Matthew Rees

Statement from Dallin H. Oaks, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles Dallin H. Oaks, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared the following message on Monday, September 29, 2025.

newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/pres...

Agree with this 100%

Respectfully disagree: 1) in fact it is unusual for a democracy w/ this level of GDP to turn authoritarian & so quickly; 2) the weakness of both institutions (congress & courts) and individuals (Schumer etc) is shocking. Would take less than 10 people in congress or 2 SC justices to stop all this.

Listening to this tonight after the Kimmel news today - hearing the discussion of the Kilmeade comments in that context is really nauseating. One guy issues a milquetoast apology and the other is pulled from the air. Up is down.

Ouch. That hurts after the news of the day.

It should be needless to say, but it is perhaps at this moment worth saying, that transgender individuals have the same right as anyone else to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We don't do propaganda to make you believe something. It's to make you believe nothing. So you do nothing.

As an American, Charlie Kirk had every right to say whatever he believed without fear of violence. The fact that someone murdered him is sickening and alarming. The fact that Trump is trying to use it as an excuse to silence criticism and opposition is also sickening and alarming.

This isn't "just" Shaheds on Poland

It's jamming v/d Leyen and German general's planes

It's bombing the EU HQ in Kyiv

It's bombing Ukr civilians every day and night with 800+ drones and missiles

AND THIS IS JUST LAST WEEK.

A working theory for much of our current dysfunction: at or near its root is our inability to live within our means and say ‘no’ to things that we want in order to take care of the things that we need to build a functional, productive society.

By deciding to bomb Iran, Trump confirmed two facts about himself: 1) he scolds Ukraine about risking WWIII out of deep deference/sympathy for Ru, not out of caution; 2) his 2-week deadlines to Pu are a stalling tactic, again revealing deference/sympathy for Ru, not caution.

you want to win a game 7? Bill Russell is your man

one of my favorite Russell stats is that he played 22 winner take all games in his career, between the NCAA tournaments, the Olympics, and the NBA

his team won all 22 of those games

It’s true, as many have suggested, that if they can do this to Sen. Padilla, they can do it to others.

I’d only add that they already have been doing this to others.

A mass deportation regime, sooner rather than later, becomes contemptuous of civil liberties and basic decency.

They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to any Fuhrer. This is abhorrent.

We honor the bravery of those who risked everything on D-Day—and remember why they did.

Freedom demands vigilance, then and now.

“I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.”
— Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Read it again. Read it whenever you're feeling depressed about democracy or whenever you feel like you can't fight fascism. And when you read it, read it out loud. Lincoln put the emphasis on the word "people" not on "of, by, for." Read it again. It's our time. Lincoln calls to us. 🥰

Gettysburg address delivered at Gettysburg Pa. Nov. 19th, 1863. [n. p. n. d.]. On verso: Gift Verner W. Clapp, July 9, 1952. Available also through the Library of Congress web site in two forms: as facsimile page images and as full text in SGML. Printed Ephemera Collection; Por...

“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

www.loc.gov/resource/rbp...

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion,…

“The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

“But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

“We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The best Memorial Day speech is only 271 words and wasn't delivered on Memorial Day, but on November 19, 1863. Read it carefully, it's the most important speech in American military history (and maybe all of American history).

As GOP ponders Medicaid cuts, they might want to reflect that 63% of nursing home residents rely on Medicaid and that red states like West Virginia and Mississippi have much higher dependence on Medicaid than blue states. Just saying.

These summaries are really well done and a great resource. This is a loss that will impact patients and clinicians.

Don’t forget that a small handful of Republicans in the House and Senate could put a stop to all of this.

One of the frustrating bits of all this is that it would only take a few of them to make a big difference. Yet nothing…

Does It Matter If He's a Criminal? The Justice Department, with Attorney General Pam Bondi most unseemingly leading the charge, is on a campaign to paint Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man they have acknowledged was illegally sent to a pris...

Abrego Garcia, criminal or saint, was denied his due process rights by the gov’t. In this country, people are entitled to those rights, whether criminals or not, whether citizens or not. joycevance.substack.com/p/does-it-ma...

If the recourse is only through “the people,” does that mean through pressure on Congress to impeach/remove? And if Congress does nothing…that feels like a constitutional system in a pretty advanced state of decay.