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This is the grand canyon disconnect between with how the Left views the Right. The Left actually thinks the Right is fighting for Trump the 'man'. This isn't about Trump himself, this is about America, it's freedom and it's future. Patriotic Americans are willing to, even at their own threatened peril, swim in the deep end for the future of America. The Left wants you to believe that you are risking your careers and reputations... so you better sit down, shut up and submit already. Here is the full quote from Sidney Powell. The end of her quote is what the Left fails to comprehend.

I try really hard (and often fail, but I do try), to think about the next person over, as someone I might meet in the celestial room of the temple. Something that makes it easier to deal with people I'd consider my adversary, or a bad person, is to think about a scenario where I'm lying on my death bed, see the light, and they show up to usher me to the other side, having made it to heaven themselves. It can be powerful juju if you do it seriously. That said, the Lord is no respecter of persons, and I try to be like Him. Low or high in this or that organization, I try to not have that matter to me. If my opinion about the personal behaviors and lives of an individual, is different when I find out they're a GA, or a janitor at my kids' school, then I figure I have something to change about myself. This is different than the respect or trust I extend to people when acting in their stewardships.

I think we need to be careful. I've been following this thread for a bit, and I've been thinking about things brought up by both sides. But I think we've (speaking generally) strayed from earnest political discussion into vicious attacks that serve no one and foster the spirit of contention. I don't say this from a holier than thou viewpoint, I've made this same mistake before myself, nor am I a mod so take or leave my opinion as you please. But we are all brothers and sisters in Christ and many of us are active members of his church. We should do better than this.

On this business of “loving America”, I’ll engage with one possible controversial broad over-generalization, by offering another even more-controversial broad over-generalization: Republicans love America the way a newlywed man loves his wife: for what she is, and which he hopes she will eternally remain. Democrats love America the way a newlywed woman loves her husband: for what he may become, if properly managed.

Do you remember way back to last week, when the claim was that there was zero evidence of widespread voter fraud? Funny how the goalposts keep moving. Evidence of any voter fraud should make an American's blood run cold, no matter his/her political affiliation. Voter fraud is the death knell of liberty. How easy or difficult would it be to determine how rampant it is? Have you been watching any videos from Project Veritas? If voter fraud is not caught almost at the time it happens, it becomes nearly impossible to trace it. I am stunned and very dismayed that so many otherwise intelligent Americans seem to want to dismiss extraordinarily serious allegations of voter fraud due completely to TDS.

I don’t think it was really Trump that has held the GOP largely together over the last 4 years; it was the hard left’s increasing vocalness (not to say violence), and the unmasking both of the more radical parts of their agenda and the nominally-“impartial” institutions that are willing to make that happen. If the Democrats can set firm boundaries between their mainstream leadership and the party fringe and make a convincing case that Biden is simply a return to “normalcy”, I think most of Trump’s base will drop their paranoia and go back to (what I like to think is) the GOP’s natural position of elevating ideas over people, and being patient enough to believe that the strength of their policies will win out in the end. But if Biden appears poised to enact additional dramatic and irreversible changes to the leftwards that are seen as threatening conservatives’ liberty or their prospects for education or employment—single-payer health care, or court-packing, or fiddling with RFRA, for example—there will be a lot of scared Republicans whose knee-jerk reaction will be to stick with the “fighter” they know.

No one says that fact-checking sites are all wrong. They say that the fact-checking sites are biased and unreliable.

This is an unfair characterization of what is he's claiming. I am not aware of any claim that WIDESPREAD in-person voting is rigged. But some people have been arrested for trying to vote multiple times with fake IDs. All the "rigged" claims are about the details, not the overall systems. We can use the same overall systems, but still change some details so they are not rigged. E.g. As they open mail-in ballots, there needs to be some method of matching the names, addresses, and other personal information to the ballot. Many states have that. Some states only have that on the packaging. The ballots themselves may have a name or not. This doesn't make any sense. If they were mailed in, where was the postmark? It's thrown away so there is no way to trace it. Trump pointed out the difference between absentee ballots vs the mail-in ballots (a small, but significant distinction). But because you're only getting info from the legacy media, you don't understand the difference. Absentee ballots suffer from SOME of the same weaknesses as mail-in ballots. But they also have some safeguards that mail-in ballots do not have. Some voting machines are rigged. This was proven many times. Yes, plausible deniability says that it could have just been an "honest" computer glitch. But isn't it funny how all such glitches are in favor of Democrats? Yeah, right. How do we do it? How about this>> We tell everyone when voting day is and when early voting is. We have a way of keeping track of who is coming in to vote and who has already voted, like... voter ID or something... We don't accept ballots that are later than is announced. We have rules about what voter information is required for mail-ins and we stick to that. We don't let someone vote without an ID. When accepting, opening, counting, etc. all the votes, we have bi-partisan staff looking at every item and signing off on the receipt with an appropriate amount of traceable information on the voter and the ballot. We actually have these safeguards in place in many areas. But the areas Trump is contesting, they didn't follow them. So, why do you accept these results when these safeguards weren't followed?

Here’s my reaction to the first ten minutes or so: —Giuliani’s tone and asides suggest that he’s less interested in converting his opponents (or even the open-minded), than in confirming the suspicions of those already sympathetic to him. —Yes, it’s significant to now have apparent documentation of various forms of fraudulent electoral behavior; especially to contest the smug academics who keep assuring us that it Never Happens. —Yes, hopefully this will make some more open-minded Americans consider the issue and think “golly, if there were election fraud, what would it look like and what kind of evidence would it take to demonstrate it?” That’s always helpful. —Ultimately, I am not equipped to make any kind of rational, informed judgment on the overall significance of Giuliani’s claims. He talks of hundreds of affidavits—but there are tens of thousands of precincts, in hundreds of counties, in half a dozen contested states, and each with their own laws and rules and procedures. My understanding is that at least a couple of the affidavits have been cross-checked and that some of the affiants didn’t see what they thought they were seeing. —I’m glad this is going to the courts. I hope they take a careful, detailed, comprehensive analysis and are able to quantify the scope of the problem. But this is an incredibly complicated case (several incredibly complicated cases, really) and there’s no way we are going to have a definitive answer before the electoral college meets in December. Biden will be inaugurated in January. If Trump starts getting victories in state supreme courts, they will come piecemeal over the course of the next 3-5 years and will be almost universally ignored by the media and hushed up by Facebook and Twitter.

In case you missed it, the broadcast from Pres. Nelson challenged us to use social media to give thanks for the next 7 days. Since this is day one, I'm going to start with the low hanging fruit. I'm thankful for the Atonement of Christ. I'm thankful for my wife and children. #GiveThanks

The internet and internet forums like this allow individuals to post with anonymity. I have pondered what would happen of an Apostle of Christ were to post on this forum. One of the reason I ponder such things is because GA are people - much like the rest of us. A few years back (actually more than a few) I was driving to work. Driving to work was rare for me because usually I commuted by bicycle. It was rush hour so things were a little overloaded and dicey on the road. I like to drive with some resemblance of intelligence - to avoid being injured. But I was cut off quite rudely but a driver that quite frankly kind of put my life in danger but I decided to just let it pass. Within a few minutes the exact same car cut me off a second time and there would have been an accident had I not slammed on the brakes and left rubber on the road. This time I decided I should communicate with this nut job to let them know what a bad job of driving they were doing. It took a bit to catch up and pull along side them. But when they looked over, I realized that it was my Stake President - so I just smiled and waved. I realized that normal people can upset me but when it was someone I respected - my attitude was changed. The Traveler

I think the theory might allow that Jesus can manifest Himself as a spirit, as a mortal/translated being (flesh and blood), and as a resurrected being (flesh and bone), each with or without glory (e.g. transfiguration, on a beach cooking fish, or quickening mortals to see Him as bright as the sun at noonday) and at any time no matter what estate He might personally occupy at the moment, and that He can present Himself in an estate other than the one which He actually occupies (e.g. as a spirit for the moment, though He has a body of flesh and bone for the moment), and that the eyes of faith can likewise see Him in any of these estates no matter what estate He actually occupies. A simpler way of putting it is that He occupies all estates at once and the faithful see one of the other or any according to their faith. We can do the same for ourselves. It would be more practical to have a council of Gods, each member in a different phase of eternal progress, working together to present godliness (Father, Son in His various forms, and Holy Ghost) to the world, and many more than just three beings sharing these three basic roles. Of course this is all conjecture and/or doesn't help anyone attain grace at all, since the key to that is losing oneself to find oneself.

Fair point.

Yes, I've always liked the idea that there are people that were taken up before the flood and continued to minister afterwards. Have a great Thanksgiving!

We were typing at the same time apparently but this ^^^^ is basically it. The leftist loonies caused this otherwise politically oblivious church-going family man to finally wake up and fight. If the left thinks the right is just going to curl up in a ball while they take our country down the crapper... I didn't get 5 cans of dehydrated carrots, an AR-15 and one metal clothes hanger for roasting hot dogs for nothing. ✌️

I'm betting that rather than hear my actual opinion, you will kindly tell me my opinion instead.

I'm not sure an apostle (or other General Authority) would want to make it known that they were posting on any forums or who they were. It would seem that there would be more problems present than not. It COULD be that they post anonymously though...though to be truly anonymous they'd probably have to get some help from Tech or others from the church office building to help them be able to verify or appear as someone other than a General Authority. If anyone would know if a GA posts here it probably would be @Just_A_Guy or one of the other admins or moderators. Even then, with the right tech going on, they might not know anymore than the rest of us. (or, who knows, maybe there is a GA that is a moderator or admin assigned here, but we don't know who they are or their identity!) In either case, I think it's probably best if we act as I think @NeuroTypical says and treat everyone as if they are a special and unique individual and love them all as we would love a General Authority or Apostle if they were here. I would not be surprised if a General Authority of some sort at least occasionally checks up on various forums (if for nothing else but to see what is currently going on with members in the cyber world as well as other trends), but it may be that they are too busy to do so as well. I think that everyone deserves respect though, and that if we treat people how we probably should (and I probably have been at fault of not being polite or nice enough at times, so bogey on me), we would treat them politely and nicely as well, if they ever visit or read the forums here.

Part of the problem and WHY there is resistance to places like Puerto Rico becoming a State is that there is NO benefit to Conservatives in this bargain or deal currently. Many Liberals actually don't care about Puerto Rico, only the political aspects of getting several more electoral votes and Senate Representatives to turn the tide in the Senate (in fact, that is the hot topic currently in regards to making Puerto Rico a State, getting more electoral votes and Senate seats). There HAS to be benefits to BOTH sides. With the current talking points that the more liberal (it's not even the entire Democrat party, it's more the far left side of the party) Democrats are pushing regarding making Puerto Rico and other territories states, they have NO incentives for Conservatives to even consider the possibility. It's a one sided issue. Unless we LOVE the politics that Trump had, where one sided issues are pushed through (this actually was ALSO a problem under Obama and one reason why the ACA has had such a tumultous time, you NEED both parties if you want legislation to be supported in the long term and more support from ALL Americans, rather than just a subset of Americans which hate all the others and vice-versa), you NEED bipartisan legislature, which means something is for BOTH sides (Democrat and Republican). Right now the effort is being pushed by ONE side, and not even the entire side, it's only the very LIBERAL side (despite what some Conservatives push, the Democrats do have various political aspects of their party with some being more liberal than others. Biden is actually pretty conservative in regards to the Democrat party, he is more of a moderate than others such as AOC). Most of the arguments I've seen are NOT considering how it may best help Puerto Rico (for example, allowing Puerto Rico in as a state to allow it more access to funds to help repair it's infrastructure which has been in tatters for a few years due to natural disasters, and various other aspects), but more from a political slant of getting more seats and political clout. That's NOT how you win over the opposition among Republicans OR among independents. They need to present a picture where there is FAR more benefit to the country (meaning anyone besides just Liberal Democrats, which would mean a benefit to Republicans, Independents, and even Puerto Rico itself with it's infrastructure, economy, and various other items). It needs a vote of approval from it's current state government. With politics, and compromise, a state government might be able to get in line with it (or they could do a Virginia act, though that would require the areas which wish to secede from their states to create a new government and in doing so argue that the California government is invalid...a VERY controversial act even today on how legal constitutionally it was...and that was during a time when the actual Virginia had declared secession itself) in regards to a plausible housing arrangement (Democrats as a whole gain more seats in the house, and a partial percentage in the Senate as new seats arise from PR and the new Western State), which benefits the party as a whole, even if the politicians in California suffer. The BIGGEST problem I see is that the Cities KNOW they depend on the rural areas for water in California, or for other resources in Washington and Oregon and are unwilling to try for a situation where they actually have to cooperate. Currently, the big problems in those areas is that they go for majority elections (rather than representational like the Federal level of elections go) with the states, which makes for the tyranny of the majority. It's probably the entire reason many of the Rural areas are very unhappy with the current status quo. The Cities get all the say and the Rural areas basically have to do whatever they are told with no input. It's a variation of the taxation without representation which caused unrest many centuries ago at the beginning of the Nation itself. You are right, the State Governments with NO incentives currently will NEVER let the independence movements of those states go, but if we incorporate national politics into it and try to come up with a Missouri Compromise situation with their cooperation, where they have something that is the bait or motivator (and what that is, I don't know currently), they might go along with it. Without a major push when the Democrats own both parts of Congress and the Executive branch, and then force the issue without any bipartisan support, I don't see Puerto Rico becoming a State simply because it's a one sided issue at this point. There is no benefit to anyone (and perhaps not even Puerto Ricans from how the plan is being pushed by the Far Left) to make Puerto Rico a state at this point (much less DC which brings in constitutional issues far more than breaking up California) except for some Democrats at this point, and unless that changes...there will be a massive resistance to statehood for anyone else.

I'm guessing her last name isn't Bauhaus.

1. Sure, so long as "the process" isn't some extraconstitutional, ahistorical claptrap specifically invented with the goal of getting Puerto Rico admitted. 2. There is nothing "constitutional" or "legal" about that. The Constitution is silent on the issue; it doesn't establish a formal progression from unorganized territory to organized territory to state. The statutes are not universally applicable; they were tailored for the needs and conditions within the various territories to which they applied. 3. Your assertion that "But congress is supposed to vote on it and have a good reason for voting not in favor of doing so" is incorrect. There is no requirement that Congress decide on statehood through an actual vote. In fact, Congress decides a lot of things by choosing *not* to bring the issue to a vote. The Constitution offers no guidance on what is or isn't a good reason; and enabling acts like the Northwest Ordinance were drafted with the presumption that certain cultural conditions already existed in the areas where states were being set up. 4. That verbiage, "free inhabitants", is interesting. Slaves didn't count. Native Americans didn't count. Why? Because, as I've already pointed out in an earlier quotation from the actual Northwest Ordinance, the act was intended to give Congressional representation to people who embraced a certain set of cultural values, which slaves and native Americans (allegedly) did not. Statehood isn't just about us governing them. It's about them governing us; so you'd darned well better chose your "them" carefully. 5. . . . And? 6. First off, your choice of words is a little artful here. The fact that there's no express constitutional or statutory reason why they shouldn't be a state, doesn't suggest that there's a constitutional or statutory reason that they should. Nor does it mean that Congress is barred from considering factors not explicitly mentioned in law or constitution. Factors like culture, values, economy and self-sufficiency, past track record of self-governance, reaction of the international community, defensibility, and--yes--how it would tip the balance of power in Congress (Missouri Compromise, anyone?). You still haven't given me a reason, under your preferred paradigm, as to why the US shouldn't have granted statehood England in 1800--or China today--if those people had, in a deliberate attempt to subvert traditional American values, jumped through the hoops you propose and demanded statehood and congressional representation. And second, let us reiterate: there are no constitutional or legal "requirements" for Puerto Rico to become a state. None. There has never been a universal procedure for any region desiring statehood. All there has been, is what Congress has deemed appropriate under the particularized set of circumstances of each would-be state at the time the application was made. To suggest that there is a standard process that all other states have gone through, and that Puerto Rico should be allowed to go through, that allowed and allows prospective states to disregard political realities and bypass any scrutiny of their own political and cultural and economic dysfunction, is a historical fairly tale; and at a certain point, repeating that fairy tale only reveals an underlying political agenda. 7. The fact that a significant portion of Americans embrace of Puerto Rico's political corruption, bureaucratic incompetence, and apparent disregard for individual liberty and personal property; speaks to a larger issue of American cultural and ideological decay. If this is about political parties, then it's because one political party has chosen wholesale to embrace that decay and foist it upon the rest of the country.

Here comes the start of the evidence. Lets see who in America even will bother to take the time to hear them out. Lets see which MSM will give them a platform to present it. Republican, Democrat, Independent, etc. we should all care if what they shared in this update is accurate. If it is accurate and it is ignored/swept under the rug, then sadly and with deep regret, there goes the end of fair and free elections in the United States.

They have also talked about splitting California into 5 separate states.

U.S. Nationals Lives Matter Too! If PR becomes a state, why not figure out a way to get the rest in. 😉

About 15 years ago, we had a special 5th Sunday adult meeting. It was about sexual abuse. One thing they pointed out was that "sexual abuse" can be a wide array of abuses. On the lower end, it would include things harassment. Another thing they pointed out was that the Church population is no better -- and no worse -- than the population at large. Whatever differences there are by state, the state-by-state rate vs. the rate of Saints in each of those states -- the numbers were statistically identical whether you were LDS or not. While I was thankful for finding out that we were no worse. I was grieved over the fact that we were no better. We really should be.

Puerto Rico has a population of about 2.2 million. There are about 6.5 million LDS in the USA. Hardly "about as many."

Hidden assumptions: - Everything smart wants to continue - Everything smart values existence - Everything smart understands cause and effect, action and consequence - Lucifer kept his memory of the pre-existence with God, therefore, having all the facts at his disposal, Lucifer 'gets it'

Expectations can limit communication.

That a boy! Way to win 'em to your side with some of that Trump extremism you claim to hate.

Random sidenote. I just listened to Pres. Nelson's video on Gratitude. Near the 3:45 mark he says he's found it's better to count our blessings than recount our problems. The way he was talking as he said "recount" with just a slight pause afterward, I thought he was going to talk about the presidential votes Maybe I've been a little too focused on politics.

You broke the code, man. Two goons carrying violin cases will be on your doorstep shortly.

Sorry Vort, this was the communication team-building activity. Your comment belongs with next quarter's learn-your-personality team-building activity.