We've all seen the headlines, and most of us have felt the reality: America is in the grip of a mental health crisis. From record rates of depression and anxiety to skyrocketing substance abuse and alarming suicide statistics, it's clear we have a problem on our hands that runs deeper than economics or politics. While medicine and therapy play a crucial role, they have not stemmed the tide. Something fundamental is missing from our cultural prescription–something deeper, older, and critically important: hope. But not just any hope. Not vague optimism or momentary relief. What we lack is a profound, grounded, and lasting sense of purpose and meaning–a kind of hope that can anchor a human being even in the worst of storms. Diagnosing the Crisis: America's Descent into Despair To understand the cure, we must first understand the illness. The facts are stark: According to the CDC, depression and anxiety disorders now affect nearly 1 in 5 Americans annually, a figure that has g...

One of the fiercest debates occurring on Capitol Hill is whether to permanently extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction. This one policy could be the iceberg that sinks the “One Big Beautiful Bill”. The anti-SALT representation will almost certainly cave in the end, permitting a larger deduction for high-tax state residents. In fairness, this is probably the wiser political maneuver. However, sound politics doesn’t always translate to sound policy, and in this scenario, the SALT deduction is not a good policy. The central argument for the SALT deduction is that income should not be “double-taxed”. However, the principle of “double taxation”, like double jeopardy, is meant to apply to the same governing body. For example, the double-tax argument would be used to critique the federal government taxing your ordinary income and then taxing your contributions to an investment account. This is the rationale for why we do not tax cost basis. It is ...

 Most Americans are caught between the shouting. Politics today feels like two angry preachers arguing over a bullhorn while everyone else is just trying to pick up their groceries and get home to their families. On one side, you've got radicals who think the entire system should be torn down and rebuilt in their image. On the other, folks who think compromise is a sin and every opponent is the enemy. But here's the truth: real life doesn't happen in the extremes. It happens in the early morning shift, in the school pickup line, in church pews and mechanic shops–places where people don't have time for utopias, just honest work and a bit of peace. The folks I've met driving trucks through big cities and small towns aren't asking for much. Safe streets. Good schools. Leaders who don't lie straight to their faces. They don't want to defund the police or install a theocracy. They just want America to work again. And it's about time somebody spoke up for ...

 I wasn't born in New York. I grew up west of Fort Worth, in a town where the cattle outnumber the folks and nobody locks their truck at the gas station. But I've hauled freight through all five boroughs more times than I can count. I've seen the skyline at 3 a.m., rolling across the George Washington Bridge. I've seen the best and worst of that city up close. And I'm telling you–it's worth saving. This November, New Yorkers have a choice. And if I lived there, I'd be voting for Eric Adams.

  President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have an incredible opportunity to redirect our national trajectory towards more sustainable financial waters, while providing tremendous relief to the American public. Unfortunately, it appears that the Congress will prioritize targeted policy gimmicks over broad-based relief for families. In fairness to the Republican majority, much of the playbook was set by President Donald Trump during his 2024 reelection campaign. The President floated popular slogans like “No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” to the applause of many voters. While these proposals may have been good politicking, they are not good policy. The beauty of President Donald Trump’s key legislative victory during his first term, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is that it greatly simplified the tax filing process for the American people by shifting more households towards the standard deduction in lieu of itemized claims. Furthermore, it emphasized broad reducti...

Lately, it feels like the ground beneath our feet is shifting. Every time we open a news app, scroll through social media, or hear someone talk about "what really happened," we're hit with a wave of conflicting stories, half-truths, and now–thanks to AI–convincing fabrications that didn't even happen. A photo can go viral and shake the world before anyone has a chance to verify it. A fake quote can shape a real-world debate. A video clip can be edited just enough to turn truth into theater.  And in the middle of it all, we're left wondering: What's really real anymore? For Christians, this isn't just a cultural crisis. It's a spiritual one. Because we're called not just to believe truth–but to live by it, speak it, and be known for it.

 In an era of skyrocketing food prices and growing concern over so-called "food deserts", New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has introduced a strikingly bold proposal: city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough of New York City. The idea, at first glance, appeals toa  certain intuitive sense of justice–public land, public money, and public access to food. But as history, economics, and pragmatic governance suggest, the reality is likely far more complex–and potentially dangerous for the very communities Mamdani aims to help.

 Earlier today, a former Democratic adviser named Dan Turrentine posted something unusually brave. In response to President Trump's successful strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, a high-stakes, high-risk, maneuver that reportedly crippled Iran's nuclear infrastructure without U.S. casualties, Turrentine didn't condemn it. He didn't launch into caveats or partisan disclaimers. He simply said: Why can't our Party just say it's great we achieved the objective and destroyed Iran's nuclear sites, God bless the soldiers who carried this out and made it home safely..." It's a sentence that shouldn't be remarkable. But in today's climate, it's almost revolutionary. Somewhere along the line, we became allergic to saying something worked if it came from the other side. We've trained ourselves to be so reactive, so ideologically conditioned, that even moments of clear national interest are filtered through tribal instinct. But foreign policy–e...

  In a world addicted to political spectacle, the most important solutions are often the quietest. The ones without slogans. Without enemies. Without applause lines. The ones designed not to win the war–but to keep the lights on. In the winter of 2021, a deep freeze plunged Texas into darkness. The state's grid collapsed under the weight of a storm it wasn't built to handle. Dozens died. Millions suffered. In the aftermath, politicians bickered, markets blamed weather, and voters were left with a hard truth: our energy infrastructure is dangerously fragile. That vulnerability isn't unique to Texas. It is national. And yet–three years later–almost nothing has changed.  Except, perhaps, a bill you've never heard of. The BIG WIRES Act (short for Building Integrated Grids With Inter-Regional Energy Supply) is a bipartisan proposal introduced in 2023. Its goal is simple: ensure that every U.S energy grid can transfer a minimum percentage of electricity across regions during ...

It is a strange thing to be born into a nation that both saves and sins. Stranger still to love it. Stranger still, perhaps, not to. In April of 1945, U.S. soldiers liberated Buchenwald. What they found—bodies stacked like cordwood, children too weak to stand—shattered the postwar illusion that history had been moving gradually toward progress. It was a revelation not just of evil, but of its capability to flourish in silence. The United States did not discover evil in Europe. But it confronted it. And more importantly, it resolved to restrain it—not through imperial dominion, but through the creation of institutions, alliances, and post-war norms built on ideas. That moment—when force was met with order, when liberty stared down nihilism—is one of many reasons I am proud to be an American. Because to be an American is not merely to occupy land within borders. It is to be formed by a proposition. And to be responsible for it.

 There is quiet exhaustion rippling through the heart of this country. It's an unspoken weariness not with politics itself, but with the performance of it. With the theatre. With the rage-for-hire class that makes headlines out of every disagreement and reduces citizenship to a team sport.  We are asked, relentlessly, to pick a side. But what if the side worth choosing isn't on the map? The political parties in America were once organizing tools. Today, they function more like identities complete with uniforms, slogans, and approved lists of enemies. And like all strong identities, they demand loyalty first and thoughtfulness last. Turn on the news: nuance is gone. Compromise is betrayal. Reflection is weakness. And moral conviction is measured not by depth, but by volume. We have replaced deliberation with combat. Our discourse is no longer about finding what's true or workable, but about proving the other side is dangerous, evil, or stupid. And in this binary battlefield,...