Chelsey Youman, Esq., is Chief of Staff & Counsel for First Liberty Institute, concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights.

She joined First Liberty Institute after working for a law firm in private practice, where she successfully litigated corporate fraud matters, complex commercial litigation, and consumer rights issues in both federal and state jurisdictions.

Youman received her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University, where she was a Dean’s Scholarship Recipient. Youman is a member of the Board of Advocates, where she successfully argued in off-campus mock trial competitions and was a member of the Aggie Law Society and SMU Christian Legal Society. During law school, she clerked for the Consumer Protection Division in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas and Liberty Institute.

Dr. Brent Taylor is the Pastor of First Baptist Church Carrollton and Church at the Fields, international speaker, professor of American history, and corporate communicator. He is the author of “Founding Leadership: Lessons on Business and Personal Leadership From the Men Who Brought You the American Revolution” which will be available February 13, 2018 as well as a book on leadership and the presidency coming out in the fall of 2018.

Brent enjoys reading great stories from history, fishing, traveling, and helping people find their purpose in life. His other great passion is discovering the red light on at Krispy Kreme Donuts. Brent lives in the Dallas area with his wife and three children.

NEW BRAUNFELS, Tex. — The gunman who killed more than two dozen people in a small church outside San Antonio on Sunday had a string of troubling episodes in recent years, including an escape from a mental health facility in 2012 after he was caught sneaking guns onto an Air Force base “attempting to carry out death threats” against military superiors, according to a police report.

Devin P. Kelley’s young life was riddled with warning signs, mounting during and after his time in the Air Force, including a conviction for beating his then-wife and stepson, charges of animal cruelty, mental health concerns, investigations for domestic assault, threats against his family members and a motorcycle crash that left him with lingering physical pain.

Ted Poe of Texas and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey are the latest in a series of House Republicans to announce they'll retire at the end of this term. According to Nate Cohn of the New York Times, LoBiondo's exit is a big one for Democrats:

There are now 13 Republicans departing in 2018 and just one Democrat. In addition, Jason Chaffetz resigned his seat in June, and his replacement is being elected Tuesday.

Outlier check 1: According to Brookings, the average terms served for retiring members has hovered around 8 over the last 40 years, but dropped to 5 in the 2016 cycle. The average among these 13 Republicans is 9.3.

Outlier check 2: The number to watch for to help determine if this trend is notable is 23. That's the average number of retiring representatives over the last five election cycles. Over that time, there has been more attrition from Republicans than from Democrats. However, the 12-to-1 ratio of retiring Republicans to Democrats is a considerable disparity.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s annual survey of Americans' opinion of communism shows that most millennials still like socialism, but their views are slowly moving to the right.

The survey, which was conducted online from Sept. 28 to Oct. 5, revealed that 7 in 10 millennials don’t believe that high-income earners pay their fair share in taxes. To remedy the situation, half of that group favors increasing taxes and nearly 4 in 10 believe the U.S. should completely change its economic system.

So, what kind of government system do they prefer?

More millennials, between 44 to 42 percent, would rather live in a socialist country than a capitalist country. The survey notes that this is likely due in part to the 53 percent who believe that the U.S.

One of the hottest tickets in New York City this weekend was a discussion on whether to overthrow capitalism.

The first run of tickets to “Capitalism: A Debate” sold out in a day. So the organizers, a pair of magazines with clear ideological affiliations, socialist Jacobin and libertarian Reason, found a larger venue: Cooper Union’s 960-capacity Great Hall, the site of an 1860 antislavery speech by Abraham Lincoln. The event sold out once again, this time in eight hours.

The crowd waiting in a long line to get inside on Friday night was mostly young and mostly male. Asher Kaplan and Gabriel Gutierrez, both 24, hoped the event would be a real-life version of the humorous, anarchic political debates on social media. “So much of this stuff is a battle that’s waged online,” said Gutierrez, who identifies, along with Kaplan, as a “leftist,” if not quite a socialist.