So we’re not discussing Romney?


carlimac
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5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

It's fascinating to me (and a little depressing) that Mitt Romney gets more hate from LDS, even though he agrees with us 75% of the time politically, than Harry Reid. Who agrees with us 0% of the time. 

Not the least bit fascinating to me.  

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21 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Not the least bit fascinating to me.  

I think it's safe to say we have different outlooks.  

I find it odd, that's for sure. I'm from the Ed Koch school of thought. If you agree with me on nine out of ten issues, we're on the same side. If you agree with me on 10 out of 10 issues, see a psychiatrist. For me, it's more like 7 out of 10 issues though. Then we're on basically the same side. 

 

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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

It's fascinating to me (and a little depressing) that Mitt Romney gets more hate from LDS, even though he agrees with us 75% of the time politically, than Harry Reid. Who agrees with us 0% of the time. 

Harry Reid got plenty of pushback! ( I don't like that word "hate" because that isn't what it is really.)  He's just been out of the picture long enough that we've forgotten. I think we have held higher expectations for Mitt because he acts and talks like an LDS Repubican...till he doesn't. Then it feels more like a betrayal. 

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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

It's fascinating to me (and a little depressing) that Mitt Romney gets more hate from LDS, even though he agrees with us 75% of the time politically, than Harry Reid. Who agrees with us 0% of the time. 


Everyone knew that Harry Reid would choose a particular side on most issues. We already know that a venomous serpent will bite and therefore we don’t put any confidence in it not biting. 
 

Mitt Romney makes a pretense of being on a team and then sides with the other. Justified or not, this comes across as disloyalty at a time when the nation is deeply divided on foundational principles. 
 

Wanna know who is hated worse than the enemy? A traitor. 
 

The Democrats made their impeachment decisions in order to uphold their ideology. I disagree with their ideology and believe them a dangerous enemy to liberty. 

 

But I believe Romney made his decision to serve himself and his own political interests. He might state differently, but I simply don’t believe or trust him. I bear no ill will towards him, but he needs to be voted out if he is going to place his own political interests above that of the nation; especially during times when a small number of votes can sway the outcomes. 

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2 hours ago, carlimac said:

I don't like that word "hate" because that isn't what it is really

No, it's hate. We hate elected people who disagree with us even though we don't want to admit it. 

 

2 hours ago, carlimac said:

Then it feels more like a betrayal.

Probably why Mitt  gets the reaction he does. And that, my friend, is what is wrong with politics today. Unless someone vomits out exactly what our side does, they must be stupid. Or a traitor. Or  part of some big conspiracy. Or selling out. 

Sad. 

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The real problem with Romney is most Utah voters failed to study his political track record, or ignored it if they did.  Romney is not a Republican, no matter what the letter (R) after his name says.  He is a liberal.  Utah voters elected a liberal.  Utah is reaping what it sowed in electing a liberal.  

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This is actually somewhat validating to read because I've always thought the hard right and hard left come to the same conclusions, they just get there by different ways. People on the hard left hate Diane Feinstein and Joe Manchin because they aren't left wing enough. They say the same things about I'm seeing here about Romney. Once again, the hard right and hard left are basically the same type of person, and it's all based on a certain type of hate/disgust, etc. 

It's incredibly fascinating to me.    

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1 hour ago, mirkwood said:

The real problem with Romney is most Utah voters failed to study his political track record, or ignored it if they did.  Romney is not a Republican, no matter what the letter (R) after his name says.  He is a liberal.  Utah voters elected a liberal.  Utah is reaping what it sowed in electing a liberal.  

If he was genuine, then, at great risk to himself he did well... Is he a crooked politician? I don't know. Was he playing good cop bad cop in left right politics...perhaps..and in that case I would not be too thrilled.. but on the off chance he was sincere... I am proud on him.

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Romney votes with Trump slightly more consistently than Lee does—78.8% versus 75%.  (Source).  Of course, this is probably because Lee is more doctrinaire conservative than either Romney or the President; but when we’re talking about “loyalty” to the White House agenda, that bears acknowledging. 

Romney also has a higher approval rating in Utah than Lee does—forty six versus forty three percent as of last October (source).  Trump’s approval rating in Utah was 52% last month (source).  

It’s easy to assume “Romney belongs to Utah belongs to the GOP, and the GOP belongs to Trump, ergo Romney has a responsibility to his constituents to do Trump’s bidding.”  But the political reality is, frankly, weirder.  Utah itself is not universally pro-Trump; and it’s even less universally hard-core conservative.  The simple fact is that, for better or worse, Romney was elected in both a statewide general election (by 62%) and a party primary (by 72%) by people who knew he’d likely be a thorn in Trump’s side, and—in the primary—against an opponent who was both more dogmatically conservative and friendlier to Trump.  

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5 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Romney votes with Trump slightly more consistently than Lee does—78.8% versus 75%.  (Source).  Of course, this is probably because Lee is more doctrinaire conservative than either Romney or the President; but when we’re talking about “loyalty” to the White House agenda, that bears acknowledging. 

Romney also has a higher approval rating in Utah than Lee does—forty six versus forty three percent as of last October (source).  Trump’s approval rating in Utah was 52% last month (source).  

It’s easy to assume “Romney belongs to Utah belongs to the GOP, and the GOP belongs to Trump, ergo Romney has a responsibility to his constituents to do Trump’s bidding.”  But the political reality is, frankly, weirder.  Utah itself is not universally pro-Trump; and it’s even less universally hard-core conservative.  The simple fact is that, for better or worse, Romney was elected in both a statewide general election (by 62%) and a party primary (by 72%) by people who knew he’d likely be a thorn in Trump’s side, and—in the primary—against an opponent who was both more dogmatically conservative and friendlier to Trump.  

Hes's also got a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee, a 100% rating from Americans for Prosperity, 94% from the Heritage Foundation, and a 0% from the ACLU.  https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/21942/mitt-romney

Liberal indeed. 

 @Godless, you can thank us later. We've found you a true blue liberal in the senate. Mitt Romney. 

Edited by MormonGator
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11 hours ago, MormonGator said:

This is actually somewhat validating to read because I've always thought the hard right and hard left come to the same conclusions, they just get there by different ways. People on the hard left hate Diane Feinstein and Joe Manchin because they aren't left wing enough. They say the same things about I'm seeing here about Romney. Once again, the hard right and hard left are basically the same type of person, and it's all based on a certain type of hate/disgust, etc. 

It's incredibly fascinating to me.    

That's true about Diane Feinstein (and believe it or not, about Nancy Pelosi.  She's pretty conservative in the field of candidates she runs against...believe it or not...and that's been a pretty big complaint about her at times.  She's even been seen as holding up an impeachment against Trump on multiple occasions over the past few years prior this more recent impeachment event.  I actually saw that as a good reason in her books as there was no point...though this most recent event regarding impeachment calls into question my earlier assessments of her wisdom on the matter...then again...maybe she acquiesced due to political necessity, there's only so many times she can hold it up before constituents start trying to vote her out or recall her I suppose).

On the otherhand, I'm not so sure I"ve ever been impressed by Romney.  I'm not most here, but I did like some of the things Reid did.

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2 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

That's true about Diane Feinstein (and believe it or not, about Nancy Pelosi.  She's pretty conservative in the field of candidates she runs against...believe it or not...and that's been a pretty big complaint about her at times.  She's even been seen as holding up an impeachment against Trump on multiple occasions over the past few years prior this more recent impeachment event.  I actually saw that as a good reason in her books as there was no point...though this most recent event regarding impeachment calls into question my earlier assessments of her wisdom on the matter...then again...maybe she acquiesced due to political necessity, there's only so many times she can hold it up before constituents start trying to vote her out or recall her I suppose).

On the otherhand, I'm not so sure I"ve ever been impressed by Romney.  I'm not most here, but I did like some of the things Reid did.

Yup. The more extreme you get the more intolerant you become with any kind of free thinking or dissent. It happens on the right and left because, like I said, there really is no difference in the type of person on the extremes. 

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22 hours ago, MormonGator said:

It's fascinating to me (and a little depressing) that Mitt Romney gets more hate from LDS, even though he agrees with us 75% of the time politically, than Harry Reid. Who agrees with us 0% of the time. 

That, of course, is Fake News.

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On 2/7/2020 at 4:33 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

Let’s be careful of how nonbelievers try to pervert our faith (and our brethren’s statements about their own faith) for their own political ends.  Romney described himself as generally religious and went on to talk about the oath he swore to God led him to be very careful with his analysis; and went out of his way to assert that everyone in the Senate was acting in good faith and following the dictates of their consciences.  There was nothing uniquely Mormon about that; Short’s just engaging in the old game of trying to alienate a feared political adversary from his or her perceived base, and in this case the perceived “base” is Mormons.

Yes, there's nothing uniquely Mormon about that but Romney emphasized his Mormon faith in that speech.

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@Just_A_Guy, what's your take on what Alan Dershowitz's (Romney's law professor) statements here about Romney's criticism of Dershowitz's legal analysis?  I'm not a lawyer nor a law student and I could have answered Romney's question without consulting Dershowitz...

The entire interview is worth listening to, but I went ahead and marked it at the part about Romney's question so you won't have to listen to the whole thing:

 

Edited by anatess2
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1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

Yes, there's nothing uniquely Mormon about that but Romney emphasized his Mormon faith in that speech.

Did he?  Where?

1 hour ago, anatess2 said:

@Just_A_Guy, what's your take on what Alan Dershowitz's (Romney's law professor) statements here about Romney's criticism of Dershowitz's legal analysis?  I'm not a lawyer nor a law student and I could have answered Romney's question without consulting Dershowitz...

The entire interview is worth listening to, but I went ahead and marked it at the part about Romney's question so you won't have to listen to the whole thing:

 

Thanks for trimming it.  :)  

From a textualist constitutional standpoint, the question is whether “misdemeanors” is confined *only* to illegal behavior, or whether “misdemeanors” was a catch-all term to describe bad conduct generally and abuses of the public trust in particular.  From a VERY quick-and-dirty skim-through of Federalists 64, 65, and 79; I am inclined to think that the framers (at least, Hamilton) saw it in the latter light.  In fact, Hamilton seems to have acknowledged that the impeachment process couldn’t help but be political; and that was one of the bases on which he advocated the Senate as the best venue for such proceedings.

If “impeachment” could/should be distilled down to the simple question of whether or not a crime had been committed, then it strikes me that it would make more sense to dispense with senatorial impeachment entirely and relegate the matter to the courts, expressly giving the courts permission to remove a president who had been convicted of particular crimes.   But that’s not what the framers did.

From a practical standpoint, if the Senate votes to remove a president/judge/officer from office there is no legal authority that can overrule it or determine whether it acted “constitutionally”.  So it strikes me that the reality, for better or for worse, is that “impeachable” fundamentally means whatever two-thirds of the Senate says it means—no more, no less.

One question for you, if I may:  Huckabee alludes to a statement of Romney’s wherein Romney allegedly said at some point earlier in the process that there wasn’t enough evidence for him to vote to convict Trump.  I’ve seen that statement trotted out a few times lately, but always unsourced.  Can you point me to a citation for that? 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

One question for you, if I may:  Huckabee alludes to a statement of Romney’s wherein Romney allegedly said at some point earlier in the process that there wasn’t enough evidence for him to vote to convict Trump.  I’ve seen that statement trotted out a few times lately, but always unsourced.  Can you point me to a citation for that? 

Maybe this?

 

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/05/19/mitt-romney-lies-there-isnt-enough-evidence-to-impeach-trump.html

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11 minutes ago, mirkwood said:

Maybe, but that was written in May 2019 in response to the Mueller report; before the Ukraine phone call ever happened.  😕

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3 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Did he?  Where?

The interview he gave with The Atlantic.  He also quoted an LDS hymn in his Wallace interview.

 

Quote

Thanks for trimming it.  :)  

From a textualist constitutional standpoint, the question is whether “misdemeanors” is confined *only* to illegal behavior, or whether “misdemeanors” was a catch-all term to describe bad conduct generally and abuses of the public trust in particular.  From a VERY quick-and-dirty skim-through of Federalists 64, 65, and 79; I am inclined to think that the framers (at least, Hamilton) saw it in the latter light.  In fact, Hamilton seems to have acknowledged that the impeachment process couldn’t help but be political; and that was one of the bases on which he advocated the Senate as the best venue for such proceedings.

If “impeachment” could/should be distilled down to the simple question of whether or not a crime had been committed, then it strikes me that it would make more sense to dispense with senatorial impeachment entirely and relegate the matter to the courts, expressly giving the courts permission to remove a president who had been convicted of particular crimes.   But that’s not what the framers did.

From a practical standpoint, if the Senate votes to remove a president/judge/officer from office there is no legal authority that can overrule it or determine whether it acted “constitutionally”.  So it strikes me that the reality, for better or for worse, is that “impeachable” fundamentally means whatever two-thirds of the Senate says it means—no more, no less.

Romney referenced Federalist 65 in his decision-making.

"But though one or the other of the substitutes which have been examined, or some other that might be devised, should be thought preferable to the plan in this respect, reported by the convention, it will not follow that the Constitution ought for this reason to be rejected. If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. Where is the standard of perfection to be found? Who will undertake to unite the discordant opinions of a whole community, in the same judgment of it; and to prevail upon one conceited projector to renounce his INFALLIBLE criterion for the FALLIBLE criterion of his more CONCEITED NEIGHBOR? To answer the purpose of the adversaries of the Constitution, they ought to prove, not merely that particular provisions in it are not the best which might have been imagined, but that the plan upon the whole is bad and pernicious."

Interestingly, Bill Clinton was impeached for a criminal offense by which he was acquitted for in the Senate and to which he bargained his law license in Arkansas to avoid criminal charges in court.  So yes, unfortunately, that's exactly what impeachment and its subsequent removal from office means - whoever has the political power to wield it.  In which case, Romney's argumentations means zero.  He could've just said I'm voting to convict because Trump is a sleazeball so I can believe he cheated the elections by investigating Biden ... and it would be the same thing.

 

Quote

One question for you, if I may:  Huckabee alludes to a statement of Romney’s wherein Romney allegedly said at some point earlier in the process that there wasn’t enough evidence for him to vote to convict Trump.  I’ve seen that statement trotted out a few times lately, but always unsourced.  Can you point me to a citation for that? 

This is what I reference when I made my analysis that Romney pre-judged the case - this is from an interview Romney gave to Deseret News which is the only direct quote we have (that I know of) of Romney's thought process for the calling of witnesses. 

"“For instance, at the time the president made the decision to withhold aid to Ukraine, what did he say was his reason? We haven’t heard that and I’d like to know that,” Romney said. “I’d like to know if there was ever an effort on the part of the president to tell Ukraine that aid was being held up and what reason? Those things we don’t know.”

So, for him to convict when he doesn't have enough information, the only conclusion I have is that he pre-judged the case.

 

 

 

Edited by anatess2
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I predict (and not at all happily) that the next time there's a Democrat president and a Republican congress, the president will be impeached and removed from office. The Democrats have opened the door to this action, just as surely as Trump has opened the door for politicians to speak publicly in vile, vulgar, personally insulting terms. And if I am right, that will herald the end of our republic.

I am a prophet of doom. Let's hope that, in this, I'm a false prophet.

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3 minutes ago, Vort said:

I predict (and not at all happily) that the next time there's a Democrat president and a Republican congress, the president will be impeached and removed from office. The Democrats have opened the door to this action, just as surely as Trump has opened the door for politicians to speak publicly in vile, vulgar, personally insulting terms. And if I am right, that will herald the end of our republic.

I am a prophet of doom. Let's hope that, in this, I'm a false prophet.

I agree with you totally (Seriously, how often does that happen?) so, let's hope we are both less than accurate in our predictions. 

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