Don’t Fall for Alabama Doctor’s Wuhan Virus Fear Porn

In order to keep alive the false notion that “systemic racism” is rampant in the United States, leftists across America have peddled massive amounts of misleading information. (The hotly debated “Critical Race Theory” is filled with it.) Thus, it should come as little surprise that the COVID-loving mask cultists on the left would stoop to spinning false or misleading tales about Wuhan Virus doom and gloom in order to help keep as much of the nation as possible on edge.

Dr. Brytney Cobia of Alabama seems to be such a leftist. This past Sunday, Dr. Cobia posted the following on her Facebook page:

(NOTE: DO NOT "visit" Facebook's biased "COVID-19 Information Center for vaccine resources!")

To say the post went “viral” is putting it mildly. Not only was it shared wildly via Facebook, numerous news outlets and left-wing websites ran Dr. Cobia’s account as if it were the gospel truth. This includes The Washington Post, CNN,  NBC News, MSNBC, HuffPost, Newsweek, and the like. It’s almost as if they were just waiting on someone—anyone—to say that, “‘Young healthy people’ are now getting hospitalized and dying from the Wuhan Virus! Quickly, surrender your liberties!”

Of course, this is because as often as the left hypes the Wuhan Virus—along with the vaccine, masks, lockdowns, etc.—they keep getting put in their place by the data. It seems it has become particularly important to the COVID-worshipping left to scare as many as possible when it comes to the young and healthy. Yet the data here are especially troubling for the left’s Wuhan Virus narrative.

For the mask cultists, simply not enough young, healthy Americans are dying from the Wuhan Virus, or even requiring hospitalization. (A recent Johns Hopkins study found zero Wuhan Virus deaths among healthy kids.) Enter Dr. Cobia and her story. However—and again—when one actually looks at the data, her account shouldn’t strike the fear that she, and those like-minded, hopes it will.

The images from CDC charts below show the death totals “involving COVID-19” (note: this does not necessarily mean that a death recorded in this column is from COVID-19) for the state of Alabama:

As you can see, for ages 0-17, in April through July there are zero recorded deaths in Alabama “involving COVID-19.” This is actually the case for February through July of this year. In the 0-17 row for January, there is a blank cell. Again, as one can see, this is common in the chart. According to a note below the chart, “Empty data cells represent counts between 1-9 that have been suppressed in accordance with NCHS confidentiality standards.” So the empty cells represent death totals in the single digits.

What’s more, and again using CDC data, as of July 21, the “7-day Moving” average number of Wuhan Virus deaths (for all ages) in Alabama was 3. On July 18, the day of Dr. Cobia’s post, it was zero. At the end of June it was 3. At the end of May it was 4. At the end of April it was 7. For the U.S. as a whole, as of July 21, the “7-day Moving” average number of Wuhan Virus deaths (for all ages) was 223. At the end of June it was 225. At the end of May it was 413. At the end of April it was 612.

The numbers are similar when one looks at hospitalization rates. Again using CDC data, in Alabama, for ages 0-17, as of July 20, the hospitalization rate was 0.16 per 100,000. At the end of June the rate was 0.09 per 100,000. At the end of May it was 0.11 per 100,000. At the end of April it was 0.16 per 100,000. Likewise, in Alabama, for the age group 18-29, the July down to April numbers (per 100,000) are 0.67, 0.18, 0.31, and 0.33. Even though the latter group has seen an uptick in hospitalization rate in recent month, the July number (0.67) is exactly what it was at the end of March. For the U.S. as a whole, for ages 0-17, the corresponding rates (per 100,000) of hospitalization are 0.14, 0.09, 0.12, and 0.18. For ages 18-29 they are 0.53, 0.30, 0.40, and 0.63.

Thus, the data are again clear: whether or not “cases” are on the rise, whether or not vaccination rates have flattened, the numbers that matter most—hospitalizations and deaths—show no disturbing trend, in Alabama, or the U.S. as a whole. The lockdown, mask-up apologists need to take heed: we will not stand for your (mostly) useless, life-defeating, economic destroying measures again!

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2021, 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

The Truth behind the Deaths of “Transgenders”

In case you missed it—which, sadly, no less than the U.S. Secretary of State made difficult—November 20 was “International Transgender Day of Remembrance.” The day focuses on memorializing the world’s gender-deluded who were victims of violence. By my estimate—I didn’t count them all—the list contains about 300 people.

Likewise, many liberal outlets in the American mainstream media—redundant, I know—took the opportunity to paint violence against the gender-deluded as some sort of epidemic. The headline in the largest newspaper in my state declared, “Violence against transgender people at all-time high in Georgia, nationally.”

Evidently an annual “all-time high” when it comes to the murder of individuals in the U.S. who choose to live a gender lie is 25. After the 11th death, which occurred in May of this year, one news outlet quoted a “transgender” activist declaring, “We are facing a national epidemic of violence [against ‘transgenders’].” More American Christians were recently killed in a single day as they peacefully gathered to worship their Creator. Following this horrific event, virtually no one in the mainstream American media wanted to talk about how Christians in the U.S. are suffering an “epidemic” of violence or even that we are merely increasingly under attack.

To further the perverse LGBT agenda, the liberal American media would rather promote a lie than reveal the plight of Americans who seek the Truth. Of course, an agenda built on lies must be furthered with lies. Murder is always tragic, and leave it to liberals to use the death of murdered Americans deceptively in order to advance their preferred—and again false—narrative. What’s more, worldwide, tens of thousands of Christians are martyred every year and the liberal-led media typically—and predictably—yawns.

Throughout the stories highlighting “International Transgender Day of Remembrance” was the implication that “transgenders” are being killed as the result of hate toward those who foolishly choose to live as the opposite sex. This was certainly the case with the American media and the 25 “transgenders” killed in the United States.

Of course, an additional implication is that this hate is the result of “ignorant” and “irrational” bias against the gender-deluded from conservatives and Christians. As is often the case with liberal narratives, few things could be further from the truth.

I examined online reports of each of the 25 American individuals on the Human Rights Campaign’s “Violence Against the Transgender Community” list for 2017. I looked specifically for mainstream media accounts—such as the Chicago Tribune, The Times Picayune (more than once), The Baltimore Sun, the Miami Herald, and so on. In other words, I looked for news publications that had almost every reason in the world to stick to the LGBT agenda on “transgender” deaths. Though the articles often hopefully hinted that a possible “hate criminal” was behind the murders, there was not one single person the media could definitively claim was the victim of a “hate crime.”

Quite the contrary, more than one “transgender” person died as the result of violently attacking the police. Others were involved in dangerous activities such as prostitution, gang activity, or drug use, and still others had shown themselves to be prone to violence. In other words, much—if not most—of the “violence against transgenders” is due to the poor lifestyle choices of those who reject simple science and morality.

If the mainstream media really wanted to tell the truth when it comes to death and the gender-deluded, it would do well to note the dangers of denying basic biology and the tragic results that often accompany attempting the impossible—“transitioning” from one sex to another. Instead, the media again embraces a lie and is guilty of malpractice.

Along with the dangerous and sometimes deadly consequences of mutilating an otherwise healthy body with unnecessary drugs and surgeries, those who suffer from gender delusions face a whole host of health issues that a media that truly cared should be eager to report. For example, the risk of cancer significantly increases when one’s body is subjected to gender “reorientation” drugs.

The suicide rate among the gender-deluded is far above that of the general population. A staggering number of youth who struggle with their gender engage in self harm. Worse still, many parents who’ve bought the liberal lie on gender are guilty of child abuse. Because their parents, their schools, their churches, and their media refused to tell them the truth about their gender, many older teens and young adults have found themselves scarred for life.

Death, disease, and despair do stalk the gender-deluded community, but not for the reasons most corrupted by liberalism would have us believe. Again, those struggling with their gender identity need serious physical, mental, and spiritual help. They do not need accommodation in living a lie.

(See this column at American Thinker and LifeSiteNews.)

Copyright 2017, 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

The Dreadful Duty of Forgiveness

One of the most unpopular and difficult virtues of Christianity is forgiveness. As C.S. Lewis put it, “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” Sadly, our personal lives recently have been an exercise in forgiving the unforgivable.

On May 4 of this year, while cycling near his home, my father-in-law David was struck and killed by an impaired (alcohol and drugs) hit-and-run motorist. David was a beloved man. He was a husband, a father of four, and a grandfather of 11. He was also a kind and caring brother to four siblings, and a loving son to his parents, all of whom survive him. David was lovingly and intimately involved in each of these lives. He was also a pastor, counselor, and middle school teacher at a Christian academy. He was 64 years old and in very good health (which cycling helped him maintain.)

David was especially involved in our lives. For over 14 years, we’ve attended the church where he pastored. Our four children attend the Christian homeschool academy where he taught. My oldest son Caleb (13 years old), David’s oldest grandchild, was in his Papa’s class. Thus, David was Caleb’s teacher, his pastor, and his Papa. My wife Michelle is the administrator at the same homeschool academy. Including church on Sundays, she spent at least four days a week with her dad.

I spoke at David’s funeral. Much of what I said about his amazing life is here. A wonderful video testimony is here. Michelle wrote a blog post about her dad here.

As I said at the funeral, “Sometimes death does not surprise us. Sometimes it is even welcome. Of course, David’s death does not feel that way at all. Don’t we feel robbed right now? It’s as if something precious to us was taken by a thief in the night. Is that not how death often comes? All those ways that God used David to enrich our lives have so rudely been taken from us.”

Such a loss can certainly leave one angry. This is especially the case when the death occurs at the hands of a remorseless criminal during the commission of a crime. Our ability to forgive has been tested like never before.

We understand well what the families of those slain in Charleston, the family of New Orleans police officer Gary Flot, the families of those slaughtered by ISIS, and the like are going through. The sad truth is, if we live long enough, each of us will have dire things to forgive. What’s more, live just a few short years in this fallen world, and we will all do plenty that will require the forgiveness of others.

As Lewis implied in Mere Christianity, the notion of forgiveness is about as popular as the Christian teaching on sexual morality. In fact, if a man was on trial for his Christian faith (an event that many alive today may get to witness), his thoughts on forgiveness would certainly be a line of questioning the prosecutor would pursue.

Such thinking has long been a part of evangelical America. During the first “Great Awakening,” which occurred during the early to middle part of the 18th century, powerful Spirit-inspired preaching by men like Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, and George Whitefield produced a tremendous evangelical harvest in Colonial America.

As noted in A Wonderful Work of God: Puritanism and the Great Awakening, in order to distinguish between the counterfeit works of Satan and the authentic works of the Holy Spirit, one of the “marks” that was considered a “major test” was “the capacity to forgive one’s enemies.”

The recent events in Charleston offer a great example of how followers of Jesus are different from those still lost in the darkness of this world. After Dylann Roof’s heinous act of violence took the lives of nine Christians at a Bible study in Charleston, and after his capture the morning after the attack, the next event that garnered the most attention happened two days after the murders. At Roof’s bond hearing, one-by-one, the friends and family of Roof’s victims were given the chance to speak. For the most part, the media was aghast, for each of these followers of Christ did the unthinkable for those who are guided by a liberal worldview: they offered forgiveness to Dylann Roof.

“We already forgive him for what he’s done, and there’s nothing but love from our side of the family,” said Chris, the teenage son of victim Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Anthony Thompson, the grandson of victim Myra Thompson, told Roof, “I forgive you, my family forgives you.” The daughter of Ethel Lance said, “I will never talk to her ever again. I will never hold her ever again. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. But God forgives you. I forgive you.”

On forgiveness, Lewis also noted, “to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes them sick,’ they say.” After the terrible events in Charleston, several pundits corrupted by liberalism proved Lewis correct.

“Black America should stop forgiving white racists,” was the title of a piece by Stacey Patton in the Washington Post. Patton declared that such forgiveness was “disconcerting.” Seeking to keep the fires of racism stoked, she added, “The almost reflexive demand for forgiveness, especially for those dealing with death by racism, is about protecting whiteness, and America as a whole.”

“I do not forgive Dylann Roof,” began Roxane Gay in The New York Times. She later added, “I do not foresee ever forgiving his crimes, and I am wholly at ease with that choice… My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving.”

Gay’s refusal to forgive is also tied to her desire to perpetuate the racism meme so loved by today’s liberals. She wrote, “The call for forgiveness is a painfully familiar refrain when black people suffer. White people embrace narratives about forgiveness so they can pretend the world is a fairer place than it actually is, and that racism is merely a vestige of a painful past instead of this indelible part of our present.”

An L.A. Times op-ed says that we should put conditions on forgiveness. Edward E. Baptist writes, “It's one thing for a survivor of trauma to tell a handcuffed and doomed perpetrator that you forgive him. It's another thing to forgive those who can still harm you. You don't do that without a good reason to believe that the person who harmed you has changed into someone who will not do so again.”

Of course, this is not what Jesus taught. When Peter famously asked Jesus if we should forgive up to seven times, Jesus replied “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” In other words, as often as is necessary. One of the last lessons Jesus taught us was on forgiveness. In agony, as He was mercilessly and unjustly dying on the cross, Jesus asked His heavenly Father to forgive his executioners.

In February 1944, because they were hiding Jews from the Nazis, the ten Boom home was raided by German police. Corrie, along with her father, brother, two sisters, and several other family members were arrested. Shortly after the arrest, all of the family was released except Corrie, her father Casper, and her sister Betsie. Casper got sick and died within ten days of arrest. Corrie and Betsie remained in prison and were later transferred to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp in Germany. Betsie would die there, while Corrie was accidently released.

The ten Booms were devoted Christians who believed what the Bible taught, not only about the Jewish people, but also about forgiveness. Corrie had a long career after WWII, ministering to the mentally disabled, foster children, and the like, along with speaking and writing on the Christian faith. She was especially noted for her forgiveness of the Nazis who imprisoned her and her family.

On forgiveness, ten Boom wrote, “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” In other words, like we have been taught about love, forgiveness does not depend on how we feel about any particular person or situation.

Therefore, and thankfully, we do not have to have pleasant feelings about those who have wronged us. Neither must we “think them nice.” We are simply to do and say the things that forgiveness requires. We are also not to reduce by even the slightest measure our contempt for wicked things such as murder, racism, lust, greed, and the like. And we must hate such things in ourselves as much as we hate them in others.

Lastly, and “one step further,” showing true love and forgiveness does not mean that we can’t punish—even unto death—those who have done wrong. Christianity teaches that we all live forever (somewhere), thus if justice requires death in this life, so be it. What ultimately matters most is that the condemned be presented with the opportunity to accept the final forgiveness and atonement offered by the final Judge that we all will face and that we all have offended.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com