Our Books

If you enjoy this site, please consider purchasing one of our books (as low as $2.99). Click here to visit our Amazon page.

Our Books

Our Books
Books by Trevor Grant Thomas and Michelle Fitzpatrick Thomas

E-Mail Me:

NOTE: MY EMAIL ADDRESS HAS CHANGED! Trevor's new email address: trevorgrantthomas@gmail.com

Latest News/Commentary

Latest News/Commentary:

News/Commentary Archives:

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):

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Woke Coke is No Joke (and Nothing New)

As much as conservatives in America love capitalism, many U.S. capitalists sure seem to hate conservatives—especially Christian conservatives. On virtually every issue important to conservatives of all stripes, large U.S. corporations (“Big Corp” for this column) stand opposed—almost unanimously!—to American conservatives.  

In other words, to the detriment of America and the truth, Big Corp has gone “woke.” Coca-Cola provides the most recent and egregious example of gross corporate wokeness. According to a whistleblower, Coca-Cola is forcing its employees to complete online training that instructs them on “What it Means to Be White” and how to “Try and be less white.”  

This racist training declares that, 

To be less white is to:  

be less oppressive 

be less arrogant 

be less certain 

be less defensive 

be less ignorant 

be more humble 

listen 

believe 

break with apathy 

break with white solidarity …  

No doubt this garbage is directly the result of Coca-Cola bowing to the evil efforts of the “woke” army of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the like. As Al Perrotta recently put it, “Of course, it’s doubtful anybody with any brains in Coca-Cola’s leadership really believes such racist, divisive gibberish. But they do believe the Woke Warriors won’t let them rest until they push this poison onto their employees.”  

Thanks in large part to Big Corp, as cities were looted and burned across America in 2020, BLM raked in tens of millions of dollars. As reported last year by Jordan Davidson at The Federalist, Amazon, Pepsi’s Gatorade, Microsoft, Warner Records, Intel, and numerous other members of Big Corp helped to line the stuffed coffers at BLM. Of course, this will do nothing if not embolden BLM and its allies to continue their violent, destructive, and grifting ways. In addition, the lavish funding of BLM will further promote their racist agenda. None of this is good for America.  

Coca-Cola is far from alone when it comes to its corporate “wokeness.” Under Armour has also recently come under fire for forcing employees to endure “anti-white diversity training videos.” Long before “woke” and its derivatives entered our lexicon, Big Corp had surrendered to the agenda of the modern left. Decades ago, Big Corp quickly got on the bandwagons of the radical pro-abortion agenda, the perverse LGBT agenda, and so on.  

According to very recent polling by Echelon Insights, the top issues for republicans (yes, not all republicans are reliably conservative, but virtually all conservatives vote republican) that are a “problem for the country” are (in order of importance):  

·         Illegal immigration 

·         Lack of support for the police 

·         High taxes 

·         Liberal bias in the mainstream media 

·         General moral decline of the country 

·         Socialism 

·         Antifa violence 

·         China 

·         Legal abortion in the third trimester 

·         Election fraud 

·         Tech company censorship 

·         Discrimination against Christians 

Other than perhaps “high taxes” (and even this means something different to individual conservatives than it means to Big Corp) there’s not an issue in this list that Big Corp has taken a stand on that is favorable to conservatism. For example, “Corporate Supremacists”—as Brian Schuster described them in 2018—“love mass immigration.” What he means is they love illegal immigration. One reason for this is, as Schuster put it,  

A steady stream of immigrants means a steady stream of competition for jobs. Workers generate profit for multinational corporations, and the cheaper a company’s labor costs are, the more profit is left over for the corporate supremacists at workers’ expense. 

Just after the 2020 Presidential Election, the New York Post reported that “Big Tech” began lobbying the incoming Biden administration to “reverse President Trump’s stricter immigration policies.” According to the Post, “rescinding Trump’s [immigration] actions is the industry’s top priority next year.”  

Media corporations that are part of Big Corp are the main reason that conservatives are concerned about “liberal bias in the mainstream media.” Because this bias helps to further the left’s agenda, other members of Big Corp play along. In fact, in attempts to censor conservatives, many of them have sometimes engaged in advertising boycotts.  

Tragically, hundreds of members of Big Corp—including Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Best Buy, Capital One, Chevron, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, Dell, Delta Airlines, Dominos, E-TRADE, Food Lion, General Motors, Google, Hershey, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, MasterCard, Mattel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, PepsiCo, Sony, Starbucks, Target, Texas Instruments, Uber, and many others—have thrown their support behind the evil—and misnamed—“Equality Act.” Thanks to democrat control and the support of Big Corp, this abomination recently passed the U.S. House. Perhaps more than any other collection of words in recent history, the “Equality Act” epitomizes the “general moral decline” of America.  

As many others have already noted, the evil “Equality Act” promotes anything but “equality.” Among other disastrous consequences, if the “Equality Act” becomes law, it would make criminals out of those who live according to the biblical (and biological) view of who is a male and who is a female; it would gut religious liberty and compel speech; it would ruin women’s and girls’ sports; it would endanger women and girls; it would allow for children to be taken from their parents, and so on. Yet Big Corp finds all of this not only acceptable, but necessary. 

Clearly these “woke” corporations have forgotten their foundations and forgotten what allows for their continued existence and prosperity. They have forgotten—or choose to ignore—that they could only have prospered as they have in the United States of America. Most importantly, they have forgotten God and His law. As I point out in The Miracle and Magnificence of America, the United States is the world’s most enduring constitutional republic and the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation—which has produced the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations—because our Founders rightly feared God and dually embraced the principles of Christianity and free market capitalism (as espoused by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations).

Many liberals in America—including many now in D.C. —would’ve long ago shredded the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution endures because it is worth conserving, and from the beginning of this great nation, conservatives in America have long understood that fact. If anything is worth conserving it is those things that have been settled for all time, and more than any other governing document written by mankind, the U.S. Constitution embraces this notion. 

Again, to the great detriment of America (or any nation) “wokeness” is a war on the truth. Like individuals, corporations embrace this deadly ideology because they ignore God and go their own way. As has been the case for all time, if we want this to change, we need revival and repentance in our corporate boardrooms. 

(See this column at American Thinker and The Blue State Conservative.) 

Copyright 2021, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

"Masking the Science": "We Wished Masks Worked, But They Don't"

One of the best takedowns of the "masks slow (or even stop) the spread of the coronavirus" narrative--sometimes known as "wear your (expletive) mask" narrative--was recently published by two Oregon physicians, Dr. Tim Powell and Dr. John Powell. Their excellent essay entitled "Masking the Science" was published on the blog of Evergreen Family Medicine where Dr. Tim Powell is the CEO and Medical Director. I came across the piece a couple of weeks ago, and linked to it from my site. 

Yesterday (2/8/21) I was dismayed to discover that my link was to a page that no longer existed. It seems their truth-filled essay has been scrubbed from their blog. I can find it nowhere on their site. Also, I can find no explanation on the internet as to why this piece was taken down. However, I can speculate. I imagine that the cancel-culture mask Nazis targeted (and threatened) these good doctors and thier business. Much pressure was then applied--perhaps even by those like-minded as the doctors on masks, but neverthless frightened by the cancel crowd--for the docors to remove their mask-narrative destroying post. What a shame! However, as many have often rightly said, "the internet is forever." 

Using the internet archive "Wayback Machine," one can still find "Masking the Science." In the name of the truth, and to help end the wicked, widespread masking of Americans, and to help end the evil lockdown of America, here is the complete essay (including many the many informative graphics used):

1/25/2021 Masking the Science

We have purposely avoided directly confronting the issue of masks because it is such an emotional and political issue. Like waving a red flag in front of a bull, the topic elicits strong emotions which overwhelms reason. We wear a mask in the hospital and don a N95 mask, gown and gloves when we see a patient known to have COVID-19. Masks are used for source control when patients are admitted with various types of infectious respiratory diseases. After the visit, we dispense of the gown, gloves and change into our regular surgical mask to continue patient rounds. In public, we wear a cloth mask to comply with executive orders and as a courtesy to others who feel afraid and uncomfortable. Like most of you, we rarely wash the mask, we stick it in our pockets, pick it out of the glove compartment or off the floorboard when we need it.

In truth, we wish masks worked. If they did, it would be a cheap, and easy way to control the spread of Covid. The idea that they protect not only their wearer, but also those people around them seems noble. We wished masks worked because citizens are spending billions of dollars on them.

We wish masks worked because most Americans wear them now. Telling them it was unnecessary will not make them happy. We wish masks worked because they have become a symbol for virtue and social responsibility. Anyone who doubts their utility is personally attacked; as though they don’t believe the viral pandemic is real, or don’t care about those who die from it.

We wish masks worked, because they distract from other important Covid related issues such as: school closings, lack of access for non COVID related illness, increased mental illness, elderly dying alone, missed youth experiences, substance abuse, suicides, increased poverty and homelessness, suppression of free speech, censorship of science, disruption of supply chains, government agencies used to oppress small businesses, restriction of religious gatherings, travel disruptions, isolation protocols, modeling over actual data, quarantines, lockdowns, contact tracing, and global harm of the economy that most impacts the working class, vulnerable and poor.

We wish masks worked.

But they don’t.

At least, not the cloth and surgical masks you see in the public arena. They litter the landscape and waterways. They are difficult for people with disabilities and small children. It promotes natural germaphobe tendencies and indoctrinates the young to see their fellow humankind as a sack of germs.

There have been many randomized controlled trials (RCT) and meta-analysis of previous studies that suggest that masks do not work to prevent influenza- like illnesses, or respiratory illness transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles – like Covid. This knowledge was the basis for the WHO and CDC recommending against the public wearing masks in the spring of 2020. It was repeated by authorities and experts at every level.

Dr. Jerome Adams, the Surgeon General tweeted, “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching Coronavirus”

Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 minutes, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask”.

In April, the New England Journal of Medicine wrote: “we know that wearing a mask outside of health care facilities offers little, if any protection from infection”.

What changed? Well, it wasn’t the science.

All studies are not equal. The gold standard of medical evidence comes from randomly controlled studies. Recent observational studies that were used to support mask mandates were poorly designed for confounding factors, carried out in medical environments, and then, impressions were extrapolated to the general public. Studies that evaluated the viral exposure of mice in a cage covered with mask material vs. caged mice without a mask cover does not seem to translate well to a world of humans who use their hands. In contrast, a recent Danish mask study of the general public that was performed in a prospective, randomized fashion did not endorse the current majority narrative and was vigorously criticized and suppressed by some.

A new drug, medical product or procedure would never be approved based on this type of evidence.

Logic argues against mask effectiveness. The size differential between viral particle or droplet size expelled from the human respiratory tract compared to the filter size of surgical or cloth masks is substantial. If you read the fine print on most consumer masks, one will likely read a statement such as this; “not intended for medical purposes and has not been tested to reduce the transmission of disease”.

The best studies are outcome based and measure “patient oriented evidence that matters.” A pharmaceutical company may show their statin drug greatly reduces cholesterol and science can show a correlation between cholesterol and heart disease. So, the obvious premise is that lowering cholesterol reduces risk of heart attacks.

Except it doesn’t. At least not for primary prevention in patients without preexisting vascular disease. It is why you must do the study. Does the intervention work in real world conditions?

In August, Pew Research reported that 85% of Americans said they wore masks in public all or most of the time. If this is so, and if masks are effective, why has the incidence of SARS-Cov-2 increased so rapidly? Why is there not a favorable correlation between mask usage and disease transmission in countries and states with different mask policies?

If masks and lockdowns work, why don’t they work?

The graph below shows the daily number of deaths per million in the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Sweden from March to December. The number to the right reflects the percentage of the population that report wearing a mask in public spaces. Sweden has the lowest number of deaths per million in this comparison despite only 7.7% of the surveyed population reported wearing a mask. For those who argue that Norway, Denmark and Finland have lower mortality rates than Sweden. They would be correct, but these countries also have much lower rates of mask use compared to other European countries (less than 50%). Masks have been oversold as a solution.



Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist said, “face masks are an easy solution, and I’m deeply distrustful of easy solutions to complex problems”. He was right. Sweden now (1/23/2021) has fewer deaths per million people (1086) than the United States (1284). In fact, they have a lower death rate than 30 of our states. History is replete with examples when politics or religion meddles with science and adversely impacts solutions. Dr. Martin Kulldorff has argued against widespread public mask mandates from the beginning. He is a professor at Harvard Medical School and a leader in disease surveillance methods and infectious disease outbreaks. He describes the current pandemic policy of COVID lockdowns and mask use this way; “after 300 years, the Age of Enlightenment has ended.”

At this point, many do not need an expert opinion to trust their own intuition and lying eyes that masks are not working. Everyone wants to mitigate the transmission of the virus, but let’s focus on what works.

But, wearing a mask is so easy to do. Can’t you just shut up and wear the damn mask?

Why are we poking this tiger, this mask issue now?

Because there is mass hysteria, and many are blind to it.

Because it’s an irrational and divisive policy when unity is required more than ever.

Because evidence should matter.

Because in 2019, if we saw a father struggling to muzzle a terrified, crying 2-year old child on a plane with a cloth, we would report them to authorities for possible child abuse. In 2021, we kick the whole family off the plane unless the father is successful in his efforts.

Because of a young man with autism who is unable to tolerate a mask on his face is publicly shamed.

Because the masks offer a false sense of security and may adversely impact more important public health mitigation measures.

Because our local high school cross-country teams should not be running the trails wearing masks.

Because the Oregon Board of Medicine suspended the license of a physician who objected to this policy.

Because one of the greatest losses in this pandemic has been the loss of credibility of organizations for whom we held in high regard. Organizations such as the CDC, WHO and Public Health Organizations that need to maintain the trust of the citizens.

Because it is increasingly apparent that the basis for the mask mandate is not medical, but political.

Because fear and panic should not prevail over actual evidence, even when many powerful institutions have expended so much political capital promoting the wrong policy.

We wish masks worked.

We wished we didn’t have to fight about them.

But they don’t.

And we do.

Tim Powell MD
John Powell MD

If you want to see more graphs, we have included them below as well as a video demonstration.












In September 2020, the CDC acknowledged that SARS-Cov-2 could be spread in an aerosolized manner. Masks are ineffective against this mode of transmission. Early in this pandemic, some physicians showed video evidence of how masks might work as a source control for droplet transmission of COVID-19. Unfortunately, this is not the case for aerosolized transmission of viruses as demonstrated in the video below.



Monday, February 1, 2021

Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny

If you’ve enjoyed the last 10 months of foolish, science-denying lockdowns and mask mandates, the widespread destruction of businesses and economies, the government telling you what jobs are “essential” and how you are to conduct yourself in your own home, then you must absolutely love the democrats’ climate agenda.

For decades, the climate cultists from the “New Religion of First World Elites” have attempted to use fear—the destruction of the planet—and a fake cause—saving the planet—to convince Americans to vote for democrats and enact the perverse science-denying climate agenda of the modern left. For a primer on how this would work, look no further than 2020.

As soon as the Wuhan virus entered the U.S. in early 2020, democrats across the U.S. saw it as a means to a political end. Of course, consumed with hatred and obsessed with the removal of President Trump, the 2020 Presidential Election was their primary political target. To help accomplish this, democrats in politics and the media rampantly spread Wuhan virus fear porn. Subsequently, democrat mayors and governors across the U.S—encouraged and enabled by their like-minded allies in D.C. and the media—enacted widespread and economically devastating lockdowns and accompanying measures.

In spite of the fact that most of these measures were unproven and unnecessary—time again has proven this true—the democrats persisted because “orange man bad.” They also persisted because, to paraphrase David Horowitz, inside every leftist is a totalitarian screaming to get out. Because of their lust for political power—because they have made a god of government—leftists are always looking for the next problem that their government elites (supposedly) alone can “solve.” Again, the Wuhan virus provided an excellent opportunity for this.

If you can convince people that they’re going to die if they don’t do as you say, those in power hold great sway. As C.S. Lewis cautioned lovers of liberty in the mid-twentieth century, “A hungry man thinks about food, not freedom.” Today, a corollary to this would be, “A man living in a pandemic thinks about remaining healthy and alive, not about his liberties.”

Likewise, if you think the planet is doomed if we don’t do away with fossil fuels or stop eating beef, then you are probably willing to give power to those who promise to take such things away—by force, if necessary. After all, if the planet is doomed otherwise, what force to do such things could be unjustified?

Whether a virus “emergency” or a climate “crisis,” in an attempt to justify their totalitarian agenda, leftists the world over tell us that we must heed their so-called “experts” along with their computer models. Most often, the main role for these “experts” is to give a Big Government, which is already too willing to encroach on our lives, even more of a reason for doing so. This is especially true in times of crisis, whether the crisis is real or manufactured.

Sadly, as 2020 well demonstrated, in such times many of us are far too eager to become what Lewis called in 1958 “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State.” Typically, in order for any oligarchy to rise and rule effectively, it needs some “extreme peril,” something to cure, some desperate need that the rulers promise to fulfill. As Lewis asked, is this not “the ideal opportunity for enslavement?”

When a generation lives in fear or dread of some looming crisis or when a society is made to believe that someone else can provide the things that it supposedly cannot live without, is this not the opportunity for those who seek to rule over us to be seen as liberators rather than the totalitarian tyrants that they are?

Today’s totalitarian left is devoted to scientism, and their government can well be described as a technocracy. Thus, when the American left is in power, the motto of the technocrats prevails: “only science can save us now” or “science is the way out.” Whether it is a global pandemic, global warming—excuse me, “climate change”—stem-cell research, the beginning of life, healthcare, crime, homosexuality and marriage, or even gun control, racism, or economic policies, the technocrats claim to have the answers.

Scientism almost always leads to a technocracy. “I dread government in the name of science,” said Lewis. “That is how tyrannies come in.” What a profound conclusion! How many of us have been duped in the name of “science?” How many of us cower and yield—or “shelter at home”—because, well, if the “scientists” (and then the politicians) tell us to do so, then we must do so?

Sadly, too many of us then grow accustomed to our chains. We become children, or pupils of the State (like “Julia”). We continue to elect leaders who perpetuate the cycle of the “Welfare State,” based significantly on the lies of scientism. Like their agenda to fight the Wuhan virus, the left’s climate agenda reeks of scientism and technocracy.

There is hardly a cause in the universe that has gotten more wrong than the climate cultists who, for decades, have proffered a wide array of climate catastrophes that require immediate, or near-immediate, actions. Time and again these doomsday scenarios have been proven wrong. These climate cultists have long relied on the deceptive use of data to push their totalitarian agenda. Daily it seems we are subjected to “another global warming fraud.” I suppose everybody needs an Apocalypse—especially totalitarians lusting for power.

Climate science has become such a joke that the “faithful” for years now have been led by a child. However, their dangerous and destructive climate policies are no joke. The left has shown us what they will do when governing in a “crisis.” However, I fear that lockdowns and mask mandates will pale in comparison to what will be called for if the American left’s climate agenda gets the force of U.S. law. We’ve seen how many businesses the left can destroy in the name of controlling a virus; imagine the destruction they can wreak if they control America’s energy policy.

(See this column at American Thinker and Climate Depot.)

Copyright 2020, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com