Since the start of the Trump Presidency, commentators have fallen back repeatedly on technical questions of legality to decide how seriously to take Trump's extraordinary rejection of the most basic norms of public office.
The question raised again and again about Republican politicians is: Why, oh why, don't they have the courage to speak up against a president who, many times a day, violates the most basic norms of decency, values many of these same politicians lauded before Nov. 8, 2016?
That is, until Trump blithely shredded this most basic norm of transparency — meaning that his own unprecedented contempt for this norm is what necessitates the House taking this aggressive step in response.
And this analysis of the most basic logical norm also applies to all other logical norms (1909, 242).
And Putin's payoff is Trump's first year: a president who is simultaneously eroding some of our most basic norms, undermining some of our most cherished institutions and enacting a mammoth tax bill that will not make America great again.
The current Chinese organ transplant procurement system (front page, Oct. 18) violates the most basic ethical norms.
He went so far as to assure protection to fugitives wanted in Italy, disregarding the most basic legal norms.
Fifteen major business associations said they would take part in the strike, accusing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government of "contempt for the most basic democratic norms".
"Some prominent firms have even been mired in scandals that violate the most basic ethical norms - Libor and foreign exchange rigging, money laundering, illegal foreclosure".
We still cooperate with Russia where we can, but we have to be clear about the challenge we now face: we are dealing with a Russian state that has cast aside the most basic international norms.
