Who Is Dolly Parton?

My VIP for this week is Dolly Parton. She was born in a one-room cabin in January 1946 in Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children. The family later moved to a two-room cabin and a farm. Dolly’s father was illiterate and worked first as a sharecropper and then in construction. Her mother cared for the large family and shared musical talents with her children. Dolly described her family as being “dirt poor.”

Dolly wrote her first song at age six and began to perform in public at age ten. She became a singer-songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist. She was known as the “Queen of Country.” She wrote more than 3,000 songs and sold more than 100 million records. Her music endures with hit songs like Jolene, Coat of Many Colors, 9 to 5, and I Will Always Love You. She starred in films, such as 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias. In her six-decade career, she earned 11 Grammy’s and multiple Hall of Fame inductions.

Dolly was also a philanthropist. She founded Dollywood. She launched the Imagination Library and provided millions of free books to children worldwide. She received multiple humanitarian honors before her death last week.

Dolly was married but never had children of her own. Therefore, she treated her nieces and nephews as her own and loved children everywhere.

Dolly was a successful businesswoman, and she used her great wealth to help people who were less fortunate.

I chose Dolly as my VIP for this week for two reasons: (1) She is all over the news this week.

(2) Her life shows that a person can start life with almost nothing and still become successful in American by working hard and developing talents. 

Will Americans Vote for the Constitution or For Revolution?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns groups who wish to dismantle the United States and rebuild it to fit their designs. They believe that they are allowed to use violence or any other means to achieve their “noble” goals of equality, fairness, and welfare. Victor Davis Hanson discussed this problem in an article published in The Daily Signal. Victor Davis Hanson: The Radical Left Wants to Destroy America and Rebuild It

We often associate leftist movements, anarchists of the 19^th century, Jacobins of the 18^th century, Marxists, Bolsheviks, Symbionese Liberation [Army], the Weather Underground with violence.

And the argument that they use is, we are for mandated equality and fairness and helping the underprivileged, and therefore to achieve those noble ends, which were morally and intellectually superior to those on the conservative side, we’re allowed to use any means necessary. And any means necessary is what’s happening right now

Hasan Piker is always in the news. He’s the multimillionaire podcaster, second-generation Turkish immigrant who just recently led a cheering crowd in a song, whipped up the crowd, mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk. …

Remember, he’s also told us that 9/11, we essentially deserved it. It was our fault, 9/11 was. He’s not unusual right now on the Left.

Angie Nixon is a radical socialist, and she won the Democratic primary Senate campaign, and she will be in the runoff for Florida’s junior senator. She said recently that ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, were slave catchers and t hat they were targeting black people, no different than people in the Confederacy, and that the U.S. government was trying to kill blacks.

She doesn’t understand that under the auspices of DEI, which continues affirmative action, that blacks have [been] given preferential treatment based on past transgressions that the majority of the country felt needed to be addressed.

No one is trying to kill young back people, much less the government. If you look at the murder rates, the statistics make her completely unbelievable….

Then we have another luminary in this new radical extremist movement, Abdul El-Sayed. He’s running now. He won the nomination in the Michigan senatorial race. He will be running against Mike Rogers for the Senate. He said … that he follows Sharia law. He was caught in a hot mic saying that we should not celebrate the death of the supreme leader, [Ali] Khamenei, in Iran.

Remember, [Khamenei] had just ordered 40,000 of his own people to be slaughtered, that were protesting. And he said, “My constituents wouldn’t like that.” …

When he tried to attack a fellow Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman, he said, ideally, you put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message. That’s almost a blatant call to kill him and then to use that violence to intimidate other people….

We’ve had four occasions now when the Secret Service shot at potential and actual Trump assassins. We’ve had Hollywood stars. We’ve had people like Robert DeNiro, Kathy Griffin, Shakespeare in the Park in New York, celebrity cooks, and Snoop Dog.

They’ve said they’ve all tried to compete in imagining to use an audience through public media and social media whether they should kill Donald Trump, whether they should burn Donald Trump, whether they could decapitate him, whether they could throw him over a cliff, whether they could blow him up….

For three years, the FBI, a rogue agency under James Comey and then later Andrew McCabe, cooked up the Steele dossier, which was a complete fabrication, and tried to take out a Republican candidate for the presidency. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was all based on a lie.

We were told in 2020 that a laptop with incriminating evidence, which the FBI had in its possession and had verified it as Hunter [Biden] laptop’s possession, it was his property with all the incriminating information on it, was cooked up by the Russians. Fifty former CIA and intelligence authorities swore on the eve of the election that the Russians and Donald Trump were colluding. It was a complete lie….

We had four prosecutors, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith. They all made up charges…

Over 20 states tried to take a Republican nominee off the ballot for the general election so the voters wouldn’t even have a chance.

I’m not even gonna get into the social media where the FBI was partnering with social media to squash stories they felt were prejudicial to Joe Biden.

What we’re witnessing is a revolutionary movement, as I said, and we have people who are celebrating the death of their opponents. They’re dreaming of how to kill their opponents.

They’re praising people who murder. This is the starkest choice in November that we’ve had in a midterm election in my lifetime.

There is a vast gulf, a huge chasm between what the Democratic Socialists are advocating and what traditional conservatives are trying to maintain.

If they win, we will see the beginning of a destroyed border, and we will return to 12 million people within a four-year period crossing unaudited. We will see a war on fossil fuels, even as we were the greatest producer of gas and oil in history.

We will see biological men green-lighted to compete in female sports. Antisemitism will be the trademark and anti-hatred, not anti-Israelism, hatred of the only democracy in the Middle East.

We will see a full-fledged return of diversity, equity, inclusion, prejudice and bias.

What we’re talking about is a revolutionary group who often is telling us, “If you elect us, you will not recognize the United States as you’ve known it. We must destroy it and rebuild it along socialist and totalitarian designs.”

Remember that when you go in [November], and vote for somebody who says, “We are not ashamed of what America is. We’re the greatest nation in the world, and we’re the greatest nation in the world because of our traditions, our Constitution, our protocols, and we have nothing to apologize for.”

Why Should I Share My Testimony of Jesus Christ?

My Come Follow Studies for this week again took me to the book of Psalms and a lesson titled “I Will Declare What He Hath Done for My Soul” (Psalms 49-51; 61-66; 69-72; 77-78; 85-86). The following information introduced the lesson. 

The writers of the Psalms shared deeply personal feelings in their poetry. They wrote about feeling discouraged, afraid, and remorseful. At times, they even felt abandoned by God, and some psalms carry a tone of frustration or desperation. If you’ve ever felt that way, reading the Psalms can help you know that you aren’t the only one. But you’ll also find psalms that can encourage you when you’re having such feelings, because the psalmists also praised the Lord for His goodness, marveled at His power, and rejoiced in His mercy. They knew that we are burdened by evil and sin but that the Lord is “good, and ready to forgive” (Psalm 86:5). They understood that having faith in the Lord doesn’t mean that you’ll never struggle with anxiety, sin, or fear. It means that you know who to turn to when you do.

The scripture block for this week teaches several principles, including: (1) Redemption comes only through Jesus Christ (Psalms 49; 62:5-12). (2) Because of the Savior’s mercy, I can be forgiven (Psalms 51; 85-86). (3) My testimony of Jesus Christ can help others come unto Him (Psalms 51:13-15; 66:5-20; 71:15-24). (4) The Lord will help me in my time of need (Psalms 63; 69; 77-78).

This essay will discuss how sharing my testimony of Jesus Christ cam help other people to believe in Him. Here are a few verses where testimony of Jesus Christ is declared.

·       Psalm 66:5: “come and see the works of God.”

·       Psalm 66:16: “Come and hear, … and I will declare what [the Lord] hath done for my soul.”

·       Psalm 71:24: “talk of [His] righteousness all the day long.”

At a BYU-Hawaii devotional address given on September 21, 2010, Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught the following about a testimony (“Testimony: Sharing in Word and Deed,” New Era, March 2019). 

A testimony is a knowledge or spiritual witness of truth given to us by the Holy Ghost. Receipt of this knowledge will change the things we say and the things we do. A testimony is composed of key elements of truth of which the Holy Ghost will bear witness.

“The foundation of a testimony is the knowledge that Heavenly Father lives and loves us; that Jesus Christ lives, that He is the Son of God, and that He carried out the infinite Atonement; that Joseph Smith is the prophet of God who was called to restore the gospel; that we are led by a living prophet today; and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Savior’s true Church on the earth” (True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference (2004), 178).

I have always believed in Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I do not remember a time when I doubted. I know that They are real because the Holy Ghost has confirmed to me on multiple occasions that They are near. This confirmation has grounded me on numerous occasions when I felt alone. If you desire to have a testimony of God or His Son, I encourage you to study about Them and then ask God to confirm Their reality to you.

How Can Our Society Solve the Problem of Young Men Checking Out?

Strong families are composed of a man and a woman who become what God intended them to be. Men and women are equal in value, but their bodies are created differently. Although some people think that men can become women and women can become men, their DNA and bone structure tell us differently.

When the skeleton remains of a person are found, experts can tell if it is a man or woman by the size and by the shape of the shoulders and hips. Somethings do not change no matter how much someone wants them to be different. The DNA stays the same no matter how many hormones are ingested.

The struggle to convince the rising generation that they can change their gender by cutting off certain parts and taking certain hormones has caused numerous problems. One of those problems can be seen in the young men of modern society. Nick Freitas explained that the problem “has nothing to do with weakness. The BlazeTV Staff shared the information in an article published at theblaze.com. 

Why are so many young men checking out of modern society? According to Nick Freitas, the answer – unlike what the Gen X and Boomer generations would have you believe – goes far deeper than laziness or a lack of resilience.

Freitas tells Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez” that the first thing to consider is that there is a real problem and it’s “different from what we faced in the past.”

“It’s really easy to point back like, ‘Oh, you think it’s hard now? What about the 19-year-olds that were storming Normandy?’ It’s like, yeah, that was hard. And that’s why we lift up and we celebrate the 19-year-olds that stormed Normandy,” Freitas explains.

“The problem is we have a bunch of 19-year-olds now where first of all, there’s no Normandy to storm, and they’re being told that all of the characteristics or instincts that would have informed the man storming the beach in Normandy are now bad, evil, toxic, horrible, and need to be repressed,” he says, noting that “that’s the part that’s unique.”

“That’s the part that I think Gen X-ers and Boomers have a hard time understanding is that the culture has shifted so much as to deliberately target the very things that young men were designed, I believe, designed by God to be,” he adds.

Freitas notes that it’s “confusing and horrific” to attempt to thrive in an environment “where you’re told that all of your instincts are bad and you need to be emasculated.”

In order to deal with this, Freitas explains that “one of the big things” he tells young men is to seek identity through Christ.

“It’s eternal. It doesn’t promise me that everything is going to be going good. But it’s eternal. I believe it’s true. And so in so far as that’s where I get my identity, then all of a sudden I always have identity, meaning, and purpose,” he says.

“I never lose it, and it cannot be taken away from me,” he adds.

Freitas tells young men “to seek identity through Christ.” As I read this article, I made a connection between this statement and the missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From the time that they are children, young men are taught that they have a priesthood responsibility to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

Those who accept this charge prepare themselves for missionary service and submit their applications to go. The age for young men to be called has long been age 19 years of age. In recent years, the age was lowered to 18 years of age. For young women, the age was 21 years of age for many years, but it was lowered some years ago to 19 years of age when the young men age was lowered to 18 years of age. The age for young women has recently been lowered to 18 years of age. Could it be that the Lord knew that He could solve the young men’s problem, while missionary work is being performed?

 

 

Should All Immigration Be Stopped for Now?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns legal and wise immigration. According to his paper posted at The Daily Signal, Victor Davis Hanson believes that legal immigration should be diverse and in numbers that “can be assimilated and acculturated and integrated, meritocratic.” He added that we want immigrants “with skills that ensure that we, the people of the United States, will not have to support them” and “some knowledge of the traditions and customs and protocol of the United States, as well as English fluency.” 

This did not happen under the Biden administration. We had “12 million people [come] in, sometimes at rates of 10,000 a day, plus over a million and a half legal immigrants, then you have a pool of 30 million illegal and legal immigrants and 53 million people who were not born in the United States.”

This sort of experience causes people to stop supporting immigration, and the Biden years were not the only times when such things happened.

It happened in the early 20^th century, say from 1900 to 1910. About 1.5% of the population, 1 million people, half a million some years, but some years a whole million, came into the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe. And they had very different ideas about politics.

Many of them were anarchists. They joined unions, and an anarchist, we remember, had killed William McKinley. He was an American-born anarchist, but there was a lot of worry that immigration at that level of 1.5% of the population every year from people who were not integrating but had radical ideas about changing America was dangerous, and it lost public support for years.

The same thing is happening, as I said now, because of the numbers, but also because we’re seeing a new type of immigrant.

Usually, we say the immigrant is good for America because he’s eager to get here. He’s eager to work hard. He loves the United States. He’s studied the United States. He wants to leave his homeland and start anew, and then he makes us say, “Wow, look at that energized immigrant that loves this country. We’ve got to snap out of it and compete.”

That was the idea of immigration, one of the ideas.

Not now.

We’re getting a lot of immigrants that are coming from failed states, mostly as a result of communism and socialism. Some of them come legally, some come illegally, and they’re coming in numbers that we can’t fully assimilate.

But there’s a new type of legal immigrant, and these are immigrants from the first generation or their children in a second generation from failed states.

And so, let me ask you a question. What do Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat of Michigan, or Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota whose family came from Somalia, Rashida Tlaib was from the West Bank, or [Alexander Ocasio-Cortez], whose father came from Puerto Rico, who was also a Democratic congresswoman, or the podcaster Hasan Piker, who’s from a multimillion-dollar family in Turkey and was born here and then returned to Turkey, or New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who came here from Uganda, or Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who came from /Egypt, his family did, or Melat Kiros, whose family and she came from Ethiopia, or Rep. Ro Khanna, a representative congressman from California whose family and his wife’s family came from India, second generation, or Gustavo Gordillo, who is a first-generation immigrant from Peru – and I could go on, but that should be enough.

What do they all have in common? Let’s count them.

No. 1, most of them are pretty wealthy. Ro Khanna’s family is probably worth a quarter of a billion dollars. Hasas Piker drives a Porsche. He has a multimillion-dollar home. His family is worth millions. Ilhan Omar, whether truthfully or untruthfully, filed a financial report that said she was worth $30 million. We can talk about Mr. El-Sayed. He filed a tax return for over $600,000.

But besides that, they are mostly wealthy, they’re also, with exception of AOC, Muslims, which is fine, except they accentuate their Islamic identity to the extent that Mr. El-Sayed has even said in an unguarded moment that he didn’t want to mention anything about the killing of the Supreme Leader, the theocratic enemy of the United States in Iran, because that might upset his constituents.

But in addition to being quite wealthy and Islamic and from failed states, many of them, as soon as they arrived here or their parents, equated their own race or their religion or their antithesis to what they call the oppressor or victimizer class, the white male heterosexual Christian we all know who’s supposed to be responsible for all the sins of the world, as somehow exploiting them.

In other words, think of the argument. You come from a failed socialist state in Somalia or Uganda or Egypt. You set one foot in here or your parents set one foot in here, and immediately you lodge complaints against the gracious host that welcomed you in and welcomed you in with security, prosperity, and freedom that you did not have under the system that you left, but which you seem to now champion in a very chauvinistic way.

And no sooner than you come without any knowledge of the United States’ nature or history or protocols, you’re so bold that you start to demand socialist changes.

You want to abolish the Senate. You want reparations. You want to reopen the border. You want to get rid of the filibuster. You want to get rid of the Electoral College. You want to pack the court. You want to change the capitalist system. You want to tax billionaires not on what they make, but on their worth. You want to go after people who have two homes.

All these are radical things that are outside the American tradition….

And unfortunately, what is the most ironic of all is a lot of these new immigrants who are very affluent are imposing a socialist system, they think, on Americans as if we’re the lab rats and they are the experimenters, and that’s not a very successful way to win the American people over to the cherished idea in the past of legal immigration.

 

Articles of Faith: What Do Latter-day Saints Believe About the Fall of Adam 5?

Article of Faith 2

   We believe that men will be punished for their own sins,

                    and not for Adam’s transgression.

 This essay is the fourth in teaching about the Fall of Adam and Eve as stated in the second Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first thesis discussed moral agency, or the freedom to choose good or evil. The second treatise discussed sin and punishment for sin. The third essay discussed Satan. The fourth paper discussed the creation of Adam and Eve and Satan’s great temptation. This essay will discuss the tree of life and the immediate result of the Fall, using the words of Elder James E. Talmage (The Articles of Faith [1890], 66-68).

The Tree of Life – There was another tree of special virtues in Eden; its fruit assured life to those who ate of it. While Adam and Eve lived in innocence, immune to death, this tree had not been forbidden them. Now that they had transgressed, however, now that the divine decree had issued fixing death as their lot, it was necessary that the fruit of the tree of life be no longer within their reach. They were, therefore, expelled from the garden, and cherubim with a flaming sword guarded the way, that man might not return in an unregenerate state. By transgression our first parents acquired a knowledge, which in their condition of pristine innocence they had not possessed – the experimental knowledge of good and evil. The result of their fall could have been of none but ill effect had they been immediately brought to a condition of immortality, without repentance, without atonement. In the despair following their realization of the great change that had come upon them, and in the light of the knowledge that had gained at such cost as to the virtues of the tree of life, it would have been natural for them to seek the seeming advantage of an immediate escape by partaking of the immortalizing food. In mercy they were prevented from so doing.

The words of the Creator are unmistakable as to the necessity of banishing Adam and Eve from Eden: “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Gen. 3:22-24).

Alma, the Nephite prophet, comprehended the result that would have followed had Adam and his wife eaten of the tree of life; he thus explained the matter: “Now, we see that the man had become as God, knowing good and evil; and lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, the Lord God placed cherubim and the flaming sword, that he should not partake of the fruit – And thus we see, that there was a time granted unto man to repent, yea, a probationary time, a time to repent and serve God. For behold, if Adam had put forth his hand immediately, and partaken of the tree of life, he would have lived forever, according to the word of God, having no space for repentance; yea, and also the word of God would have been void, and the great plan of salvation would have been frustrated” (Alma 42:3-5).

The Immediate Result of the Fall was the substitution of mortality, with all its attendant frailties, for the vigor of the primeval deathless state. Adam felt directly the effects of transgression in finding a barren and dreary earth, with a relatively sterile soil, instead of the beauty and fruitfulness of Eden. In place of pleasing and useful plants, thorns and thistles sprang up; and the man had to labor arduously, under the conditions of physical fatigue and suffering, to cultivate the soil that he might obtain necessary food. Upon Eve fell the penalty of bodily infirmity; pains and sorrows, which since have been regarded as the natural lot of womankind, came upon her, and she was made subject to her husband’s authority. Having lost their sense of former innocence they became ashamed of their nakedness, and the Lord made for them garments of skins. Upon both the man and the woman was visited the penalty of spiritual death; for in that very day they were banished from Eden and cast out from the presence of the Lord. The serpent, having served the purposes of Satan, was made a subject of divine displeasure, being doomed to crawl forever in the dust, and to suffer form the enmity which it was decreed should be placed in the hearts of Eve’s children.

What Will Be the Effect of the Latest Supreme Court Ruling?

Today’s politics resemble the intrigue of “As the World Turns.” The latest news is that the Supreme Court overturned “a lower court order that blocked the restrictions in 23 states.” Carlos Garcia reported as follows. 

The U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with President Donald Trump against a collection of Democrat-controlled states who sued to oppose his executive order restricting mail-in ballots. The highest court of the land found in a partisan 5-3 ruling that the states did not have standing to sue against the president’s order and overturned a lower court order to block the restrictions in 23 states.

“This internal directive does not regulate the States’ voter registration processes,” read the order from the Supreme Court. “Nor does it impinge on the States’ authority ‘to create and enforce a legal code’ for elections.”

However, the majority ruling warned that not all measures taken by the executive to implement the order will be necessarily lawful.

“On that score, time will tell,” the majority said.

The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the ruling.

The executive order from March directed the Department of Homeland Security to tabulate a list of citizens eligible to vote. It then called on the U.S Postal Service to only accept ballots from people on the list.

U.S. attorneys general from several Democrat states sued to stop the order on the basis that it would disenfranchise some voters who could vote lawfully.

“Only Democrat politicians and operatives would be upset about lawful efforts to secure American elections and ensure only eligible American citizens are casting ballots,” read a statement from White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in April.

In her dissent Monday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the president of seeking to “foment chaos ahead of the November elections”

Justice Sonya Sotomayor said the ruling only “postpones” the adjudication of the president’s order.

“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” wrote Sotomayor in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan.

“Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives,” they added.

New York Attorney General Letitia James agreed with Sotomayor in her own statement on the ruling.

“This decision is a painful setback, but it will not be the final word,” she wrote. “The right to vote is sacred, and no administration should be allowed to put that right in jeopardy by making it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots.”

The Trump administration is attempting to bring integrity back to political elections. It is interesting to see how many people are opposed to providing proof of citizenship to register to vote and picture identification to vote. Time will tell if the new ruling stands and how it would affect elections.