Conservative women from all seasons of life gathered last month to discuss the challenges they face and to share solutions for balancing work, marriage, and family. The March 18 event on “Women, Work and Family,” hosted by The Heritage Foundation, brought together working women, moms, policy experts, and one Illinois congresswoman to explore how American women can forge their own path in an age of feminism. “You can’t do it all at one time,” Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said during the panel discussion. Severino said one way she balances her career and family is by finding jobs that offer flexibility. For example, when she worked as a clerk at the Supreme Court, her parents watched her children. By the time the kids were ready for middle school, however, she decided that homeschooling was the right choice for her family. “We live in a world where there are flexible options,” Severino said. “You can keep it in a place where your family is what’s driving the decisions, and not how do I get this next achievement.” In modern life, women often believe they must choose between having a career or a family. Additionally, some women who desire to have children and stay at home may feel pressured by feminism to choose a career instead. Judy Lopez, program manager at The Heritage Foundation’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, said “it’s normal and it’s good to want children” when making decisions about life. “We’ve been sold that you have to choose between starting a family and work,” she said. “But what if that is the wrong premise altogether? What if instead we could focus on the seasons of life, and if policy and culture could support that for women?” U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, the event’s keynote speaker, said she uses her role in Congress to help support women and families. “The foundation of our country is faith and family,” the Illinois congresswoman said. “It’s no secret that marriage is in serious decline, and couples are delaying or not having children at all.” Miller said she helped launch the Congressional Family Caucus during the 118th Congress to save the family, the foundational institution for society. According to Miller’s congressional website, the Congressional Family Caucus seeks to advance legislation that “strengthens parental rights” and promotes the values of the nuclear family. “I started the Congressional Family Caucus to stand up for the traditional family,” she said. “We’re getting amazing things done. I invite you all to get engaged and to help me represent the American family.” One policy the panelists held up as good for women was homeschooling. For women who need to juggle work and children, homeschooling can often provide greater scheduling flexibility than public schools. Additionally, the National Home Education Research Institute’s website states that children who are homeschooled “typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.” Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said women should reflect on the greater meaning of life when deciding between family and career. “The only place where you’re irreplaceable is in your relationships,” she said. “[If] you walk out of here [and] get hit by a bus, your employer will send flowers, will miss you, will write nice things about you. But who you matter to is your family.” The post Heritage Foundation Hosts Panel on Women, Work and Family appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The California Exodus is quickening, and it turns out the people leaving don’t have to wander too long to find a new promised land. That’s the takeaway from several recent reports showing that the population decline in California is becoming extreme, but that the people who choose to leave the state are finding life much better—certainly more affordable—elsewhere. Census data published in late March highlighted a dramatic population drop in Los Angeles County from 2024 to 2025. “The region recorded the largest population drop of any in the nation between July 2024 and July 2025, according to newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau,” the New York Post reported. “The data, published March 26, shows roughly 54,000 residents left the county during that one-year period. The losses mark a continuation of a steady slide for the nation’s most populous county.” LA County’s population dropped below 10 million for the first time since 2020. It appears that outlying regions have particularly benefited from the departures, including Las Vegas, which saw a population increase of 20,000. As more than a few noted on social media, it’s remarkable that people want to leave Southern California. But the high cost of living, crime, poor governance, and general disorder are making it intolerable for many. LA has amazing weather year-round and one of the most beautiful coastlines and climates in the world. But decades of mass migration, and the dysfunctional government that came with it, means that even these immense natural advantages cannot stop population exodus. Paradise Lost. https://t.co/XQ8YejkYVj— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) March 30, 2026 While there are many reasons an area can experience a sudden population drop, LA’s precipitous one coincides with a general trend for the Golden State. Much of the state has been bleeding residents (particularly middle-class ones) for over a decade. The numbers stabilized due to immigration, but now that is petering out, too.   The problem is obvious. People don’t leave California for Texas for the better weather, they go because they can’t afford to stay in a state with high taxes (if you buy Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “low-tax state” spiel, you are a chump), an outrageous cost of living, and dysfunctional government to boot. When the price of gas in your state is generally 50 cents higher than the next highest state, you know you have a problem. But California’s powers that be appear to be in no hurry to fix the situation. The California Air Resources Board aims to choke the remaining oil refineries out of existence. Lawmakers are looking to go back to the well of taxing the rich, which will allegedly solve all problems. And Newsom has chosen to mock journalists for uncovering fraud in his state while bragging about how wealthy it is. This has caused many people, whether they’ve wanted to or not, to pull up stakes and leave the state that used to be the American dream within the American dream. And leaving has turned out for most expatriates to be a wise financial choice. A study by the University of California, Berkeley found that Californians who left between 2016 and 2025 have generally found more affordable places to live and have seen “large increases in homeownership.” “On average, movers relocate to neighborhoods where monthly housing costs are $672 less,” the report said. “After seven years, they are 48% (or 11 percentage points) more likely to own a home.” Renters are doing better, too, as the study found that for those who left California: “Rents are about 30% (or about $631) lower in their new neighborhood.” Funny enough, most people moving out find greener pastures in states more known for their deserts. “Nevada is the standout, receiving a net 81 Californians per 10,000 residents annually, followed by Idaho, Oregon, and Arizona,” the report found. This all comes down to what the study called California’s “affordability crisis,” where most residents simply can’t find a way to make a decent life for themselves and their families. Keep this in mind as Democrats talk about “affordability.” Talking about affordability on the campaign trail is one thing, but governing is another. In states like California that are blue state model-maxxing, pretty much nothing is affordable unless you are rich or on the public dole. The California dream is dying as its residents are waking up to dehydration, an empty wallet, and a financial headache that won’t go away until they do. The post The California Exodus Grows as Affordability Crisis Pushes Residents Out appeared first on The Daily Signal.

RealClearWire—Picture this: a 12-year-old stands at the edge of a cold lake at 0600, staring down his swimming merit badge. Nobody asked if he was emotionally ready. Nobody offered a participation ribbon. His scoutmaster told him to jump in. He jumped. He earned it. That is scouting—or rather, that is what scouting was, and, if the Pentagon has anything to say about it, what scouting will be again. I earned my Eagle Scout rank in the mid-1980s amid the last flicker of Reagan-era optimism. My father served as a district executive with the Boy Scouts of America from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, when the mission of scouting was unambiguous and its reputation beyond question. I served as an assistant scoutmaster at summer camps. My son earned his Eagle Scout rank, went on to graduate from West Point, and now flies as an Army aviator. Three generations. One through-line. When I graduated from Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in 1988, the discipline I carried in—compass work, land navigation, physical endurance, mental toughness under discomfort—owed no small debt to what scouting had already built into me. The memorandum of understanding signed on Feb. 27, 2026, between Scouting America and the Pentagon is not bureaucratic fine print. It is a cultural rescue operation. Under pressure from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Scouting America agreed to abandon divisive diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; enforce biological sex distinctions in membership and facilities; discontinue the politicized “Citizenship in Society” merit badge; introduce a new Military Service merit badge developed with the Department of War; waive registration fees for children of active-duty, Guard, and Reserve families; and rededicate itself formally to duty to God, duty to country, and service. The agreement aligns with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The Pentagon gave scouting six months to demonstrate meaningful compliance. Hegseth was unambiguous: “Ideally, I believe the Boy Scouts should go back to being the Boy Scouts as originally founded—a group that develops boys into men.” The stakes are not abstract. Scouting has long served as a reliable pipeline to the U.S. Armed Forces, with Eagle Scouts heavily represented in ROTC, service academies, and military leadership tracks at rates far exceeding the general population. Meanwhile, roughly 77% of young Americans are currently ineligible for military service, with obesity as the single leading disqualifier. The U.S. Army fell 25% short of its 2022 recruitment goals, and that trend has not reversed. An institution that once produced physically prepared, morally grounded young men willing to serve their country is not a luxury. It is a national security asset. Scouting’s founding philosophy was never complicated. William D. Boyce chartered the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 after an unnamed scout in fog-shrouded London refused a tip for guiding a lost American—because a scout does not accept payment for a good turn. Robert Baden-Powell’s model translated Aristotelian virtue ethics into an applied curriculum. Character, as Aristotle argued in the Nicomachean Ethics, is not innate—it is forged through repeated habit and deliberate challenge. One does not become courageous by reading about courage. One becomes courageous by building a fire in the rain, navigating by stars at 0200, and rappelling a cliff face with a Scoutmaster who has no interest in excuses. The patrol method, rank advancement, merit badge requirements—the entire architecture is an applied Aristotelian curriculum. The national office spent a decade dismantling it in favor of ideological programming. The irony is almost too rich to catalog. The membership figures tell the story no press release can obscure. Enrollment peaked at roughly 6.5 million in the early 1970s. By 2026, fewer than 1 million combined boys and girls remained enrolled. The 2020 bankruptcy filing, driven by historical sexual abuse claims, produced a $2.4 billion settlement compensating more than 82,000 claimants in 2023—a catastrophic institutional failure that, to put it with considerable understatement, did not help recruitment. The progression of policy changes is well-documented: gay youth membership opened in 2013; openly gay adult leaders followed in 2015; a 2017 case in New Jersey involving an 8-year-old opened transgender membership; girls entered Cub Scouts in 2018 and the flagship program in 2019. The 2025 rebrand to “Scouting America” completed the transformation—apparently because “Boy Scouts” contained the word “boy,” which had become inconvenient. The “Citizenship in Society” merit badge, required for Eagle Scout rank, captured the broader problem with admirable brevity. The badge directed participants to “realize the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion” and practice “ethical leadership” through the lens of identity politics. Think about that sequencing: instead of studying the Declaration of Independence, constitutional structure, or proper flag etiquette, scouts were directed to contemplate microaggressions and systemic bias. As someone who earned merit badges in camping, first aid, and rifle shooting—skills that translated directly into my experience at Marine Corps OCS—the substitution struck me as roughly equivalent to replacing a wilderness survival course with a corporate HR seminar and then expressing genuine puzzlement at falling enrollment. The MOU eliminates that badge effective immediately. The reforms are a start. The next step is enrollment. Parents with sons in the target age range should investigate local troops directly, ask hard questions about how the new biological sex policies are actually being implemented, not just acknowledged, and choose units that are executing the reforms in good faith rather than grudging compliance. Adults with relevant skills should volunteer. The merit badge counselor system runs entirely on people with genuine expertise: navigation, wilderness medicine, marksmanship, and engineering. If you served in uniform, your experience is directly applicable and badly needed. Watching a hesitant twelve-year-old master the bowline knot and then use it confidently three days later on a climbing wall is, I can report firsthand, among the more satisfying experiences available to a middle-aged man who has otherwise run out of things left to prove. My father spent a decade building boys into men because he believed the mission mattered. I carried that conviction into my own service at summer camp. My son carried it all the way to West Point. The Scout motto, Be Prepared, has never been more operationally relevant. These reforms restore a foundation. What gets built on it is up to us. This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Restoring Duty to God and Country by Saving Scouting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The central claim of the Christian faith is that Jesus rose from the dead. If Christianity is true, this cannot be mere wishful thinking in the mind of the believer. If Jesus did not rise from the dead as a fact of history, then the entire Christian faith is destroyed. Thankfully, there is very good reason to believe in the historicity of the resurrection. The following is an attempt to show that the most logical (not merely religious) conclusion of the evidence is to state that the resurrection was a fact. There is no doubt that Jesus was a real historical person who lived 2,000 years ago in the Middle East. There are multiple primary sources apart from the New Testament attesting to Jesus’ existence and what he was known for, and they agree in broad strokes with the account provided by the Gospels. For example, Josephus (36-100 B.C.) was a Jewish historian who lived and died as a pious Jew but who also wrote about the life and actions of Christ. Most notably, he stated that Jesus was a miracle worker and great teacher who was executed by the Romans. Josephus also noted that Jesus’ closest followers claimed that he rose from the dead on the third day. He said that the body of Jesus was never found and that Christians continued to increase their numbers by the day. After Jesus was tortured and killed on a cross by the Roman Empire, hundreds of people attested to having seen Jesus risen from the dead. Many of the people who saw the risen Christ were convinced that they should spend the rest of their lives telling everyone about Jesus. Countless eyewitnesses even went to their deaths refusing to deny the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. The details concerning Jesus’ burial are essential for showing the truth of his resurrection. First, according to Matthew 27:57-66 Jesus was placed in a new tomb that had never been used before for burial. Scholars estimate that the rock in front of the entrance to Jesus’ tomb would have weighed roughly 3,000 pounds and 8 to 10 feet tall. In front of the rock would have been the ancient equivalent of police tape: a metal chain attached to a piece of clay that had Caesar’s face on it. Since Jesus was convicted of a capital crime, messing around with his grave would be deemed a capital offense. If you broke this barrier, you would also be crucified. We also know that a Roman Guard was placed there because the Jewish hierarchy was afraid that Jesus’ followers would steal his body. A Roman guard consisted of four highly trained Roman soldiers (a modern equivalent would be Navy Seals). If the disciples had stolen the body, they would have agreed to commit a capital offense (tampering with the tomb of a criminal killed of a capital crime). Then they would have had to disarm four Navy Seals; move a 3,000-pound, 10-foot rock; and then take Jesus’ body and discard it in a way that no one (over 2000 years) could find. Not only would they need to succeed in the cover-up, but then they would have committed to traveling the world—at great personal risk—to convince people that Jesus was, in fact, risen from the dead despite knowing that it was a lie. The historical record is also clear on another point: All of the Apostles (except for John) died for their faith. They were not just killed, however. These first followers were burned alive, boiled alive, filleted alive, and crucified (upside down, in Peter’s case). They were killed in some of the most gruesome ways in history, and yet they were willing to do so. None of them said that they had lied, despite the fact that doing so would likely have meant safety. This is because what they saw transformed everything. What they saw was the truth. This is critical. Think about the character of a liar. A liar is mischievous because he is selfish. He only cares about himself and what is best for himself. Therefore, a liar (actually, hundreds of liars) were willing to reject their selfishness and die for a lie? Why die in such a brutal way for a lie? How is it possible that no one ever slipped up and told the truth rather than be tortured? How come no one has ever found Jesus’ body? Isn’t it more reasonable to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, appeared to his closest friends, and so inspired them that they were willing to do anything to talk about his life (even give their own lives)? The answer is obvious. The resurrection is a fact of history. The evidence is overwhelming in its support. All history is dependent on eyewitness testimony. We count on it the court of law and in the transmission of events passed down over history. In the case of the resurrection, the testimony of the eyewitnesses continues to empower Christians today to know and believe that sin, evil, and death was defeated by Christ, and that Jesus is truly alive—truly risen. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Resurrection as a Fact of History appeared first on The Daily Signal.

History is chock-full of pivotal moments, from Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon to Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler deciding to invade Russia, to George Washington turning down power. One moment eclipses them all—and most people at the time had no idea this moment would change the world forever. Mankind has a virtually guaranteed 100% death rate, but one obscure carpenter-turned-rabbi defied the odds. He set off a chain reaction that didn’t just offer eternal salvation, but also inspired movements of compassion and invention that made life better for billions in the here and now. I know I’m biased—I worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God and believe he will come again. But I also honestly think his Resurrection is the pivotal moment in human history, and not just because it offers eternal salvation to those of us who believe. It’s hard for us to grasp just how painful most of human existence in the past truly was. Not only did people live for thousands of years without modern conveniences like refrigerators, microwaves, and washing machines, but high infant and child mortality was a fact of life—for the poorest of the poor as well as for the wealthiest and most powerful. In Ancient Rome, when a plague began spreading, the wealthy quickly departed and the poor secluded themselves. Christianity spread, by contrast, in part because Christians started risking their lives to care for the sick; with a little help, many of the sick recovered. Rodney Stark, a now-deceased social sciences professor at Baylor University and author of the book “The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success,” told PJ Media that without the Resurrection, “we would still be in a world of mystery and probably in a world of repressive empires.” He argued that Christianity has been the driving force behind limited government, science, capitalism, the abolition of slavery, medicine, organized charities, and more—and Christianity would have been impossible without the Resurrection. In fact, the Gospels record that Jesus’ disciples scattered—and Peter even denied Jesus three times—but the Resurrection brought them together. According to church tradition, all but one of the apostles died painful deaths under torture, refusing to reject the faith. The Roman authorities persecuted the early Christians, and this history arguably helped foster limited government. Jesus told his followers to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” and to render the more important things to God. St. Augustine further developed this idea in his distinction between the “City of Man” and the “City of God.” Over time, Christians developed limits on political power and demarcated the sacred from the secular. Christians also forbade the common practice of “exposing” infants, leaving babies in the wilderness to die. Instead, they established orphanages to care for the unfortunate and set up charitable institutions that further bolstered a civil society separate from the state. Christian societies fought for justice. While slavery has been a near-universal human institution, Christianity eradicated it not once but twice: first in Medieval Europe and second, more lastingly, in the abolition movements of the 1800s. While the New Testament does not require Christians to oppose slavery, outlawing the practice is the logical conclusion of key Christian doctrines. The Apostle Paul urged Philemon to free his former slave Onesimus, and Paul wrote to the Galatians that with God’s grace, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Christian teaching also arguably fostered the development of scientific inquiry. Stark explained that while many cultures considered the universe “far too mystical to be worth thinking about,” Christians believe “the universe was created by a rational God, and consequently it runs by rules and, therefore, it makes sense to try to understand and discover the rules.” Great scientists emerged in the Western world as modern universities grew out of Medieval cathedral schools. While Aristotle—revered in the Islamic East and the Christian West—taught that the universe was eternal, and used deductive reasoning to reach conclusions about it, Christians believed that God could have created the universe differently, leading them to eventually discover how he actually made it. Last, but certainly not least, Christianity arguably inspired the free market system that enriches our lives today. The German sociologist Max Weber famously traced capitalism back to the “Protestant work ethic,” but Stark found an earlier source—the Catholic monasteries in the Middle Ages. These monasteries set up a complex network of lending at interest, helping to build the economic engine that enriches life across the globe. Each of these achievements came slowly and with fits and starts, and non-Christians have also helped improve the world in myriad ways, but I find Stark’s argument convincing: Christianity inspired these positive historical trends. Jesus urged his disciples to be the “salt of the Earth” and the “light of the world,” and Christianity teaches that the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of true believers. If so, we would expect to see Christians change the world for the better. I’d argue that’s the major theme of world history, and it bolsters my faith that the Resurrection actually happened. The post Why the Resurrection of Jesus Is the Most Important Event in History appeared first on The Daily Signal.