Parenthood</a>.

Indiana’s 2015 Religious Freedom Restoration Act expanded the definition of religious liberty to the point that critics said could allow discrimination against gays and lesbians. While Pence said at the time that the RFRA was “<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-indiana-religious-freedom-bill-sb101-pence-20150326-story.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">not about discrimination</a>,” businesses came forward within a week announcing that they’d <a href="http://www.eater.com/2015/4/1/8325219/indiana-pizza-parlor-public-deny-service-lgbt-gay-law-discrimination" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">deny service</a> to LGBT people.

The backlash was swift and harsh. The governors of Connecticut, New York and Washington — and mayors across the country — <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/inslee-to-protest-indiana-law-with-travel-ban/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">banned non-essential travel</a> to the state for public employees. The <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/2015/03/26/ncaa-indiana-religious-freedom-law-mike-pence-mark-emmert-final-four-indianapolis/70490096/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">NCAA</a> hinted that it might pull out of future events just a week before the Final Four was set to begin in Indianapolis. The San Francisco-based computer firm Salesforce “<a href="https://twitter.com/Benioff/status/581108959337136129" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">canceled all programs</a>” that required travel to Indiana, <a href="http://investor.angieslist.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=903880" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Angie’s List</a> pulled out of a $40 million, 1,000 jobs expansion, and the top executives from <a href="https://www.yelpblog.com/2015/03/an-open-letter-to-states-considering-imposing-discrimination-laws" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Yelp</a>and Apple wrote letters decrying the law and warning other states against following Indiana’s lead. The governor’s <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/04/poll-pence-approval-still-sags/75178220/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">approval plummeted</a>. Just weeks after signing the law, Pence signed an <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/02/indiana-religious-freedom-law-deal-gay-discrimination/70819106/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">amended version</a> of the law that was intended to provide protection for gays and lesbians.

After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Pence made comments at a House GOP meeting that <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/06/28/508450/mike-pence-obamacare/?mobile=nc" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">compared the ruling to 9/11</a> (he apologized quickly).

For all his <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21694832-most-other-governors-seem-have-quietly-dropped-matter-indianas-governor-losing" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">opposition to refugees</a> settling in his own state, Pence hasn’t always been 100 percent on board the Trump Train. In December 2015, Pence tweeted, “Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are <a href="https://twitter.com/GovPenceIN/status/674249808610066433" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">offensive and unconstitutional</a>.” The governor first <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/29/indiana-gov-mike-pence-make-significant-announcement-noon-speculation-focuses-ted-cruz-endorsement/83697052/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">endorsed Ted Cruz</a> in the GOP primary but threw his support to Trump after the Texas senator dropped out.

Pence was in the middle of a <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/05/19/latest-poll-race-governor-remains-tight/84616830/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">tough reelection fight</a> when the call came from Trump. He dropped his gubernatorial bid to run on the national ticket.

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1.4; background: transparent;">See our similar roundup on <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-most-terrific-reporting-on-donald-trump" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Donald Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-best-reporting-on-hillary-clinton-over-the-years" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Hillary Clinton</a>, and check out more of ProPublica’s coverage of politics in our ongoing series, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/the-breakdown" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; line-height: 1; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">The Breakdown</a>.

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">GOP Strategist Kellyanne Conway on Pence: 'Reflective, Not Reactive'</li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">By Todd Beamon   |   Thursday, 14 Jul 2016 07:06 </li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Republican strategist and pollster Kellyanne Conway Thursday declined to confirm reports that Donald Trump would select Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, but said that he was "reflective, not reactive, who thinks about it."</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">"He is not a stiff," Conway, who also is a Trump adviser, said in response to a remark about Pence by host Mark Halperin on Bloomberg TV. "He refers to himself as Rush Limbaugh on decaf because he is a little bit more measured and laid-back."</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Pence, 57, who reportedly is ending his gubernatorial re-election bid amid the vice presidential speculation, will help Trump with shaping policy and working with congressional Republicans, she said.</li>

</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">"Donald Trump is moving into areas of policy. You saw the 10-point plan to reform the Veterans Administration this past Monday in Virginia Beach.</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Special: Barb Walters Sits Down With Dr Oz and Leaves Viewers Speechless</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">"Very specific, concrete. He is someone who can help with that.</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">"He is also someone who is very well respected," Conway added. "You get someone like Mike pence on the ticket, and I think it's another window toward party unity."</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">She also issued a challenge for longtime GOP supporters and contributors. Conway backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the primary race.</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">"Donors are longtime friends and supporters of governor and congressman Mike Pence, so the question to them now is this is the first major decision by the nominee in terms of personnel," she said. "What say you about someone you have worked with and trusted for a very long time?"</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Related Stories:</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">5 Things to Know About Mike Pence, Trump's Reported VP Pick</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Bill Kristol: 'Dispense With Pence'</li>

</li>

</li>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px;">Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/kellyanne-conway-mike-pence-donald-trump-vice/2016/07/14</li>

</ol>

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Indiana: At least $2.2 million was awarded to charters that either closed or never opened. In addition, emails obtained by CMD through a public records request to Gov. Pence's office found troubling examples of how the private charter sector, notably for-profit chain Charter Schools USA, influences on policy-making.

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<div>...Indiana Policy Review Foundation (IPR) is a right-wing pressure group that is an affiliate of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network" title="State Policy Network" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none;">State Policy Network</a> web of such groups in all 50 states. IPR states as its mission "to marshall [sic] the best thought on governmental, economic and educational issues at the state and municipal levels" through exalting "the truths of the Declaration of Independence, especially as they apply to the interrelated freedoms of religion, property and speech," emphasizing "primacy of the individual in addressing public concerns," and recognizing "that equality of opportunity is sacrificed in pursuit of equality of results."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-0" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a> IPR was co-founded by its board president, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Byron_S._Lamm" title="Byron S. Lamm" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none;">Byron S. Lamm</a>, in 1989.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a> Indiana Governor, former U.S. Representative, and former right-wing radio talk show host <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mike_Pence" title="Mike Pence" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none;">Mike Pence</a> was its president from 1991 to 1994,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[3]</a> and claimed at a campaign event in 2012 that he had helped found it.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a></div>

In a speech to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none;">Heritage Foundation</a> in 2008, then-Representative Pence said, "I was part of, what we called the seed corn Heritage Foundation was spreading around the country in the state think tank movement. We actually called our little foundation in Indiana the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, very much as a homage to Policy Review Magazine of Heritage, and we modeled on the state level what Heritage had done before."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a>

A small organization financially, IPR paid its executive director $100,471 of its $136,520 total revenue in 2011, while apparently no one else at the organization was paid that year.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-2011_990-5" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[6]</a> Its two "adjunct scholars," Andrea Neal and Cecil Bohanon, therefore make their income elsewhere: Neal was appointed by Governor Pence to the Indiana Board of Education in 2013,<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-NPR-6" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[7]</a> and Cecil Bohanon is a<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch" title="Koch" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none;">Koch</a>-funded professor of economics at Ball State University.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[8]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[9]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[10]</a><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indiana_Policy_Review_Foundation#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[11]</a>...

==

<table id="topContrib" class="tablesorter" style=" border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px;"><thead><tr><th style=" padding-right: 18px;">Contributor</th><th style=" padding-right: 18px;">Total</th><th style=" padding-right: 18px;">Indivs</th><th style=" padding-right: 18px;">PACs</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Club for Growth</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$90,762</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$68,396</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$22,366</td></tr><tr><td>Cummins Inc</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$78,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$62,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$16,000</td></tr><tr><td>National Assn of Convenience Stores</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$66,629</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$631</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$65,998</td></tr><tr><td>Eli Lilly & Co</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$64,350</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$14,150</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$50,200</td></tr><tr><td>Associated Builders & Contractors</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$63,450</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$5,950</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$57,500</td></tr><tr><td>AT&T Inc</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$59,250</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$750</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$58,500</td></tr><tr><td>Credit Union National Assn</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$55,850</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$1,150</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$54,700</td></tr><tr><td>Muncie Power Products</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$55,100</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$55,100</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td></tr><tr><td>Hasten Bancorp</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$54,650</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$54,650</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td></tr><tr><td>CIC Enterprises</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$52,200</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$52,200</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td></tr><tr><td>National Assn of Home Builders</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$47,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$47,000</td></tr><tr><td>National Auto Dealers Assn</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$46,500</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$46,500</td></tr><tr><td>Blue Cross/Blue Shield</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$44,750</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$13,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$31,750</td></tr><tr><td>American Dental Assn</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$41,296</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$41,296</td></tr><tr><td>Krieg Devault LLP</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$41,191</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$41,191</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td></tr><tr><td>National Assn of Realtors</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$41,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$4,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$37,000</td></tr><tr><td>UnitedHealth Group</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$40,900</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$34,900</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$6,000</td></tr><tr><td>Ontario Corp</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$39,334</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$39,334</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td></tr><tr><td>RJ Reynolds Tobacco</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$39,000</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$0</td><td class="number" style=" text-align: right;">$39,000</td></tr><tr><td style="font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">City Securities</td><td class="number" style="text-align: right; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">$38,178</td><td class="number" style="text-align: right; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">$38,178</td></tr></tbody></table>

===

<table id="topIndus" class="datadisplay" style=" border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236); width: 935px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><tbody><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=W06" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Retired</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$718,389</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F07" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Securities & Investment</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$367,311</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=K01" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Lawyers/Law Firms</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$338,364</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=H01" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Health Professionals</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$328,054</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=N15" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Misc Manufacturing & Distributing</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$308,633</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F10" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Real Estate</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$305,767</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=Q01" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Republican/Conservative</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$280,265</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F09" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Insurance</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$242,453</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=M02" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Automotive</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$241,853</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=E01" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Oil & Gas</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$235,900</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=C01" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">General Contractors</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$225,954</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F03" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Commercial Banks</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$224,889</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=Q05" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Pro-Israel</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$206,505</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=Q03" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Leadership PACs</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$190,028</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=A07" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Agricultural Services/Products</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$167,700</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=H02" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Hospitals/Nursing Homes</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$148,323</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=A09" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Food Processing & Sales</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$147,292</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=H04" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Pharmaceuticals/Health Products</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$133,250</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F13" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Misc Finance</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$129,840</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=N03" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Retail Sales</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$129,425</td></tr></tbody></table>

</div>

<h1 class="ruleAbove" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 36px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><a id="sec" name="sec" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;"> </a>Sector Totals</h1>

<table id="topSect" class="datadisplay" style=" border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236); width: 935px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><tbody><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><th style="padding: 3px; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Sector</th><th style="padding: 3px; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Total</th><th style="padding: 3px; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">PACs</th><th style="padding: 3px; text-align: center; font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Indivs</th></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=A" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Agribusiness</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$531,332</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$340,332</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$191,000</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=B" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Communications/Electronics</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$418,861</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$279,154</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$139,707</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=C" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Construction</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$527,149</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$172,250</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$354,899</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=D" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Defense</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$35,750</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$28,500</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$7,250</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=E" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Energy & Natural Resources</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$361,150</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$190,550</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$170,600</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=F" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Finance, Insurance & Real Estate</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$1,443,375</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$459,385</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$983,990</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=H" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Health</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$655,777</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$314,465</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$341,312</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=K" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Lawyers & Lobbyists</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$443,782</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$79,487</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$364,295</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=M" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Transportation</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$396,662</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$160,300</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$236,362</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=N" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Misc Business</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$1,029,915</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$371,289</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$658,626</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=P" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Labor</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$7,900</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$7,900</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$0</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(224, 230, 236);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=Q" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Ideological/Single-Issue</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$872,734</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$520,374</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$352,360</td></tr><tr style=" background-color: rgb(240, 243, 246);"><td style=" padding: 5px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=All&ind=W" style="background-color: transparent; text-decoration: none;">Other</a></td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$832,843</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$0</td><td class="number" style=" padding: 5px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top;">$832,843</td></tr></tbody></table>

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Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">American</a> politician, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_Indiana" title="List of Governors of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">50th</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana" title="Governor of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Governor of Indiana</a>. A <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Republican</a>, Pence previously served as a member of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States House of Representatives</a> from 2001 to 2013. Pence served as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Conference_Chairman_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Republican Conference Chairman of the United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Chairman</a> of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Republican_Conference" title="House Republican Conference" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">House Republican Conference</a> from 2009 to 2011.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Republican_conference-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a>

On May 5, 2011, he announced that he would be seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Indiana in 2012.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[3]</a> On November 6, 2012, Pence won the 2012 Indiana gubernatorial election.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[4]</a> Mike Pence was mentioned as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_Republican_candidates_in_the_2008_U.S.presidential_election" title="Potential Republican candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential election" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">possible candidate for President in 2008</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,2012" title="United States presidential election, 2012" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2012</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[5]</a> In September 2010, Pence was the top choice for President in a straw poll conducted by the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_Voters_Summit" title="Value Voters Summit" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Value Voters Summit</a>.

<h2 style=" margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; background-image: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Early_life.2C_education_and_family" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">1 Early life, education and family</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Congressional_and_Gubernatorial_elections" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2 Congressional and Gubernatorial elections</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#U.S._Representative.2C_6th_District_of_Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">3 U.S. Representative, 6th District of Indiana</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Governor_of_Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">4 Governor of Indiana</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Controversies" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">5 Controversies</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#Electoral_history" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">6 Electoral history</a>

</ul>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#References" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">7 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">8 External links</a></li>

</ul>

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<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.1875px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Early life, education and family<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Pence&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life, education and family" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a>]</h2>

Pence was born in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus,Indiana" title="Columbus, Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Columbus, Indiana</a>, one of six children of Nancy Jane (née Cawley) and Edward J. Pence, Jr., who ran a string of gas stations.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[6]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[7]</a> His family was of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Catholic" title="Irish Catholic" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Irish Catholic</a>descent.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-US_News-1" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a> He was named after his grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley, a Chicago bus driver who came to the United States from Ireland through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island" title="Ellis Island" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Ellis Island</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[8]</a> He graduated from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_North_High_School" title="Columbus North High School" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Columbus North High School</a> in 1977. Pence earned a B.A. in History from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_College" title="Hanover College" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Hanover College</a> in 1981 and a J.D. from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_University_Robert_H.McKinney_School_of_Law" title="Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law</a> in 1986. While at Hanover, Pence joined the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_Gamma_Delta" title="Phi Gamma Delta" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Phi Gamma Delta</a> fraternity, serving as his chapter's president.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[9]</a>

Pence and his wife Karen have three children: Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey. Michael is a student at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_University" title="Purdue University" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Purdue University</a>. Charlotte is a student at DePaul University. Audrey is a student at Northeastern University. Pence is a declared Christian and attends Community Church of Greenwood in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood,Indiana" title="Greenwood, Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Greenwood, Indiana</a>, an evangelical Christian Church. During his service in the U.S. House, the Pence family lived in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington,Virginia" title="Arlington, Virginia" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Arlington, Virginia</a> when Congress was in session.

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.1875px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Congressional and Gubernatorial elections<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Pence&action=edit&section=2&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Congressional and Gubernatorial elections" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a>]</h2>

Pence ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1988 and 1990, losing to longtime <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Democratic_Party" title="U.S. Democratic Party" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Democratic</a> incumbent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Sharp(American_politician)" title="Philip Sharp (American politician)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Phil Sharp</a> with an endorsement from President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Ronald Reagan</a>.

In 2000, Pence was elected after six-year incumbent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M.McIntosh" title="David M. McIntosh" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">David M. McIntosh</a> opted to run for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana" title="Governor of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">governor of Indiana</a>. His first term in Congress began in January 2001. The 6th District comprises all or portions of 19 counties in eastern Indiana, and was numbered as the 2nd District during his first term in Congress. He has been re-elected four more times by comfortable margins. In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections,2006#Indiana" title="United States House elections, 2006" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2006 House elections</a>, he defeated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party(United_States)" title="Democratic Party (United States)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Democrat</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Welsh" title="Barry Welsh" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Barry Welsh</a>. He was listed as one of the top ten legislators by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire(magazine)" title="Esquire (magazine)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Esquire</a> magazine in 2008.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[10]</a>

<a class="external text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Indiana,_2010#District_6" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" png="png" base64="base64" ivborw0kggoaaaansuheugaaaaoaaaakcayaaacnms="iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs" aaaaveleqvr42n3pgqkaiaheuxdqj3dqj3e6iotpusqcgj4eq5iluile0jil3pecxhchgbhz8kg4hwxau3mzecgeyfnaxp4hqnqpnt7ql0nadpd6whcclvnakksq8iiaaaaaaelftksuqmcc="AAAAVElEQVR42n3PgQkAIAhEUXdqJ3dqJ3e6IoTPUSQcgj4EQ5IlUiLE0Jil3PECXhcHGBhZ8kg4hwxAu3MZeCGeyFnAXp4hqNQPnt7QL0nADpD6wHccLvnAKksq8iiaAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" background-position="background-position" background-repeat="background-repeat" no-repeat="no-repeat" xmlns:data="data">In 2010</a>, Pence was encouraged to run against incumbent Democratic Senator <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Bayh" title="Evan Bayh" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Evan Bayh</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[11]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[12]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[13]</a> Pence led Senator Bayh by a 3 point margin according to Rasmussen polling done on January 21 and 24, 2010.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[14]</a> On January 26, 2010, in an open letter to friends and supporters through his social media Facebook, Pence announced his decision not to run for the Senate; he cited his role in the Republican leadership and the belief that Republicans would win back the House in 2010 as his reasons for staying in the House of Representatives.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[15]</a> On November 8, 2006, Mike Pence announced his candidacy for leader of the Republican Party (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_leader" title="Minority leader" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">minority leader</a>) in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">United States House of Representatives</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[16]</a>

Pence's release announcing his run for minority leader focused on a "return to the values" of the 1994 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution" title="Republican Revolution" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Republican Revolution</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Rel-run-17" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[17]</a> On November 17, Pence lost to Representative <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner" title="John Boehner" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">John Boehner</a>of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio" title="Ohio" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Ohio</a> by a vote of 168-27-1 (the one vote went to Representative <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Barton" title="Joe Barton" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Joe Barton</a> of Texas).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[18]</a>

Pence defeated Reverend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Welsh" title="Barry Welsh" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Barry Welsh</a> in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Indiana,_2008" title="United States House of Representatives elections in Indiana, 2008" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">2008 House election</a>. Pence was elected by his GOP colleagues to become the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Conference_Chairman_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Republican Conference Chairman of the United States House of Representatives" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Republican Conference Chairman</a>, the third-highest-ranking Republican leadership position. He ran unopposed and was elected unanimously. He is the first representative from Indiana to hold a House leadership position since 1981.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Republican_conference-2" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a>

After the 2010 election, Pence announced that he would not run for re-election as the committee's chair.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[19]</a> On May 5, 2011, Pence announced that he would seek the Republican nomination for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_gubernatorial_election,2012" title="Indiana gubernatorial election, 2012" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Governor of Indiana in 2012</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[20]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Pence_announcement-21" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[21]</a> Pence's announcement was anticipated by his resignation of his leading position in the GOP caucus in the House. Pence won his campaign for<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_gubernatorial_election,2012" title="Indiana gubernatorial election, 2012" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Governor of Indiana in 2012</a> against Democratic nominee <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Gregg" title="John R. Gregg" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">John R. Gregg</a> and Libertarian nominee <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Boneham" title="Rupert Boneham" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Rupert Boneham</a>. Incumbent Republican Governor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Daniels" title="Mitch Daniels" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Mitch Daniels</a> was term-limited.

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.1875px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.S. Representative, 6th District of Indiana<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Pence&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: U.S. Representative, 6th District of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a>]</h2>

Pence served for a time as the chairman of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Study_Committee" title="Republican Study Committee" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Republican Study Committee</a>, a group of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States" title="Conservatism in the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">conservative</a> House Republicans. He has stated his support of Israel and its right to attack facilities in Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, has defended the actions of Israel in its use of deadly force in enforcing the blockade of Gaza and has referred to Israel as "America's most cherished ally".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[22]</a> Pence was a cosponsor of a Spending Limit Amendment to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Constitution" title="U.S. Constitution" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">U.S. Constitution</a>. This amendment would limit federal spending to one-fifth of the American economy - the historical average since <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II" title="World War II" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">World War II</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[23]</a>

In 2005, after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina" title="Hurricane Katrina" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Hurricane Katrina</a> struck the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana" title="Louisiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Louisiana</a> coast, Pence favored offsetting the costs of the hurricane with $24 billion in other spending reductions.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[24]</a>

Pence was a supporter of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmark_(politics)" title="Earmark (politics)" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">earmark</a> reform. He voted against the $139.7 billion transportation-treasury spending bill in June 2006, and in favor of a series of amendments proposed that same month by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Flake" title="Jeff Flake" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Jeff Flake</a> that would strip other members’ earmarks from the federal budget. Pence, on occasion, secured earmark projects such as $500,000 for the “Transit Acquisition and Intermodal Facility Project” in his state, as well as $250,000 for construction of a park in Portland. Pence secured earmarks for inclusion in a labor-health and human services 2007FY bill. This included $200,000 for both Ball State University’s Center for School Innovation in Muncie and to the Madison County Community Health Center in Anderson. Pence also secured $100,000 for Ivy Tech Community College in Columbus.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[25]</a>

Pence has opposed the restoration of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine" title="Fairness Doctrine" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Fairness Doctrine</a>, as he believes that it would "censor the airwaves of American talk radio and American Christian radio".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[26]</a> The doctrine has not been in effect since 1987 and in 2011, was formally removed from the FCC guidelines by the FCC.

Pence is an advocate of federal restrictions of online gambling. In 2006, he along with 34 others cosponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[27]</a> and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[28]</a>

In June 2006, Pence unveiled a plan he describes as "no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty" title="Amnesty" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">amnesty</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_reform" title="Immigration reform" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">immigration reform</a>" consisting of increased border security, followed by strict enforcement of laws against hiring illegal aliens, and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_worker" title="Guest worker" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">guest worker</a> program. This guest worker program requires potential participants to apply from their home country to government-approved job placement agencies that match workers with employers who cannot find Americans for the job.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[29]</a> The plan has received support from conservative leaders such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey" title="Dick Armey" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Dick Armey</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[30]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan" title="Pat Buchanan" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Pat Buchanan</a> described this as "stealth amnesty," claiming that it is merely a "one week vacation" for illegal immigrants to return to their home country to apply for jobs under the program.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[31]</a> Others (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly" title="Phyllis Schlafly" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Phyllis Schlafly</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tancredo" title="Tom Tancredo" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Tom Tancredo</a>) have criticized Pence's plan.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[32]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[33]</a>

Pence has referred to Harvard sociologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitirim_Sorokin" title="Pitirim Sorokin" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Pitirim Sorokin</a>'s findings that throughout history, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse" title="Societal collapse" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">societal collapse</a> was brought about by the deterioration of marriage and family.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-Congressional_Record_Pt.11-34" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[34]</a> He has advocated a constitutional same-sex marriage ban, but did not champion such a proposed ban for his first year as governor.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[35]</a>

Pence supported the joint resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, otherwise known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution" title="Iraq Resolution" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Iraq Resolution</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-36" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[36]</a> The resolution cited factors including Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors, Iraq's "brutal repression of its civilian population," and Iraq's hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the 1993 assassination attempt on former President George H. W. Bush and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War as reasons for taking action.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-37" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[37]</a>

During the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War" title="Iraq War" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Iraq War</a>, he opposed setting a public withdrawal date from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq" title="Iraq" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Iraq</a>. During an April 2007 visit to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad" title="Baghdad" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Baghdad</a>, Pence and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain" title="John McCain" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">John McCain</a> visited <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorja" title="Shorja" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Shorja</a> market, the site of a deadly attack in February, 2007, that claimed the lives of 61 people. During the visit, Pence and Senator John McCain were accompanied by General <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus" title="David Petraeus" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">David Petraeus</a>. Pence and McCain described the visit as evidence that the security situation in Iraqi markets have improved.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-38" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[38]</a> The visit was criticized by the New York Times as giving a false indication of how secure the area was due to the extremely heavy security forces McCain brought with him. The visit to the market took place under large security including helicopters overhead.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[39]</a>

Mike Pence has opposed closing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp" title="Guantanamo Bay detention camp" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Guantanamo Bay detention camp</a> and trying the suspected terrorists in the U.S.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-house1-40" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[40]</a> Pence believes that “the Obama administration must overturn this wrongheaded decision”.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-house1-40" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[40]</a> As an alternative, Pence has said that the "enemy combatants" should be tried in a military tribunal.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-house1-40" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[40]</a>

After the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Affordable Care Act on June 28, 2012 he was quoted by sources at a closed door meeting as likening the ruling upholding the Democratic health care law to the September 11 terrorist attacks.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-41" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[41]</a> He immediately apologized for making the statement.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-42" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[42]</a>

His Committee assignments in the U.S. House included: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_Foreign_Affairs" title="United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Foreign Affairs</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Foreign_Affairs_Subcommittee_on_the_Middle_East_and_South_Asia" title="United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia</a> (Vice Chair), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_the_Judiciary" title="United States House Committee on the Judiciary" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Judiciary</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Judiciary_Subcommittee_on_the_Constitution" title="United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Subcommittee on the Constitution</a> (Vice Chair), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Judiciary_Subcommittee_on_Intellectual_Property,Competition,and_the_Internet" title="United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet</a>. While in Congress he belonged to the Congressional Internet Caucus, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congressional_International_Conservation_Caucus" title="United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">International Conservation Caucus</a>, Sportsmen's Caucus, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_Caucus" title="Tea Party Caucus" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Tea Party Caucus</a>.

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.1875px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Governor of Indiana<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Pence&action=edit&section=4&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Governor of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a>]</h2>

Pence began his first term as the 50th <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana" title="Governor of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Governor of Indiana</a> on January 14, 2013.

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 19.1875px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Controversies<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mike_Pence&action=edit&section=5&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Controversies" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">edit</a>]</h2>

During Pence's first term as the 50th <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Indiana" title="Governor of Indiana" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Governor of Indiana</a>, he was criticized for censoring comments on his official government <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook" title="Facebook" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Facebook</a> page.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence#cite_note-43" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none;">[43]</a>

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PENCE Gov VP

Attachments