This is a short and powerful speech by Senator Mitt Romney explaining why he decided to vote to convict Trump. He knew that he was breaking ranks. He knew he would anger many in his party.
He voted his conscience.
Conscience over party. Remarkable.
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He, apparently, is the only Republican with a conscience.
Finally someone who has the courage to live up to his convictions. The republican Party is such a bunch of gutless wonders, intimidated by a blowhard.
Exactly. The rest of the Repugnicans, its Limbo Party time. How low, how low, how low can we go.
Limbaugh time too
Limbaugh Time
It’s Limbo Time
How low? How low?
It’s Limbaugh Time
Can you go? Can you go?
Well said, SomeDAM!
And, immediately Romney is attacked by Trump and family. Well, so much for all their phony lip service to “religious freedom”.
Of course, Romney isn’t just a U.S. Senator..he was once the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, it’s flag bearer. It will be interesting to see how many Republicans have the courage to step up and defend him.
It is time the voters of the United States look deep inside themselves and decide whether the country and the world can stand another four years of Trump. It is time to take a stand for democracy and a way of life that our Founding Father’s envisioned. A way of life that so many, many have die to protect over all then many years.
TIME TO VOTE TRUMP OUT AND ALL THAT SUPPORT HIM.
Again, it’s time for a revolution.
I agree, LG
I applaud Senator Romney’s integrity.
yes
T.V. ads for Bloomberg aired today in southwest Ohio show that Obama endorses Bloomberg. If Barack’s betrayal of Flint citizens wasn’t enough, his sidling up next to the self-proclaimed billionaire God from NYC, proves the Obamas are no friends of the 99%.
Bernie in 2020!
And today, RI’s one and only Gina Raimondo, governor, also endorsed Bloomberg….makes sense as her husband is former Teach for America and heavily into charter schools……
Now THIS is a true fact! Raimondo did endorse Bloomberg. (Obama did not).
Maybe Bloomberg will get Andrew Cuomo’s endorsement, too. And then Cory Booker’s endorsement. All the rabidly pro-charter politicians can coalesce around their favorite anti-public school candidate.
“T.V. ads for Bloomberg aired today in southwest Ohio show that Obama endorses Bloomberg”
That is a blatant lie that “Obama endorses Bloomberg” and I assume the post was designed to imply that Obama “endorses” Bloomberg for President. If Obama endorsED Bloomberg in the past for Mayor, is it too much to expect people not to try to insinuate something else? Just say the truth. Obama endorsED Bloomberg for Mayor a decade ago. Seriously, what is the point of trying to mislead readers? It just seems disingenuous and makes me wonder why you don’t trust readers on this blog with the truth?
^^Linda, I don’t even see that Obama ever “endorsed” Bloomberg at all, even for Mayor. They did work together on gun control issues, which is one of the few issues on which Bloomberg is trying to do something good.
If you just made an honest mistake, you should correct it here.
If you are really “Bernie in 2020!”, then you aren’t doing Bernie any favors at all by posting comments filled with untruths about other candidates in Bernie’s name. It just feeds the (false) narrative that Bernie supporters are dishonest because their candidate is dishonest. As far as I know, Bernie has never told a lie to win. So why would you post something that isn’t true in Bernie’s name?
There is no mistake that Bloomberg’s ad attempts to show Obama, who is featured prominently throughout the ad, endorses Bloomberg.
Obama has an obligation to correct the distorted message if he indeed does not prefer Bloomberg.
Linda,
I wonder if you even see how much you damage Bernie Sanders. Please don’t post your lies and then post “Bernie in 2020!” because you hope to associate Bernie Sanders with people who are dishonest and lie in voters’ minds.
Your response to posting a vicious lie is to twist and turn and say that a lie is really not a lie and is really the truth, just like Donald Trump himself. I beg you, if you are really a Bernie supporter and not a nasty, lying, right wing troll trying to get people to associate Bernie with liars, correct the record and apologize.
You do even more damage to Bernie when you insist that your dishonest post was actually not dishonest at all because it really meant something different and it is everyone else but you who is wrong.
I don’t believe for one minute you are a Bernie supporter if you are trying to get readers on this blog to associate him with lies in his name.
Omission of the verb when quoting me, “ad shows that”…is your distortion.
If an ad shows a lost dog, and the dog is not in reality lost, the reporting about the ad is not false.
Linda posted:
“T.V. ads for Bloomberg aired today in southwest Ohio show that Obama endorses Bloomberg. If Barack’s betrayal of Flint citizens wasn’t enough, his sidling up next to the self-proclaimed billionaire God from NYC, proves the Obamas are no friends of the 99%.
Bernie in 2020!”
Keep twisting yourself in knots to pretend that this does not say what everyone knows it says. Your post is an attack on OBAMA for endorsing Bloomberg! Even though Obama did not do that.
You would help Bernie more if you stopped trying to justify your attack on Obama with false statements and simply corrected the record.
Look, I get it. If you hate someone, you feel justified in using false information to smear them. But that is the right wing Republican way, not the Bernie Sanders way. And if you continue to endorse this, I am going to think you are not really a Sanders supporter.
How is your lie about Obama any different than a Trump supporter posting that Bernie Sanders endorsed Osama bin Laden and worked with bin Laden to plan the 9/11 attacks? They can claim that Bernie supporters say it’s okay to post something that isn’t true if you don’t like the person you are lying about and think he deserves it.
My other post disappeared, but why is this person posting something to insinuate that Obama is endorsing Bloomberg for President?
“TV ads ….show that Obama endorses Bloomberg.”
If you mean that Obama endorsED Bloomberg for Mayor a decade ago, why not just say that instead of insinuating something else? Don’t you trust readers enough to just tell us the truth?
I hope you have the integrity to correct the record and explain that the ads said that Obama endorSED Bloomberg for Mayor in the past. I have no idea if Obama ever endorsed Bloomberg for anything, but you have the chance now to correct the record so readers aren’t misled into believing something that isn’t true. Unless you intended readers to be misled.
^^I sincerely apologize for the double post as my first post had disappeared and I wrongly assumed it did not post. I should have been more patient.
NYC, this happens. For reasons known only to WordPress and the Cybergods, posts sometimes go into moderation and don’t appear until the site owner OKs them. Since the site owner does not have time to check every thread, posts sometimes, by this means, end up being posted twice. It happens.
Bob Shepherd,
You are an extremely kind person. (I already had a very high opinion of you, but just wanted to say that again.) Seriously, thank you for taking the time to post that explanation of WordPress issues.
Uh-uh, Linda, Bloomberg’s ad did no such thing. It merely highlighted a couple of things they worked together on, by way of showing “a Bloomberg” can work with “an Obama.” has not endorsed a candidate.
I am convinced that people who post blatant lies like that are not really Bernie supporters but right wing Republican trolls. It goes against everything Bernie stands for to blatantly lie. However, for right wing Republicans who believe that “winning” justifies all manners of lies, it is the philosophy they embrace.
If Linda posts a correction and acknowledges her mistake, then she isn’t a troll. But right wing trolls don’t ever admit to being wrong, since the main purpose of their posts is to deceive voters. If Linda simply lets her misleading and inaccurate post stand without correcting it, then that is intentional. Real Bernie supporters believe in speaking honestly — that’s one of the things they like about Bernie. So anyone posting lies who refuses to correct the record publicly is unlikely to support Bernie regardless of how many times they profess that they are. Spewing untruths is against everything Bernie stands for.
Just curious- If a candidate posts an ad that has Billy Graham or Bishop Nolan posed throughout the ad praising him, and no other candidate has similar images- relative to communication versus semantics, do you think viewers see it as an implied endorsement?
Musicians, whose songs are played at a Trump concert feared it implied, endorsement. They publicly announced they wanted it to stop.
Has Obama commented to correct?
NYC parent, if you were featured prominently in a single candidate’s T.V. ads across the country, extolling the virtues of said candidate, and your friends, family and neighbors said, “It looks like you support him”, would you reply, “No, it doesn’t” or, fail to reply and just leave it at that?
Each person viewing the ad can make his/her own judgement if it is an implied endorsement or just a loosey goosey message of . “Hey, I can work across the aisle.”
Can “work with an Obama”, I doubt the Bloomberg machine would spend advertising dollars to make the point in a Democratic primary that he can work with centrists. Bloomberg ran for mayor as a Republican.
If on the other hand, the point of the ad is to make Black people think he is endorsed by Obama, it is a successful campaign.
Linda,
Your unwillingness to correct the record and your Trump-like defense that a lie is really the truth because the lie was not denied by the person who the blatant lie was about is truly harmful to Bernie Sanders.
If you want to keep posting lies, go right ahead, but please don’t post “Bernie in 2020” after those lies to get people to assume that Bernie Sanders himself endorses those lies.
If you post “Bernie in 2020” after posting a lie that is worthy of Donald Trump, or after a justification of that lie that is worthy of Mitch McConnell, you simply make it seem like Bernie endorses your lie.
You do far more harm than good, unless that is really your intent — to make Bernie Sanders look bad.
NYC-
The subject and the verb of the sentence were omitted which distorted the quote’s context.. “The ad shows that..” .A person can accurately report an ad without endorsing as true, its content.
“T.V. ads for Bloomberg aired today in southwest Ohio show that Obama endorses Bloomberg. If Barack’s betrayal of Flint citizens wasn’t enough, his sidling up next to the self-proclaimed billionaire God from NYC, proves the Obamas are no friends of the 99%.
Bernie in 2020!”
That is a copy and paste of Linda’s post. I don’t understand how anyone can interpret this in any way except a criticism of Obama for endorsing Bloomberg and how it “proves the Obamas are no friends of the 99%”.
I have no problem with Linda posting that Obama wasn’t a friend of the 99%, even if I think that is a pretty sweeping judgement that excludes that Obama was sometimes concerned with the 99% but too often concerned with the 1%.
I do have a problem with a post that deceives readers into believing that Obama really did endorse Bloomberg and excoriating Obama for endorsing him.
If we start stooping to Trump’s levels and claiming that lies are okay in service to our goals, then we have already lost. And democracy won’t survive.
I don’t think Obama endorsed any candidate in the primaries.
This is pretty common. Obama doesn’t “endorse” Bloomberg in the ad, although it certainly is designed to suggest that he does. Elizabeth Warren has an ad that does essentially the same thing with Obama.
Warren’s ad budget vs. Bloomberg’s? Reach and frequency.
Was referring to the tactic, not the effectiveness. But I suppose I don’t really know what point you were trying to make.
And Buttigieg would if he could. And Biden doesn’t even need to. Pretty normal fare for campaign ads.( I think it would surprise me if Sanders did, tho).
Sanders doesn’t need Obama, he’s got Joe Rogan!
false equivalency.
How many viewers saw the Warren ad and now think Obama favors her vs. the number seeing Bloomberg’s? -the ripple made by one stone thrown into a pond as compared to a dump truck dropping a load of boulders-
having not seen Warren’s ad, I’ll trust your description.
Here’s the Warren ad, if anyone is interested.
FLERP!
Read the original post — the intent is clear.
“T.V. ads for Bloomberg aired today in southwest Ohio show that Obama endorses Bloomberg. If Barack’s betrayal of Flint citizens wasn’t enough, his sidling up next to the self-proclaimed billionaire God from NYC, proves the Obamas are no friends of the 99%.
Bernie in 2020!”
Linda’s post isn’t about Bloomberg (or other candidates) running an ad to imply Obama endorses them and talking about how dishonest Bloomberg is for running a misleading ad.
Linda’s post is about how Obama endorsed Bloomberg and how it “proves that the Obamas are no friends of the 99%”. It is a smear about Obama using a blatant lie. Whether or not you think that Obama was too close to billionaires is besides the point. I think Donald Trump is too close to the alt right. Does that give me the right to say that Trump is secretly the leader of the American Nazi Party and has been for the last 40 years?
Has the fascist morality really infected Bernie supporters like Linda where they feel justified in saying any lie because it helps them make their point?
I find it weird when something is posted by someone who claims to be a Bernie supporter who just coincidentally demonstrates the ethical and moral soul of a Trump supporter.
Linda could still correct the record and prove me wrong. Instead she is twisting herself in knots to claim her lie was the truth. Typical Trump supporter behavior.
The collective reader (assuming they care a wit) will muse –
a commenter, in a separated paragraph, places an addendum to her comment and a leap results in a presidential candidate being labeled a liar by extension based on an allegation of false reporting, substantiated by a quoted clause from a sentence that excluded the subject and verb- a leap that somehow morphed into an analogy of Trump being falsely labeled the leader of the American Nazi Party for 40 years. And, judged to potentially have fascist morality (by association), a far distant, candidate will have the taint erased by a commenter’s apology at this blog.
The very first reply to Linda’s post was this:
Susan L Osberg February 5, 2020 at 7:38 pm
“And today, RI’s one and only Gina Raimondo, governor, ALSO endorsed Bloomberg….makes sense as her husband is former Teach for America and heavily into charter schools……”
I used all caps for “ALSO endorsed Bloomberg” to demonstrate that someone who wasn’t me had the exact same interpretation of your post. I even thought your post might be true and went to see if Obama had just made an endorsement before I replied to you.
I have no idea what the above paragraph you wrote means, but if what the entirety of all that innuendo was that you believe you did post a correction, then that correction was lost to me. Maybe if you post the entire original post again with whatever you meant it to say, I could understand what you mean when you say the subject and verb are “excluded” to justify your attack on me.
Again, one of the worst things about Trump (but not the very worst) is that he is unable to admit that he is ever wrong. He would rather redraw a weather map or insist that the Kansas City Chiefs really do play in Kansas than just straight out admit that he said something that was not true and (presumably) he did it because he was mistaken about what was true.
I honestly have no idea what your original post was about if you are now saying that it was not about criticizing Barack Obama for endorsing Bloomberg. Are you now saying it was always intended to be a criticism of Bloomberg for misleading the public about getting an Obama endorsement?
Yes-
Adding, IMO,
(a) Candidates (and possibly media) misperceive the view of the majority of black people toward Pres. Obama’s tenure.
(b) The Kamala Harris failed campaign provides support for the observation.
When it comes to high school US history textbooks of the future, Mitt’s done pretty well for himself.
YES!
Finally someone who has the courage to live up to his convictions. The republican Party is such a bunch of gutless wonders, intimidated by a blowhard.
Truly amazing, in a good way. In all other aspects, Romney has voted for Trump’s agenda so his vote against acquittal is very impressive.
Wow! What a great leader we have! A man who follows the dictates of his conscience – a
conscience informed by his Faith in God. What integrity! So admirable to remain faithful to
his conscience and his oath and commitment to the voters.
This is the line for the history books.
In the Republican Party, one person had the integrity, the courage, to stand up–one. His name was Mitt Romney.
While every elected member of Congress might “love their country” that love is ranked third behind power and money for too many of the members of the Senate and House.
As for the rest of them, well there will be a lot of kissing of the, uh, ring of the Don, Cheeto “Littlefingers” Trumpbalone, –at the Ravenite– in the Senate going forward, won’t there?
We have to wait until November 4th for the judgment of the voters to reveal what the majority think. I want 180-to-200 million Americans to vote, breaking all election records, and for only 64 million or less of that electorate to vote for Bully Trumplestiltskin with the gold plated Duodenal.
I didn’t vote for Mitt when he ran for President, but I if a Republican has to be President, I’d definitely choose Romney over Trump. An honorable man vs a . . .
My mother never spells Trump’s name out in emails anymore. She just uses the pile of dung emoji, as in
‘s rape accuser petitions to have court order sample of his DNA
During the race against Obama, Romney made it quite clear that even his relatively greater honor (than the very low average) was not enough to keep him from lying at every turn. If you watch some of his old speeches & appearances you can even see that he knows he is lying and is even thrilled by being cloaked in the glamour of evil that lying bestows.
Relatively greater than what passes for a Republican / conservative these past decades. BTW, the partisanship of today can be directly attributed to Newt Gingrich. He put it all in motion.
But he hadn’t made an oath to God to be honest on that campaign
flo, LOL 😀
Aren’t GOP Senators and reps even a little concerned that they have given up all of their authority, contribution, opinion and voice. All this “vote out the president” sounds nice – but its the checkers and balancers who need to be voted out.
I sent the following to my two red state senators. I am sure the auto-reply form letter is forthcoming.
Dear Senator:
If you defer EVERY DECISION AND ACTION TO THE PRESIDENT – how are you representing us on State issues and interests – I don’t care how conservative the issue (well, I do but that’s not the point) – even on the most ultra-conservative beliefs you have and a majority of your constituents want, you won’t touch it if the president doesn’t give you the ok.
NO ONE CHECKS THIS PRESIDENT AND YOU HAVE FORFEITED YOUR VOICE. Forget impeachment. The EVIDENCE is clear that this president abuses the office, “uses” the office for personal gain, lies, demeans seasoned esteemed U.S. officials, treats the WH like a country club locker room, and has a bastion of loyalists around him who defend this behavior.
The president scares us – your giving up your voice to become a pawn to the president – – THAT is the scary part. NO ONE CHECKS THIS PRESIDENT.
Yo, Not even just a little guilt there, Senator?
GREAT letter!
I also applaud Doug Jones’ integrity. He voted with his conscience and the Democrats despite extreme pressure from people in Alabama urging him to side with conservatives. Next, he faces an election against Jeff Sessions. The man has integrity.
Jeffrey the Klan Man Sessions, who, along with Stephen “Goebbels” Miller and Steve “Not So Bright Bart” Bannon, choose Trump as their great white hope, handed him the immigration platform, and created this mess
I think the Democrats were AMAZING today. Every last one of them — including Joe Manchin — showed what their party is about.
As Mitt Romney made clear, this has NOTHING to do with what policies you support. Romney likes many of Trump’s policies and frankly, so does a Democrat like Joe Manchin.
But this Senate impeachment vote was not about policy. It was about democracy. That is why 100% — 100%!!! — of the Democrats voted for impeachment and Mitt Romney joined them.
The 2020 Democratic primary is about policy. Vote for the candidate whose policy you like best. But the 2020 general election is about democracy. So when people keep trying to change the subject from the Republicans’ embrace of fascism to how awful whoever wins the Democratic primary is, those people are exactly like all the Republicans in the Senate except Mitt Romney. They are more than willing to throw democracy under the bus for selfish reasons. And they should be marginalized in the same way that we marginalize the neo-Nazis who would happily join them in throwing democracy under the bus.
Let’s hear it for old fashioned Mormon values! (except the anti-LGBT ones). Maybe Mitt’s example will shave away enough Mormon GOP votes in AZ to let Dems take that state.
Now THAT’S a positive thought in these dark times, Ponderosa.
Thanks for the lift!
Bravo for being courageous and standing for what is right! Sometimes the demand is to not be a part of a party when you know there is corruption….. free yourself and your conscious. Do the right thing!!!!
Had he actually voted his conscience he would have voted for conviction on both articles since the evidence was equally strong for both. This was nothing more than calculated triangulation with an eye towards his political future.
I find it tragically telling that a conniving act of partial integrity by Romney is celebrated as if if were the real deal. Trumplestiltskin’s abuse of power, while obvious to most here, is still a nebulous idea for far too many. Obstruction of the investigation is in some ways the more serious crime, a greater threat to the nation over time, and Romney balked on voting to convict on that count.
I’ll take one Republican vote for conviction over none. I predict Romney will be re-elected in 2024. He may not have an opponent.
I agree completely. The bar to be a “statesman” has never been lower.
Greg- great line.
I mourn for this country. Your mischaracterization of what Romney did is really gratuitously nasty. Every Republican who has stood up to Trump has been destroyed politically and yet you claim Romney did this for his political future. As if anyone is going to have a “political future” who hasn’t demonstrated fealty to our great leader Trump.
That comment reminds me of the people who claimed that the Democrats in the House only impeached Trump for political gain (despite every sign being that it would hurt them politically).
Mitt Romney voted for impeachment as an act of conscience. Every one of the other Republican Senators ALSO worried about their political future which is why they voted to exonerate the man who – as Romney plainly said in his statement – egregiously abused the office of the President in order to help his political campaign.
Does it matter what is incorporated in “obstruction” in the cover up of the crime when the crime itself happened in plain view and every Republican Senator except Romney was too cowardly to tell the truth about it?
It is astounding that only ONE Republican has any sense of decency. The rest are sheep who are afraid to cross the Orange Buffoon.
History will look badly at this time when Republicans didn’t allow the facts to matter and hid everything under the rug…or attempted to.
Nobody as corrupt as Trump should be speaking at a ‘prayer breakfast’. The ugliness of his speaking should make everyone who attended throw up. I believe in justice, not the proliferation of more nonsense. Romney is proving that he has a spine, unlike his Senator peers who lack any decency.
……………………….
Trump impeachment live updates: President lashes out at Democrats as ‘corrupt people’ at National Prayer Breakfast, in his first public remarks after acquittal
Feb. 6, 2020
President Trump used his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday to lash out at House Democrats responsible for his impeachment and to praise Senate Republicans who voted to acquit him Wednesday.
Trump’s comments at the annual event came hours before he was scheduled to deliver a more formal speech from the White House about his acquittal Wednesday on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in a historic Senate trial.
Trump also used an early morning tweet to attack Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the only Republican to vote to convict him on an article of impeachment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who launched the impeachment proceedings, is also scheduled to appear before reporters on Thursday…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-impeachment-live-updates/2020/02/06/f45f94b4-48ce-11ea-bdbf-1dfb23249293_story.html
WaPo:
Romney chose to split the difference– by voting for the article of impeachment on abuse of power but against the article related to obstruction of Congress. His reasoning was that “the House did not take the time to go to the courts” and exhaust all the legal possibilities for compelling testimony and documents from administration officials with firsthand knowledge who could speak to Trump’s role in the alleged effort to coerce Ukraine’s government to announce an investigation of Joe Biden in exchange for delivering military aid.
A devout Mormon, Romney told the Atlantic that he closely consulted Scripture and the Federalist Papers. He said he read Federalist No. 65 “multiple, multiple times” when trying to assess whether what the president did warranted removal from office. Throughout the trial, he told McKay Coppins, he was guided by his father’s favorite verse of Mormon scripture: “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good.” “I have gone through a process of very thorough analysis and searching, and I have prayed through this process,” Romney said. “But I don’t pretend that God told me what to do.”
“I don’t hate the president,” Romney told the Salt Lake Tribune’s Thomas Burr. “So he shoots a tweet at me now and then. Really? You think I would endure the consequence of the vote I’m going to take for, you know, trying to get even with a tweet? I mean, is there anybody that petty?”
The GOP is on the wrong side of history. The truth of what happened will eventually come out and every Republican except Romney will find that their vote was unrepresentative of the facts. Nobody should be ‘above the law’.
Now Trump can be free to continue to do everything that he wants and has no one to challenge him. He is truly ‘above the law’.
Is this really what this country needs: a want-to-be-dictator who has lied over 16,400 times and has no concern for anyone except how ‘great he is’ and ‘all the wonderful things he does’. Nope. It’s really a case of, “I’m for myself and you don’t count. If you cross me I will Tweet something to put you down permanently”. Fear is ruling.
Romney invoked his religion as explanation so the data about religions and U.S. senators seems relevant.
Of the religions which have more than 6 U.S. senators as members of their faith and, are represented by a mix of GOP and Dem. Senators, the contrast is notable between the Catholic faith and the others. Almost 1/2 of Catholic Senators are Dems. which reflects loosely the current polling of Trump support within the population of Catholics. The ratio of GOP to Dem. Senators, for the other religions, Baptist/evangelical, Presbyterian, Methodist is substantially greater.
It provokes pondering the question, why no Catholic GOP Senator voted as Romney did. Are more than 1/2 of the population of Latter Day Saints likely to oppose Trump in 2020?
Let’s not forget what Romney did when he was Governor of Massachusetts and passed Romneycare for his state. Obamacare was modeled on Romney’s health care plan.
“Mitt Romney Finally Takes Credit for Obamacare”
https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/23/451200436/mitt-romney-finally-takes-credit-for-obamacare
Lloyd, I have been thinking about that the whole time.
And, to Diane’s comment above 2/6, 11:56 AM: I very much agree.
Romney’s vote & eloquent speech made the case, & left us w/lasting thought (perhaps even those of no conscience).
SDP: I’m waiting for your clever poem about conscience!
Political overload this week. I found this a.m.’s TV news clips particularly hard to digest: a somber, statesman-like Romney choking up, adjacent to Trump’s “prohibit free govt healthcare for illegal aliens” triggering an instant crowd-roar of approval.
She is a brilliant woman. We need more like her and much less of the sycophantic bunch in Congress who don’t have the courage to stand up for the truth.
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Marie Yovanovitch: These are turbulent times. But we will persist and prevail.
By Marie L. Yovanovitch
Feb. 6, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. CST
Marie L. Yovanovitch served most recently as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
After nearly 34 years working for the State Department, I said goodbye to a careerthat I loved. It is a strange feeling to transition from decades of communicating in the careful words of a diplomat to a person free to speak exclusively for myself.
What I’d like to share with you is an answer to a question so many have asked me: What do the events of the past year mean for our country’s future?
It was an honor for me to represent the United States abroad because, like many immigrants, I have a keen understanding of what our country represents. In a leap of optimism and faith, my parents made their way from the wreckage of post-World War II Europe to America, knowing in their hearts that this country would give me a better life. They rested their hope, not in the possibility of prosperity, but in a strong democracy: a country with resilient institutions, a government that sought to advance the interests of its people, and a society in which freedom was cherished and dissent protected. These are treasures that must be carefully guarded by all who call themselves Americans…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/06/marie-yovanovitch-ukraine-ambassador-american-institutions-need-us/
I have to add this because some people don’t subscribe to WaPo.
…I have seen dictatorships around the world, where blind obedience is the norm and truth-tellers are threatened with punishment or death. We must not allow the United States to become a country where standing up to our government is a dangerous act. It has been shocking to experience the storm of criticism, lies and malicious conspiracies that have preceded and followed my public testimony, but I have no regrets. I did — we did — what our conscience called us to do. We did what the gift of U.S. citizenship requires us to do…
But our public servants need responsible and ethical political leadership. This administration, through acts of omission and commission, has undermined our democratic institutions, making the public question the truth and leaving public servants without the support and example of ethical behavior that they need to do their jobs and advance U.S. interests…
The next generation of diplomats is counting on something better. Our newest diplomats fill me with hope. They are smart, motivated and idealistic — and yet realistic about the unprecedented challenges facing the United States. While it is bittersweet to retire from a job that I love, I know there is a new generation of experts who will advance our interests in an increasingly dangerous world…
These are turbulent times, perhaps the most challenging that I have witnessed. But I still intend to find ways to engage on foreign policy issues and to encourage those who want to take part in the important work of the Foreign Service. Like my parents before me, I remain optimistic about our future. The events of the past year, while deeply disturbing, show that even though our institutions and our fellow citizens are being challenged in ways that few of us ever expected, we will endure, we will persist and we will prevail.