All the talk about possible collusion with Russia sometimes obscures the need for us to think clearly about Russia. In particular, I am talking about the leadership in Russia not the Russian people. The Russian people may be very nice, but their leader (Vladimir Putin) is another story.

Colonel Allen West asks a good question. When did Russia become a threat? Most everyone considers it a threat now, but where were these critics just a few years ago? He reminds us that just after President Obama’s secretary of defense announced a massive reduction in the army, Russian-back separatists overran Crimea. This was followed by the invasion into Ukraine.

He also asks that if Russia was such a great threat, why did President Obama in an off microphone moment whisper to the Russian president that he would have more flexibility after his reelection? And don’t forget that during that same period of time, Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was a threat. Allen West concludes that Russia only “became a threat when it served the progressive socialist left and their liberal progressive media allies’ purpose.”

So let’s step back from politics and see if we can look at Russia with some objectivity. First, it is worth mentioned that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama thought they could establish friendly relations with Vladimir Putin. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even brought a “reset button” to a meeting with Russian leaders. None of that worked out as they intended. In the final days of his presidency, President Obama was expelling Russian spies from this country.

Second, we need to understand that Russia poses a threat. The editors at National Review writing about cyber security said, “a more realistic view means recognizing that Russia is not interested in an alliance against other nefarious actors; it means recognizing the Russia is one the nefarious actors.” I’m hoping the administration and Congress figure this out soon.

If you want to understand why the debate over Obamacare isn’t going well, all you need to do is look at the debate about Medicaid. In a recent commentary, Michael Tanner says: “Democrats have dug in over any change to the current program, solemnly declaring that changing so much as a comma or semicolon in the ACA’s expansion of the program would immediately sentence millions of children to death.” Obviously, we can’t have a productive debate if we cannot even agree on the facts. Here are a few that need to be stated.

First, Medicaid is unaffordable without reform. It is the third-largest federal spending program and is scheduled to nearly double in cost by 2027. Anyone looking at the cost projections (which may be understated) would surely conclude that the current growth line is unsustainable.

Second, the Medicaid expansion had nothing to do with women and children. It might make for a good political commercial to scare voters, but the Medicaid expansion didn’t apply to pregnant women and children. Eligibility for them was raised as far back as the 1970s and 1980s.

Third, Michael Tanner reminds us the “cuts are in the eye of the beholder.” Even after Republicans were accused of cutting, slashing, or destroying Medicaid, the program will still be growing at a rate of 2 percent per year. As I often say on my radio program, only in Washington, D.C. can an annual increase in a government program be considered a cut.

Finally, we should acknowledge that the value of Medicaid is debatable. Michael Tanner cites a number of studies that question whether Medicaid results in better health outcomes. While you can say that Medicaid is better than no insurance at all, it certainly does not provide coverage as good as provided by private insurance.

Medicaid reform will be hard to accomplish given the fact that the Medicaid debate ignores so many important facts.

When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, everyone wondered what the ruling would mean to bakers, florists, photographers, and others who choose not to participate in a same-sex ceremony. Next year we will find out.

The high court decided to take the case of Christian baker Jack Phillips. When two men visited his Masterpiece Cakes bakery in 2012 and asked for a same-sex wedding cake, he refused. The men filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and launched a campaign against Phillips. Lower courts ruled that Jack Phillips discriminated against the two men and was ordered to make cakes for homosexuals. Phillips has said he would close down the bakery before he would compromise his beliefs.

The Supreme Court decision in his case will likely have a far-reaching impact in other cases. The court’s decision may also determine the fate of Aaron and Melissa Klein (Sweet Cakes) in Oregon and Barronelle Stutzman (Arlene’s Flower) in Washington and other such cases.

In the Supreme Court decision, Justice Kennedy did make room for religious disagreement with same-sex marriage in what some have called “the golden paragraph.” He added that, “It must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.” He went on to assure religious groups that the First Amendment gives proper protection to those beliefs.

Will that paragraph be enough to protect Jack Phillips and other Christians of conscience? I doubt it. It may give some slight protection to churches and Christian groups but I doubt that it will protect Christians who are accused of violating anti-discrimination laws and public accommodation laws. As you can see, the case next year will be a very important case.

Is Christianity really as bad as atheists say that it is? For decades we have heard the charges from the new atheists. So we shouldn’t be surprised that many of those criticisms showed up at the 17th annual “White Privilege Conference” held last month in Philadelphia.

Paul Kivel (founder of the Challenging Christian Hegemony Project) blamed Christianity for “almost every dysfunction in society, from racism and sexism to global warming and a weak economy.” He warns that the United States is run by thousands of predominantly white Christian men who want to “colonize our mind” with Christianity’s core beliefs.

It is hard to take some of his criticisms seriously, but they deserve some response, if to merely remind others about the benefits they enjoy because of Christianity. Jerry Newcombe in a recent column provides a long list.

If you are educated, you should probably thank Christianity. “Education for the masses was a gift of Christianity to the world.” Education in America was established so that citizens could read the Bible for themselves and not be deluded. Nearly all of the colleges in America’s early history were founded on Christian principles.

If you have ever been in a hospital, you should also thank Christianity. “St. Basil of Caesarea, who lived in the fourth century, is credited with creating the first hospital in the history of the world.” And let’s not forget the advances in science. As Norm Geisler and I explain in our book on origin science, most of the pioneers in the field of science had a Christian worldview and others were theists who believed in God.

Most of the social movements in the 19th and 20th century sprung from Christian convictions. The abolition movement, child labor law movement, suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement are just a few examples.

Christianity shouldn’t be blamed for what is bad in the world. We should be grateful for the many blessings it provides each of us.

You have probably heard someone say that “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” It is attributed to Joseph Goebbels but we have all seen it in action. Say something long enough, and people start to believe it is true.

I thought of that when I read the latest issue of Imprimis, which is published by Hillsdale College. It was a summary of a speech by former Sports Illustrated editor, Charles Leerhsen about the false stories about Ty Cobb.

Ty Cobb holds all sorts of baseball records, including a .366 lifetime batting average and the fact that he stole home 54 times. He was an amazing baseball player, but he was also slandered by a book published after his death. Stories about him beating up black men and sharpening his spikes to injure fielders are all false but they were repeated so often that most people assumed they were true.

Robert Knight is a recent column in the Washington Times uses these lies about Ty Cobb to point to similar examples today. The Black Lives Matter slogan “hands up, don’t shoot,” comes from the false narrative of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The claims that voter ID laws are merely being used to suppress minority vote is another example. Never mind that many of the legislators sponsoring these bills are African-American.

Consider how the media covers the undercover videos of Planned Parenthood. Usually they ignore them. When they do talk about the videos, they nearly always use the phrase “heavily edited videos.” Anyone who looks at the entire unedited videos (available online) can see that this description is inaccurate and unwarranted.

Whether in baseball or politics, we can see the sad reality that repetition can often turn a lie into the truth.

Most people would expect liberals to be open-minded, and yet they find that they are often the most intolerant. Kim Holmes explores the reasons for this transformation in his new book, The Closing of the Liberal Mind. He was on my radio program to talk about the history of the radical change in mindset and attitude.

Classic American liberalism in this country was based on a belief in liberty. Citizens were to be free from government coercion and thus free to believe something different from an orthodoxy forced on it by the state. They were also free to discuss and debate. And most importantly, was a belief in true tolerance, which accepted the right and freedom of others to believe differently from you. It was a live-and-let-live philosophy. I may disagree with your views but I would defend your right to believe them.

That is not the view of the postmodern left today. They practice the politics of intolerance. They may think they are tolerant, but really live in a world where bigotry and discrimination are allowed against any view that is not politically correct. They are willing to stifle free thought, censor free speech, and use public shaming in order to suppress any idea they do not like.

In his book, he talks about the campus bullies. But we also discussed how this has moved into even the business world. Now we have corporate bullies willing to use economic power to stifle and suppress legislation they abhor.

He says we have a new ruling class that is wealthy, smart, well-connected, and formidable. Although their numbers are small (in the thousands), their influence in the media, in the academy, and in government is significant. They also believe they have the higher truth which is superior to the common wisdom of the day.

We are in a battle with a new kind of liberal mind, and that is why we need to read about The Closing of the Liberal Mind.

One of the cases rendered by the Supreme Court before the justices left town has great significance in terms of government programs and religious freedom. As I said in a commentary two months ago, tires and religious liberty don’t seem like topics that would go together. But a religious dispute over playground surfaces made its way to the Supreme Court and established a very important precedent.

Trinity Lutheran Church in Missouri applied to a state grant program to resurface its playground with recycled rubber. Although the application ranked high in the list of applicants, the state turned them down merely because the applicant was religious. The Supreme Court rightly ruled that once a state created a neutral program for public benefit, it could not exclude a church from the program.

Here’s the important constitutional principle. There is a fundamental difference between establishing a religion and the government deciding not to penalize a religion. You cannot exclude this church from a public benefit merely because it is a church.

If the court had ruled the other way, it would have effectively established a two- tier system. The government can take your tax dollars and provide benefits for the public good, but only secular institutions can enjoy those benefits. Churches and other religious organizations must be prevented from receiving those benefits because they are religious.

Most reasonable people would see that providing tire fragments for playground safety should apply to public parks as well as to a playground in a church, synagogue, or mosque. Unfortunately, not all Supreme Court justices appear to be reasonable. Two justices voted against the church arguing that the decision “profoundly changes” the relationship of the government and religious groups. It does not, and we should celebrate that a significant majority ruled correctly in this important case.

One place where donors often go to check out a charity is GuideStar. Although it has been described as a “neutral” aggregator of tax data on charities, its latest actions call that designation into question. It originally placed “hate group” labels on certain groups so designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Southern Poverty Law Center at one time was respected for their work. But it has chosen to label many Christian and other conservative groups as hate groups merely because they hold to traditional family values and are critical of the LGBT agenda. Some of the groups include the Family Research Council and the American Family Association. But it also includes such groups as the American College of Pediatricians and the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

The leaders of these groups that have been so designated wrote to GuideStar President Jacob Harold to complain about the new policy to label 46 American organizations as “hate groups.” It is worth mentioning that Jacob Harold is hardly neutral when it comes to evaluating charitable organizations. He has worked as a “climate change campaigner” for Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace, USA. He has been a host for a NARAL Pro-Choice event and has blogged for the Huffington Post.

The “hate group” designation not only will affect donations to these organizations, but it could also be dangerous for these organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center hate group designation for the Family Research Council is the reason Floyd Corkins walked into their lobby intent on killing as many people as he could. A guard took a bullet as he attempted to prevent the possible massacre of the Family Research Council employees.

GuideStar announced that is will temporarily remove the hate group designation from these groups. I hope it doesn’t return.