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.

As part of a broader campaign to sink H.B. 2, the DOJ is tag-teaming with the Department of Education to bully the state into reversing its law — or lose federal funds. Since mid-April, the administration has been throwing anything at the wall in hopes that one of its complaints will stick. In its latest barrage, federal officials are arguing that the gender-specific bathroom bill violates everything from the Civil Rights Act to Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. As part of this week’s letter, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division insists that requiring people to use the restroom based on their biological gender is “sex discrimination.” Giving the state less than a week to respond, the DOJ demands that North Carolina stop implementing H.B. 2 or face judicial action.

Of course, as judicial expert Ed Whelan points out, the Obama team can’t simply rewrite a 50-year-old law to suit their agenda. In doing so, he argues, the administration is assigning meaning to the Civil Rights Act that Congress never intended. “[R]eserving women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities for biological females (and men’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities for biological males) does not in fact involve any discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Rather, under the guise of nondiscrimination rhetoric, the Obama administration is pressing the substantive claim that gender identity trumps biological sex under Title VII — in other words, that employers must discriminate in favor of gender identity. That is a policy position that transgender advocates are welcome to push for in the legislative arena. But it is a baseless and absurd reading of Title VII.”

What the president’s agencies are essentially saying is: “We don’t want to try to get new laws. That’s hard work. You’d have to try to tell people stuff they know is nuts. Let’s just claim to read all this into the laws that are now on the books. So what that no one ever thought this before? We have the judges now. No one can stop us. Anyone who tries is evil or stupid.” But there is someone who can stop them: Governor McCrory. As the state’s leaders made abundantly clear [Thursday], they have no intention of throwing in the towel to satisfy the whims of an out-of-control federal government. “We will take no action by Monday,” House Speaker Tim Moore (R) told reporters Thursday. “That deadline will come and go. We don’t ever want to lose any money, but we’re not going to get bullied by the Obama administration to take action prior to Monday’s date. That’s not how this works… They can’t just — through an administrative action by the attorney general’s office — issue a decree that has the force and effect of law over this state.”

North Carolina Senator Phil Berger was even more blunt about the larger problem. “People are angry, and one of the reasons they’re angry is because of the failure — particularly of the federal government — to do the things that the people know need to be done, and yet they go off on a tangent like this and push radical social engineering.” Now that the White House is starting to realize what a losing issue this is in public opinion, even the president is trying to distance himself from the controversy. In an effort to downplay Obama’s involvement (which is laughable considering that he made North Carolina the centerpiece of his comments in England), White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters this intimidation campaign was completely independent of the president. “When it comes to enforcement actions, those are decisions that are made entirely by attorneys at the Department of Justice.” Maybe the president is starting to realize that its obsession with potty politics is hurting his credibility on the real issues facing America. That’s certainly a frustration echoing across the country, as FRC’s latest ad on the president’s favorite topic explodes across social media.

And President Obama isn’t the only one wishing away the controversy. Down $3.5 billion and counting, Target executives are finally ready to come to the table with the organizers of the boycott at AFA. Fox News’s Todd Starnes tweeted the news that the company has accepted a meeting with opponents, which is a significant victory for the almost 1.2 million people protesting the stores’ genderless bathroom policy. Obviously, if Target thought the backlash would tail off, they wouldn’t draw further attention to it like this.

Cases like Palatine’s are keeping the heat turned up on big business, the administration, and LGBT activists. The Illinois school district is fighting back after the superintendent caved to the DOE’s demands and opened the girls’ locker room to a confused 11th grade boy. Now, Alliance Defending Freedom explains, teenage girls are so horrified and embarrassed that “one girl has started wearing her gym clothes underneath her regular clothes all day, so she only has to peel off a layer instead of exposing her unclothed body in the presence of a biological male in the locker room.”

This is the kind of lunacy awaiting the entire culture if the Left gets its way. It’s time for Congress to stand up and call the DOE and DOJ on the carpet for their unilateral redefinition of Title IX. Consider this: If the White House can control the bathroom policies of the nation, then what is beyond its reach? The answer is absolutely nothing. And at that point, the only thing Congress will do is add to the burden of taxpayers. It’s time for Republicans, who have the constitutional authority, to bring the imperial White House under control. For the view on the ground in North Carolina, don’t miss my interview with Lt. Governor Dan Forest from [Thursday’s] “Washington Watch.”

Originally published here.

Surf on the Government’s Turf

Who’d hire workers to look at pornography all day? Try taxpayers. According to a startling new report, the National Security Agency (NSA) has an “unbelievable” child porn problem but is keeping under wraps how widespread the epidemic is. U.S. intelligence officials said that the Defense Department is quietly trying to deal with the pervasive problem on staffers’ computers and other devices. “What people do [at work] is amazing,” the NSA’s Kemp Ensor told a Virginia conference. “The amount of child porn I see is just unbelievable,” said the director of the Defense Security Service — and in particular among the agencies’ spy networks.

Unfortunately, it’s just another integrity problem brought on by the hyper-sexualization of every government entity under Obama. Investigators have caught workers at the EPA, Missile Defense, and the NSA downloading thousands of hours of pornography on the clock. And in most cases, they kept their jobs in spite of it! The problem is so widespread that Congressman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) actually had to introduce a “Taxpayers Shouldn’t Pay for Pornography” bill last year to address it. And clearly, the issue isn’t just a threat to those employees’ jobs, but America’s safety as well. Downloading pornography is fraught with technology landmines that could lead to serious compromises on national security.

It’s yet another stunning irony from an administration that devotes significant time and resources to punishing members of the military for putting Bible verses on their computer screens — yet turns a blind eye to the filth that others are surfing. Think about the message the Pentagon is sending by cracking down on religious liberty as it shrugs its shoulders at — not just any pornography, but child pornography, which is illegal under federal law! This is yet another reason why it’s so important to protect and cultivate faith in the Armed Forces. The Christian principles that the administration is so quick to censor are the same ones that help prevent problems like these!

Originally published here.

The Military Doesn’t Have a Prayer at NDP

“Enter His courts with praise,” and enter the Supreme Court debate with prayer. That seemed to be the message of Alabama Supreme Court Justice Glenn Murdock, who spoke powerfully about the need for America to get on its knees about the empty seat in the U.S. Supreme Court at [Thursday’s] National Day of Prayer. “Never, I submit, has there been a time as important as today to pray for our appellate court and especially our Supreme Court. [They] are the group of men and women who in the months and years to come are going be asked to decide more than likely the fate of the Second Amendment, the extent of unilateral presidential authority, and the fate of that which has defined us more than anything else for 240 years as America: religious liberty.”

After blasting the Court for its legacy of activism starting with Roe v. Wade, Murdock talked about the present day threat, which was all too evident in the closing prayer of Army Chaplain Kenneth Williams. “Ten months ago, the United States Supreme Court undertook to redefine the institution of marriage upon which every civilization for 6,000 years has been based, prompting Chief Justice Roberts to remark ‘just who do we think we are?’”

As if proving his point, the event was closed out by Chaplain Kenneth Williams, who offered one of the most politically correct prayers ever uttered in the event’s history. Instead of ending the service in the spirit of the believers gathered, Chaplain Williams takes it upon himself to inject Islam, Judaism Hinduism, and Buddhism into the prayer, including the question: “Why can’t we all, in our differences, work toward the cause of truth?” That would have been the perfect place for a Christian chaplain to provide — not his opinion on the topic, but Jesus’s, who said, “I am the way the truth and the life…” If that weren’t enough, Williams ends the session by saying, “One day, I hope that there will be many faith groups represented here.”

If anyone doubted the president’s radical transformation of our Armed Forces, Williams’s benediction was Exhibit A in how Obama has all but driven Christianity from the military. This is exactly what Justice Murdock warned about that same morning when he described what the courts would do to the broader society by redefining marriage and human sexuality. If we get the Supreme Court wrong, the only acceptable form of public prayer will be that which extols the virtues of every deity but Christ. If you want to preserve your freedom to pray — start by exercising it!

Originally published here.