Half a Million Votes, a Falling Birth Rate, and a Race Tax in New York

Stay connected with us at americangroundradio.com, on Facebook, and Instagram.You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for April 9, 2026. We open with a story that is far from over — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrell is taking her fight against the FDA's abortion pill rules to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. We break down why a federal judge who admitted Louisiana is likely to win and is already suffering irreparable harm still refused to block the FDA's mifepristone distribution rules, why that decision makes no legal sense, and why Liz Murrell's appeal to the Fifth Circuit may actually be the faster path to the right outcome. One in ten women who take this pill end up in the emergency room. There is no other drug in America the FDA allows to be dispensed this way. We also dig into the falling U.S. birth rate — 3.6 million births in 2025, down another one percent from the year before, and 22,000 fewer babies than the previous year. We connect the dots between loosened abortion pill restrictions, the cultural pressure on young women to delay marriage and family, and what the data actually says about happiness, fertility, and the consequences of waiting too long.Then we take a deep dive into a story that tells you everything you need to know about where Louisiana is politically right now. The Louisiana GOP released data showing that over the last ten years, Democrats in the state have lost 261,000 registered voters while Republicans have gained 234,000. A gap that was once half a million votes is now down to just 15,000. We talk about what drove that shift, what it means for future elections, and why the National Democrat Party's hard left turn on energy, law enforcement, and social issues is the real engine behind Louisiana's political transformation.In our Digging Deep segment, we break down the debate over Louisiana's minimum wage — a House Labor Committee just killed a bill to raise it to $12 an hour — and we get into exactly why mandating higher wages doesn't help the people it's supposed to help. We use Milton Friedman's economic framework to explain what actually happens when government sets a price floor on labor, and we make the case that workforce training and skills development are the only real path to higher wages that actually stick.We also get into the Louisiana legislature's debate over whether to sanction cheerleading, dance, and lacrosse as official high school sports — and why competitive cheerleading in 2026 has absolutely nothing in common with the sideline squads of the 1950s. Plus, a new bill would require anyone acting as an agent for a student athlete's Name, Image, and Likeness deals to register with the state of Louisiana. We debate whether this is reasonable consumer protection or just another layer of government getting in the way of free enterprise.And we close out with New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani's new racial equity plan — which would tax homeowners in what he explicitly describes as richer and whiter neighborhoods at higher rates. We call it what it is, connect it to the broken promise of free buses, and ask the question nobody in the New York media seems willing to ask.Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776!