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December 12, 2014 Radio Commentary

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Horse Racing & Pari-mutuel Betting would Expand Government

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, December 12, 2014 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Are you ready to create another government agency? If not, we have a battle on our hands. On November 17th Representative Harry Geisinger pre-filed H.R. 1 to make horse racing constitutional in Georgia. At the same time, he pre-filed his 38-page H.B. 2 to make it happen. But those 38 pages go beyond horse racing. They outline a system for pari-mutuel betting to be controlled by a seven-member all-expenses-paid horse racing commission to license racetrack facilities and schedule at least 60 live racing days in Georgia every year. The races would be simulcast to satellite facilities throughout the state and Internet betting would be set up to accommodate online gamblers.

They expect to collect a ton of new revenue, but let’s look at the facts. First, it’s never cheap to expand government and hire new people. Second, gambling is extremely harmful to gamblers and families. Average pathological gamblers pay about $1,200 a year to treat their habit, although they might never be cured. A fourth of habitual gamblers lose their jobs; 28 percent file for bankruptcy or owe $75,000 to $150,000 gambling debts; players with incomes under $10,000 lose nearly 10 percent of the family income at casinos and do three times more betting in lotteries than those earning over $50,000. 28 percent of pathological gamblers are either separated or divorced, nearly double the non-gambler rate and one in five commits suicide, a rate 20 times higher than non-gamblers. Continue reading →

December 5, 2014 Radio Commentary

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Just Add “Childhood Seizures” to Current Law

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, December 5, 2014 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

Three weeks ago three bills were pre-filed to change Georgia’s current law governing our state-sponsored research program for using marijuana to treat patients with cancer or glaucoma. Since marijuana is a Schedule I drug, with a high risk for abuse and no proof of medical value, the current law also included the Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Program to develop security and record-keeping guidelines and protocols.

That happened in Georgia in the mid ’80s and it’s been the law in Georgia ever since. However, a couple of years ago a nationally known physician went on a world-wide study of marijuana, came back and published his findings. Since his report, 33 states have legalized medical marijuana and the pressure is on to legalize it here, regardless of the consequences.

Two days ago, the last of five meetings was held by the special joint committee created to study and research marijuana, but they didn’t discuss the three bills members of that committee have pre-filed for the 2015 legislative session. So, I’ll do it here.

H.B. 1 was pre-filed as a bare-bones bill to be fleshed-out later. It is so broadly written that it allows everything, but prohibits nothing. It would allow (a) unrestricted use of marijuana and its derivatives (b) to be supplied by unmentioned sources (c) for any number of patients of any age. It would be (d) administered through an unidentified private or state business, (e) for any period of time, and (f) prescribed by unnamed individuals, (g) with protection from prosecution for anyone with “a stated maximum amount of THC,” which is not stated. Continue reading →

November 28, 2014 Radio Commentary

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Thanks-O-Meter: What’s Your Score?

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, November 28, 2014 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

The other day I didn’t have to slow down in a school zone, because the school was closed for Thanksgiving week.  But the sign outside that elementary school didn’t mention Thanksgiving. It simply stated that school would be closed from the 24th through the 28th.

How strange that the sign did NOT explain WHY the school was closed for five days.  There was no mention of Pilgrims or a school play or a teacher’s work day.

It made me wonder how the closing had been explained to the students and parents and whether the principal and teachers had been told to avoid mentioning Thanksgiving – a legal holiday, officially declared for the entire nation to observe God’s blessings.  Within those words lies the answer.  Observing Thanksgiving as a Christian observance is being boycotted!

The word Thanksgiving is in the Bible 28 times, first in Leviticus and last in Revelation.  It means to “extend a hand to God, to revere or worship Him.”  That definition reminds me that a warm handshake is often used as a gesture of person-to-person gratitude.  Could that be a simple picture of the response our Lord Jesus Christ expects from us?

So, let’s take a test I’ll call the “Thanks-o-meter Test.”  Listen closely and score yourself.  The questions are from Bible verses that mention the act of thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving Day, did you offer thanks to God?  If you did, your thanks-o-meter just inched upward.  If you praised and magnified His Name, it went up again.  Did you come before His presence with joy?  Did you serve the Lord with gladness and singing, even silently?  Were you thankful unto Him?  Did you call upon Him because He is good, because His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures to all generations?  Did you reverence Him?  Did your thanks-o-meter advance on Thanksgiving Day … or is it advancing today?

Thanksgiving, as used in the Bible and for the national holiday, actually, means expressing gratitude to God.  The last mention of thanksgiving in the Bible occurs in a future scene in Heaven, as angels praising God proclaim, “Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen”

We should praise Him even more than the angels do.  Not only did He create us, He died to REDEEM us.  Angels can’t say that!  So, the next time you shake someone’s hand, remember this.  The definition of Biblical thanksgiving is to extend a hand to God in reverence and worship.  Maybe we should take a Thanks-o-meter Test every day.  For Georgia Insight I’m Sue Ella Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.

November 21, 2014 Radio Commentary

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Hope & Pray for Judicial Honesty

Radio Commentary, 90.7, 91.7 New Life FM, November 21, 2014 – By Sue Ella Deadwyler

With judge after judge ruling traditional marriage unconstitutional and shaking their fists in the face of God, there’s hope on the horizon. On November 6th the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2 to 1 to uphold the right of citizens to define marriage in Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan and Ohio. The judges filled that decision with, truly, remarkable comments.

For example: they said, “Our judicial commissions did not come with such a sweeping grant of authority, [to allow two of the three of us] to make such a vital policy call for the 32 million citizens who live within the four states of the Sixth Circuit. What we have authority to decide instead is a legal question: Does the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibit a state from defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman?

“It is not society’s laws or … any one [religion], but nature’s laws (that men and women complement each other biologically), that created the policy imperative. Even today, the only thing anyone knows for sure about the long-term impact of redefining marriage is that they do not know.” That was an amazingly honest statement! Continue reading →