For the past nine months, I’ve tended a small thread called “Fun with Republicans” on a local board. My efforts are simple: copying and pasting mainstream published statements by Republicans and listening to sane and not-so-sane voices in response. I’ve stripped away all but the published statements and frame them here as a months’ long dialogue.

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They are wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the fever swamps. Like all conservatives, I am concerned about this administration’s accumulation of economic power. Still, you have to be aware that there’s a line where legitimate concerns begin to collapse into paranoid fantasy. -David Frum

I’m asking you to go out and ask your friends to wear our hat-the hat of an idea. – Michael Steele

March 2009
McCAIN (R-AZ): Spending freeze? You know, econ – economic things, I said this last night on Hannity, I said is my — I didn’t even take econ in college. I don’t completely understand it so I’d hate to make a comment one way or the other. That’s – truly of all the things – I keep reading and I just don’t understand it.

SANFORD (R-SC): What you’re doing is buying into the notion that if we just print some more money that we don’t have and send it to different states, we’ll create jobs. If that’s the case, why isn’t Zimbabwe a rich place?”

WURZELBACHER (Joe the Plumber): God, all this love and everything in the room — I’m horny.

BACHMANN (R-MN): I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.

STEELE (RNC): I would think about running for the White House but only if that is where God wants me to be at that time.

PALIN: So I’m looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra. And the McCain campaign, love ‘em, you know, they’re a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray.

BACHMANN: Right now I’m a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. And people need to understand, this isn’t a game. this isn’t just a political talk show that’s happening right now. This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. This may be the time when that link breaks. And I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we keep that link secure. We cannot allow that link to break, because as Reagan said, “America is the last great hope of mankind.” Do we get into an inner tube and float 90 miles to some free country? There is no free country for us to repair to. That’s why it’s up to us now. The founders gave everything they had to give us this freedom. Now it’s up to us to give everything we can to make sure that our kids are free, too. It’s that serious. I hate to be dramatic, but–
HANNITY: It’s not — you are not overstating this case, Congresswoman, and you don’t need to apologize for it. And as a matter of fact, it’s refreshing. And I can tell you, all around this country, on 535 of the best radio stations in this country, people are saying “Amen,” “Hallelujah”, “where have you been?”

STEELE: Look, I like the president personally, even though I think he has got a little thing about me, that I haven’t quite figured out what that is.
CNN: You haven’t spoken to him?
STEELE: No.
CNN: You’ve reach out?
STEELE: Several times, and I’m done.
CNN: So there is no bipartisanship going on there?
STEELE: Not, not that I know of.
CNN: Is there any professional jealousy?
STEELE: Not on my part. What would I be jealous of?
CNN: He’s the president of the United States.
STEELE: I’m chairman of the RNC, so, what’s your point? We both have leadership responsibilities and roles. I’m not equating the two. My point is: you are on your track. I’m on my track. You do your thing. I do my thing.

April
LIMBAUGH: If the British Prime Minister keeps slobbering over President Barack Obama, he’ll come down with anal poisoning and may die from it.

HOEKSTRA (R-Mich.) I’m watching Neil Cavuto and I see [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner is talking about how he might be OK with a world currency. I don’t think Americans are going to be comfortable with that. You’re going to see things that people perceive as eroding American sovereignty—this is something that’s clearly un-American. I mean, here’s the secretary of the Treasury, and instead of defending the United States and defending our currency, he’s saying he might be open to a world currency. What does that mean? It means turning our currency over to the UN.”

BACHMANN (R-MN): It’s under the guise of — quote — volunteerism. But it’s not volunteers at all. It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. … I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

GIULIANI: Sending a videotape message into Iran and the language and tone of that message, in my view, is the kind of thing terrorists look at and say ‘we can take advantage, we can push.’

SCARBOROUGH: Let me tell you that, I agree this is a successful trip. But Americans may not like it, a lot of elites in New York may not like it, people that live in my neighborhood on the Upper West Side may not like it, but you need a Dick Cheney also. You need somebody that scares bad people of the world.

BACHUS (R-ALA) Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists.

KING (R-NY) Republicans should shut down [legislative] activity across the board if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court. We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war.
If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, ‘Your son was vaporized because we didn’t want to dump some guy’s head under water for 30 seconds.’

BACHMANN (R-MN): I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.

FOXX (R-NC) I also would like to point out that there was a bill — the hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. This — the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.

STEELE: You wear your hat one way. You like to wear it, you know, kind of cocked to the left, you know, because that’s cool out West. In the Midwest, you guys like to wear it a little bit to the right. In the South, you guys like to wear the brim straight ahead. Now, the Northeast, I wear my hat backwards, you know, because that’s how we roll in the Northeast. But what do you recognize. We all are wearing the hat that says ‘GOP’ because that’s what we believe. That’s who we are.

May
SESSIONS (R-ALA): Obama’s plan is to diminish employment and diminish stock prices. By doing so, Obama intended to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it as part of a divide and conquer strategy to consolidate power. [On GITMO] They wouldn’t be treated any better in the United States, and they wouldn’t have the tropical breezes blowing through.

HENDREN (R-AK) When I referred to him [Schumer] as “that Jew” it wasn’t because I don’t like Jewish people. I shouldn’t have gotten into this Jewish business because it distracts from the issue.

LIMBAUGH: Have you ever had a genuine addiction to something? Well I have and let me tell you about it. It makes you entirely unreasonable and irrational. It is all you care about. Nothing else matters no matter how important…it doesn’t matter as much as the addiction. Feeding it, the fear of not being able to is what animates your existence every day. These people are addicted to power because they think it is their birthright. And I’m not just talking about the people in Washington, elected officials, I’m talking about some of — not all — but some of the rank and file, madcap insane liberals that you will find blogging, that you will find emailing, that you will find on the protest march. Their lives are basically meaningless, their addiction to power and dominance and control is what drives them.

BARTON (R-TX) I’m creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola, your Dr. Pepper and your Perrier water. It’s necessary for human life. It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer, doesn’t cause asthma. There’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.

INHOFE (R-OK): (on GITMO) Anyone, any detainee, over 55 has an opportunity to have a colonoscopy. Now none of them take ‘em up on it, because once they explain what it is, none of them want to do it. But nonetheless it’s an opportunity that they have.”

HUCKABEE: The appointment of Maria Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric.

NARRATOR: The Republican National Committee removed a controversial video comparing Nancy Pelosi to Bond girl Pussy Galore from its YouTube account. The RNC asserted its copyright to the video to remove any trace of it from YouTube, asking the service to take a copy of the video down from the account of a Politico reader who had reposted it. An RNC spokesman yesterday wouldn’t explain why the committee took the video down.

MARCUS EPSTEIN had too much to drink and stumbled onto Georgetown’s scenic, shop-lined M Street, walking in no particular direction. At 7:15 p.m., he bumped into a black woman, called her a “******,” and struck her in the head with an open hand. An off-duty Secret Service agent was watching. Epstein “jogged away,” according to the agent’s affidavit, and when Epstein was finally chased down, he “continued to flail his arms while being taken into custody.” Epstein was, and still is, one of the utility players in the immigration restrictionist fringe of the conservative movement, the executive director of both PAT BUCHANAN’S American Cause and former Rep. TOM TANCREDO’s (R-CO )aide.

June
NARRATOR (CONT’D): South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered Gov. Mark Sanford on Thursday to take $700 million in federal stimulus money aimed primarily at struggling schools.

Legislative leaders say they appear to have enough votes to override Gov. Sarah Palin’s veto of $28.6 million in federal stimulus money for energy cost relief. Alaska is the only state to have rejected these funds, and that’s not sitting well.

Clearly, Norm Coleman isn’t exactly tech-savvy. After a speaking engagement in St. Louis this week, he told a video-camera wielding supporter that the key to success for Republicans “lies in the ethernet.”

PAWLENTY (referring to NBC’s “Inside the Obama White House” special, told the gathering of about 200 students): I haven’t seen something that staged since that half-naked Austrian fell onto the face of Eminem at the MTV music awards. Eminem was mad…and so, just like Eminem getting dumped on, we’ve got to kind of regroup. We’ve got to continue to fight. And we’ve got some things worth fighting for.

STEELE (at the College Republican annual conference, continues the “hat” metaphor): Regardless of how they wear their hat, the problem we had is that too many of our friends, neighbors, colleagues, family members, are taking the hat off because we have decided we don’t like the way they wear it. Let me ask you, what do they have in common? They’re all wearing the same hat. […] The difference is, Barack Obama has asked your generation to wear his hat, his hat — the hat of one man. I’m asking you to go out and ask your friends to wear our hat -– the hat of an idea.

BACHMANN: There’s a GM dealership in Minnesota, which was poised to be shut down, “that applied to their [sic] Democrat [sic] senator to appeal for help so that they could stay open.” There is [sic] no private corporations the way we used to think of GM.

NARRATOR: South Carolina GOP activist and former chairman of the state elections commission Rusty DePass has apologized for saying a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was an “ancestor” of Michelle Obama.

After an aide to state Attorney General Henry McMaster detailed the escape of the gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo, DePass responded with a comment: “I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors – probably harmless.”

DEPASS (R-SC): I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone. The comment was clearly in jest.

NARRATOR: Sherri Goforth, a legislative aide to a Republican State senator in Tennessee, who sent a racist email to, as she puts it, “the wrong list of people.” The email depicts the Presidents of the United States with President Barack Obama as a pair of eyes in a black background. “I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

GOP operative Mike Green posted a racist joke about President Obama on his Twitter account over the weekend. Green posted this, then deleted it some time later: JUST HEARD OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT’S WHITE AND IT WORKS.

The Obama administration’s intervention in the economy mimics South American regimes of the 1980s that nationalized industries, a Republican congressman argued Tuesday.

STEELE: So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated.
If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here? If my friend Trevor has access to health care, and I don’t, why do I need to overhaul the entire system so I can get access he already has? Why don’t you just focus on me and get me access?
NARRATOR: Gov. Mark Sanford’s wife said Monday she did not know the location of the two-term Republican chief executive. Sanford’s staff declined to disclose where he was. The whereabouts of Gov. Mark Sanford was unknown for nearly four days, and some state leaders question who was in charge of the executive office. But Sanford’s office told the lieutenant governor’s office Monday afternoon that Sanford has been reached and he is fine, said Frank Adams, head of Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer’s office on aging. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he has been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman.

SANFORD (R-SC: I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone. [Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]

The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything. [Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]

SANFORD (to Maria): Two, mutual feelings …. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light – but hey, that would be going into sexual details …

Got back an hour ago to civilization and am now in Columbia after what was for me a glorious break from reality down at the farm. No phones ringing and tangible evidence of a day’s labors. Though I have started every day by 6 this morning woke at 4:30, I guess since my body knew it was the last day, and I went out and ran the excavator with lights until the sun came up. To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the back ground, the tranquillity that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds – and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt.

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before – so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know… In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.

LIMBAUGH: He had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to South Carolina. He didn’t want any part of it. He lost the battle and said “What the hell? The Federal government is taking over! I want to enjoy life!”

SANFORD (R-SC): I have been doing a lot of soul searching on that front. What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very very significant ways. But then picked up the pieces and built from there.

TRACE GALLAGHER (of Fox News’ “Live Desk”) We just want to make a correction to something we put up on the screen during our coverage of the governor’s press conference yesterday. We briefly identified Governor Sanford as a Democrat. He is, of course, a Republican and we apologize for getting it wrong.

NARRATOR: At an event Thursday for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (one of the lead organizations behind the Tax Day Tea Parties), Wurzelbacher suggested Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CN) should be lynched.

Authorities arrested Mark Musselwhite, CLAYTON, GA mayor and charged him with public indecency last weekend after state Department of Natural Resources officers found him sitting nude at his Rabun County campsite.

Officers had received a complaint about a naked man walking along a nearby road earlier in the day, but the 43-year-old Musselwhite said he was not the same man. Musselwhite told the DNR officer he had been swimming in a nearby creek.

The Republican was elected to the Gainesville City Council in 2000, where he served for six years, including a stint as mayor. He lost a bid for a state Senate seat in 2006.

BOEHNER (R-OH) on the climate bill: Hey, people deserve to know what’s in this pile of shit.

INHOFE (R-OK): The EPA absolutely buried evidence undermining policy on global warming after a researcher claimed that carbon dioxide has had little effect on the environment. They’ve been cooking that science since 1998.

NARRATOR: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she’d come out ahead if she went one-on-one with fellow jogger President Barack Obama in a long run, according to an interview published online Tuesday. “I betcha I’d have more endurance,” she told Runner’s World magazine.

When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

PALIN (R-AK): I went for a run at John McCain’s ranch a couple of days before the debate with Joe Biden. My favorite thing in the world is to run on hot, dusty roads. I don’t get enough of that in Alaska. So I was in heaven and there were plenty of hills so I knew my thighs were going to just throb and my lungs were going to burn and that’s what I crave.

I like running alone and having the Secret Service with me added a little bit of pressure. I’m thinking I gotta have good form and can’t be hyperventilating and can’t be showing too much pain and that adds a little more pressure on you as you’re trying to be out there enjoying your run. Then I fell coming down a hill and was so stinkin’ embarrassed that a golf cart full of Secret Service guys had to pull up beside me. My hands just got torn up and I was dripping blood. In the debate you could see a big fat ugly Band-Aid on my right hand. I have a nice war wound now as a reminder of that fall in the palm of my right hand. For much of the campaign, shaking hands was a little bit painful.

NARRATOR: Three House Republicans on the subcommittee overseeing the 2010 Census are asking Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to reverse her decision to boycott the national population count, fearing others will follow her lead.
“Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (GA.) and John Mica (FL), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Achieves, said in a statement Wednesday. Sources say the GOP Members approached Bachmann privately over the past few weeks and asked her to stop the boycott. They decided to go public because Bachmann appeared unfazed by their request, according to a GOP aide.

July
When U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner told a newscaster Sunday that not a single stimulus-funded road contract in his home state of Ohio had been let, he was wrong.
The Ohio Department of Transportation has OK’d 52 stimulus-funded road and bridge projects at a cost of nearly $84 million.

Boehner told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that in “Ohio, the infrastructure dollars that were sent there months ago,” as part of the economic recovery package, “there hasn’t been a contract let, to my knowledge.”

VICTORIA JACKSON: Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn’t like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where’s the public debate between scientists on “Climate Change/Global Warming?”) Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O’s nationalized car be? So… kill off the weak. That’s the plan. Tax the workers to death. Erase the middle class. Sounds like the evil governments we studied in high school long ago. The evil governments were : kings, oligarchies, facist, socialist, and communist. Now it’s called the Obama Administration. Sounds like candy or a rock band.

DEMINT (R-SC) defending Honduran President Manuel Zelaya’s recent removal from office by the Honduran military: In the course of defending the military coup President Obama has an ad hoc and personalized foreign policy that seems less about supporting the rule of law than it is about supporting particular rulers. Zelaya’s removal from office was no more a coup than was Gerald Ford’s ascendence to the Oval Office or our newest colleague Al Franken’s election to the Senate.

NARRATOR: Sen. John Ensign paid out nearly $100,000 to the family of his mistress out of his private funds, his lawyer says in an e-mail. The gifts, the statement says, are part of a pattern of “generosity” on the part of the senator to the family he nearly destroyed. In April 2008, Senator John Ensign’s parents each made gifts to Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton, and two of their children in the form of a check totaling $96,000. Each gift was limited to $12,000. The payments were made as gifts, accepted as gifts and complied with tax rules governing gifts.

After the Senator told his parents about the affair, his parents decided to make the gifts out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends during a difficult time. The gifts are consistent with a pattern of generosity by the Ensign family to the Hamptons and others.

Meanwhile, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) an ardent anti-abortion activist — is worried that the Obama administration’s loosening of restrictions on stem cell research will result in the creation of a new race of bio-engineered “human-animal” hybrid freaks.

BROWNBACK (R-KN): This legislation (the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009) works to ensure that our society recognizes the dignity and sacredness of human life. Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice.

NARRATOR: The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act would ban the creation of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are defined as those part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species.

The following senators are orginal co-sponsors: Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), James Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mel Martinez (R-FL), John McCain (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), John Thune (R-SD), David Vitter (R-LA), George Voinovich (R-OH), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms.

The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state’s social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.

Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

SOTOMAYOR: Please! I’m not. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand what I’m trying to say.
COBURN (R-OK): You’d have a lot of ’splainin’ to do.

NARRATOR: The estranged wife of former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering claims in a lawsuit that the Mississippi Republican had an affair that ruined their marriage and derailed his political career. Leisha Pickering said in the lawsuit filed this week that her husband and the woman dated in college, reconnected and began having an affair while he was in Congress and living in a building where several Christian lawmakers reside on C Street near the U.S. Capitol. Chip Pickering is the third Republican with ties to the building at 133 C Street SE to find his personal life making headlines in recent weeks, after Nevada U.S. Sen. John Ensign and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

BUCHANAN: White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks, who were 90% of the nation in 1960 when I was growing up and the other 10% were African-Americans who had been discriminated against

NARRATOR: South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, still clinging to office after admitting to an extramarital affair, wrote in an opinion piece released Sunday that God will change him so he can emerge from the scandal a more humble and effective leader.

In the past several months Atwater City Councilman Gary Frago has sent at least a half-dozen e-mails to city staff and other prominent community members containing racist jokes aimed at President Barack Obama, his wife and black people in general. In all, the Sun-Star obtained seven e-mails that Frago sent from October 2008 to February 2009 from an anonymous source. Some compared Obama to O.J. Simpson while others suggested that “****** rigs” should now be called “presidential solutions.” Perhaps the most overboard e-mail was sent on Jan. 15. It read: “Breaking News Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue. Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic.” Frago admitted sending the e-mails, but showed no regret. “If they’re from me, then I sent them,” he said. “I have no disrespect for the president or anybody, they weren’t meant in any bad way or harm.”

JESSICA STEELE (owner, Beehive Hairdressers, twittering): I am Sarah Palin’s hairdresser in Alaska! The media is saying Sarah’s hair is thinning this is a lie!!! I never said this and it’s not true!

LYNN CHENEY (daughter of Dick): I’m saying that people are fundamentally uncomfortable and fundamentally I think increasingly uncomfortable with an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America, stand up for what we believe in.

DR. DAVID MCKALIP: Depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the artist who created the image was expressing concerns that the health-care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country.

BACHMANN (R-MN): Why offer more people health insurance if they might lengthen waits for doctors and otherwise increase the hassle factor for me? That’s like having a mother bear protecting her little cubs, and she’s seeing that she has to move heaven and earth to get her child what her child needs, We’ll do it if we have to, but why put ourselves in that situation?

BIGGERT (R-IL): I think most all of us here have had the opportunity to take our kids to a fast-food restaurant. We want to get a good dinner, and you walk in and there’s 50 people there and it seems like everybody in line wants to buy food for their soccer team or whatever. The American people aren’t particularly good at standing in line, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen if this health care plan goes through.

NARRATOR: Back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration. “The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government. With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ “

PALIN: Some straight talk for some — just some — in the media, because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press. And you have such important jobs, reporting facts, and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected honest profession, that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you. And that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit making things up.

INHOFE (R-OK): People complain that we are buying — importing from the Middle East — oil and gas. And then they find out that we have it all right here. We don’t have to do that. If their argument there is “Well, we don’t want to use oil and gas because we think it pollutes” — which it doesn’t — but if that’s their argument, then why are we willing to import it from Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East?

NARRATOR: A Tennessee lawmaker resigned from the state Senate on Tuesday after his extramarital affair with a 22-year-old intern was revealed by an investigation into an extortion case.

STANLEY (R-TN): Due to recent events, I have decided to focus my full attention on my family and resign my Senate seat effective August 10.

NARRATOR: Court records show that Stanley, 47, told agents investigating a blackmail case that he had a sexual relationship with intern McKensie Morrison. Her boyfriend, Joel Watts, is charged with trying to extort $10,000 from Stanley in April. Investigators say Watts demanded the money in exchange for not releasing to the media explicit photos of Morrison that Stanley had taken in what appears to be Stanley’s apartment.

BLUNT (R-MO): What I don’t know is why the president can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that that’s a legitimate question — no health records, no birth certificate.

NARRATOR: Sen. John Ensign told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his affair with a friend’s wife was different from former President Bill Clinton’s relationship with a White House intern because he didn’t lie about it under oath.

ENSIGN (R-NV): I haven’t done anything legally wrong.

August
RAND PAUL (son of Ron Paul): When you hear about the ‘Amero,’ a new North American money, you might say that those people are just conspiracy theorists. But if you said the same thing about the euro 30 years ago they would have said, ‘Oh, you’re crazy, we’ll never get rid of the pound and those currencies, and lo and behold we have a euro currency. So some of the fears of world government are legitimate.

FRANKS (R-AZ): There is conflicting evidence as to whether the president was born in the United States. Obama should produce his birth certificate. I may sue the president over the issue.

LIMBAUGH: Before it’s all over, it’ll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill.
NARRATOR: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.VA.) called for health care reform legislation to be named in his honor.
LIMBAUGH: I predicted it, and I caught all kinds of grief for it out there.

NARRATOR: U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins offered encouragement to conservatives at a town hall forum that the Republican Party would embrace a “great white hope” capable of thwarting the political agenda endorsed by Democrats who control Congress and President Barack Obama.

STEELE (RNC): It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person’s political affiliation. GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?

NARRATOR: An Idaho Republican gubernatorial hopeful insists he was joking when he said he’d buy a license to hunt President Barack Obama.

FRANKS (R-AZ): I came within three days of launching an Obama citizenship lawsuit. The ironic part about this is I was one of the few Members of Congress that was willing, if I could come up with a way to prove that Barack Obama was not born in this country, I was willing to go into a lawsuit.

HUCKABEE: It was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don’t have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them.

NARRATOR: Chris Broughton, the man who brought an assault rifle and a handgun to the Obama event in Arizona last week, attended a fiery anti-Obama sermon the day before the event, in which Pastor Steven Anderson said he was going to “pray for Barack Obama to die and go to hell. Anderson also said Broughton had informed the pastor about his planned show of arms-bearing, but “he planned out the AR15 thing long before he heard that sermon,” delivered Sunday August 16 at the fundamentalist Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ.

Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of former VP Dick Cheney, has thrown $1,000 behind Rob Portman, a Congressional candidate from Ohio who believes she should not be able to adopt children or marry her partner.

BACHMANN (R-MN): This cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.

WSJ: As inconceivable as it may seem today, the 2012 election may end up turning on national security. Republicans would be wise to nominate someone with both toughness and experience. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to think of a better candidate–assuming, of course, that he could be persuaded to run–than Richard B. Cheney.

MARIA BARTOROMO (FOX): How come you don’t use it [Medicare]? You don’t have it. How come you don’t have it?
WEINER (D-NY) who turns 45 this week, tried to walk Bartiromo through it: Because I’m not 65
BARTOROMO: Yeah… c’mon

September
NARRATOR: The chairman of the Republican Party of Florida on Tuesday issued a statement to “condemn President Obama’s use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda.” Jim Greer also accused President Obama of “using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda.” The state party chair issued the statement in response to a White House announcement that Obama would appear in a nationally broadcast address to primary school students around the country. The White House has said the president would be urging students to “(take) responsibility for their success in school.”

GREER (R-FL): As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology.

BACHMANN (R-MN): Also with women politicians, they want to make sure no women, no woman becomes president before a Democrat woman, and so they’re doing everything they can to, I think, sabotage women like Sarah Palin, perhaps women like myself, or similarly situated women, to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice. But the thing is, the people in our country, they don’t care who the voice is, they just want someone, they want to know that someone is speaking out for them against what will certainly bring about the destruction of our great country if we continue to go down the Obama path.

SANFORD (R-SC): Everybody is assigned their own secret-agent mission in life. And at times the tricky part, the hard part, is finding out what that is.

KIRK (R-NV): She wears little eye-patch underwear. So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And? so, we had made love Wednesday–a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy! So, I am getting into spanking her. Yeah, I like it. I like spanking her. She goes, ‘I know you like spanking me.’ I said, ‘Yeah! Because you’re such a bad girl!’ “

NARRATOR: The lawmaker [Mark Kirk] had received a 100 percent rating from Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative advocacy group, for his votes on legislation considered pro-family during the 2007-08 legislative session.

American Solutions for Winning the Future, Gingrich’s D.C.-based PAC, has named a porn purveyor its “Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2009, according to representatives of the pornographer. Allison Vivas heads up Pink Visual, a DVD production and distribution company based in Van Nuys, Ca., that specializes in adult films.

LIMBAUGH: You put your kids on a school bus you expect safety but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering ‘yeah, right on, right on, right on.’ Of course everybody said the white kid deserved it he was born a racist, he’s white.

NARRATOR: The chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly and member of the Republican Central Committee says he has quit the GOP because he was embarrassed by South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s address to Congress on Sept. 9.

PALIN: We got into this mess [recession] because of government interference in the first place.

INHOFE (R-OK): I think he’s right. I think what he’s saying is God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles. … I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science really isn’t there.

LYNN CHENEY: Mr. President, in a ticking time-bomb scenario, with American lives at stake, are you really unwilling to subject a terrorist to enhanced interrogation to get information that would prevent an attack?

October
STEELE: The indoctrinating of the most impressionable members of our society is unbelievable unless you see it with your own eyes. Please watch the video of young school children literally singing the praises of Barack Obama that their teachers have taught them. Share it with your friends, family, neighbors or anyone you think may be concerned by this. Then make a donation of $10, $25, $50 or $100 to support the RNC’s efforts to fight this leftist propaganda and elect more Republicans this year and next. Thank you.

GLEN BECK: Vancouver lost, how much was it? They lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics.

GOHMERT (R-TX): If you’re oriented toward animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions, [...] pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations but the trouble is, we made amendments to eliminate pedophiles from being included in the definition.

BROUN (R-GA): When I was sworn into the Marine Corps, I was sworn to uphold the Constitution against every enemy, foreign and domestic. We’ve got a lot of domestic enemies of the Constitution and one of those sits in the speaker’s chair of the United States Congress, Nancy Pelosi.

HUCKABEE: There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama’s nomination [for the Nobel], made two weeks into his presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining. The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as President that merited such recognition.

STEELE: The Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control. And truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way.

RNC: In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball in the United States, as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not only was he a great athlete, Jackie Robinson was also a great Republican.

STEELE: Basically what we should be saying is that there are rules that you need to get into the country, go the right door, fill out the right form, have some apple pie, hum a few bars of the star spangle banner and get to work, God bless you, and I think that that begins to set us on the right road to dealing with this issue

MERWIN (R-SC): DeMint was just looking after the nation’s pennies — like a Jew would. There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.

HARPER (R-MS): We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.

LIMBAUGH: So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway.

TONY PERKINS (Family Research Council): Obama’s program to help gay elderly is wasted since gays die young anyway.

JEB BUSH (R-FL): I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism. That’ll make the news.

CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING NETWORK: During this [Halloween] period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

November
PALIN: “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins. Who calls a shot like that? It’s a disturbing trend.

SESSIONS: “Why should a woman pay more [for insurance] than a man?” Well, we’re all different. Why should a smoker pay more?

CURTAIN

Emotional Infidelity

The September Ensign ran an article warning of the marital danger when one spouse has a close friend of the opposite sex.  First Thessalonians 5:22 was cited to caution LDS members to avoid the appearance of evil. Even though the footnotes  in the LDS NT identify the Greek word for “appearance” as actually “kinds,” the KJV mistranslation is regularly quoted in conference addresses and offical Church publications. I object to citing this mistranslation as doctrine—not because I’m interested in cheating on George—even assuming I could find someone willing to accommodate my indiscretion—but because that erroneous message creates rather than resolves problems of human relationships.

One-dimensional thinking about male/female relationships results in a constipated fear that married persons should never interact with a member of the opposite sex alone. Unless a person works for a unisex business, this mindset makes the workplace difficult or at least inconvenient. One morning George left for work without noticing the flat tire on my car. When I rushed out the door to head for school and saw the tire, I knew I didn’t have time to try my hand at fixing the flat and I was too late to catch a colleague who lived nearby. My principal lived about a mile north of our house and didn’t arrive as early as we teachers. I called to ask him to swing by and pick me up. He hemmed. He hawed. He asked if I couldn’t call one of the teachers already at school to drive back and pick me up. What was his problem? My house wasn’t more than a couple of minutes out of his way. Finally, he agreed to stop for me. Later, it occurred to me that since he was the bishop of his ward, he must have thought it improper to pick up a teacher for a two-mile ride to school even though the teacher was 20 years his senior and resembled his mother more than a potential girl friend. Maybe I should have been flattered that he feared somebody might mistake me for a cougar.

But back to the Ensign article. I think the author missed the point. Cross-gender friendships don’t threaten a marriage. Lack of friendship between husband and wife threatens a marriage. Spouses who are happy at home seldom stray no matter how green the surrounding pastures. And even the most saintly Saint may attach romantic feelings to another party if her own marriage isn’t satisfying.  A Relief Society president in my former ward confessed to having been attracted to a married man with whom she worked. Only the thought of the devastation she would cause her children brought her back from the brink of transgression. While I don’t normally condone marital infidelity, I would have made an exception for Sherry—because she’s married to Lamar—the kind of guy who walks around like he’s just keistered the iron rod—all of it. For the sake of their children, I’m glad Sherry didn’t cheat on Lamar. But for her sake, I hope he dies first and leaves her a little time for a fling with a fun guy.

Just about everyone I meet instantly knows I’m a liberal. Yes, I’m a product of my generation, the “progressive” era. For some reason, it’s “cool” to be liberal. During the 2008 election, teenagers flocked to buy Obama shirts and buttons, yet they didn’t even know any of his policies. Conservatives are “out” I guess. I know as we head into college, the liberals will be even more abundant- for some reason college seems to spur liberalist thinking. I’m certainly not complaining. But I have a problem with people thinking I’m one of those blind party followers who, when asked about some political issue, instantly recites the mantras of the Democratic party. I’m a skeptic of all political activities. Sure, politicians might start out with the right intent, but once they start playing with the “big boys” in Washington, if they don’t change their ways fast, they’ll fall by the wayside.
Take Obama, for instance: He hasn’t delivered on many of his campaign promises. When I supported him, starting early in the summer of 2008, I knew he wouldn’t deliver on any more than half of them. He’s a politician- he now has the obligation to cater to many more people than just his base supporters. He has lobbyists to cope with, Republicans, moderate Democrats, global affairs, etc. When he promised the gay community that he would “push for federal recognition of same-sex couples,” he secured himself a huge voter base. When I went to an Obama rally at the Bank Atlantic Center, I stood in line for about two or three hours behind a gay man from Aventura. He and I struck up a conversation, naturally about Obama, and he could hardly contain his excitement about the prospect of getting legally married to his partner. They’d been together for over five years, he told me. I wonder what he’d say now about Obama, though? Would he really vote for Obama again? Would he attend another rally and listen, practically in rapture, to Obama’s every word? I’m pretty sure the extent of Obama’s deliverance to the gay community will be to repeal the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” act. If I’m correct, I think Obama has actually outright said he doesn’t support gay marriage. Now the question arises: Did the gay community expect too much of him? If he outright said that he doesn’t support gay marriage, why did most of the gay community mobilize around him? The answer is: He’s a politician. His message of HOPE and CHANGE excited the gay community and led them to believe in something that wasn’t actually there. If you’ve ever heard Obama speak- I’ve seen him live twice now- you’d probably understand. The guy has a way with words. If you listened to John McCain speak, you’d probably yawn within two minutes of his mouth opening; Obama, on the other hand, knows how to get your attention. If you just let yourself listen to the flow of his words, the cadence to his speaking, the repetition, you’d see why he enamored so many voters. I like to believe I was a bit more sharp than the general listener- I listened to the lyrics, not only the melody. I knew what he was saying, and I knew the reality of his delivering on all of it was slim to none. I knew once he was voted into office, he’d need to water down anything he wanted to get passed, so as to appease congress and all the others demanding to be remembered in the legislation.
So what’s my point? My point is, I’m not stupid. I don’t just watch MSNBC and brainwash myself with strictly liberal politics. I read the newspaper for straight facts; I watch FOX to get the “other side” of the argument. I realize that Obama is just as slimy as the rest of Washington. I realize our deficit is growing and that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t improving. I realize that if Obama doesn’t get Healthcare passed, then the Democratic party will once again be dismissed as “soft” and will probably fall into oblivion. I realize that, as a nation, we’re really not doing so hot. I realize that the Democrat “stimulus package” hasn’t really stimulated anything, and that the Bush-pushed “bailout” actually did help something. I realize that Obama won’t be able to pass the Healthcare he wants without adding more than “a dime” to our federal deficit. But hey, this is politics. This is an institution that has been plagued by sex scandals, lies, and self-interest since our nationhood some two hundred years ago. Sure, right now I think the Republican party takes the cake on sex scandals– John Ensign and Mark Sanford were two of the biggest stories this year– but Democrats don’t always keep their pants up, either. Take Spitzer, former New York governor and ethics advocate, who was involved in a rather racy “prostitution and money laundering ring.” Another tally for Democrats, eh? It’s all part of politics.
And please don’t get me started on Blagojevich. I followed that story like a hawk- first and foremost because I found the guy hilarious (and rather akin to a chipmunk), and secondly because I knew Republicans would probably hold it against Democrats for a long time. I don’t really care one way or another that he was a Democrat. Not every Democrat is going to be perfect, just as not every Republican will be. I don’t hold things like that against either party. Imagine you had a group of friends, and one of the group goes out one night and does something stupid and gets arrested. Does that reflect the whole group? Nah. That’s how I look at politics, almost, except I know that politicians are much more devious than teenagers (though both groups are pretty bad). Politicians are all pretty much dirty little bastards and every once in awhile one of ’em is bound to get caught.
So please don’t tell me I’m a blind Liberal-Democrat and that I really need to “get my facts straight.” My party is just as dumb as the Republican party, and I’m not averse to sometimes thinking the Republicans as a bit less-incorrect on an issue than the Democrats. Three cheers for political incompetence?

RANDOM FACT: Moldova has a literacy rate of 99.1%; The United States has a literacy rate of 99%. Way to go, Moldova– nice to know you’d kick the U.S.’s ass in a country vs. country spelling bee.

On Oct. 6th, both of our Senators voted against Sen. Franken’s amendment (SA.2588) to the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Bill. Here is the text of the amendment, courtesy of the Library of Congress THOMAS:

    On page 245, between lines 8 and 9, insert the following:

    Sec. 8104. (a) Beginning 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any existing or new Federal contract if the contractor or a subcontractor at any tier requires that an employee or independent contractor, as a condition of employment, sign a contract that mandates that the employee or independent contractor performing work under the contract or subcontract resolve through arbitration any claim under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or any tort related to or arising out of sexual assault or harassment, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, or negligent hiring, supervision, or retention.

    (b) The prohibition in subsection (a) does not apply with respect to employment contracts that may not be enforced in a court of the United States.

For me, this raises the questions of why our Senators want to suppress the ability of victims of workplace sexual assault to sue – why do they want to keep it out of the courts, and why do they want to pay contractors that try to conceal this sort of crime?

Perhaps they agree with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) of the Judiciary Committee, about Sen. Franken’s amendment – “It’s a political amendment, really at bottom representing sort of a political attack directed at Halliburton.”

Odd however, since the other 28 Republican Senators that voted against Sen. Franken’s amendment had no problems voting to defund ACORN – which was actually named in that amendment – as I have discussed previously.

Could our Senators be influenced by a misguided loyalty to Halliburton? I say misguided because I remember the hardship Halliburton inflicted on the Oklahoma economy when they moved their headquarters to Texas – and they’re not doing the United States any favors by moving to Dubai.

Or are our Senators actions influenced by the more than 1.6 million dollars they have received (combined) over their careers from the Oil and Gas industries?

There is yet another angle to consider:

On the same day, (Oct. 6) Sen. Coburn reversed course on testifying in Sen. Ensign’s ethics investigation. I discussed this in July.

At that time Sen. Coburn was denying allegations that he had urged Sen. Ensign to give money to Doug Hampton. Sen. Ensign – who seems to be familiar with the topic of sex and hush-money – also voted against Sen. Franken’s amendment. In fact, 6 of the 30 Senators who voted against this legislation are involved with “The Family” – the secretive organization that maintains a townhouse on C Street – was a meeting held where it was determined that a company has the right to deny an employee a judicial recourse to that company’s malfeasance?

To start off my blogging fun I’d like to discuss a very amusing and yet very sad situation thats going on in the Senate. They’ve again settled into caring and discussing (yet another) political affair and its’ consequences. Seriously?!?! At this point I sort of figure they all cheat so as not to be surprised when they announce it on national cable.

The funniest part I think about this whole Ensign mess is how he keeps denying he did anything wrong. His best quote to date (which inspired this post): “we were very careful in everything that we did. You can see our statements on that.” I don’t know about you, but when someone says something like, “I’ve been very careful not to do anything ‘illegal’” brings to mind questions about what they WERE doing that made them question and CHECK the legality of their actions. If you think you’re doing something that makes you have to look up the law to accomplish your task, don’t you think you’ve already crossed some kind of line?

And its not like this is private, people. This will get out.

Riddle me this: How many politicians does it take to have a secret affair that goes public and ruins their political future until they all understand that its a BAD IDEA?!

Did I hear this right on NPR this am?

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers seem eager to encourage employers to create and expand programs that tie a portion of workers’ health insurance premiums to their willingness to change unhealthy behaviors. But there’s growing concern that some of those programs represent a new way to discriminate against those in less than perfect health.

By a vote of 18-4, the Senate Finance Committee added to its health overhaul bill an amendment offered by Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and Tom Carper (D-DE) that would expand existing rules that let workplace “wellness” programs pay bonuses in the way of reduced premiums to workers to lose weight, quit smoking, control their blood pressure or practice other healthy behaviors.

Current rules allow premiums to vary by up to 20 percent of a worker’s total health insurance premium. Under the amendment adopted by the committee, that could rise to as much as 50 percent.

“We know that the more we pay for things the more we’re going to get. And so we need basically to pay for healthy behaviors,” Ensign said.

Eventually, satire will catch up to politics.

David O. McKay, “Developing Character,” Ensign, Oct 2001, 22

The following are some classic statements on the development of Christlike character by our ninth President of the Church.

True Greatness

“The highest of all ideals are the teachings and particularly the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and that man is most truly great who is most Christlike. What you sincerely in your heart think of Christ will determine what you are, will largely determine what your acts will be. … By choosing him as our ideal, we create within ourselves a desire to be like him, to have fellowship with him” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 93, 98).

“The true measure of a man is how he spends his time when he doesn’t have to do anything” (quoted by Robert L. Simpson, “Pollution of the Mind,” Ensign, Jan. 1973, 113).

“As a Man Thinketh”

“No principle of life was more constantly emphasized by the Great Teacher than the necessity of right thinking. To Him, the man was not what he appeared to be outwardly, nor what he professed to be by his words: what the man thought determined in all cases what the man was. No teacher emphasized more strongly than He the truth that ‘as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he’ [Prov. 23:7]. … Contentment, complacency, peace—all that makes life worth living—have their source in the mind of the individual. From the same source spring unrest, turbulence, misery—everything that leads to dissolution and death. … It is well for [every teacher and officer in the Church] to pause frequently and take stock of himself to ascertain ‘what he is thinking about when he doesn’t have to think,’ for ‘what he thinketh in his heart, so is he’ ” (“ ‘As a Man Thinketh … ,’ ” Instructor, Sept. 1958, 257–58).

“What a man continually thinks about determines his actions in times of opportunity and stress. A man’s reaction to his appetites and impulses when they are aroused gives the measure of that man’s character. In these reactions are revealed the man’s power to govern or his forced servility to yield” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1951, 8).

We Radiate What We Are

“There is another responsibility correlated and even coexistent with … agency, which is too infrequently emphasized, and that is the effect not only of a person’s actions, but also of his thoughts. Man radiates what he is, and that radiation affects to a greater or less[er] degree every person who comes within that radiation” (“Free Agency … The Gift Divine,” Improvement Era, Feb. 1962, 87).

“Sickness may waste the body, but the true life is the spirit within, that which thinks and feels and loves and suffers and wills and chooses, aspires, and achieves. The purpose in life is to beautify, ornament, develop that something within. To develop a more radiant and lovely character is the true purpose in life” (Gospel Ideals [1954], 357).

The Approval of Conscience

“Thoughts mold your features. Thoughts lift your soul heavenward or drag you toward hell. … As nothing reveals character like the company we like and keep, so nothing foretells futurity like the thoughts over which we brood. … To have the approval of your conscience when you are alone with your thoughts is like being in the company of true and loving friends. To merit your own self-respect gives strength to character. Conscience is the link that binds your soul to the spirit of God” (“Those Sculptors Called Thoughts and Ideals,” Improvement Era, July 1960, 495).

A Clear Conscience

“It is glorious when you can lie down at night with a clear conscience, knowing you have done your best not to offend anyone and have injured no man. You have tried to cleanse your heart of all unrighteousness, and if you put forth precious effort, you can sense as you pray to God to keep you that night that he accepts your effort. You have a sense that you are God’s child, not a mere cog of the state, but a person whose soul God wants to save. You have the strength, the sense of resistance to evil. … You also have the realization that you have made the world better for having been in it” (Gospel Ideals, 502).

The Development of a Grand Character

“Day by day, hour by hour, man builds the character that will determine his place and standing among his associates throughout the ages. … More important than riches, more enduring than fame, more precious than happiness is the possession of a noble character. Truly it has been said that the grand aim of man’s creation is the development of a grand character, and grand character is by its very nature the product of a probationary discipline” (“Man’s Soul Is As Endless As Time,” Instructor, Jan. 1960, 1–2).

Christlike Character

“True happiness is found in living the Christ’s life—on Monday as well as on Sunday. He who is virtuous only at intervals proves that his pretended virtue is but a sham. Such a person lacks sincerity, the foundation of true character, without which happiness is impossible” (Gospel Ideals, 502).

“What is the crowning glory of man in this earth so far as his individual achievement is concerned? It is character—character developed through obedience to the laws of life as revealed through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Man’s chief concern in life should not be the acquiring of gold nor fame nor material possessions. It should not be the development of physical prowess nor of intellectual strength, but his aim, the highest in life, should be the development of a Christlike character” (“Obedience Develops Character,” Instructor, Aug. 1965, 301; emphasis in original).

[illustration] Detail from The Good Samaritan, by Walter Rane, courtesy of Museum of Church History and Art

Yes, you read it right. I am giving props to Rachel Maddow for being one of the few TV people covering the secret religious organization known as “The Family,” which has housed politicians at a home on the District of Columbia’s C Street for decades.  Most of Maddow’s criticism centers around the organization’s attempt to cover up the sexual scandals of C Street members and politicians like Nevada Senator John Ensign, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, and former Representative Chip Pickering of Mississippi.

At NewsReal Blog, we have not been big fans of the bulk of Maddow’s work.  We have found much of her coverage worthy of criticism, including a regular critique of her work by bloggers Tim and Alissa Birkel known as “A Spoonful of Saccharine.”  I personally have taken issue with her leftist views as well.  However, anyone who criticizes should also look for opportunities to praise, where praise is merited.

Maddow has extensively covered a story that I have not seen covered by anyone else on cable news — conservative, liberal, and in between.  I think we must call out our own when they go astray.  How can we criticize Bill Clinton or John Edwards for marital misconduct but ignore Ensign or Sanford?  I know the left likes to play favorites with criticism — but we shouldn’t.

I do have a problem with the secret ministry that has a house on C Street.  World Magazine recently did a cover story exposing many of the problems with that organization.  And as this is a NewsReal Sunday article, I’d like to point out some issues that all Christians should have with “The Family” on C Street.  Moreover, while I applaud Maddow for bringing this topic out, she is wrong in that she often makes “fundamentalism” the issue, when there is little that is fundamental or evangelical about The Family.

As World Magazine points out,

“Adultery is not new in Congress or in the church, and aside from three men shattering their families’ lives, a larger story emerged of the group behind the C Street row house: a 60-year-old, globally reaching organization that has muddy theology and a disdain for the established church.”

The C Street house is is run by the Fellowship Foundation — an organization many call “The Family.” Its  members like to joke about its similarities to the mafia.  The Family is best known for the National Prayer Breakfast it hosts every year.  Claiming to be a ministry for Christian politicians who need spiritual guidance, it says its goal is to make Jesus known to world leaders. But it is highly secretive, and now it has taken on deserved criticism for seemingly covering up scandal.  The organization claims that its C Street building is a church purely for tax purposes, but it has no connection to any established church or church group.  In fact, one of its leaders has said that church “denominations break [Jesus'] heart.”

Hebrews 10:24-25 speaks of the church when it says,

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Sadly, C Street has missed the point.  That encouragement and accountability must take place within the church itself – not in some secretive organization.  In fact, the Christian ideal is not to cover up and silence; it is about bringing things to light.

Jesus himself famously talked to a religious leader in the famous John 3:16 passage.  Just after that, Jesus said he was the Light, and that those who follow him do not hide in darkness:

“19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” John 3:19-20

It’s time for C Street and The Family to come into the light.  No more hiding.  No more defending.  Answer the charges that Maddow and others have rightly addressed.

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

The New York Times' in-depth and troubling allegations that Sen. John Ensign may have violated lobbying rules by helping setup the staffer he cuckolded a lobbying job and then pushing for the interests of the former staffer's new clients brought this reaction from the Senate Minority Leader at a press conference with reporters:

“I don't have any observations to make,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He wouldn't say if there should be an ethics investigation into Ensign's activity.

Ensign has raised his profile in recent weeks after admitting to the affair and resigning from a leadership post earlier in the year. And he was vocal at the Finance Committee markup of the health reform legislation, even late last night after the article was published on the Times' website.

But McConnell strongly embraced Sen. Olympia Snowe, the only Republican still mentioned as a possible “aye” vote for health care reform.

He called her a “close friend” and a “valued member of the caucus” and said the would “continue to play an important role in the debate.”

This begs some question of where Snowe is leaning on health reform. She was obviously agitated at times with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee during their two-week markup of health reform legislation, for cutting off debate on some amendments and rejecting a proposal to post legislative language for the bill online at least 72 hours before a vote.

“What's the rush?” she said several times.

Snowe also voted with Republicans on nearly every amendment offered at the markup.

What's more, she had planned to offer an amendment for a public health insurance option that would be “triggered” if after a set amount of time there was not enough competition in a state's insurance market. Democrats have entertained the idea in large part to mollify Snowe.

But she withheld the amendment and it's unclear if she'll offer it on the Senate floor.

And that brings us back to McConnell, who pointed out today that Democrats again have 60 votes when everyone is present.

“They ought to be able to do anything they want to,” he said at today's press conference.

And this also the reason Republican leaders (there are some plans offered by back-bench Republicans) have not coalesced around their own wholesale health reform proposal.

“We're not in the majority,” McConnell said today. “The majority has the responsibility to present and we have the responsibility to amend,” he said.

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

The New York Times' in-depth and troubling allegations that Sen. John Ensign may have violated lobbying rules by helping setup the staffer he cuckolded a lobbying job and then pushing for the interests of the former staffer's new clients brought this reaction from the Senate Minority Leader at a press conference with reporters:

“I don't have any observations to make,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He wouldn't say if there should be an ethics investigation into Ensign's activity.

Ensign has raised his profile in recent weeks after admitting to the affair and resigning from a leadership post earlier in the year. And he was vocal at the Finance Committee markup of the health reform legislation, even late last night after the article was published on the Times' website.

But McConnell strongly embraced Sen. Olympia Snowe, the only Republican still mentioned as a possible “aye” vote for health care reform.

He called her a “close friend” and a “valued member of the caucus” and said the would “continue to play an important role in the debate.”

This begs some question of where Snowe is leaning on health reform. She was obviously agitated at times with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee during their two-week markup of health reform legislation, for cutting off debate on some amendments and rejecting a proposal to post legislative language for the bill online at least 72 hours before a vote.

“What's the rush?” she said several times.

Snowe also voted with Republicans on nearly every amendment offered at the markup.

What's more, she had planned to offer an amendment for a public health insurance option that would be “triggered” if after a set amount of time there was not enough competition in a state's insurance market. Democrats have entertained the idea in large part to mollify Snowe.

But she withheld the amendment and it's unclear if she'll offer it on the Senate floor.

And that brings us back to McConnell, who pointed out today that Democrats again have 60 votes when everyone is present.

“They ought to be able to do anything they want to,” he said at today's press conference.

And this also the reason Republican leaders (there are some plans offered by back-bench Republicans) have not coalesced around their own wholesale health reform proposal.

“We're not in the majority,” McConnell said today. “The majority has the responsibility to present and we have the responsibility to amend,” he said.

Senator John Ensign, we payed for his calls to his mistress; his contact name on his business cell phone was ‘Aunt Judy’, what fool on a hill this dumb dick is.  Righteous man as long as GOD is on his side, he thinks he can get away with any and everything his little prick desires.  No, No Mr. 4 Square Apostle, fundamentalist fool, not this time.  C Street Family has picked up and moved to another location in Washington, it has been a tourist destination, oh how lucky us, the group could not handle the heat they created.  This phuque head takes his mistress to the White House for dinner with President George and his wife; pictures were taken of the smiling couples.  Ensigns friend and fellow Senator, righteous liar Coburn, the middle man on working a pay off to Ensigns mistress and her family.  Enough, I am going to Rio for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Posted by Audiegrl

AP/Laurie Kellman—Sen. John Ensign of Nevada was only beginning to emerge from a self-imposed political exile over fallout from his extramarital affair with a campaign aide. Now, tawdry new details about the case are raising fresh questions whether Ensign can be re-elected in 2012 – or even face criminal charges over his behavior.

If Ensign was looking for signs of support among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill on Friday, he didn’t get any. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell declined repeatedly to answer questions about Ensign or offer any support. Other Republicans, already effectively a 60-40 minority in the Senate, also met the latest developments with silence, wary of speaking out until they see evidence of wrongdoing uncovered by the Senate ethics committee or federal law enforcement.

Ensign’s one-time presidential ambitions imploded this summer after disclosures about the affair – including reports of his own efforts to hide it by finding a consulting and lobbying job for his mistress’ husband, Doug Hampton, arranging for a $96,000 payment to the couple and doling out a promotion and pay raises to his mistress around the time of the affair. Ensign responded by keeping a low profile, rarely speaking to reporters and apologizing in meetings with constituents and Republican leaders in Nevada.

More @

The Hill/Alexander Bolton—Senior Republican aides say Sen. John Ensign’s (R-Nev.) political future will depend on what actions the Senate Ethics Committee or the Justice Department may take against the lawmaker.

A senior GOP aide said that if the Senate Ethics Committee was not already investigating Ensign, it would be certain to launch a probe now.

The aide said that Ensign would have to answer the new allegations himself.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment about Ensign’s political future during a Friday morning news conference. The session was supposed to be devoted to healthcare reform, but questions soon turned to Ensign.

“I really don’t have any observations to make about the Ensign matter,” McConnell said, reiterating his position after reporters barraged him with persistent questioning. “I don’t think today is a day to make any observations about the matter — it just appeared in the newspaper today.”

More @

Previous coverage

Flouting Lobbying Ban, Ensign Helped Hampton Clients: Revealed in New York Times Investigation

Turns out Senator John Ensign (R – NV) may have broken several laws in his attempts to cover up boffing one of his staffers, while paying off her pim… uhhhh,  husband, who also worked for Ensign – and apparently was aware of what was going on.

Where Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) of “C Street Crew” fame gets involved is knowing that what Ensign was doing was illegal, facilitating it by negotiating “payment” for nookie.

Second up, is the even more serious case of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), who has been talking with the Government of Honduras, who our State Department and the Obama Administration has declared as a “Rogue State”. The issue here is that DeMint is encouraging the “Rogue State” to resist the US Government’s efforts to restore the legitimate government of Honduras…

This is Treason, with a capital “T”, under the Logan Act. While unlikely, there is the possibility that the US Government, in concert with other South and Latin American allies could send US troops into the country to restore order…

So we got a US Senator, telling the other side to “stand strong”…

And possibly kill our soldiers?

This SOB needs to be impeached, tried for treason…

And locked up in the general population of a Federal prison, where he can learn the real meaning of patriotism.

Racism will not only make you stupid…

It now appears it will make you a Traitor.

Posted by TheLCster

Senator John Ensign (R-NV)

TPM/Zachary Roth—We knew there was another shoe waiting to drop in the story of Nevada GOP senator John Ensign’s affair with his an aide’s wife.

And now it’s dropped. A lengthy investigation by the New York Times reveals that Ensign was far more involved than previously known in trying to get a job for Doug Hampton — his mistress’s husband — after the affair had been discovered. And that Ensign then used his influence in government to try to do favors for Doug Hampton’s new employers — apparently in violation of lobbying rules.

As Hampton summed up the basic problem to the Times: “The only way the clients could get what John was essentially promising them — which was access — was if I still had a way to work with his office,” Mr. Hampton said. “And John knew that.”

Senator John Ensign is the same hypocrite guy who was lecturing Democrats this week on the public option in health care reform. You really should read the whole thing…read all the revelations @ TPM

Related articles

Senator’s Aid to Mistress’s Husband Raises Ethics Flags

John Ensign: Public option would be popular, so let’s not do it

Ensign receives handwritten confirmation

September 25, 2009

This doesn’t happen often enough.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it “Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold.”

The note was a follow-up to Ensign’s questioning at the markup.

Continue

Obamacare = Extortion… Think not? read this…

http://tinyurl.com/yemt4ec  

Now read this:  Click on this url: http://tinyurl.com/ydzc6zs

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I was in the Finance Committee Health Care Markup along with my partner in crime, Jeremy, so I thought I’d pass on a few noteworthy nuggets.

(UPDATE: Jeremy was also livetweeting the events. You can find him on Twitter @jkoul.)

First, the Republican talking points of the day. (I begin with these because all the Republicans repeated them in some form. I started to wish a conductor would appear so they could sing them in unison. It would have saved time.)

1) The White House and Democratic Leadership are rushing us—all of them except Max Baucus, who is a nice guy saddled with a pushy impatient reckless party. The American people are entitled to a meticulous process, not an artificial deadline. Obama should delay, step back, take a breath, back up, and turn around.

2) This bill expands the deficit, costs too much, and puts too great a tax burden on American families.

3) This bill expands government too much. It focuses on Washington, not on a) our families b) the states c)our individualistic American culture which won’t accept a bill of this nature

4) Americans have rejected this health care legislation: didn’t you see the town halls? (often reiterated)

5) Obama made a promise not to put in new taxes on anybody who makes under $250,000 and this bill does that. Obama made a promise that anybody who likes their insurance can keep it but this bill subtly and covertly taxes people for choosing plans other than the public plan (which is odd, since the bill doesn’t include a public plan. I think maybe they were confusing the Baucus bill with HR 3200). Obama intends to break his promises and is untrustworthy.

6) “government takeover” “federally-funded abortions” (repeat as necessary)

Now you’ve got the Republicans’ basic framework. I’m offering a prize to somebody who can turn it into a doo-wop song called “Reconciliation.”

Other interesting nuggets, of a political nature:

In Grassley’s introductory speech, he said the following:
“On August 6th, the five members of this committee and I met with the President. I told Obama that I had to have him say to me that he would be willing to admit publicly that there would be no government-run plan if there was going to be bipartisan support.”

So I guess now we know where Obama’s mid-August backtracking on the public option came from.

In Rockefeller’s introductory speech, he said he was confident they could pass a bill because “…there is a kind of new spirit. We had an incredible meeting last night on our side, a very good discussion.” Now, you might think that was bad news, and that Rockefeller had been brought into the fold by Baucus. But Rockefeller is still speaking out for the public option–more strongly than anyone other than Stabenow and Schumer. Therefore, when *he* says he’s confident, and that they had a really good meeting, I take that as good news.

One last telling incident:

There was a significant dust-up around 5 p.m. Snowe started it by asking the CBO head if he would have a score for the modified mark before they voted on it. This led into a discussion of how long it would take the CBO to score the modified mark. The poor CBO head, whose people had been given 500+ amendments to Baucus’ original bill 48 hours before, said that for a preliminary scoring, like that which the CBO had done for the original Baucus bill, it would take a few days, but that for a complete, final ranking of the modified bill, it would take two weeks. This answer obviously shocked Baucus, and played right into the Republicans’ talking point of “we need to delay; the White House is too impatient; we need to do this methodically.” Baucus said “It can’t be that different than what you did for the preliminary analysis, can it?” at which point I actually began to feel sorry for him, because I realized that Baucus didn’t want delay–in fact, he *emphatically* did not want delay. I was sorry for him at that point because I realized that he had not just been delaying the process all summer on purpose; he hadn’t been acting in bad faith; for all his faults, and ties to the insurance industry, he did have a desire to get a bill out of committee and believed he could get a bipartisan bill out. That, in short, he really had been played. Unbelievable as that is to me, given that he is a 30-year veteran of the Senate and a major power broker!

And Baucus seems to be growing a bit disillusioned with his Republican colleagues. Though he was obviously still wooing Snowe, making a staffer who was reading the amendments note that one of Snowe’s amendments had been accepted rather than skipping over it, he spoke little to Grassley. Most notable of all, he shook his head in disgust over Ensign’s wingnuttery, when the Nevada senator went on and on about how the fees the bill provides for—fines to punish the people who refuse to buy insurance—are actually “taxes” in disguise, and that the proof of that is that they are collected by the IRS. Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t particularly like mandates myself, especially not in the Baucus bill, which has no public option. But fines for breaking the law *are not taxes*, and only the wingnuttish need to repeat Republican buzzwords over and over could make Ensign say they are. I thought Baucus’ willingness to show open disapproval of his Republican colleagues on television was significant.

As soon as Snowe asked the initial question about the CBO, my friend leaned over and whispered to me: “This is a wedge. She’s going to drive a wedge in,” meaning, of course, that Snowe was using the CBO’s plight as a tool to push the Republican theme of delay. Afterwards, we realized that, despite the timely nature of Snowe’s question, we really didn’t have proof that she had been acting in bad faith all along—it’s possible she simply didn’t want to vote on something that hadn’t been thoroughly analyzed by the CBO. However, I propose that it’s unlikely that she’d have no idea that the CBO would have difficulty scoring all those amendments, with all their possible interactions, on a bill of this magnitude, in a few days. Particularly since, in her introductory speech, she stated: “With more than 500 amendments, we are at the beginning not the end, and we will want the CBO to rank the final mark.” On the other hand, Max Baucus apparently didn’t know that the CBO could not do that—so anything is possible.

Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Ensign, Jan 1983, 51

From a talk given at a seminar for new mission presidents, 25 June 1982.

I have chosen, after much thought, to speak as though your missionaries, your elders and sisters, were here in your place, and to present thoughts more fitted to them, the beginners, the inexperienced, than to you. I hope that through you, I may share with them some things I have learned about the Spirit and how we may prepare ourselves to receive it.

We do not learn spiritual things in exactly the same way we learn other things that we know, even though such things as reading, listening, and pondering may be used. I have learned that it requires a special attitude both to teach and to learn spiritual things. There are some things you know, or may come to know, that you will find quite difficult to explain to others. I am very certain that it was meant to be that way.

What Does Salt Taste Like?

I will tell you of an experience I had before I was a General Authority which affected me profoundly. I sat on a plane next to a professed atheist who pressed his disbelief in God so urgently that I bore my testimony to him. “You are wrong,” I said, “there is a God. I know He lives!”

He protested, “You don’t know. Nobody knows that! You can’t know it!” When I would not yield, the atheist, who was an attorney, asked perhaps the ultimate question on the subject of testimony. “All right,” he said in a sneering, condescending way, “you say you know. Tell me how you know.”

When I attempted to answer, even though I held advanced academic degrees, I was helpless to communicate.

Sometimes in your youth, you young missionaries are embarrassed when the cynic, the skeptic, treat you with contempt because you do not have ready answers for everything. Before such ridicule, some turn away in shame. (Remember the iron rod, the spacious building, and the mocking? See 1 Ne. 8:28.)

When I used the words Spirit and witness, the atheist responded, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” The words prayer, discernment, and faith, were equally meaningless to him. “You see,” he said, “you don’t really know. If you did, you would be able to tell me how you know.”

I felt, perhaps, that I had borne my testimony to him unwisely and was at a loss as to what to do. Then came the experience! Something came into my mind. And I mention here a statement of the Prophet Joseph Smith: “A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas … and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1977, p. 151.)

Such an idea came into my mind and I said to the atheist, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”

“Of course I do,” was his reply.

“When did you taste salt last?”

“I just had dinner on the plane.”

“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.

He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”

“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”

“Now you are getting juvenile,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience—I know it as well as I know anything.”

“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”

After some thought, he ventured, “Well-I-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.”

“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.”

After several attempts, of course, he could not do it. He could not convey, in words alone, so ordinary an experience as tasting salt. I bore testimony to him once again and said, “I know there is a God. You ridiculed that testimony and said that if I did know, I would be able to tell you exactly how I know. My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like. But I say to you again, there is a God! He does live! And just because you don’t know, don’t try to tell me that I don’t know, for I do!”

As we parted, I heard him mutter, “I don’t need your religion for a crutch! I don’t need it.”

From that experience forward, I have never been embarrassed or ashamed that I could not explain in words alone everything I know spiritually. The Apostle Paul said it this way:

“We speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:13–14.)

Not in Words Alone

We cannot express spiritual knowledge in words alone. We can, however, with words show another how to prepare for the reception of the Spirit. The Spirit itself will help. “For when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.” (2 Ne. 33:1.)

Then when we have a spiritual communication, we can say within ourselves, this is it! This is what is meant by those words in the revelation. Thereafter, if they are carefully chosen, words are adequate for teaching about spiritual things.

We do not have the words (even the scriptures do not have words) which perfectly describe the Spirit. The scriptures generally use the word voice, which does not exactly fit. These delicate, refined spiritual communications are not seen with our eyes, nor heard with our ears. And even though it is described as a voice, it is a voice that one feels, more than one hears.

Once I came to understand this, one verse in the Book of Mormon took on a profound meaning, and my testimony of the book increased immeasurably. It had to do with Laman and Lemuel, who rebelled against Nephi. Nephi rebuked them and said, “Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words.” (1 Ne. 17:45; italics added.)

The Voice of Angels

Nephi, in a great, profound sermon of instruction, explained that “angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.” (2 Ne. 32:3.)

Should an angel appear and converse with you, neither you nor he would be confined to corporeal sight or sound in order to communicate. For there is that spiritual process, described by the Prophet Joseph Smith, by which pure intelligence can flow into our minds and we can know what we need to know without either the drudgery of study or the passage of time, for it is revelation.

And the Prophet said further:

“All things whatsoever God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit and proper to reveal to us, while we are dwelling in mortality, in regard to our mortal bodies, are revealed to us in the abstract … revealed to our spirits precisely as though we had no bodies at all; and those revelations which will save our spirits will save our bodies.” (Teachings, p. 355.)

The Still, Small Voice

The voice of the Spirit is described in the scripture as being neither “loud” nor “harsh.” It is “not a voice of thunder, neither … voice of a great tumultuous noise.” But rather, “a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper,” and it can “pierce even to the very soul” and “cause [the heart] to burn.” (3 Ne. 11:3; Hel. 5:30; D&C 85:6–7.) Remember, Elijah found the voice of the Lord was not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but was a “still small voice.” (1 Kgs. 19:12.)

The Spirit does not get our attention by shouting or shaking us with a heavy hand. Rather it whispers. It caresses so gently that if we are preoccupied we may not feel it at all. (No wonder that the Word of Wisdom was revealed to us, for how could the drunkard or the addict feel such a voice?)

Occasionally it will press just firmly enough for us to pay heed. But most of the time, if we do not heed the gentle feeling, the Spirit will withdraw and wait until we come seeking and listening and say in our manner and expression, like Samuel of ancient times, “Speak [Lord], for thy servant heareth.” (1 Sam. 3:10.)

Strong Spiritual Experiences Do Not Come Frequently

I have learned that strong, impressive spiritual experiences do not come to us very frequently. And when they do, they are generally for our own edification, instruction, or correction. Unless we are called by proper authority to do so, they do not position us to counsel or to correct others.

Don’t Talk Lightly of Experiences

I have come to believe also that it is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts you to use them to the blessing of others. I am ever mindful of Alma’s words:

“It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.” (Alma 12:9.)

I heard President Marion G. Romney once counsel mission presidents and their wives in Geneva, “I do not tell all I know; I have never told my wife all I know, for I found out that if I talked too lightly of sacred things, thereafter the Lord would not trust me.”

We are, I believe, to keep these things and ponder them in our hearts, as Luke said Mary did of the supernal events that surrounded the birth of Jesus. (See Luke 2:19.)

You Cannot Force Spiritual Things

There is something else to learn. A testimony is not thrust upon you; a testimony grows. We become taller in testimony like we grow taller in physical stature; we hardly know it happens because it comes by growth.

It is not wise to wrestle with the revelations with such insistence as to demand immediate answers or blessings to your liking. You cannot force spiritual things. Such words as compel, coerce, constrain, pressure, demand, do not describe our privileges with the Spirit. You can no more force the Spirit to respond than you can force a bean to sprout, or an egg to hatch before it’s time. You can create a climate to foster growth, nourish, and protect; but you cannot force or compel: you must await the growth.

Do not be impatient to gain great spiritual knowledge. Let it grow, help it grow, but do not force it or you will open the way to be misled.

Use All Your Resources

We are expected to use the light and knowledge we already possess to work out our lives. We should not need a revelation to instruct us to be up and about our duty, for we have been told to do that already in the scriptures; nor should we expect revelation to replace the spiritual or temporal intelligence which we have already received—only to extend it. We must go about our life in an ordinary, workaday way, following the routines and rules and regulations that govern life.

Rules and regulations and commandments are valuable protection. Should we stand in need of revealed instruction to alter our course, it will be waiting along the way as we arrive at the point of need. The counsel to be “anxiously engaged” is wise counsel indeed. (See D&C 58:27.)

A Nathaniel or a Thomas

There is a wide difference in the spirituality of individuals. When Philip told Nathaniel that he had “found him, of whom Moses … and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” his response was, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Philip said, “Come and see.” Come he did, and he did see. What Nathaniel must have felt! For with no further convincing, he exclaimed, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God.”

The Lord blessed him for his belief and said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” (John 1:45–51.)

Thomas is another story; the combined testimony of ten of the Apostles could not convince him that the Lord had risen. He required tangible evidence. “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Eight days later the Lord appeared. “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.” After he had seen and felt for himself, Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God.”

Then the Lord taught a profound lesson. “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:25–29; italics added.)

And so the title “Doubting Thomas”; different indeed than Nathaniel, whom the Lord described as being “without guile.” (See John 1:47.) With Thomas, it was “seeing is believing”; with Nathaniel, it was the other way around—believing, then seeing “heaven open and angels of God descending and ascending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51.)

More Powerful Than You Know

Now, do not feel hesitant or ashamed if you do not know everything. Nephi said, “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” (1 Ne. 11:17.)

There may be more power in your testimony than even you realize. The Lord said to the Nephites:

“Whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.” (3 Ne. 9:20; italics added.)

Several years ago I met one of our sons in the mission field in a distant part of the world. He had been there for a year. His first question was this: “Dad, what can I do to grow spiritually? I have tried so hard to grow spiritually and I just haven’t made any progress.”

That was his perception: to me it was otherwise. I could hardly believe the maturity, the spiritual growth that he had gained in just one year. He “knew it not” for it had come as growth, not as a startling spiritual experience.

Where to Start

It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would that not be dishonest?”

Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it! Somewhere in your quest for spiritual knowledge, there is that “leap of faith,” as the philosophers call it. It is the moment when you have gone to the edge of the light and stepped into the darkness to discover that the way is lighted ahead for just a footstep or two. “The spirit of man,” is as the scripture says, indeed “is the candle of the Lord.” (Prov. 20:27.)

It is one thing to receive a witness from what you have read or what another has said; and that is a necessary beginning. It is quite another to have the Spirit confirm to you in your bosom that what you have testified is true. Can you not see that it will be supplied as you share it? As you give that which you have, there is a replacement, with increase!

The prophet Ether “did prophecy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not.

“And now, I, Moroni, … would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” (Ether 12:5–6.)

To speak out is the test of your faith.

He Will Sustain You

If you will speak with humility and honest intent, the Lord will not leave you alone. The scriptures promise that. Consider this one:

“Therefore, verily I say unto you, lift up your voices unto this people; speak the thoughts that I shall [note that it is future tense] put into your hearts, and you shall not be confounded before men;

“For it shall [again note the future tense] be given you in the very hour, yea, in the very moment, what ye shall say.

“But a commandment I give unto you, that ye shall declare whatsoever thing ye declare in my name, in solemnity of heart, in the spirit of meekness, in all things.

“And I give unto you this promise, that inasmuch as ye do this the Holy Ghost shall be shed forth in bearing record unto all things whatsoever ye shall say.” (D&C 100:5–8.)

The skeptic will say that to bear testimony when you may not know you possess one is to condition yourself; that the response is manufactured. Well, one thing for sure, the skeptic will never know, for he will not meet the requirement of faith, humility, and obedience to qualify him for the visitation of the Spirit.

Can you not see that that is where testimony is hidden, protected perfectly from the insincere, from the intellectual, from the mere experimenter, the arrogant, the faithless, the proud? It will not come to them.

Bear testimony of the things that you hope are true, as an act of faith. It is something of an experiment, akin to the experiment that the prophet Alma proposed to his followers. We begin with faith—not with a perfect knowledge of things. That sermon in the thirty-second chapter of Alma is one of the greatest messages in holy writ, for it is addressed to the beginner, to the novice, to the humble seeker. And it holds a key to a witness of the truth.

The Spirit and testimony of Christ will come to you for the most part when, and remain with you only if, you share it. In that process is the very essense of the gospel.

Is not this a perfect demonstration of Christianity? You cannot find it, nor keep it, nor enlarge it unless and until you are willing to share it. It is by giving it away freely that it becomes yours.

The Spirit Will Not Always Strive with Us

Now, once you receive it, be obedient to the promptings you receive. I learned a sobering lesson as a mission president. I was also a General Authority. I had been prompted several times, for the good of the work, to release one of my counselors. Besides praying about it, I had reasoned that it was the right thing to do. But I did not do it. I feared that it would injure a man who had given long service to the Church.

The Spirit withdrew from me. I could get no promptings on who should be called as a counselor should I release him. It lasted for several weeks. My prayers seemed to be contained within the room where I offered them. I tried a number of alternate ways to arrange the work, but to no avail. Finally, I did as I was bidden to do by the Spirit. Immediately, the gift returned! Oh, the exquisite sweetness to have that gift again. You know it, for you have it, the gift of the Holy Ghost. And the brother was not injured, indeed he was greatly blessed and immediately thereafter the work prospered.

We Can Be Deceived

Be ever on guard lest you be deceived by inspiration from an unworthy source. You can be given false spiritual messages. There are counterfeit spirits just as there are counterfeit angels. (See Moro. 7:17.) Be careful lest you be deceived, for the devil may come disguised as an angel of light.

The spiritual part of us and the emotional part of us are so closely linked that is possible to mistake an emotional impulse for something spiritual. We occasionally find people who receive what they assume to be spiritual promptings from God, when those promptings are either centered in the emotions or are from the adversary.

Avoid like a plague those who claim that some great spiritual experience authorizes them to challenge the constituted priesthood authority in the Church. Do not be unsettled if you cannot explain every insinuation of the apostate or every challenge from the enemies who attack the Lord’s church. And we now face a tidal wave of that. In due time you will be able to confound the wicked and inspire the honest in heart.

The Benefits of a Mission

Now, as a missionary, you will mature, develop a confidence, learn to speak up, to organize, to set goals. You will learn about people and places, you will learn to learn, and many other things. These are lasting benefits that come as something of a reward for your dedicated service.

But these things do not compare with the most lasting reward. The choicest pearl, the one of great price, is to learn at an early age how one is guided by the Spirit of the Lord—a supernal gift. Indeed, it is a guide and a protection.

“The Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith; and if ye receive not the Spirit, ye shall not teach.” (D&C 42:14.)

You Can Do the Lord’s Work

There is great power in this work, spiritual power. The ordinary member of the Church, like you, having received the gift of the Holy Ghost by confirmation, can do the work of the Lord.

Years ago a friend, who long since is gone, told this experience. He was seventeen-years-old and with his companion stopped at a cottage in the southern states. It was his first day in the mission field and was his first door. A gray-haired woman stood inside the screen and asked what they wanted. His companion nudged him to proceed. Frightened and somewhat tongue-tied, he finally blurted out, “As man is God once was, and as God is man may become.”

Strangely enough, she was interested and asked where he got that. He answered, “It’s in the Bible.” She left the door for a moment, returned with her Bible. Commenting that she was a minister of a congregation, she handed it to him and said, “Here, show me.”

He took the Bible and nervously thumbed back and forth through it. Finally he handed it back saying, “Here, I can’t find it. I’m not even sure that it’s in there, and even if it is, I couldn’t find it. I’m just a poor farm boy from out in Cache Valley in Utah. I haven’t had much training. But I come from a family where we live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s done so much for our family that I’ve accepted a call to come on a mission for two years, at my own expense, to tell people how I feel about it.”

After half a century, he could not hold back the tears as he told me how she pushed open the door and said, “Come in, my boy, I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

There is great power in this work, and the ordinary member of the Church, sustained by the Spirit, can do the work of the Lord.

There is so much more to say. I could speak of prayer, of fasting, of priesthood and authority, of worthiness—all essential to revelation. When they are understood, it all fits together—perfectly. But some things one must learn individually, and alone, taught by the Spirit.

Nephi interrupted that great sermon on the Holy Ghost and on angels saying, “I … cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance.” (2 Ne. 32:7.) I have done the best I could with the words I have. Perchance the Spirit has opened the veil a little or confirmed to you a sacred principle of revelation, of spiritual communication.

I know by experience too sacred to touch upon that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Gift of the Holy Ghost conferred upon us at our confirmation is a supernal gift.

The Book of Mormon is true!

This is the Lord’s Church! Jesus is the Christ! There presides over us a prophet of God! The day of miracles has not ceased, neither have angels ceased to appear and minister unto man! The spiritual gifts are with the Church. Choice among them is the gift of the Holy Ghost!

       That is the title of the Visiting Teaching Message in the September, 2009 Ensign.  Most Christians, seeing that title, would naturally think that the article would center on the good news of free and full forgiveness earned for us by Jesus.

        But there is no mention of forgiveness in the article.  There is no mention of Jesus’ atonement. Rather the whole article is about what they need to do.  Following are two representative quotes from the article.    

Barbara Thompson, second counselor in the Relief Society general presidency: “Sisters, now more than ever, we need women to step up and be strong. We need women who declare the truth with strength, faith, and boldness. We need women to set an example of righteousness. We need women to be ‘anxiously engaged in a good cause.’ We need to live so that our lives bear witness that we love our Heavenly Father and the Savior Jesus Christ and that we will do what They have asked us to do” (“Now Let Us Rejoice,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2008, 116).

       2 Nephi 31:12: “Follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do.

Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “We must live the gospel in such a way that we will have the Spirit to ever be with us. If we live worthily, the Spirit will always be with us. We can then teach by the Spirit. … The reason we pray, study the scriptures, have good friends, and live the gospel through obedience to the commandments is so that when—not if, but when—the trials come, we are ready” (“Teaching by Faith,” Liahona, Sept. 2003, 10, 14–15; Ensign, Sept. 2003, 20, 24–25).

        As I said, that is so different from what Christians would have expected.  Understanding the gospel means understanding that Christ saved us by paying for our sins.  Living the gospel means reveling in his forgiveness, praising him for his forgiveness, giving him all the credit for our worthiness to stand before God.  The good news is seeing that Jesus saved us not by being our example but by being our substitute.

John Ensign, U.S. Senator from Nevada (“The Whores & Gambling State”) washed up on the shores of Lake Tahoe this week. The Republican, who has confessed to a long affair where he slept with His Neighbor’s Wife (an employee and the wife of an employee), opined that he was better than former President Bill Clinton, who only got a quickie with an intern.

Mr. Ensign also told Associated Press that while Mr. Clinton had lied under oath about sex, he himself had done nothing illegal, a proposition that remains to be seen — there is an investigation into the $96,000 payment of hush money to said Neighbor’s Wife. The Bill Clinton comparison always comes up since Ensign, as a congressman, voted to impeach then-President Clinton for embarrassing the nation and causing a lack of confidence.

Senator Ensign hosted the Tahoe Summit this week, an annual event started in 1997 after that sex fiend and liar President Bill Clinton  announced a long-term federal, state and local environmental effort to save the famed clarity of the lake.  More than $1.4 billion has been spent on conservation efforts at Tahoe, most funded by the sale of federal land in Nevada.

Senator Ensign spoke to the Tahoe Chamber of Commerce and gave a brief interview to Associated Press on Wednesday. Disappointingly, no one asked Mr. Ensign, a former veterinarian and casino owner, what he thought about Michael Vick or the odds in the NFL.

John Ensign  belongs to the Christian men’s Promise Keepers® ministry (motto: “Men of Integrity”), where his Seven Promises include:

No. 3: A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

No. 4: A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.

Senator Ensign is expected back in Washington in September, when his other ministry, the C Street Cabal, reconvenes.

The PK logo is a registered trademark of the Promise Keepers ® cult, and is used here to indicate the opprobrium brought upon it by this adulterous official.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

It’s a weird time in our nation.  A senator who voted to impeach a president for the “felony” of infidelity and called for him to resign because of it, says his own infidelity was merely a “mistake” for which he had no reason to leave his office. If it walks like a duck and swims like a duck…..

A conservative talk-tainment host defends the bad judgment of a man showing up at a health-care town-hall meeting packing heat in defense of his First Amendment rights. I wonder if he knew he was confusing the First and Second Amendments or if he simply had a death wish taking a loaded firearm anywhere near a sitting president? Either way, his actions were most likely meant to be provocative in the same shrill way the talk-tainment host baits his guests and then screams at them for not sharing his views.

Here’s where I let out a big sigh and shake my head, uttering the hope that if those three believe in God they stop dissing him by refusing to use the brains he gave them. I worry for the gene pool.