Our federal government has decided to issue a letter of guidance to our public school’s on transgender access to bathrooms. The joint letter from the education and justice departments was sent to schools Friday with guidelines to ensure all students “can attend school in an environment free from discrimination based on sex.”

Realize that while they can ‘issue’ such a letter, it carries absolutely no authority. This is yet another example of federal overreach through the Executive Branch as yet another couple of bureaucratic and unconstitutional cabinets move to usurp power and authority from the Legislative Branch. However, time and again Title XI keeps getting tossed into the mix as if it has any real bearing in the issue of transgenderism and school bathrooms.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” [Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235 (June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688]

The first person to introduce Title IX in Congress was its author and chief Senate sponsor, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. At the time, Bayh was working on a number of issues related to women’s rights, including the Equal Rights Amendment.

As they were having some difficulty getting the ERA out of committee, the Higher Education Act of 1965 was on the floor for reauthorization, and on February 28, 1972, Bayh introduced the ERA’s equal education provision as an amendment.

In his remarks Bayh said, “We are all familiar with the stereotype of women as pretty things who go to college to find a husband, go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again. The desire of many schools not to waste a ‘man’s place’ on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts absolutely contradict these myths about the ‘weaker sex’ and it is time to change our operating assumptions.”

“While the impact of this amendment would be far-reaching”, Bayh concluded, “it is not a panacea. It is, however, an important first step in the effort to provide for the women of America something that is rightfully theirs—an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work.”

Bayh said absolutely nothing about ‘transgender,’ though his bill did state ‘sex,’ which is defined biologically defined by the presence of the XX (female) or the XY (male) genotype in somatic cells.

In 2014, guidelines were issued by the U.S. Department of Education stating that transgender students are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX, and instructing public schools to treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in single-sex classes, so that a student who identifies as a transgender boy is allowed entry to a boys-only class, and a student who identifies as a transgender girl is allowed entry to a girls-only class. The memo states in part that “…students, including transgender students and students who do not conform to sex stereotypes, are protected from sex-based discrimination under Title IX. Under Title IX, a recipient generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity in all aspects of the planning, implementation, enrollment, operation, and evaluation of single-sex classes.

There is nothing in the United States Constitution that gives the federal government the authority to delegate power to the federal Department of Education or the Department of Justice to create law or even the suggestion of it.

Once again I have sent an email to my congressional Representative in Washington, D.C. You should do the same by letting your Representative in Congress know where you stand.

(If you agree with my position, please feel free to copy and paste, but remember to change the Rep’s name and yours too.)

Dear Representative Amodei:

Our federal government has decided to issue a letter of guidance to our public school’s on transgender access to bathrooms. The joint letter from the education and justice departments was sent to schools Friday with guidelines to ensure all students “can attend school in an environment free from discrimination based on sex.”

While I realize they can ‘issue’ such a letter, it carries absolutely no authority. This is yet another example of federal overreach through the Executive Branch as yet another couple of bureaucratic and unconstitutional cabinets move to usurp power and authority from the Legislative Branch.

Sir, you must act to stop this illegal activity. Thank you for your time and consideration in this urgent matter.

Tom Darby
Spanish Springs, Nevada

The time for action is NOW.

So that you know that I’m not all smoke and no flame, here is the email I sent to each of Nevada’s federal Representatives. It became obvious during this ‘exercise in liberty,’ that they are using several methods of screening who reach out to them.

These methods include not having a ‘link ready’ email address on each of their congressional websites. Instead, each have a ‘contact’ button, where upon after entering it you are asked for you zip code with the ‘special four digit’ number.

If you do not have that four digit number, you must go to the official U.S. Postal Service website to enter your address and find out what that number might be. Honestly, it shouldn’t be this difficult.

Lastly, I learned rather abruptly that Representative Hardy of Nevada’s 4^th District doesn’t want to hear from anyone outside his district. I entered my zip code, followed by those extra four digits, only to be informed I live outside his area of representation.

So, I called his office in Las Vegas and was told I couldn’t be helped, unless I wanted to relay my message telephonically or via the postal service. Opting to do neither, I called Hardy’s Washington office where the woman who answered the phone told me much the same thing – however offered to deliver my email to the Congressman through her work email.

I call that service, something our federal representatives see to not understand.

Here, now is my email to Representatives’ Dina Titus, Cresent Hardy, Joe Heck and Mark Amodei:

Why are you allowing the Executive Branch of government to usurp the Legislative Branch’s authority when it comes to Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s threat to defund North Carolina?

The Executive Branch does not hold that power. That power is authorized only to the Legislative Branch via the people, and therefore the Legislative Branch doe not have the authority to delegate that power to the Executive Branch.

The federal overreach of the Obama Administration, through the Department of Justice must be halted. This responsibility falls to the House of Representatives as prescribed in Article I, section 7, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills,” and in Article I, section 9, clause 7, that further states, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Darby,

Spanish Springs, Nevada

(The note I added only to Representative Hardy’s email)

P.S. Your Congressional email system should serve all citizens, not simply the select few who live in the 4^th District. It is a shame that I must rely on a staff member from your office to relay an email to you and not directly submit the same to you in person. Please convey my appreciation to Emily Moore for her assistance in this matter.

Thank you, TD

Look, everyone knows that Facebook censors Conservative stories in its ‘Trending Topics’ feed, though they deny it. They are a private company and can do with their product as they wish.

But what’s difficult to understand is how Congress has any oversight responsibilities towards this private social-media company. When South Dakota Republican Senator (and supposed Conservative) John Thune became a leading opponent of net neutrality, he made the case that any political interference in how the Internet operates is inherently unacceptable.

Now, he’s supporting the notion of Congress investigating how Facebook decides what to share in it’s feed –and that is a threat to free speech. Members of Congress and others may take issue with Facebook’s editorial decision-making, but the First Amendment leaves no room for Congress to investigate or otherwise insert itself into Facebook’s business.

It’s clear Congress has yet to learn the lesson it taught us when it authorized the 2008 federal take-over of car companies, banking institutions and the nation’s healthcare system.

Yesterday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch held a press conference announcing that the Department of Justice is suing the North Carolina about House Bill 2, signed into law March 23, 2016. Officially known as ‘An Act to Provide for Single-sex Multiple Occupancy Bathroom and Changing Facilities in Schools and Public Agencies and to Create Statewide Consistency in Regulation of Employment and Public Accommodations,’ and legislates that individuals may only use restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates.

Several times, Lynch lied as she spoke:

“In so doing, the legislature and the governor placed North Carolina in direct opposition to federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity.”

The specific federal law she is citing is the 1964 Civil Rights Act’ which outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It does not include ‘gender identity,’ and ‘sex’ under this law is defined as biological at birth.

“While the lawsuit currently seeks declaratory relief, I want to note that we retain the option of curtailing federal funding to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina as this case proceeds.”

The Department of Justice, which falls under the Executive branch, does not have the authority to halt the funding of any establishment. That power is only given to the Congress, which is delegated to that body by the State’s and thus the people.

“And it’s about the founding ideals that have led this country – haltingly but inexorably – in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.”

Those three words, ‘fairness, inclusion, equality,’ do not appear in the U.S. Constitution and therefore cannot be expressed as ‘founding ideals.’ Meanwhile, ‘life, liberty, happiness,’ do appear in the Declaration of Independence.

“And we saw it in the proliferation of state bans on same-sex unions intended to stifle any hope that gay and lesbian Americans might one day be afforded the right to marry. That right, of course, is now recognized as a guarantee embedded in our Constitution, and in the wake of that historic triumph, we have seen bill after bill in state after state taking aim at the LGBT community.”

For such a ‘right’ to be ‘embedded in our Constitution,’ it would first have to be passed by Congress and then ratified by the States. Instead, she is choosing to confuse a supreme Court opinion with an Article 5 activity that must first begin in the Legislative Branch and not the Judicial Branch.

“Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.”

Finally, Lynch has no Constitutional understanding of her position within the federal government. She does not work for the DOJ or the Obama Administration as she contends. She is sworn to uphold and defend the entire U.S. Constitution, not create ‘new law’ protecting the rights of a singular population, but the rights of all.

The first time I met Bridgette things were fairly formal. Her father, Ron, hired me to run their PhotoKis machine for Ron Villa Pharmacy’s new one-hour photo lab in McKinleyville, California.

The second time I saw her, she blew me away with, “Why, hello gorgeous!” I walked around flattered as flattered could be for a couple of days, until I realized that was her greeting for most everyone she knew.

Today, I’m sitting here at my desk feeling sad at the knowledge of her passing on April 28, 2016. I think she was diagnosed with cancer sometime in 2015, but I didn’t realize how bad it had become until she said the disease was pressing on her spine, causing her pain.

Bridgette was born in Fort Bragg, California, Christmas day, 1963 to Betty and Ron Bottemiller. She grew up in Bayside, near Eureka, went to school in Arcata and then worked as her father’s bookkeeper at the pharmacy.

She’s survived by her two children, Clara and Matthew, her sisters, Connie and Kristy and mom, Betty. She is preceded in death by her dad, Ron, who passed away in 2013 and her husband David Mitchell, who died in 2009.

For me, her smile, laughter and good cheer will always hold a special place in my heart. This, and every time I see a red chili in a plate of chinese food, like the one that nearly killed me during a lunch date she and I had at a restaurant in Arcata, where she laughed so hard and so long that she nearly pee’d herself.

I’ll miss you, Bridge.

A state commission suspended Alabama supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, alleging he disregarded “clear law” when instructing state judges to ignore a U.S. supreme Court ruling “establishing nationwide same-sex marriage rights.” The current investigation comes after the commission received complaints about Moore’s actions from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC.)

The SPLC complains that Moore:

— advised state judges to violate a binding federal court order;
— repeatedly commented on pending cases;
— undermined the public’s confidence in the integrity of the judiciary by denigrating the federal courts and threatening to defy them;
— and improperly lent the prestige of his office to the Foundation for Moral Law, a private organization that his wife runs and that he founded.

It’s obvious from a statement made by SPLC President Richard Cohen, that the SPLC isn’t interested in the law, rather the so-called ‘law center’ is more interested in practicing social politics.

“Moore swore to uphold the United States Constitution,” Cohen said. “But he has demonstrated in the past, and now once again, that he is willing to put aside the law when it conflicts with his personal religious beliefs. He cannot be trusted to be an impartial arbiter of the law.”

Moore is simply trying to uphold the state’s law as marriage is a state issue and not a Federal issue as prescribe under the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

And not one federally elected or state official – who’ve also sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution – can be found in support of Moore, trying to protect him from what has turned into a Progressive policy witch hunt.

Admittedly, it was more than hard to continue to listen after I heard the preacher boast that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment was incompatible with the Gospel. My first reaction was to simply drop the online feed and move on, but I didn’t as I hoped I would hear something I needed to hear aside from the preacher’s opinion.

Since then I have thought a lot about his comment and I’ve come to realize exactly how wrong his statement is on several levels.

First off, the preacher must not realize that without the protection of the First Amendment what he said to those gathered before him, would not have save him from a tyrannical government. And what about those who assembled? They too would have been in grave danger from that same tyrannical power, had not some protection been provided via the First Amendment.

Then there is the fact that his/their/our religious beliefs would not be safe under a repressive regime had the First Amendment not been written by God-fearing, Gospel-understanding men. It’s obvious that our Founders understood the distinctions between ‘natural law’ (God’s law), which are our civil liberties, and man’s inherent predatory nature to usurp power and hold sway over all others.

Yes, the First Amendment and the Gospel seem to be a strange pairing, however if one understands the message of the Gospel – which is simply expressed by our Christ in John 13:34 (NIV), “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” then the First Amendment as well as the following nine of God’s laws align in perfection to the Gospel. To say otherwise is to act as an agent of the Evil One.

The Obama Administration is planning the nation’s first monument to gay liberation, Stonewall National Park, in New York City. The designation will encompass the Stonewall Inn bar and Christopher Park, a piece of land across the street from the bar, and various parts of the surrounding neighborhood.

The National Park Service will name the area as historic jus’ in time for the city’s LGBTQABCDEFG pride celebration, which commemorates June 28, 1969 — the day corrupt cops raided Stonewall Inn only to be surprised by an intense rebellion by bar patrons and locals fed up with police harassment. Meanwhile thousands continue to die at the hands of a “JV team.”

Doesn’t it feel great to see our tax money and Obama’s priorities, both working for such a wonderful cause like ‘inclusiveness?’

A group whose lead firm is controlled by Richard Blum, husband of California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein, has been awarded a nearly billion-dollar contract for the construction of the first phase of a “high-speed rail line” linking central California to Southern California. The Perini-Zachary-Parsons (PZP) bid was the lowest received from the five other groups participating in the bidding process.

Low is a relative term in this case because the project ultimately is to be footed by taxpayer monies. And you can bet because of his connection to a seated-Senator, Blum and crew had inside info on the other bids, thus they easily underbid them.

PZP’s bid $985,142,530 to build the first section of high-speed rail track that will tie Madera to Fresno, came in at a mere $35 million per mile. This doesn’t include the cost engines and cars, electrifying the route or land acquisition, of course.

Furthermore, the project will share tracks with conventional commuter rail trains, dropping its average speed to levels long bested by American railways more than a century ago. And in the end, will cost Californian’s twice what it’s budgeted at, take more than five hours to travel what takes less than an hour by air, and will have to charge much more than twice what airlines do for the trip.

This is how an unrestrained federal government operates – and how a state-turned-kingdom submits to its unbridled corruption, dressed up as a public-private partnership.