In a year of unprecedented involvement by women in politics, as candidates, as votes and as subjects of political debate and rancor, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has an interesting proposal: women should quit social media for 10 days, right before the election.

With a major election less than a month away, Nelson’s timing was particularly unfortunate for women involved in politics. Parker is a member of Mormon Women for Ethical Government, a left-leaning group founded in the wake of the 2016 election to encourage LDS women to become politically involved. She is helping to organize a nonpartisan “voter prep party” in her neighborhood where women will gather to review the issues, with the goal of boosting turnout in the midterms. Her group had planned to distribute sample ballots and other mateials online before the party, but now they are handing out invitations and information by hand and hoping for the best.

Tax them. Read the rest

For many of us, the Cliven Bundy story started when a fringey rancher got a bunch of his militia pals to flex their white privilege by threatening to shoot federal law enforcement officers who'd demanded that Bundy stop stealing public land and grazing; then Bundy's loathsome offspring led a terrorist takeover of a wildlife refuge in Oregon. Read the rest

The Church of Latter Day Saints insists that its decision to end over a century of close association with the Boy Scouts has nothing to do with the organization's decision to admit girls, gay kids and trans kids -- the Mormon leaders say that its launching of a competing scouting organization based on the "spiritual, social, physical and intellectual goals outlined by the church" is merely a coincidence. Read the rest

In 2016, the deep-red, Mormon-dominated state of Utah had to choose between voting in favor of a rapist, or in favor of allowing women to control their own fertility, and they chose the rapist. Read the rest

Mormonleaks is a whistleblower site dedicated to revealing corruption and hypocrisy in the Church of Latter Day Saints; over four months, it has published many documents that did just that, but when it published a leaked Powerpoint revealing the Church's view on "the roots of apostasy, such as pornography, campaigns to ordain women, challenges to church history and general 'lack of righteousness,'" the Church turned to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a bogus claim of copyright infringement to get the document taken down. Read the rest

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has published photos of what they claim is their prophet's talking magical rock.

Science fiction writer William Shunn is at long last releasing his memoir, The Accidental Terrorist, in book form. Revised and expanded from his popular podcast, it tells the story of how he was expelled from Canada for terrorism as a young Mormon missionary. Read the rest