The Big Beautiful Bill and the Cost of Lowering Standards

Is a Recession Coming? Dr. Peter Earle Breaks Down the Real Economy

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 18, 2026. We open with a California bill moving through the legislature that would allow minors in residential treatment facilities to trigger state investigations of their own parents — and we explain why this isn't about protecting children from genuine abuse. It's about a state that has spent years operating from the assumption that parents are wrong and government is right. We walk through the mechanism — buried inside dry juvenile dependency language is a process by which a child who disagrees with their court-ordered treatment can initiate a legal review that effectively places their parents under state investigation. We connect it to a pattern the left has run for years — driving a wedge between children and the parents who are trying to save them, and then letting the state step in as the replacement parent. And we warn parents outside California that bad ideas rarely stay behind state lines. In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the United States and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding — covering the five key pillars, with a 60-day negotiating window to reach a final deal and reconstruction funds from regional partners available if Iran follows through. Then D.C. Democrat primary winner Janice Lewis George is heading toward the general election, with President Trump already promising to take back D.C. if a socialist wins the mayor's race. And the Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat off the coast of Florida carrying 25 Chinese nationals attempting to enter the country illegally — firing on the engines to disable the vessel after repeated warnings went ignored. We note that we have never in our lifetimes heard of the U.S. government disabling boats trying to enter illegally — and call it exactly what it is: a closed border. We sit down with Dr. Peter Earle of the American Institute for Economic Research to take the actual temperature of the U.S. economy — separate from the media's doom-and-gloom narrative. Dr. Earle's assessment: the hard data still describe an expansion, but forward-looking indicators are more cautious. Consumer spending remains positive, corporate earnings are holding up, and there are no overall recessionary conditions — but elevated interest rates, housing affordability, and the national debt are real concerns. He also explains why gas prices won't drop overnight even with the Iran deal — the research shows it takes about 22 weeks for oil price reductions to fully pass through to consumers, meaning relief at the pump is more likely late summer or early fall. And he explains why Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire is less about personal wealth and more about what it will cost to turn SpaceX into the Amtrak of space travel over the next several decades. Barack and Michelle Obama appeared on Good Morning America to promote the opening of the Obama Presidential Center — and Barack said he wants visitors to walk through and think, what's possible? We take him at his word and answer the question. We also note that many of the subcontractors who built the nearly billion-dollar complex — which ran nearly $300 million over budget — have reportedly not been paid. Our American Mama Teri Netterville responds to the San Francisco Giants story — where pitchers were warned by MLB after writing Bible verses on their caps during Pride Night. A San Francisco player spoke beautifully about why the rainbow holds deep biblical meaning for Christians as the sign of God's Noahic covenant — and why writing Genesis 9:12-16 on a hat is not anti-anything. It's pro-something. Teri says she supports marriage equality — and still thinks forcing players to celebrate someone else's sexuality on their uniforms is wrong, performative, and is actually pushing people away from the very acceptance the movement says it wants. We also cover the New York Knicks' White House visit — and their championship celebration at City Hall, where Mayor Mamdani delivered a 10-minute speech before anyone from the actual championship team could speak. Knicks owner James Dolan stepped to the mic and said simply — I don't need your vote. I don't need to quote you. If you're a real Knicks fan, you already know. Nobody needed a program to figure out who that was aimed at. For our Bright Spot, a new American Enterprise Institute poll on civic values finds that 82% of Americans believe in equal opportunity regardless of race, religion, or gender, 79% say everyone has the right to their religious beliefs, 72% still believe hard work can lead to prosperity, and 66% believe people can criticize the government without fear of punishment. We call this exactly what it is — evidence that the American idea is still alive in the hearts of most Americans — and note that 75% say the Declaration of Independence should be taught in high school, even though only 29% have actually read it. It's two pages, folks. We also cover a Trump-appointed federal judge who ordered ICE to release a Palestinian green card holder convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli armed forces — a man the U.S. government has known about for 25 years. We ask the more important question — why did we let him in in the first place? And we close with Alyssa Goralnik, who published a children's vocabulary book called Weighty Words in 1985 and never made a dime. Forty years later, an author named Eli McCann posted a video about the book on social media. Within weeks it hit the top of Amazon's bestseller charts and publishers rushed a second printing — not bad for a book written 20 years before Amazon existed. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776! See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Cities Spent Billions. The Problems Got Worse.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 17, 2026. We open with the growing influence of New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani and the rise of democratic socialism in America. Mamdani is backing congressional candidate Darya Avila Chevalier, who argues that all deportations are wrong — even for illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes. We examine what that position means for immigration policy, public safety, and whether some politicians have abandoned the most basic responsibilities of government. In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, we break down the latest election results in Georgia and Alabama, including where President Trump's endorsements helped and where they fell short. We also discuss the shocking legal strategy being used by the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, whose attorneys are preparing an "extreme emotional disturbance" defense. American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson tackle a surprising study on which professions have the highest divorce rates, leading to a candid conversation about marriage, social influence, friendship, and why some couples survive difficult seasons while others walk away. In Digging Deep, we expose a troubling pattern in government spending. A new report shows America's largest cities increased spending by 18% over the past decade with little measurable improvement in homelessness, violent crime, affordability, or income inequality. We also examine a massive fraud scheme in Minnesota involving 7,700 fake college students, stolen identities, and more than $12 million in taxpayer-funded financial aid. We also cover subcontractors who say they are still fighting to get paid for work performed on Barack Obama's $1 billion Presidential Center, the celebrity lineup celebrating the grand opening, and the double standard surrounding patriotism, politics, and public performances. For our Bright Spot, Scottish World Cup fans leave a lasting impact on New England by donating thousands of dollars to local charities, and a determined New York detective spends months tracking down a stolen wedding ring for a dementia patient — reuniting her with a treasured piece of her family's history. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776! See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Whose Rights Get Protected in America? - Abortion Pills, Pride Month, White House UFC

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 16, 2026. We open with Hollywood's next election cycle project — Sean Penn and Warner Brothers are producing a film about January 6th from the perspective of an anti-Trump police officer, described as based on a real person but fictionalized. We discuss what an honest January 6th film would actually require — including the FBI coming clean about how many informants were in that crowd, whether they incited the violence, and why that information has been withheld from both Congress and defendants. We also note that the FBI agent who ran the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping sting — which a Michigan appeals court just threw out — was the head FBI agent in Washington D.C. on January 6th. Do we trust Sean Penn to tell that story? We already know the answer. In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the FBI disrupted a terrorist plot to attack the UFC fight on the White House lawn — suspects planned to use explosive-laden drones to drive survivors into sniper fire, with 23 people named as suspects arrested across Ohio, California, Missouri, and Nebraska. Then President Trump arrived in France for the G7 summit, where topics include the Iran peace deal, Russia-Ukraine, and energy security — with French President Macron already looking for alternative routes to move Middle Eastern oil that don't depend on the Strait of Hormuz. And 15 Antifa members were arrested in Minnesota and charged with conspiracy to injure federal law enforcement officers after attempting to block immigration enforcement operations earlier this year. We also cover James Carville's latest prediction that President Trump will resign by Easter of 2027 — bored, tired, distracted, and facing political collapse. We point out that Carville appears to be describing his own audience, not the man who negotiated an Iran peace deal, hosted a UFC fight on the White House lawn, and is still running laps around every critic who has ever declared him finished. Our American Mama Teri Netterville responds to the competing events on the same weekend as the UFC fight — the anti-Trump Hollywood rally featuring Bette Midler, Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, and Julia Roberts telling the crowd to breathe in the love and breathe out the fear. Teri asks where this outrage was when men with surgical implants were flashing the White House lawn on Easter during the Biden administration. She researched the cultural events Obama hosted at the White House — and says she's glad he did them. Her only point is that if a white president had done the same things specifically for white audiences, the left would have called it a scandal. The hypocrisy is the story. We also cover Major League Baseball warning San Francisco Giants pitchers for displaying Bible verses on their caps during Pride Night — and connect it to a broader question about whose expression gets protected and whose gets punished — including the founding principle that rights come from the Creator, not from government, and why that matters the moment you try to elect someone who doesn't believe in a Creator at all. In our Digging Deep segment, we document the cascading consequences of the FDA's Biden-era decision to allow abortion pills to be shipped through the mail without an in-person doctor visit. We walk through a documented series of cases — a woman trying to secretly give her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend an abortion pill, a man who pretended to be a woman online to obtain the pills and then told his pregnant girlfriend they were supplements, a doctor who tried to feed the pills to his sleeping mistress, and a DOJ employee accused of baking the pills into cookies for his girlfriend. Her baby died two days later. We make the case that in their zeal to make abortion as easy as possible, the left has created a system that makes it easier to force abortions on women who don't want them — which is a direct contradiction of every argument they've ever made. We also cover a Cornell University student who refused a job interview and then told the employer he wasn't interested in working for a Jew — then doubled down when given a chance to walk it back. A crowdfunding campaign raised over $13,000 to reward him. We note that the Maine Democratic Party just nominated a man with an SS tattoo for Senate, endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and connect the dots on where mainstreaming anti-Semitism leads. For our Bright Spot, a high school junior in Charlotte painted Live Like Kirk and a Bible verse on her school's spirit rock with prior permission — and was then treated like a criminal, forced out of class, and made to surrender her phone logs. The Alliance Defending Freedom took the case. The school board adopted a new speech policy, issued a public statement exonerating the student, and paid $95,000 in damages and fees. The Alliance Defending Freedom wins again. And we close with Jim Freeman, a fourth grade teacher at Tully Elementary in Louisville, who isn't even Ryan Neighbors' teacher — but when he heard that Ryan, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, would have to miss the school field trip to the Falls of the Ohio State Park, he bought a specialized backpack and carried her through the park himself. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776! See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Destroy the Uranium, Stop the Terrorists, Open the Strait — and No Cash on the Runway

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 15, 2026. We open with a major Supreme Court immigration case heading into the next term — the question of whether non-citizens with serious criminal convictions can be held in detention during deportation proceedings without bond hearings. We explain why this isn't a simple bumper sticker case, why the flight risk argument for criminal aliens is fundamentally different from that of U.S. citizens with community roots, and why the ruling could become one of the most consequential immigration decisions of the new term — directly testing how much process is due before temporary custody starts looking like indefinite imprisonment. We also get into President Trump's peace deal with Iran, and why Barack Obama's claim that this is essentially the same deal he negotiated is not just wrong but precisely backwards. Obama's deal had a time limit on nuclear development — legally allowing Iran to have a bomb by 2030. Trump's deal requires Iran to destroy its highly enriched uranium, pledge never to obtain nuclear weapons, stop funding Hezbollah and Hamas, and open the Strait of Hormuz immediately upon signing — with economic relief only after the first two conditions are fully met. No cash on the runway. No expiration date. Not the same deal. In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, President Trump announced a peace agreement with Iran over the weekend — covering the five key points — with a final signing expected in Switzerland on Friday. Then a B-52 Stratofortress crashed in Southern California after taking off from Edwards Air Force Base, with military officials saying the crash was unsurvivable — we offer our prayers and gratitude to the crew. And President Trump endorsed Congressman Mike Collins in the Georgia Senate Republican runoff against Derek Dooley, a former football coach who admits he didn't vote in either 2016 or 2020. We walk through the five pillars of the Iran deal in detail — destruction of highly enriched uranium, a permanent pledge never to obtain nuclear weapons, ending the naval blockade only after the first two steps are complete, immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz upon signing, and a requirement that Iran stop funding all terrorist proxies including Hezbollah and Hamas. We note what makes this deal structurally different from every previous Iran negotiation — enforcement is built into the sequencing, not assumed as an afterthought. Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson discuss whether women should still take their husband's last name when they marry — prompted by viral videos of couples doing rock-paper-scissors and tug-of-war at their own weddings to decide whose name to use. The Spinks Sisters kept their maiden names as middle names, missed them immediately, and are pretty clear on where they stand. We also explore what it signals about a marriage when a woman doesn't take her husband's name — and why in Washington especially, different last names make it a lot harder to spot the conflicts of interest. In our Digging Deep segment, we take on the left's use of adjectives to alter meaning and control thought — starting with the phrase progressive Christianity versus Christian right. We work through why these two constructions mean completely different things, why the need for the adjective tells you the noun isn't what's being advertised, and how a pastor writing in Salon Magazine misquotes Jesus — changing blessed are the poor in spirit to blessed are the poor — to make Christ's words align with progressive ideology. We connect it to George Orwell's observation that whoever controls the language controls the masses, and explain why this linguistic sleight of hand is one of the left's most effective political tools. We also note that Bill Maher is endorsing Graham Plattner — the Maine Democratic Senate candidate with the SS tattoo and the predator website — and explain that this isn't about principle. It's about keeping Susan Collins out of the Senate. Power, not values. We also push back on Robert De Niro's claim that loving America today is like an abused spouse loving an abuser — and point out that conservatives who disagreed with everything Obama and Biden did never stopped saying they loved their country. Disagreeing with your leaders and loving your country are not the same thing. They never have been. For our Bright Spot, the U.S. Men's National Team beat Paraguay 4-1 in the World Cup — the most goals the U.S. has ever scored in a World Cup match, with Florian Balogun scoring two in the first half. But the moment that mattered most came after the final whistle, when the entire team circled up in the middle of the field and prayed. Defender Mark McKenzie, whom teammates call pastor, led the prayer. On the biggest stage in the world, the U.S. team's first instinct was gratitude. We contrast that with Diego Maradona, who scored a goal with his hand and called himself a god. We'll take our team. And we close with Emily Matijovic, a 16-year-old from Michigan who passed away in December and whose family chose to donate her organs. This spring — the spring she was supposed to graduate — her family threw her a graduation party. Four-year-old Ripley Farrell came from West Virginia. She received one of Emily's kidneys. Teenager Landon Coleman came from Virginia. He received Emily's heart. He told her family it lets him do things he couldn't do before. It is in giving that we receive. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776! See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.

Illegal Immigrant Driver's Licenses, Secret Biolabs, and a Trillionaire

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 12, 2026. We open with a question that gets at something deeper than any single news story — what's the difference between conspiracy theory and reality? We argue the answer is evidence, and we got a lot of it this week. We connect this to a Florida governor's race story — the presumptive Democratic nominee David Jolly is arguing illegal immigrants should be granted driver's licenses for the safety of all Floridians. We walk through why this argument requires you to accept that citizenship means nothing, that legal and illegal immigration are the same thing, and that the solution to someone breaking federal law is to hand them a state credential rather than send them home. In our Top 3 Things You Need to Now, SpaceX completed its initial public offering, opening at $150 a share and closing the day up 19% at $160.95 — the largest IPO in world history, making Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire and creating 4,400 millionaire employees in a single day. Then President Trump nominated Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be the permanent Director of National Intelligence after Tulsi Gabbard's resignation — a pick that's already won the support of Senate Majority Leader John Thune. And the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold a lower court's ban on nitrogen asphyxiation as a method of execution in Alabama, with Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma also having authorized but not yet used the method. We also cover the United States becoming India's top supplier of liquefied natural gas — a development President Trump predicted, and one we frame as more than an economic story. It's about whether the world's largest democracy depends on energy from a stable rule-of-law nation or from regimes that use energy as a geopolitical weapon. Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson discuss whether a single two-week vacation or multiple three-day getaways make for better family trips — and the consensus is clear. Long weekends create harmony, give everyone a job, and end before anyone's feelings get hurt. Teri shares the trick for getting grown children to join family trips — tell them you'll cover everything and all they have to do is show up. In our Digging Deep segment, outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a bombshell report revealing that the U.S. government has secretly funded more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries — including roughly 40 in Ukraine, a war zone, storing pathogens like anthrax, Ebola, and SARS. We explain gain-of-function research — modifying viruses to make them more dangerous — and connect it to Senator Rand Paul's documented evidence that the U.S. funded this kind of research in Wuhan despite repeated denials from Dr. Fauci and Biden administration officials. We also discuss a deeply troubling story out of Carencro, Louisiana, where a father is accused of secretly giving abortion pills to his 17-year-old pregnant daughter without her knowledge, causing a medical emergency and premature delivery — and we connect it to the broader debate over telehealth abortion pill prescriptions, which the data shows send one in ten women to the emergency room. We also cover Democrats publicly calling for the demolition of the White House ballroom construction project if they regain power — and reflect on how dramatically the rhetoric around government buildings and symbolism has shifted over the decades. Then it's our 10th year of Fake News Friday — covering whether more people attended the congressional baseball game than a typical Washington Nationals game, whether SpaceX is now worth more than the entire nation of Canada, whether two children running a lemonade stand in South Boston were robbed at gunpoint, whether a Pakistani immigrant running for mayor in Texas pled guilty to over 100 counts of voter fraud, and whether Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett claimed the knife used to murder Austin Metcalf wasn't a deadly weapon. We also discuss the defacing of the National Mall with anti-Trump messaging carved into the grass — and make the point that the National Mall belongs to the American people, not to any politician or party, regardless of who's in office. And we close with the story of Margaret Kerry, the human model and inspiration for Disney's Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, who passed away this past week at age 97. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776! See omnystudio.com/listener [https://omnystudio.com/listener] for privacy information.