carlimac

Heh.  Colorado law allows unaffiliated voters (such as myself) to vote in either the Dem or Rep caucuses.  Imma vote for Bernie.  That way, America will have one of the most real choices for president in my life - a clear cut case between capitalism and socialism.
 

You have to admire a guy who's willing to tell it like it is, even when it's exceedingly and eternally bad news for himself.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democracy-2020-digest-bernie-panic-spreads-inside-the-party
Hours earlier, on a Wednesday night conference call with supporters and donors, a fired-up Biden said: “I'll be damned if we're gonna lose this nomination, particularly if we're gonna lose this nomination and end up losing an election to Donald Trump.”

It’s a terribly overused word right now. And it’s used to denigrate someone who has opposing opinions than oneself.  Ugh! I hate it. Literally!

Everyone knew that Harry Reid would choose a particular side on most issues. We already know that a venomous serpent will bite and therefore we don’t put any confidence in it not biting. 
 
Mitt Romney makes a pretense of being on a team and then sides with the other. Justified or not, this comes across as disloyalty at a time when the nation is deeply divided on foundational principles. 
 
Wanna know who is hated worse than the enemy? A traitor. 
 
The Democrats made their impeachment decisions in order to uphold their ideology. I disagree with their ideology and believe them a dangerous enemy to liberty. 
 
But I believe Romney made his decision to serve himself and his own political interests. He might state differently, but I simply don’t believe or trust him. I bear no ill will towards him, but he needs to be voted out if he is going to place his own political interests above that of the nation; especially during times when a small number of votes can sway the outcomes. 

Harry Reid got plenty of pushback! ( I don't like that word "hate" because that isn't what it is really.)  He's just been out of the picture long enough that we've forgotten. I think we have held higher expectations for Mitt because he acts and talks like an LDS Repubican...till he doesn't. Then it feels more like a betrayal. 

Harry Reid got plenty of pushback! ( I don't like that word "hate" because that isn't what it is really.)  He's just been out of the picture long enough that we've forgotten. I think we have held higher expectations for Mitt because he acts and talks like an LDS Repubican...till he doesn't. Then it feels more like a betrayal. 

Unless it was a tactic.  "Look at me!  I'm the Republican who, knowing Trump was going to get acquitted anyway, gets to go on record as reasonable because I did vote to convict on one article but not the other!  Now when the winds blow toward moderation I can say I've established my moderate cred!"
The man's become a weasel.

Now, this is another problem with Romney dragging the Church into this:
Marc Short (Pence's Chief of Staff) was on a TV interview and he was asked about Romney's claim of his Mormon Faith giving him no other choice but to vote to convict.  Short stated that Romney invoking his Mormon faith as a reason for his vote is an insult to Mike Lee who is also Mormon who voted to acquit - this becomes an insult to Mike Lee's faithfulness.

Really! Watch this! 
 

Really! Watch this! 
 

Just watched a Blaze TV about the missing money sent to Ukraine to prop up their banks. Mind blowing!! I recommend y’all watch it. The house and MSM has spun a narrative that had nothing to do with what really happened. 

Just watched a Blaze TV about the missing money sent to Ukraine to prop up their banks. Mind blowing!! I recommend y’all watch it. The house and MSM has spun a narrative that had nothing to do with what really happened. 

Really! Watch this! 
 

Really! Watch this! 
 

Really! Watch this! 
 

This doesn’t make sense either.
Trump doesn’t have to allow his administration to potentially get themselves “Michael Flynn’d” unless he is subpoenaed to.  It is not his job to prove himself innocent.  He is innocent by default.  It is on Congress to prove his guilt.  Now... here’s right back at you - why did Congress not get a subpoena if they want those testimonies?

I hadn’t heard the Wallace interview until you pointed me to it just now.  I agree that Romney’s constant invocation of God is stylistically grating; and in the interview he comes off as a bit of a poser.
I can’t really speculate as to what’s going on in Romney’s head.  The only thing I can anticipate is that he probably thinks Trump is a bad guy who does bad things, which influences his perception of Trump’s intentions during the Ukrainian business.  (Maybe back when Trump was dangling State before Romney, Trump said something that makes Romney think this is a more likely scenario; who knows?)   For whatever reason, Romney *did* vote for acquittal on the second count when he could just as easily voted for conviction. 
Like Romney probably does, I do think Trump is fundamentally a bad guy in a lot of days; but I also get daily reminders that even bad guys are also entitled to due process.  I don’t think “due process” necessarily means in impeachment what it does in criminal or civil court—if a senator says “I’m going to vote for impeachment because the President called my baby ugly fifteen years ago”, I think ultimately that’s the senator’s prerogative.   But if you’re going to give lip service to due process (or at least fundamental fairness) in an impeachment context as Romney and most of the other senators have, then IMHO you’ve got to see it through; and the fact is that it’s not fundamentally fair to impeach/remove a president for doing the Exact. Same. Thing that his predecessor’s veep did less than four years ago where the veep not only got off scot-free, but is now running for the presidency himself.
But for the stake of stirring the pot:  since a number of conspiracy theories regarding Romney have been submitted, I will propose one more.  Perhaps the LDS church leadership considers it wise to always have at least one LDS senator who is seen as not being too close to the Republican party.  Certainly, if Trump loses re-election in November (and especially if the GOP also loses the Senate), it will be in both Utah’s and the Church’s interests to have at least one sitting Senator who is perceived to not have wholly been in Trump’s pocket.  In light of Senator Reid’s retirement, perhaps the First Presidency has secretly asked Romney to carry on as the Church’s “designated non-Republican” (or at least, non-Trumpling) in the Senate.

Now, I've been trying to get somebody... ANYBODY... to explain to me Romney's "conscience" and I still haven't gotten anybody to talk to me without opening with "You're a racist...", well, you know the drill.
Maybe you can give me something because you have that morality issue with Trump.
Now, the way I see it - if Romney is kinda like you and he really just can't deal with a President that odious - then wouldn't his entire interview with Chris Wallace be a lie?  And how about his duty as a Representative of the State of Utah?  That doesn't go into the equation of his "conscience"?  We already know Constitutionality is not a factor in his "conscience".  
It really ticked me off when he decides to drag his Mormon faith into this thing.  He went through 2 Presidential campaigns trying to avoid having to mention his religion until it became a sticking point in the general election but now he has no problem pointing it out when it wasn't necessary.  You won't believe how many times I had to field questions from friends like - "Is it true that missionaries are recruited by the CIA to be an operative for the deep state because they just blindly follow what they're told?  Is that why Romney is doing this because he is blindly following what he's told?"...

I'm skeptical, mostly because so many liberal Trump haters are gushing over it. It just doesn't feel right. 
And I'm no Trump lover. He drives me crazy.  If I didn't have to hear his voice, his State of the Union address was great. Our country does seem to be in better shape than it has been for awhile. Got to give him credit for stirring things up.  But his narcissistic, taking credit for everything, schoolboy pouting and constantly flinging insults and  barbs at his enemies are nauseating. 
I'm just not convinced that what he did  with the phone call was impeachable. So Romney's somewhat timid and so very very safe "breaking with ranks" doesn't impress me. He may be burned at the stake so to speak but ironically, it will be by those who voted him in. But it seems his actions assure him  a spot with the "Moral Majority" in the Democratic party. (sarcasm on) so he doesn't have to worry.  For this and a few other things, I'm glad I'm not a Utah resident right now.

I really liked him but knew he wouldn’t win POTUS when I went to vote.Well I didn’t “know” but had a strong impression.  It was good for him to run but it wouldn’t have been good for the church if he were president. 
Since then I’ve been sort of “meh” about his political moves. (I do like his wife though. She’s doing awesome things in the realm of neuro research and healthcare.) Go Ann!
In the last 24-48 hours there has been a huge flip flop among my friends. Those who voted for him for senate now despise him. Those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him are now practically drooling at his feet. It’s a little sickening. And they were the ones criticizing him for flip-flopping. 🤔
My uneducated observation is that he simply saw things differently than the rest of the clan. Came to a different conclusion. 
But I can hardly call his one “guilty” vote heroic when he knew it wouldn’t actually oust Trump. His vote didn’t make any difference in the outcome. Would he still have voted guilty if his had been the deciding vote?
 I don’t like to judge. But it kinda looks like he just did this to ingratiate himself with his enemies. I don’t know. He seemed sincere. But it’s no secret he has never liked Trump, has been very vocal about what a scum bag he thinks Trump is. So... was this really such an honorable and brave thing he did? 🤷‍♀️ 
My opinion of him went up a notch but then down two notches as I evaluated the scenario. 
 

Succinctly said!

I really liked him but knew he wouldn’t win POTUS when I went to vote.Well I didn’t “know” but had a strong impression.  It was good for him to run but it wouldn’t have been good for the church if he were president. 
Since then I’ve been sort of “meh” about his political moves. (I do like his wife though. She’s doing awesome things in the realm of neuro research and healthcare.) Go Ann!
In the last 24-48 hours there has been a huge flip flop among my friends. Those who voted for him for senate now despise him. Those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him are now practically drooling at his feet. It’s a little sickening. And they were the ones criticizing him for flip-flopping. 🤔
My uneducated observation is that he simply saw things differently than the rest of the clan. Came to a different conclusion. 
But I can hardly call his one “guilty” vote heroic when he knew it wouldn’t actually oust Trump. His vote didn’t make any difference in the outcome. Would he still have voted guilty if his had been the deciding vote?
 I don’t like to judge. But it kinda looks like he just did this to ingratiate himself with his enemies. I don’t know. He seemed sincere. But it’s no secret he has never liked Trump, has been very vocal about what a scum bag he thinks Trump is. So... was this really such an honorable and brave thing he did? 🤷‍♀️ 
My opinion of him went up a notch but then down two notches as I evaluated the scenario. 
 

President Trump was acquitted by the senate. 
 
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-acquits-president-trump-impeachment-vote
 

How is it a theory when 2 Nephi5:21 says  " as they were white, and exceedingly fair and bdelightsome, that they might not be centicing unto my people the Lord God did cause a dskin of eblackness to come upon them."  and then "And cursed shall be the seed of him that amixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done."?
Did Joseph Smith translate this wrong? 
If a person who is happy ( following the commandments, delighting in God's word, etc) mixes with a person who doesn't believe in God or feels "dejected", will their kids come out genetically gloomy and dejected? This just doesn't make sense.
 I think the church should just shrug and say, we believe this is what the Lord conveyed to Joseph Smith in the translation. We know God can do whatever serves His purposes. Obviously at that time in history when the Nephites and Lamanites were clashing, this is what He did. We don't know what that blackness looked like because we weren't there. It may have been a marking we wouldn't even recognize today.  There may no longer be any DNA linkage between this particular marking or skin and those that have darker skin today. It may not have ever touched Africa or anywhere else where people typically have darker skin.  We certainly don't automatically think of dark skin as a curse  today.  It's not a "thing" at this time. (Of course the Church spokespeople would say it more eloquently than that.) But if God felt the need to darken the wickeds' skin to protect the Nephites, then it was His prerogative. 
I live around many people with darker skin. I don't think I'm racist. I think it is just silly that anyone outside the church would connect a marking God put on a people under certain circumstances, and condemn us as being racist today when we very clearly aren't.

The real problem, as I perceive it, is that the general populous of the world is incapable of understanding that repercussions of an act or event is indicative of the original actors and not those impacted.  Adam partaking of the fruit impacted the entire human race by subjecting us to mortality, pain, suffering, and death.  However, Adam and Eve were the ones who chose to disobey God; their children are subject to the repercussions of their action, but are not accountable for them in any way.  The unenlightened Christian world decided on their own that the opposite is true, that because of what Adam did, all mankind are individually and personally accountable for it, which is one of the stupidest man-made ideas ever.
'Affected by' and 'accountable for' are very different in principle and application.  I believe early members of the Church were simply blinded by cultural norms and therefore failed to correctly connect the dots in understanding that skin tone is irrelevant to faithfulness and stature before God, at any point in time, regardless of whether or not it was a repercussion passed down by the actions of their ancestor(s).
That said, just because I am not responsible for the actions of my father, do not mean I am unaffected by them.  The child of a convicted murderer may grow up without his father, but that is merely the effect upon the child, the father is the one who received the legal punishment.  If people will simply seek to understand this truth, it will help them far beyond the realm of race. 
Do we not all believe that Christ was negatively affected by our sins?  And yet, how do we perceive and receive him?  If the Laminates skin was made dark as a curse upon the parents, does that change the righteousness of King Lamoni, or his father after they repented and came to a knowledge of the truth?  Do we yet see them as vile heathen?  What about Samuel the Lamanite?  Does anyone question his righteousness, or faithfulness?  Or do we see him as a prophet of God?
Sometimes the affects of the sins of parents can impact their children in a way that deprives them of certain blessings during mortality.  That does not mean it is the child's fault and most certainly does not mean the child will always be deprived of those blessings into the eternities.  A child born with Fetal Alchohol Syndrome is negatively affected, for his entire life, because of the actions of his parents; does the mean he is lesser before the Lord?  No.  Does it mean that when I got a call asking to take in a child with said condition that I did not feel comfortable with voluntarily placing my other children in that situation?  Yes, it does.
So, why are people bothered about the truth that a curse, including dark skin, was placed upon the initial ancestors of the Lamanites?  Because they cannot, or choose not to see beyond the mark, both literally and figuratively.  I see no problem with the way the initial passages were written in the manual, although a brief discussion on the principles I expounded above could have been useful, and in fact, would likely be more beneficial to the membership of the Church, than the assuaging language that is now in place.  I presume this may be a 'he who hath ears to hear, let him hear' situation.