American Ground Radio

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 20, 2026.

We open with a 100-page State Department report titled Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism — and the findings go far beyond what most Americans have ever been told about Cuba's reach inside this country. For nearly 70 years, Cuba has been building a revolutionary infrastructure in the United States — funding and directing organizations from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground to modern Antifa networks, Code Pink, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the National Lawyers Guild, which provided legal assistance to 20,000 people arrested during the 2020 George Floyd unrest. We connect the dots from Bill Ayers launching Barack Obama's political career from his living room to Chessa Boudin running San Francisco's DA office to LaToya Cantrell traveling to Cuba to study economics before being indicted on 16 counts of malfeasance. The pattern, once you see it, cannot be unseen.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, three U.S. service members were killed in the Middle East over the weekend — 19-year-old Private Isabella Gonzalez of Carrollton, Texas and 25-year-old First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan of Ewa Beach, Hawaii died in an Iranian missile attack on their base in Jordan, and a third service member was killed during a controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone in Iraq. A fourth remains missing. We honor them with Abraham Lincoln's words — the last full measure of devotion. Then a man was arrested for setting off an incendiary device outside the ICE offices in lower Manhattan — fireworks and gasoline, two minor injuries, a federal building housing ICE, immigration courts, and the FBI. And Maine Democrats selected Troy Jackson as their replacement Senate candidate for Graham Plattner — a man accused of mortgage fraud for lying about his primary residence to get a lower interest rate. Mortgage fraud, apparently, is the ceiling Maine Democrats are working with this cycle.

We also take on Mayor Mamdani's declaration that he intends to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York City — based on an International Criminal Court warrant that the United States does not recognize. We explain why this is constitutionally illiterate, diplomatically catastrophic, and practically impossible. The Constitution gives Washington, not City Hall, the authority to conduct foreign affairs. The UN sits in New York City precisely because heads of state must be able to travel there safely. If one mayor can arrest one head of state, no head of state will ever return — and the UN becomes a ghost town. Mamdani's job is to serve the people of New York City. Destroying the diplomatic credibility of the most important city in the world is not that.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville makes the case that small talk is a lost art — and a more important one than most people realize. It's not filler. It's the appetizer to the main course. Terry talks about watching her shy daughter Summer learn to work a room by watching her mother walk across it toward the person standing alone. She credits her father, who could run any room because he made whoever was speaking to him feel like they were the only person there. She points to Princess Catherine and Bill Clinton as two of the best practitioners alive — and makes the case that if parents don't put the phones down and model this for their children, an entire generation will grow up incapable of the human connection that holds communities together.

We also cover the media's outrage over President Trump presenting the World Cup trophy to Spain — headlines declaring he refused to leave the stage, sparked outrage, and embarrassed the country. We note that presenting the trophy was part of the plan agreed upon months in advance with FIFA president Gianni Infantino. We also note that if Joe Biden had done the same thing, the coverage would have called it proof of his vitality and connection to the world stage.

In our Digging Deep segment, a new Echelon Insights poll reveals something stunning about young Democrats — they have a net negative view of capitalism of minus 31%, a net positive view of socialism of plus 35%, and a net positive view of free markets of plus 22%. All three of those positions cannot be simultaneously true. Free markets are capitalism. Socialism is the opposite of free markets. The same poll shows young Democrats under 50 support the Democratic Socialists of America with a net favorability of 54% while Democrats over 50 give the DSA only 28%. The Make America Healthy Again movement is the only political movement in the country with a net approval rating above 50% — and it's below 50% among Democrats. Apparently, Democrats don't want anything associated with Trump — including healthy food.

We also push back on Republican strategists panicking about Iran hurting the party in the midterms. The American people are not bloodthirsty and they don't want endless wars. But there is a world of difference between opposing endless wars and surrendering to a regime that has chanted death to America every day for fifty years and was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon. President Trump has made a reasonable case for a defined military objective. He could make it better. But rolling over is not an electoral strategy either.

For our Bright Spot, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University announced the discovery of massive wooden beams from Lebanon — burned and preserved since 586 BCE — that appear to be structural elements from the First Temple of Jerusalem, exactly as described in the Bible. The beams show an unusually high number of growth rings, confirming they came from the large, old trees of Lebanon that scripture specifically identifies as the building material. The Bible said it. The archaeologists found it. Another bright spot hidden in the dirt.

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You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 17, 2026.

We open with the Trump administration's straightforward approach to election security funding — if your state wants federal Homeland Security dollars, it must demonstrate it is taking basic, credible steps to protect its elections. The requirement: devote 3% of the grant toward election security. That's it. We explain why this is not extreme, not unprecedented, and not controversial to anyone acting in good faith — highway funding comes with rules, education funding comes with requirements, and the foundation of our entire system of self-government deserves at least the same standard of accountability as a road project. We also walk through every argument the left makes against voter integrity measures and explain why each one is a red herring designed to obscure the only real reason to oppose them.

We dig deep into President Trump's primetime address on election security — laying out the five points he made and the documents he says back them up. China hacked voter rolls and now possesses the name, address, Social Security number, and driver's license of roughly 220 million registered American voters. China ran an influence campaign in 2020 to prevent Trump's reelection and may have attempted to create fraudulent ballots. That intelligence was intentionally concealed from Trump by U.S. intelligence agencies between 2018 and 2020. Evidence of fraud in Michigan was covered up and not robustly investigated by the Biden FBI. And more than 250,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in the United States, documented in four cooperating states alone. We note what the speech did not do — it did not claim the 2020 election was stolen or produce proof of widespread cheating. It presented declassified evidence of vulnerabilities, foreign interference, and institutional failures, and put pressure on the Senate to pass the SAVE Act. The people calling it election denialism didn't listen to it.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, a federal appeals court ruled that the Pentagon can require reporters to be escorted through the building and register before gaining access — overturning a lower court ruling that had sided with the New York Times, and finding that the policy was applied evenly to all media. Then Maine Democrats held a debate to replace Graham Plattner — featuring eight candidates, the first four of whom all lost their primary races this year, and a final candidate whose listed qualifications were that he writes songs and books. And Britain has a new prime minister — Andy Burnham, former mayor of Greater Manchester, replacing Keir Starmer whose Labour Party's popularity has collapsed under the weight of rising crime, mass immigration, and a government crackdown on free speech. Burnham will be the seventh prime minister since 2016. We are not optimistic about his relationship with President Trump.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson take on the question of whether America has canceled grandma — and the answer is complicated. There's a legitimate version of the concern, where grandparents try to override parenting decisions while the parents are present, and a much more troubling version, where adult children cut off grandparents entirely for political or ideological reasons. Teri and Kimberly draw the distinction between a grandparent who steps in to discipline when a parent is right there versus a grandparent who is being pushed out because they're Trump supporters who like guns. One is a boundary conversation. The other is a tragedy. The Constitution's preamble says we are building this country for ourselves and our posterity — and cutting grandparents out of children's lives cuts the very thread of generational wisdom our republic depends on.

We also cover what James Carville got right this week — that CNN should have aired President Trump's primetime address, even if they disagree with everything he says. Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant. Free speech works precisely because it trusts the American people to evaluate what they hear. The network that aired statements from the Chinese Communist Party without a fact-check decided it needed to fact-check the sitting president of the United States in real time. None of it holds together.

We also take on the WNBA's treatment of Caitlin Clark — the greatest female basketball player in the history of the sport, who is being harassed by fellow players, subjected to demands that she denounce her own fans, and choked on the floor with no technical foul called. We offer the only explanation that fits all the evidence: it is racism, and it is the only category of racism the left refuses to acknowledge.

Then it's Fake News Friday — including whether Trump wants to purge legitimate voters, whether a CNN poll found 125% of Americans disbelieve the election interference claims, whether Speaker Johnson has 1,500 unread texts, whether you can buy a piece of the MetLife Stadium World Cup field for $450, whether Mamdani watched the World Cup with Rikers Island inmates, whether Sacramento sanitation workers are photographing your trash, whether a man robbed a bank using a stolen kitten, and whether Pete Hegseth ordered soldiers with low testosterone transferred to the Navy. One of those is really fake news.

For our Bright Spot, Senator Marsha Blackburn is reintroducing the Ban Birth Tourism Act — in direct response to the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling — making the case that you should not be able to create a permanent legal anchor to the United States simply by giving birth on American soil without any commitment to this country whatsoever.

And we close with 92-year-old Martin Gill of Wilmington, North Carolina — who retired from the oil fields, got bored, worked as a greeter at Sam's Club until that position was eliminated, and has now been the host at his local Chick-fil-A for six years. He says if you enjoy what you're doing, it's not work. He doesn't know what 92 is supposed to feel like — but he feels great. It's his pleasure. 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!

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You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 16, 2026.

We open with a story that should trigger Logan Act investigations — Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch has revealed that New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani attempted to arrange a secret meeting with the Iranian government while the United States is actively engaged in military operations against Iran. We walk through the constitutional principle at stake: the United States speaks with one voice in foreign affairs, that voice belongs to the federal government, and a city mayor has no more authority to conduct foreign policy than he has to declare war. We also connect it to a pattern — from Obama's hot mic moment with Medvedev to John Kerry's shadow diplomacy during Trump's first term — of people who want the power of the presidency without the accountability of holding it.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the U.S. launched strikes against Iran for the sixth consecutive day — targeting air defenses, rocket and drone facilities, and ports, with reports of 35 killed and 300 wounded in Iran, and a blockade-running ship disabled after repeated warnings. Then President Trump fired a newly appointed federal prosecutor in Seattle less than an hour into his first day on the job — a position filled by federal judges after Democrat Senate obstruction left the slot unconfirmed for more than 120 days. And a former Marine and congressional candidate in Florida was arrested for posting videos to social media calling for the murder of President Trump, describing him as the Antichrist, and advising what weapons and shooting patterns should be used — the latest of more than 20 documented assassination plots against the president, by far the most in American history.

We also cover the Trump administration restoring the public charge rule — requiring that applicants for lawful permanent residence demonstrate they can support themselves without depending on government assistance. We explain why this was standard immigration practice throughout most of American history, why it is the policy of virtually every developed nation on earth, and why the most compassionate thing you can say to someone who wants to become an American is that we believe you can make it here on your own.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville responds to a podcast host who said she doesn't trust any mother who wants to be with her children all day — and that homeschooling is weird. Teri's answer is simple and devastating: children are not a burden. They are a reward from God, an inheritance, arrows that parents are called to form and launch into the world for impact. The proof showed up at a stoplight on the way to the studio — Psalm 127, in a bumper sticker, on a car Teri had never seen before, minutes before a segment she didn't know she'd be having. She calls it a God thing. We do too.

We dig deep into Senator Elissa Slotkin's remarks at a Michigan town hall — where she explained her opposition to the SAVE Act by saying it would make it impossible for any Democrat to win any election anywhere. We play the clip. We let her words sit. And we point out that if requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is what makes Democrats lose elections, Senator Slotkin has just told you everything you need to know about who has been voting in Democratic primaries. The SAVE Act doesn't prevent anyone who is legally entitled to vote from voting. It just makes sure people who aren't legally entitled to vote don't get to cancel out the votes of those who are.

We also cover Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego and reports that he had relationships with multiple congressional staffers before his marriage — and use it to return to the core principle that power causes brain damage. The part of the brain that processes empathy is measurably suppressed in people who accumulate power and believe they deserve it. The only people largely immune to this effect are those who genuinely believe they don't deserve the power they have. Public office is a public trust — and the people underneath you in that office are not perks of the position.

We also cover a White House teleprompter technician who allegedly fed Trump's speech content into prediction markets before the speeches were delivered — trading on insider access to profit from words she was trusted to keep confidential. Every position of trust comes with an obligation of restraint. Some people just haven't figured that out yet.

For our Bright Spot, the New York Times ran a piece headlined Mom, Dad, I Want to Be a Welder — following young Americans in their twenties who had the grades for college, chose trade school instead, and are thriving. Trade school enrollment is up nearly 20% since 2020. Starting salaries for skilled tradespeople now beat many college-educated entry-level positions. And a 23-year-old welder from Arkansas named LaDonna Glass said it best — she felt like if she didn't go to college she would be a failure. She isn't. We close with Earl Nightingale's definition of success — the progressive realization of a worthy goal — and note that success begins the moment you commit to something worthy of your time, your talents, and your character.

And we close with a 2007 photograph taken at a Barcelona charity raffle — a baby boy named Lamin Yamal posing with a young Argentine footballer named Lionel Messi. Eighteen years later, Lamin Yamal is on the Spanish World Cup team and Messi is considered the greatest of all time — and the two people in that photo are about to face each other in the World Cup final. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 15, 2026.

We open with the biggest election integrity news in years — the House passed the SAVE Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, 217 to 209, with Speaker Mike Johnson delivering exactly what he promised us two weeks ago when he sat down with American Ground Radio. We explain what the SAVE Act actually does — and what it doesn't. It doesn't change who is eligible to vote. It doesn't alter the Constitution. It simply requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. We point out that we verify identity to board a plane, open a bank account, and buy a beer — and that the only people who benefit from not verifying citizenship at voter registration are people who aren't citizens. We also note that Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin's claim that no Democrat will ever win again if the SAVE Act passes raises an obvious question about how many non-citizens have been voting for her party. The bill now goes to the Senate, where John Thune needs to do his job — or be voted out at the first opportunity.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch testified before the Senate in his confirmation hearing — telling senators that his client is not the president but the American people, while more than 1,200 former DOJ employees signed a letter opposing his confirmation, which may be the best endorsement he could have received. Then the House passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent year-round — meaning darker mornings in winter and lighter evenings, with states currently on permanent standard time allowed to stay there. And Senate Democrats boycotted a hearing on government fraud, with only one Democrat showing up before leaving after his opening statement — even as investigative journalists Nick Shirley, James O'Keefe, and Dylan Heder-Gaudette presented documented findings on billions in fraudulent benefits claims. As Nick Shirley said, no dollar says Republican or Democrat on it.

We also tackle the question of whether a New Hampshire state representative can drive 102 miles per hour on her way to the legislature and claim constitutional immunity from arrest under a provision dating back to the era of kings arresting parliamentarians on their way to inconvenient votes. We acknowledge the historical purpose of the law. We reject the application of it to someone who simply didn't plan her schedule well enough. Rules for thee but not for me is not a constitutional principle — and if you don't care about the safety of the people on the road, why would you care about the safety of the people you represent?

Our American Mama Teri Netterville weighs in on the Emmy nominations — and the conversation becomes a broader indictment of an awards system that has completely lost touch with what Americans are actually watching. Greg Gutfeld hosts the number one late night show in the country. Not nominated. Taylor Sheridan has produced Yellowstone, Landman, 1923, and The Madison — all massive hits with critics and audiences alike. Not nominated. Meghan Markle's show As Ever received a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, was called the sweet spot between irrelevant and intolerable by the Times of London, and was canceled. Emmy nominated. The awards don't reflect excellence anymore. They reflect ideology.

In our Digging Deep segment, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll announced that the Army has already met its 2026 recruiting goals — with 61,500 new recruits — eight and a half months before the year ends. Compare that to 2022, when the military missed its goals by 25%, and 2023, when it missed by 10%. Nothing changed except the administration and with it the clarity of purpose. We play Simon Sinek's story about a Marine recruiter who told a high school auditorium full of teenagers that not a single one of them was good enough to be a Marine — and walked out with the longest line of any recruiter in the room. People don't want to be told service is easy. They want to be challenged to be worthy of it. Trump and Hegseth figured that out. The numbers prove it.

We also cover France's assisted suicide legislation — which has passed the lower house and would allow physicians and nurses to end the lives of patients who cannot do so themselves. The Catholic Church in France has threatened excommunication for any legislator who votes for it, and Pope Francis personally asked Macron not to sign it. We make the pro-life case plainly — compassion means walking with those who suffer, not eliminating the one who is suffering. A society's worth is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable, not by how conveniently it removes them.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has now threatened to shut down all Middle Eastern oil exports if Iran cannot export its own — using energy as a weapon exactly as both Iran and Iraq did during the 1980s war. We note that this is exactly why the Iraq oil pipeline deal through Turkey matters, why the Strait of Hormuz matters, and why at some point the president may have to say what needs to be said about ground troops.

For our Bright Spot, a Spanish conservation group called El Burrito Feliz — the Happy Little Donkey — has deployed 18 donkeys around Doñana National Park on Spain's Atlantic coast, an area with the same fire-prone Mediterranean climate as Southern California. Since the donkeys were introduced, there has not been a single wildfire in the park in nine years. The donkeys eat the dry scrub and tall grasses that fuel fires, reach terrain that vehicles cannot, and cost a fraction of what California spends on fire suppression after the fact. We suggest California try it. What have they got to lose?

And we close with Jenny Stepien, who walked down the aisle on her wedding day wishing her father could be there. Her father Michael had passed away ten years earlier — but he was an organ donor, and his heart had saved the life of a man named Tom Thomas, who became Jenny's pen pal out of gratitude. On her wedding day, Tom was there in person for the first time — to walk her down the aisle in her father's place. At the end of the aisle, Jenny placed her hand on Tom's chest and felt her father's heart beating one more time, just before she said I do. 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!

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You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 14, 2026.

We open with the Democratic Socialists of America's national co-chair going on record calling for the abolition of the United States Senate — and we explain why this isn't a fringe idea anymore. The DSA wants to replace the Senate, the presidency, and the Supreme Court with a single legislative body allocated purely by population, rename it the People's Bureau, and hand it public ownership of the nation's largest corporations. We walk through what that actually means — that seven or eight major cities could effectively govern the entire country, that the constitutional protections for smaller states would vanish, and that the structure they're proposing is the same one that produced the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. We also note that 51% of the DSA's National Policy Committee openly identifies with communism, Marxism, or Marxist-Leninism — not according to conservative critics, but according to a report cited by the former Democratic chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. The Democratic Party needs to decide whether it is going to continue letting these people run under its banner.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, President Trump formally notified Congress that hostilities with Iran have resumed — opening a new 60-day window under the War Powers Act after Iran repeatedly violated the ceasefire and continued attacking civilian shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Then inflation dropped from 4.2% to 3.5% last month — the largest single-month decrease in four years — driven largely by falling gas prices during the ceasefire, with core inflation down to 2.6%. And Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified jointly before Congress requesting increased security funding — with Barrett revealing that six weeks ago her teenage son opened the front door to find their street filled with police cars responding to a swatting attack on their home.

We also weigh in on President Trump's signature appearing on the new $100 bill as part of America's 250th anniversary commemoration — and we have a genuine disagreement about it. It's a milestone that comes once in a nation's history and deserves recognition. But putting a sitting president's name on currency in circulation is outside American tradition, starts to look like the kind of thing emperors and monarchs do, and gives his critics an easy target that's hard to defend.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville makes the case that moms are still better matchmakers than any dating app ever invented — and backs it up with evidence. Three couples she personally set up are now married, including her own daughter Summer and Louisiana Tech baseball captain Phillip Matulia, whom Teri identified as the right match before her daughter was even willing to consider it. She also shares the story of Andrea Swift — Taylor's mother — who heard that Travis Kelce loves his mother, said ding ding ding, and the rest is history. Terry's conclusion: we know our children. Apps know your data. There's a difference.

In our Digging Deep segment, a Fort Worth police officer threatened street preachers Richard Pankoski and David Grisham with disorderly conduct citations at a Pride parade — telling them directly that if someone is offended by their talking, that constitutes a problem warranting a citation. We explain why this is not a close constitutional question. The First Amendment does not exist to protect popular speech. It exists precisely to protect the kind of speech that offends people. The Fort Worth police chief acknowledged the officers were wrong — but we push back on his framing. They weren't wrong in the manner they addressed it. They were wrong to address it at all. Religious speech enjoys the same constitutional protection as secular speech. If marchers get to publicly celebrate what scripture calls sin, preachers get to publicly call it sin.

We then turn to Zoran Mamdani's New York City — where Manhattan's average one-bedroom rent has hit an all-time high of nearly $5,500 a month and Brooklyn is setting its own records, with critics calling the housing situation DEFCON 1. We connect it directly to Mamdani's rent freeze threats, which gave every landlord in the city a powerful incentive to raise rents before the freeze could take effect, and to congestion pricing, which is now making it financially attractive to live inside Manhattan rather than commute — driving up rents from the demand side. The left created this crisis with its own policies and is now running on those same policies as the solution.

For our Bright Spot, President Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced that U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by September 30th — ending a 23-year military presence that peaked at 170,000 troops and is now down to roughly 2,000. We also cover Iraq signing new oil deals with Chevron and other American companies to build pipelines running from Iraq through Turkey to Europe — bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely — which would permanently reduce Iranian leverage over global energy markets.

And we close with 28-year-old Rishi Sharma, who at 18 became curious about World War II, interviewed one veteran, then another, then another, until curiosity became an obsession — and he has now spent every single day of the last ten years interviewing veterans of the Greatest Generation, preserving 3,000 firsthand accounts of American history on hard drives and SD cards before those voices are gone forever. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 13, 2026.

We open with a story New York City's leadership refuses to learn from — a new report showing the city's share of America's million-dollar earners collapsed from 12.7% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2022, dropping New York from second to fourth in the national rankings as California, Florida, and Texas all dramatically grew their millionaire populations. We explain the core economic truth the left keeps getting wrong — affordability and willingness are two entirely different questions. Wealthy residents can afford to pay more. They are simply not willing to. And unlike ordinary citizens, they have the means to act on that decision immediately. When New York voters hired Zoran Mamdani to demand even more from the people already leaving, they didn't change the math. They accelerated it.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, Senator Lindsey Graham passed away suddenly over the weekend from an aortic dissection — a tear in the aorta that is often fatal before help can arrive. President Trump ordered flags lowered to half-staff and posted a tribute calling Graham a dear friend and a truly great man. Then South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster named Graham's sister, Darlene Graham Nord, to fill the remainder of his Senate term — with a special Republican primary scheduled for August 11th to select the party's nominee for the fall race. And the U.S. and Iran exchanged another round of fire over the weekend, with Iran firing missiles and drones at U.S. bases across the Middle East and the U.S. responding with strikes on Iranian military installations — including the first-ever use of unmanned naval drones against an Iranian port used to repair submarines.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville reflects on the life of Lindsey Graham — and what she didn't know about him until he was gone. That his mother died at 53, his father sixteen months later, and that a 22-year-old Lindsey Graham adopted his 13-year-old sister so she could receive military benefits. That the same man who was Trump's fiercest critic in the first term became one of his closest allies and friends. That Democrats who disagreed with him on nearly everything counted him as a genuine friend. And that his finest hour may have been the Kavanaugh hearings — when Graham stood up among colleagues he called friends and said plainly what millions of Americans were thinking: what you are doing to this man is wrong.

We also cover an 84-year-old Florida man suing Waffle House because a sign advertising their strawberry shortcake waffle caught his attention while he was walking and he tripped over a curb. We wish him a full recovery. We also note that attracting attention is the entire point of advertising, that curbs have been stationary obstacles since the invention of sidewalks, and that if noticing something relieves you of the obligation to watch where you're going, America is going to need an attorney on every corner. Some of them will have billboards.

In our Digging Deep segment, CNBC released its annual ranking of the worst states to live in — and all ten are red states, every single one of which gained population from other states in 2024. Texas led the country with 72,000 net new residents. Tennessee gained 36,000. Oklahoma gained 34,000. Meanwhile, CNBC's ten best states include Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts — half of which are losing population to other states, with New Jersey alone shedding 64,000 residents in 2024. We examine CNBC's methodology — which rewards states for high minimum wages, mandatory union participation, gender ideology in law, abortion access, and no voter ID requirements — and conclude that CNBC has produced not a quality of life ranking but a Democratic National Committee platform checklist. The American people are voting with their feet, and the scoreboard is not close.

We also cover ICE's latest weekend sweep — dozens of arrests including individuals convicted of murder, manslaughter, child sexual abuse, and drug trafficking — and ask the only question that matters: how is any reasonable person opposed to removing violent criminal offenders from the country? The answer, we conclude, is that the people most loudly opposed are not being reasonable. They are making an emotional leap to an accusation nobody actually made.

For our Bright Spot, a new study projects that a one-gigawatt data center campus in northwest Indiana would generate $16.1 billion in regional economic output over 20 years, support nearly 15,000 construction jobs, and create $176 million in annual earnings once operational. We connect it to the Meta data center being built in northeast Louisiana — not yet complete, but already doubling teacher salaries in the surrounding community purely from tax revenue. Data centers are the railroads of the 21st century. If your community gets one, you are in tall cotton.

President Trump is also planning a direct address to the American people on Thursday night about Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and the safety of global shipping — because in an era of constant rumor and social media speculation, there is no substitute for the president going directly to the people and telling them what's what.

And we close with four-year-old Roman Butzlaff, who really wanted a friend. His family had split up, his grandparents were far away, and his new neighborhood didn't have many kids. So every morning he went outside, sat in a chair in the front yard, and waved at everyone who walked by. One neighbor crossed the street to introduce himself. Then another came. Then another. Before long, Roman had turned a street full of strangers into a community — and they came to his birthday parties, his soccer games, and his preschool open house. People like connecting. At a human level, not just behind a screen. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 10, 2026.

We open with a Senate map conversation nobody on the left wants to have — Democrats need to win every single toss-up race in November to take control of the chamber, while Republicans need only one. We walk through the Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball projections, the four toss-up races that will decide everything — Alaska, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina — and why Republican overconfidence is still premature even with the structural advantage. We also explain why Graham Plattner's implosion in Maine may not be the gift Republicans assumed it was, why Roy Cooper is very likely to pick up North Carolina, and why Ken Paxton is making a race in Texas far closer than it has any business being. 

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, President Trump refused to sign the bipartisan housing bill — saying he won't put pen to paper until Congress passes the SAVE Act — but the bill will become law without his signature anyway, and House Republicans plan to celebrate its passage regardless. Then Trump fired the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, citing the Seila Law decision as precedent and issuing a statement that the president reserves the right to remove individuals not fully aligned with the task of securing America's elections. And eight men from across the country — Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri, Washington, California, and West Virginia — have been indicted for plotting a drone and sniper attack on the UFC fight at the White House lawn, with all eight now arrested and facing life in prison.

We also cover Joy Behar warning that President Trump is practically destroying democracy — and we note that the one place in America where a democratic election result was genuinely made null and void was the 2024 Democratic presidential primary, where Kamala Harris never won a single vote outside the convention floor. The Democrat Party is the party of projection. Whatever they accuse you of doing, they have already done.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson answer a listener question about Type 1 and Type 2 fun — and the conversation becomes a beautiful tribute to feral childhood. Type 1 fun is a roller coaster — thrilling in the moment, forgotten by morning. Type 2 fun is hiking in sleet, throwing rocks at alligators on the bayou, going off into the woods alone for hours while your parents had absolutely no idea where you were. The kind of fun that shapes you, scares you, and becomes the story you're still telling at 50. Teri and Kimberly worry that today's children — tracked by phones, sheltered from consequence, raised on Dateline — are growing up on Type 1 fun and missing the Type 2 experiences that built the people they became.

We dig deep into California's 2022 decision to decriminalize loitering with intent to commit prostitution — signed by Governor Newsom on the grounds that 56% of those arrested were Black women, making it, in his telling, a racist law. The results, documented by City Journal and investigative journalist Abigail Schreier, are exactly what common sense predicted. Prostitution spiked immediately. Human trafficking followed. LAPD officers at the 77th Street Station rescued 123 children in 2024 — nearly eight times the number rescued in 2022, the year before the law took effect. Police now report seeing 14-year-old girls in G-strings on Los Angeles streets and having no legal authority to intervene. We make the case plainly: the left is not trying to reduce crime. It is trying to reduce the number of people arrested for crime. Those are not the same thing — and the difference is being paid for by the most vulnerable people on the streets.

We also revisit a 1950 speech by Joseph McCarthy — and note that whatever his excesses, his core distinction holds up: there have always been two kinds of Democrats, the millions of loyal Americans who vote the ticket and want safe neighborhoods and stable jobs, and a small activist class that has been dragging the party toward something that looks less like democratic socialism and more like the thing McCarthy was warning about. The question in 2026 is whether that activist class is still the minority.

Then it's Fake News Friday — including a California HOA fining residents for flying the American flag, activists pushing schools to teach Black English and girl math, Adam Sandler officiating Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding, a BB gun attack on a mosque that turned out to be carried out by a Muslim man, Iran threatening to kill President Trump at Khomeini's funeral, a new Broadway musical called Dolly about Dolly Parton, and CNN airing a quote from a fake congressman who runs a parody account. Justin Trudeau is now a backup dancer in a Katy Perry video. Spoilet Alert: that one's real.

For our Bright Spot, weekly unemployment claims came in at 215,000 — with the January through July average of 213,000 representing the lowest sustained jobless claim numbers since 1968 and 1969, when the country had a third fewer people and the Vietnam draft was pulling hundreds of thousands of men out of the civilian workforce. We call it what it is — a labor market that is outperforming history in a country that was told it couldn't.

And we close with words of wisdom on patriotism — from Calvin Coolidge, Edward Abbey, Adlai Stevenson, and Charles de Gaulle. You've got to love your country enough to tell the truth about it, defend it when it's right, and fight to make it better. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 9, 2026.

We open with Mayor Zoran Mamdani's map of immigrant neighborhoods in New York City — and a glaring omission that Louis takes personally. Little Italy isn't on it. Neither are the Irish neighborhoods or the Jewish neighborhoods. What is on it? Little Palestine, Little Pakistan, Little Odessa, and 27 other enclaves — a deliberate cartography of division that tells certain communities where they belong and erases the immigrant story that built New York in the first place. We make the distinction between a melting pot — where you bring your culture and become American — and a mixing bowl, where a city planner plants a flag and tells you to stay in your lane. Put Little Italy on the map. Put the whole beautiful, messy, glorious immigration story on the map. That is New York. That is America.

In our Top 3 Things You need to Know, fresh explosions hit southern Iran — but CENTCOM says the U.S. was not behind them, and Israel said the same, as Iranians buried their former Ayatollah Khomeini for the first time since his death in March, having been too afraid to hold the funeral until now. Then Graham Plattner dropped out of the Maine Senate race after a fourth woman came forward with sexual assault allegations — with the Maine Democratic Party now scrambling to name a replacement by June 27th, having defended Plattner right up until the moment the polls shifted against him. The Democrats didn't discover morality. They discovered math. And an illegal alien from Slovakia was arrested in New Jersey for registering to vote and casting a ballot in the 2022 elections — proof once again that the thing that never happens keeps happening, and that the Save America Act cannot wait.

We also cover Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum threatening legal action against the United States after ICE officers shot a Mexican national who allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon against federal agents in Houston. We have a suggestion for President Sheinbaum — if she is genuinely concerned about how Mexican citizens are being treated during U.S. immigration enforcement operations, she could simply tell them to go home.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson answer the listener question of why it's so hard to find couple friends — and the answer turns out to be equal parts logistics, life seasons, and the quiet devastation of watching a couple you love fall apart. Teri and Kimberly talk about the friends they found through their children's sports, the couples who drifted away when the games ended, the dream scenario of children who marry each other's best friends' children, and the husband-centric theory of male friendship — guys don't have friends, they have wives, and their wives have friends, and those friends have husbands.

We enter week four of the Mitch McConnell hospital saga — still no quotes, still no specifics, still no clarity on why he's there or what his condition actually is. We contrast this with John Fetterman, who disclosed his stroke within 48 hours of it happening and his clinical depression diagnosis the day after checking himself into Walter Reed — even though depression was far more politically embarrassing than a stroke. The public doesn't need every medical detail. It needs to know which box to put its senator in. Four weeks in, we still don't know.

In our Digging Deep segment, a Real Clear Investigations report compares U.S. crime rates to Canada and Australia using victimization surveys rather than police reports — and the results demolish the international media's narrative. Overall violent crime in Canada is 295% higher than in the U.S. In Australia, assaults are 227% higher and rape is 355% higher. The reason U.S. crime statistics look worse is that Americans are far more likely to call the police when they become victims. We make the case that the anti-American crime narrative isn't about journalism — it's about political control. If Canadians and Australians found out they would be safer with guns, their governments would have a much harder time keeping them disarmed.

We also note that the conspiracy theories surrounding Charlie Kirk's assassination appear to be collapsing under the weight of Tyler Robinson's own confessions — three separate admissions that he planned and carried out the murder deliberately over a period of weeks. We say what needs to be said about the people who spent the last ten months spinning elaborate alternative theories: if you ever thought Candace Owens was onto something, you need a new way to filter your news sources.

For our Bright Spot, John Fetterman's transparency about his own medical crises — stroke disclosed in 48 hours, depression disclosed the day after hospitalization — stands as a model of what elected officials owe the people they serve. We don't have to agree with his politics to recognize that walking in integrity looks exactly like that.

And we close with words of wisdom on honesty — from Thomas Jefferson, William Shakespeare, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Benjamin Franklin, and Billy Joel. Honesty is such a lonely word. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 7, 2026.

We open with a story out of Germany that hits uncomfortably close to home — the German defense minister is publicly discussing whether a conservative party that finishes first in national polling should be denied access to classified information if it wins power. We explain why this isn't just a European problem: it's exactly what James Clapper attempted with Donald Trump in 2016, what the FBI did to the Tea Party under Obama, and what the DOJ did to pro-life Catholics under Biden. When a government starts treating political opponents as security threats, the next steps — denied clearances, restricted briefings, platform pressure, donor investigations — become easier every time. Germany is showing us where that road ends. We'd prefer not to follow.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, President Trump declared the ceasefire over after Iran attacked three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz — launching a second night of U.S. strikes on Iranian air defenses, fast boats, and missile launchers, and saying of negotiations, they're liars, they're cheats, they're sick people. Then Kentucky's Democratic Governor Andy Beshear formally demanded transparency from Senator Mitch McConnell's office about his medical condition — noting that while several Republican colleagues claim to have spoken with him at length, not one of them has quoted a single word he actually said. And a 51-year-old Australian citizen living in Franklinton, Louisiana was arrested and charged by the DOJ for registering to vote by falsely claiming American citizenship and casting ballots in both 2022 and 2024 — which is exactly why the Save America Act exists and exactly why the Senate needs to pass it.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson get into the financial realities facing young families today — the near impossibility of one parent staying home, the role grandparents and extended family play in filling the gap, and why the bonds forged through that kind of mutual help are often the strongest ones families have. Teri shares how she told her daughter-in-law directly that private school for the grandchildren is something she and her husband are prepared to help with — because that's what family does when it can.

We dig into the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling — and the Texas hospital advertising birth packages in Mexico for $4,000 natural or $5,500 for a C-section, with the implied promise that the baby goes home as an American citizen. Governor Greg Abbott has ordered an immediate investigation of Mission Regional Medical Center. We also cover Chinese birth tourism to American Samoa — where more Chinese babies are now born than American babies — with those children raised under the Communist Party before returning to the United States as adult citizens with full legal access. We make the case that the 14th Amendment's original meaning of subject to the jurisdiction thereof meant complete political allegiance — not one foot on American soil — and that Congress must act before birth tourism becomes the dominant business model along our southern border.

We then cover Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Plattner — who still hasn't dropped out as of broadcast but faces a Monday deadline — and the stunning reversal from a Democratic Party that was fully behind him while he was ahead in the polls and is now trying to deny him any role in choosing his replacement. We note that the only Democrat who called Plattner out while he was still leading was John Fetterman — who this week demanded that every Democrat who championed Plattner publicly apologize to the voters of Maine. A party willing to undo its own nomination process when the polls turn is a party that has made clear the democratic process is a means to an end, not a principle.

For our Bright Spot, firearms manufacturer CMMG has announced it will only sell to state and local government agencies the same configurations it is allowed to sell to that state's citizens. If a state bans AR-15 style rifles for civilians, CMMG will not sell AR-15 style rifles to that state's law enforcement. Their statement says it plainly — we do not have two classes of citizenry in this country. We are all subject to the Constitution. A government that doesn't trust its citizens cannot be trusted by its citizens. We call it exactly what it is — a principled stand worth celebrating and worth other manufacturers following.

And we close with Jordan Rosenberg, who married Max Creamer this summer after knowing him for about ten years. At the wedding reception, Jordan's parents played a home video of four-year-old Jordan describing her future wedding — naming the friends who would be there, all of whom were present as adults. And when asked who her husband would be, four-year-old Jordan said the name Max. She spoke it into existence. 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 for privacy information.

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for July 7, 2026.

We open with a story that's more than just an economic migration — it's a cultural sorting happening across America in real time. Conservatives are leaving blue states for red states chasing economic freedom, while nonprofits in Seattle are reporting they've helped more than 1,500 transgender people relocate there since the 2024 election — more than 20 times the number they helped before it. We make the distinction: conservatives making the move don't need charities to pay for it, they just do it. And we connect both migrations to the same underlying truth — people are voting with their feet, and they're moving toward communities that reflect how they want to live and away from places that make them feel legally, culturally, or politically out of place.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the U.S. relaunched strikes against Iran after Iran attacked three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz — with a Pentagon spokesperson telling CNN simply, this is punishment, it won't be over for a bit. Iran then had the audacity to call the reimposition of oil sanctions a violation of the ceasefire agreement — the same ceasefire they violated by setting three ships on fire. Then former Tallahassee mayor and 2018 Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum — who nearly beat Ron DeSantis by less than half a point — was arrested in Daphne, Alabama after being spotted driving erratically, with officers finding marijuana and methamphetamine in his vehicle. And the former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi pled guilty to bribery — this from a mayor who presided over a city that went without water for at least one full month every year of his tenure.

We also address Marjorie Taylor Greene's suggestion that the multiple sexual assault allegations against Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Plattner — the man with the Nazi SS tattoo — might be a political hit job. We make the distinction between the timing of Politico's publication, which may have been orchestrated around the July 13th ballot deadline, and the underlying allegations themselves, which were there long before anyone ran a story. Not every damaging allegation is a political hit job. Sometimes people just do bad things.

Our American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson share what liberal friends actually say about 2028 when nobody's performing for a crowd. Teri's Danish-American friend in Wyoming — who can't stand Trump — says when asked who she'd want as next president, the answer wasn't AOC, wasn't Gavin Newsom, and definitely wasn't Kamala Harris. It was Marco Rubio. And she says all her liberal friends feel the same way — presidential, articulate, someone who could actually bring people together. We discuss what a Trump-Vance-Rubio sequential presidency could mean historically, and compare it to Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe's consecutive terms that effectively ended the Federalist Party.

We discuss whether Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito should consider strategic retirements before President Trump leaves office to lock in conservative influence on the Supreme Court for the next four decades — and we make the case that while winning elections is the cleaner solution, two and a half years is not a long runway if something changes in November.

In our Digging Deep segment, we run through a YouGov poll on flag favorability by party — and the results are genuinely stunning. For Republicans, the American flag comes in at a net positive of 97%, followed by the Betsy Ross flag, the Trump flag, the thin blue line flag, and the Israeli flag. For Democrats, the most popular flag is the Black Lives Matter flag at plus 69% — beating the American flag at plus 62%. Democrats also rate the flags of Ukraine and Mexico more favorably than the Betsy Ross flag — the very first symbol of this nation. We connect it to Sunny Hostin's claim that seeing an American flag in a neighborhood makes her feel unsafe — and to the FEMA report that Biden administration workers were instructed to skip homes flying American flags because they were likely Trump supporters.

We also cover an ICE officer who shot and killed an illegal alien in Houston who allegedly used his vehicle as a weapon against federal agents during a targeted enforcement operation — and we make the only point that needs to be made: if you try to run over a law enforcement officer with a two-ton vehicle, the officer has the right to defend his life. The left will ask whether the officer should have been there in the first place. They won't ask whether the illegal alien should have been here in the first place.

For our Bright Spot, a left-leaning author in a left-leaning publication — Washington Monthly — writes that despite his deep opposition to Donald Trump, he is still hopeful about America because of how far the country has come since the Bicentennial in 1976. Life expectancy is up six and a half years. Heart disease deaths are down nearly 60%. Cancer deaths are down more than a third. The air is dramatically cleaner. The Chicago River — which hospitalized his sister after she fell in during 1972 — now has people swimming in it on the Fourth of July. Car crash fatalities have been cut in half. Even the murder rate is down 50% over 50 years. We take it as a bright spot — not because we needed to be convinced, but because a leftist went looking for objective evidence and found it anyway.

And we close with Andres Robles, who turned eight years old and celebrated at Disneyland — where he was greeted at the train platform on Main Street USA as the one billionth visitor to enter the park since it opened on July 17th, 1955. His family unveiled an updated sign reading population one billion and received a VIP tour. 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 for privacy information.