Cowering Before North Korea 

Nobody knows what is going through Kim Jong Un's fevered brain. North Korea's young dictator has been hurling threats and invective for weeks. His regime has warned foreign diplomats that it cannot guarantee their safety after tomorrow. North Korea is warning foreigners to leave South Korea. And Kim has threatened nuclear strikes on specific U.S. cities. 

What is our response? Well at the White House they held another party. At the Department of Defense, Secretary Chuck Hagel canceled a scheduled U.S. missile test. According to the Associated Pressthe launch was canceled due to "concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis."

Nobody wants the U.S. to be involved in another war by accident or otherwise. But this is not the way to avoid it. Kim Jong Un is threatening to nuke specific American cities and the reaction of our Secretary of Defense is to do his best to avoid being provocative. The provocation is all Kim Jong Un's. 

It's not clear that Kim has the capability to deliver a nuke. He may or may not. But if we are cowering in the face of such threats now, just imagine the dilemma the next president will face when Iran and North Korea do have the ability to lob nukes at us or transfer those nukes to terrorists.

Today we face two tyrants running Iran and North Korea while threatening us and other democracies with nuclear weapons. The response has been pathetic, as this Wall Street Journal op-ed makes clear. 

Instead of peace through strength, Obama is giving us instability through weakness. Obama is working non-stop to limit the rights of law-abiding Americans to obtain firearms while potential mass murderers in Iran and North Korea may soon have weapons that can kill millions. 

Demonizing Faith 

As if dealing with North Korea were not enough, some left-wing bureaucrats inside the military have apparently declared war on men and women of faith. An Army Reserve unit in Pennsylvania was recently given a briefing on extremism. A Power Point presentation included a slide with more than a dozen examples of extremism. 

Al Qaeda was listed fifth. Hamas was sixth. The KKK was eighth on the list. At the top of the list was "Evangelical Christianity," and "Catholicism" was tenth. 

The Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty and the Archdiocese for the Military Services blasted the briefing. The Department of the Army contends this was an isolated incident, and that the materials were not condoned by the Army. But how does material like that even get written at all? 

From the very beginning of the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security was already "profiling" conservatives. Earlier this year, a West Point report labeled part of the "violent far right" anyone who espoused "strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals' civil and constitutional rights." 

That could well be a majority of the country! According to a February Pew Research poll, 53% of Americans view the government as a threat to their liberty. 

For decades, the political left has been on a cultural jihad to purge God and faith from the public arena. The political left mocks Christian conservatives as "the American Taliban." Now we are being told that believing marriage is between a man and a woman is bigotry. 

When leftists outside the government condemn men and women of faith, why would we be surprised when leftists inside the government start producing reports calling heartland Americans "extremists"? 

If any fair-minded observer in Big Media wanted to figure out why there is such a concern about universal background checks and a national registry of firearms, he should look no further than this latest Army briefing and the left's routine demonization of normalcy. 

The Left's "Evolution" On Marriage 

The demonization of normalcy is exemplified by the rush of liberal politicians to embrace the radical notion of men "marrying" other men. In recent weeks, a number of senators in conservative states endorsed same-sex "marriage" soon after the election. Even liberal reporters at the Washington Post can see though the cynical pandering of these left-wing politicians. Two reporters looked at 13 senators who recently switched their positions and concluded: 

Pray For Warren Family 

Carol and I were saddened by the tragic news this weekend that Matthew Warren, Pastor Rick Warren's 27 year-old son, took his own life. In a statement Pastor Warren released, he wrote that Matthew "had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room." Sadly, Matthew was often in pain himself as he struggled with depression. 

Please remember Pastor Rick Warren, his wife, Kay, and the entire Saddleback community in your prayers.