Tea Party Radical Mike Pence - "Shut it down!"

The leader of the Tea Party group that backed Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Joe Miller for Senate in 2010 says they will be "more selective" the next time around - and that the Tea Party's radical cries of “cut it or shut it” about the looming government shutdown are just not realistic (nor are they sane).

Mike Pence is very easy to see through: In short, he wants to impose his Evangelical Christian values on everyone one else (smaller government?); he's mostly beholden to large corporate interests; and he has absolutely no sympathy or respect at all for the lower income families in our country - or for those who have met with a natural or financial disaster. In short, as a believer in God, he sold his soul to the devil for power.

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you super-add the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it." ~ Lord Acton, 1887

Mike Pence is just another political hypocrite. He ignores the fact that under the Bush Tax Cuts and the Republican's spending bills long before Obama was ever in office, we acquired much more debt that we got under Obama. And to help us out of the financial crisis that the bankers caused under George W. Bush, Mike Pence voted YES on $192 billion in additional anti-recession stimulus spending in July 2009. Maybe the Tea Party doesn't remember that.

Mike Pence is just another corporate shill, trading favorites for favorites:

• Voted NO on letting shareholders vote on executive compensation. (2007 and 2009)
• Voted YES on more taxpayer-paid funding for nano-technology R&D and commercialization. (Jul 2009)
• Voted YES on replacing illegal export tax breaks with $140 billion in new tax breaks. (Jun 2004)
• Rated 96% by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, indicating a VERY pro-corporate voting record. (Dec 2003) 

I paid my share of taxes, I didn't cause the recession. Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are under attack from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other powerful lobbyists such as those funded by the Koch brothers that support GOP and Tea Party policies - rewarding multinational corporations, including those that DID cause the recession, with bailouts, bonuses, and tax benefits. They already took everything else from me, and now they also want to deny me food and healthcare. Is as though they won't be satisfied until I'm dead.

More Tea Party talking points from their newsletter:

• Democrats are out of touch with American public opinion. (most Americans want to tax the rich and corporations more.)
• Spending is out of control (most Americans now realize that 10 years of Bush Tax Cuts drove the debt - it was lack of revenues, not too much spending.)
• Responsible cuts are needed. (most Americans see this as an attempt to cut only items needed by average folks such as Medicaid and Social Security.)
• We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. (most Americans know this to be the biggest lie of all!)
• We need smaller government! (with an ever increasing population base, the Tea Party wants us all to make due with less while lowering taxes for corporations and the wealthy. A DIRECT ASSAULT ON THE MIDDLE CLASS! Why do they always insist that it's only the middle-class and poor who are supposed to make all these "shared sacrifices"?

John Boehner: "There’s no daylight between the Tea Party and me. What they want is they want us to cut spending. They want us to deal with this crushing debt that’s going to crush the future for our kids and grandkids." (There they go again, scaring us with the children. Nobody wants to hurt those poor innocent little kids! What about all the kids today whose parents rely on food stamps?)

“Shut it down!" Prominent Tea Party member Mike Pence said of the government if Democrats didn’t agree to additional cuts to programs that only the unemployed, the elderly, the sick, and the poor need. Pence emerged from Hanover College as a fundamentalist conservative Christian Republican - he's an Evangelical Christian, just like Glenn Beck, but yet he doesn't believe in caring for our own.)

From our Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Yearning to breathe free..."

Mike Pence's college fraternity (Phi Gamma Delta) values include: "Service. We have the ability, the opportunity, and the duty to serve our fellow human beings. Our reward is the satisfaction that comes from serving. We believe in Morality. As gentlemen of quality, we must do what is right as individuals and as a group. Moral behavior is the basis of society’s existence."

Who is HE serving and what does HE consider to be "moral" behavior? Is he serving God and what he believes to be God's moral principals? Just like the Evangelical Christian Glenn Beck?

Tea Party member Mike Pence: "I urge my colleagues in the Senate to enact the significant budget cuts in this resolution, fund our troops and join with us in changing the fiscal direction of the national government." (Playing up to our men and women in uniform like a "true patriot" but he was never in the armed services...he was a radio host.)

Pence's father was an oil distributor who ran a number of gas stations. On his website Mike Pence claims that he supports "energy independence" by increasing America's domestic production of oil by building more refineries and drilling here and now. He also claims he supports "sweeping ethics and spending reforms". (Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes to foreign countries last year, but the U.S. Treasury got ZERO. GE made $15 million in profits, but the IRS (us, our government, the U.S. Treasury) got ZERO! (His voting record for oil companies adn all other issues, which includes "Tax Reforms" favoring the rich and corporations).

He has also continued the fight for the sanctity of life and family, believing that every innocent life must be protected (but only for poor people who need federal funding for abortions at Planned Parenthood), and that marriage is the union of one man with one woman - but he mentions nothing of civil unions for partners who would otherwise qualify for Medicare or Social Security benefits. He also voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Is he homophobic, or does he just hate gay people? It's one thing to have a moral or religious opinion, but another to impose those on others (Is this his "smaller government"?).

Pence voted for the Bush Tax Cuts in 2001 and 2003, and advocates making them permanent. He was one of just 33 House members to vote against President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. In 2002, he cast a vote for a costly farm subsidy bill.

When hurricane Katrina struck the Louisiana coast, in the midst of the catastrophe, Pence called a press conference announcing $24 billion in spending cuts saying, "We must not let Katrina break the bank." His alma mater's core values are service and morality? Service to who? Who's "morality" is he imposing his values on?

2009-2010 Campaign - Mike Pence's biggest campaign donors: Banking, Health, Insurance, and Oil & Gas were his biggest contributors (Wasn't his daddy also in oil?)

"Oh yeah, and cut services for the poor while lowering the taxes for rich people and corporations!" - that's the Tea Party's cure for cancer!