Columnist.
After six years of insisting Obamacare would drive down costs, the American people aren't buying it — not the coverage, and certainly not the lies. Millions of families are feeling the financial pain for themselves, as prices and premiums climb higher than the 2,700-page bill that produced this mess. The system that was supposed to transform our health care system has succeeded in that transformation, but not in the way it was promised.
The Obama administration may be going to battle *with* North Carolina, but the state's congressional delegation is going to bat *for* it. While the Justice and Education Departments plot their revenge for the Tar Heel's Public Facilities Privacy & Securities Act (H.B. 2), a few blocks away in Congress, House members from North Carolina are demanding some answers of their own. In a letter to the Department of Education signed by 10 Tar Heel Congressmen — Richard Hudson, David Rouzer, Renee Ellmers, Virginia Foxx, Walter Jones, Mark Walker, George Holding, Mark Meadows, Robert Pittenger, Patrick McHenry — the group demanded an explanation for the financial blackmail the administration is threatening over what they call a "perceived violation" of Title IX.
According to the Obama administration, the biggest threat facing America isn't ISIS. It isn't even a nuclear Iran. It's the stick figures on the bathroom door. While the rest of the world watches wildfires torch through Canada, or millions of Christians flee the Middle East borders, President Obama and his out-of-touch ideologues aren't worried about genocide. They're too focused with gender-cide: the elimination of the sexes.
The Justice Department promised a lawsuit over the bathroom debate — and [yesterday], it got one! There's just one twist: the federal government isn't the plaintiff — North Carolina is! After mulling it over, Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) decided to go on the offensive in the showdown with the Obama administration over the state's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (H.B. 2).
Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) has already stared down billionaire CEOs, the liberal media, and the LGBT activist bullies who want to topple North Carolina law. He's certainly not going to be intimidated by the threats of Obama's big government. Until this Wednesday, the controversy over the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (H.B. 2) had all but died down — when the president's team of wannabe legislators at the Department of Justice attempted its favorite form of blackmail: financial.
North Carolina is a textbook example of how the Obama administration has gone about their mission to fundamentally transform America with pen and phone. [Wednesday], Attorney General Loretta Lynch showed off the administration's creative writing ability by unilaterally rewriting a 52-year-old law to facilitate that White House's narrative. Of course, this has been the M.O. of the Obama administration for seven and a half years — as we've seen with everything from health care and abortion to marriage and gun policy.
Indiana is called the "Crossroads of America," and [Tuesday] night, it was the crossroads of 2016. The Hoosiers' decision ended up being the final one, as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made the difficult determination to end his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. It was certainly not an easy announcement — not for Ted to make, and not for conservatives to hear. In some of the most politically and culturally turbulent times of our history as a nation, Ted Cruz was a symbol of hope to so many Americans hungry for principled leadership.
After more than 1.1 million people pledged to boycott Target, celebrities and corporations alike are having second thoughts about crossing Americans on such a consensus issue. The decision by the retail giant is not only sparking massive backlash, but it's helping the country get a real picture of the controversy in North Carolina. It's also shown liberals that without the big media's cover, twisting the facts of the law, they're all by themselves. There's even more evidence of that this week, as more singers are keeping their concert dates in North Carolina than canceling them. Even more telling, not one business has threatened to leave the state after seeing what happened to the retail giant — which has taken a $2.5 billion hit since letting grown men in women's restrooms and dressing rooms. After executives announced the change, shares dropped 6 percent in just 10 days.
It looks like the Department of Education got a new boss: the Human Rights Campaign. The far-Left bullies are back at it, pulling the strings of their puppets in the Obama administration — this time over private religious exemptions. Although it's none of HRC's business, the organization has made a point of sticking its nose in the First Amendment debate blazing through college campuses. Like most pockets of society, the clash between religious freedom and sexuality has landed on the doorstep of higher education, which is especially problematic for schools with a conservative biblical worldview.
Good news is tough to come by at the Pentagon these days. But good news is exactly what Army Sergeant First Class Charles Martland got this week when Army officials made a surprise announcement: they've decided to reinstate the decorated Green Beret. A hero by record and reputation, Sgt. Martland lost his career over something that any parent or decent American would have done — intervene in an ongoing rape of an innocent Afghani boy.
The coffee was hot — and the debate was even hotter at the unofficial slumber party of the U.S. House: the annual mark-up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). While the rest of the city slept, more than 60 members of the House Armed Services Committee slogged through hundreds of amendments until the wee hours, hoping to keep one of Congress's longest streaks alive. For more than 50 years, the House has managed to pass the military's appropriations bill — even when other spending bills stalled or fell through the cracks. [Wednesday] night, the House's graveyard shifters did their part to keep the record intact, working an exhausting 16-hour day until finally — at 2:34 a.m. — the committee gaveled out.
Volunteers or political operatives? That's what most people are asking after an investigation blew the lid off of a shocking new scandal involving AmeriCorps program. The "public service" arm of the federal government, created by Bill Clinton in 1993, did a tremendous *dis*service to taxpayers, an inspector general has found, by teaming up with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) to encourage — and in some cases *facilitate* — abortions. On Capitol Hill, the news of these "abortion doulas" stunned conservative members, who have long seen the Community Health Centers an ethical alternative to funding Planned Parenthood.
Apparently, zombies are too busy eating brains to use theirs! In a surprise announcement, fans of the flesh-devourers were sad to learn that the annual "Walker Stalker Convention" in North Carolina is being delayed over H.B. 2. Of course, most dead people don't need bathrooms — but in some parts of the country, they do vote with regularity. Organizers say they're postponing the gore from June to December in hopes that Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) will be so persuaded by the zombies' decision that he'll force businesses to adopt the Left's unpopular policy. "Walker Stalker Convention has always been a place for ALL fans, regardless of who they are, or who they love. As such, we must add our voice to those opposing the injustice of North Carolina House Bill 2" said the zombie faithful. Apparently, zombies, like most on the Left, don't read — or they'd know that all H.B. 2 does is stop the government from forcing businesses to adopt gender-confused bathrooms.
If you're one of those people who wondered how same-sex marriage would affect you, walk into a Target bathroom and find out! Less than a year after the Supreme Court made "feelings" the condition of marriage, liberals are trying to make them the basis of gender too. But not without a major fight first. The American people aren't exactly lining up to put their wives and daughters in harm's way just to prove how "tolerant" they are. On the contrary, they're pushing back on this ridiculous agenda with a ferocity even the Left wasn't expecting.
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is used to throwing people out — not *being* thrown out. But after the former World Series Champ expressed his colorful opinion about the bathroom debate in North Carolina, ESPN fired him. Although Schilling made the comments on his personal page (which included a disclaimer that the opinion was 100% his), it didn't matter. The idea that any father wouldn't want his daughter to share a restroom with a grown man was too much for the sports network, who sent the MLB record-holder to "the showers" in another obvious attempt at "tolerance."
It looks just like any other online shopping cart. There's a drop down menu for parts and sizes. Click over to checkout, the website says, and choose your shipping option. But this isn't your average Amazon order. It's a ghoulish shop of horrors, where tiny human hands, hearts, eyes, scalps and livers are for sale.
The circus is leaving North Carolina — but not the one locals wish would go. Cirque de Soleil packed up its tents in a huff over H.B. 2 and took off for Kentucky, which — hypocrisy alert! — also doesn't have the bathroom mandate they're supposedly supporting! Like Pearl Jam and Boston and every other group they're claiming are pulling out of the state, Matt Walsh writes, "the irony here is so thick I might choke on it."
It's amazing with technology like ours that people still refuse to take a few minutes to read for themselves a bill like North Carolina's. With the facts just a click away, there's no excuse for the liberal media to continue misrepresenting H.B. 2. Yet that's exactly what they're doing — almost a month after Governor Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) signed the bill into law. Unfortunately, the truth about the measure — that it gives businesses the freedom to set their own bathroom policies — doesn't fit the Left's narrative. So they ignore it.
It's tough to be more unpopular than the Obama administration — but Big Business is succeeding! The two cellar-dwellers were only separated by a few percentage points in public opinion (33 percent to the president's 41) in November. Now that companies are picking a fight with voters in North Carolina and Mississippi, not only are large corporations disliked, but accused of doing more harm than good.
Publicly, companies like Coca-Cola don't mind giving North Carolina and Mississippi a hard time. But privately, the tirades are taking their toll. The price of coddling LGBT activists is a steep one, especially for CEOs who rely on the very leaders they're condemning for robust state economies. For most companies, the tension between checking the gay-friendly box and protecting their bottom line is at the tipping point. And it won't be too long before more companies realize that in the battle between cultural bullies and state conservatives, businesses have the most to lose.
