“The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. … Read more
“When Mormons are among Trump’s most zealous supporters, we betray our faith. We dishonor the core spiritual and religious beliefs we claim to revere.” — Brian S. King. A recently published Gallup Poll, that included 2,141 Mormons, showed that 61 percent of Mormons approve of Donald Trump’s job as president. In response, The Minority Leader … Read more
A recent article in Common Dreams documents the increasing inequality in our country, and around the world, and warns about the devastating future this will lead to. Look at these statistics: US The richest 24,000 adults (the .01%) have an average of over $400,000,000 in wealth (mostly financial) The poorest 120,000,000 adults (the bottom 50%) have … Read more
George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eight-Four (published in 1949) describes a dark, oppressive, totalitarian society in which the government systematically destroys the English language in order to prevent criminal thoughts. The idea is that one cannot think a seditious thought if there is no word for it. Thursday, a representative of the Trump administration gave senior … Read more
Mormon Republican Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has written a $100 dollar check to the campaign of Democrat Doug Jones in his race against Republican sexual predator Roy Moore for the open Alabama Senate seat. In the “For” line on the check Flake wrote “Country over Party.” Mormon Republican Mitt Romney has tweeted “Roy Moore in … Read more
I don’t want to write about a mass shooting every month. Twenty-six more people were killed Sunday by that same AR-15 type assault rifle that had once been banned. The Republicans, once again, are dismissing the need to deal with this growing crisis. They are spinning the same old story about how “mental health” is … Read more
“Every conversation about gun deaths should begin by recognizing one blindingly clear fact about this problem — the United States is on its own planet. The gun-related death rate in the United States is 10 times that of other advanced industrial countries. Places such as Japan and South Korea have close to zero gun-related deaths … Read more
This past Sunday, I taught a lesson on the martyrdom of Joseph Smith to the Gospel Doctrine class in my ward. Rather than use the manual, I created a timeline using the History of the Church, Volume 6, as my primary source. (I have added this timeline, and the related class resources I compiled, to … Read more