On Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump invited Scott Turner, the 19th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to open the cabinet meeting of his second administration in prayer.
On Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump invited Scott Turner, the 19th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to open the cabinet meeting of his second administration in prayer.
A former pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, Secretary Turner was also a nine-season player in the National Football League. Prior to joining the new administration, Turner worked with a firm committed to developing multi-family housing. He also served as a representative in the Texas State Legislature.
With a capacity crowd jammed into the White House Cabinet Room, President Trump invited Secretary Turner to pray. Here was how he addressed the Lord as he stood behind a seated President Trump,
“Father, we thank you for this awesome privilege, to be in your presence. We thank you you’ve allowed us to see this day. The Bible says your mercies are new every morning, and Father God we give you the glory and honor. Thank you, God, for President Trump, for appointing us, for anointing us to do this job.”
The U.S. Department of Education has launched multiple investigations into schools and athletic associations for Title IX violations, including schools that allow boys in girls restrooms and sports.
The investigations follow an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, which declares that the practice of letting men compete in women’s sports is “demeaning, unfair and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
The order directs the DOE to remove federal funds from “educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
The most recent investigation was launched after the president got into a dustup with Maine Governor Janet Mills over boys taking slots on girls teams, as National Review reported.
When asked whether Maine would follow the executive order, the governor replied the state was “complying with state and federal laws.”
The president then said, “We are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
According to National Review, “Mills replied that she will see Trump in court as her state openly resists federal law.
“Maine’s high school sports governing body is continuing to abide by state law regarding athletic eligibility, defying Trump’s order.”
A new Pew Research Center study indicates that the apparent “decline of Christianity” in the United States “shows signs of leveling off — at least temporarily.”
Their massive report shows “evidence both of a long-term decline in American religion and of relative stability in the last few years, since 2020 or so.”
Their data simply examines how many Americans personally identify as “Christian” or with some other faith category.
From 2007 to 2019, the number of people who say they identify as “Christian” decreased from 78% to 63%. It has fluctuated between 64% and 62% since then.
Pew explains that “for the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%.”
They add,
“Both Protestant and Catholic numbers are down significantly since 2007, though the Protestant share of the population has remained fairly level since 2019 and the Catholic share has been stable since 2014, with only small fluctuations in our annual surveys.
Americans who identify with a religion other than Christianity remains very low, but is inching up slightly, possibly due to immigration and a diversifying population rather than actual changes in beliefs of American citizens.”
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has paid Planned Parenthood entities more than $53.7 million in “family planning” and “teen pregnancy prevention” grants”” grants since 2022, spending documents show.
Worth a cumulative $66.2 million, HHS will pay another $12.4 million on these eighteen grants by 2028.
The federal government has no business funding an abortion conglomerate like Planned Parenthood. The Hyde Amendment forbids Congress from promoting or paying for elective abortions.
But pro-abortion presidential administrations have undermined this spending restriction for decades using Title X, a federal grant program supporting “comprehensive family planning and related health services.”
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Title X money is distributed by HHS, which gives the executive branch significant authority over which kinds of services qualify for funding.
Organizations that are physically and financially connected to abortion clinics, and those that refer women to get abortions, have been eligible for Title X grants since 2021.
In April 2022, HHS awarded 13 Title X grants to nine Planned Parenthood entities for “family planning services.” Worth a cumulative $56.6 million. HHS will pay another $7.3 million on these grants by March 2027.
Planned Parenthood claims Title X grants pay for services like cervical and breast cancer.
Vice President JD Vance spoke to the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday, addressing his faith in Jesus Christ, his pro-life views and using the opportunity to counsel young men.
Life
Concerning the issue of life, the vice president touted the great work that pregnancy resource centers do helping women choose life for their preborn babies.
“We want to make it easier for young moms and young dads to choose life, to start families, and to bring new life into the world,” Vance said.
Advice to Young Men
The vice president also gave advice to young men navigating our broken culture.
“Our cultural message is that it wants to turn everybody — male or female — into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same,” Vance said. “We actually think God made male and female for a purpose.”
Christianity
In addition, Vance spoke about his Christian faith, noting Christianity is centered on the fact that “the Son of God became man, He died, and then He raised himself from the dead.”
“One lesson that flows from that is that we shouldn’t fear death,” he added.
“There are much more terrible things than just losing one’s life. You could lose one’s soul.”
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