So we’re not discussing Romney?


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30 minutes ago, Vort said:

Trump has opened the door for politicians to speak publicly in vile, vulgar, personally insulting terms.

Okay Vort.  You know this is blatantly false.  You can't just whitewash the kerfuffles in Congress since all the way back when the founders where still running things.  And it didn't end in just insulting terms... Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury was shot in a duel by the Vice President, for crying out loud!  And Joseph Smith, Jr. prophet of the LDS Church was assassinated while running for President of the USA.  And it didn't end there only to be restarted by Trump.  It hasn't stopped since.  Just because modern people couch their vile words in flowery, politically correct words does not make it any less vile.  

"“That Washington was not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station was equally past dispute.” - John Adams

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45 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

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

 

[2]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.

 

[3]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.

1.  Very helpful, thanks.

2.  Agreed.  If Romney had simply said “I don’t care three straws about what happened with the Ukraine; Trump is a doodie-head and needs to go”—fine.  (I don’t agree with that for procedural reasons, but I won’t argue it’s an unconstitutional rationale.). But having said “no, I’m going to limit my inquiry to the conduct described in the articles”, he needs to justify his decision based on the degree to which the articles were or weren’t proven to be factually sound—and that, I think, is where Romney stumbled.  

I’m not sure I see the relevance of the specific Federalist no. 65 quotation that you offer; it seems to basically say “maybe the constitutional process for impeachment isn’t perfect, but we shouldn’t let that quibble stop us from ratifying the constitution anyways”.  So I’ll invite you to spell that out for me before I go further with that.  :) 

3.  I think Romney’s own remarks support that.  I don’t recall whether it was his floor speech or the Wallace interview where he alleged that he hoped Bolton might say something that would exonerate Trump.  That suggests to me that Romney was going into this with a “guilty until proven innocent” mindset.

To the extent that Huckabee suggests in the interview you link, that Romney had previously said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict:  it sounds like Huckabee was just plain lying.

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2 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’m not sure I see the relevance of the specific Federalist no. 65 quotation that you offer; it seems to basically say “maybe the constitutional process for impeachment isn’t perfect, but we shouldn’t let that quibble stop us from ratifying the constitution anyways”.  So I’ll invite you to spell that out for me before I go further with that.  :) 

I added that in because Romney referenced Fed 65 as his reasoning.  He didn't quote a specific line or paragraph or anything but simply to say that he read it over and over and over to come to his decision.  So I quoted that paragraph to lead to what I said after - that that paragraph is probably why he voted to convict, it didn't really matter the evidence because the process is imperfect so he can say Trump is a sleazeball so he believes Schiff and it would fit that paragraph of Fed 65... 

 

2 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

To the extent that Huckabee suggests in the interview you link, that Romney had previously said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict:  it sounds like Huckabee was just plain lying.

I can't remember which Senator - it may have been Cruz - that said one one of the TV interviews I saw that Romney said what Huckabee said he said during the GOP committee meeting prior to the witness vote... which is probably where Huckabee got his information.  I can't find that TV interview else I would have linked it.

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40 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Okay Vort.  You know this is blatantly false.  You can't just whitewash the kerfuffles in Congress since all the way back when the founders where still running things.  And it didn't end in just insulting terms... Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury was shot in a duel by the Vice President, for crying out loud!  And Joseph Smith, Jr. prophet of the LDS Church was assassinated while running for President of the USA.  And it didn't end there only to be restarted by Trump.  It hasn't stopped since.  Just because modern people couch their vile words in flowery, politically correct words does not make it any less vile.  

"“That Washington was not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station was equally past dispute.” - John Adams

I would push back here just a bit.

First, the Adams quote you cite was a private letter to Benjamin Rush over a decade after Washington’s death; and Adams goes on to point out how Washington nonetheless improved himself through his social interactions, observational skills, and sheer thoughtfulness.  Adams then notes how a number of people who uttered paens to Washington and touted their own friendship with him after his death, were actually anything but loyal to him in life.

Second:  while the virulence of US political discourse has certainly ebbed and flowed over time, we are certainly in a “flood state” now as opposed to ten or twenty years ago.  No, that’s not all Trump’s fault. I think I’ve previously used the analogy of Johnny, sitting in the schoolroom behind Suzy, tugging her hair and tying it in knots; and Suzy puts up with it and puts up with it and puts up with it until suddenly one day she turns around and socks Johnny in the jaw.  *IF* that tactic gets Johnny to leave her alone, then Suzy’s going to look pretty smart.  But if Johnny responds by full-body-tackling her—well, let’s hope Suzy’s good at wrestling; because she just threw away any protection that the teacher’s rules might have been offering her.

In this case, Suzy GOP has about forty years’ experience showing just what a terrible wrestler she is.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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16 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I would push back here just a bit.

First, the Adams quote you cite was a private letter to Benjamin Rush over a decade after Washington’s death; and Adams goes on to point out how Washington nonetheless improved himself through his social interactions, observational skills, and sheer thoughtfulness.  Adams then notes how a number of people who uttered paens to Washington and touted their own friendship with him after his death, were actually anything but loyal to him in life.

Now you understand exactly how Trump gets to be painted as "vile".

 

16 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Second:  while the virulence of US political discourse has certainly ebbed and flowed over time, we are certainly in a “flood state” now as opposed to ten or twenty years ago.  No, that’s not all Trump’s fault. I think I’ve previously used the analogy of Johnny, sitting in the schoolroom behind Suzy, tugging her hair and tying it in knots; and Suzy puts up with it and puts up with it and puts up with it until suddenly one day she turns around and socks Johnny in the jaw.  *IF* that tactic gets Johnny to leave her alone, then Suzy’s going to look pretty smart.  But if Johnny responds by full-body-tackling her—well, let’s hope Suzy’s good at wrestling; because she just threw away any protection that the teacher’s rules might have been offering her.

In this case, Suzy GOP has about forty years’ experience showing just what a terrible wrestler she is.  

 

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31 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I would push back here just a bit.

First, the Adams quote you cite was a private letter to Benjamin Rush over a decade after Washington’s death; and Adams goes on to point out how Washington nonetheless improved himself through his social interactions, observational skills, and sheer thoughtfulness.  Adams then notes how a number of people who uttered paens to Washington and touted their own friendship with him after his death, were actually anything but loyal to him in life.

Second:  while the virulence of US political discourse has certainly ebbed and flowed over time, we are certainly in a “flood state” now as opposed to ten or twenty years ago.  No, that’s not all Trump’s fault. I think I’ve previously used the analogy of Johnny, sitting in the schoolroom behind Suzy, tugging her hair and tying it in knots; and Suzy puts up with it and puts up with it and puts up with it until suddenly one day she turns around and socks Johnny in the jaw.  *IF* that tactic gets Johnny to leave her alone, then Suzy’s going to look pretty smart.  But if Johnny responds by full-body-tackling her—well, let’s hope Suzy’s good at wrestling; because she just threw away any protection that the teacher’s rules might have been offering her.

In this case, Suzy GOP has about forty years’ experience showing just what a terrible wrestler she is.  

What you fail to mention is that it'll hurt both Suzy and Johnny in the long run. It's a mathematical certainty that behaving like that costs you more than the people you hurt/bully. 

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20 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

[1]Now you understand exactly how Trump gets to be painted as "vile".

[2]

 

1.  I’ve known that since 2016.  Raping his wife (and sending his attorney to the newspapers to defend the legality of said rape), defaulting on creditors, telling bold-faced lies about himself and others, and making innuendoes about his own and competitor’s genitalia, didn’t help any. ;) 

But, no; the true backstory of the Adams-Rush exchange doesn’t really give me any insight into Trump’s public persona.  It simply contradicts an attempt to justify Trump by needlessly smearing Adams.

2.  It isn’t only the GOP that’s learning from and adopting Trump’s escalated form of political warfare—witness Pelosi’s tearing up the SoU, which played very well to her base.

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58 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Okay Vort.  You know this is blatantly false.  You can't just whitewash the kerfuffles in Congress since all the way back when the founders where still running things.  And it didn't end in just insulting terms... Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury was shot in a duel by the Vice President, for crying out loud!  And Joseph Smith, Jr. prophet of the LDS Church was assassinated while running for President of the USA.  And it didn't end there only to be restarted by Trump.  It hasn't stopped since.  Just because modern people couch their vile words in flowery, politically correct words does not make it any less vile.  

"“That Washington was not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station was equally past dispute.” - John Adams

During my lifetime, I have seen plenty of bad behavior by politicians. I'm perfectly well aware that, in world terms and even in historical US terms, these bad actions pale in comparison.

But that is not my point. My  point is only and exactly that I have never seen a US President in my lifetime—I have never seen any national-level politician—behave in the way Trump has. He has reset the bar for acceptable behavior, and he has reset it in a very bad way. Is it the Worst Behavior EVAR? No, of course not. But the coarseness and vulgarity of the US President will most certainly be emulated from here on out.

You can say it's not as bad as Obama's duplicity or whatever, and maybe you're right. You can say that the media is largely at fault, and I will not disagree. Again, all of that is beside the point. Pelosi's embarrassing spectacle is directly related to Trump's actions, and is a sign of the "new reality". It's a tide change, just as surely as the homosexual agenda is a tide change, and it will not be held back. And we are all worse off for it.

So while you're hero-talking Trump—something you're welcome to do, and with which I won't find (much) fault—please also acknowledge that, in addition to some strong Supreme Court and Appellate Court appointments and hitting the gas on the economy, Trump has done some lasting damage in other areas, such as the national debt and what sort of behavior and speech is considered acceptable from a US President in national discourse. I'm actually overall bullish on Trump, and will likely vote for him in November, but let's not kid ourselves.

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6 minutes ago, Vort said:

But that is not my point. My  point is only and exactly that I have never seen a US President in my lifetime—I have never seen any national-level politician—behave in the way Trump has. He has reset the bar for acceptable behavior, and he has reset it in a very bad way. Is it the Worst Behavior EVAR? No, of course not. But the coarseness and vulgarity of the US President will most certainly be emulated from here on out.

It’s fundamentally machismo culture.  And of course, there are so many stellar examples of democratic republics in nations where machismo culture predominates . . .

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Just now, Just_A_Guy said:

It’s fundamentally machismo culture.  And of course, there are so many stellar examples of democratic republics in nations where machismo culture predominates . . .

That's an insult to men @Just_A_Guy. A real man would not act like Donald Trump. 

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1 hour 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.

I could happen I guess, but it seems highly unlikely unless that president did something really, really bad.  Removing the president from office requires a 2/3 supermajority.

I think that what you say is likely if there was a Democratic president with a Republican 2/3 supermajority, but I don't see this happening anytime soon.  It seems that a lot of Democrats would also have to vote for the removal for that to happen.  

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24 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Raping his wife (and sending his attorney to the newspapers to defend the legality of said rape), defaulting on creditors, telling bold-faced lies about himself and others, and making innuendoes about his own and competitor’s genitalia, didn’t help any.

Iirc, according to his wife, he didn't rape her.

25 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

It isn’t only the GOP that’s learning from and adopting Trump’s escalated form of political warfare—witness Pelosi’s tearing up the SoU, which played very well to her base.

This is why you don't want that genie out of the bottle.

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29 minutes ago, Vort said:

Iirc, according to his wife, he didn't rape her.

When threatened by Trump’s lawyers she produced a statement saying that she didn’t mean “rape” in the legal sense of the word.  She did not walk back the substance of her account which, as relayed in her deposition and in Hurt’s book, is what it is—it was nonconsensual, violent, and calculated to cause physical and emotional pain as a retaliation for Ivana’s having recommended to Trump a plastic surgeon whose scalp-reduction work Trump ultimately found excessively painful.  The whole tale is pretty gross and I won’t go into detail here, but The Daily Beast covered it pretty well back in 2016–including some delightful responses by an obscure Trump apparatchik named Michael Cohen.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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14 hours ago, Vort said:

During my lifetime, I have seen plenty of bad behavior by politicians. I'm perfectly well aware that, in world terms and even in historical US terms, these bad actions pale in comparison.

But that is not my point. My  point is only and exactly that I have never seen a US President in my lifetime—I have never seen any national-level politician—behave in the way Trump has. He has reset the bar for acceptable behavior, and he has reset it in a very bad way. Is it the Worst Behavior EVAR? No, of course not. But the coarseness and vulgarity of the US President will most certainly be emulated from here on out.

You can say it's not as bad as Obama's duplicity or whatever, and maybe you're right. You can say that the media is largely at fault, and I will not disagree. Again, all of that is beside the point. Pelosi's embarrassing spectacle is directly related to Trump's actions, and is a sign of the "new reality". It's a tide change, just as surely as the homosexual agenda is a tide change, and it will not be held back. And we are all worse off for it.

So while you're hero-talking Trump—something you're welcome to do, and with which I won't find (much) fault—please also acknowledge that, in addition to some strong Supreme Court and Appellate Court appointments and hitting the gas on the economy, Trump has done some lasting damage in other areas, such as the national debt and what sort of behavior and speech is considered acceptable from a US President in national discourse. I'm actually overall bullish on Trump, and will likely vote for him in November, but let's not kid ourselves.

Hero-talking Trump or defending Trump from unfair accusations... I've had to do that for the past 3 years even from the likes of Romney - Mocking disabled reporters, defending white supremacists in Charlottesville, even pouring fishfood into a koi pond for crying out loud.  Trump's "vile" image is not all Trump - it's manufactured propaganda.

But then maybe it's because I grew up in Philippine politics.  But I'd rather have a President say what he thinks without being politically massaged into what counts for "Presidential" to win an election than a President who says all the "statesman" words that he doesn't mean.  It's a running joke in my political family to mimic a politician saying in full statesman voice, "I will build a bridge!  And if there's no river to put the bridge over, I'll build a river too!" Applause, applause... he is sooo "presidential".

Of course, we'd rather have a President that uses statesman language to say what he thinks but you don't have that.  You have a construction worker from New York.  But to say that "this changes the landscape of politics from now on" is silly.  Social Media changed the landscape of politics in the Age of Trump, not Trump himself.  You don't just get politics from the "politically massaged propaganda".  Now you get politics straight from the mouth of politicians and ordinary people without the benefit of cover by journalists - complete with all the stupidity that goes with it.  The ugliness of the Kavanaugh trial was not more vile than Thomas' because of Trump.  The ugliness of the Kavanaugh trial was more vile because of the pressure from people armed with Social Media.  You can't really put all of that on the feet of Trump just because he talks on National TV the same way he talks in a construction site. All that stuff has been going on for ages.  Trump did not cause for that cover of "decorum" to be unmasked any more than the invention of Twitter did.

 

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