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We feel it at the grocery store. We feel it when we pay our utility bills. We feel it every time we check our bank accounts and browse house listings. I especially feel it when just two bags of groceries cost me more than a hundred dollars.

America’s affordability crisis is real. Inflation is hurting families. Housing costs are through the roof. The American dream feels increasingly out of reach for many young people.

Our story isn’t unique. For most of history, families have built stability and wealth together rather than waiting until they had already achieved it.

But what if part of the problem isn’t just economic? What if it’s cultural?

What if it’s that more and more of us are postponing — or outright rejecting — the very milestones that once allowed our country to thrive?

For generations, marriage and family were some of the biggest building blocks of financial stability and success. Today, marriage rates are declining, family formation is delayed, and birth rates have fallen so low that we can’t even replace ourselves. At the same time, Americans are marrying later than ever, and first-time homebuyers are now 40 years old on average.

These aren’t isolated trends. They are interconnected signs of a culture that has turned family from a foundation for building a good life into a finish line that many feel they must reach only after they have “made it.”

Foundation, not finish line

I didn’t grow up in affluence by any means. Things were often tight at the Thorman household with nine children (yes, all from the same parents), though none of us went “without.” My parents and their friends welcomed kids into the world with open arms even though they had no idea how they were going to afford us.

When my older siblings were born, things were so tight that they mostly lived on beans and rice and a whole lot of prayer. My dad worked extremely hard, and with smart financial decisions coupled with his integrity and strong work ethic, his salary increased over the years — just as the data has long predicted.

But one thing my parents didn’t have was Pinterest-perfect homes, luxury vacations, or every financial box checked before starting a family. They just did it. They just got married young, committed to one another, welcomed children, and built a life together.

I’m not advocating for irresponsibility, but we need to regain knowledge that was once intuitive: Marriage and family don’t stand in the way of financial success; they help create it.

Having it all

Our culture has it all backward. The expectation that we have to travel the world, have perfect-looking homes, and “find ourselves” before settling down has not made us happier or more financially savvy. Rather, it has only made us more miserable, lonely, and empty.

The very lies society feeds us about delaying marriage and family in order to “have it all” often undermine the very things people are seeking: financial stability, purpose, belonging, and long-term happiness. These are not obstacles to marriage and family; they are the fruit of them. We have convinced an entire generation that family should come after success, when for much of human history, family was the primary way people built success.

The data bears this out. Marriage and stable two-parent households consistently produce better economic outcomes: higher household income, greater wealth accumulation, lower poverty rates, and greater financial stability for children. Imagine that. The family structure God designed not only benefits individuals spiritually and emotionally, but also creates some of the strongest economic outcomes for families and society alike.

Having a family will alter your priorities, and rightly so. For my husband and me, having two kids (with more to come, God willing) has changed how we spend our money, where we spend our time, and what we value the most. We hardly get to take vacations, let alone the kind “influencers” brag about on social media, and that’s OK. I’ll take my kids over luxury experiences every day. So yes, kids change your lifestyle — and that’s a good thing.

For me, I get to do life with my best friend and make carbon copies of us, and it’s exceptionally awesome. I want everyone to experience it, because my family isn’t the obstacle to a meaningful life; it’s the source of one.

My story isn’t unique. Social science has been documenting the economic benefits of marriage and family for decades.

RELATED: How to bring Charlie Kirk’s vision to life — starting in your own family

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Marriage: The great anti-poverty program

Washington politicians love to debate tax credits, subsidies, and government programs, yet one of the strongest predictors of economic stability isn’t a government policy at all — it’s marriage. Certainly, government policies matter. Washington can lower taxes, reduce burdensome regulations, and make housing more affordable. But no government program can replace what strong marriages and families provide: stability, sacrifice, belonging, and a purpose larger than ourselves.

Research from the Institute for Family Studies found that among Millennials who graduated high school, worked full-time, and married before having children, 97% avoided poverty altogether by their mid-30s. Far from being obstacles to financial stability, marriage and family are often among the strongest predictors of it.

My husband and I are a testament to that reality. We got married in our 20s with very little to our names. No trust funds or other “head starts”; nor did we have every financial box checked. We simply started building our life together anyway.

Since then, our careers have grown and our incomes have increased. After living in a small apartment and saving as much as possible, we purchased our first home — including a nice yard to play in — after welcoming our first child. Our story isn’t unique. For most of history, families have built stability and wealth together rather than waiting until they had already achieved it.

Worthy inheritance

The financial advantage enjoyed by married households extends to the whole family. Children raised in stable two-parent homes are far less likely to experience poverty and far more likely to move up the economic ladder. In 2021, just 9.5% of children living with two parents were in poverty, compared to 31.7% of children living with a single parent.

Strong families provide stability, support, and opportunity in ways that no government program can ever replicate. If we truly want to reduce poverty, expand opportunity, and strengthen our nation’s long-term prosperity, we must acknowledge the indispensable role marriage and family play in human flourishing.

Whatever efforts Washington makes to ease Americans’ financial burdens — whether through tax cuts or education reform — lasting change must start with us. Too many young people who tell themselves they’re putting off marriage and children for financial reasons are in fact mistaking risk for impossibility. Building a life has always required a leap of faith.

It’s a leap more of us have to make if we want to keep the American dream alive. Can we afford to have children? The better question is can we afford not to. If we want more prosperity, opportunity, and stability, we should start by strengthening the institution that has helped make those things possible for generations: the family.

​Marriage and family, Faith, Affordability, Lifestyle, Motherhood, Children, Christian living 

A UFC Freedom 250 event on the South Lawn of the White House — with a 5,000-seat temporary stadium and 85,000 tickets for viewing on massive screens on the Ellipse — has sparked controversy. The event is unprecedented, and it falls on President Trump’s birthday.

Put aside what you think of Sunday’s extravaganza. There is still a good reason to embrace June 14: Flag Day.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after.

Flag Day has a long tradition. Yet if not for its coincidence with Trump’s birthday, it would likely pass with little notice. That is a mistake. This is not a call to worship a colorful banner. It is a call to remember that Americans — left, center, and right — are united by founding principles from the Declaration of Independence, represented by Old Glory.

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution establishing a uniform national flag. The 13-star flag, commonly associated with Betsy Ross, became a rallying banner and a source of pride. It was not yet revered as it would be later, but it symbolized the freest nation in world history.

Then came the Civil War and the lowering of the flag over Fort Sumter. That image triggered an outpouring of love for Old Glory.

Jonathan Flynt Morris, a banker and strong Republican Unionist, urged Charles Dudley Warner, editor of the Hartford Evening Press, to write about the need not merely to respect the flag, but to revere it. On June 10, 1861, Warner followed that advice and proposed a new holiday: Flag Day.

“This flag is our dearest symbol of nationality,” Warner wrote. “It stands for civil liberty on this continent. To keep it full high advanced is our highest pride; to strike at it is to arouse all the passion of the nation to defend it, and to punish the perpetrators of the outrage.”

Flag Day celebrations began in Warner’s home state of Connecticut. They slowly spread to schools in Wisconsin in 1885, New York schools in 1889, and then to Philadelphia and public buildings in New York state in 1894. An American Flag Day organization was created to further the movement.

President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, issued the first federal recognition of the holiday on May 30, 1916. Wilson’s proclamation called for patriotic exercises that would “give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America” and our understanding of “the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people.”

RELATED: Damning poll reveals what Democrats ACTUALLY think of America ahead of its 250th birthday

Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

He also called Americans to rededicate themselves to the principles of “independence, liberty, and right,” which no person “can corrupt” and no influence could draw away from their ideals. Finally, on Aug. 3, 1949, President Harry S. Truman, also a Democrat, signed an act of Congress designating June 14 of each year as National Flag Day.

Flag Day exemplifies our shared American creed. It was the brainchild of Republicans, spread outside party politics, and was instituted nationally by Democrats. Its purpose is to recommit us to the founding principles declared in the Declaration of Independence and embedded in the Constitution: equality, limited government, the rule of law, unalienable rights, the social compact, and the right to alter or abolish oppressive government.

America did not fully live by those principles in 1776, and we do not perfectly live by them today. But belief in those principles has inspired generations of patriots to move us closer to their fulfillment. Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and the civil rights movement all called upon America’s first principles to push the country toward its promise. At its best, our flag stands for liberty and equality.

Those allergic to all things Trump should remember that Flag Day existed decades before he was born and, God willing, will endure for generations after. It is not about one man. It is a call for all Americans to unite around the principles that made the country possible.

We should answer that call.

​Charles dudley warner, Civil war, Jonathan flynt morris, Opinion & analysis, White house, Woodrow wilson, Harry s truman, Flag day, American founding, Donald trump 

Augustine of Hippo is one of the most influential philosophers and Christian theologians in history, and he had a stark warning for the Western world: “A man has as many masters as he has vices.”

And Seth Gruber, CEO of White Rose Resistance, is relaying this warning, explaining that it means “by promoting vice, the regime promotes slavery, which can then be fashioned into a form of political control.”

“That sentence I just said Allie Beth is the beating heart of libido dominandi: the lust to dominate,” he tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“Dominion becomes domination when man listens to and accepts the serpent’s counterfeit kingdom. And the things that we were called to steward … become the very things we are now enslaved to,” he says.

“Domination is a reflection of your own slavery projected onto others. But dominion is a reflection of your own stewardship exercised on behalf of others. So one is the city of man, and one is the city of God,” he continues. “But in each case, it reveals who or what we really worship.”

“Vice,” Gruber explains, “is contagious.”

And like anything contagious, it’s easily spread.

“Tyrants work very hard to spread the infection,” he explains, “because they know that a virtuous populace cannot be controlled. So they have to corrupt, seduce, blackmail. They have to weaponize lust.”

Gruber likens this to Jeffrey Epstein, because if “you cannot defeat militarily, you can always corrupt through sexual enticement.”

“Maybe that’s why the Epstein list will never get released,” he adds.

Stuckey agrees, adding, “What a fascinating, very disturbing connection … Epstein, you can just see it.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Allie beth stuckey, Augustine, Christian theologians, Jeffrey epstein, Libido dominandi, Seth gruber, Relatable with allie beth stuckey 

For years, AI elites like Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, and even Elon Musk touted a future in which AI stole all the jobs and humanity simply accepted a life of meaningless unemployment while receiving a meager allowance of universal basic income until our dying days. Something changed recently, though, and several of those same elites are suddenly backpedaling on their promises of the past. What changed? There are a few possibilities.

Seemingly all at once, the CEOs of the world’s leading AI platforms, particularly OpenAI and Anthropic, both reneged on their opinions on artificial intelligence in the workplace. Where AI was once prophetically decreed to replace everyone’s jobs, now these bots are being positioned as tools to enhance human productivity instead.

But why? For what reason would the AI CEOs, who once plotted workplace domination, suddenly turn back on their greedy aspirations? Did they suddenly remember that humanity must somehow live on after all the jobs dry up? That their companies will lose money if consumers don’t exist to buy products and services? That it’s actually evil to force people into unemployment amid a hostile takeover of the entire economy?

Public sentiment around AI is at an all-time low, and it continues to bottom out.

Maybe. Or perhaps something is forcing their hands.

Four reasons the AI job apocalypse is finished

It’s IPO time

Both OpenAI and Anthropic are at pivotal points in their meteoric rise to ubiquity. Neither company is turning a profit, and as time drags on, venture capitalists, who will never get a return on investment with generative AI, are more likely to reduce or even pull their funding. That means AI companies looking to survive the impending bubble have to find funding elsewhere. The answer is to go public.

The two AI giants plan to launch IPOs this year, and they need strong public support to drive value. If the companies are perceived as harmful or even complicit in obliterating the workforce and killing the economy, their IPOs will tank. As a result, they have pulled back on the dystopian warnings of mass unemployment as they tidy up their reputations to portray benevolent corporations bent on helping humanity instead of hindering it.

Reality check

While the AI CEOs promised a workplace revolution on the backs of their LLMs, the real-world applications for these platforms have fallen short of expectations. In May, Starbucks retired its AI-powered inventory system, despite supposed “improved product availability in stores” ushered in by the service. Employees responded by praising the change, saying, in effect, thanks for discontinuing automatic counting! The thought behind it was great, but the execution was proving difficult.

Also in May, a Gartner study revealed that 80% of companies that replaced employees with AI did not see better returns. Meanwhile, companies that added AI to their workforce to enhance the productivity of existing employees without eliminations saw the strongest gains, highlighting the need for skilled employees to coexist alongside AI platforms.

RELATED: Google’s new daily helper knows all about you. Just how creepy is it?

Google’s new daily helper knows all about you. Just how creepy is it? Marina113/Getty Images

Lastly, some companies, like Meta, are learning the hard way that AI isn’t a replacement for human intellect. As we reported in early June, hackers tricked Meta’s AI customer support bot into changing the passwords on high-profile Instagram accounts with little security to stand in the way. This was a massive blunder for Meta — which recently laid off 8,000 employees in favor of AI — in what became the company’s largest account breach ever.

Public protests

Public sentiment around AI is at an all-time low, and it continues to bottom out as time goes on. Just last month, numerous videos surfaced of college graduates booing commencement speakers for merely bringing up AI. Young people looking to enter the workforce, where entry-level positions are among the first to dissolve in the AI race, seemingly appear to hate LLMs. Since this demographic is the future customer base for AI giants, OpenAI and Anthropic would be stupid to continue to ruin young people’s lives with more promises of job replacements.

Another point of contention among the people focuses around data centers. Not only do these massive buildings devour local energy, there are also growing reports that they generate loud noises that have caused some unsettling health effects, including headaches, dizziness, nausea, sleep disturbances, and more.

Hefty price tags

Finally, companies are learning that AI is expensive to run at scale. Microsoft, one of the leaders in the AI space, canceled its Claude Code licenses for employees just months after starting the program. Although no official reason was given, the high cost and volume of Claude tokens required for sophisticated projects is believed to be the culprit. At the same time, Uber’s chief operating officer cited concerns over the high cost of AI that made it difficult to justify. Even AI GPU maker NVIDIA admitted that human employees cost less than AI bots.

During a recent event, Sam Altman was asked about the sizeable AI costs for businesses. He feigned ignorance, stating that “the issue never came up” in the past when setting the prices for companies. “People were totally happy with the amount they were spending.” That appears to no longer be the case.

​Tech 

When Jase Robertson found himself in a movie theater featuring “Project Hail Mary,” he thought he was about to watch a football movie or a film on the Virgin Mary.

What he actually saw stunned him so intensely that it now ranks among his “top five” most shocking experiences ever.

“The reason I was shocked is there was so many spiritual vibes to this movie,” he said on a recent episode of “Unashamed.”

Between the main characters being named Grace and Rock, several nods to the idea of a “savior of the world,” and themes of self-sacrifice and redemption, Jase was astonished that Hollywood produced such a film, especially in this age.

But then the real stunner came.

“There is a Phil Robertson quote in the movie,” Jase exclaims.

After the movie ended, Jase set out with a mission to discover the “story” behind how a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster managed to slip a Phil quote into the script.

Artificial intelligence gave him a strange answer: The line in “Project Hail Mary” was not a Phil Robertson quote, even though it is “a universal accepted fact” that he coined the phrase.

But Jase doesn’t need AI to confirm what he knows is true. “There is a Phil Robertson quote in there, and I didn’t think that was an accident based on everything else I had seen.”

Jase, calling the movie “top-notch,” praises the directors for allowing the film to “play both sides” of the spiritual argument.

He recalls a scene in which Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling) has a spiritual conversation with Eva Stratt, the no-nonsense administrator who gets tapped by world governments to lead Project Hail Mary.

Grace inquires whether or not she believes in God, to which she replies, “It’s better than the alternative.”

“It was just like, well, I know which side of the production that line came from,” says Jase, calling the film “a wonderful experience.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from the Robertsons?

To enjoy more on God, guns, ducks, and inspiring stories of faith and family, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Unashamed with the robertsons, Jase robertson, Project hail mary, Unashamed 

One of the most common objections to Christianity is simple: The word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible. If that is true, why do Christians believe it?

Christians believe the Trinity because it is the inevitable conclusion of what Scripture teaches about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore not an arbitrary invention. Nor is it a concession to polytheism. It is precisely the opposite: a refutation of polytheism.

The story begins in Genesis.

The Jewish Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament, taught something unique among the religions of the ancient world. Pagan nations treated their gods as physical beings within the universe. Israel taught that God created the heavens and the earth. God was not part of the system. He brought the system into existence.

God is therefore not made of matter, not located at one point in space, and not one deity among many. He alone existed from eternity. Everything else had a beginning.

Israel was repeatedly tempted to compromise with the polytheistic religions around it. Time after time, the prophets called the nation back to the worship of the one true God. Through Isaiah, God declared, “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5).

The God of Israel was understood to be eternal, immaterial, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. These are not properties material deities could possess.

That raises an obvious question. If Christians inherited this uncompromising belief in one God, how did they arrive at the doctrine of the Trinity?

John opens his Gospel with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

John then tells us that all things were made through the Word. The Word is distinguished from God, yet the Word is also called God. John 1:3 says all created things came into existence through Him. If all created things were made through the Word, then the Word Himself cannot belong to the class of created things.

Then John tells us, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The eternal Son of God became incarnate as Jesus Christ.

RELATED: Don’t let ‘Disclosure Day’ doom you to spiritual death by discourse

The New Testament repeatedly presents the same pattern. At Jesus’ baptism, the Son stands in the water, the Spirit descends as a dove, and the Father speaks from heaven. The three are clearly distinguished from one another, yet elsewhere in Scripture the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each identified as God.

Jesus commanded His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). Baptism is done in the name of God. Paul gives a Trinitarian benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14. Jesus, the Lamb of God, sits on the throne of God.

Jesus also claimed an existence that preceded Abraham: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). His words echo the divine name revealed to Moses. The Jews understood the implication and tried to stone Him for blasphemy. Elsewhere, they accused Him of making Himself equal with God.

Scripture also attributes personal qualities to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit teaches, speaks, guides, gives life, and can be grieved. He is not merely an impersonal force.

The early Christians therefore found themselves committed to three truths taught by Scripture:

There is only one God.The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from one another.

Deny any one of those truths, and you contradict the Bible.

Over the first several centuries, as pagan polytheists converted to Christianity or challenged it, the church debated how best to explain the doctrine of God from Scripture.

The Gnostics denied that Jesus was truly incarnate. They taught that He was a spirit who only appeared human. In doing so, they denied the incarnation.

Another early controversy involved Sabellius, who taught what later became known as modalism. According to this view, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely different manifestations of the same divine person.

The church rejected this because Scripture repeatedly distinguishes the Father, Son, and Spirit from one another.

Then came Arius, who taught that the Father alone is eternal and that the Son is the first and greatest creature.

As Christians reflected on the biblical evidence, the church clarified its teaching: The Father is eternally unbegotten. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and, in Western theology, from the Father and the Son.

The doctrine can be summarized simply: God is one “what” — one divine essence — and three “whos” — three distinct persons.

The church eventually summarized the biblical teaching as one God in three persons. Not one God and three gods. Not one person appearing in three forms. One God, three persons.

RELATED: Contentious theological debate erupts about Mormons over War Department faith list

Brent Asay/iStock/Getty Images

The doctrine of the Trinity is therefore not an arbitrary invention. Nor is it a concession to polytheism. It is precisely the opposite: a refutation of polytheism. The doctrine preserves the full teaching of Scripture and answers the questions Scripture itself forces us to ask about God.

What is striking is how often modern religious movements that spin off from Christianity repeat ancient errors. Some deny the full deity of Christ, as Arius did. Others collapse the distinctions among the persons, as Sabellius did. Still others deny Christ’s full humanity or full deity. Some even teach polytheistic material gods.

What has united Christians across denominations and centuries is their shared commitment to the biblical doctrine of God. By contrast, new religious movements often claim allegiance to Scripture while introducing another authority that corrects, supplements, or supersedes it.

When Jesus called people to believe in Him, He did not require them to master centuries of theological debate. But neither did He leave them free to invent their own Jesus. They were to believe true things about Him and reject false things about Him.

A person may sincerely use the name “Jesus” while holding beliefs about Him that contradict the Jesus revealed in Scripture. The issue is not sincerity but identity. Not, “What do I feel?” but, “What does the Bible say?”

The question is whether the Jesus a person believes in is the Jesus revealed in the Bible or a Jesus drawn from some other source.

The church’s long debates about the Trinity were not abstract philosophical exercises. They were answers to the most important question any person can ask: Who is Jesus Christ in the Bible?

​Bible, Christianity, Doctrine, Genesis, God, Jesus christ, Old testament, Opinion & analysis, Trinity, New testament, Faith 

Growing up in our house, prayer was non-negotiable. Before meals, before bed, and before tests. My mother prayed before she turned the ignition. Every single time. Backing out of the driveway to grab milk? A petition went up. Driving less than a mile to church? Another one. I rolled my eyes the way Hamlet brooded, often and at length.

I figured Mom was a soft touch for superstition. A nice lady with a nervous habit dressed up as theology. Turns out the habit was sound — and the theology even sounder.

You are not emptying the mind. If anything, you are spilling the contents before a higher power who already knew what was in there.

A recent study published in Religion, Brain & Behavior by researchers in Ireland looked at 628 middle-aged adults from the Midlife in the United States project, a long-running national study that has tracked the health of thousands of Americans since 1995.

They put participants through a standardized stress test and measured what their hearts and blood pressure did under pressure. They found that people who scored higher on private religious practices showed lower systolic blood pressure reactivity to the stressor.

Essentially, when life throws a curveball, the praying person’s heart absorbs the hit.

Religious but not spiritual

The researchers separated two things most people lump together: private religious practices (prayer, Scripture reading, devotion at home) and what they called daily spiritual experiences (a general sense of the sacred, feelings of connectedness, vague “spiritual” vibes). Only the first category, the one with actual prayer in it, produced the cardiovascular benefit.

This matters because the modern wellness industry has spent two decades trying to sell Americans on a defanged, deracinated version of spiritual practice. Meditation retreats. Mindfulness courses. Breath-work seminars at $400 a weekend. All of it positioned as the secular, sophisticated alternative to what your grandmother was doing for free with a worn King James Bible.

But prayer and meditation are not the same animal. The wellness industry would like you to believe they are interchangeable, two flavors of the same practice, both leading to lower cortisol and better sleep. That is a lie.

RELATED: Secular bias, fake faith — beware the new chatbot ‘Christianity’

Empty promise

Meditation, in its popular Western form, is largely about emptying the mind. You sit, you breathe, you observe your thoughts like passing strangers you owe nothing to, you achieve a kind of inner stillness.

The goal is detachment. You are training yourself to step back from your own mental chatter and watch it from a distance. The self is the subject, the object, and the audience all at once. If it works, you feel calmer. If it doesn’t, you feel like you spent 20 minutes wondering if you turned off the stove

Prayer is the opposite. Prayer is a conversation. There is a Person on the other end of the line, and that Person is listening. You are addressing someone, asking, thanking, confessing, repenting, interceding for your sister’s job interview. You are not emptying the mind. If anything, you are spilling the contents before a higher power who already knew what was in there.

Meditation looks inward. Prayer looks up. Meditation is a monologue performed for an audience of one, who is also the performer. Prayer is a dialogue with the Creator of the universe. Meditation assumes the cosmos is indifferent and that the best you can do is make peace with that.

One assumes you are a bundle of neurons talking to itself. The other assumes you are a soul talking to its Maker.

That difference is the whole game.

Praying together, staying together

And the benefits extend well beyond the cardiac. A 2016 systematic review examined a dozen randomized trials and found prayer reduced anxiety in mothers of children with cancer, helped chemotherapy patients cope, and improved spiritual well-being across the board.

Then there is collective prayer, which deserves its own paragraph. Something happens when believers gather and pray together that doesn’t happen alone in your kitchen.

A hospital-based study published in ScienceDirect documented measurable benefits among patients and staff at an outpatient clinic that began every workday with group prayer. The faithful have known this for 2,000 years. Fears that felt enormous at three in the morning shrink to a manageable size when spoken aloud in the presence of people who love you and a God who loves you more.

Burdens get distributed. A timid believer hears a confident prayer spoken aloud and realizes that confidence is available, not reserved. A confident believer hears someone else struggle to find words and remembers that brokenness is not a disqualification. The result is a kind of mutual restocking.

Kneeling and dealing

Which brings me to the deeper point. America is in a mental health crisis. Antidepressant prescriptions keep climbing. In 2023, loneliness was declared a public health emergency by the surgeon general himself. Suicide rates among the youth are at generational highs.

Pundits offer theories that include smartphones, social media, economic precarity, and polarization. All are real, but all are partial. The fuller explanation is the one your pastor has been preaching for years. You cannot evict God from a culture and expect the building to stand. A nation that traded the sanctuary for the self-help aisle was always going to drown in despair. There is a God-shaped hole in the modern Western psyche; stuffing it with meditation apps and microdoses is like trying to plug a dam with Kleenex.

Prayer is older than the problem. Prayer is bigger than the diagnosis. The studies show it, and Christians know it.

​Christianity, Health, Lifestyle, Meditation, Mental health, Mindfulness, Prayer, Science, Wellness, Faith 

Last month, another family requested I play “It Is Well with My Soul” for their loved one’s funeral.

After nearly 50 years of playing the piano for funeral services, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played that hymn.

The sorrows like sea billows are a given. They arrive for all of us eventually. The question is not whether suffering comes. The question is what we have been taught to do when it arrives.

Those years at the piano have provided an unusual vantage point. Most people attending a funeral spend the service looking toward the front of the sanctuary or chapel. They see the pastor, the flowers, the family, and the casket. Sitting at the piano, however, I’ve spent much of my life looking in the opposite direction.

I see the faces. I’ve watched businessmen, ranchers, physicians, pastors, politicians, mechanics, celebrities, schoolteachers, and grieving children. I’ve seen estranged family members share a pew for an hour. I’ve seen old wounds temporarily set aside. I’ve watched tears fall from people who spent a lifetime convincing the world they didn’t cry.

It’s hard to lie during a funeral service. The face and eyes give it away.

For a brief moment, the distractions of life are suspended in the face of death. Everyone in the room is confronted with the same reality: Life is fragile, time is limited, and something had the final word over a life that may have loomed very large only days before.

When I offer to help select the music, I often ask the family’s favorite hymn. “It Is Well with My Soul” almost invariably stands out.

This year marks 150 years since Philip Bliss set Horatio Spafford’s words to music. Ever since, grieving families have continued reaching for that hymn.

After hearing it and performing it for a lifetime, I’ve become convinced that something happens in the fifth measure where the word “sorrows” lands on the first minor chord of the hymn.

I leave room for that chord.

When I play the hymn, I take my time. I’ve had music ministers try to conduct me faster through it. I politely ignore them. Grief does not benefit from haste.

Not because I am trying to showcase the music, but because I have watched what happens in the room when people hear it. Heads lower. Shoulders sag. Eyes fill with tears. In that moment, the hymn permits grieving people to tell the truth.

The sea billows are rolling.

RELATED: What we lose when we rush past pain

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Sometimes, when I invite the congregation to sing, I watch people exhale. Some simply mouth the words. Others sing through tears. Some stand motionless and stare straight ahead. I’ve watched grieving fathers, mothers, and spouses raise their hands heavenward as tears run down their faces.

Occasionally, I stop playing altogether on the last chorus and let the congregation carry the hymn themselves. There is something profound about hearing a room full of grieving people give collective grief a collective voice.

The hymn was written from within great sorrow. It never hurries people through it. It doesn’t offer clichés or pretend pain isn’t pain.

It acknowledges sorrow while refusing to grant it the final word.

Then comes the line that has occupied my thoughts more than any other: “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say …”

Taught me.

The sorrows like sea billows are a given. They arrive for all of us eventually. The question is not whether suffering comes. The question is what we have been taught to do when it arrives.

What do we reach for when things around us feel so unsteady?

I’ve played this hymn for people who sang it with confidence and for people who could barely get the words out. I’ve watched some sing it as testimony and others sing it as prayer. Some seemed to embody it. Others seemed to aspire to it.

Yet, the requests keep arriving.

After nearly 50 years at the piano bench, I’ve never lost my sense of wonder at what happens when a room full of grieving people stand together and sing: It is well with my soul.

​Opinion & analysis, Funeral, Music, Philip bliss, Horatio spafford, Hymn, Christianity, Faith, Grief, Mourning, Soul 

In the beginning, there was a pool. It was green, and broken, and hemorrhaging millions of gallons a year into the soft earth beneath the National Mall. For decades, nobody fixed it.

America turns 250 this July. For a country that can’t agree on anything — especially about Donald Trump — what is reflected back isn’t always easy to look at.

‘It looks real good. And you know what, ‘scuse my French, but I f**king hate that.’

In preparation for the 250th celebration, the pool was drained, painted, and fenced off. It brought on lawsuits, court hearings, and more cable news segments than anyone expected from a paint job.

And then the water came back in. On June 4, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool refilled under a blazing June sun. Tourists, joggers, and D.C. regulars lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to watch the water rise.

The reflecting pool is the centerpiece of a broader $95 million push by the Trump administration to restore Washington ahead of the 250th. Under Executive Order 14252, “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” the National Park Service launched a sweeping effort to restore fountains, rehabilitate historic landscapes, and address aging infrastructure across the city.

The funds come not from the NPS’ congressional budget but from national park entrance fees — money the agency is legally permitted to redirect at its discretion.

More than 20 fountains that had sat dry for years — some for decades — are flowing again. The Columbus Circle fountain in front of Union Station was turned back on in late May for the first time since 2007. Meridian Hill Park’s cascading fountain — the longest in North America — is running again.

The reflecting pool is the latest in a series of restoration projects that have drawn surprisingly positive reactions across the city — even from residents who didn’t vote for Trump.

RELATED: The fountains in DC are back on. It turns out that decline was ‘a choice.’

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The pool was designed by architect Henry Bacon and completed in 1923 — a long, narrow mirror stretching almost 2,030 feet between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Trump compared the pool’s length to “skyscrapers.”

The nation’s reflecting pool has also been leaking for most of its existence. The original structure was built without pilings on the soft, dredged riverbed and started losing water almost immediately.

The Obama administration spent $34 million and closed the pool for nearly two years, rebuilding the structure with foundation support and installing a brand-new filtration system. The algae came back within a month. The leaks never stopped.

By the time Trump took office, Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it was losing 45,000 gallons a day.

The Biden-era NPS received estimates “above $100 million” for another fix and didn’t move forward.

Trump ordered a different approach. Workers drained the pool, hauled away what he says were 12 truckloads of garbage, sealed the cracks, and replaced the filtration system with a state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler — the first of its kind at the pool. Then, they coated the basin in what the president calls “American Flag Blue.”

When Trump first visited the drained pool on May 7, he said previous estimates to fix it had run as high as $355 million and 3.5 years. He initially said it would cost $1.8 million and take one week.

The contract was signed for almost $6.9 million — awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia firm, through an expedited no-bid process. The DOI later revised the timeline to a month and added $6.2 million, citing the urgency of the July 4 deadline.

It took six weeks. Federal contracting records show the final cost came to just under $14.2 million — more than eight times Trump’s 1.8 million estimate, yet roughly 4% of the $355 million he said it could have cost otherwise. Trump says the work will last 50 to 100 years.

“Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people,” he told reporters who questioned why he was focused on the pool during a period of international tension. “Not a filthy capital.”

Trump drove his motorcade across the drained floor to inspect it personally. He also posted an AI image of himself and other Cabinet members swimming in it.

“It won’t leak; it will shine and be the pride of Washington, D.C., for decades to come,” said Trump.

RELATED: America 250 UFC event at risk: Anti-Trump group sues to shut down event on behalf of Democratic activists

Blaze News

But the landscape architects and historic preservationists weren’t concerned about the preventable water loss. They were concerned about “American Flag Blue.”

“It wasn’t intended as a place that looks jolly like your local golf course,” said Judy Scott Feldman of the National Mall Coalition, a nonprofit that helps protect the area’s historic legacy. The Cultural Landscape Foundation filed suit, calling the project a “permanent blemish” that would turn a national landmark into a “theme park.”

The pool’s original bottom was dark asphalt and tile — not Obama’s 14-year-old tinted gray concrete that critics defended as “historic.” The NPS agreed that a darker bottom, like Trump’s dark navy, improves reflectivity.

An EarthCam time-lapse from the top of the Washington Monument shows what actually changed. The pool isn’t green any more. Trump’s new nanobubbler targets the algae, and the sealant addresses the leaking joints that the Obama renovation didn’t.

One problem reportedly remains: two miles of cracked underground pipes that, if they fail, could shut down the filtration system and bring the algae back. The Trump administration says pipe replacement will begin in the fall.

Blaze News went out to the National Mall and asked five people what they thought.

A resident who has run the Mall route for six years barely broke stride. “I didn’t like the construction, so I started running the Jefferson Memorial way. Honestly, I don’t even care who did it. It was Trump, right? I’m not really political — I work in tech. It looks fine.”

A 13-year-old on his school trip said his class had studied the “I Have a Dream” speech just weeks before. “I didn’t know the pool was broken. I just thought it was always like this.”

A retired couple from Western Pennsylvania had been here before — once for the Bicentennial in 1976 and twice since 2023. He pointed to their matching MAGA hats. “We promised to come back only to Trump’s Washington,” he said, “and seeing it completed makes me feel more patriotic than I already was.”

Not everyone Blaze News spoke with voted for Trump. In 2024, Washington, D.C., voted more than 92% for Kamala Harris.

A college junior interning on Capitol Hill had watched the construction drag on through her first weeks in the city. “I tried walking by here to romanticize, you know, my D.C. hot-girl summer,” she said. “The construction was low-key annoying. Our office has been talking about it, and besides the fact that it seems, yet again, like just another one of Trump’s pet projects, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it looks bad.”

A lifelong resident who works in education stopped at the edge of the pool, looked out at the water, and said: “I’m not going to give that man credit. I’m just not. But it does look good. It looks real good. And you know what, ‘scuse my French, but I f**king hate that.”

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​Blaze news, Capitol hill, Donald trump, Education, Kamala harris, Lincoln memorial, Reflecting pool, Union station, Politics 

While the transgender movement has lost significant ground culturally and politically in recent years, it’s still probing for vulnerabilities — especially during Pride Month.

In a recent interview with women’s sports advocate and founder of XX-XY Athletics Jennifer Sey, Steve Deace highlighted a recent example: In California high school track and field, biological male athlete AB Hernandez (who identifies as transgender) has dominated the girls’ high jump and triple jump at state championships, leading to a California Interscholastic Federation policy where displaced biological girls are forced to share the top podium spot and co-champion status with him.

“You’re on the front lines of this battle. What do you think?” Deace asked Sey.

Sey believes that the transgender agenda has been “pushed back,” but it’s far from being defeated.

She explains that while 27 states currently have laws keeping women’s sports for biological females only, a pending Supreme Court decision this June will determine if those protections are constitutional. She expects the court to uphold them, but emphasizes that this victory would only apply to those 27 states. The remaining 23 states, which prioritize gender identity over biological sex, would still allow biological males to compete in girls’ sports.

In other words, even a favorable ruling from SCOTUS doesn’t end the fight nationwide.

“So we still have a ton of work to do,” she says.

That work, she argues, needs to focus on “[changing] the culture.”

“Seventy to 80% of Americans agree … that women’s sports should be for women … but I don’t think we’ve made meaningful progress in getting that 80% to stand up and say what they believe,” says Sey.

“All right, so how do we do that?” Deace asks.

As for her, Sey plans to “keep producing content, keep encouraging people to stand up and say what they think, to stand up and say the most commonsense thing that there is, which is that men and women are different.”

With every person who speaks this truth, the stronger the “permission structure” becomes in the broader culture, she argues.

“Yes, we need legislation. We need state legislation; we need national legislation to reify Title IX. But I think when we win the cultural battle is when we actually win,” she tells Deace.

He agrees and reiterates the need for people to have enough courage to endure public shaming if necessary — especially “dads at school board meetings” and “young women [willing] to say, ‘I refuse to take part in this charade.’”

Sey agrees that men specifically need to join the movement. “We need way more men in this fight. … We need moms to do it too, but dads have been particularly absent in this fight.”

While she agrees that young female athletes should take a stand for their own rights, she is unwilling to ask them to forgo competing in order to make a statement.

“How do I tell a 14-year-old girl that she needs to do it when a professional athlete with all the money in the world won’t do it because she’s afraid of losing endorsements?” she asks.

“These [professional athletes] are women with enough power and enough influence, and they pull enough dollars in for these brands that I’d be willing to bet that the brands won’t fire them,” Sey continues.

“I want to put the pressure on them more than these 14-year-old girls. They’re the leaders.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace show, Steve deace, California, Men in women’s sports, Jennifer sey 

For American Christians, biblical accounts of martyrdom can seem far removed from everyday life. And yet some 388 million Christians worldwide face high levels of persecution or discrimination — from imprisonment and government surveillance to mob violence and social exclusion — for practicing their religion.

Christ never promised his followers a life free from suffering; the New Testament repeatedly warns that persecution is part of the Christian experience. Yet Scripture couples that warning with a command: Christians are not to forget their fellow believers who suffer for the faith.

Few Christians in the United States or Europe will ever face the kinds of pressures endured by believers in North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, or Armenia.

“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

Christians today do respond in many ways, from prayer and advocacy to humanitarian aid and legal assistance. Here are five places where believers face significant challenges in 2026 — and five organizations working on the front lines to support them.

1. North Korea

North Korea remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to follow Christ. While North Korea’s constitution formally guarantees freedom of religion and the government permits a small number of state-controlled churches, independent Christian activity is treated as a threat to the regime. Believers caught with a Bible or participating in unauthorized worship can face imprisonment, forced labor, or worse. In some cases, punishment extends to entire families under the country’s system of collective responsibility.

Organization helping: Open Doors

Founded by the Dutch missionary known as Brother Andrew, Open Doors has spent decades serving Christians living under persecution. The ministry is best known for its annual World Watch List, which tracks countries where Christians face the most severe restrictions.

North Korea again ranked at the top of this year’s installment. The organization supports underground believers through networks operating outside the country, assists defectors, and helps document conditions that would otherwise remain hidden from the outside world.

Open Doors recently published the story of a North Korean Christian who spent more than a decade imprisoned because of his faith before being released. The testimony provided a rare firsthand account from inside the country and reflected the organization’s broader work supporting underground believers and documenting religious persecution that is otherwise difficult to verify from outside North Korea.

2. Nigeria

Nigeria remains one of the deadliest countries in the world for Christians. Islamist extremist groups, armed militants, and recurring attacks on villages have left thousands dead and displaced countless families in recent years. In May, suspected Fulani militants killed five people and abducted several others in attacks on Christian communities in Plateau State, highlighting the persistent insecurity facing many believers.

Organization helping: International Christian Concern

Based in Washington, D.C., International Christian Concern focuses on advocacy, reporting, and direct assistance for persecuted Christians worldwide.

In April 2025, ICC reported that more than 300 Christians had been killed in Nigeria in just over three months. The organization has consistently documented attacks on churches and Christian villages while advocating greater international attention to the crisis.

Last month, ICC released “Nigeria’s $10 Million Genocide Cover-Up,” a report alleging that government officials and international actors have obscured the religious dimensions of violence that has killed tens of thousands of Nigerian Christians over the past two decades.

3. Pakistan

In Pakistan, an accusation of blasphemy against Islam can upend a person’s life long before a verdict is reached. Christians have frequently found themselves among those targeted under the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, while recent investigations have raised concerns about organized networks that allegedly fabricate accusations and profit from the resulting prosecutions.

Organization helping: Voice of the Martyrs

Voice of the Martyrs was founded in 1967 by Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years imprisoned by the communist regime for his Christian faith before escaping to the West and launching a ministry dedicated to serving persecuted believers.

Because many of the Christians it serves live in dangerous environments, the organization often withholds names and identifying details from public reports.

In September 2025, Voice of the Martyrs Radio featured Pakistani Christian scholar Dr. Yousaf Sadiq discussing efforts to preserve and distribute the Punjabi Psalter, a collection of Scripture-based worship songs used by Christians in Pakistan. The project was presented as one way of strengthening believers living under pressure. VOM has also highlighted cases involving Christians accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and encouraged prayer for imprisoned believers.

4. China

Unlike North Korea, China does not ban Christianity outright. Instead, the government seeks to control it. Churches are expected to submit to state oversight, religious leaders face pressure to promote Communist Party priorities, and believers who resist can find themselves under surveillance or behind bars.

Organization helping: Aid to the Church in Need

Aid to the Church in Need is a Catholic pontifical foundation that supports clergy, seminarians, religious communities, and Christian families in countries facing hardship or persecution.

Like many ministries operating in sensitive regions, ACN does not always disclose detailed information about beneficiaries or projects in countries where publicity could place local Christians at risk.

This year, Aid to the Church in Need spotlighted the case of Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned Hong Kong Catholic publisher and pro-democracy activist serving a 20-year sentence under Hong Kong’s national security law. Through interviews with Lai’s family and its “Faith Under Siege” podcast, ACN has helped keep international attention focused on one of the world’s most prominent Christian prisoners of conscience.

RELATED: 5 pro athletes who boldly take a knee — for Jesus Christ

Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

5. Armenia

Armenia is one of the world’s oldest Christian nations and the first kingdom to adopt Christianity as its official religion. But recent disputes between the government and the Armenian Apostolic Church have prompted warnings from religious-freedom advocates who say one of Christianity’s oldest institutions faces mounting political pressure.

Unlike North Korea, Nigeria, or Pakistan, the concern in Armenia is not mass violence against Christians but an increasingly contentious relationship between the state and the church that has shaped Armenian identity for more than 1,700 years.

Organization helping: Christian Solidarity International

Christian Solidarity International, a Switzerland-based human rights organization, advocates on behalf of persecuted religious minorities around the world.

In 2026, CSI conducted a fact-finding mission in Armenia, where its delegation met with imprisoned Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan after negotiating access with Armenian authorities. The group later delivered letters from the archbishop to participants at the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, released a report on alleged state persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and urged Western governments to raise concerns about detained clergy and religious freedom in Armenia.

Remembering the forgotten church

Few Christians in the United States or Europe will ever face the kinds of pressures endured by believers in North Korea, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, or Armenia. Yet their stories serve as a reminder of both the cost of discipleship and the fragility of religious freedom in a fallen world. They also challenge Christians elsewhere not to forget their brothers and sisters in Christ.

As the Apostle Paul reminded the early Church, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

​Armenia, China, Discrimination, Faith, Martyrdom, Nigeria, Persecution, Religious freedom, World watch list, North korea, Charity, Lifestyle 

Who kills more black males than anyone else? Other black males.

That is why the available data should tell you that if you are the parent of a black son, you should be far more concerned about what other young black men may do to him than what race-baiters and grievance-mongers may have to say about the Karmelo Anthony verdict.

We are tired of the fake black bravado culture that costs young men their lives and then demands that everyone else pretend the killer is the victim.

A jury in Texas deliberated for less than three hours this week before declaring Anthony guilty of first-degree murder for stabbing Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet last year. The judge sentenced the 19-year-old to 35 years in prison.

Justice was done. The facts are clear. And since this is 2026, not 1956, I am strenuously declaring any attempt to build an indefinite period of racial grievance around this case unavailable for the historically aggrieved. Those days are over.

I do not owe anyone moral deference because of skin color. I owe my neighbor love. I owe him fairness. I owe him the truth. I owe him the same moral standard I owe every other neighbor.

That cuts in every direction. You might be black, white, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, male, female, rich, poor, Christian, atheist, or whatever. None of it gives you permission to stab another young man and then demand that the country treat you as the victim.

My ancestors were so-called greasy Catholic dago wops who arrived with little, lived in real ghettos, worked thankless jobs, had children, and actually made their way in America in spite of it all. My mother had a kid at 15 — me — earned a GED, went to college, and improved her life. I was on food stamps and government cheese before we made our way forward together.

I owe you nothing.

The race-baiting Jezebel Jasmine Crockett has lived a far more privileged life than my mother or I ever did. She happens to be black, but I’m way more ghetto than she is.

So we’re done with her nonsense. The incendiary name-calling no longer works the way it once did. Americans under 60 are not moved by every accusation of racism. Many younger white male voters now respond with open contempt when activists try to turn criminal cases into racial theater. They don’t care — and they can’t wait to tell you so.

We are tired of the fake black bravado culture that costs young men their lives and then demands that everyone else pretend the killer is the victim. You do not get to stab someone because your feelings were hurt. You do not get to talk yourself into violence and then ask the public to blame society for your choices.

Two young men are gone from their families in different ways. One is dead. One will spend much of his life in prison. Both outcomes are terrible. Neither outcome can be fixed by pretending that race explains away responsibility.

If you are black in America, you face a choice: Are you black or are you American? It’s your call, and I’m praying you make the right one, because this nation needs all the loyal patriots it can get right now.

RELATED: White-hating agitator claiming Karmelo Anthony was ‘legally lynched’ is a criminal, disgraced ex-judge

LeoPatrizi/iStock/Getty Images

But if you make the wrong decision, please know that your fate will be yours and yours alone. We’ve run out of patience with any racial decadence, disarray, and deviance. We have no time to coddle you as we try to save what’s left of this culture. Try being a better human.

If a black male is more likely to be assaulted by a black male and a white male is more likely to be assaulted by a black male, then you’re only left with two options as to why that is the case: Either Charles Darwin was right about some races being favored over others — his book “Descent of Man” is the guidebook for modern eugenics and one of the most racist things you’ll ever read — or you can believe that despite being made in the likeness and image of God like the rest of us, modern black culture just sucks and we’re tired of paying for it.

For the record, I believe the latter. Either way, it’s 2026, and the time for a reckoning is at hand. It’s your sin, not mine. Take responsibility for your actions. Stop wasting your life. Leave the ghetto behind.

The choice is yours.

So are the consequences.

​Opinion & analysis, Karmelo anthony, Racism, Grievance, Crime, Austin metcalf, Texas, Murder trial, Morality, Charles darwin, Jasmine crockett 

Do you have young people in your life who can’t figure out how to make “food happen” without overspending on DoorDash? Are you alarmed about the lack of basic cooking, shopping, and life skills in the teen-to-30 set?

I’m here to help anyone willing to learn. I have no illusions that many of my readers are under 50, but you fellow middle-agers might want to clip this piece for your grandchildren who could benefit from some basic home economics.

Equipping your first kitchen in your first apartment is not only affordable, it’s downright cheap. That is, if one is willing to buy used.

Below, we’re going to talk about setting up your first kitchen on a budget. Then I’m going to throw in two easy, cheap recipes that even the most reluctant would-be cook can master.

DoorDash math

Before we get to the practical advice, let’s describe the problem. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Open social media, and you’ll find young people who believe that fast food or DoorDash is cheaper than buying groceries and cooking.

The illiteracy and innumeracy of so many members of the Gen Z cohort is not an exaggeration, and it’s not a joke. It’s also not “just them being naive on social media.” If the responses to online discussions about food cost are to be believed, it’s actually true that millions of young people are so innumerate they’re never going to be able to cover their daily living expenses.

This is hard to explain because it’s nonsensical.

Take this X post that shows the unit cost of a burger and fries meal bought from a fast food joint compared to the unit cost of buying the ingredients and making the food at home. The fast food meal costs $14.99 and feeds one person. The homemade version using ingredients from the store comes out to $5.43 per person, yielding four meals.

So far, so obvious, right? Wrong. Take a tour of the responses to that post and find young people who say that, no, the groceries actually cost more than the fast food meal. How? They add up the total cost of all the groceries instead of comparing the unit per-meal cost when you divide the grocery bill among the four meals it yields.

Frozen assets

That’s how bad off the kids are. Even more, young responders seem not to understand that you can store leftovers.

This one is representative: “The point is. If you’re a single person. As most young people are now. It is cheaper to get the fast food than to get the groceries. Make one meal and watch the rest rot, or be forced to eat cheeseburgers every night for a week.”

Make one meal and watch the rest rot? Why let it rot instead of eating the leftovers or putting them in the freezer? We see why right there in the text: This young’un thinks it’s unbearable to be “forced to eat cheeseburgers every night.”

After trying my best to explain reality to these children using unit price comparisons, I gave up. They want a luxurious convenience lifestyle, and they’ll defend that desire to the point of absurdity.

But there are also many Gen Z people who could budget their money more wisely by returning to basic home cooking and self-sufficiency like we older people remember. The trouble is that they haven’t been taught. Their parents didn’t teach them household management, and schools dropped home economics. The young have been trained by culture and social media to believe everything is too expensive and that they’re powerless to do anything about it.

That means it’s on us older people to give some remedial home and life training. Think of this piece as the first installment of Uncle Josh’s Finishing School for Generation Z.

RELATED: How to bake your own bread — no gadgets, recipes, or kneading required

Josh Slocum

Make frugality great again

Equipping your first kitchen in your first apartment is not only affordable, it’s downright cheap. That is, if one is willing to buy used instead of insisting on having brand-new for no good reason.

You can often buy kitchenware at thrift stores for about one-quarter the price of new. Like most of my generation, I equipped my first apartment at thrift stores. As a homeowner in my 50s, more than half my house is secondhand goods.

Basic kitchen equipment

This assumes you have a stove and fridge, as almost every apartment does. If not, an electric burner or two can be bought for $20 to $50. A dorm-size fridge can be bought secondhand for about $75.

Once you have those covered, I recommend:

1 large skillet1 large sauce pan with lid1 small sauce pan with lid1 large pot big enough for boiling pasta or making soup, with lid2-3 mixing bowls1 spatula1 pair of tongs1 good chef’s knife for cutting meat and vegetables1 drainer/colander1 cutting board3-4 assorted wooden spoonsEnough plates, glasses, and flatware to serve 4

At any thrift store I’ve been to recently, you can buy everything above for a total of less than $50, maybe a lot less.

From here you can buy additional pans, utensils, and more as needed. But this basic setup is enough to make many meals, including the two recipes that follow.

Cheap and cheerful

My mother started teaching me how to cook when I was about 8 or 9 years old. This used to be considered normal, and it should be now. If the young person in your life doesn’t know how to cook, these are great places to start. Anyone who can follow directions can make these meals. They’re tasty and nutritious, and they’re inexpensive.

I will use typical prices at my local grocery stores to estimate per-meal cost. My calculation will give a final per-serving cost. Leftover bulk ingredients can be used for other dishes, or frozen and stored for later meals.

Each recipe assumes four servings, but you’re likely to get six in reality.

Bean and sausage stew

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound dried beans such as navy or white beans ($2)1 pound Italian sausage ($6)1 medium onion (89 cents)2 stalks celery (about $2 for a whole bunch, use two stalks)1 bay leaf (about $5 per jar, about 20 leaves per jar)Olive oil for sautéing (negligible cost on a per-serving basis)Salt and pepper (essentially free on a per-serving basis)

PREPARATION:

Put the dried beans in a large pot and add about twice as much water as beans by volume. (The beans will expand and absorb much of the water.)

Salt the water well and add the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about one and a half hours. Stir occasionally, and check for doneness by biting into a bean.

Meanwhile, heat a skillet with some olive oil on low to medium heat. Chop the onion and celery. Crumble the sausage into the pan and add the onion. Sauté for about 10 minutes, stirring, until sausage is cooked through and vegetables are softened.

Add the sausage and vegetable mixture to the simmering beans for the last 15 to 30 minutes of cooking time.

When the soup is done (beans are soft), finish it off with a bit of cream for a hearty stew. Hot sauce is also nice. This goes well with a green salad and crusty bread with butter.

Estimated cost per serving: $2.65

Baked chicken, potatoes, and fresh vegetables

This is the kind of cooking I was raised on, and I still cook this way. Working in restaurants taught me fancier exotic dishes, and I like them too. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve returned to American home cooking as a mainstay. Plain food, cooked well and nicely seasoned, will never steer you wrong. The price is right, it tastes good, it’s good for you, and it fills you up.

You can use this paradigm of meat-starch-vegetable with any kind of meat.

INGREDIENTS:

2 pounds chicken legs, or thighs and drumsticks ($4)1 pound fresh carrots, peeled and cut into sticks or pennies ($3)2 large russet potatoes cut into 1.5-inch chunks ($2)Olive oil to coat the bottom of a large glass baking pan (negligible)McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning (about $5 per jar)Salt and pepper for the vegetables (negligible)

PREPARATION:

Coat a large glass baking dish with olive oil.

Season the outside of the chicken with the Montreal seasoning. Then, work your finger under the skin and pull it back. Season under the skin.

Take your potatoes and carrots and toss them by hand in the olive oil until they’re coated.

Place the chicken and vegetables all in the same baking dish, and bake at about 375 degrees for about half an hour. You’ll know it’s done when the chicken juices run clear and the skin is getting golden brown. Don’t worry about exact timing; this is forgiving.

Estimated cost per serving: $2.75

Bon appetit!

​Lifestyle, Cooking, Home economics, Home cooking, Intervention 

For decades, Google dominated the search engine race, beating out competitors like Bing, Yahoo, and many others as the de facto arbiter of information on the internet. However, for reasons only Google execs can understand, the Big Tech giant has since decided to let its search engine fade into obscurity beneath the shadow of AI. Naturally, users aren’t happy, and many of them are flocking to an alternative for a better experience.

The search engine everyone’s squawking about

Whether you’ve heard of it or not, DuckDuckGo has been around since 2008. It bills itself as a privacy-focused search engine that does exactly the opposite of Google — it won’t monetize your queries, spy on your browsing history, or inject political bias into its algorithm. It simply delivers search results, and that’s it.

The sudden surge is a clear rejection of Google’s new AI-first strategy.

Shortly after Google’s announcement to push AI interactions over classic Search, users looked to DuckDuckGo as their saving grace. According to DuckDuckGo on X, installs of its app jumped up 30% in the United States.

Why? After all, DuckDuckGo offers an AI search mode, just like Google. How is it any better? The difference is that DuckDuckGo lets users actively remove AI from their queries, while Google puts AI front and center.

DuckDuckGo with AI (L); DuckDuckGo without AI (R). Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw

The sudden surge is a clear rejection of Google’s new AI-first strategy, though it hasn’t stopped the company from moving forward. In the grand scheme of things, a 30% jump for a competitor that only boasts 2% of the search engine market is quite small compared to Google’s dominating 90%. Still, after Microsoft spent hundreds of billions of dollars to lure Google customers over to Bing, it’s interesting to see DuckDuckGo have its moment simply because Google neglected its search engine roots.

How to make DuckDuckGo the default search engine on iPhone and Android

If you want to change the default search engine on your phone, it’s pretty easy, though the steps are a little different depending on your operating system and default browser. If you do try it out and decide you don’t like it, you can always switch back using this guide in reverse.

RELATED: Sick of Microsoft’s preinstalled propaganda on your PC? Block it now.

DigitalVision/Getty Images

Safari on iPhone: Open the Settings app, scroll to the bottom, tap “Apps,” then select “Safari” from the list. Beneath the “Search” section, choose “Search Engine,” and change the default from Google to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Safari on iPhone

Chrome on Android: Open the Chrome app, tap the three-dot menu in the top right corner, and choose “Settings.” Beneath the “Basics” section, tap “Search Engine” and change the default option from Google to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Chrome on Android

Chrome on iPhone: Open the Chrome app, tap the three-dot menu in the bottom right corner, and open “Settings.” Then tap “Search Engine,” change it from Google to DuckDuckGo, and you’re done!

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Chrome on iPhone

Edge on Android: Open the Microsoft Edge app, tap the hamburger menu in the bottom right corner, and go into “Settings.” Then tap “Search” and change the search engine from Bing to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Edge on Android

Edge on iPhone: Open the Microsoft Edge app, tap the hamburger menu in the bottom right corner, and choose “Settings.” Then select “Search” and change the “Select Search Engine” option from Bing to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Edge on iPhone

Brave on Android: Open the Brave app, tap the three-dot menu in the bottom right corner, and open “Settings.” Under the “General” section, select “Search Engines” and change the Standard Tab and Private Tab to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Brave on Android

Brave on iPhone: Open the Brave app, tap the three-dot menu in the bottom right corner, and choose “All Settings.” Under the “General” section, tap “Search Engines” and change the Standard Tab and Private Tab to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Brave on iPhone

Firefox on Android: Open the Firefox app, select the three-dot menu in the top right corner, followed by “Settings.” Under “General,” tap “Search,” then “Default search engine,” and switch it to DuckDuckGo for normal and private browsing.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Firefox on Android

And finally, Firefox on iPhone: Open the Firefox app, select the three-dot menu at the bottom, and tap “Settings.” Under “General,” choose “Search,” then “Default Search Engine,” and change it to DuckDuckGo.

Screenshots by Zach Laidlaw/Firefox on iPhone

Happy Duck hunting!

​Tech, Duckduckgo, Search engine, Default browser, Google 

On Monday, June 8, Texas Tech’s highly anticipated quarterback Brendan Sorsby was granted a temporary injunction, allowing him to play in the 2026 season while his gambling case against the NCAA continues. The NCAA immediately appealed the judge’s decision the same day.

Sorsby redshirted as a freshman at Indiana in 2022. That season, he placed multiple bets (at least 40) on Indiana football games and players. His gambling addiction worsened over the following years at Indiana and then Cincinnati, where he placed thousands of bets totaling around $90,000.

In April 2026, shortly after transferring to Texas Tech, the NCAA began investigating him. Later that month, Texas Tech announced he was taking an indefinite leave to enter a 35-day residential rehab program in Arizona for gambling addiction, which he completed in late May. Upon return, he was declared ineligible by the NCAA for betting on his own team.

Texas Tech and Sorsby sued the NCAA the same day. A Texas judge granted the temporary injunction on June 8, with a full trial set for February 2027.

While speaking to the Touchdown Club of Houston, head coach Joey McGuire defended Sorsby, arguing, “As a society, we’ve been OK with other things that happens and allowing players to play. … It’s crazy because it’s not murder; it’s not beating somebody.”

BlazeTV host Steve Deace calls this mindset a product of modern culture’s “toxic empathy.”

“You can look at Brendan Sorsby and say, ‘You’re playing in an industry that is sponsored by gambling. The entities that want to condemn you are taking huge gambling dollars and advertising,”’ Deace acknowledges.

He also sympathizes with the “temptation” Sorsby faces as a young man with an addiction and a cell phone designed to gratify it.

“We put these little devices in your phones, and you’re an impulsive young man and … the ‘vice-ocracy’ is right here at your fingertips. It’s very enticing, hard not to succumb to,” he admits.

But consequences, Deace argues, are necessary regardless.

“In his right mind, would Brendan Sorsby risk a $6 million payday to get down for 25 bucks on a Knicks-Spurs NBA Finals parlay? No. Just like in your right mind, would you risk your entire family and your reputation to get down with your secretary? No,” he analogizes. “But see, because of sin, we’re not in our right minds, and that’s why we need consequences.”

Empathy, he argues, is a good thing as long as it doesn’t lead to the absolution of punishment.

“We can imagine having the world as your oyster as Brendan Sorsby did and the money you’re making now and this device in your hands and the dopamine hits, and I can think, ‘Holy cow, what would I have done with that at 20 or 21?’ You can have empathy, but we still have to have accountability,” Deace explains.

“The difference between empathy and toxic empathy is toxic empathy demands no accountability and instead condemns you for trying to instill it. Empathy comes with accountability.”

Co-host Aaron McIntire agrees. “I think something that needs to be re-emphasized with this story is that Brendan Sorsby did not turn himself in. He was caught,” he points out.

“That in and of itself is problematic because you kind of wonder, hey, do you really think that you have a problem here? Whereas if he had turned himself in, I think the accountability should be the same thing, but on a human level, on a man-to-man level, there’s some integrity that is still left.”

McIntire condemns Joey McGuire’s downplaying of Sorsby’s offense.

“What [Sorsby] is doing is not just undermining his own credibility and integrity. … He is nuking the integrity of everyone else in this sport,” he argues, speculating that fans will now overanalyze every bad play as potential “point shaving.”

“It’s just disgusting.”

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace show, Steve deace, Texas tech, Brendan sorsby 

The American family farm is being systematically wiped out as corporate monopolies are taking over our food supply.

That’s why Joe Maxwell of the Farm Action Fund has launched the bipartisan Rural Independence Initiative — to take on what BlazeTV host Daniel Horowitz calls the pillaging of rural America.

“We just released a paper along with the launch of the Rural Independence Initiative, a bipartisan, cross-partisan organization, the only political organization that’s pro-healthy food, pro-farmer, pro-rural America,” Maxwell tells Horowitz.

“We want candidates that will fight for markets — fair and free markets — healthy food, and economic independence from monopoly control,” he explains, pointing out that he doesn’t care whether they’re Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.

Maxwell says this is because “both parties are working against the people and for corporate monopoly oligarchy control of our economy.”

“And therefore, what we eat, what we can raise, how we’re going to produce it, and then ultimately control of our government,” he adds.

“Exactly, because if you look at the farm bills, which are always overwhelmingly bipartisan, they’re pushed by both parties, the same monopolization of the land, obsessive support for very specific things, very specific crops, often not even for food,” Horowitz agrees.

“So, they’ll say, ‘I’m for rural America, America’s farms, America’s heartland.’ But the reality is, they’re all on the same side. They’re all against us,” he adds.

And while Maxwell is fighting for rural America, what he’s fighting for isn’t special treatment, but fairness.

“A rural worker will make about $24,000 a year less than the average metropolitan worker. … Rural grandparents will see more of their grandchildren die before the age of 1 than metropolitan grandparents, and rural grandchildren will lose their grandparents three years earlier than metropolitan,” he explains.

“So, the policy has to begin with a lens towards representing people, individual businesses — whether that’s a meat packer or a light manufacturer in rural America or whether that’s the farmer,” he continues. “We have to break the grip that these companies have on these sectors to restore the wealth and the quality of life for rural Americans.”

​Daniel horowitz, Joe maxwell, Rural, America, Farmer, Food supply, Conservative review, The blaze, Conservative review with daniel horowitz 

Though the Trump administration has faced a series of legal setbacks on tariffs, it seems to have found a solution. After the Supreme Court ruled that the administration’s reciprocal tariffs were wrongfully imposed, the president immediately leapt to Plan B: Section 122 tariffs, which allow the temporary placement of global tariffs.

But these tariffs — derived from the Trade Act of 1974, which Trump used to install a 10% levy on most imported goods — expire in just over two months, and a court has ruled them unlawful. Although that case is still working through the system, the administration is already planning to replace Section 122 tariffs with Section 301 tariffs. These, too, stem from the Trade Act, but unlike the previous tariffs, they will be here to stay.

These tariffs … are durable, cover almost all American imports, and leave no questions for investors.

They will also allow the Trump administration to target countries that have relied on unfair trade practices such as lax environmental standards that let our trade “partners” produce at excess capacity — essentially to get one over on the United States.

Section 301, in short, gives the president the power to counter unfair foreign trade practices. Unlike the reciprocal and 122 tariffs, they can be placed only after a long process that includes public hearings and comment periods. While this may frustrate those who want quick action, the process practically guarantees courts will not rule them unconstitutional, as the authority is laid out explicitly in the statutory text.

Currently, the only active 301 tariffs are against China, which have been in place since the first Trump administration. But the second Trump administration is planning to broaden the use of Section 301 significantly.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative launched two investigations in the spring that covered 60 countries, accounting for nearly all American imports. The first investigation focused on products made with forced labor across the globe. Earlier this month, the administration revealed the results: Those countries, including the European Union, had failed to ban products made with forced labor or to stop forced labor within their borders.

The second investigation, which is somewhat narrower in scope, is ongoing. It targets “excess capacity” — essentially unfair government intervention stemming from weak or absent environmental regulations abroad, with pollutants from China having been found in American water and air. This harms America’s labor force and limits businesses’ ability to expand facilities and production.

According to United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, these tariffs are being pursued on “an accelerated timeframe” while still ensuring all legal requirements are being met. The next step for the forced labor tariffs will be a comment period ending in early July, followed by a hearing and — most likely — the announcement of the new tariffs.

By relying on Section 301, the Trump administration is making a smart play for three key reasons.

RELATED: Donald Trump is still the working-class president

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

First, President Trump is obviously committed to dismantling “free trade” ideology and replacing it with fair trade. Leaving office with only a handful of trade agreements and tariffs only on China — tariffs that all but the purest free traders would support — would not meaningfully advance that goal.

But if comprehensive Section 301 tariffs can be placed on countries found violating a range of agreements, it becomes significantly harder for future administrations to lift them, as the Biden administration discovered with the China tariffs levied by the first Trump administration.

Second, Section 301 is a more concrete process. It requires hearings and comment periods, conducted in a way where — even if the outcome is broadly understood — there are no surprises. Markets will therefore have essentially priced them in.

While President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs came from a well-reasoned place, their back-and-forth nature spooked investors and at times threatened his broader economic agenda. These tariffs, by contrast, are durable, cover almost all American imports, and leave no questions for investors.

Most importantly, Section 301 allows the United States to target trade both broadly and narrowly. Broadly, in the sense that a wide array of countries can be targeted at once, as the investigation of more than 60 countries shows. Narrowly, in that it allows the administration to focus on problems long derided by President Trump, including topics many conservatives have overlooked such as “inadequate environmental protections” and labor law violations.

In previous Republican administrations, these would not have been priorities. But the United States has extremely strong environmental protections and labor laws; ignoring the disparity between our laws and those of our competitors means trade deficits never close and American jobs get offshored.

With Section 301, that era is ending. New global tariffs will soon arrive, and this time they won’t be blocked by a court.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

​Donald trump, Supreme court, Global tariffs, Russia, Free trade, Section 301, Trade act of 1974, Reciprocal tariffs, Opinion & analysis 

Dallas police have released a terrifying video showing a suspect in the back seat of a police car remove handcuffs, hop in the driver’s seat, and accelerate away — as an officer who managed to re-enter the vehicle at the last second tries to stop him.

The incident occurred May 30 near Interstate 35 and Illinois Avenue, police said.

‘What the f**k are you doing?’

Officers Ibrahim Kante and Kenneth Harper conducted a traffic stop for a registration violation in the 2300 block of south Marsalis Avenue, police said.

The traffic stop resulted in the arrest of 37-year-old Stacey Huffman for driving while license invalid, possession of a controlled substance, and unlawful possession of a firearm, police said.

Officer Kante handcuffed Huffman — with the cuffs behind the suspect’s back — and placed him in the rear seat of the squad car while the officers completed their investigation, police said.

But Huffman managed to remove his left hand from the handcuffs and kept his hands behind his body, police said.

When the officers began driving, Huffman tried to open the locked rear door of the squad car and removed his seatbelt, police said.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

“What the f**k are you doing?” one officer hollered at Huffman as both officers exited the stopped squad car around 6:10 p.m. on northbound I-35 near Illinois Avenue to restrain the suspect, police said.

But while both officers were outside the vehicle, Huffman climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away, police said.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

Officer Harper was able to re-enter the vehicle in the back seat, but Officer Kante was still outside, police said.

Officer Harper deployed his Taser, but it was not effective when Huffman pulled the wires away, police said.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

Officer Harper drew his duty weapon, and when Huffman accelerated the vehicle, Officer Harper struck Huffman on the side of the head with the weapon, police said.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

But Huffman continued to drive erratically, and Officer Harper was violently thrown across the back seat, police said.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

“Stop the f**king car!” Officer Harper yelled at Huffman.

After driving about 1,000 feet at speeds reaching about 50 miles per hour, Huffman opened the driver-side door and exited the moving squad car, police said.

Video then shows the moment when the police vehicle appeared headed for a collision with a pulled-over car on the shoulder of the roadway, but Officer Harper regained control of the squad car, steered away, and avoided a collision.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

Police said Huffman was rendered unconscious and taken into custody.

Image source: Dallas Police Department video screenshot

You can view police video of the incident below. Content warning: Language.

RELATED: Unhinged man bites police dog while resisting arrest; cops say man became disruptive amid operation he wasn’t even part of

Both Huffman and Officer Harper were taken to a local hospital for treatment, police said.

Officer Harper was treated and released; Huffman remained hospitalized, police said.

When Huffman is released from the hospital, he will be charged with his initial offenses from the original traffic stop — plus unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and escape from custody, police said.

The Dallas Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit is probing the incident, and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and the Office of Community Police Oversight have been notified, police said.

This remains an active and ongoing investigation, police said, adding that information may change as additional evidence, forensic analysis, and video review are completed.

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​Dallas police, Texas, Suspect, Police vehicle, Police bodycam video, Police video, Arrest, Crime 

No matter what kind of car we prefer, most American drivers can agree on one thing: We don’t need another reason for vehicle ownership to become more expensive.

New vehicle prices remain painfully high. Used cars still cost more than they did just a few years ago. Insurance premiums continue to climb, and repair bills that once seemed unthinkable have become routine. For many families, keeping an older vehicle on the road isn’t a preference anymore — it’s a financial necessity.

An insurer may choose to repair rather than total a vehicle because recycled components make the economics work.

That’s why a little-noticed trend deserves far more attention than it’s getting: America’s salvage yards are burning.

Junk science

Most drivers never set foot in a salvage yard, but many have unknowingly benefited from one. Salvage yards provide recycled engines, transmissions, body panels, mirrors, wheels, electronic modules, and countless other components that offer affordable alternatives to buying new parts.

Without them, many repairs would cost significantly more.

That matters because modern vehicles have become dramatically more expensive to fix. A headlight is no longer just a bulb and a lens — it may include LED arrays, cameras, and sensors costing thousands of dollars to replace. Bumpers house radar systems. Side mirrors contain blind-spot monitoring equipment. Even relatively minor collisions can generate repair bills that shock vehicle owners.

For decades, the salvage industry has quietly helped offset those costs.

Most people think of a scrapyard as the final resting place for totaled vehicles. In reality, these facilities function as warehouses of reusable inventory. Every wrecked vehicle contains components that can help repair another one, extending the life of cars already on the road and giving consumers lower-cost alternatives to factory-new parts.

When a salvage yard loses thousands of vehicles and reusable components to a fire, the consequences extend far beyond the property itself. Repair shops lose inventory. Insurers lose salvage value. Consumers lose affordable options.

Eventually, those costs work their way through the system.

More expensive repairs contribute to higher insurance claims. Parts shortages can increase repair times and rental-car costs. And families trying to keep an aging vehicle running are left with fewer choices and bigger bills.

That’s why these fires deserve more scrutiny than they typically receive.

Batteries included

Industry groups have reported a growing number of fires at recycling facilities in recent years, with lithium-ion batteries frequently cited as a contributing factor. Given the proliferation of batteries in electric vehicles, hybrids, e-bikes, power tools, and consumer electronics, those concerns are understandable. Damaged or improperly handled lithium-ion batteries can ignite and burn intensely.

But determining the actual cause of individual fires matters. Some incidents are quickly linked to batteries, while others remain under investigation or are ultimately attributed to different causes. Before broad conclusions are drawn, it’s important that investigators establish the facts.

The larger issue is that automotive recyclers have become an increasingly important part of keeping transportation affordable.

Americans are holding onto their vehicles longer than ever because replacing them has become so expensive. That makes access to quality recycled parts more valuable than ever. A driver with a 12-year-old SUV may not need a brand-new factory transmission if a properly inspected recycled unit is available at a fraction of the cost. Likewise, an insurer may choose to repair rather than total a vehicle because recycled components make the economics work.

Remove enough inventory from the marketplace, and those calculations begin to change.

RELATED: 10 tactics to beat even the pushiest car salesman

Mark Sullivan/Getty Images

Free to fix

This also intersects with the broader right-to-repair movement. Much of that debate centers on software access and diagnostic tools, but those issues address only part of the problem. Consumers also need access to reasonably priced replacement parts. Salvage yards provide competition in the marketplace and help prevent repair costs from becoming even more prohibitive.

Independent repair shops understand this better than anyone. Their ability to source quality recycled components often allows them to save customers thousands of dollars compared with using factory-new parts. If those options disappear, many repairs simply stop making financial sense.

The result is simple: Consumers either pay more or replace vehicles they otherwise could have kept on the road.

Insurance companies face similar challenges. Every totaled vehicle contains recoverable value through parts recycling and salvage sales. When that inventory is destroyed before it can be reused, that value disappears as well.

Where there’s fire …

Viewed in isolation, a scrapyard fire is local news. Viewed as part of a broader pattern, it becomes a warning about the fragile supply chain that keeps older vehicles on the road.

As vehicles become more technologically sophisticated and more expensive to repair, the automotive recycling industry becomes more — not less — important. Yet most people only notice it when dramatic images of smoke and flames appear on the evening news.

The next time headlines report another salvage-yard fire, look beyond the blaze itself. Ask what inventory was lost, how many future repairs depended on those parts, and what replacing them will ultimately cost.

Because in the automotive world, expenses rarely disappear. They get passed along.

And in the end, the people most likely to pay are the ones who can least afford another hit to their household budget: ordinary American drivers just trying to get a few more years out of their vehicles.

​Supply chain, Repair costs, Lifestyle, Auto industry, Salvage yards, Scrap yards, Electric vehicles, Lithium-ion battery, Lithium ion battery fire, Used cars, Automotive 

The Democratic Party has a problem: Americans are increasingly repelled by transgenderism.

Between 2022 and 2025, the average American’s favorability toward restrictions on transgender policies rose significantly. Support fell both for requiring insurance companies to cover gender reassignment procedures and for protecting trans individuals from job and housing discrimination.

The Democrats’ only long-term strategy is the faint hope that radical gender ideology will vanish into the cultural ether.

All of this happened as the share of Americans who consider it morally acceptable to change one’s gender has fallen from 46% to 40% since 2021.

This drop in support is seen in younger generations too. Eric Kaufmann found that between 2022 and 2025, the number of trans-identifying college students fell by half. The decline was even sharper at elite institutions: At Phillips Academy in Andover, the number of trans-identifying students fell from 9.2% in 2023 to a mere 3% in 2025.

At Brown University, the number of nonbinary students was nearly halved between 2023 and 2025. The data highly suggests those rates will continue to fall.

The Democrats’ problem grows more acute when considering the opposition to trans ideology from groups like Gays Against Groomers and the LGB Alliance. They are some of the most vocal advocates against drag queen story hours for children, gender reassignment surgeries, and cross-sex hormones for children. Their stand demonstrates to moderates that progressive gender ideology was always a radical, far-left movement.

All of this has put Democrats in an awkward position. The party fought hard to add transgender colors to the Pride flag, pushed to allow men to compete in women’s sports, and declared Easter Sunday “Trans Day of Visibility.” But as Americans withdraw support for transgenderism, the Democrats’ trans advocacy has become an electoral liability.

Though some Democrats like Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass.) argued after the 2024 election that the party’s over-the-top trans activism alienated voters, the party hasn’t backed away. Even as Democrats shift from their “party of empathy” messaging — which was meant to counter Trump’s “fascist,” muscular MAGA movement, now giving way to figures like Maine’s Graham Platner — their support for trans ideology has stayed consistent.

James Talarico, perhaps the Democrats’ last major pure empathy candidate, strongly supports transgenderism, though his stance has become noticeably awkward in his fight against Ken Paxton for the U.S. Senate in Texas. Recent reporting has revealed that Talarico’s church library is filled with pro-trans books aimed at children. And then there are his comments that “God is nonbinary” and that there’s nothing he “loves more than trans kids.”

Meanwhile, the gruff, populist Graham Platner, covered in tattoos and emphasizing his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, has centered his campaign around a Bernie Sanders-like socialist populism. But he still firmly backs trans rights. At a campaign event in 2025, Platner said, “I stand right in the f**king way of anyone who’s going to try to come after the freedoms of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

Though Platner and Talarico are almost complete opposites in aesthetic and presentation, neither is willing to abandon his support for transgenderism, even though it’s an increasingly unpopular issue for the average American voter.

RELATED: Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally

Angela Lewis/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Democrats cannot openly denounce transgenderism, because they still have to keep the trans constituency in their electoral fold. They are stuck with people like transgender Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), whose political identity is built on trans advocacy.

The Platner wing of the party, which seeks to represent the average, working-class American, won’t make trans advocacy a key campaign issue. But this wing will never denounce transgenderism either. The Democrats’ only long-term strategy is the faint hope that radical gender ideology will vanish into the cultural ether.

The party can’t admit it was wrong. To do so would mean admitting to being complicit in child mutilation and pushing biological falsehoods. Running against the same ideology the Democrats spent years promoting would alienate the far left, whose support for transgenderism remains staunch.

So the Democrats are scrambling to de-emphasize their trans activism as they shift toward a more populist approach. But their overemphasis on transgender ideology will haunt them for years.

Conservatives need to press the Democrats on why they backed trans so aggressively, championing the stories of survivors and highlighting the lifelong consequences gender reassignment surgeries bring. Woke is not dead, and the trans issue remains a live one for Democrats.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

​Democrats, Transgender, Pride month, Seth moulton, James talarico, Graham platner, Woke, Opinion & analysis, Texas, Senate, Transgenderism, Identity, Gender, Ideology