Mitt Romney, the heartless warmonger who Utah unfortunately chose to send to the U.S. Senate, put out a video today justifying his vote for $40 billion in aid to Ukraine at a time the U.S. economy is falling apart.
Watch the video here:
Notice what is lacking in this video? A call for peace. Mitt Romney is so incredibly tone deaf and so filled with righteous war-fighting rage that he cannot bring himself to call for peace between Ukraine and Russia. He apparently wants the war to go on endlessly.
Contrast this with the message from a person we all should follow, President Nelson:
“I have been to Ukraine and Russia many times. I love those lands, the people and their languages. I weep and pray for all who are affected by this conflict,” he said. “As a Church, we are doing all we can to help those who are suffering and struggling to survive. We invite all to continue to fast and pray for all the people being hurt by this calamity.”
“Any war is a horrifying violation of everything the Lord Jesus Christ stands for and teaches. The Savior commanded us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies and to pray for those who despitefully use us. It can be painfully difficult to let go of anger that feels so justified. It can seem impossible to forgive those whose destructive actions have hurt the innocent. And yet, the Savior admonished us to ‘forgive all men.’”
Mitt Romney comes across as the worst stereotype of a robotic businessman concerned with dollars and cents and profit and loss. He even brags that the money will enrich the military industrial complex in the U.S.! I am a proud capitalist myself, but Romney sounds like a greedy comic book character rubbing his hands with glee at all of the money being spent to keep the war going. He is an embarrassment to those of us who actually care about free markets and a growing economy.
Of course war is bad for the economy. So, why does Romney want to keep the war going? You know what might end the war? Calls for peace and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but we hear none of that from the wooden Mitt Romney.
Romney shows no concern at all for the millions displaced by the war and the tens of thousands already killed in both countries. He is in effect voting for a proxy war in which American money causes more thousands of Ukrainians and Russians to die. I cannot imagine anything more Satanic than gleefully spending money so that other people die in an endless cycle of war.
Has Mitt Romney even read the Book of Mormon and its warning about wars to the death? That is what he is voting for, a war to the death in Ukraine financed by U.S. money.
While Romney votes to spend yet more money in another country, the U.S. economy sinks to its worst condition since the 1970s. I don’t believe in spending government money inside the U.S., but I do believe in cutting the deficit, which would send a strong signal to the markets that the United States is serious about returning to a semblance of fiscal discipline. But no, Mitt Romney believes in the endless printing press, which means more inflation and suffering now and more debt for our children and grandchildren in the future. As the war continues, how many more huge expenditures will Romney justify as a good “investment?”
Like it or not, Russia will not unilaterally withdraw from Ukraine without concessions. I do not defend Russia’s aggressive attack on Ukraine, but I do recognize why Russia attacked and I do recognize that Russia will simply not accept defeat, no matter how much money U.S. taxpayers send there. There are always diplomatic solutions to these differences, and that is what we should be pursuing.
Almost all observers in DC, including Romney, know that Ukraine is part of the Russian sphere of influence and that Russia has unique cultural and security interests in Ukraine. Given that everybody knows this, and they know that Russia will not back down without concessions, why is Mitt Romney eager to send more money so that more Russians and Ukrainians die? You can come to your own conclusions: either Mitt Romney is evil or stupid or disastrously cynical. None of these alternatives should be acceptable to the good people of Utah.
Meanwhile, Utah’s other LDS senator Mike Lee is voting against the $40 billion aid to Ukraine. So, Utah voters do have at least one good man in the Senate. In my home in Colorado, we have none.
And did you notice he blames all of Biden’s domestic failures on the war. Good grief!
Senator Rand Paul asked for an accounting of what exactly that money was going to be used for and they refused to provide that.
Anne, in the video Mitt Romney addresses the accusation that some of the money might be wasted by saying….yes, money is always wasted in government spending! He is a parody of himself.
https://rumble.com/v159u9j-tv-war-experts-revealed-as-paid-shills-for-weapons-manufacturers.html
This is a must-watch video showing that people pushing war on TV are profiting from it. Talk about your secret combinations.
Back when Romney was competing for the presidential nomination against B. O. I warned my friends that he was a flip-flopper and that he was not much different from B. O. Apparently, one friend was so enamored by Romney that he was offended by my emails so he asked me to stop sending them. When Romney won the nomination, it was real difficult for me to vote. It came down to voting for either an avowed communist or a secret socialist. I took what I believe to be the lesser of two evils. When Romney ran here in Utah, I hesitantly voted for him instead of the Democrat opponent. It turned out to be sixes. You are exactly right in your characterization of Romney. I firmly believe he is an embarrassment to his party and his religion. I deeply regret having voted for him at all. With some restraint, I defer telling my friend “I told you so”.
Hans, I was a huge Romney supporter in 2008, at least in part because the other choices were considerably worse. I voted for him in 2012, but reluctantly and with many warnings that even if he won he would disappoint us. He is definitely not a secret socialist, but he is definitely a “liberal Republican” and a squish, and if he had been elected in 2012 he would have been about 3 percent better than Obama. The Dems would have had their way with him, as they are doing now. I think his presidency would have been George W. Bush 3.0, and that would have been a disaster for the Republican party. The other big problem with Romney that nobody wants to discuss is that he does not resonate with working class people and with minority groups. He got very little support from Latinos and Asians, for example. And like Trump or hate him, he is and was extremely popular with working class people and with minority groups, by comparison. But the worst thing about Romney is that he appears to have zero principles. And this is a very strange thing because he has very good principles in his private life, as do most active Latter-day Saints.
The idea that Senator Romney is a warmonger is ludicrous. Challenging his faith and commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is sensationalism, name calling and completely inappropriate. It adds no weight to your argument. Rather it takes away.
The Russian military has invaded Ukraine, killing tens of thousands, destroying dozens of cities. The Russian soldiers kill the men, including unarmed civilians and rape the women.
A vote to supply materials to help the Ukrainians defend themselves is not warmongering. It is the decent thing to do. Each of us hopes that if we are in a desperate situation where are lives, families and property are being attacked that our neighbors and the good people of the world will come to our assistance.
You mentioned the Book of Mormon. Did the Nephrites abandon the Anti Nephi Lehites to the invading Lamanites. No, they defended them. In the same manner we should support and defend others who are being attacked.
Romney and his many DC pals are warmongers. They make war because they lust for both money and power. They will be judged by the almighty God accordingly. For God teaches not to wage war but to keep His peace.
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” Psalms 20:7
I am reminded of the song “The Man’s Too Strong” by Dire Straits. A song about men who do great evil because they can’t say no.to the “man”. Who is the “man”. It could be a powerful dictator or ruler. Ultimately, it is Lucifer, who seeks everyone to be miserable like him and who perpetually wages war to capture the souls of men & women.
“I am just an ageing drummer boy
And in the wars I used to play
And I’ve called a tune to many a torture session
Now they say I am a war criminal
And I’m fading away
Father, please hear my confession
I have legalized robbery
Called it belief
I have run with the money
I have a-hid like a thief
Re-written history
With my armies and my crooks
Invented memories
I did burn all the books
And I can still hear his laughter
And I can still hear his song
The man’s too big
The man’s too strong
…
Oh Father, please help me
For I have done wrong
The man’s too big
The man’s too strong”
Vaughn, you make the following point:
“Challenging his faith and commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ is sensationalism, name calling and completely inappropriate. It adds no weight to your argument.”
Nobody ever challenged his faith and commitment to the Gospel. This is a political discussion and has nothing to do with personal worthiness. Yes, I use harsh language against Romney’s politics. I also used harsh language to criticize the horrible Harry Reid’s politics. By all accounts both men are good husbands and fathers and served honorably in the Church. These things are more important in the long run than politics, but they both decided to get involved in politics, and in so doing they are asking people to discuss their political positions, and in the case of both men I think their political positions are mostly horrific. That is what this post is about.
You also wrote: “A vote to supply materials to help the Ukrainians defend themselves is not warmongering. It is the decent thing to do. Each of us hopes that if we are in a desperate situation where are lives, families and property are being attacked that our neighbors and the good people of the world will come to our assistance.”
I don’t have a problem with individual people sending humanitarian supplies to Ukraine, and in fact I support all of the Church’s efforts to privately help refugees and others who are suffering. I have a BIG problem with government-financed military aid, which will cause more Ukrainians and Russians to die. You don’t promote peace by sending weapons to people, financed by my tax dollars. And there is of course a lot of hypocrisy in Romney’s position. There is a huge humanitarian disaster taking place right now in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war against an Iranian-backed force. The United States is providing weapons and logistical support to Saudi Arabia. More than 300,000 people have been killed, and there is a massive famine that may kill millions. Romney has never had anything to say about the poor Yemenis dying by the thousands in Yemen, and in fact if he spoke out against the military aid the U.S. is providing he could actually do something to end the killing. I find the hypocrisy disgusting. And the contrast between President Nelson’s position — let’s pray for peace and not try to find blame — and Romney’s desire to kill Russians is also disgusting.
You also write: “You mentioned the Book of Mormon. Did the Nephrites abandon the Anti Nephi Lehites to the invading Lamanites. No, they defended them. In the same manner we should support and defend others who are being attacked.”
There are dozens of battles and wars discussed in the Book of Mormon. In the vast majority of cases only defensive wars are morally justified. The Anti Nephi Lehis were a specific case of one group of people who had buried their weapons of war because they were overwhelmed with guilt for past actions. There is only one such example in the Book of Mormon. Meanwhile, we see again and again a condemnation of offensive or preventive war in the Book of Mormon. Righteous people only remain righteous if they carry out defensive wars and avoid hatred and wrath, which is what destroyed the Nephites and the Jaredites. The real heroes of the Book of Mormon are people like Captain Moroni who only go to war reluctantly after repeatedly suing for peace and only to defend their own lands, not lands thousands of miles away. Using the Anti-Nephi Lehis to justify more death and destruction in the Ukraine is a bit like claiming Jesus was angry all the time because of one incident at the Jerusalem temple.
Vaughn, thank you for your comment. I whole heartedly agree. Geoff, what’s the alternative? If the Ukraine doesn’t get their arms replenished, Russia will simply bulldoze them over and eventually take the whole country. Russia plays by prison yard rules and only the strongman wins. Best as I can tell Ukraine is simply trying to defend themselves to preserve their freedom, their peace, defend their wives, and their children. Sound familiar?
Observer, there is a lot of history regarding Ukraine and Russia that you need to study and internalize. About 20 percent of the people in Ukraine are ethnic Russians. They mostly live in the Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine. The ethnic Ukrainians have been carrying out a low level war against ethnic Russians since at least 2014, and tens of thousands of ethnic Russians have been killed. The Russian invasion is focused on the eastern part of the country where most of the ethnic Russians live. The Russian goal is to destroy the Ukrainian army and protect ethnic Russians in the east, not to “take the whole country.” The Ukrainian capital Kiev is relatively close to the Russian border. If Putin’s goal were to “take the whole country,” he could have easily done it by now, including taking Kiev, the capital. But you will notice that Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and even Jill Biden have recently traveled to Kiev. So, apparently Kiev is actually not under attack, the attacks are taking place hundreds of miles away to the East.
So, what’s the alternative? There are really two points. The first is to determine what the alternative is for the Russians and Ukrainians. Given that the situation is more complex than most people believe, there need to be peace talks. If Ukraine were to make some concessions regarding NATO membership and were to give up some of its land in the East, the Russians would likely leave the rest of Ukraine alone. I am not saying this is ideal. I don’t believe conflicts should be resolved through war, so I don’t justify Russian aggression in any way. Putin should have found a peaceful way, short of an invasion, to pursue his goals. But there is a path for peace talks. The $53 billion the US is shoveling into Ukraine is preventing the peace talks from taking place, however, which means more people die.
The other point regarding alternatives it that the U.S. cannot be the world’s policeman. In case you have not noticed, the U.S. has a massive $30 trillion debt, fueled mostly by wars and entitlement spending. We simply don’t have the money to send to Ukraine without printing it, which is why inflation is 11 percent and why American families are suffering. So, one alternative would be to concentrate on making our country better and more financially sound, rather than worrying about a conflict that has nothing to do with vital U.S. national interests.
Regarding the Ukrainians who want to defend themselves, I believe they have the right to do so, but there are literally dozens of different conflicts around the world taking place right now where one group of people are invading another group of people. Unfortunately, we as Americans cannot stop all of those invasions and cannot protect all of those people. In all of these cases, we should call for peace and call for people to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the best solution.
Your considered perspective in your comments here are very heartening. One of the major problems with current public ‘discussion’ of major issues like these is that it’ so influenced by news media representations. And that representation is almost always simplistic, when reality is nuanced and very complex. We know this about our own lives, but when talking about or listening to representations about these wider issues, it gets so quickly forgotten. It’s like people discussing these issues have forgotten how to think with appreciation for nuance and breadth. That context – all the context – matters, not least because it directly affects the decisions made in response to issues. And if those decisions are made based on a simplistic view of the issue, they will also do harm, and not solve it.
Actual governmental decisions in policy are probably made in awareness of these complexities, but they also seem influenced by public perception (and vice-versa, of course).
This situation (that I’ve described) is being made worse and worse by the insistence on stark ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, instead of a willingness to seek out the whole truth – all the possible influential details, the crazed witch-hunting denounciation of any views which do present those other details, and just turning everything into this right-wrong axis and making it all political, rather than a seeking for truth, reconciliation, wisdom, etc. The thing propelling all this is the power that ‘progressive’ modern-socialist ideas and people have taken, over so much of our society here, yours, and seemingly most modern democracies. It’s an imbalance, and they’re gleeful about it. There’s a reason democracies don’t exist with one political party. There needs to be balance, and we don’t have it.
So yes, we all want to help the Ukrainians who are suffering. But how that should best happen is open to disagreement. It doesn’t lead unequivocally to the idea that this means supporting the war. I also want to help Russians who are suffering – isn’t that what we should feel, if we want to help at all?
I heard, in passing (because I don’t watch it), someone reporting on the news that up to a third of Russia had lost up to a third of its invasion forces. That’s how it was phrased. That’s people. A lot of people. It felt very distanced, deliberately, to use that term and that phrasing. While, when reporting anything to do with Ukrainians, it’s about individual suffering, what Russian soldiers are doing personally, etc. Obviously, we have more fellow-feeling for those who have been attacked than those doing the attacking, so different words are bound to be used. But it also must be a deliberate policy to sway public opinion towards (or, rather, keep it in) this very ‘good-bad’ view of this complex, complex situation.
Facts should be shared, but not just those that fit a particular view. Perhaps that is the most correct view – but we need to discern it from all the possible information, not deliberate positioning. Look at it historically, like Geoff is doing (in terms of the Ukraine and Russia situation), not just emotionally and knee-jerkingly. What seems obviously right – protect and help the invaded repel the invaders – is less certain when all of it is taken into account. It might still be the best thing, but that can really only be decided when it’s not immediately looked at that way.
That should be, that Russia has lost up to a third, not that up to a third of Russia has lost up to a third. Edited and didn’t delete.
Idealist, thank you for recognizing that all situations, including the situation in Ukraine, have nuances. The media propaganda we are seeing today paints Ukraine as the “good guy” standing up to the Russian “bad guy.” This story is partly true, but it is far from the complete story, and this is why Romney’s perspective is so harmful. The truth is far more complex. Any cursory search of the history of President Zelenskyy in Ukraine will find that he has the same dictatorial tendencies that we condemn in Putin. He has outlawed all opposition political parties and closed down opposition media. He has a secret police force that goes door to door tracking down opponents of his presidency. His military is made up, in part, of literal neo-Nazis. Ethnic Ukrainians have spent the last eight years carrying out an aggressive military campaign against ethnic Russians mostly in the eastern part of Ukraine. Meanwhile, as I mention above, there is simply no evidence that the Russian aim is to take over all of Ukraine. The Russian aim appears increasingly to take over the ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine in the east and southeast. Now in saying these things, I in no way support the Russian military invasion. I am against all offensive military invasions and I am in favor of peace and negotiations — I repeat in ALL cases. Russia is in the wrong to carry out this invasion. But my point is that we in the United States are being overwhelmed with pro-Zelenskyy propaganda, and the truth is far more nuanced.
Idealist correctly points out that we should know based on our own interactions in our own lives that things are always much more complex than things seem. We talk to our friend Joe about his wife Mary, and he spends the whole time complaining about his wife, and he claims she is a monster, and when we actually meet Mary, she is not nearly the monster Joe has made her out to be. In fact, we can see that Joe is kind of a negative person, and his perspective is not the whole story.
One of the many great things about the Gospel is that Heavenly Father knows we are nuanced beings. We all have so many flaws, but most of us also have good intentions. It’s a very good thing that our Heavenly Father knows our good side, because if we were judged based solely on some of our mistakes we would all be condemned to hellfire forever.
When it comes to war, there are politicians, propagandists and weapons manufacturers who want us to see the world as if the players were all cartoon characters, all Bad or all Good. This is how we can justify killing: the people on the other side of the gun are BAD and deserve it. We should know instinctively that it is never like this. So many people are falling for the propaganda, and this is horrifying to watch. You can bet that Heavenly Father does not hate the Russians who are waging war in Ukraine. Why should we?
I wanted to mention that the Russian forces are doing some terrible things while in Ukraine, and the ethnic Russians in the east don’t seem to want to ‘be liberated’, as is the official Russian stance for their campaign. Each commentator gives their perspective, based on their expertise/experience, and it seems good to take them all into account to get a more complete picture.