❝ North Carolina and the federal government prepared for a legal showdown on Monday in the ongoing battle over bathrooms and civil rights for LGBT people in the state.

The state filed a lawsuit in the morning, claiming federal intervention was a “baseless and blatant overreach” of its power, and disputed the federal interpretation of civil rights laws.

The suit came hours before a deadline the US justice department has set for North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, to scrap the law, which bans transgender people from using bathrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates.

❝ After the suit’s filing, US attorney general Loretta Lynch fired back, saying she planned to announce a “law enforcement action related to North Carolina” on Monday afternoon…

❝ “Our position all along has been that HB2 should be repealed. We’ve heard from our customers and clients on this, and the consensus is that it would be better if it were repealed,” Larry Di Rita, a spokesman for Bank of America, told the Guardian on Monday afternoon. The bank is one of the largest and most powerful companies in North Carolina…

Meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi has filed suit against that state over a law that will allow workers to cite their own religious objections to same-sex marriage to deny services to people…

❝ The governor has become the public face of the law, called House Bill 2, which has been the subject of fierce criticism by gay rights groups, corporate executives and entertainers demanding that the law be repealed. North Carolina has already paid a price for the law, with some business scaling back investments in the state and associations cancelling conventions…

The time has come and gone when the basics of a boycott by 21st Century business leaders and citizens in general will suffice. It is time to up the game against bigotry. Pat McCrory is known for nothing else more than his stewardship for the region’s energy giant, Duke Energy. He’s served as their flunky in a whole series of environmental disasters. He spent most of his adult economic life on their payroll. When Duke Energy wants to “have a little talk with him” he jumps higher than the average grasshopper to heed their call.

It’s time to inflict a little retribution on his real bosses. McCrory won’t answer to the needs of North Carolina citizens – at least those who don’t wear white hoods in public – maybe he’ll listen to the critical economic power in his life. We need a nationwide call for institutional and individual investors to divest from DUK, Duke Energy. Let them explain to their Board of Directors why they continue to support a political thug who ignores civil rights, chooses sharia over civil law, embraces Confederate states’ rights over Supreme Court standards of justice.