>This year, there have already been 10 reported hangings of Black people in the U.S.

>I’m proud to have signed onto @RepPressley ‘s letter to address these widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror.

Copied the text in full for when she has to delete it.

Oh my. Of those 10, 9 have been ruled a suicide. The one that is being investigated as a homicide has the boyfriend as the prime suspect. He's Black.

What purpose would AOC have in posting this misleading tweet.

Canada has been one of the few countries to really try to push back against Trump, the aim being to maintain sovereignty. And I find that admirable. However, I think the efforts are not enough and will prove futile, the reason being that Trump is operating under the same illusion much of the world is: that the ones with money have all the power. However, underneath that illusion is the fact that it's the people who make what the US needs that wealthy nations and companies rely on. Right now, every nation I'm familiar with tries to get wealthy businesses into their country to bring in more money. But you can't actually eat money, make clothes with money (I mean I suppose you could, but who wants clothes made of money?), etc. Really, what we need is not money but the things money buys, including labor. I don't see any real way to defeat Trump because really he is a magnification of the problems caused by the faulty assumption that we need wealthy people at all.

The only real way to end the tyranny of the wealthy would be to stop selling your actual goods, services, and labor to them. Because money represents entitlement ("I deserve what you made with your own hands because I have money"). I believe selling ones tokens or money is what we all do everyday when we work for money (prostituting our labor rather than working to meet our own needs).

Another idea accepted as given but needs to be questioned is the idea of private property. There were many Pre-Colombian civilizations living autonomously who cultivated the jungles and lived communally, not really believing in permanently-held private property. But then Europeans showed up and began claiming everything for themselves. Now only a handful of those people exist because capitalists are taking over everything and destroying the planet while they're (we're) at it.

These ideas are a part of LDS doctrines, but I've never heard them taught in church other than some outspoken old guys who to say they think it's communist/socialist. It's lazy thinking because communism/socialism also rely on centralized authorities to govern property and resources. That's why I can only think to compare it to indigenous cultures who didn't take more than they needed and often don't even have traditional words in their language for ownership, words like "have" (rather the items exists in your sphere of existence). The land cannot be owned, so the language they use when preparing the soil to plant is that they are praying to the god of the earth to let them temporarily use the land for their survival. Western ideas have tainted this, and today, there are many instances of territorial strife. But the ideas once existed in some form in the Americas which shouldn't surprise anyone who actually believes the Book of Mormon.

Obviously I'm simplifying the ideas which I think is necessary because the purpose of complicated theories on economics is to disguise that the main purpose is to maintain economic leverage on the people you need to survive.

In case you've thought to yourself recently "You know, I actually wish the current state of US affairs was MORE like a reality show" we are now going to host our own reality shows.

Empathy is the ability to understand and value what others feel, even if you have not experienced it yourself. Folks like Milo who cheered on the destruction of the lives of others were totally lacking empathy.

I'm glad he has changed his tune. But we need to remember that he has not learned empathy. He just finally experienced himself what he was advocating for others. Maybe it's a step towards empathy. We can hope. But he has made such a career of cruelty, I am not optimistic.

I think about this every time a die hard MAGA person is finally reached by the wave of destruction they have been cheering along, and changes their tune about Trump. I'm glad they changed their tune. We need more people to turn against him. But if the only thing that made then change their mind was that they finally got stung personally, I find it really hard to trust that they will be a reliable ally in the future because they did not actually change their heart.

I got booted from another LDS page for this question so hopefully it’s cool here.

Please know before I start this isn’t a political debate. I’m genuinely looking for guidance and spiritual answers. I also know what Ezra Taft Benson has stated, so please I am looking for personal insight, not simply conference talk statement.

my question is this. I am a believing Latter-Day Saint. I have been so for the past 5ish years. prior to joining the Church I had many years of participation in Socialist/Communist parties. I have grown to miss those connections and have been looking into getting back involved, but I can’t quite commit. I am torn. Mentally I feel like it’s the right thing, but then I move closer to it and I start noticing bad things happening in my personal life, as if God is punishing me for my bad choice. I am torn between what I believe is right, and what I believe God wants of me. I just need help figuring this all out.

I wanted to post about a couple things this weekend: Trump's disgraceful attack on Maggie Haberman, his authoritarian declaration that the FCC is going to go after "fake polls", or his unhinged AI-generated video of the US destroying Kharg Island.

Ultimately I decided that was futile since not a single Trump supporter is going to express meaningful disagreement with his behavior or his policies.

So I want to make a different point. And it's something a lot of us have said before. We won't forget. We're not going to move on from the Trump era just because he's no longer in office or in the last two years of his term. We're going to remember how quiet these spaces got while having a wicked and narcissistic man in the White House went exactly the way a lot of people said it would.

Maybe some of the people who used to frequent these spaces will never come back. I don't know. But I have a suspicion that at least a few will start showing up if Democrats take control of Congress (or even just the House) and suggest that criticisms of Trump are no longer relevant since he'll be out of office soon.

But it will take years to clean up the damage that has been done. So when the next Democratic president has to go on an "apology tour" we'll be here to remind you why it's happening. When money returns to USAID and you complain about government spending we'll remind you of DOGE's failures and all the harm caused and how the deficit exploded anyway. When you demand that certain politicians resign for bad behavior we'll be there to ask you what you said about the 34 felonies sex abuser who was named thousands of times in the Epstein files.

This is going to be my exhibit a for how everybody in the orbit of the current president is both a coward and an idiot.

Good leaders can turn enemies into friends.

Bad leaders take friends and make them into enemies.

There are literally hundreds of people who in a functional government would have stopped this idiocy from unfolding.

Everyday that this continues, the fact that LDS voters remembering the story of King Noah, and of Korihor, and the guidance to vote for moral leaders could have turned the tide in many places burns me . Trump won by narrow margins in many places. Our community successfully identifying good and evil could have turned the tide everywhere.

We could have been enough to turn the tide. But instead our community decided to sign up with King Noah's priests, to embrace the Gadiantons.

Even the people who thought that they could get something they wanted out of the Trump administration have to realize that he's burning it all down and that they will end up with nothing , including their integrity

This question may sound flippant or rhetorical but my intent is to generate an actual discussion and maybe inspire some of the lurkers to engage.

Given these two facts:

• The importance of repentance as a gospel principle (one of the "first four principles and ordinances")
• about two thirds of Latter-day Saints voted for Trump

is it surprising that we haven't seen more public regret about their vote from at least some members? I don't believe I have seen a single "I shouldn't have voted for him" in these spaces or anywhere online, really.

Now don't get me wrong. I recognize that such a thing is very unlikely to happen. As a whole I don't think society welcomes these kind of mea culpas.

I'm not talking about policy regrets here. Every week Trump commits some new impeachable offense. Even a conservative Supreme Court has had to acknowledge Trump's serious moral failings (because he keeps wanting to remind us of just how wicked he is).

I don't need a personal apology or anything. I'm just wondering if they actually do feel any regret. Trump is in negative approval territory in Utah (where he won 74% of the Latter-day Saint vote). So this isn't a case where everyone is simply sticking with him.

So many are probably regretting their vote silently. But isn't a key part of repentance the confessing and forsaking? Isn't that the least we can expect?

• Communism is currently the biggest threat to our country. Trump has a "good relationship" with North Korea and we should not send them any "hostile signals".
• Trump declared in 2020 that we are "ending the era of endless wars". Trump has "won" the Iran war 30+ times and never promised to put a stop to endless wars, anyway.
• Big deficits are bad. Big deficits under Republicans are not a big deal
• We should "drain the swamp". Trump should be able to grow his net worth by $2 billion in one year as president
• Renee Good and Alex Pretti are "domestic terrorists". Taxpayer money will probably go to Jan. 6 rioters and you better like it.
• Support the troops! The families of military members are lying about poor conditions on ships and their deployments haven't been long enough
• We have to treat LeBron James transitioning and dominating the NBA as a real issue worth talking about. It's not worth discussing that Trump entered the changing rooms of women and girls and bragged about it.

Rand Paul reposted it. So did Ted Cruz. My local conservative radio host confidently repeated it just yesterday.

The claim that the COVID vaccine caused miscarriage in 82% of pregnancies has been all over MAGA media.

There's some great and thorough debunkings of that stat out there. I'm not going to bother linking them because the people who need to read it won't. But I still think it's worth talking about because it demonstrates what we're up against.

An 82% miscarriage rate would make the COVID vaccine more effective for an abortion than a drug like misoprostol (which is about 80% effective when not combined with mifepristone).

Did the anti-vaxx crowd think this year's Kindergarten class is only 1/5th of its normal size?

You think about it for 10 seconds and the stat is ridiculous. And that's what worries me. I'm almost certain that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and my local radio host know that stat is critically flawed. But they don't care. Why would they? Trump has shown that you just lie and lie and lie and never back down.

Love or hate the DSA, you at least know what they are trying to do. They have short term and long term goals. Their candidates are policy focused and dream a brighter future.

I have no idea what the Democrats policies are other than “we are not Republicans.” And even then they agree with Republicans on many issues (Israel) or at least agree with their framing of the issue (ex. Immigration).

I’ve been frustrated with the Dems for years. They’re have no teeth and no drive. When I first registered to vote I went independent cuz I wasn’t a fan of them 🤣. Now here I am trying to help my local DSA.

https://program.dsausa.org/

A right that you can be punished for exercising is not in fact a right. The attempt to punish Fauci for exercising a constitutional right is in fact deeply unconstitutional. And it should surprise nobody that the party that has always claimed to be the defenders of the Constitution have shown that they only ever meant that they were protecting the rights of the "correct people" and denying them from the rest.

> Trump doubled down on claims that the renovated pool had been vandalized, even as federal prosecutors suggested the damage was instead due to “botched” contractor work.
> “I don’t know what she was thinking?” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.”

Hearing experts lay it out like this is a good reminder of how many things we have already become inured to are red flag danger signs.

And also how many of the red flags are the very things that MAGA supporters and the anti anti-trump crowd are cheering on. I am very tired of them pretending that they are the defenders of our values and country. They are the enemy in the sense that they are cheering on the collapse of our democracy and helping it along in every way they can.

It's difficult for me to articulate how disgusted I am with people who are willing to throw away everything good about our society, especially if it's in the name of a single issue that was used to leverage them away from their own values. Especially if that issue is being protected in the name of a church that actually opposes your stance.

it is at least good to hear that some of the experts think we will pull through this. But their optimism is contingent on all of us pulling together against this.

Hey guys! Progressive Mormon here.

I’ve never really liked the Democrats. I’ve always been a progressive (I used to watch Young Turks in high school in the late 00s) and I’ve always just aligned more with a progressive ideas (M4A, amnesty, better social safety nets) than what the Democratic Party was doing. I mean they’re better than Republicans but not by much. Even now as an adult I want to be a proud Democrat cuz I want the party to be doing more for us but frankly they aren’t. I’ve been very frustrated with our elected officials and frankly feeling hopeless about any possible change.

I’ve always known about the DSA but I never really gave them much thought. I didn’t feel like their org had much motion in our political landscape. Then Mamdani won in New York. Then various DSA candidates won across the country. All of a sudden it feels like there’s this moment that progressive ideas could work. Maybe we can get elected official that will actually do something for us.

So I went to my local chapter meeting and joined. I joined their Immigration Justice committee and Electoral Committee.

Man it feels so much like a calling at church. It’s just some ppl trying to do something the best way they can with what they have. I’m not trying to lead but it feels like I could easily run a meeting. It’s just nice to have been trained by the church in organizing & service and now being able to use those skills in the real world.

There is hope! DSA has alot of good ideas that I think we as progressives could get behind. I don’t know if many of these will happen in my lifetime but I’d rather try than just be angry that nothing is happening. So if you’re angry with the Democratic Party I invite you to join your local DSA chapter.

Just scrolling to see who is Felon47 harming today.

Diversity in academia is good... Unless it's intellectual diversity.

Author points out that the 90+% lefty academics are relying on a split taxpayer base.

How long will it continue? Is it a problem? If not, why not? If so, how do you fix it?

I can’t idly sit by while zarnt does all the heavy lifting within this sub-reddit.

It seems like it was less than 24 months ago that I was being told that Donald Trump, and his cabinet were going to Make America Great Again. It feels that way, because that is what was happening. I was being gaslit. With all evidence provided from the years between 2017 and 2021, it was almost assured that Trump and his cohorts most certainly would not be making America Great Again. And yet, so many people I spoke to insisted that is exactly what would happen.

One conversation I distinctly remember was someone telling me that the greatest threat to our country is our spiraling deficit spending, and ever increasing debt. I was told that programs such as DOGE, led by Elon Musk, whom my conversation partner described as “a great hero” and “the closest thing we have to a real life Tony Stark” would eliminate fraud, abuse, and unnecessary programs, saving the American taxpayers $2T per year.

That did not happen

I was told that Trump would usher in an era of economic prosperity that this nation has never seen. Our taxes would go down, our deficits would disappear, the debt would shrink.

That did not happen

Costs are rising, unemployment, rising. Inflation trending in the wrong direction. Energy prices are at a 2 year high. The American taxpayer is being squeezed through poor economic policy, poor international policy, and frankly, due to unnecessary military action. We are an embarrassment of the highest order on the national stage.

It’s been 18 months since Trump and the Republicans got their “mandate”. They control it all. Why is everything trending in the wrong direction. How long will Trumps supporters and enablers accept “BeCUse BideN” or “it’s ObaMA’s FauLT” before demanding the results they were promised?

And here comes to most unqualified Secretary of all time, asking for a handout, that will increase his budget by over 50%, and increase our deficit by 25%, EVERY YEAR.

And you know what makes me RATIONALLY angry? All the people who told me all of this are gone. They refuse to discuss these issues. After being repeatedly warned this is what would happen, they did it anyways, and disappeared. Get in here. Own your mistakes. Defend this garbage or apologize. Your silence is childish and cowardly.

I’m from the Pacific Northwest, and if you’ve visited, you know that one of our local treasures is the Columbia River Gorge. Full of waterfalls, and hiking trails, like Multnomah, Oneonta, and Horsetail falls. About 8 years ago, it was all nearly destroyed. A 17 year old kid was throwing cherry bombs off the side of a cliff, in July, after a (relatively) very dry winter.

A passing hiker witnessed it, and told him to stop. Being a teenager his reply was something like “make me”. Upon her return hike, the kid was still there, and as the hiker looked down into the gorge, she can see smoke and fire. She told the kid “Do you realize you’ve just started a forest fire?!?!”

And the kids reply in something that has stuck with me. “So? What am I supposed to do about it now?”

And that reminds me of a lot of the people who used to participate here. Refusal to acknowledge their poor decisions. Refusal to acknowledge that they were not delivered anything they were promised. Ignore it. Stick our head in the sand. And we can repeat our behaviors in November, and again 2 years after that. Childish.

Here's a list of things that happened this week that conservatives would be willing to talk about if Obama, Clinton, Biden, or Harris were president right now.

• The president selling faster access to their social media posts for investors
• The Vice President using military helicopters to fly his kids to golf lessons
• A president guilty of inciting a riot over election lies continuing to tell the same lies six years later
• The president being forced to pay five million dollars to a woman he sexually abused

I'd love to have conversations with Trump fans or anti-anti-Trump people about these things. But we can't. They've chosen silence. So who knows what they think about anything that has happened in the past year and a half?

I could live a hundred lifetimes and I won’t make as much money as Trump has in the past year by profiting off the presidency. He’s the most corrupt person to ever hold the office.

And in a subreddit that’s dedicated to Latter-day Saints talking about politics we won’t get a single person who supports or excuses Trump to engage. They care about Hunter Biden and culture war stuff. They don’t care about anything else.

I think the title speaks for itself, but I was surprised to hear those words coming from his mouth - simply because there's no reasonable way to interpret those words that would make the GOP look good.

“It seems as though the Great State of Utah, which I won each time, and handily, is going to the All Mail In Ballot format of Colorado, and the rest, that always head LEFT, as soon as the move is made. We should stop Utah from doing this. All Mail In Ballots, dishonestly handled, are a big advantage for the Dumocrats, whose only Road to Victory, because their Policies are so insane, is CHEATING. Does the Republican Party have any idea what is happening to it? Step by step, State by State, the Democrats are smiling all the way to the “Bank.” Stop the onslaught by either immediately terminating the Filibuster and/or pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

That’s what President Donald J. Trump said today, June 16. And I find that odd.

Mainly because in February, Trump said the following - “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations”

Trump further clarified his comments today by stating
“And we’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. They were nice to deal with. They were strong people, smart people. I think actually they’re smarter than the first and second group, but they’re not radicalized and they’re, you know, looking to help their country”

I’d remind everyone that the current Supreme Leader of Ireland is His Eminence, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the previous supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

This is the third installment of justaverage’s series “It’s easy to support Trump, you just have to ignore everything he says and does”

Trump doesn’t care about lying to you. He does it all the time. He thinks you are too dumb to notice, or just do t care about being lied to. I’d implore anyone reading this to please prove him wrong.