American Ground Radio

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. Stephen is taking some well-deserved time off, so Louis is flying solo today. This is the full show for September 14, 2026.

We open on the public charge fight, as New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and other left-wing city governments sue the Trump administration over the rule reimposed in July that makes legal immigrants less likely to secure green cards if they've used welfare benefits like subsidized health care, food stamps or public housing. Mayors Zohran Mamdani and Brandon Johnson argue immigrant families shouldn't have to choose between feeding their kids and protecting their status, but we make the case that America is really having two different conversations at once: whether we should help people who are struggling, and whom we should admit as permanent residents. Those aren't the same question, and asking whether someone can support himself isn't xenophobia — it's the whole reason we have an immigration system in the first place.

Then it's the Top 3 things you need to know: oil back above $100 with Brent settling near $106 a barrel, the 10-year Treasury yield briefly touching 5% for the first time since 2023, the biggest names in AI development suddenly urging everyone to slow down while AI stocks slide, and ICE arrests hitting record levels even as deportations fail to keep pace.

From there we get into outgoing Houston Democrat Al Green, who lost his May runoff and is spending his final weeks in Congress forcing yet another dead-on-arrival impeachment resolution against President Trump over ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Even his own party is grumbling about the timing, with Axios reporting Democratic lawmakers privately calling it a distraction heading into the midterms. We argue impeachment is one of the gravest constitutional remedies Congress possesses, not a button you mash every time you lose a policy argument — and voters are far more focused on kitchen table issues like the car note, the house note and affording a first home.

We also respond to former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and her comments about black women feeling conditioned to handle everything themselves, which she traces to a post-traumatic slave mentality. Before we run that line straight back to slavery, we look at what happened in between: in 1960, nearly a century after emancipation, Census data showed two-thirds of black children living with both parents, and less than twenty years later fewer than half did. The Great Society programs of the 1960s did enormous damage to the black nuclear family, and that history belongs in the conversation.

Next, a story that's both sad and necessary — twenty rabbis from twelve states traveling to Los Angeles for a five-day intensive security course sponsored by Magen Am USA, with 37 applicants for only 20 spots. The training covers firearm safety, situational awareness, de-escalation and knowing when not to use force. The real question isn't why rabbis are learning about firearms. It's why we've reached a point in this country where they believe they have to.

Then we break down the extraordinary weekend argument over artificial intelligence in plain English. President Trump says America is winning the AI race, China desperately wants us to slow down, and the only guardrails AI needs is a strong and smart president. On the other side stand the people actually building the technology — Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI — warning that we must slow the pace of capability improvement so safety can catch up. We explain recursive self-improvement using a car that builds a better car, and why the real worry isn't a chatbot growing legs and chasing you around the kitchen but systems doing complicated work faster than humans can monitor them.

We also take on the NFL's 11% ratings decline for the 2026 Patriots-Seahawks opener, which drew 25 million viewers — still enormous, but the lowest kickoff audience since 2022. Was it woke fatigue, the move from Thursday to Wednesday, Nielsen's new measurement methodology, or simple overextension across Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Thanksgiving Eve, Netflix and Peacock? We side with Jon Gruden on the league's record nine international games across seven countries and four continents: if you want to grow the game, grow it here. Football belongs to Friday nights in small towns, marching bands, homecoming and fathers throwing the ball with their sons.

For our Moment of Whoa, we head to the homeless encampment under the FDR Drive near 23rd Street in Manhattan, where cleaning one block on Monday just moves the problem three blocks over by Thursday. It isn't compassionate to leave a human being sleeping beside piles of garbage.

And we close with Words of Wisdom about a restless, distracted boy whose teacher saw no point in continuing his education — so his mother taught him herself. He went on to fail thousands of times searching for a filament that would burn long enough to make electric light practical, seeing information where everyone else saw failure. His name was Thomas Alva Edison.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 11, 2026. 

We start the show sounding the alarm on new findings from Anthropic that a China-based actor used its Claude AI model to help draft an anti-torpedo system specification for a Chinese defense manufacturer supplying the PLA Navy, and we talk through how AI is now being used to scrape public photos and data into targeting intelligence against U.S. military personnel and installations.

We move into our Top 3: President Trump marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with a ceremony at the Pentagon, the deportation of an ISIS sympathizer who plotted an Election Day mass shooting at a Texas polling place, and a Maryland synagogue winning a court injunction against a county ban on firearms in houses of worship.

For American Mamas, we're joined by Teri Netterville to talk about how this year's 9/11 anniversary hit differently, and we revisit the story of Todd Beamer's final phone call aboard Flight 93. 

We Dig Deep into new numbers on Gen Z and abortion, along with research linking shared last names in marriage to lower divorce rates, and we explain why we believe President Trump's strikes on Iran couldn't wait any longer. 

Then it's Fake News Friday, where we separate real headlines from fake ones, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani laughing on camera during the reading of 9/11 victims' names. 

We close with words of wisdom on 9/11 from George Pataki, George Bush, Sandy Dahl, and Newt Gingrich.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

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

We dig into President Trump’s proposed $5,000 “Trump dividend” and the bigger economic and political questions surrounding it. If the proposal became reality, what would it mean for federal spending, tariffs, the national debt, and the role of government in the economy? We debate whether sending money directly to Americans is sound economic policy—or simply another form of government spending—and ask whether the proposal creates an unexpected political dilemma for Democrats.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, we examine the latest legal twists surrounding Missouri’s congressional redistricting map, Democratic primary shakeups in Rhode Island, and new prison sentences in the Feeding Our Future welfare fraud case.

American Mamas Teri Netterville joins us as we look back one year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and asks how his life should be remembered. We discuss his faith, his commitment to engaging people with whom he disagreed, and the three questions he reportedly kept at the center of his daily life: How can I help someone today? How can I add value to the world today? How can I honor God today?

Then, we welcome Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz discusses his decision to leave the Democratic Party and become what he calls a “reluctant Republican,” as well as his new book, Why I Quit the Dems and So Should You. He explains how his political views have evolved, why he believes the Democratic Party has moved away from his views on issues including the economy and foreign policy, and why he still describes himself as a libertarian on many issues.

With the 25th anniversary of September 11 approaching, we also reflect on what Americans remember about that day—not only the attacks and the loss of nearly 3,000 lives, but the way ordinary Americans responded. We talk about the instinct to go home and be with family, the instinct to go to work and help, and the extraordinary sense of unity that emerged in the aftermath.

Our Bright Spot features Congressman Brandon Gill and his speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, followed by a discussion about remembering the work, sacrifice, ingenuity, and values that helped build the United States.

We close with a moving Moment of Whoa as 2,977 drones illuminate the New York City skyline in the shape of the World Trade Center towers—one for every person killed on September 11, 2001.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776.

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

We open with the Trump administration's proposed rule to exclude illegal aliens from the census when apportioning congressional seats. We dig into the constitutional debate over the 14th Amendment's "whole number of persons" language, work through a household-voting analogy, and ask who should actually count when it comes to political representation.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, we cover Iran firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and rising oil prices, the escalating trade war with Canada over alcohol, dairy, and auto tariffs, and the tangled fight over which congressional map Missouri will use this fall.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to answer a listener's question about letting kids climb trees, and we swap stories about the riskier playgrounds and looser parenting of our own childhoods.

We dig deep into why so few states mandate 9/11 education, walking through which states require it by law versus by curriculum standard, and why remembering "never forget" matters for a generation born after the attacks.

We also take on Texas Senate candidate James Talarico's walk-back of his past claims about gender and God, question Mitch McConnell's silence amid new scrutiny of his transparency, and find our bright spot in a New York Times story about AI displacing Kenyan essay-writers who'd been doing American college students' homework for pay.

We close with our Moment of Whoa on honesty and integrity, featuring quotes from A.R. Rahman, Warren Buffett, and Mother Teresa.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 8, 2026.

We open with the escalating trade standoff between the United States and Canada, working through the numbers behind Ottawa's tariffs on American goods, the political timing tied to upcoming provincial elections in Quebec and Alberta, and the case for why any "free trade" agreement ought to actually be free and reciprocal in both directions.

From there we run through our Top 3 things you need to know: the Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention getting underway in Dallas, a fresh wave of illegal voting charges spanning three states, and the Smithsonian's Lonnie Bunch III announcing his retirement after years of criticism over the institution's DEI framing of history.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to talk legacy, how families keep loved ones present after they're gone, and the way video, storytelling, and even social media reels have become a modern-day way of preserving memory. We also spend time on our culture's troubling habit of turning killers into celebrities while their victims fade into footnotes.

We dig deep on a new Elon Musk documentary premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the election-meddling allegations at its center, and a wilder side story involving an ex-girlfriend, a cryptic text, and "10,000 lasers in space." From there we turn to New York and Illinois, where religious orders are fighting state mandates that would force Catholic nuns to help fund abortions or participate in end-of-life conversations that conflict with their faith, and why we think that's a religious liberty problem far bigger than any one issue.

We also weigh in on the rhetoric surrounding Mamdani, Adam Schiff, and their associations, alongside Hochul's framing of division around the 9/11 anniversary, before pivoting to something a little more hopeful: Chris Rock publicly agreeing that the media pushes fake news, and what it means when someone crosses party lines to admit when the other side has a point.

Our Bright Spot this week is a personal one: American Ground Radio's ninth anniversary, grown from a single Shreveport, Louisiana station into fifty markets across the country, including morning drive in our nation's capital. We say thank you to our listeners, our supporters, and the American Mamas for making the journey with us.

And our Moment of Whoa goes to Aubrey Aldridge, a 22-year-old with Down syndrome who just became the world's first certified UPBEAT Bar fitness instructor, teaching her first class to sixty people.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 4, 2026. 

We open by digging into the August jobs report, weighing the surprise addition of 162,000 payroll jobs and steady 4.1% unemployment against the doom-and-gloom predictions that dominated headlines for months. We talk through the manufacturing and construction gains, wage growth versus inflation, and what it all means heading into the fall. From there we hit our Top 3 things you need to know: the jobs numbers rebound, Missouri's Supreme Court throwing the state's new congressional map into chaos just weeks before the election, and a bombshell inspector general report on former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer's conduct while in office. We also cover a GAO report revealing the Secret Service repeatedly ignored civilian drone incidents near the president going back to the Obama years, right up through Butler, Pennsylvania.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to tackle a listener question about whether women choosing to go childless will one day regret it, sparked by a viral post from a 36-year-old asking the internet that very thing. We follow that with a First Amendment conversation about the right to organize, even for ideas like socialism, and take a look at the growing wave of socialist conferences happening around the country.

We Dig Deep into a troubling story out of Virginia, where a pregnant mother studying for the bar was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor after letting her five-year-old walk two blocks to a pond in their gated community. We also break down a Wall Street Journal report on Senator John Fetterman being blasted by his own party in Pennsylvania.

It's Fake News Friday, where we run through headlines on Lake America, the Montreal Canadiens, the Strait of Hormuz, Senator Blumenthal's near-miss with a train, and more, letting listeners test their own real-news-versus-fake-news instincts. We close things out with a Moment of Whoa involving a duct-taped unruly airline passenger, and a heartwarming story about a liver transplant recipient marrying the brother of her donor two decades later.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 3, 2026.

We open by digging into Enos Cantor Freedom's federal lawsuit against the Chicago Sky, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, and the city of Chicago after he was escorted out of a WNBA game and banned from Wintrust Arena for wearing a shirt defining womanhood and cheering for the Indiana Fever. We walk through the video of his confrontation with Sky guard Natasha Cloud and debate whether he was singled out for his viewpoint rather than any actual rule violation, and what that means for his First Amendment claim.

From there we hit our Top 3 things you need to know: the Ninth Circuit allowing Idaho's abortion ban to take effect for now, ICE setting a new record with 51,000 detentions in August as three million illegal immigrants have left or been removed since President Trump returned to office, and a federal judge tossing the DOJ's lawsuit against California's law letting biological males compete in girls' sports.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to answer why 85-year-old actress Donna Mills has launched an OnlyFans page, which spins into a broader conversation about the platform, a politically outspoken creator monetizing her looks alongside her commentary, and the personal costs that can come with that kind of income.

We Dig Deep on two fronts: a Maine Supreme Court ruling that a mother cannot take her 12-year-old daughter to church without the father's consent amid the parents' custody dispute over religion, and a Columbia Journalism Review report on New York City Mayor Mamdani's office paying influencers with taxpayer money to spread city messaging on immigration and tenants' rights, which we argue crosses the line from public information into propaganda.

We also talk about North Carolina's Roy Cooper calling for healthcare over handcuffs for jailed offenders, and why we think that overlooks crime victims, before landing on a Bright Spot out of Pittsburgh, where a church is reporting a wave of young people, including hundreds of University of Pittsburgh students, coming forward for baptism. We close out with George Clooney warning about the rich and powerful while accepting a lifetime achievement award, and a father-son team in Michigan fixing cars for neighbors who can't afford repairs.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 2, 2026.

We open by taking on House Minority Whip Katherine Clark's claim that Americans don't care about the "socialism" label, and we push back hard, arguing that if the word were meaningless, Democrats wouldn't work so hard to distance themselves from it. We trace the line from Marx's Communist Manifesto to the Soviet Union's own self-description to Zohran Mamdani's push for government-run grocery stores in New York City, making the case that socialism and communism are one and the same, and that Americans' everyday worries about groceries, housing, and gas prices are really debates about capitalism versus government control.

In our Top 3, we cover the latest round of US strikes on Iran after Iranian forces threatened the Strait of Hormuz, the House passing a short-term spending bill that averts a government shutdown, and 80-year-old Senator Ed Markey's primary win over Congressman Seth Moulton in Massachusetts.

We also dig into a fresh YouGov poll finding that a small but growing share of Democrats believe the country focuses too much on 9/11, and we argue that number, however small, still matters because our enemies benefit whenever America grows complacent about that day.

American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson join us to talk about how wedding registries have changed, from china and crystal to Christmas trees and rugs, and how weddings themselves have ballooned into full productions driven by social media.

From there we look at Elon Musk's prediction of a billion humanoid robots within a decade and debate whether he's forecasting the future or selling it, before Digging Deep into a new Gallup poll showing a record 89% of Americans now believe government corruption is widespread, up ten points from just last year, and we connect that spike to COVID-era spending fraud and the DOGE investigations that followed.

We get a laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul quietly dropping the state's requirement that liquor license applicants disclose whether patrons will be dancing, and we hand out a Bright Spot to Speaker Mike Johnson for introducing a constitutional amendment that would lock the Supreme Court at nine justices, which leads us into a wish list of other amendments we'd like to see, from a balanced budget requirement to repealing the 16th and 17th Amendments.

We close by expressing our disgust that vandals defaced Dolly Parton's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame barely a week after her death, and we leave you with Words of Wisdom on the Constitution from Calvin Coolidge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Abraham Lincoln, and John Adams.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for September 1, 2026. 

We open by pushing back on the "black pill" defeatism creeping into GOP circles ahead of the midterms, weighing Speaker Mike Johnson's optimism and 55-city campaign push against the Cook Political Report's toss-up numbers, and why the redistricting fights of the last two years mean history alone won't decide who holds the House in 2026.

From there we run through the Top 3 things you need to know: nine more pharmaceutical companies signing onto Trump's most-favored-nation drug pricing plan, ICE's Operation Rotten Apple sweep that netted 2,100 arrests of criminal illegal aliens in New York City, and Florida's statewide ban on flock license-plate cameras over data privacy concerns.

We turn it over to our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, who take on a listener question about the viral clip of Ashley Judd and her conservative stepdad staying close despite being worlds apart politically, and why the media keeps pushing Americans to cut off family over disagreements instead of staying in relationship with the people they love.

Digging Deep, we cover Georgetown's newly updated 2026 National Firearm Survey, breaking down who actually owns guns in America, how often they're used defensively, and why the numbers undercut a lot of the usual narratives around AR-15s, high-capacity magazines, and who's arming themselves. We also touch on a Cedar Hill, Texas bank robbery stopped cold by an armed customer, Trump's push to rename American landmarks like the Gulf of America, and his Supreme Court appeal defending the administration's authority to remove transgender troops from military service.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 31, 2026. 

We open by digging into the Trump administration's crackdown on fraudulent commercial driving schools, walking through why English proficiency and real CDL training aren't bureaucratic red tape but a matter of public safety, and how the Biden-era rollback of licensing standards left blue states like New York, California, and Illinois with hundreds of noncompliant schools, thousands of unsafe drivers, and a real national security exposure tied to unaccountable 18-wheelers.

From there we run through the Top 3 things you need to know: a new U.S.-Venezuela oil deal aimed at cutting China out of the picture, U.S. military strikes on Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf tied to sea-mine activity, and the federal shutdown of over a hundred more commercial trucking schools tied to unlicensed, non-English-speaking drivers.

We touch on sports activism, from NFL end-zone messaging to Tennessee honoring Dolly Parton with a helmet sticker, before turning it over to our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, who take on a listener question about whether they'd write a child out of the will over socialism, plus a detour into trade schools, Mike Rowe, and the value of a good vocation.

Digging Deep, we cover a New York assistant attorney general's viral internal email accusing AG Letitia James's office of manufacturing a case against Trump, and what happened to him within an hour of hitting send. We also look at President Trump's push to lure Canadian businesses south of the border, the "Best and Brightest" push to recruit sharp, fast-processing minds — including gamers — into air traffic control now that DEI mandates are gone, and a Texas Senate candidate's blunt new campaign pitch: vote for me, I'll raise your taxes.

For our Bright Spot, we look at a year of data out of Texas A&M on school cell phone bans, and the real gains in grades, anxiety, and old-fashioned face-to-face friendship they're producing. And we close on a heartwarming story out of the Bronx, where a pizza shop owner's simple act of kindness for a woman digging through his trash turned into a nationwide movement of paying it forward, one slice at a time.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 28, 2026. 

We open with Florida's move to ban welfare cash assistance from covering tattoos, video games, theme park tickets, vaping products, and even psychic services, and we dig into why Governor DeSantis's crackdown on TANF spending should spread nationwide. We run through our Top 3, covering a Boston judge blocking Trump's mail-in ballot security measures again, the clearing of Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, and a military judge tossing out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 9/11 confession over coercion claims. We also can't resist poking fun at CNN's embarrassing mix-up using a Dolly Parton impersonator's photo to announce the real Dolly Parton's death.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to talk about Brian Guan, the atheist whose 30-day experiment cosplaying as a Christian led him to tears and a genuine conversion by day 20, and we draw the parallel to C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel's own journeys from skepticism to faith. Digging Deep, we tackle Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass halting citations for unlicensed street vendors, the sinking marshlands of South Louisiana, and how SpaceX's new $100 billion spaceport might do more to protect the coastline than decades of lawsuits, plus a detour into why capitalism protects what people can profit from. We talk through President Trump's self-ranking as the greatest president in history and whether confidence like that is healthy or just bluster, before diving into Fake News Friday with our usual mix of real, fake, and really fake headlines. We close out with an update on birthright citizenship litigation and a story about Millie, the 31-year-old cat who may hold a world record.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 27, 2026.

We open by tearing into Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner's comments about wanting a "paperweight" from the wreckage of Trump's planned White House ballroom, walking through why that rhetoric crosses the line from political disagreement into celebrating the destruction of federal property, and how the broader culture of "blow it up, burn it down" language is fueling real threats against the president.

We get to our Top 3 things you need to know: President Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" amid the trade standoff with Canada, the Third Circuit's ruling that the assault case against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver can proceed, and the release of ICE agent Christian Castro from a Texas jail after Minnesota's extradition lawsuit was tossed as premature.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville joining us to reflect to reflect on the life and legend of Dolly Parton including a moving story about her music showing up at a family funeral and a look at how she became one of the few truly unifying figures in American life, right down to turning down the Presidential Medal of Freedom three times so it wouldn't look political.

We dig deep on two fronts: the Trump administration's new requirement that states conduct random manual audits of paper ballots to keep their Homeland Security election funding, which we frame as basic quality control rather than an attack on election integrity, and a close read of Texas Senate candidate James Tallarico's campaign theology, where we lay out chapter and verse why his claims about a non-binary God, abortion, and religious pluralism don't square with scripture.

We also weigh in on New York Mayor Mamdani mourning a Rikers Island inmate's death without a word for the man he's accused of murdering, before landing on a Bright Spot: General Mills announcing its U.S. cereal lineup is now free of certified synthetic dyes, a shift we credit to RFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again push merging with MAGA consumer pressure.

We close things out with a Say What on a Georgia teacher's classroom "gas station" for second graders, and a Moment of Whoa honoring Mandy Patinkin's new gig as honorary team captain for the U.S. fencing team heading into the 2028 LA Olympics.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 26, 2026.

We start by digging into the tangled state of the 2028 Democratic presidential field: Kamala Harris leads the national polling average, but red-state Democrats running in Iowa and Alaska are keeping her at arm's length, and her New Hampshire numbers tell a very different story than the national headline does. From there we hit the Top 3: President Trump's mail-in ballot executive order gets the green light after the Supreme Court forces a Boston judge to lift her injunction, Senator Darline Graham wins her primary to keep her late brother Lindsey Graham's Senate seat in South Carolina, and three Secret Service officers lose their clearances amid leak allegations.

We're joined by American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson to weigh in on whether a private text-message conversation caught on video in public is fair game, sparking a broader conversation about selective outrage and privacy double standards. We also try to put to rest the viral rumor about a government "kill switch" in 2027 vehicles, walking through what the 2021 infrastructure law actually requires versus what's circulating on social media.

In Digging Deep, we look at a new HHS-backed study out of Rutgers and the Manhattan Institute examining a possible link between gender ideology and support for political violence, tying it back to Charlie Kirk's final on-air remarks. Our Bright Spot honors Dolly Parton, spotlighting King Charles and Camilla's tribute alongside tributes from Bill Clinton and President Trump, and celebrating her rise from an East Tennessee cabin to global icon. We close with a Moment of Whoa over Colin Kaepernick receiving the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award, plus a remembrance of actor Tim Curry, who passed away this week at 80.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 25, 2026.

We open with a hard look at a troubling poll: 62% of young Americans now say they view socialism favorably, and we dig into why that number keeps climbing, what young people are actually being sold versus the historical reality of socialist regimes, and why billionaire wealth isn't the piggy bank the left makes it out to be.

In our Top 3, we cover the Trump administration's fraud task force uncovering $13 billion in fraud among federal contractors, Canada slapping retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on U.S. goods amid stalled trade talks, and a coalition of small businesses suing New York City over Mayor Mamdani's plan for government-run grocery stores.

We also can't let it go unmentioned: Los Angeles is considering taxpayer-funded "sexual relief clinics" for the homeless, and we ask just how far city government should go in the name of comfort.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to talk about the disturbing social media contagion surrounding the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, the performative videos flooding the internet, and the difference between a genuine cry for help and a cry for attention.

In Digging Deep, we tackle Charles Barkley's blunt comments on keeping the WNBA for women, the controversy stirred by Enos Cantor-Freedom's WNBA draft plans, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's push to publicly expose private businesses that cooperate with ICE.

Our Bright Spot celebrates Buc-ee's, the Texas-born gas station chain whose CEO says he's done building in blue states that don't appreciate the business he brings.

In our Moment of Whoa, the State Department moves to revoke tourist and business visas from up to 200,000 asylum applicants, reinforcing that America's visa rules mean something. We close by remembering country music icon Dolly Parton, who passed away this week at 80.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 24, 2026. 

Today's episode kicks off with the Supreme Court giving President Trump a win on mail-in ballots, putting the brakes on that Boston judge's nationwide injunction just ahead of the midterms. We dig into why ballot verification shouldn't be a partisan issue and take a swing at those states — Colorado, California, Utah — that seem to drift left every time they go all-mail. Then it's on to the Top 3: Canada gets slapped with 50% tariffs as trade talks collapse, Al Green files yet another doomed impeachment bill against Trump (after losing his own primary, no less), and Kyle Kirkwood takes the checkered flag in the wild Freedom 250 F1 race right through the streets of D.C.

From there, we get into a new survey showing conservatives are having more children than liberals, and circle back to our favorite soapbox: America needs more babies. American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson share their weirdest random shower thoughts, from baseball cups to the bubonic plague death toll, plus a real conversation about whether ChatGPT and Grok are making us smarter or just better googlers.

We Dig Deep into two press-freedom stories: Florida's new mandate requiring public schools to teach the history of communism starting this year, which we strongly endorse, and California's new law shielding immigration and Medicaid-fraud-adjacent workers' identities, which we argue is designed to shut down investigative journalists like Nick Shirley. We tie that into James O'Keefe's recent appellate victory overturning a $130,000 judgment tied to his undercover 2016 election reporting.

We cover Justice Clarence Thomas's rare interview with Senator Ted Cruz, where Thomas pushed back on the idea that his conservative views betray his race, and we use it to argue that calls for "diversity" often mean diversity of complexion rather than diversity of thought. Our Bright Spot highlights the El Paso Independent School District requiring central office administrators, including the superintendent, to substitute teach several days a year, both to build empathy for classroom teachers and to save the district roughly $4 million annually. We close with a look at Haitian nationals self-deporting to Canada following the end of their Temporary Protected Status, and a Moment of Whoa about Columbia High School in Alabama snapping a 101-game losing streak.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for Aguust 21, 2026. 

We open with a pointed examination of antisemitism and New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani, arguing that his rhetoric and his choices—including naming zero Jewish lawyers to the judicial screening board despite roughly half of New York's lawyers being Jewish—amount to complicity rather than leadership, and we tie the discussion back to the unique historical and religious bond between the Jewish people and Israel. From there we hit the top three things you need to know: the Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to continue East Wing ballroom and bunker construction, Aisha Wahab winning the special election to finish Eric Swalwell's term and becoming the first Afghan immigrant elected to Congress, and a Chinese national convicted of stealing his landlord's identity to illegally vote in Massachusetts during the 2024 election.

We poke fun at Chicago's approach to violent crime, ridiculing the city's rollout of thousands of signs declaring that violence "will not be tolerated" as a substitute for real enforcement. Our American Mamas segment welcomes Teri Netterville to weigh in on sorority rush videos on TikTok, debating which style of content—natural, fun montages versus overly sexualized choreography—actually reflects well on the sisterhoods posting them.

We Dig Deep into Bernie Sanders campaigning for Democratic Socialist Senate candidate Angie Nixon in Florida, arguing that a state built by anti-communist refugees from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua is uniquely hostile territory for that message. We also cover Seattle Times sports reporter Matt Calkins' resignation after his editors spiked his column defending the separation of women's sports from transgender athletes, using it as a case study in media cowardice. We touch on an Amherst College professor's book arguing Asian American success is tied to white supremacy, then run our Fake News Friday quiz covering stories on Natalie Harp, Alina Habba, Conor Kennedy's placement on a Russian most-wanted list, and more. We close discussing New York City's planned government-run grocery stores undercutting private businesses by 30% while simultaneously funding grants to keep those same businesses afloat, and a Moment of Whoa about Middleton, Idaho naming its new elementary school "Freedom Elementary."

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

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

We open with a chilling case out of Albany, New York, where 35-year-old Jessica Bowie stands accused of pledging allegiance to ISIS and plotting to bomb the New York State Capitol while also expressing a desire to harm President Trump. We use the case to dig into the theological roots of Islamist violence, the constitutional line between religious liberty and criminal conduct, and the possibility that mental illness predates her radicalization. From there we hit our Top 3 stories: ActBlue co-founder Matt DeBergolais taking the Fifth before three House committees, New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani suing his own City Council over a $10,000 teacher's aide stipend he says bypasses collective bargaining, and former Congressman Eric Swalwell getting his devices seized by the FBI amid his long-running entanglement with suspected Chinese spy Fang Fang. We then turn to the backlash over fashion designer Marc Jacobs saying he'd have styled Luigi Mangione for his murder trial, and we push back hard on the idea that a defendant's right to counsel translates into a right to admiration.

Our American Mamas segment welcomes Teri Netterville to unpack the emotionally fraught trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother charged with strangling her three children, weighing the medical system's failures, the online conspiracy theories swirling around her ex-husband, and the difficulty of holding both empathy and accountability at once.

We Dig Deep on the stalled SAVE Act and the citizenship-verification fight in the Senate, debating whether Majority Leader John Thune is protecting the filibuster or just protecting himself, before breaking down the historic wave of congressional primary losses this cycle, from scandal-driven defeats like Cory Mills and Andy Ogles to Trump-related casualties like Thomas Massie and Dan Crenshaw, DSA insurgents unseating longtime incumbents, and redistricting fights that pitted sitting members against each other. We also examine California's Proposition 40 wealth tax, walking through why taxing paper net worth instead of cash could drive founders and investment straight out of the state.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 19, 2026. 

We open with President Trump's decision to pause a threatened 50% tariff on Canada as the two countries close in on a new trade deal, and we dig into what's really at stake beneath the headlines: the possible revival of the Keystone XL pipeline, Alberta's push for a independence referendum, and why NAFTA never delivered true free trade for the United States. From there we run through the top three things you need to know: Congressman Byron Donalds' commanding win in Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary, the national debt crossing $40 trillion, and a former top Fauci advisor pleading guilty to evading public records laws tied to COVID's origins.

In American Mamas, Teri Netterville joins us to react to Senator John Ossoff's insinuation that President Trump is having an affair with a young White House staffer, and why that accusation may backfire on him with his own base. We go Digging Deep on two fronts: new research showing tariffs actually spurred productivity gains rather than the inflation doom-and-gloom predicted, and the escalating legal standoff between Minnesota and Texas over an ICE agent's extradition, set against the backdrop of blue states already refusing to extradite abortion pill providers to Texas. We also weigh in on Maine's Democratic Senate nominee and her vote to decriminalize prostitution, and what that says about the direction of American culture.

Our Bright Spot looks at several encouraging takeaways from Florida's primary night, from same-night results to the defeat of extremist and corruption-tainted candidates in both parties. We close with the patriotic energy surrounding the nation's 250th anniversary in Washington, D.C., and a remarkable discovery: a seminary intern in Virginia stumbling upon the original, handwritten copy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full episode for August 18, 2026. 

We open by taking a hard look at the polling industry ahead of the 2026 midterms, breaking down Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini's analysis of 3,000 Senate polls over four election cycles, which found an average Democratic-leaning error of 3.7 points and Democrats overstated in 73% of surveys. We debate whether that means blanket-adjusting every poll number, or whether turnout, candidate quality, and a summer electorate that isn't paying attention yet make historical error rates a poor guide to any single race, using the Texas Senate matchup between Ken Paxton and James Tallarico as our test case.

From there we run through our Top 3 stories you need to know: an indictment of 17 Iranian nationals tied to the Mabna Institute for a sweeping hacking campaign against U.S. universities, private companies, and government agencies; an arrest warrant issued for former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein after she skipped a court hearing tied to an alleged assault on a police officer; and a guilty plea from a Massachusetts man who identifies as transgender after bringing Molotov cocktails to the Capitol during Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's confirmation hearing. We also dig into the National Association of Black Journalists giving ESPN's Stephen A. Smith a thumbs-down rating for refusing to stay in his ideological lane, and a former Senator John Cornyn staffer's jump to the Tallarico campaign, which we read as a sign of where the polls and the money are pointing rather than any real change in conviction.

In American Mamas, Teri Netterville reflects on the death of actress Hayden Panettiere, tracing her rise as a child star through a mother who treated her as a meal ticket, an abusive relationship, drug struggles, and the broader pattern of young Hollywood stars who are chewed up by the industry around them.

We Dig Deep into a resurgence of flea-borne typhus in Los Angeles, connecting record case numbers to the city's homelessness policies and a 2020 California law that restricted the most effective rat poisons to protect wildlife. We also cover a new Census Bureau review comparing 2020 voter rolls to citizenship data, which found more than 24,000 confirmed non-citizen votes out of an initial 128 million reviewed, with 32 million more ballots still to be checked, and what President Trump's reaction to that number could mean going forward.

For our Bright Spot, we look at a new report showing New York City's congestion pricing hasn't actually improved air quality, then turn to a Washington, D.C. experiment coating streets in light-reflective paint to cool down urban heat islands. We say, "what" to a Minneapolis public school district reportedly handing out free backpacks and school supplies exclusively to American Indian students. And we close with a Moment of Whoa as Jason Burns secretly trains for two weeks to surprise his girlfriend Emma Kessler at the starting line of her first half marathon, running all 13.1 miles by her side.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776. 

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avalone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for August 17, 2026.

We open by breaking down Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal's claim that the Supreme Court has been "captured" by Trump supporters, using it as a launching point to walk through the constitutional distinction between the representative and judicial branches, and why judicial independence matters even when rulings are unpopular. We also dig into the underlying Justice Department opinion on executive privilege that sparked her comments.

From there we run through the headlines you need to know, covering the expiration of the 60-day U.S.-Iran negotiating window, the House Ethics Committee investigation into Congressman Jimmy Gomez over alleged misconduct with a staffer, and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear President Trump's appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case. We talk about a Financial Times study finding that 10% of young Americans report zero daily face-to-face interaction, and what that says about the long tail of pandemic-era isolation.

Our American Mamas, Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson, join us to talk about what sets the United States apart from other countries, drawing on stories from World Cup visitors and reflecting on faith, culture, and gratitude.

In Digging Deep, we look at newly declassified documents raising questions about what Nancy Pelosi knew about Eric Swalwell's ties to a suspected Chinese intelligence agent, then examine a CBS News poll on how Americans, and Democrats especially, view capitalism versus socialism. We also cover a New York legislator's defense of shoplifting as a "crime of poverty" and the property-rights case against it.

Our Bright Spot highlights the nation's first detransition clinic opening at Texas Children's Hospital, and the whistleblower nurse who helped bring it about. In a Moment of Whoa, we take on the WNBA's eligibility rules and the debate Caitlyn Jenner has reignited around defining who qualifies as a woman in women's sports. We close with words of wisdom from President Calvin Coolidge on persistence and personal responsibility. 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.