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NYT: "Mormons to the Rescue?"


bdouglas

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Are you all subscribers or just don't view it that much?  It is blocking me.

Any chance you can put up the pithy stuff?  Not all or even most as that would violate copyright imo.

Edited by Calm
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From NYT:

In order to understand the Republican Party today, you have to understand religion. Donald Trump may be the most unreligious president ever — an undisciplined force of corrosive evil. And yet he tweets comparisons to himself as the Messiah and bullies his way around the world with the blind support of white evangelical Christians.

But the one religious faith that is the most heavily Republican is also somewhat disgusted with Trump. Barely half the members of the American-grown Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints approve of his presidency.

And therein lies the best chance, though it’s very much a long shot, to remove Trump from office. Wait! Mormons — forged from a polygamous theocracy in the Rocky Mountain West, tainted by decades of institutional racism and still very much opposed to marriage equality — to the rescue of the Republic? Maybe.

We know that the rule of law, the Constitution’s granting of “the sole power of impeachment” to the House, is toilet paper to many congressional Republicans. When Trump said Article II of our governing blueprint “allows me to do whatever I want,” and almost no members of his party begged to differ, you could see what was ahead. Banana Republicans rule.

Expelling Trump will be decided by appeals to our better angels. At this moment, those angels with the most influence are Mormons with an R on their jerseys. Mormons believe the Constitution, which doesn’t mention God except in the document’s date, to be divinely inspired.

And yes, that means our nation turns its lonely eyes to Mitt Romney, the Utah senator, former Republican presidential nominee and most prominent face of his faith on the planet. In order to understand Romney you have to understand his Mormon beliefs.

With their missionary experience, and a fast-growing Latino membership, Mormons are appalled at Trump’s anti-immigrant cruelties. On family values, many of them actually walk the talk — which explains why just 14 percent of Utah voters viewed Trump as a good role model.

I would say “We are all Mitt Romney now” after he was scorched by Trump for lashing out at the president’s gangster foreign policy. Except that Romney himself famously said that 47 percent of Americans are moochers who would never vote for him for president. Irony alert: Romney ended up with 47 percent of the popular vote.

And it was another Mormon senator, the unfortunately named Jeff Flake of Arizona, who led an earlier charge against Trump. This week, Flake, who has since left the Senate, tweeted, “Fellow Republicans, where is the line?”

That will be the central question before the Senate. It would take 20 Republicans, along with everyone in the Democratic caucus, for the Senate to reach the two-thirds majority required to remove Trump. The winless New York Jets have a better shot at the Super Bowl.

The political calculation will guide some, but not all. There are already breaches in the Fox News firewall, and a stunning 28 percent of Republican voters in one recent poll favor the impeachment inquiry.

Playing to the larger moral issues is where the Mormon charge will be crucial. Another Mormon senator, Mike Crapo of Idaho, has kept an open mind thus far. An independent presidential candidate from 2016, Evan McMullin, has been a principled Mormon critic of Trump’s lawlessness.

“Remember that Trump will tear down anyone who rightfully challenges him,” McMullin said this week. “Unable to lead with honor, all he has left is to make everyone seem as rotten as he is.”

The rot among the collaterally rotten is already deep. White evangelicals — having looked the other way while the Stable Genius, showing his “great and unmatched wisdom,” put kids in cages, praised neo-Nazis, sucked up to murderous dictators and betrayed our beleaguered allies the Kurds — are gone, lost to the dark side.

Most despicable of all, the Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress has suggested that impeaching Trump could cause a “Civil War-like fracture” in the country. Jeffress has also said terrible things about Jews, Mormons and Catholics — the kind of hate talk that has not kept him from being one of Trump’s closest evangelical advisers.

You have to believe that most Republicans in Congress know Trump has violated his oath of office. But most of them are also cowards. That goes for some Mormon Republicans, such as Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a former Trump critic, now an enabler. For them, the old line from J.R. Ewing is apt: “Once you give up your integrity, the rest is a piece of cake.”

Romney has never caved, though he nearly joined the Trump administration as secretary of state. In 2016, he called Trump “a fraud” whose promises “are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.”

With Trump’s Ukraine betrayals, Romney has signaled that he will be a ballast of conscience for Republicans in the Senate. His seat is safe till 2024. He has nothing to lose. At long last, he has a chance to make history — for his faith, and his country.
 

 

Edited by bdouglas
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15 minutes ago, Calm said:

Are you all subscribers or just don't view it that much?  It is blocking me.

Any chance you can put up the pithy stuff?  Not all or even most as that would violate copyright imo.

The NY Times site let me read it.  It's also on the SL Trib site as well I believe.

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The NYT has been caught too many times with fabrications and falsehoods.  It is merely pandering to the John McCain/Jeff Flake/Harry Reid/Mitt Romney globalist "uniparty".  From the article:

"With Trump’s Ukraine betrayals, Romney has signaled that he will be a ballast of conscience for Republicans in the Senate. His seat is safe till 2024. He has nothing to lose. At long last, he has a chance to make history — for his faith, and his country."

How can anyone not pay attention to the threats made by Joe "quid pro quo" Biden as Vice President for Ukraine to STOP their investigation of the improprieties done by Burisma gas company and its payoffs to Hunter Biden (yes, Joe's son) who has no conceivable qualifications for the industry?  President Trump was NOT stopping ANY investigation but asking for Ukraine to resume and complete their original inquest.  There are serious questions about Biden's (both Joe and son Hunter) cronyism with Red China.

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4 minutes ago, longview said:

President Trump was NOT stopping ANY investigation but asking for Ukraine to resume and complete their original inquest.

An investigation into someone who, entirely coincidentally, may be running against Trump in 2020.  How many investigations in other countries of people not potentially running against him has Trump asked foreign governments to continue?

If Trump receives the GOP nomination I'm going to vote Democrat for the first time in my life.

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29 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

An investigation into someone who, entirely coincidentally, may be running against Trump in 2020.

It is not the only corruption investigation.  The uranium deal done by Obama and Hillary Clinton and others should be looked into.  There is quite a list of concerns including deals with China by previous administrations.

https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/press-conference/617936-amp.html
KYIV. Oct 9 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Group, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada member Andriy Derkach said citing investigation materials. Derkach publicized documents which, as he said, "describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr." at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine's press center in Kyiv on Wednesday. "This was the transfer of Burisma Group's funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services," Derkach said. He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S. vice president. "According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to [former Polish President, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014] Aleksander Kwasniewski, [chairman of the Burisma board of independent directors] Alan Apter, [Burisma independent director] Devon Archer and Hunter Biden [who joined the Burisma board of directors in 2014]," Derkach said. 

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4 hours ago, longview said:

It is not the only corruption investigation.  The uranium deal done by Obama and Hillary Clinton and others should be looked into.  There is quite a list of concerns including deals with China by previous administrations.

.......................

Corruption in Russia, the Ukraine, and other former Soviet republics is all too common, and the oligarchs run everything.  So why would any of us believe uncorroborated claims by Derkach or any other Ukrainian?  We depend upon good intel sources from our own Foreign Service and our intel agencies, not on goofballs (two of whom were just arrested by the FBI trying to leave the USA).  Throwing wild accusations around just to deflect will accomplish nothing.  We need sound judicial process based on real documentation.  Important people are already convicted and in Federal Prison, and more are on their way.  They all thought that the law did not apply to them.

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2 hours ago, longview said:

so there are actually DEEP STATE operatives working to undermine the elected president?  Peter Strzok and John Brennan just the tip of the iceberg? 

The president undermines himself constantly, and is undermining the American balance of powers as well. Prepare yourself for his impeachment and criminal conviction because both are very likely to be appropriate and necessary.

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6 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

The president undermines himself constantly, and is undermining the American balance of powers as well. Prepare yourself for his impeachment and criminal conviction because both are very likely to be appropriate and necessary.

Actually it is the extremist "base" that is demanding the impeachment process.  Do you know why Pelosi is forestalling the full vote on whether to start formal impeachment inquiry?  Because there has been only "nothing burgers" for the last 3 years on the contrived Russian collusion/obstruction.  More "nothing burgers" on the Ukrainian pressure.  But no willingness to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter on their cronyism with Ukraine and Red China?

It was necessary for Trump to be "abrasive" to counter the overwhelming "politics of personal destruction" that is continually and massively put out by the left and the dominant media (they no longer make any pretense of impartial reporting) against conservatives and Republicans (except for the John McCain/Mitt Romney wing).  Something the press routinely has been doing for the last 30 years since the time of Reagan.

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, and the body snatchers, and the skull & bones society, etc. :crazy:

so you believe oligarchies only exist in other countries and NOT in the good old USA?  nobody operating behind the curtain?  no corruption in the military industrial complex?  and other areas?

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19 minutes ago, longview said:

Actually it is the extremist "base" that is demanding the impeachment process.  Do you know why Pelosi is forestalling the full vote on whether to start formal impeachment inquiry?  Because there has been only "nothing burgers" for the last 3 years on the contrived Russian collusion/obstruction.  More "nothing burgers" on the Ukrainian pressure.  But no willingness to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter on their cronyism with Ukraine and Red China?

The evidence is there and the concern is legitimate. One problem is that the GOP has a majority in the Senate, and so Pelosi's timing could mean the difference needed for those R Senate votes. Another problem is that the grounds for impeachment are so numerous that it would be impossible to process all of them in a reasonable timeframe. Choices have to be made at a time when there will be ears to hear. So, if we are going to clean the Toad out of the current swamp of corruption, it has to be done strategically. 

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2 hours ago, longview said:

Actually it is the extremist "base" that is demanding the impeachment process.  Do you know why Pelosi is forestalling the full vote on whether to start formal impeachment inquiry?  Because there has been only "nothing burgers" for the last 3 years on the contrived Russian collusion/obstruction.  More "nothing burgers" on the Ukrainian pressure.  But no willingness to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter on their cronyism with Ukraine and Red China?

It was necessary for Trump to be "abrasive" to counter the overwhelming "politics of personal destruction" that is continually and massively put out by the left and the dominant media (they no longer make any pretense of impartial reporting) against conservatives and Republicans (except for the John McCain/Mitt Romney wing).  Something the press routinely has been doing for the last 30 years since the time of Reagan.

so you believe oligarchies only exist in other countries and NOT in the good old USA?  nobody operating behind the curtain?  no corruption in the military industrial complex?  and other areas?

There's plenty of corruption.  More than enough to go around.  However, you would do well to trust Vladimir Putin and Shi Jinping less and the likes of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jim Mattis, and Evan McMullin more.   Instead, you've hitched your wagon to a passel of liars, cheats, and thieves who will sell you down the river in a heartbeat.

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3 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

The evidence is there and the concern is legitimate.

Are you aware of Congressman Adam Schiff's lurid recitation of the phone conversation between Ukrainian leader and Trump?  It was fake and pulled out of thin air.  Mr. Schiff was caught with his pants down when the actual transcript was released to the public (he was NOT expecting that).  Mr. Schiff kept saying over the 3 years that he had smoking gun evidences of the Russian collusion/obstruction but none ever panned out (all "nothing burgers").  The "concerns" of Schiff, Pelosi and the impeachment crowd only relate to their loss of power and their extreme hatred of a conservative taking office (which they could NOT tolerate).  Why did Mr. Schiff sit on the whistleblower's information for months?  Why the need for a second whistleblower?  A great deal of suspicious shenanigans going on!

4 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Another problem is that the grounds for impeachment are so numerous that it would be impossible to process all of them in a reasonable timeframe.

It is NOT the quantity that matters.  They simply needed to select the 10 most serious charges and solidify their case.  But they have not, they are desperately grasping at straws.  It really is profoundly pathetic.

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 Instead, you've hitched your wagon to a passel of liars, cheats, and thieves who will sell you down the river in a heartbeat.

Do you trust John Brennan?  Peter Strzok?  Jim Acosta?

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