As her husband mingles with political leaders from the world’s wealthiest countries at the annual G-8 Summit, first lady Michelle Obama is living like a queen, enjoying an all-expense-paid vacation in Dublin, Ireland, courtesy of you, the hard-working taxpayer. And as the number one political concern among Americans remains focused on the growing $16 trillion debt, taxpayers are outraged by the price tags resulting from the first family’s atrocious spending habits.

The White House is justifying Mrs. Obama’s posh Irish trip as diplomatically necessary. However, the first lady’s official itinerary, reported by the Irish Times, includes zero ambassadorial events. Instead, Mrs. Obama and her two daughters, Malia and Sasha, are slated to visit the Trinity University Library to peruse their Irish family lineage, attend a performance of Dublin’s famous Riverdance Troupe, and stroll the Wicklow Mountains National Forest.

The real question is, don’t Americans already pay the State Department millions to take care of our foreign affairs? It’s a superfluous waste — and downright dishonest — to justify the cost of Mrs. Obama’s Dublin get-away as necessary for the stability of American-Irish relations. Oh, but wait. Perhaps State Dept. officials are tied up for the moment due to that nasty sex-trafficking scandal. Sure, that’s it.

As previously stated, Mrs. Obama is reportedly staying in a $3,300-a-night Dublin Hotel suite. She has reserved no less than 30 rooms for her entourage.  But this is chump change, really.  Next month brings with it a full flung African excursion that will be among the priciest first family trips in U.S. history with costs estimated between $60 and 100 million. The trip is labeled as a “Good Will” tour, but it’s interesting to note the itinerary included a family fun day on a Tanzanian safari. I fail to see the diplomatic implications of a safari day, and apparently so did the Washington Post and other major outlets who questioned both the purpose and enormous costs for security detail (animal snipers, et al). As a result of intense scrutiny from both sides of the political aisle, the White House put its proverbial tail between its legs and cancelled the outdoor excursion.

And lest we forget, these two trips follow on the heels the Obama’s 2012-2013 Hawaiian Christmas vacation, which cost taxpayers $7 million dollars.

Political partisanship, dear reader, should not cause you to dismiss the Obama’s vacation expenses. The fact is that our currently dismal economic climate — exacerbated by the Obama Administration — prevents most American families from taking a single vacation this year, let alone multiple trips.  Democrats, Republicans, liberal whack jobs, and conservative purists alike should be reeling over the wasteful spending habits of our president.  After all, the rest of America has learned how to budget, especially as a record-breaking 47.8 million Americans are on food stamps, the cost of living continues to soar, and millions of Americans are out of work.

Maybe it’s time the first family try a “stay-cation” — or a “no-cation” — for once.

Last week, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee (CWALAC) CEO and President Penny Nance hand delivered 26,447 “Stop the FCC” petitions to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai.

We applaud Penny and the 26,447 concerned citizens who are standing with CWALAC for our kids and our future. Click here to add your name to the next round of petitions. The last thing we need is more filth and vulgarity. June 19 is the cut-off date set by the FCC to receive the public’s feedback on its consideration to slash its broadcast decency standards. The FCC is failing America’s families, giving broadcasters unfettered access to our children to peddle their vulgarity in the name of “freedom of speech.”

Don’t let it happen.

To read more on this issue, click here.

Fresh examples of all these problems — along with many others — have dominated the news cycle lately. Discouraging headlines on each of these fronts have served as reminders that our country is still dealing with these same challenges after many years (often decades) of struggle.

My temptation is to sometimes think that America is hopelessly broken — that these problems won’t go away, because we’ve seen so little progress for so long.  I catch myself thinking that our best efforts will only slow the deterioration, not stop the decline.

But this defeatist attitude is entirely misguided.  As a Christian, I need to remember that I serve a God who has been reigning over the rise and fall of every nation from the beginning of history.  America is no exception to that rule.  Nobody — no crooked politician, radical lobbyist group, or militant terrorist network — ultimately has any power to alter the plans crafted by the King of kings and Creator of the universe.  In these moments, I must recall the assurances throughout Scripture that “God reigns over the nations” (Psalm 47:8) and that “He removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21) according to His purposes.

These reminders produce hope in the midst of my discouragement. When grounded in the truth, the headlines don’t matter as much, because I can have faith that God is somehow at work behind the latest worrisome newsflash.

While these facts don’t excuse us as Christians from taking meaningful action to influence our society, the fundamental reality of God’s total control over all things means that the most important task we can perform is prayer. It means that in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations, we should ask God to work mightily in our nation, not as a final recourse in a lost situation, but as our go-to solution. As Oswald Chambers writes, “We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.”

In the face of bad news, we need to be more consumed with trust in God than with the direness of the current situation. Even in the most disheartening of times, our requests should always be filled with faith, since we know that the Lord hears our prayers and “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).  For it is He, not we, who must ultimately bring spiritual transformation to our nation and rescue us from the deep-seated troubles our country faces. Have no doubt; this is good news for the Christian.

What perhaps makes this instance so searing and conspicuous is the degree to which the Boy Scouts have represented possibly the strongest moral standards of any high-profile American institution over the last century.  Since its founding, it has embodied the broad spectrum of traditional American values, even requiring each and every scout to be “reverent toward God” and “faithful in his religious duties.”  So when the Boy Scouts abandoned their long-standing policy on homosexuality, those of us who support marriage and sexuality as God intended were deeply saddened.

Making this concession is even more tragic, because few observers expect this decision to be the final word on the matter.  Further compromises to the advocates of homosexuality are almost surely on the way.  Indeed, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) released a statement directly on the heels of the Boy Scouts’ vote, stating, “As we celebrate this moment, we know the work isn’t complete. The Boy Scouts of America still discriminates against qualified adults who are denied the opportunity to participate in leadership positions because they are gay.”

Special-interest groups — including the NGLTF and the plethora of others like them — are actively working to transform our values and our culture by working to undermine our society’s historic beliefs on marriage and sexuality.  And clearly, they are not yet done.  They will continue pressing not only the Boy Scouts but also other organizations, companies, and legislatures to “modify” their deeply held views.

Hopefully, this unfortunate series of decisions from the Boy Scouts will serve as a wake-up call for churches, family-oriented groups, and people of faith to renew their efforts in support of Biblically defined marriage and sexuality.  Groups like the Boy Scouts that are under fire (and those who soon will be) need to know what you think about these issues and that you still care.  We ask that you stand by CWA and other like-minded organizations to broadcast loud and clear what you believe, reminding all involved that those who affirm Biblical Truth will not go down without a fight.

Make no mistake, though.  Unless we all take stand against this sort of behavior — starting with young men like myself — this type of sad story is likely to repeat itself with growing frequency across America as the administration, liberal courts, and special interest groups (all of whom purportedly support “women’s reproductive health”) pursue their commitment to make contraceptives and abortion drugs more widely available to women at an increasingly young age.  The recent ruling by federal judge Edward R. Korman — ordering the availability of the powerful “emergency contraceptive” pill known as Plan B to women of all ages — will enable situations like this to occur again far too easily.  Specifically, it reduces barriers for so-called boyfriends to simply walk into a pharmacy and acquire powerful, abortion-inducing drugs to use on their girlfriends, no questions asked.

Pimps and rapists have, for many years, abused the over-abundance of contraceptives — thanks in part to groups like Planned Parenthood — to prevent the pregnancies of their prostitutes.  Consequently, pimps can keep even their youngest victims “in business” without inconvenient questions being asked.  Making powerful and potentially dangerous drugs like Plan B even more widely available will only exacerbate the problem.  As CWA’s Dr. Janice Crouse writes:

Judge Korman is a sex abuser’s dream and a victim’s nightmare. Essentially, he creates a brand new avenue for pimps, sex traffickers, and sex predators hoping to hide the evidence of their exploitation. We are removing doctors’ examinations, one of the vital tools used to detect sexual abuse. Now, a young girl afraid she might be pregnant at the hands of her abuser will not have the opportunity to see a doctor who could offer help and protection. Instead, her abuser will feed her Plan B like it is candy. In Thailand, where the morning-after pill has been freely available since 1988, men are the largest purchasers. What is wrong with this picture? It is no secret why Thailand is considered the world’s hot spot for sex trafficking of minors.

As a young guy, I would hate to see a family member or friend coerced, manipulated, or misused, and I suspect you probably feel the same way. Twenty-something guys who oppose victimizing women need to take back the sex culture and remind both society and our leaders that it is unacceptable to treat the ladies we care about like prostitutes.  We must stand up to keep them from becoming victims of the ever-growing sex industry, enablers like Planned Parenthood, and abusive boyfriends.

However much we’d like to deny it, the truth is that young men in my age bracket have far too easy of a time acquiring the tools they need to commit atrocities like the forced miscarriage of an innocent child in Tampa.  Thanks to the efforts of liberal “reproductive health” advocates, you and I need not only keep an eye out for the traffickers, pimps, and rapists — the deceptive boyfriend has now acquired the tools to victimize your daughter, little sister, or friend in the same way, to turn her into his own personal plaything.

This week topped off a trifecta of government abuse. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted conservative groups seeking tax exempt status; the Department of Justice secretly led an investigation into phone records of Associated Press (AP) journalists; and the icing on the cake, which can’t be set on a back burner to cool, is the continued struggle for answers on Benghazi.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sums it up perfectly, “Scandals represent Americans’ worst fears about big government: government is spying on you, targeting you, and lying to you.” Ouch!  You can say that again, Senator!  You know the saying, “The truth hurts.”  I hope the truths of these sandals are enough to activate the American people, because ultimately, they are the ones being abused by their government.  Let’s remember, targeting those who are criticizing our government is not just an issue of concern to conservatives, but one that should be of concern to anyone who might want to question the government.

These scandals show what happens when those in power overlook the purpose of government and, instead, see only a chance for political indoctrination.

For the head of our government to tell the American people he “found out” about the IRS overreach of power at the same time they did, when it was leaked, is simply inexcusable — especially since that same sentiment seems to have become a favorite last line of defense: “I don’t know.”  Eric Holder, who has been caught with his hands in the proverbial cookie jars of multiple scandals, recently told elected officials during Congressional hearings that he doesn’t know the specifics within his own department regarding the AP phone grab. Hillary Clinton said the same when she was asked questions about the State Department’s involvement in Benghazi, and President Obama can’t say whether the White House had any involvement in this trio of scandals.

This is not about partisan issues; the buck stops with the person in charge. The fact of the matter is, unfortunately, that this administration cannot run its offices with integrity. It’s time for those who have been entrusted with authority to take responsibility for the positions they’ve chosen to accept; and with that responsibility comes accountability.  An answer like, “I don’t know,” is simply unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. They’re not figureheads; it’s part of their job to know.

And if everyone is on the same page, uttering the same “I don’t know/it wasn’t me/mistakes were made” mantra, then it stands to reason that they’re not just protecting themselves; there must be someone else, higher up, pulling the strings … someone else, higher up, who will ultimately be damaged by these scandals … someone else, higher up, who doesn’t want to be seen … someone else, higher up, who doesn’t have the moral fiber or requisite integrity to take responsibility for his brazen and foolish actions.

So it’s “Deflect, deflect, deflect.”  Pay no attention to the little tyrant behind the curtain.

Our Heavenly Father,

With humble heart we thank you for our country, for our Constitution based on the blueprints provided to us in your Scriptures, for our strong military, and for our political representatives.

Too often, Lord, we elect our leaders and then we neglect them. But You call on us to pray for our national leaders. For Paul, inspired by You, in I Timothy 2:1-4, tells us, “I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth.”

Our national leaders need prayer. Because no matter what side of the political aisle they might align themselves, our representatives alone are incapable of settling conflict on a world stage, preventing the deterioration of the family, saving the lives of the innocent unborn, turning around a downturned economy, providing jobs for the unemployed, being a comforter to the grieving who have lost loved ones in recent national atrocities and tragedies. Lord, only with Your help can those in authority accomplish these things. May they never forget that.

The presidency of the United States is one of the most difficult and important jobs on earth. So we take time to pray specifically for President Barack Obama. Please give President Obama the wisdom he needs to confront the complex daily challenges within domestic and foreign political affairs. Please grant him endurance to manage the daily pressures within his executive duties. But above all, we pray that President Obama may know You in an intimate way. And in every responsibility, we pray that he will make decisions that are pleasing in the eyes of You, and not the eyes of men.

We pray for the first family. We pray that the physical demands of long hours and extensive travel do not put a strain on his family, but instead strengthen the Obamas’ love, commitment, and support of one another. Bless each member of his household. For the president’s wife, first lady Michelle Obama, we pray that You would build a wall of protection around their marriage. May their strong marriage help them to recognize the sacredness of marriage as You defined it. We ask that You bless the president and first lady’s family. Please give them wisdom and guidance as they raise their two young daughters, Malia and Sasha, and protect the Obama family from hostile threats.

We pray also that you would surround President Obama with Godly counsel. So also for each of President Obama’s cabinet. Lord, for each one of these cabinet members, we ask that you strengthen them through Your Word and grant them the wisdom to cast down every law, policy, and personal example which weakens marriage, families, the sanctity of human life, and Your moral code.

As our nine Supreme Court Justices make complex decisions on laws that impact the entire nation, we pray that You give them wisdom and courage to uphold our Constitution, which establishes a republic based on Your absolute laws and not a nation based on the changing opinions of man’s own reasoning. For Isaiah reminds us that, “The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; it is he who will save us.”  May they realize that all authority comes from You and understand that one day they will stand before You to give an account of the authority You have given to them.

For our local and state leaders, God, we ask that you grant them wisdom, discernment, and hearts that are open to Your leading.

We lift up leaders in the United States House of Representatives, in the Senate, and in the military. We know you have chosen these leaders for such a time as this. We pray that our government houses profess your authority and acknowledge Your will, so that every citizen, every leader, and every country knows that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Not only do we pray for our national leaders in authority, but we pray for those Christ followers who work on staff in the Obama Administration. Please embolden every Christian working in the White House, clerking in the Supreme Court, or providing staff support to every government agency and member of Congress. Please provide them opportunities on a daily basis to act as a witness for Your Truths. Lift the veils on every non-believer around them, so that they might recognize their need for Your goodness, mercy, and saving grace. Please do not let the devil get a foothold in these men and women’s lives. Prune every believer of everything that does not align with Your absolute truths. As they represent You, may they be blessed with favor from their superiors, dignity, courage, and strength.

Father, may You continue to be glorified in the our Capitol, 50 states, and world throughout the ages. In the name and authority of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray.

Amen.

CWA’s Alison Howard speaks at the House Triangle before the coalition delivers hundreds of thousands of petitions to the Chinese Embassy.

What if I told you there were millions of girls who were never given a chance to “lean in”? … Left out of the conversation. … Not invited to the table.  What if I told you they were systematically being eliminated not only from the workforce but from life itself?

I didn’t believe it either, until a friend pointed me to a movie that sounds about as “girly” as one can get.  “It’s a Girl.”  Those are words usually met with joyous applause, right?  Wrong.  It’s a Girl is a film documenting how, in many parts of our world, those three words are a death sentence.

Concerned Women for America is made up of over 500,000 members, many of whom were shocked to hear — like you will be — that there are over 160 million missing girls in this world, missing just because they were born female.  It is a sad reality, but in India, China, and many other parts of the world, girls are killed, aborted, and abandoned simply because they are girls.  The United Nations estimates that as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of “gendercide,” the deliberate extermination of girls in favor of boys.  This is the true “war on women” — a long war, rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by cultural and government policies that value little boys over little girls.

But thanks to the efforts of a coalition against gendercide, especially that of the newly released It’s a Girl movie and movement, we are no longer uninformed and unaware.

Did you know that India and China kill more females every year than the number of girls born in the U.S in a year?  China also has the highest female suicide rate in the world, with over 500 women ending their lives every day in China according to the World Health Organization.  We have a real human rights problem and are seeing the systematic elimination of women and girls. Concerned Women for America has and will call discrimination out when we see it.  And if we do not join hands on this devastating issue and condemn the sex-selective practices in this world, we will fail future generations of mothers, sisters, teachers, doctors, and leaders.

It is because of this gendercide that we see, in countries like China and India, an unnatural ratio of men to women.  There are 37 million more men than women in each of these countries today, leading to devastating societal consequences.

You can easily see how a rising population of frustrated single men spells trouble.  We’ve seen an increase in the horrors of sex trafficking, forced marriages, and the kidnapping of women.  This is all very, very real for women across those countries.

This is not a Left or Right issue; this is common ground.  Even Hillary Clinton lamented the practice of sex selection in China and India.  All of the talk of reaching across  the aisle for positive change in this world can start right here on this issue.  On Tuesday, April 23, members of Congress, led by Reps. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) and Jim McDermott (D-Washington) joined with the Coalition Against Gendercide to highlight this tragedy by screening It’s a Girl.

On April 24, I had the honor of speaking at the House Triangle before the coalition delivered hundreds of thousands of petitions addressed to China to the front door of the Chinese Embassy (petitions which the Chinese Embassy refused to receive, by the way).

So how can a girl “lean in” if she can’t even get out?  Protecting a girl in the womb and at birth is the first chance at giving her a fighting chance in this world.  Today, I challenge you to be a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves.  The film, It’s a Girl, is a great tool to help people understand why those are the three deadliest words to hear in many places today.

Encourage everyone you know to see it, and then take action to end this horrific practice.

Remember the Family Research Council (FRC) shooting last year? Floyd Lee Corkins, a disturbed 28-year-old man dressed as an intern walked into the FRC headquarters and shot FRC security guard Leo Johnson. Corkins has stated, “I wanted to kill the people in the building and then smear a Chick-Fil-A sandwich in their face … to kill as many people as I could.” Thanks to the heroic efforts of Johnson, Corkin’s deadly plot failed.

In the FBI video, an investigator asks, “How did you [come to] this building, this organization. Did you, how did you find it earlier?  Did you like look it up online?”  Corkins then admits, “It was a uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh anti-gay groups.  I found them online.”

The FRC atrocity hits close to home for those of us at Concerned Women for America (CWA). FRC staff members are not only our allies in the pro-family battle, they are our close friends. These men and women are honest citizens with compassionate hearts and a career calling to uphold Christian values in public policy.  But these admirable qualities were conveniently overlooked by the SPLC when it deemed FRC a “hate group” on the basis that the organization respects the institution of marriage.

If any non-profit, business, or individual stands for the purity of marriage, the sanctity of unborn life, or the constitutional protection of religious freedom, then they are counted among SPLC’s “hate groups.”  In fact, the SPLC has named CWA as one of “a dozen major groups [that] help drive the Religious Right’s anti-gay crusade.”  Skeptical?  Then go to SPLC’s website and click on their “hate map.”

Even Bill Maher, the liberal HBO host known for his anti-conservative rants, doesn’t buy the notion that Christians are as “dangerous” as liberal society is attempting to paint us.  Maher invited Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, on his show to discuss hate and violence as a result of religious institutions.  When Levin tried to argue that Jews and Christians commit terrorist acts, Maher retorted:

“Um that’s liberal bull****. … Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. … So, you know, I’m just saying, let’s keep it real.”

One can only hope that those who profit from this type of misinformation would “keep it real.”  But they are not interested in truth.  The SPLC knows Christians are not “hateful,” but they know they can exploit the sentiments of a significant part of the population for their obscene profit with minimal work.  By simply labeling them “hateful,” they hope to intimidate Christians into silence, whatever the unintended consequences.  The FRC incident actually helps the SPLC’s cause.

But Christians, including those of us at CWA, will not be intimidated.  And we will never tiptoe around certain Biblical principles or cherry-pick our moral values.  No amount of harassment, demeaning messages, or preposterous labeling will ever cause us to renounce our faith and forgo the Christian principles that laid the foundation for our nation and its success. Ever.  

When the 13- and 14-year-olds told their parents about the activities, parents were outraged.  Not only were the young students taught that sexual activity was normal and encouraged (in spite of the wealth of social science data showing the harmful effects of early sexual activity), but both the girls’ session and the boys’ session included offensive, immoral teaching and activities.  The students were taught when to use words like “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”  Christian News reported that parents complained about the school “overstepping its bounds in not notifying parents first and giving us the choice.”  Parents complained about the session being “inappropriate,” with such instruction “best left up to the parents.”

In the girls’ session, two girls were picked to stand at the front of the class and pretend that they were dating lesbians.  Others were required to ask another girl for a kiss.  In the boys’ session, the students were advised to “keep a condom in their pocket at all times.”  They were also taught (ironically in this age, where the use of the word “slut” can get someone in hot water very quickly), “how to identify a woman who is a ‘slut.’”

In the face of overwhelming parental objections, both the school principal and the district superintendent defended the workshops and told parents that more of such workshops will be scheduled in the future.

A news report in The Poughkeepsie Journal quoted Superintendent Paul Finch as saying that the presentation was “focused on improving culture, relationships, communication and self-perceptions.”  He noted that they “might be required” to notify parents in the future, but that the “Dignity for All Students Act” means that schools are required to hold sessions like the one drawing criticism.

The school superintendent also admitted that school guidance counselors and the school principal worked with the college students in planning the workshops.  Further, the school officials claimed that the sessions were designed to teach the students about “respect and safety.”

The Red Hook parents remain justifiably irate and livid over the sessions and the disregard for their parental rights.  Parents in the rest of the nation need to be just as irate and livid because these types of indoctrination programs — without parental knowledge or consent — are headed to all our schools under the guise of anti-bullying efforts.