Archive for the ‘Mike Pence’ Category

Pence tapping former aides, and some lobbyists, for VP office staff – Indianapolis Star

More could be coming. Nate Chute/IndyStar

WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pence is relying heavily on former aides from his congressional and gubernatorial days to staff his new office.

The majority of the 18 aides Pence has announced hiring have previously worked for him. Five have been registered lobbyists in Washington. His chief of staff, Josh Pitcock, is among those who fit both categories.

Pitcock started in Pences congressional office as a legislative assistant and rose to chief of staff. When Pence became governor, the state contracted with Pitcock to lobby for Indianas interests in Washington. Pitcock continued that post while also working on the vice presidential campaign.

Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Josh Pitcock, second from right, looks on as President Donald Trump meets with automobile company executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Jan. 24, 2017.(Photo: Pool, Getty Images)

Others who worked for Pence before, and are doing so again, include:

Other aides Pence has announced include Mark Paoletta, an expert on congressional investigations both from serving on a House investigative committee and from representing clients who faced congressional panels. Hes recently been a lobbyist with DLA Piper where his clients included Oracle Corp. and the PGA Tour. Paoletta's resume also includes helping the George H. W. Bush Administration with the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Pence chose Thomas to administer his oath of office Inauguration Day. Paoletta will be Pence's top lawyer.

Pence also announced Wednesday hes tapped retired Army Col. Andrea Thompson to be his national security adviser. Thompson is a career Army intelligence officer who has also worked for congressional committees.

Contact Maureen Groppe at mgroppe@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @mgroppe.

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Pence tapping former aides, and some lobbyists, for VP office staff - Indianapolis Star

March for Life 2017: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know – Heavy.com

Activists participate in the 2016 March for Life on January 22, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

Thousands of people are expected to participate in this years March for Life on January 27th in Washington, D.C.

The March for Life is an annual anti-abortion rally that takes place on or around the anniversary ofRoe v. Wade,the landmark 1974 Supreme Court decision that said a woman has a right to receive an abortion. This years rally has earned more attention than usual because the vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, will attend.

Heres what you need to know about the 2017 March for Life.

The March for Life begins at the grounds of the Washington Monument. (Getty)

The 2017 March for Life begins at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the grounds of the Washington Monument.

This rally portion of the event will last for one hour, with several politicians and religious figures speaking. At 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, the march itself will begin; it will go up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court and the Capitol Building.

At 3:00 p.m., protesters will listen totestimonies outside of the Supreme Court building.

Mike Pence and his wife Karen board Air Force Two on January 26, 2017. (Getty)

There are currently 11speakers lined up for the rally portion of the March for Life, with the biggest name being Vice President Mike Pence; he was just added to the event on Thursday morning. Vice PresidentPence has had a consistently pro-life record throughout his political career, especially when he was governor of Indiana; in 2016, he signed into lawHouse Bill 1337, which, among other restrictions, bars doctors from performing abortions for women who are seeking them due tofetal abnormalities. The lawwas later blocked by a federal judge.

This is the first time a vice president has ever attended the March for Life. No president has ever attended, although a few have delivered remarks remotely.

Also speaking will be Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to President Donald Trump. She is the first woman to ever run a successful presidential campaign in the United States.

The rest of the days speakers will be:

Pro-life activists hold up signs at the 2016 March for Life event. (Getty)

The 2017 March for Life has a theme this year of The Power of One.On its social media pages, the organization has described this as the idea that one person can make a difference in the world and that babies that are aborted dont have the chance to do so.

Through its website, the March for Life has been asking participants to send in stories ofhow someonehas impacted them with the cause of life or how they personally made a difference in their community for life. Many of these submissions come from people who were put in a situation where they considered getting an abortion but decided against it.

One story, for example, is from a womanwho says she got pregnant at the age of 19 and went to Planned Parenthood to receive an abortion, but she says she instantly regretted it as soon as she took the first of two pills.

I looked online for help, but found nothing until I finally came across abortionpillreversal.com, she writes. The site offered a hotline number, and when I called, a nurse from a pregnancy center answered and explained that a regimen had just been released to reverse the abortion pill I had taken. I knew it wasnt certain to work, but I was desperate. She found (and I drove) to a doctor 2 hours away who began progesterone injections, which I continued for weeks, as we tried to save my baby.Despite the abortion clinic calling and saying that this would not work, I continued on with my pregnancy, and my second son, Zechariah, was born on 10/20/2013.

The March for Life has taken place every year since 1974. (Getty)

The March for Life has been taking place every year for the past four decades.

It was startedbyNellie Gray, with the first march taking place onJanuary 22, 1974, the one year anniversary ofRoe v. Wade.The event is usually held on the anniversary ofRoe v. Wade; this year it was pushed ahead a bit because of all of the inauguration events that took place last week.

The general goal of the march is always to advocate for the overturning ofRoe v. Wade,although some years there are more immediate causes to rally for, such as in 2009 when Congress introduced theFreedom of Choice Act, which would declare that every woman has the fundamental right to receive an abortion without restriction. This bill was not ultimately signed into law.

Although no president has ever appeared at the march in person, some previous Republican presidents have supported the event, and President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush spoke remotely.

The late Nellie Gray was the founder of the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion march in Washington D.C., timed for the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

While President Donald Trump himself wont be at the march tomorrow, he has spoken positively about the event in recent days, criticizing the media for covering the Womens March on Washington but not the March for Life.

The crowds were large, but you will have a large crowd on Friday, too, which is mostly pro-life people, Trump said in an interview with ABC News on Thursday. Youre going to have a lot of people coming Friday.And I will say this, and I didnt realize this, but I was told, you will have a very large crowd of people. I dont know as large or larger. Some people said it will be larger. Pro-life people and they say the press doesnt cover them.

Trump again mentioned the march during a speech at a Republican retreat in Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon, saying that the event will be huge and that the press wont cover it.

Its not clear how many people will turn out for the March for Life tomorrow;organizers told The New York Timesthey have no way of gauging how many will be there but that they estimate there will be tens of thousands.

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March for Life 2017: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know - Heavy.com

Retiring Planned Parenthood CEO speaks of triumphs, challenges and Mike Pence – Indianapolis Star

The Indy Star asked Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky's president and CEO, Betty Cockrum, If you had 10 minutes with Vice President Mike Pence, what would you say? Michelle Pemberton/Indy Star

Betty Cockrum (right), leader of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, at a rally for inclusion, Monument Circle, Indianapolis, Friday, January 20, 2017. The rally, involving about 250 people, was called to coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump as the nation's 45th President.(Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar)Buy Photo

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky President and CEO Betty Cockrum has announced that she willretire June 30 after 15 years of leading the organization.

She started with Planned Parenthood in 2001 after working as state budget director and head of the Department of Administration for former Gov. Frank O'Bannon and earlier asBloomington's city controller.

"When I was given the opportunity to come on board here 14 years ago, I was completing nearly three decades of public service, and I was sure that when I stepped into this role, it would be my last real tour of duty," Cockrum said. "Fifteen years is long enough."

Cockrum's path to her role atPlanned Parenthoodstarted on a pig farm in LaGrange Countyas the youngest of eight children of a Methodist family. Two of her four brothers got their high school girlfriends pregnant, and Cockrum said she often would babysit the children.

Now 63, she has led the organization through expansions as well as tumultuous times.She looks forward to more time for movies, wine and cooking with friends. She sat down with IndyStar to answer questions solicited from readers, explaining her challenges, resiliency and lack of success in ever getting a sit-down with Vice President Mike Pence, Indiana's former governor.

Question: If Hillary Clinton had won, would your decision to leave change? (Her retirement date was set early last year.)

Answer: No. It would've been incredibly exciting, and I probably wouldve been in D.C. on the morning of Jan. 21 instead of hiding under my bed inIndiana. There reallyhave been those mornings where I've said, "Get up, get up. You have to get up."

Q: What's a day in the life of Betty Cockrumlike?

A: You could argue that its a full-time job to get up in the morning and have health care facilities open in 19 locations in two states with 170 employees and a $16 million 501(c)3 and a (c)4 and a PAC and aneducational program and an advocacy program thats about public policy and dealing with legislatures and such. Mostly what I do and what the board was very clear about in 2002 was that it was my job to make surethat we had a respected and known profile out there across the state ofIndiana. And I was to be the voice and face.

Q: What is itlike to lead an organization, perhaps more than any other organization, that is constantly under scrutiny?

A:(American Civil Liberties Union's) our competition. I wouldnt recommend it for just anybody and everybody.And certainly with every passing encounter that's unpleasant, you get a little more stoic about it, you grow a little more skin. But when it's all said and done, you come back to truth. And truth is, we do good stuff, and we make a real difference in real people's lives every single day.

Q: Does the continuous controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood ever get to you personally?

A:It does sometimes. There are mornings when its a little tougher to get out of bed than others. Thats certainly been true lately. But the fact of the matter is that once you get through that initial reaction,you get back to why are we here. Were about to celebrate our 85th anniversary. And in tandem with that, were celebrating the 100th anniversary across the country with Margaret Sanger.And when its all said and done, there are hundreds of thousands of women and men across this country and 50-some-thousand here in Indiana and in Kentucky who come to us for their health care who in many cases wouldnt have any otherhealth care provider.

Q: If you had 10 minutes with Vice President Mike Pence, what would you say?

A:Oh, I tried so hard to get an audience with that man. I've got really great Republican friends and have for years you cant get anything in this state thatsmeaningful if you, as a Democrat,you cant cross the aisle and none of them were able to get me an audience with him. And I even sent a personal letter to his home. So that's just something I wasn't able to get done. My answer to your question today isdifferent than it would've been six months ago, and one of the reasons that I said all this time that I wanted time with him was, I cannot understand how anybody in today's world thinks it is possible for abstinence to work.How does he think it is actually possible to suggest to the world that you will limit your sexual activity to when you're married and actually prepared to be a parent?Centuries of reality would tell you differently. And the fact of the matter is, if youtruly wanted to reduce abortion, you do that by reducing unintended pregnancy, and thebarriers dont do it. They introduce risk and danger to women. So that would've been my question to him: "Dude, how can you possibly think that this is real?"

Q: If not Planned Parenthood, what would your next move had been?

A: I always thought at some point in time that I would end up out there in some consulting role, whether it was with a financial firm or a law firm or a government affairs undertaking. Although I'm also someone who has always known that I'm not someone who should spend my time in the halls on a regular basis. If you're a full-time lobbyist, you're over there in the halls. If you're really doing your job the way you need to, you're over there in the halls paying attention to every little nuance that's going on. And I dont do that very well. I don't stand around or sit around very well.

Q: IndyStar reported in 2012 that you were funny.Were weright?Your line of work tends to be very serious.

A: I met with the development team again yesterday, and they talked about when would would I have my own stand-up comedy show. I have no interest in having a stand-up comedy show. I do, however, enjoy clever conversation. It's a really intense job, I am a pretty intense person. Part of the reason a person survives this kind of role is by having a sense of humor and inviting levity in and taking it out to the edge sometimes. But there are those who think thats inappropriate, and I've gotten whacked a time or two.

Q: Whatcan the average person do to support Planned Parenthood outside of donating?

A: I actually think in the bigger scheme of things, the single most important thing that needs to come out of this extraordinary response to what's happening and what's happened in the last couple of months is for people to decide they will run for office. Let them run for school boards, city council and move it on up so that eventuallythe school board member becomes a state legislator, becomes a member of congress. That's a long-time response, but it just seems to me that thats the onlything that will turn this around.

Q: Whats your next move?

A: I'm going to go home and take a long summer's nap.

Call IndyStar reporter Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752. Follow her onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram.

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Retiring Planned Parenthood CEO speaks of triumphs, challenges and Mike Pence - Indianapolis Star

Is Mike Pence Trying To Pull A Fast One On America? – Above the Law

With the word lie already being tossed around mere days into this administration, the White House is working overtime to keep everything transparent and above board in order to win back the trust of the American people.

No, just kidding, they held a press conference to refute the time-honored maxim that a picture of an inauguration is worth 1,000 words.

And this mendaciousness or alternative forthrightness appears to carry over to the customarily benign biographies on the whitehouse.gov website:

For the record, theres nothing untrue in that passage (UPDATE: the bios He later he typo notwithstanding). But legal industry observers probably notice the critical omission that renders the passage laughably misleading. Pence did graduate from Indiana University, but its all about his long-form diploma. Indiana University boasts two different law schools. The Vice-President attended the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, not to be confused with the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington.

On the subject of confusion, why would someone try to gloss over this distinction in their official bio? Well, Indiana University Maurer is currently tied for 25th in the U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings. Indiana University McKinney is tied for 100th (Maurer is 48th in our ATL law school rankings, and McKinney did not make the top 50). This distinction in relative quality hasnt changed much since Pence was drawing cartoons instead of learning about constitutional law.

So one can see why Pence might be eager to let people jump to some conclusions about his education.

Look, dont take our mockery of Pences vanity as a slight on McKinney. If anything, Pence is the one disrespecting McKinney by refusing to publicly admit that he attended Indianas less prestigious law school. Hell, even Dan Quayle is willing to admit he went to McKinney, and oh my God were now looking up at the Quayle as a role model for the office!

UPDATE: A tipster says that Pence didnt go to Hanover in 1981, but rather graduated in 1981, suggesting there may be some sloppy editing all the way around on this bio.

UPDATE: Apparently, other folks have noticed Pences liberal use of Indiana University School of Law. At the Womens March on Washington last weekend, someone captured a picture of this sign:

The final hashtag, #PenceDidNotGo2Maurer, may be the least socially important, but its certainly near and dear to a lot of students hearts.

Earlier: Mike Pence Is As Unfunny As Every Other Law Student

Joe Patriceis an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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Is Mike Pence Trying To Pull A Fast One On America? - Above the Law

‘Call Me by Your Name’ Director Blasts Mike Pence for Anti-Gay Policies – Variety

One of the buzziest films of this years Sundance Film Festival is Call Me By Your Name, a love story set in 1980s Italy between an American visitor (Armie Hammer) and a local teenager (Timothee Chalamet). But although the movie takes place in the past, it feels politically timely, given questions about LGBT rights under a Trump administration.

On Monday afternoon, director Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash) talked to Variety about showing the movie under an administration where the vice president, Mike Pence,hasa record ofopposition to gay rights. He zeroed in on accusationsthat Pence supports conversion therapy, a practice of trying to change someones sexual orientation or gender identity.

The conviction of Mr. Pence, the idea that you can revert the identity of someone, particularly the non-normative identity into a normative identity, it speaks to me of his own identity, Guadagnino said. I am very curious to know if anybody who is very close to Mr. Pence could tell us what really Mr. Pence thinks of himself.

Hammer laughed. Anybody? Anybody, please?

In the 12 years since Brokeback Mountain, theres been considerable progress for gay rights and the representations of homosexual characters in movies and TV, from Carol to Glee. Back in 2006, Jack Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were constantly asked about how brave it was to take on a gay romance. But at the Park City, Utah, premiere of Call Me By Your Name on Sunday night, no such questions emergedat a post-screening Q&A.

Art is a very affecting, and hopefully can be, a change agent, Hammer said, recalling inflammatory reactions to Brokeback Mountain.Sociologically, I would hope weve evolved enough that now we can see past that and see the humanity, the truth, that is present in every moment of desire or affection.

Guadagnino casts his lead actors without even conducting a chemistry test. He shot his lush drama near in Crema, Italy. During the first rehearsal, in a garden outside of the films house, he had Hammer and Chalamet go straight to a pivotal moment in the script, which was adapted from a beloved 2007 novel.

The next thing we know, were lying in the grass and making out, Hammer said, adding: The shooting of the first kiss scene was great. It felt as organic and special as every shot we did on this movie.

Ive never seen a shot like that from above, where Armie and I were splayed out on the grass, Chalamet, 21, said. The scenes that were intense in sexual nature on the page werent treated any differently.

In fact, the hardest scene for Hammer was learning how to shimmy to 80s music. We had a choreographer who taught me, he said. The dancing was probably the thing I found the most difficult.

Call Me By Your Name will be released later this year from Sony Pictures Classics.

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'Call Me by Your Name' Director Blasts Mike Pence for Anti-Gay Policies - Variety