The JEM box. 📣📣 In the trenches with you!

Thoughts/comments on politics, spirituality, food, film & social thinking. My own opinions, unless pointed out! Disciple of Christ. #Ethics #PlainSpeaking

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

Her name was Samantha Smith.

She was ten years old, growing up in Manchester, Maine. Like millions of children in the early 1980s, she lived with a quiet fear that nuclear war could end the world at any moment.

The news talked about missiles.

Adults talked about the Soviet Union.

Schools practiced duck-and-cover drills.

One evening in November 1982, Samantha asked her mother a simple question.

"If people are so afraid of him, why doesn't someone write a letter asking whether he wants to have a war or not?"

Her mother smiled.

"Why don't you?"

So she did.

She wrote to Yuri Andropov, the new leader of the Soviet Union. Her letter was direct, honest, and impossible to misunderstand.

She asked why the two countries couldn't live in peace instead of preparing for war.

Then she mailed it.

Months later, the impossible happened.

Andropov wrote back.

He told her about the Soviet people's suffering during World War II, promised they did not want another war, and invited her to visit the Soviet Union.

In July 1983, Samantha and her parents traveled to Moscow.

For two weeks, she visited places Americans usually saw only in news reports. She toured cities, stayed at a children's camp, learned Russian songs, made new friends, and even spoke with Andropov by telephone.

When she returned home, her message surprised many adults.

"The Russians are just like us."

She hadn't found enemies.

She found families.

Children who laughed, parents who worried, and people who wanted peace just as much as she did.

Samantha never signed a treaty or negotiated between governments.

She simply shared what she had seen.

For a moment, millions of people looked beyond politics and saw each other as human beings.

She became known around the world, wrote a book, appeared on television, and earned the nickname "America's Youngest Ambassador."

Then tragedy struck.

On August 25, 1985, Samantha and her father were killed in a plane crash while returning home to Maine.

She was only thirteen years old.

People mourned on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Today, statues, memorials, and Samantha Smith Day keep her memory alive.

But her greatest legacy was much simpler.

She reminded the world that fear begins to fade the moment people choose to talk instead of assume.

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

He’s a pathological liar.

[Lakota Man @LakotaMan1]

My ancestors were not godless savages

My ancestors were not godless savages

My ancestors were not godless savages

My ancestors were not godless savages

[Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC]

Statue of Liberty photographed as it was dedicated a hundred and forty years ago this fall:

[Be A King @BerniceKing]

Democracy is not sustained by words alone. It is strengthened by truth, protected through courage, and expanded through our commitment to the dignity and rights of every person.

My father’s call remains urgent. May we answer it with disciplined love, moral clarity, and a renewed commitment to creating the Beloved Community.

#Nonviolence365 #BelovedCommunity #MLK #America250

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

This photograph today deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

A black girl sits in the middle of dozens of white supremacist patriot front members in Washington DC on the Fourth of July.

This is so representative of the country. We’re living in under Donald Trump right now. I want my country back.

REUTERS/Cheney Orr @orr_photo

[REPUBLICANS AGAINST MAGA @michaelt5656]

I am a lifelong Republican! I will not allow Donald Trump to turn me against my fellow Americans. I will fight just as hard for Democrats, Independents, Christians, Jews, all religions, all people regardless of color.
We are America!
🇺🇸🇺🇸HAPPY BIRTHDAY!🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Ken Burns, my favorite documentary filmmaker, has spent 50 years telling the American story, including of the Revolution itself. Nobody alive has looked harder at who we are and how we got here.

So when he warns us, we should listen.

Burns said the founders would not be surprised by a president’s reach for authoritarian power. But what would leave them completely disappointed is how poorly Republicans in Congress have responded.

Article I, the branch the founders built first and strongest to be the bulwark against exactly this, has abdicated its power and handed it to the executive.

The executive was supposed to carry out the will of the people’s representatives, not rule over them. Right now a Republican majority is choosing to surrender that authority to Donald Trump rather than do the job the Constitution gave them. 

I took an oath to the Constitution, not to a party or a a president.

The whole point of this new thing the founders created in 1776, was that we do not suffer under authoritarian rule quietly.

We must keep fighting to make Congress do its job.
https://t.co/2as3qicQ3x

[Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg]

A great evening right here in Traverse City with @JocelynBenson!

I've seen up close her unwavering integrity as a leader and her focus on making sure government delivers for every Michigander. I know she'll keep working to make our state the best place in America to raise a family. I'm proud to endorse her - and will do everything I can to help elect her as our next governor.

[Hank Smith @hankrsmith]

Notice it’s not “life, liberty, and happiness”—it’s “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Happiness can’t be given to you, and it isn’t a single choice. It is the result of thousands of daily, wise choices.

The choices are the pursuit.

[Rep. Frederica Wilson @RepWilson]

America's story is incomplete without the voices, sacrifices, struggles, and achievements of Black Americans. Attempts to censor or diminish that history do not change the truth. They only deny future generations the opportunity to learn from it and undermine the mission the Smithsonian was created to fulfill.

We will never stop telling the full American story.

[Popular Liberal 🇺🇸 @PopularLiberal]

WOW! SAY IT LOUDER: Pastor Loran Livingston just said what your MAGA uncle's pastor is too scared to say: "There has never been a Christian nation, and never will be."

A Christian nation doesn't kill 20 million Native Americans, steal their land, and leave their descendants in poverty.

A Christian nation doesn't fight a Civil War—losing 500,000 of its own people—just to keep owning human beings.

That's not Christianity. That's conquest with a Bible in one hand and a LIE in the other.

Stop calling it what it never was. HEAT CHECK!!!

[notpushingupdaisies @nodaisiestoday]

@johnpavlovitz You are so correct.
Let's make it a promise to one another on this 250th that we will VOTE IN NUMBERS THEY CAN'T MANIPULATE!!
And start talking to eachother again. Conversation is a lost art but will fix this!!

[John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz]

America, he is not worth this.

This unrelenting chaos that we find ourselves emotionally drowning in: the manufactured emergencies, fabricated culture wars, and conjured crises that hound us from the moment we rise exhausted, until the second our besieged nervous systems finally allow us a brief, though uneasy respite.

He is not worth the end of our Republic, an imperfect but determined two-hundred-and-fifty-year experiment in Democracy having its life and liberty choked out by a sneering, narcissistic, intellectually fetal, morally bankrupt bottom feeder.

https://t.co/0y6z9SzLoH

[Joe Biden @JoeBiden]

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of Americans signed their names to a piece of parchment and made a promise no nation had ever made before: that we're all created equal, endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We're the only nation in history built not on ethnicity, or blood, or geography but on an idea. That's always been what makes us exceptional. We chose that path 250 years ago but that’s where the work began, not where it ended. Every generation has had to choose it again. At Valley Forge, at Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy, in the streets of Selma. Americans recommitted themselves to the principles on which our nation was founded.

Now it's our turn.

There's nothing guaranteed about our democracy. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it. Over and over, year after year. That's not a burden. That's what it means to be an American.

250 years in, we still haven't fully lived up to those words in the Declaration. But we've never walked away from them, and this July 4, I hope all of us can commit to one thing: that we never will. I don't believe we're as divided as we're told we are. I've bet my whole life on the American people, and I'm not stopping now.

Happy 250th birthday, America. Our story isn't finished. Let's keep writing it together.

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

“Mormons turned a swamp into a metropolis. Then they turned a desert into an empire. It’s the most American story.”

Their religious beliefs take them to Missouri. Neighbors learn they are anti-slavery and violently drive them out.

They go to Illinois and turn a swamp into a city that rivals Chicago. Only to have violent mobs run them out.

They walk toward Utah. Hoping to find a safe place to gather.

Jim Bridger mocks them. He bets $1,000 they can’t grow crops in Utah. They continue anyway.

The Utah soil is so hard it breaks their plows. So they engineer a way to water a desert.

Their crops grow. Salt Lake City sprawls. They expand. Latter-day Saints settle 500 towns across the West. A network of farms, commerce, and faith.

Their women become the first women to vote. They elect America’s first female state senator.

Their women organize themselves. With very little training, they create a system that lowers infant mortality to among the lowest rates in the country.

When the Depression hits, Latter-day Saints implement the most effective welfare program in the country. Decades later, Ronald Reagan studies it and calls it a model for the country. Its impact is seen today as Utah has the lowest usage of federal food assistance in the country.

The pursuit of knowledge and science becomes a hallmark. They start universities. They send their smartest men and women back east to learn the latest ideas and bring them back.

They are innovative. Technology that changes the world emerges from their culture. The television. The artificial heart. The weapons that won WWII. The beginnings of the internet.

The work ethic and cooperation that propelled them to develop the American West continues today. Their outsized influence on the world is famous.

They know religious persecution better than most. So they champion religious freedom for all, even those they disagree with.

Sociologists are obsessed with their outcomes. A Princeton researcher studied teens in America. She concluded that “Mormon teens are faring best.” Harvard data recently found that kids who grow up in Latter-day Saint homes are the most likely to say they feel loved by both parents. Other national studies consistently find them to be the happiest people in the country.

Gallup finds they are the most observant Christians in the country, a dedication to their faith that is unrivaled. Pew Research finds they know many Bible stories better than any other Christians.

A swamp became a metropolis. A desert became an empire. A persecuted people became the happiest in America. That’s the most American story ever told.

[The JEM box. 📣📣 In the trenches with you! @JENNMediaGroup]

Damn.....how we miss 'Ole Tim.

[The JEM box. 📣📣 In the trenches with you! @JENNMediaGroup]

Had anyone known? Yeah, I bet so many hadn't known just like they didn't inform the public as they had at the time concerning Black Wall Street.

[Be A King @BerniceKing]

52 years ago today, my paternal grandmother, Mrs. Alberta Williams King, from whom I get my middle name, Albertine, was shot and killed while playing “The Lord’s Prayer” at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Her life was rooted in faith, music, family, and service. She helped shape my father’s spiritual foundation and poured love, strength, and dignity into our family.

To remember her is to remember that violence does not have the final word. Love, faith, and legacy still speak.

I honor her today with deep gratitude. The music and the memories still live on.

#AlbertaWilliamsKing #MLK #KingFamily #EbenezerBaptistChurch

[The JEM box. 📣📣 In the trenches with you! @JENNMediaGroup]

@BerniceKing I'm going to share this, @BerniceKing. Many of us hadn't known about what had happened to your grandmother the way many of us didn't know about Black Wall Street because they wanted to badly hide it. Our condolences to you and your family.