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News/Commentary Archives (for the current year; links to previous years archives at the bottom of each page)---PLUS: Trevor's Columns Archived (page linked at the bottom of the table below):

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Obamacare's “Inevitable?”

Despite efforts by the Democrats and their media lapdogs to paint Obamacare as inevitable (Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said today that there is now a “sense of inevitability, the sense that, yes, we're going to pass health care reform, and it's going to lower costs, provide better health insurance coverage and cover ... and reform the health insurance market.”), the votes are just not adding up. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he was going to push ahead on health care legislation with a public option included.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday that health-care legislation that comes before the Senate will have a government-run health-insurance plan that states will be able to choose not to carry. Mr. Reid told reporters that, under the legislation, states would have until 2014 to ‘opt out’ of the public option. He cast aside questions of whether the measure can attract the necessary 60 votes to avoid procedural delays. ‘I believe we clearly will have the support of the [Democratic caucus] to move to the bill,’ Mr. Reid said.”

From CNN on Sunday:

“Conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska told CNN’s John King that he has not committed to lend his vote to aid Democrats in avoiding a filibuster of health care reform legislation. ‘I’ve made no promise,’ Nelson said Sunday, adding that he can’t decide whether he should help stop a filibuster until he sees the substance of the Senate bill being crafted by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid.

“Nelson also said that he does not support the latest proposal that Reid is considering – a national public health insurance option that would allow states to opt out. But Nelson said he might be able to support a public option where states are allowed, instead, to opt in.”

From the AP last week:

“Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces a potentially tough re-election race next year in Arkansas, where Obama lost to Republican John McCain by 20 percentage points. She says she will base her health care votes on what is best for Arkansans. Choice and competition among insurers are good, Lincoln said, but ‘I’ve ruled out a government-funded and a government-operated plan.’”

Also:

“Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana…said she might be willing to let some states try “fallback or trigger” mechanisms that would create a public option if residents don’t have enough insurance choices. But she told reporters, ‘I’m not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be.’”

All of this gives weight to what George Will noted on Sunday:

According to NewsBusters, “Will on Sunday accused the media of manufacturing the return of government mandated healthcare to the current reform debate.

“Discussing the subject on the recent installment of ABC’s ‘This Week,’ Will said it was highly unlikely Democrats actually have the votes for what they call a ‘public option,’ but the media are assisting them in ‘cleverly and skillfully manufacturing a sense of inevitability that they hope will be self-fulfilling.’”

Now, according to Fox News, Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind) has joined the chorus with serious concerns over Reid’s plans. Fox notes that, “Key Democratic moderates including Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; Ben Nelson, D-Neb.; and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., also said they were uncertain how they'd vote, expressing deep reservations about the public plan.”

It doesn’t look or sound like the Democrats have anywhere near 60 votes in the Senate.
Significant numbers of House Democrats are not towing the party line either. According to The Hill “Rep. Bart Stupak said Speaker Pelosi is not pleased with his effort to change abortion-related provisions in the healthcare bill being crafted by the House.
“During an interview on C-SPAN's ‘Washington Journal’ show, Stupak (D-Mich.) said he is undeterred in trying to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not pay for abortions…The Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairman said he has been working with Democratic leaders on a compromise, but they haven't been able to strike a deal. Stupak pointed out that he and Democratic leaders have a fundamental disagreement on whether health plans that receive subsidies from the government should be allowed to provide coverage options on abortions.

“Stupak wants a vote on the House floor to strike the language, and predicts he would have the votes to pass such an amendment. ‘This has been federal law since 1976,’ he said, noting that President Barack Obama has vowed not to allow healthcare reform to pay for abortions. ‘We have to have a vote,’ he said.

“If he doesn't get one, Stupak said he and as many as 39 other Democrats will vote no on a procedural motion to bring the health bill to the floor. A House vote on healthcare reform could be taken next week.”

It doesn’t appear that Obamacare is getting done anytime soon, if at all.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Friday, October 23, 2009

Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize?!

This one even had liberals scratching their heads. (For example see hereherehere, and here.) Just when the folks at Saturday Night Live (SNL) decide to mock Obama for not accomplishing anything, the Nobel committee decides that 12 days in office was enough. (Peace Prize nominees had to be postmarked by February 1st.) Can you imagine the punch lines now?! 

With the aiding and abetting of the Nobel committee Obama has now accomplished at least one significant thing. He has clarified for liberals what most conservatives have long known: that the Nobel Peace Prize is a joke. Conservatives had it figured out by the time Yasser Arafat won in 1994 (if not before). The joke certainly became clear to conservatives after Al Gore won. Perhaps now the folks at SNL can help make it clear to liberals. 


Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Surprise!--Obama's a Radical!

In 2006, after blowing a 23 to 3 fourth quarter lead against the Chicago Bears and losing the game, former Arizona Cardinals’ head coach Dennis Green, in the post-game press conference, uttered his most famous words: “They (the Bears) are who we thought they were!” (The 43 second YouTube video of the rant currently has nearly 700,000 views.)

These are exactly my sentiments when it comes to President Obama. He is precisely who I thought he was: a radical liberal. This is reflected in his administration’s policies and its personnel.

His self-portrayal as a centrist and a post-partisan duped many people during the campaign and the election. In their lust to elect our first black president, many Americans were blinded to who Obama really was. With his political record, as brief as it was, and his personal past, aligning himself with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, things should have been more clear for a majority of Americans. Perhaps more can now see that Obama is doing nothing but being true to his real nature.

As proof of his radicalism, consider a few of the long list of deep-seated left-wingers that Obama has placed in his administration. Kevin Jennings, the Safe School Czar, was in Obama’s Presidential campaign as its Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual fund-raising co-chair. For Jennings, a “safe school” means a pro-homosexual school.

Jennings, a homosexual himself, founded the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) and the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which seeks to indoctrinate children at every grade level in every state in the pro-homosexual agenda. In his book, Always My Child, Jennings demands a “diversity policy that mandates including LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) themes in the curriculum.”

In another of his books Jennings tells about a young male sophomore who confessed a sexual relationship with an older man. Jennings never reported the incident and only told the boy, “I hope you knew to use a condom.”

John Holdren, Obama’s chief science advisor, better known as the Science Czar, coauthored a textbook (“Ecoscience”) in the late 1970s which advocated bizarre population control methods. According to Fox News, those methods include “forcing single women to abort their babies or put them up for adoption; implanting sterilizing capsules in people when they reach puberty; and spiking water reserves and staple foods with a chemical that would make people sterile.”

Ecoscience states that, “Several coercive proposals deserve discussion, mainly because some countries may ultimately have to resort to them unless current trends in birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means. Some involuntary measures could be less repressive or discriminatory, in fact, than some of the socioeconomic measures suggested.”

Obama’s Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, has declared that “representatives of animals should be able to bring private suits to ensure that anticruelty and related laws are actually enforced. Of course, any animals would be represented by human beings, just like any other litigant who lacks ordinary (human) competence…If getting rid of the idea that animals are property is helpful in reducing suffering, then we should get rid of the idea that animals are property.”

These are just a sampling of the many loony leftists who occupy Obama’s administration. Along with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is as if the inmates have taken over the asylum. Clearly, extreme liberals are now firmly in control of the leadership of the Democrat Party.

If you doubt this, consider why, with a significant majority in the House and a filibuster- proof majority in the Senate, Democrats are struggling to pass either of their signature pieces of legislation, health care and climate control. Part of the answer to this lies with many of the freshmen and sophomore Democrats who swept into the House in 2006 and 2008. Because of the make up of their districts, many of these Democrats are significantly more conservative than the heart of their party. Many of these will lose in the next election (2010) if they are seen as too liberal.

It is as if Obama and his ilk are aware of this but unmoved by the prospect. They seem so desperate to seize the moment and reshape the country that they are blind to the electoral (or any other) consequences.

Now that Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, it is as if his radical liberal credentials are complete. All that is left to do is make the United States into the socialist nation that liberals crave.

This liberal dream can be defeated. There are certainly signs that a majority of Americans are waking up to what is really happening. I just hope that it is not too late.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Darwinian Evolution is not compatible with Scripture

Darwinian evolution is in direct contradiction to what the Bible reveals about creation. An atheist who completely denies God and the Bible and holds molecules to man evolution up as absolute truth has a more logically defensible position than the Christian who wants to mix evolution and Scripture. 

Given that we have had decades of Darwinian evolution and millions/billions of years preached in the public (as well as the private) school system, it is not surprising that even spiritually mature Christians want to compromise Scripture with evolution in this sense. Many sincere and well-meaning believers (including me at one time) have taken this erroneous approach to God’s Word. 

I’m afraid many people, on both sides of the issue, are making the same mistake in this debate: believing that evolution is only about science and that creation is only about religion. This is nonsense. The information in this debate is the same for all of us; what is different is the framework through which the information is interpreted. One way to frame this is not as “science-versus-religion” debate, but rather a “religion-versus-religion” debate. 

I can see why nonbelievers would totally disregard what the Bible has to say about creation, so let me speak to those who call themselves Christians. Try, for a moment, reading Genesis chapter 1, putting aside any outside influences. Looking at it in this way, one would have to admit that we cannot deduce millions/billions of years from a straightforward reading of this passage. 

The Hebrew word for day used in Genesis chapter 1 is yom.” A number and the phrase “evening and morning” are used for each of the six Days of Creation. In Scripture outside Genesis 1, yom is used with a number 410 times. Each time it means an ordinary day. In Scripture outside Genesis 1, yom is used with the word “evening” or “morning” 23 times. “Evening” and “morning” appear in association, but without yom, 38 times. All 61 times the text refers to an ordinary day. Why would Genesis 1 be the exception for the use of yom

Also, Darwinian evolution declares that all life, including mankind, came into being after billions of years of death and struggle. However, the Bible teaches us that “in the beginning” God made everything “good,” and there was no death. Death did not come into the world until mankind sinned and God cursed all of His perfect creation. 

Many Christians want to declare Genesis, or at least parts of it, as allegory. Those who claim to be champions for science and reason seem to want to abandon it when it comes to interpreting Scripture. There is nothing within Genesis, the other books of the Bible, or the universe itself that would logically allow for the first book of the Bible to be allegorical. 

If Genesis is a “metaphor,” then all the rest of Scripture is in question. There is much evidence throughout all the rest of Scripture to support the fact that Genesis is literal history. Many other books directly refer to Genesis and its characters in a way that shows they were regarded as nothing but historical people and events. Consider how often the New Testament refers to Genesis and its characters. Dozens of times Adam, Eve, the Serpent (Satan), Cain, Abel, Noah, the Flood, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot, and so on, are directly (and indirectly) referenced. They are spoken of as real historical characters, not mythological beings. 

In Romans chapter 5 Paul refers directly to Adam and compares him to Christ as “a pattern of the one to come.” First Corinthians 15:22 states, “For as in Adam all die, so as in Christ all will be made alive.” This refers to all of humanity being under the same curse of death that was placed on Adam, because we all are his descendents. Second Corinthians 11:2 says, “…just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning…” thus making a direct reference to Eve, Satan, and The Fall. 

The gospel message of Jesus has its roots firmly planted in Genesis. Consider what is said in Romans chapter 5: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men…Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness (Jesus’ atoning death) was justification that brings life to all men.” Jesus came to save all people. Save from what? From sin and death. How did sin and death come to all people? By what is revealed in Genesis. 

If we don’t have a literal Creator, a literal creation, a literal Adam, a literal Eve, a literal serpent, a literal garden, a literal tree, a literal fruit, and a literal fall, why did Jesus have to come and die for our sins? It all goes back to Genesis! 

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com