Every year, Congress flirts with a government shutdown, driven by partisan squabbling and political showmanship. It’s an avoidable cycle that harms taxpayers, disrupts businesses, and creates uncertainty for the public — without producing meaningful policy outcomes. Shutdowns have become a costly ritual Washington should abandon.

Last year’s record 43-day shutdown brought large parts of government to a standstill. Flights were canceled. Permits stalled. Military personnel and civilian federal workers went without paychecks. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the lapse caused as much as $14 billion in permanent GDP loss — about the size of Kosovo’s entire economy.

Supporters of shutdown brinkmanship claim deadlines create leverage to force policy changes. In practice, shutdowns harden positions instead of producing compromise.

Now Democrats are holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been closed for over a month. This partial shutdown is hitting TSA workers and other essential homeland security personnel.

Nobody wins in a shutdown.

The good news: Congress has tools to stop this nonsense for good. Last year, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) reintroduced the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act. The bill would keep the government operating temporarily at current funding levels while negotiations continue on longer-term deals. It would also bar members of Congress from spending taxpayer dollars on travel, taking recess, or considering most non-spending legislation until they finish the budget.

Shutdowns don’t save money. Agencies burn time and resources preparing contingency plans, restarting operations, and cleaning up the mess. Workers ultimately receive back pay after funding is restored. Taxpayers foot the bill for Washington’s dysfunction.

Financial markets and businesses also pay a price. Companies that depend on permits, contracts, or federal data releases face delays that disrupt investment decisions. Entrepreneurs seeking approvals may postpone hiring or expansion. Credit rating agencies have warned repeatedly that shutdown brinkmanship undermines confidence in America’s governance — an unnecessary risk for the world’s largest economy.

The politics make reform urgent. Nearly all government funding is set to expire just weeks before Election Day, a pressure point at the height of campaign season. Recent history shows how easily the minority party can see strategic advantage in prolonging a lapse to reinforce a narrative of chaos and dysfunction heading into the midterms.

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Americans expect disagreement in a democracy. They also expect basic governance to continue. Shutdowns signal that politicians will use essential functions as bargaining chips. That deepens cynicism about institutions and reinforces the belief that Washington prizes partisan victories over practical solutions.

Supporters of shutdown brinkmanship claim deadlines create leverage to force policy changes. Last year, Democrats tried to use a shutdown threat to extend temporary, expensive tax credits to subsidize Obamacare. In other cases, Republicans tried to use shutdowns to force a repeal of Obamacare. Neither strategy worked. In practice, shutdowns harden positions instead of producing compromise.

Ideally, Congress would pass the 12 regular appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1. It hasn’t done that in nearly 30 years, largely because the process has become a political weapon.

Avoiding shutdowns doesn’t mean abandoning fiscal discipline. It means recognizing that responsible governing requires stability alongside vigorous debate. Congress can fight over spending levels, taxes, and policy priorities without threatening the continuity of government operations.

Washington should end the brinkmanship, reopen the government, and adopt reforms that keep shutdown threats from holding the country hostage again.

​Opinion & analysis, Government shutdown, Brinkmanship, Republicans, Democrats, Economy, Fiscal discipline, Obamacare, Subsidies, Appropriations, Compromise, Paychecks, Tsa, Immigration and customs enforcement, Department of homeland security, Prevent government shutdowns act, Jodey arrington, James lankford 

Farming with lasers will make you healthier — here’s how.

An attachment, powered by artificial intelligence, could save farmers from a seemingly ever-present headache, while producing a higher yield than ever before.

‘[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields.’

This laser farming technique uses powerful 240-watt lasers, high-resolution cameras, Nvidia processors, and nearly two dozen simple LED lights.

The operation is called “laser weeding,” and it comes from company Carbon Robotics, which has developed technology to destroy weeds with lasers while keeping crops intact, seemingly eliminating the need for pesticides that contain harmful chemicals.

“Optimal thermal energy destroys the meristem, stopping regrowth and returning weeds to organic biomass,” the company says on its website.

The machine looks almost like a UFO when in action, with lights flashing and little puffs of smoke coming off the ground. The “LaserWeeder” is slowly pulled over the crops and targets weeds — using AI programming to identify them — and takes them out with a laser.

RELATED: Ultra-processed food manufacturers ran the Big Tobacco playbook to addict consumers: Study

United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently promoted the technique on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” telling the host that one farmer he interviewed in Texas had dropped her costs from $1,500 per acre (to pay for pesticides and labor) to $300 per acre.

“It’s a million-dollar machine, which sounds like a lot, but you got 8,000 acres and you’re paying $1,500 an acre per growing season,” Kennedy explained.

“[This] is now the cheapest way to control weeds in the vegetable fields. … It kills the weeds at every stage of their life,” he continued. “It identifies their species and kills them instantly, all the way down through their root system by exploding them with this laser.”

Kennedy went further and said for farmers who are using the machine, they’ve seen a “30% increase in productivity” on the farm.

“It’s a million-dollar machine, but it pays back,” he reiterated.

RELATED: The media’s ‘confusion’ over RFK Jr.’s diet guidelines is either fake — or just stupid

Rogan asked a few simple questions about the machinery, including whether it would impact food and if it could be used for bugs.

The answers to those questions were “no” and “yes,” respectively.

“They can do it for bugs too. … They identify them and zap them,” Kennedy claimed, while adding there is no “impact” on the food.

According to Carbon Robotics, the machinery lowers weed control costs by 80% per year and kills 99% of weeds that grow around carrots, herbs, onions, and leafy greens.

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BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey won’t say the name of the alleged transgender Canadian shooter who last month took the lives of his mother, his stepbrother, five young children, and a teacher — but she does want to focus on his father.

“The biological father of this Canadian shooter, his name is Justin Van Rootselaar. He publicly released a statement to express his deep sorrow and to clarify his complete estrangement from the child,” Stuckey explains.

In a statement from the father, he claimed that he distanced himself from his son, telling CBC that he was “estranged” and “not a part of his life.”

“In the statement, he emphasized that he had no involvement in his kid’s life or the upbringing. Apparently, he says the mother had refused his participation from the start. We don’t know, you know, we don’t know if that’s true, if it was really the mother’s fault or not. Unfortunately, the mother is now dead,” Stuckey comments.

The father also did not call his son by his preferred female pronouns.

“What he’s trying to say is, ‘This is not my fault. I was not involved in this at all.’ And I understand his desire to do that, but actually it was his absence, I believe, that contributed to this. It was his absence that created probably this kind of instability,” Stuckey says.

“Like, kids need more involvement from both parents, not less. He clearly didn’t have this strong male role model that he needed in his life. And I’m not saying that is always the antidote. That’s not always the thing that is going to prevent a guy, a young man, from going down this path, but it certainly doesn’t help,” she continues. “It certainly doesn’t help when you don’t have a father in the home.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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

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This time one year ago, David Hogg served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he was openly touting Jasmine Crockett as the Democrats’ 2028 presidential nominee.

For real.

The other side is energized — and it is learning how to package its agenda in forms that look familiar enough to pass at a glance.

What a difference a year makes! Hogg was ousted from the DNC in June, and this week, Crockett’s U.S. Senate hopes sank like an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean.

Crockett built a national brand on performance: the nails, the lashes, the dialect, the whole routine. Private-school résumé, public “hood rat” persona. The problem wasn’t that Democrats objected to the routine. The problem was that it didn’t translate statewide.

Even though one in four Democratic primary voters are black, Crockett’s two-term House persona couldn’t carry her in a Senate primary among white voters living paycheck to paycheck. The scam had run its course.

Of course, modern Democratic politics rarely punishes grifters or scammers. It simply swaps in a new scam with better packaging.

Enter James Talarico, a name most Americans didn’t know a few weeks ago. He went on Stephen Colbert last month and played martyr about the Trump administration supposedly trying to censor an interview. Then — boom! — more than two million Democratic primary voters showed up and handed Texas’ Democratic U.S. Senate nomination to a straight white male.

That result doesn’t happen unless Talarico brings dark magic to the table.

He runs as part of “Team Jesus” — while speaking with forked tongue, of course.

That label provides a “permission structure” (read: scam) for Democratic primary voters who want a candidate who looks less like a cultural provocation and more like a “values” figure without changing the party’s underlying agenda. Democrats used a similar move nationally: Wrap the ticket in “normal” imagery — the old ball coach who wears flannel — and dare critics to object.

In Talarico’s case, the permission structure goes deeper because it touches theology. He offers a version of Christianity tailored for the normie voter — Christian language used to sell progressive policy as moral inevitability.

That’s why the stakes aren’t limited to one Senate race. If the left can redefine Christianity in public, it can neutralize one of the last institutions that resists its broader project. Talarico’s pitch attempts to do exactly that by presenting positions on abortion and gender ideology as not merely acceptable to Christians but practically demanded by God — who, in case you haven’t heard, is nonbinary.

RELATED: ‘Wake the hell up’: Glenn Beck warns Texans after primary election results

Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Talarico may still lose in November. But remember: Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by less than three points in 2018. National Democrats will treat this race as winnable and amplify it accordingly. The messaging will be exported far beyond Texas.

So here’s the question for the American church: Are you prepared to confront this?

A statewide campaign can become a delivery system for doctrinal confusion. Many churches, even in red states, insist they don’t want to “get political.” That instinct can become an excuse for silence when clarity is required.

More than 1.2 million Texans voted for a candidate whose brand centers on a theological message that would have sounded unthinkable less than a generation ago. So maybe the more urgent question isn’t whether the church is prepared. It’s whether the church even cares.

One more question, because the turnout itself should concern conservatives.

In a red state, with a major GOP Senate primary featuring an entrenched incumbent, a well-known attorney general, and a sitting congressman, how did that race draw fewer voters than the Democrats’ contest between the phony preacher and the fake hood rat?

Yes, that happened.

If nothing else, it should serve as a warning: The other side is energized — and it is learning how to package its agenda in forms that look familiar enough to pass at a glance.

​James talarico, Ken paxton, John cornyn, Democrats, Texas, Texas primary, Senate race, Gop, Opinion & analysis, 2026 midterms 

Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters,” often encourages his audience to engage in what he calls “spiritual housecleaning” — that is, ridding your life of both objects and activities that would give demons a foothold to torment you. Whether it’s watching horror movies, participating in Halloween festivities, or adorning your home with items associated with occult practices, Rick pulls no punches about the importance of “cleaning out” your life so that it not only glorifies God but also doesn’t give Satan’s forces a reason to linger.

But what happens when the darkness you’re trying to rid yourself of doesn’t look like a book of crystal magic, a subscription to a pornography site, or a gruesome Halloween display? What happens when that evil exists inside another person?

On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick addresses a question many people are asking right now: Is narcissism a personality disorder or a symptom of a demon stronghold?

Rick first acknowledges that in our current day, people are far too quick to label someone a narcissist out of dislike.

“I think that’s reckless,” he says, “but [narcissism] does exist, and these people are real.”

But are demons really the reason these people are so difficult to deal with? Or are they just suffering from extreme psychological challenges?

Rick’s answer is layered.

“I don’t think everybody who is a narcissist is truly under demonic possession or oppression,” he says, acknowledging that some really “do need psychological help.”

That said, he does believe that genuine narcissists are “opening themselves up to demonic oppression or possession.”

A true narcissist, he explains, “does not have the ability to be part of a really close relationship with anyone,” because they are only seeking relationships “that fit their own interest.” They are people who “cannot handle criticism” and are “arrogant” and full of “pride,” he says.

All of these traits stand in stark contrast to how Scripture calls believers to be — lowly in spirit and humble, walking in honesty and righteousness toward others.

“This is where we’re starting to get into the spiritual,” says Rick.

“[Narcissists] love manipulation. They love deception. That’s demonic. They have a carefully crafted smoke screen to keep you confused, and their main goal in all of this is control,” he explains.

They also “love a world of conflict and chaos” and “feed on conflict.”

Scripture, Rick says, tells us very clearly that Satan and his demonic legions operate in similar ways — deceiving and manipulating us, sowing chaos in our lives, and destroying our relationships.

What is the believer to do, then, when faced with a narcissist? Should he uproot the person from his life, like one would trash an ouija board, for example?

With human beings, it’s not so simple, says Rick.

For the Christian in this situation, he says it’s important to “pray for discernment,” “pray for protection against [the narcissist],” “pray that God would break that spiritual stronghold,” and “use the authority that you’ve been given.”

To hear Rick’s full biblical breakdown, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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