6 Totally WTF Mike Pence Stories (Nobody Ever Brings Up)

[smirkymonkey]

http://www.cracked.com/article_24900_6-wtf-mike-pence-stories-youll-wish-we-were-making-up.html

6. Pence Fucking Hates Mulan

After a "soft launch" at a political career, Pence decided to try something different and went into talk radio. It was a convenient way to stay in politics without actually having to assist the public. He described himself as "Rush Limbaugh on decaf" -- all the hate without the sweet release of an early heart attack. We could use this space to go into detail about how sharp and measured Pence may have appeared over the radio, and clips do exist of him speaking fairly eloquently to his echo chamber, but it's a much more interesting character study to delve into the time he got mad at Disney for their "liberal" portrayal of women in the military in Mulan. So what was Pence's exact problem with the movie? is it the gender identity issues? No, Tumblr has more opinions on that than Pence could have even dreamed of. Is it the commercial association the film had with McDonald's? Clearly, he never tried that Szechuan Nugget Sauce. Is it that he doesn't respect women the same way that he does men? Yup, there we are: (more, couldn't copy)

(Number 5, He calls his wife "Mother, but we all knew that)

4. Pence Went Full Racist In One Campaign Ad

To get a sense of how Pence got to where he is now, it's important to dig back into his earliest ventures into politics, when he was young (middle-aged) and idealistic. His first run for Congress in 1988 was less than successful, as he lost to a Democrat (in Indiana!) named Philip Sharp. This understandably left the young upstart Pence feeling fairly dejected, and he came back in 1990 ready to campaign like he was on a mission from God.

Apparently, that divine mandate required Pence to be racist as fuck. See, there was a bit of a desert storm brewing in the early 1990s, and the Pence campaign realized what an important issue oil in the Middle East might become. So they launched an ad campaign that has mysteriously been wiped from the internet, save for this still.



That white dude In a Bob Marley costume is an actor pretending to be a Middle Eastern man, ironically thanking Representative Sharp for getting America to rely so heavily on his country's oil. That's racist even by fratboy standards. And remember, this was 11 years before the September 11th attacks launched anti-Muslim feelings in the United States into the stratosphere, making Pence a hipster of Islamophobia (he was into it before everybody else was). There was just no reason for Pence to give this the thumbs-up -- though to his credit, he's admitted the backlash from this ad convinced him to never again launch a negative ad himself. That's what running mates are for.

3. Pence Tried To Create His Own State-Run Media

One of the most heinous parts of living under a Trump administration has been his relentless assault on a free press -- or at least, that small part of the press that speaks up whenever he acts like he's God Emperor of the Doucheclowns. But if they had wanted a bit of a clue as to how media might look under a Putin Trump presidency, they should've looked at Pence's time as governor.

Pence, it turns out, has a bit of a history of censorship. When some of his constituents commenting on his public Facebook page noticed their comments had disappeared, it was revealed that Pence's staff was going through and deleting comments in a targeted fashion. If they were particularly pro-gay or seemed to come from people they knew were specifically anti-Pence, the staffers had been instructed by Pence (which he freely admitted to) to go ahead and get rid of them. Sure, it's just social media, but that's how a lot of people get their news nowadays, and when you're a politician, that's a clear suppression of folks' First Amendment rights. Yes, even if they hate you.

Not that that makes Pence the world's most boring dictator or anything. No, that coup happened when he tried to create a literal state-run news service. The plan was to come up with a controlled breaking news outlet called JustIN, which sounds like how an angry mom would yell at her son to stop skateboarding. JustIN would have meant that government types would be able to control the news that was coming out of their offices, and independent press agencies would have no more access to political coverage other than repeating what JustIN published. This was quickly mocked as "Pravda on the Plains," which still makes it sound more exciting than Pence's particularly mundane evil. Governor Pence quickly backed off the idea, if for no other reason than he probably remembered that conservatives are supposed to appear to reduce the government meddling into people's affairs. Eye on the tax breaks, Pence. Eye on the tax breaks.

[more...]

[smirkymonkey]

1. He's better than Trump, but he's still a disaster.

The only good thing about him is that he has NO support. Not in his state, not in this country. If he were to succeed Trump, he would not win the next time around. He is a shit candidate and that is the best we can hope for. He doesn't have Trump's cult following and never will.

[Solly Mack]

2. I think Pence is as bad as Trump in his own way.

Pence is a theocrat and will have a conservative following - such as people like DeVos, all of the Congressional GOP, the religious right, and the other assorted women haters, minority haters, LGBT haters.

[smirkymonkey]

4. Yes, he's a fucking nightmare, but he doesn't have the devotees that Trump does.

Therefore, he cannot win the next election. He can do some damage, but it will be short lived. Whereas if we don't get rid of Trump, there is no telling how long this nightmare can last. He has a cult following. There is no getting rid of them no matter what we say or do.

[TNNurse]

3. He may be worse, he is sincere in his beliefs on how others should live.

Trump really only cares about Trump.