Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1253 | Israel-Hamas Conflict Is Coming to an End | Ron Simmons

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Guest-host Ron Simmons unpacks the government shutdown, exposing Democratic hypocrisy and urging financial preparedness. We explore the Israel-Hamas ceasefire’s hope for peace and answer listener questions on Charlie Kirk’s impact and biblical stewardship. Join us to reject fear, embrace truth, and apply godly wisdom to navigate today’s chaos with courage and clarity.   Check out Ron Simmons' book, "Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon": ⁠https://ronsimmons.com/purchase-book/⁠   Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   Watch Allie's Jubilee episode debate, "1 Conservative Christian vs. 20 Liberal Christians": ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUjeVodnbzA⁠   --- Timecodes: (00:30) Debunking Government Shutdown(05:30) Air Traffic Controller Strike?(09:30) Democrats Creating a Deficit(18:45) Ron Gives Financial Wisdom(22:02) Israel Ceasefire Deal(26:19) Should Donald Trump Get Nobel Peace Prize(29:04) Q&A(43:09) Wisdom From The Wagon --- Today's Sponsors:   Good Ranchers — Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GoodRanchers.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and subscribe to any box (but preferably the Allie Beth Stuckey Box) to get free Wagyu burgers, hot dogs, bacon, or chicken wings in every box for life. Plus, you’ll get $40 off when you use code ALLIE at checkout.   We Heart Nutrition — Get 20% off women's vitamins with We Heart Nutrition, and get your first bottle of their new supplement, Wholesome Balance; use code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.WeHeartNutrition.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.   Seven Weeks Coffee — Experience the best coffee while supporting the pro-life movement with Seven Weeks Coffee; use code ALLIE at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.sevenweekscoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to save up to 25% off your first order, plus your free gift!   Range Leather — highest-quality leather, age-old techniques, and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to ⁠⁠⁠rangeleather.com/allie⁠⁠⁠ to receive 15% off.   Concerned Women for America — For a donation of $20 or more, you will get a copy of their new book, written by the CEO and President, Penny Nance, "A Woman's Guide: Seven Rules for Success in Business and Life." Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠ConcernedWomen.org/Allie⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your copy today.   --- Episodes you might like:   Ep 1229 | How to Make Money in a Tough Economy | Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1229-can-young-women-afford-to-be-stay-at-home-moms/id1359249098?i=1000721550989   Ep 1220 | They’re Lying to You About the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ | Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1220-should-we-care-about-the-epstein-files-ron-simmons/id1359249098?i=1000718349406   Ep 1204 | Breaking Down Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill & the 'Peaceful' LA Riots https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1204-breaking-down-trumps-one-big-beautiful-bill/id1359249098?i=1000712647354   --- Buy Allie's book "You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://alliebethstuckey.com/book⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

My dad is here today filling in on today's episode of Relatable. We are post-share-the-arrows, so we are kind of in recovery mode, and my dad is going to take you through some really important news items and break it down in the very understandable and calming way that he does. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use Code Allie at checkout. That's Good Ranchers.com, Code Allie.

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Of course, as you can tell, it's not Alley. Beth, it's her dad, Ron. Thank you so much for joining us, either you're on YouTube or on just listening to the podcast on one of the many outlets that we use. And just remember you can get this podcast anywhere you listen to, you know, your podcast, whether that's Apple, Spotify, all of those others.

And encourage you to make sure that you're subscribing, not just listening, but subscribing, and also subscribing to the YouTube channel of Valley. Those are always helpful. And then remember to put in a, comment and give us a five-star rating if you would. Now, again, only judge these podcasts based on Allie's performance, not mine. I don't want you to rate it based on mine because that might hurt hers.

But I enjoy the times that Allie allows me to host. And I actually miss, we haven't had one together in a while because she's been traveling. I've been traveling. And, of course, this past week has been super busy having her Share the Aeros Conference, which is awesome. Those of you that attended that know how great it was. And it's very exciting that we had so many women from all 48 states. And I think six or seven countries that came to attend and just incredibly grateful to each of you that were able to attend.

And we're obviously grateful to God for the blessing that he put upon that. But anyway, we're going to talk today a little bit more about some current events. And one of the big events that we're going to talk about is the government shutdown, which just like, everything with government, it's not exactly what it says. There are a lot of still agencies and government-related organizations that are working. For example, I went through, there's a list of them that I came up with that I found, and here's the ones that are still working, all right? Active duty military and their support team. Federal law enforcement, disaster response. If there was a disaster, those people are still available.

Border Patrol and ICE, of course. We know that's still in the news. They're still working. Food inspectors for the FDA, which is important. We have all this food that comes through our ports and through processing plants, and those have to be continued to be reviewed as well. The Treasury, some of the Treasury employees that work for the Treasury, those are the ones that cut the Social Security checks. They also collect all the taxes, pay tax rebates if you filed your tax returns. So those people are still working. The judges, the court system is still working as well as their security and then the U.S. attorneys and the federal law enforcement, the federal prosecutors are still working as well. Now, the interesting thing about this is that those people don't get paid as they normally would,

you know, every two weeks or however the government pays them during a shutdown. They will get all of that money and back pay once the government reopens, but they, there's, not getting all of their check. They may have gotten a little bit of it. And I think the next, when it comes around the next payday, they won't get any pay. But when the government opens back up, they'll get all that back pay. So don't worry about that. Now, hopefully those people have saved some money, and we're going to talk about that

a little bit later. But the non-essential, non-essential, in other words, the government employees that are not talked about on the list that I just gave you, those are non-essential. And they're going to also get back pay, but they do not, they don't, they do, they're not allowed to go to work. They can't even go into the office. So it's really an interesting thing. One of the organizations, though, agencies that has been under a lot of scrutiny and there's been a lot of publicity about it that is not, that are not working are the air traffic controllers. And that has created quite the mess.

In fact, my wife was, Ali's mom was coming home a few days ago from Nashville, and she called me from the plane, and she said, they're shutting down the airport at 7 p.m. And we're on the runway, not yet taking off for number four or five in line. And it was maybe six or seven minutes before 7 p.m. And it looks like we're going to have to go, they're going to take us back to the gate. And I'm going to be stuck here for the night. And we're like, oh, my goodness.

Well, as the things happen sometimes, they were the very last plane that got out, and the planes behind them turned around and went back to the gate. And I assume those people were stuck in Nashville for another night. Now, a lot of you won't remember this, but those of you that are my age and maybe a little younger, a little older, remember that in 1981, the air traffic controllers went on strike. and when that happened, then President Reagan fired every one of them and brought in the military air traffic control system to run it. And of course, they rehired some of them. But air traffic controllers are forbidden to go on strike as it was outlined in their contract. Now, what's happened here is a lot of them have taken sick days or off days and what have you. So that's created some huge problems.

But again, I mean, they're not getting all their paycheck now, but they're going to get all their back paid. They're just creating havoc to create havoc's sake. There's no good reason for them to do that. What they should be doing, if they are taking sick of bay, is be on the phone to Chuck Schumer, who is the number one reason that this government is shut down. There's no other reason. We'll talk about that in a minute. But let's look at a little bit about the air traffic controller strike and look at what the head of the FAA has to say on SOT 1.

We're having maybe a bit of a rebellion by air traffic controllers caused by the shutdown. But my message to them, they work for me. They got to go to work. Show up. Control the airspace. And eventually you're going to get paid. Show up for work. I mean, come on, guys and gals.

You're putting people's lives at risk. You know what your job is. You know that you make a pretty good salary. And in fact, a very good salary. And you're causing havoc throughout the country. that is just inappropriate. Here's it. You've heard the term thrown around quite a bit called CR, continuing resolution.

Well, what a continuing resolution means is that the government will be funded in the same manner that it has been funded before up until now. Because what happens is because we haven't passed a two-year budget in years, because it can't seem to get through both the House and the Senate, They have these ongoing continuous resolutions that basically says, okay, we're just going to fund the government like it has been over the last several months. And the House of Representatives, some people say, why isn't the House of Representatives working? Well, they've already done their job. They passed a clean, continuing resolution.

They didn't add any pork to it or take anything away from it. Just said it's going to stay the same as it has been since it was funded prior to this particular budget scenario. So the House has done its work. There's nothing they can do until the Senate passes some type of resolution. Now, what the Senate has put forth is the clean resolution, meaning there's no add-ons to it. But the sticking point is the Democrats want to add 1.5, listen to me, this is over the next decade, $1.5 trillion of additional spending. And you know where spending comes from?

Remember, the government doesn't produce anything. Every single dime that the government takes in comes out of some taxpayer's pocket, either through fees or direct taxes. So remember, any money that they say they want to increase, that's coming from you and me. No other place for it to come from. They don't make widgets. They don't, you know, they don't do anything else. They simply collect the money from you and me, and then they spend it on whatever it is they're

spending it on. In fact, they've actually overspent by $37 trillion. Now, that, you know, goes over a lot of administrations, includes the Biden administration, the Obama administration. In fact, the budget has not been balanced since 1994, something like that. And so for the last, what would that be, 31 years, we've created deficits. Some of those have been necessary due to, like the pandemic, due to wartime, what have you. But a lot of it has just been extra spending that didn't need to happen.

And now the Democrats want to put another $1.5 trillion. And the main part of that is extending Obamacare subsidies. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day. It is seven weeks coffee. Seven weeks is America's pro-life coffee company. It's in their name at seven weeks gestation. The baby inside the womb is the size of a coffee bean and that is why they put their money where their heart is. So 10% of every sale of seven weeks coffee is donated to pregnancy centers across the country. This has amounted to over

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Go to seven weeks coffee.com. Use code alia. Check out for 10% off. That's seven weeks coffee.com code alley. Now, I don't know if you all remember when Obamacare first got started. Some of you were probably not thinking about that because you were teenagers and what have you. But when Obamacare finally went into play, the selling point that President Obama at the

time told us and all the Democrats told us, it's going to make health costs go down. if it's going to make everything less expensive more efficient. Well, if that's the case, why in the world are Democrats so concerned about continuing subsidies and doesn't want people's health insurance cost to go? You know, they're out-of-pocket cost to go up. It's because health costs have continued to soar since Obamacare came into play. In fact, it's only gotten worse than what it was beforehand, as far as the rate of increase is concerned. It's been an absolute disaster. So what happened is, is when Obamacare first

started, there were these, how much you paid was dependent on your income. And, okay, we understood that based on how much money you made was how much you could buy an insurance policy for through what they called the marketplace, which is basically Obamacare. If you had a company plan or you were eligible for Medicare or anything like that. You weren't eligible for these. But if you were just an individual without insurance, you could buy a plan through Obamacare. And based on how much money you made, determine how much you paid. And so the less money you made, if you were under the federal poverty limit, you paid very little money. If you made a lot of money, you paid more money, okay? Even though you were both getting the same coverage. So it's socialism at its best,

unbelievable. What happened was during the pandemic, actually, while Biden was president, they, what he called the Inflation Reduction Act, which was the biggest joke of a name of any legislation I've ever heard of, okay, is that they enhance those subsidies. And so they made it even less expensive for people to get insurance. In fact, I printed some stuff off here today. I'm going to pull it out here if I can find it. Yeah. And what they, what the Democrats want to do is continue those.

Because those are supposed to, we're supposed to be temporary. and they were scheduled to end at the end of 2025. We're not in the pandemic anymore. Everybody that wants to work is going back to work, and everybody that hasn't gone back to work that's able-bodied should go back to work. There's no reason we people be sitting around the house not going back to work. So anyway, here's what the enhanced incentives would provide. All right.

If the federal poverty limit for a family of four is $31,000 a year, which is no question. That would be very hard to make it on that. If you made between $31,000 and $47,000 a year, you basically didn't have to pay any premiums for an Obamacare plan, all right? Zero. It cost you nothing. If you made between $47,000 a year and $62,000 a year,

so that's above the poverty level, up to 200%, you would pay only about 2% of your income. So if you made $60,000 a year, you would pay 2%, which would be $1,200 a year or about, what's that, 50, what would that be? A little over $100 a month, okay? Be $100 a month. If you made between $62,000 and $78,000 a year, you paid 4%, which again, the maximum for somebody that made, say, $80,000, that would be, what, $3,200 a year, that would be somewhere around $2,300 a month, okay? very inexpensive. Those plans themselves generally would cost a family two or three thousand dollars a month. And then if you made 300% of poverty level, you'd pay 6%. If you made 400% of poverty level,

which was between 93 and 125,000, you would pay 8%. Well, those are supposed to go back to the original subsidies. Okay. We're not getting rid of all the subsidies. It just goes back to the original non-enhanced subsidies, which cut these about in half. And for anybody making over 400 percent, there wouldn't be any type of subsidy out there. So that's what they want. Now, again, all the Democrats are trying to do is give away your money so that they can get somebody else's vote. That's what they're trying to do. I hope that the Republicans will not compromise on that, but my best guess is they're going to come up with some type of compromise. That's my best guess.

It won't be certainly what probably you and I want, and it probably won't even be what Chuck Schumer totally wants, but they've got to figure out what people generally do in legislation like that is figure out a way where both of them can go back to their constituents and say they want, even if it's not the truth. They'll make it just enough so that they'll say, okay, well, we held firm, or, hey, we got them to do this. That's what likely will happen.

I don't have any real insight information on that right now, but the people I'm talking to, I think that's the most likely scenario because nobody wants the government shut down to continue as long as it's already continued. And hopefully when the Senate gets back into session tomorrow, they will have come up with a solution. Now, I know that they were off over the weekend,

but I guarantee you they've been talking. That's what happens. There's been seven failed votes so far in the Senate. You've got to get to 60 in the Senate. And some people have said, well, why don't we put the nuclear option where you only have to have 51? I would disagree with that. Because here's what happens. I use the term sometimes that gun kicks just as hard as it shoots,

meaning that sometimes when you do those things that seem good when you're in charge, you're not going to want those when the other side's in charge. because when the other side's in charge, we want them to have to get 60 votes to pass some stuff that we don't like. So I would not put a nuclear option on this. Now, pretty interesting on all of this stuff, on this clean resolution. And Chuck Schumer, you know, talking about we're not going to do it and all this type of stuff. But in 2013, in 2018, in 2019, in 2021, Chuck Schumer went before the Senate floor and on media and says, we have to pass a clean resolution. That's what we need to do to keep the government open. And then

once we do that, we can talk about all these other things. Now, he's totally changed his tune, right? It's the hypocrisy of liberals that drives me the most crazy, is that they are just so hypocritical when it suits them to be. And we'll just have to see what happens. Now, I want to tell you this, though, Don't panic about it, okay? It's going to be okay. Everything will adjust as it has in the past. I do think that we'll come out of this with probably less federal employees. I do think some agencies will use this as a chance, as an opportunity to trim their staff some, which is a good thing.

I always used to tell people, when you see companies that have a pretty good balance sheet and they're laying off people, that's a pretty good time to invest in their stock. Now, I'm not giving you personal investment advice. I'm just saying what I've looked at in the past. So that because that means they're tightening the ship. And hopefully the federal government will do that as well. You're still going to get your Social Security check. You're still going to, if you're on Medicare, you're still going to get Medicare. If you're on Medicaid, you're still going to have your claims paid and what have you.

So don't worry about that. They'll get it worked out. Probably will not be exactly what any of us want, but they'll get it worked out. So that's another good reason, though, to talk about this real quick. it. Every one of us should have at least 90 days in reserve, 90 days of our expenses. So if your expenses are $3,000 a month, you should have at least $9,000 in savings in a money market type fund that you can access without any risk of that principle being lost. And no matter what you're doing, that should be the first savings you set aside. You build that $9,000

up if you, if that's what your deal is, $3,000 a month. and don't do anything else until you do that. You know, I think that's very, very important. Now, do I think you should still give to your church and to charities? Yes. Do I still think, you know, that you should pay your bills? Yes. But before you do any other expenses, you need to be putting that money away

so that you're ready in case something happens to your particular job or maybe you work for the federal government. And, you know, you need to, there will be another shutdown in the future. I promise you that. If it's not this year, not next year, in the future, happen. So make sure that you're prepared for that so your family doesn't suffer or you don't have to do something that's unwise. So anyway, government shutdown. It's, it happens. It's happened many times in the past and it will all get worked out. I hope you'll pay attention, but it's not something

to really be panicked about. Next sponsor is WeHeart Nutrition. WeHeart Nutrition is a pro-life family-owned and operated supplement company for women and for men. I started taking their supplements, the beginning of 2024, total game changer for my health. It has helped my iron levels. My blood work looks amazing. My doctor was actually so impressed by my vitamin D levels. Now, I've been taking vitamin D for years and years, as long as I can remember. And yet every time I got blood work done, I was told that my vitamin D levels were too low. Not this time. And that is because the ingredients in every single We heart nutrition product is the most bioavailable form of it. So, your body is actually able to absorb the supplements that you're taking. And that can really make a

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And not just a ceasefire, but they've agreed on a what's the beginnings of a peace plan. And everybody's pretty excited about it. Let's go to SOT II. Similar moments of joy unfolding inside Gaza as crowds of Palestinians cheered and chanted. After two years of war, an influx of aid and relief will make it to residents there. Honestly, these are indescribable feelings. We can't believe it. But thank God the war has ended and we are alive.

Honestly, we hope the war does not come back and for this to be really the end, with no death and destruction afterwards. that I mean that that that's exciting I mean that is exciting we're having to record this a little bit early today so all the hostage scenario and what's released and all that have not been totally done yet supposed to be starting today and I think it will be it it it's really good there's there's somewhere we don't know the exact number between 20 and 40 hostages that that Hamas has that are still alive that they're going to send back and then also also the remains of 28 people that have passed away. And then Israel is releasing 250 Palestinian prisoners that are serving a life sentence

and 1,700 others that are detained. They haven't been sentenced yet. They're detained. So hopefully it's something that is going to work. Israel is going to pull back from some of the urban areas, the U.S. government sending it. We're sending 200 of our troops to help court. to make sure this stays in place.

Now there's like a 20-point peace plan and everything hasn't been totally agreed upon, but it seems like this is a really, really good start. There's going to be 170,000 tons, which I don't even know what that number comes to, 34 something, 34, I don't know, million pounds or whatever that comes to, of food, medicine and supplies, going to be coordinated by the UN so that it's not just, just taken over by some of the leaders in Gaza and used as used, you know, to keep their people at bay. Because that's what's happened a lot of times. We've tried to send humanitarian aid in there.

And then the terrorists and stuff have been the ones that have taken it, controlled it, to keep the citizens under control. And hopefully that's not going to happen this time. Let's pull up SOT 3. The hostages will be coming back Monday or Tuesday. I'll probably be there. I hope to be there. And we're planning on leaving sometime Sunday. And I look forward to it.

And everybody, I see is celebrating in Israel, but they're celebrating in many other countries too. A lot of the Muslim and Arab countries, they're celebrating. Everybody's celebrating. Everybody loves the deal. So it's a great honor to have been working on it. So obviously that was a few days ago. And the reason I showed that is because the work that President Trump and his team have done. One thing that's been a little bit underreported, I only saw it in one publication, is if you remember President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that was very involved in the first Trump administration and actually set up the Abraham Accords, which was a relationship that America put together in the Middle East with some of the Middle East countries over there.

He's been involved in the last few days with these negotiations and has obviously very talented at doing that. So I appreciate him as a fellow American that's willing to, you know, leave his private business for a while and get involved with this. And I think that's a really good thing. Now, one of the things that you have seen, heard anyway talked about in this is whether or not President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize for this. Well, if this thing goes through like it's scheduled to go through and everything is agreed upon, I don't see how you couldn't do that. Now, they don't always give the Nobel Priest Prize to people that are deserving. In fact, they've given it to people that have been non-deserving.

But I really think President Trump has taken the right stance on this, and he talked about that recently in SOT 5. Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements. But for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with the mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and undelorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes at saving lives. We save millions and millions of lives with the seven wars. And we have others that we're working on, and you know that.

That's awesome. That is exactly the right tone to tell. take. Obviously, there was a teleprompter up there, but he's the one that approves all the speeches that he does. So that's the right tone to take. It's not about his prize or my prize or your prize, whatever we're talking about. It's really about saving the lives of people and people in the future that would have died in a conflict like this. Same things going on in Ukraine. I wish Putin and Zelensky would be able to get together and come to some type of agreement. You know, I know what my personal feelings are. But I wish Putin and Zelensky would be able to get together and come to some type of agreement. I know, I know, I know, I know,

I just want them to come to an agreement because it's not going to get any better. And I'm hopeful that this works. And if happens to work, I sincerely hope that President Trump deservedly wins the Nobel Peace Prize for that. So that's what's going on with that. We'll monitor that as well. Again, no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, you want to have peace in that particular area. And that'll be a big positive for the Middle East for sure. next sponsor is Good Ranchers y'all. Good Ranchers is amazing. It's another Christian family-owned company.

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use my code alley you get $40 off good ranchers.com slash alley code alley now let's talk about some of the questions that you have you guys are awesome at answering questions for us it's just giving questions to us and giving us the opportunity to answer them I want to tell you though that if you have I've told you in the past that if you have a question that I don't answer on here and you would like for me to answer personally. Just email me, Ron at Ron Simmons.com. Now, if you've sent me an email and I haven't answered you because I get a bunch of emails on the other stuff that I have going on, please rescind it to me. I apologize that I haven't gotten back to you. We have gotten a good response on this and I really enjoyed doing that. Allie and I talk about it all the time.

Sometimes I'll get my wife involved in it. Say, how would you answer this? Because she has much more wisdom than I do on a lot of subjects. And so I appreciate you all doing that. We got a bunch of good ones today to you. I'm going to try to go through as many as I can in the time we have left. And if I don't get to yours and you're still interested in having it answered, please just shoot me an email and I'll do my best to answer it. Okay, I got them on my phone here. All right. Thoughts on Taylor and Travis getting married. I have no thoughts on them getting married. Okay. I do think if you're dating and you're serious, then you should move that on to being married. Okay, that's what I think. But other than that, I have no thoughts on that. Although I did take one of my

grandsons to a Kansas City Chiefs game. He's a big Kansas City chiefs fan a couple of weeks ago in Kansas City. And I'd never even looked up to see if Taylor Swift was there, although I'm sure she was. But it was a great experience. Kansas City is a great place to go to a game, very family-oriented. We really enjoyed doing that. All right. So somebody asked about the traveling that Lisa and Daniel and I have done, Daniel's Allie's brother. And we've had it. We had a, we had. a great time. We won a nice cruise around the British Isles. Daniel is our son, you know, with autism. And he likes everything British. So for his 40th birthday, we took him on a cruise from London, around Ireland and Scotland. We really had a great time. And for the three of us, I think that's

probably was one of his best trips. For Lisa and I, last summer, we went on the footsteps of Paul on a cruise with about a hundred other of us on this small ship. into Greece. And we went to Athens, we went to Thessaloniki. We went to Patmos. It was fantastic. We also went to Ephesus, which is actually over in Turkey. But one of the cool things that we did in Ephesus is we went to an amphitheater that's still there from ancient times. And we had the Christian singer, Cece Wanans, came in and did a private concert for the hundred of us that were there. It was fantastic. In fact, Lisa, Lisa said when we're sitting there, she looks up at, I always kind of choke up when I think about this. She looks up at the top of the theater

and she just says, I can see Paul sitting up there, just smiling on what had happened from his ministry and from Jesus's ministry. So anyway, it was a very cool experience. That's probably our favorite trip. What's the favorite thing to do with the grandkids? The favorite thing I like to do with the grandkids is take them kind of one at a time and spend some one-on-one time with them. And as they get older, that's easier and easier to do, like taking my 11-year-old up to Kansas City. And, you know, my 14-year-old, he came out to the mountains with us for a couple of weeks this summer.

For the little ones, right now, the favorite thing to do is just to watch them playing together. Allie's oldest and my son's youngest are about the same age, and they don't see each other that much because they live hundreds of miles apart. But when they do, they're so fun to watch and just see them playing together as cousins that really enjoy being with each other. So that's the fun part. Did you ever think Allie would grow up to be such an amazing influence on women? Honestly, I knew that Allie was going to be an influencer. Now, you hope when they're little that that's for the good. And it certainly turned out to be that way. But I also knew that her mom was setting a great example for that. So you never know. Nobody expects it to be what it is, right?

We didn't have any concept to know what it would end up being and what it even will be in the future. But I did know that Allie was someone that was going to be a leader and an influence. She just had that since she was born. She's always been out in front. And I've appreciated that much. about her. What do you think about age gap relationships greater than 10 years? Does the Bible speak to this? I don't know if it speaks to it specifically. Here's what I'll tell you. And I know that when we say don't be unequally yoked, that does generally mean about your faith. And I agree with that. But I also can also believe it can mean other things as well. If it's the right fit and you believe that's what God has put you all into that relationship,

then I'm fine with that. But just know it's going to be different, okay? And if it's so vastly different that's going to cause major issues or could cause major issues, just pray about that and make sure that's where you're supposed to be, what you're supposed to be doing at the time. Favorite Bible verse, my favorite, I got two favorite Bible verses, James 317, I'll let you look them up, and Mark 1045.

Those are my two favorite Bible verses. And, you know, those speak, me. Do I think, this is a very good question here. Do I think Charlie Kirk's assassination had an effect on my generation? I think it did, but I think it was primarily because we saw the response. Now, I was fortunate. I knew who Charlie was. As I said on my Facebook post, I had met Charlie through Allie, and so I was maybe more in tune than some people would be my age. But I believe it's primarily the reaction that we've seen by people since then that has been so amazing and in so many ways encouraging to us. When I saw the response, you know, in countries like

the UK and Australia and Korea, that was surprising even to me who did know him a little bit and knew what his ministry was. So I think it's had an effect. I still think some people are trying to catch up with that, including some pastors. But I'm just prayerful that it's going to be a continuous revival that comes about due to that. So I'm hopeful for that. Next sponsor is Range Leather. So thankful for Range Leather. This is yet another family-owned company that makes all of their products right here in the U.S. Kyle and Bailey started Range Leather from their kitchen table in Laramie, Wyoming. And everything is still made there in Wyoming. And I mean, this stuff lasts for life. I've got jewelry from there. I've got a hat

from there. I've got a bag from there that I still love. Wallets. I mean, their stuff makes such a great gift for people in your life, also just for yourself. And when you're buying from range leather, you know that it's high quality. So many things today are so expensive. Yet it just doesn't last because it's cheaply made. You don't have to worry about that with range leather. If you are looking for high quality family-owned made in the USA leather products, then look no further than range leather. If you go to rangeleather.com slash alley, you'll get 15% off all of their products.

Rangleather.com slash alley. Is a financial advisor worth the cost? You know, I was in a wealth management business for 30-something years. And what I will tell you is that you never want to hire a financial advisor that gets paid when you buy or sell something. that gets paid on a transaction because their incentives are wrong. You want to have a financial advisor that gets paid a percent of the assets that he's managing for you. So if he's managing $100,000 and his fee is 1% a year, that's $1,000.

Good advisors are worth that, right? And also they have the right incentive. If your money goes up to, say, $200,000, then his 1% fee is now worth $2,000 to him. If your money goes down, then he gets a reduction in his fee as well. So make sure that the incentive is lined up correctly. And yes, I believe that they're worth it. You know, if you get a good one, but you need to interview them. You need to know what their background is.

You know what their philosophy is. How are they going to manage your money? How active are they going to be? What type of risk are they going to take? And then, you know, obviously make sure you understand all the fees. Because sometimes they're a hidden fees. So make sure you understand all of them. Let's see here. Is it constitutional to ban Sharia law?

Sure, that's constitutional. We can ban Sharia law if we want to. There's nothing unconstitutional about that. Any law that's in conflict with the laws of the state or the federal are unconstitutional anyway. So we could we could do that if that's what we wanted to. All right, let's see here. What's my greatest priority in the role of a grandparent? I think our greatest priority role of a grandparent, and it's really the same for parents, is to steward our life in a way that our grandkids can follow that. Not so much what we say, but in what we do and how we conduct ourselves, okay?

Certainly it can be some things that come out of our mouth. Those can be positive or negative. But it's more so in how they see us steward our life and how we live our life. That's what I believe is the most important thing. that we can do. All right. Let's see here. How do you encourage your Christian husband to lead your family spiritually? That's a hard one. I know I probably hadn't done that, did not do that as well as I should have. But I think what you have to understand is that you cannot force another person to do something with their spiritual life. You can encourage them. You can love on them. You can try to

to get them engaged with people that you might have a good influence that you think might have a good influence on them. But you cannot force them to do that. So you live your life like you're supposed to, okay? You be the person you're supposed to be and the mother you're supposed to be and the wife you're supposed to be. And you let God worry about taking your husband and changing the changes that he needs to make. You just, it's just not, it's not possible to force somebody to do that. The turbo option of Republicans, what this, this is a good question. You know, the president has thousands of nominees that he puts before the Senate to get approved.

And the Senate can deny those, all right, but they have something called the turbo option, which instead of getting 60s, senators on board with it. They go to the 51 senators. And this is not allowed for every particular nominee, but the Democrats have done it and the Republicans just did it last week where they approved over a hundred nominees like in one sitting. And so they do it really quick. They don't have a lot of discussion on any of them. They just go through and approve them. And I think we're going to have to, I think we're going to have to do more of that. We'll do one more.

Do you fear for Allie's safety? I think that's a really good question, given everything that's going on. And of course, as a mom and dad, we're always concerned about our kids' safety for sure. Not only Allie, but she has her older brothers in a position that can cause some concern over that as well. But I will tell you that while we, obviously as parents are concerned, about those types of things, is that we don't let that change what we believe that God has put on our family. We're very blessed. And we're given an opportunity through Allie. Allie's given an opportunity to do what she's doing. Our oldest son has given an incredible opportunity to do what he's

doing. And we can't let the fear of another man or woman stop us. We can take all the precautions, which we do the best that we can in that, and we've certainly increased that over the last several weeks, but we cannot let that stop us. We have to move forward, and we have to let our grandkids and their kids see that we're doing that as well. So it's something you think about for sure, but it's not something that stops any of us on what we're doing,

and I hope it wouldn't do that for you either. Last sponsor is Concerned Women for America. If you have been looking at what's happening in American education or you are just looking out your window and you're seeing the culture war and the fight for our children's minds and hearts and you're like, how do I get involved? How do I do something else? And that's my talent, time, energy into ensuring that the next generation is protected and can actually learn truth. Then you need to reach out to concern women for America. they have been in this fight for decades. They focus on family, sanctity of life, religious liberty, parental choice and education,

fighting sexual exploitation, national sovereignty, support for Israel so much more. CWA trains women to become grassroots leaders, speak into the culture, pray, testify, and lobby. They have collegiate chapters. They've also got mom chapters. They really help all generations of women get involved. If you go to Concernedwomen.org slash Alley, when you donate $20, you get a free copy of Penny Nance's new book, a woman's guide, seven rules for success in business and in life. Go to concernwomen.org slash alley. I have one more segment that I want to do, and I've called it this before, it's called Wisdom from the Wagon.

And if you see behind me, my book, life lesson from the Little Red Wagon, which you can get anywhere you get your books, you can get it on audio. In fact, if you get on audio, you'll have Ronald Reagan reading part of my book, which was pretty hard to get considering he passed away, you know, 20-something years ago. But we were able to pull it off. You never know what you're going to be able to get. But I think you'll like the books. It's 15 different lessons that I've learned over the years. And it's, I'll tell you what it is, too.

It's a great book of storytelling done by my friend Don Yeager that helped me write the book. And it's very transparent. It lets you see the good, the bad, and the ugly about what I've gone through, some of the ups. and the downs and I think it is one of the biggest comments I get back on that is the transparency of it. And the cool thing about it is, you know, I grew up as son of public school teachers. Nothing particularly special about me, my background. There were nothing that were to predicted some of the things that we've been able to be a part of and what have you through God's grace. But I do think you'll enjoy it.

And I base it on a red wagon because almost all, All of us have had a red wagon. And as you can see from this picture, not only do you probably have one, but this is Ali Beth. She's holding on to the handle. And she's got her cousin in the wagon. All right? This is back in Arkansas. We would have gone home for a visit.

And that's a radio flyer wagon that we take a look at. And now, it's interesting. This picture is really interesting because one of the things in my book is I describe all the different parts of the wagon. And the wagon has four key parts. It has the handle. It has the front wheels. It has the back wheels. And it has the part that carries something. Well, obviously the handle is held on to by someone who's leading the wagon. And can you imagine Ali Beth being on any other position than holding the handle and leading the wagon? All the people around here are shaking their head saying, yeah, we We understand that, and she's been that way since she was a little girl.

But I just love that picture because it's just her as a sweet little one with her cousin and holding on to a radio flyer wagon that we've talked about so many times. But today's wisdom of the wagon is create your own opportunity. You know, a lot of people think, well, I didn't have this or I didn't get that, or you were lucky, or I wasn't fast enough to be in the NFL, or I didn't, you know, hit the goal. golf ball well enough to get on the PGA tour or I didn't have a rich uncle or a rich daddy or something like that. Okay, I get all of that. All right. Let's just wipe all that from the past. It's up to us, okay, to create our own opportunity. I had lunch with a young man earlier this week,

or last week, and he's a friend of the family. He's been a really sweet friend to Daniel. and just give you his first name, it's Andrew. And Andrew and I were sitting down for lunch because he asked me business questions on occasion, whatever. And Andrew has always had the desire to be an entrepreneur. He's been very successful in the regular business world working for huge Fortune 500 companies, but he's had that desire to, you know, to be his own boss, to own a company. And so he took a very bold step, and I'm not necessarily recommending it's for all of you.

He took a bold step and said, look, the only way I'm ever going to get there is I'm going to have to focus all of my attention on that for a period of time. And let's see what I can find that I can be an owner of, whether a part owner or a full owner of. And so he basically left his job, had saved up some money. So, you know, he didn't leave his family destitute because he's got a wife and three kids. and, you know, has spent the last year looking at businesses to buy. And he hasn't found one yet. He's gotten close a couple of times.

So he's out there creating his opportunity, all right? He's not waiting for somebody to give it to him. He is creating his opportunity. And it's uncomfortable. Another chapter in my book says, take the next uncomfortable step. Well, that's uncomfortable, but you have to do that. You know, when my business got started, some of you might remember if you've read the book, that I was in the investment business and we were going to manage money for small company retirement

plans. Then I went out and met with this guy that worked for American Airlines and somebody gave me his name to call. So I went to visit with him. And, you know, it wasn't kind of in my focus that I was focused on. So I said, well, you know, yeah, I'll visit with you. We could help you with your money and what have you, an individual. but I was thinking about we're going to manage all this money for these companies.

And this guy, we're finishing up the meeting. And just as we're leaving, just as I'm getting ready to leave the meeting, it's a Friday afternoon I'm ready to get out of there and get home, got to drive through all the traffic. He goes to the back of his house and he brings me out a list of 1,500 other guys just like him that all had over a million dollars to invest. And I knew exactly then what I was going to be doing for the rest of my business life. And so we created that opportunity.

Now, did God grace us with that? Absolutely. He blessed us with that. No question. I'm not talking about me as a person. I'm talking about using what God is giving you and going out there and making it happen. And you're going to have to take some risks to do that. No question about it.

But don't depend on somebody else to get that. I even think about Ali Beth, okay, as I finish up. The way Ali Beth got involved in all of this speaking and podcast and writing books, I mean, again, she's, she's always been interested in communicating. She's always been a great communicator. And in fact, where she went to college, the valedictorian doesn't speak. They have a contest for who's going to speak at the graduation. And she won.

And, you know, it was a very proud moment for her, obviously for Lisa and I. It was a very proud moment. I never forget that night as long as I live. You could just tell this was her element. Well, then she got out of college, went off to work in a smaller town and worked for a small PR firm. And this was around the 2016 election before that. And she was really disenchanted by people, her age, that weren't interested in voting, especially young women. Whether they voted left or right, that wasn't important, although certainly had her conservative views.

So what she did for free is she started calling on the sororities around the University of Georgia campus and said, can I come speak to your sorority about why it's important to vote. That's how she got started. She made that happen. She created her own opportunity. She did not know what that was going to turn into, but it won't ever turn into anything if you don't take the first step. So that's what I want to leave you with today.

I always enjoy being with you. I really appreciate the time that you give an alley and the support that you give her. Make sure that you're subscribed to her through the Blaze as well. get you a blaze subscription those are great you get a lot of other content with that and i look forward to seeing you another time have a good day