Girl Guides Association and The Women's Institute (WI) have confirmed they will step back from their "proudly trans-inclusive" stances. 

The post Girl Guides and Women’s Institute Says They Exist for Females, Not Males appeared first on Breitbart.

The governments of both Japan and China claimed on Tuesday to have menaced each other’s ships out of the waters surrounding the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, accusing each other of violating their respective sovereign territory.

The post China, Japan Both Claim to Expel Each Other’s Ships Out of Disputed Waters appeared first on Breitbart.

Zachery Ty Bryan, who starred on the TV show “Home Improvement” as a child, was arrested in Oregon on Saturday, marking his sixth arrest in the past five years. “The […]

The post 'Home Improvement' Star Arrested for 6th Time in 5 Years After Narrowly Avoiding Being Run Over by Fiancée: Police appeared first on The Western Journal.

If your household is struggling to pay the bills right now, you are far from alone.  The cost of just about everything that Americans regularly spend money on has been soaring, and as a result our standard of living has been steadily declining.  Over the past couple of decades, our politicians borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, the Federal Reserve shoveled giant mountains of money that were created out of thin air into the financial system, and our leaders treated the reserve currency of the world like toilet paper.  So now the value of the U.S. dollar has gone way down, our paychecks don’t stretch as far as they once did, and most of the country is barely scraping by from month to month.

This week, an excellent article that was authored by Michael Green is getting a ton of attention.  In that article, he calculates that a “basic needs budget” for a typical family of four in the United States would come to a grand total of $136,500 a year…

I wanted to see what would happen if I ignored the official stats and simply calculated the cost of existing. I built a Basic Needs budget for a family of four (two earners, two kids). No vacations, no Netflix, no luxury. Just the “Participation Tickets” required to hold a job and raise kids in 2024.

Using conservative, national-average data:

Childcare: $32,773

Housing: $23,267

Food: $14,717

Transportation: $14,828

Healthcare: $10,567

Other essentials: $21,857

Required net income: $118,009

Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500.

Do you agree with these figures?

I very much appreciate the effort that he put into his analysis, but I certainly do not agree with some of these numbers.

The national average for child care for a single child is about $975 per month.  So for two children for an entire year the total should be less than $24,000.

So we can eliminate more than $8,000 from his budget right there.

And if your kids are old enough, you may not need to spend anything on child care at all.

On the other hand, I think that his figure for housing is too low.

The average home price in the U.S. now exceeds $500,000.

Taking out a $500,000 mortgage at 6.2 percent would result in a mortgage payment of $3,047.41 a month.

So Green’s budget completely rules out owning a typical home in many areas of the country.

Instead, it would allow for renting a two bedroom apartment which averages about $1,800 a month right now.

And I think that Green’s figure for health care is also too low.

The average monthly health insurance premium for a family of four in the U.S. now exceeds $2,000.

Yes, a hypothetical family of four could save money by going without health insurance or by living in a van, but that is not the point.

It is time for everyone to admit that a middle class lifestyle has become out of reach for a majority of American households.

Green’s analysis may not be entirely accurate, but others have come up with similar results.

For example, the Economic Policy Institute has determined that it takes approximately $123,000 a year for a family of four to live a middle class lifestyle in Essex County, New Jersey…

The Economic Policy Institute offers a Family Budget Calculator. It says a family of four would need about $123,000 a year to attain “a modest yet adequate standard of living” in Essex County, New Jersey.

And Investopedia has determined that it now takes approximately 5 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime…

Investopedia, the financial journalism site, uses similar calculations to estimate how much emergency savings a family should hold (about $35,000, on average) and the lifetime costs of fulfilling the American dream (roughly $5 million).

Needless to say, most Americans don’t have a prayer of making 5 million dollars during their lifetimes.

And the cost of just about everything is only going to go even higher.

Right now, our rapidly rising power bills are making a lot of headlines…

The numbers are as stark as a slate-grey November sky. Household spending on electricity for heating is expected to rise 10% this winter to more than $1,200. Utilities requested a $29 billion rate increase in the first half of 2025, double last year’s rate rise. Residential electricity rates rose 6.6% year-on-year as of June 2025, according to Utility Dive, after already rising nearly 30% between 2021 and 2024.

Meanwhile, the job market just continues to get even tighter.

On Wednesday, ADP reported that the U.S. economy lost 32,000 jobs last month…

• The U.S. labor market slowdown intensified in November as private companies cut 32,000 workers, with small businesses hit the hardest, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.
• Larger businesses, entailing companies with 50 or more employees, actually reported a net gain of 90,000 workers. However, establishments with fewer than 50 saw a decline of 120,000.
• The ADP report is the last monthly jobs picture the Federal Reserve gets before it meets Dec. 9-10.

Most experts were expecting that the ADP report would show that the U.S. economy actually added jobs last month.

So this is really bad news.

The three month average has now plunged into negative territory.

This is the very first time that has happened since August 2020.

Back then, we had a pandemic to blame for our problems.

What is our excuse this time around?

It is easy to say that unemployed people should just go out and “get a job”, but the truth is that even the mainstream media is admitting that “job hunting feels impossible right now”…

You’re not imagining it. Job hunting feels impossible right now because it actually is. You’ve polished your resume, customized cover letters and applied for hundreds of roles only to hear nothing back.

I know that many of you can identify with that.

Month after month, a lot of unemployed workers have been unable to find anything no matter how hard they have tried.

It can be absolutely soul crushing what you are in that position.

There is speculation that the latest ADP report may make it more likely that the Fed will give us another interest rate cut…

But Kenwell said the latest report should help push America’s central bank to cut interest rates for the third time in 2025.

The Fed, currently led by chair Jerome Powell, has a dual mandate to lower inflation and increase job growth through the government’s borrowing rates.

Rates are used as a blunt tool, swinging higher when prices climb, and plunging when unemployment accelerates.

Hopefully the Fed will do the right thing.

But a quarter point rate cut is not going to significantly alter our current economic trajectory.

We aren’t just heading into another recession.

We are heading into a full-blown meltdown.

When you total up all forms of debt in this country, we are more than 104 trillion dollars in the red.

It is the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and now a time of reckoning is here.

So please try to enjoy these “bad times” while we still have them, because it won’t be too long before things get a whole lot worse.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Do You Agree That It Takes A Minimum Of $136,500 A Year For A Family Of Four To Afford The Basics In America Today? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

There are unaffiliated voters who value common sense over crazy on the issue of immigration, North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley (R) said.

The post Exclusive – NC U.S. Senate Candidate Michael Whatley: There Are Unaffiliated Voters Who Value Common Sense over Crazy on Immigration appeared first on Breitbart.

Americans’ years-long rebellion against toxic, neo-Marxist wokeness has corresponded with a palpable Christian revival. Now, in a development that Steve Deace of BlazeTV called “unthinkable even a couple of years […]

The post Kevin Costner Set to Tell the True Story of Christmas in ABC Special 'That Was Unthinkable Even a Couple of Years Ago' appeared first on The Western Journal.

Indonesian officials said on Tuesday that the death toll from flooding and landslides, caused by months of heavy rain and multiple devastating typhoons, has exceeded 800. More than 700 of those casualties were reported on the island of Sumatra.

The post Floods and Landslides in Indonesia Kill over 800 appeared first on Breitbart.

In recent days, in the South China Sea, the USS Nimitz carrier strike group has been conducting operations and bilateral exercises with the Philippines, to include anti-submarine warfare drills. This comes as tensions have increased between China and Japan, on top of a simmering confrontation at the flashpoint of Scarborough Shoal with the Philippines.

For decades, China has been conducting illegal maritime encroachments into its neighbors’ waters and is now trying to mask its malign activities with a new tactic—environmentalism. This is particularly hypocritical given China has destroyed many pristine coral reefs under an archipelago of man-made island military bases. China now plans to establish a maritime nature reserve that will consist of two parts: A “core zone” that will include the damaged reef within the Scarborough Shoal that will prohibit any human activity, and the “experimental zone” which will cover 400-800 yards of water on either side of the reef where research, the breeding of fish, and tourism may take place.

Scarborough Shoal is not just a grouping of rocks and coral; it is a rich fishing ground. Fishermen from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan have been active in the area for generations. That changed drastically in 2012, when China reneged on a negotiated deal brokered by the U.S. and forcibly seized control of it from the Philippines. Today China has effective control of the shoal and is limiting access and increasing intimidation of non-Chinese fishing vessels.  

In recent years, China’s increased presence around the shoal is up from an average of 48 ships a month near the end of 2024, to 95 ships a month during the first half of 2025. Countries with vested economic interests in the region are not happy about China’s actions, especially the Philippines, which stands staunchly opposed to China’s increasingly brazen dominance in their water. Scarborough Shoal is within the Philippine’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone, making China’s plans particularly problematic given its proximity to the capital of Manila and strategic port of Subic Bay.

One potential protection against China’s activities is the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty, which states: “If one nation’s ’metropolitan’ territory, military, aircraft, islands, or public vessels are attacked, the other must respond in accordance with their ’constitutional processes.’” The United States has affirmed commitment to protecting the Philippine’s sovereignty under the Biden administration which released a joint statement with the Philippines president saying “An armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea, would invoke United States mutual defense commitments under Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”

With all this in mind, it is critical the U.S. act quickly with the Philippines to deter Beijing from moving forward with its plan to establish a marine preserve at Scarborough Shoal. This should be done through both diplomatic pressure and increased military presence like the current U.S. carrier strike group in the region.

In response to Chinese duplicity, in 2013, the Philippines filed an arbitration case against China and won. That case concluded with the international tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruling in 2016 that China’s Nine-Dash Line violated the U.N.’s conventions and that fishermen from the Philippines and China have traditional fishing rights within the shoal.

China does not recognize the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling and continues to claim sovereignty over the territory using the same disproven historical arguments.

China may want to appear as if it’s protecting the damaged reefs within Scarborough Shoal, but China has shown it does not care about the environmental impact of its activities in the region. Chinese fishing vessels have participated in damaging practices when harvesting clams, and within the South China Sea, China is thought to have caused the destruction of around 4,600 acres of reef. Why does China suddenly care about this reef, and why build a nature reserve now?

Satellite images released on Oct. 8 depict the placement of a barricade at the mouth of the Scarborough Shoal, which has been confirmed by the Philippine Navy. This is not the first time a barricade has been placed at the shoal, but paired with the plans for a nature reserve, it demonstrates China’s goal of gaining full control. As of Oct. 17, China was operating fighter jets and patrol aircraft in the skies overhead, as well as maritime security vessels nearby, and placed new buoys within and around the shoal to assert dominance over the disputed feature. On Nov. 16, China moved eight maritime ships and coast guard vessels that had previously been stationed at the shoal to Subi Reef, near Thitu Island which is claimed by China but is occupied by Philippine troops.

Besides resources, China may be able to further strengthen its de facto administrative control of nearby waters, further restricting activities by the Philippines and other nations in the Scarborough Shoal. If China moves forward with its plan for a nature reserve, it is highly likely that there will be heightened law enforcement activity and presence near the shoal further burnishing its control of the shoal and surrounding waters. This was indeed suspect back in 2016, with China to turn Scarborough Shoal into a man-made island garrison, as it has done with several features under its control in the Spratly Islands.

If this were to happen, it would threaten United States operations and exercises with the Philippines, along with access to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. The bases open to U.S. forces under this agreement include Fort Magsaysay, Basa Air Base, Antonio Bautista Air Base, Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, and Lumbia Air Base. If China succeeds in constructing this nature reserve, we should expect increased Chinese military presence, maritime coercion by paramilitary forces, and further encroachment. With rising tensions in the region and the recent deadly collision between a Chinese destroyer and a Philippine Coast Guard cutter, China will likely not back down lightly. The United States has strategic interest in this region. A little demonstration of resolve today could go a long way toward preventing a more intractable long-term problem at the Scarborough Shoal from getting worse.

The post China’s Development of the Scarborough Shoal appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania lost his normally even-keeled demeanor when a reporter read to him what former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote about him in her book about […]

The post Dem Governor Josh Shapiro Snaps When He Finds Out What Kamala Harris Said About Him: 'Complete and Utter Bulls***' appeared first on The Western Journal.