You might call it historical amnesia, or maybe its just the hope that eventually people will forget what you’ve done. But the stink of corruption and the whiff of the arrogance of power that accompanies the acolytes of the GOP still shocks me. It takes a lot of chutzpah to suggest that Medicare recipients should be forced to pay for Hurricane Relief
“Let us have the courage to make the tough choices to find the means to pay for the cost of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath through reductions in government spending.
“Let’s do the work of rebuilding our Gulf Coast with the compassion and the fiscal discipline that the American people expect from a Republican Congress.”
Yet while our boy Mike is willing to steal money from little old ladies (clearly Mike learned a lot as a Young Republican), this (what do you call someone who sells themself for money?) man is unwilling to cough up tainted ARMPAC contributions.
More on the flipside 🙂
Pence to keep ARMPAC contributions
By LYNELLE MILLER
With Rep. Tom DeLay’s recent indictment for allegedly conspiring to violate Texas campaign fundraising laws, at least two Republicans in the House of Representatives have said they will return money donated by DeLay’s political action committee (PAC).
Rep. Mike Pence, of Indiana’s 6th District, has decided to keep the money he received from PAC.
Pence has received campaign contributions from Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC) but has no plans to return the money. A total of $19,865 has been given in the form of four separate donations and were received in 2000 and 2002, said Bill Smith, Pence’s chief of staff.
According to Smith, this money, along with all donations, is used to run Pence’s campaign.
“Everything we’ve received and spent for his campaign has been done in a legal and ethical manner, and we have no qualms about it,” said Smith. “Congressman Pence does not make a practice of returning funds that were legally contributed to past campaigns and legally spent.”
The key quote here is at the end, “Congressman Pence does not make a practice of returning funds that were legally contributed to past campaigns and legally spent.”
While strictly true this is not the first time the our boy Mike has been hounded to cough up unsavory campaign contributions. In 2002, we were able to force Mike to cough up $1000 in contributions from Worldcom
Congressman to return contribution from WorldCom
MUNCIE — An Indiana Congressman announced he will return a campaign contribution from embattled telecommunications giant WorldCom Inc. after being challenged to do so by his opponent in the upcoming election.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th District, received the $1,000 contribution from WorldCom’s political action committee last December, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Executives from the now-bankrupt WorldCom were arrested last week on corporate fraud charges. Since 1989, the company contributed $7.5 million to federal candidates and parties, according to FEC reports and research by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
Pence told The Star Press for a story Saturday that he was unaware of the contribution. He later confirmed the contribution with his campaign finance director, Ron Arnold, who said the campaign will refund the money
The contribution came during a fund-raiser with the congressman last December, Arnold said
Melina Fox, Pence’s Democratic opponent, had challenged his campaign to return the money from WorldCom. Pence told The Star Press he was unaware of Fox’s criticism.
The most galling thing about getting Pence to cough up that $1000 contribution from Worldcom, was that he claimed to have no idea that he had taken money from Worldcom. So either he didn’t know or he didn’t care. Either one doesn’t look to good to me.
Even accepting his argument that he didn’t know, what does it say about this man that he takes money without considering the source. I guess it says that he’s a Tom Delay Republican. And it gets worse, in what has to be the most damining evidence that Mike Pence knew where his money was coming from and didn’t care we see that first pence took the money, then he gave it back, then the day before the election when the heat was off, he took the money back from Worldcom.
Want proof?
God bless public records, and those campaign finance law that Pence has such trouble with.
It’s all in the public domain.
Pence recieved a $1000 contribution from Worldcom on 12/07/2001.
Then after Pence’s Worldcom contribution was outed, Pence refunded the contribution on 09/06/2002.
Remember Pence said he had no idea that he had taken money from Worldcom, and giving the man the benefit of the doubt you’d think that he’d be more careful who he took money from in the future, right?
Wrong.
FEC records show that Pence took a $1000 contribution from Worldcom PAC on 11/04/2002, the day before the 2002 general election. Shortly after the election Worldcom’s PAC was renamed the “MCI INC. EMPLOYEES POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE” thereby creating a layer of protection against anyone digging into the old records seeing that this was from Worldcom.
Tainted love, and the arrogance of power.
Mike Pence is the the leader of the Conservative caucus, and he depends on people not asking questions to get away with talking about making little old ladies choose between buying their meds and eating dinner, while he’s living it up on the tab of Worldcom and ARMPAC.
Last time we outed Pence for his Worldcom donation we asked him to refund the money. This time I think that he needs to give than money and all the tainted money he got from Delay to the people affected by Katrina and denigrated by Pence and the rest of the conservative caucus. I think he needs to give all that money to the Red Cross to help Katrina’s victims. I think we all need to let Pence know we know about his dirty little secret, and he needs to donate that money to people who can use it.
Please, Please feel free to write to the Congressman
Pence has got a good man running against him in 2006, but now isn’t the time for that, now’s the time to make Mike cough up the cash. If he doesn’t have the bsic human decency to cough up tainted campaign contributions, he deserves to have it shoved in his face every time he goes on national TV and tries to play “compassionate conservative”.
