The Bill Walton Show

Election Integrity: Why we don’t have it, how we lost it and what to do about it. In the election of 2020 we saw a dramatic loosening of the chain of custody of ballots. We saw an indiscriminate use of mass mail-in ballots. We saw a verification process junked and pushed aside. And as a consequence, we saw major irregularities in that election. The result: a waning confidence among voters in the integrity of our election system. The issue is critical. If we don't get our elections right, we lose our American Republic. We lose our liberty. Joining me on this episode are two of our leading players in the fight to restore election integrity - and co-authors of a seminal piece in the Yale Law Review “The Other Voting Right”. Ken Blackwell, in his role with The Center for Election Integrity of the America First Policy Institute. And Ken Klukowski, who was senior counselor in the US Department of Justice and the Trump White House. Right now, the Democrats in Congress are trying to push through a power grab to federalize election law and make perpetual the abuses we saw in 2020. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act (HR4) would essentially eliminate state's rights and the decentralization of power that the framers established by granting states the authority to set the time, manner, and place of elections. This Bill must not become law. Also, in this episode we explore what the gold standard should be to insure election integrity. In 2020, ballot harvesting was a big source of abuse and we talk about how Republicans in Virginia - where ballot harvesting is legal - could turn the tables on Democrats in this November’s election. Listen in and learn from two of our top experts about how to restore the integrity of our elections.

In this episode we talk with Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, formerly Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and now Chairman of the Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors. Some of the many things we explore: Biden’s preposterous claim that “America is not at war” seemingly oblivious to China President Xi’s aggressive global ambitions. And the Administration may be done with the Afghanistan war, but that doesn’t mean Afghanistan is done with us. Its leaders still are driven to establish a caliphate and kill infidels, and now they have $85 billion in US military equipment to help them do it. While there are some differences among al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS-K, they agree on one important thing – they hate us and still want to destroy us. There’s bipartisan agreement in Congress that Blinken, Milley and Austin failed us in Afghanistan. The honorable thing for them to do is resign. That’s not going to happen. Another option: Congress should censure them. Donald Trump listened to European allies and left residual force troops behind in Syria. Biden ignored the same advice on Afghanistan. After Donald Trump, European heads of state, were thrilled to welcome President Biden to their club as a hoped for return to a cozier relationship. They are now furious with him over his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. His club days are over. The Wuhan Virus: “Who in the United States would think that sending money to a military lab controlled by the Chinese Communist Party was a good idea?" Government programs live forever, no matter how bad they are. For Congress, the problem has been “solved” when a bill passes. After that? It’s usually downhill from there. No one cares to look back to see if the programs have worked or the money well spent. For more common sense and wisdom from Pete Hoekstra, view/listen here.

It is hard to overstate the assault on civil liberties we are witnessing in America today. What began over a year and a half ago as temporary government measures to keep us safe from a virus spread from China, have now metastasized into something much more sinister, spreading to all aspects of societies around the world. We need to name this thing, understand what’s happening to us, and how to stop this threat to our freedoms. For some answers, in this episode I talk with Jefferey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute and author of Liberty or Lockdown. Jeffery, a man with a serious message and mission, is a delightful and engaging raconteur who turns policy discussion into a fascinating journey into truth. This is not an episode to skip. Some highlights from Jeffrey: “We’ve dealt with pandemics in the past. In the modern age and the 20th century, we did very well intelligently. And suddenly 2020 comes along and we decided to forget everything and pursued this insane experiment in human separation, and mass management of the unmanageable. And the result has been demoralizing, and depressing, and shocking in terms of all things public health. It's contrary to all of our traditions of law, our belief in equality, and human rights, and freedom.” The Role of the New York Times “On February 28, 2020, The New York Times published an op-ed by Donald J. McNeil. The title of the article was, 'To deal with the coronavirus, go medieval on it.' He said we need to reject all 20th century principles of public health where we just dealt with the pathogen, in terms of doctor patient relationships, and instead lock everybody down, shut the highways, ground the planes, freeze everybody to suffer in their disease ridden cities as if this is the Middle Ages.” The Madness of Masks “It's just awful to see these children in masks, and mandates, and people screaming at each other, get that mask over your nose, and so on and so on. It's just all nutty. The things that we've done to control this virus that we can't see, this invisible enemy, it feels mystical, and magical, and superstitious.” The Vaccine Mandates “This is serious stuff. This isn't just get the jab and shut up. People's lives have been ruined. Academia's being purged. The military's being purged. The public sector's being purged. We're turning our government into a single party state that seems to bear a lot of the marks of what we've come to see in China.” Why We Have to Push Back “And I know this, if we do nothing, we will certainly fail, and we'll lose everything. So I'm happy to do something, whatever it is, to make a difference. And maybe we can save this. It's worth saving. Civilization is worth saving. Freedom is worth saving. Human rights means something, they built the modern world. We cannot just sit by and do nothing when we see it all unraveling before us.” This episode is about one of the biggest issues of our day. Please listen in.

Joe Biden has mandated that businesses with more than 100 employees require every worker to be vaccinated or face weekly testing. It's estimated this will impact over 80 million people or almost two thirds of the country's workforce. Setting aside his dictatorial and offensive tone, does Joe Biden really have the power to do this or is it that under the guise of "keeping us safe," federal state and local governments have trampled our constitutional rights with draconian regulations and emergency orders with arbitrary executive decrees? This points towards even a bigger threat to our freedoms: an enormous and growing Administrative State and its threat to every American's constitutional rights. With me on this episode is Phillip Hamburger, the founder of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a scholar of constitutional law whose contributions are unrivaled by any US legal scholar in driving the national debate on the first amendment, government administrative power, and the separation of church and state. Also joining me is one of our favorite returning guests, Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, and a former public defender. After seeing governments throughout the nation violate human rights and civil liberties in their ostensible effort to mitigate the virus, she's now joined the fight against lockdowns and related policies. There’s a lot to unpack here, including a troubling statistic that 58% of Americans appear to approve a federal mandate. Would they, if they knew how throughout history “emergencies” have been used to steadily erode all the rest of their freedoms? Listen in to learn about the totalitarian drift of an Administrative State’s “rule by experts.”

The Afghanistan debacle. An in-depth look at its implications with Dr Stephen Bryen, Senior Fellow at the American Center for Democracy and Kyle Shideler, Director and Senior Analyst for the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, both with the Center for Security Policy. So many questions. Why did we leave so precipitously? Who was behind it? Where do we go from here? Why, when President Trump proposed withdrawing US troops, did the US military tell him that was a bad idea and that they wouldn’t do it. But then, when Mr. Biden announced a complete pullout and retreat, there wasn’t a word from the Pentagon saying we shouldn’t do it. In fact, they embraced it. And now Biden has the audacity to blame Trump for something he never did. What does this means for future of the United States? What was in our national interest by cutting and running from Afghanistan? The Taliban now have enough arms, including all the equipment that we left behind that it’s larger now than seven or eight European states and Ukraine. Look at a map. China is eyeing the $1 trillion of minerals and wealth in Afghanistan that could be exploited. The Turks want the Kabul airport and Bagram Air Base. Russia is eager to court the Taliban. And Iran, who Obama and Biden want to replace the United States in the Middle East, is now back in the picture. Biden’s intentions? “We are in the middle of a major strategic retreat,” say Dr Bryen, “Not only in Afghanistan, but everywhere in the Middle East and the Pacific.” For the first time ever, the Biden Administration directed our office of the Director of National Intelligence to do reports on domestic threats, not international threats. “I think there is definitely something about the Biden administration,” says Kyle Shideler, “that they see actual enemies abroad as friends and they see fellow countrymen who disagree with them as enemies.” So does Biden have no foreign policy? “No, he has a foreign policy,” explains Stephen Bryen, “retreat from obligations to our allies and former allies as much as possible, line up with Iran and then find a way to make a deal with the Chinese. I think that’s coming. I think we’d be fools not to realize that he’s going to sell us out in China.” Strong words. But after you listen to this, I think you will agree.

After decades of cuts to shipbuilding and maintenance, the United States Navy has been stripped down to a fleet barely larger than it was 100 years ago, in 1916. Meanwhile, China has dramatically increased its spending on its Navy, as well as on its Air Force, cyberspace and electronic warfare capabilities. Alarmingly, Beijing is building islands in the South China Sea, threatening trade routes and menacing allies. President Trump made it a priority to expand the American “blue water” fleet to 355 battle-force ships. His plan would have increased shipbuilding by only $6.7 billion and would have launched us on a trajectory to protect America’s maritime supremacy. Shortly after taking office, Joe Biden slashed this from his budget. With me to explore this and many other national defense concerns – in a fascinating, wide-ranging and strategic conversation – is Russ Vought, the founder of The Center for Renewing America and the Trump Administration’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on defense, energy and technology issues and author of To Rule the Waves and Freedom Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II As a maritime nation, the US is dependent on control of the sea to protect its people as well as its flow of trade. At its founding, America understood that its strength lay in a strong navy. But in the last seventy years, the United States has wandered far from this wisdom, and suffered endless “boots on the ground” debacles. Emphasizing sea power – and air, space and cyber power – would get us back on track. This is an issue that is barely talked about, but needs to be.

On June 28th 2021, George Mason University announced its reopening policy related to the COVID-19 for the fall 2021 semester. The policy required all unvaccinated students and staff members - including those who can demonstrate natural immunity from prior COVID-19 infections - to wear masks on campus, physically distance and undergo frequent COVID-19 testing. On July 22, GMU emailed the policy to students and employees and threatened disciplinary action—including termination of employment—against any who do not comply with the vaccine mandate. The university’s website describing its vaccination policy reiterated this threat. On August 3, 2021, GMU Professor Todd Zywicki, represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia, challenging GMU’s so-called “reopening policy.” “This coercive mandate violates my constitutional right to bodily integrity for no compelling reason,” explains Prof Zywicki. “For those of us who have acquired natural immunity, vaccination provides none of the benefits of vaccination with all of the costs.” At issue. Are GMU and other institutions across the country ignoring science, and within their rights, to force mandatory vaccines on even those with naturally acquired immunity. “Despite solid scientific evidence, GMU continues to refuse to recognize that Covid-19 vaccination is medically unnecessary for students, faculty, and staff with naturally acquired immunity demonstrated with antibody testing,” says Jenin Younes, lead counsel in Zywicki’s complaint. As it turns out, in this case GMU has ended up granting him a personal medical exemption, but it’s unclear how far this would extend to others. There is a lot more to unpack from this case about “mandates” and our constitutional rights, as Todd and Jenin explain in this episode.

Today we are witnessing a growing threat to our American military. A threat that is capable of doing what no foreign enemy ever could: Fracture the world’s greatest armed forces from within, through divisive political indoctrination and controls. That threat is called “wokeness.” At its root, “wokeness” imposes the resentful mindset of an extremist few onto society - in this case the American military. It has infected the Pentagon and its top leaders, and it has been metastasizing for years. Joining me to explore this alarming development is Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, one of the original combat commanders of the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force. Jerry also commanded all the Army's Green Berets as well as the Special Warfare Center and School and served for four years as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. “Our military should be about readiness, and its mission must be winning the nation’s wars,” explains Jerry. “There is nothing more important on the battlefield than cohesion - which wokeness undermines. You win wars because of cohesion, not because of technology.” Also returning to the show is Dr. Michael Waller, Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy where his areas of concentration are propaganda, political warfare, psychological warfare, and subversion. Among his many keen insights, Mike shares an astonishing fact: “The Defense Department publishes a dictionary of military and associated terms. It's almost 400 pages long. The word victory doesn't appear once, not as a term to define and not even a reference to it. And it doesn't even have a definition for the term enemy.” The military’s social experiments have already had a big impact. Retention rates are dropping. Young officers and noncommissioned officers are leaving the military. And the recruiting the right kind of talent is suffering. Listen in to this episode and you’ll think again about the risks of imposing “wokeness” on our American military.

“I used to struggle with imposter syndrome, but at age thirty six I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I’m supposed to apologize for the space I occupied rather than intoxicate people with my effort, my brilliance. I am proud of me, full stop.” Is this a quote from a self-help workshop in a “safe space” on a university campus? No, it’s taken from a recent CIA recruitment ad. What’s going on here? What kind of people does the CIA want to recruit? American national security agencies are charged with protecting the United States and its citizens from foreign threats to our safety and liberties. But it seems that “national security” is no longer just about threats to our freedom from external enemies. Our national security agencies have been drifting leftward for decades and have become increasingly “woke” and hostile to political adversaries. Recently former CIA Chief John Brennan declared that political libertarians in America should now be considered domestic terror threats. How did this happen? Where do we go from here? For some answers and to explore these troubling trends are my guests, Fred Fleitz, the President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy, and Dr. Michael Waller, the Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy. Social Justice recruiting must not be the mission of the CIA. As Fred puts it, “the CIA does serious work. CIA officers handle extremely classified information, and if used well lives can be saved. If it is misused, people die.” External enemies still abound and it’s clear that they now include China. I asked Mike whether we should also worry about the Chinese penetrating our Agencies? His answer: “Absolutely.” To learn how this could be happening, join me in this wide ranging and disturbing examination of America’s national security establishment.

My friend Paul Teller keeps a running (and depressing) list of the destructive actions taken by Joe Biden’s Administration. Joe Biden has been in office for just a few months and already the list is a mile long. Paul, who was a top aide to VP Mike Pence and is now his chief of staff, calls his list “The Horribles” The TBWS Team agrees that the name is apt. In yet another free association roundtable, we kick off with how grateful we are for lunch bucket Joe’s letter – in an IRS envelope – reminding us to thank him personally for our pandemic relief checks. Then we move on to wokeness, equity and Biden’s sowing more racial divisions, cancel culture, Biden’s proposed “Section 8” tax plan, the assault on religious liberty, whether a Federal government promoting “wokeness” violates the Establishment Clause, the attempted Federal takeover of elections with the “John Lewis Voting Rights Act”, and the HR5 “Equality Act” which would do anything but bring about equality. “It’s a Five Alarm Fire,” says Brian McNicol. Who is really driving the Biden agenda? Greg Corombos puts it, “Joe Biden is getting shoved to the front of the parade and has no idea where it’s going.” But whoever’s in command, “what they’re doing is really damaging,” says Brian. “They really think that they can control the weather, our ability to get and distribute energy, that they can just control it. They can just say, It won’t be that anymore. It’ll now be this. And it will magically happen.” “They are operating on some very dangerous assumptions and we need to watch. It’s a very dangerous time in the world.” True, yet I think you’ll find this show an interesting take on the madness.

The Bill Walton Show Roundtable worries about what the future of law enforcement could look like in this country. In many cities, seasoned officers are rushing to retire - causing a major deficit as those positions are becoming harder to fill. Increasingly, resisting arrest is becoming a badge of protest. And rather than punishing law breakers, police officers are being demonized for doing their jobs. What happens if big city Mayors actually do "defund the police?" What will cities look like a decade from now? Who will be keeping the peace? Who will want to live there? Much to ponder, and unless we change course, the future of cities look dystopian.

When you think of all the things in your house that are "made in China", one thing you may not realize is how many medicines are. That bottle of aspirin? Made in China. Penicillin? Made in China. Even something as simple as Vitamin C is produced in China. And if that's not shocking enough, there's also a good chance your doctor doesn't even know where these medicines are being manufactured!

The most politically important election in America takes place this November – the race to become the next governor of Virginia. This race will not be just about Virginia. It will be the first statewide election since Joe Biden took office, and will also be a referendum: How do voters feel about where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are taking the country. Glenn Youngkin is the Republican candidate and he joins me in this episode to talk about what he wants to do as Virginia’s governor. Glenn’s joining the political fray after a career with the Carlisle Group where he rose to become co-chief executive officer of a firm with over $230 billion of assets under management. As you’ll learn from this conversation, he not only brings a strong economics and leadership background, he also has a sound grasp of the on-the-ground social and pocketbook issues that concern Virginians. Among them: opening up communities and schools, the culture wars being waged in schools, keeping communities safe, qualified immunity for police officers, property taxes and the like. He comes across as passionate, thoughtful, a strong leader and strategic thinker who can connect with people from all walks of life. He could win. Listen in to decide for yourself.

Bill speaks with Matt and Mercy Schlapp on CPACNow Uncensored about how Episode 100 of The Bill Walton Show was censored on YouTube.

For years, major American corporations have been drifting to the political Left. Now that drift seems more like a tidal wave. Companies like Coca Cola, Delta Airlines … and even Major League Baseball have, for example, condemned Georgia’s legislature’s effort to protect free and fair elections. And increasingly the very top echelons of many big corporations - the C Suites and the boards of directors - are filled with people on the left promoting a “woke” agenda. Household names like Levi, Nike, Air BnB, Blackrock, Ford, the NBA and Bank of America are now aligned with the Democrat Party. This corporatist move to the left has emerged as the latest front in the war to “fundamentally change America.” How this happened is a complicated and disturbing story. Joining me to tell it is Justin Danhof director of the Free Enterprise Project at the National Center for Public Policy Research, who has waged a long battle against creeping leftism in corporate America. And Matt Schlapp, Chairman ACU, which sponsors CPAC, and the founder of Cove Strategies, an advisor to many major corporations. Effective ways remain for conservatives to push back against this trend. Justin, Matt and I provide an insider’s view about what’s going on in corporate America and how to deal with its lurch to the left.

In this episode, Bill talks with Jay Richards and John Tamny about the Covid-19 pandemic and the trade-offs between freedom and government mandated “safety.” Should governments have simply provided people with information about risks and precautionary measures, or were the microscopic instructions, lockdowns and mask mandates necessary? At this point the answer seems pretty clear. “We’re a full year into this and we’ve got a lot of empirical data,” Jay explains. “We have Florida and New York to compare, as well as other states, so it’s not as if we’re in a position where we don’t really understand whether lockdowns worked. The most modest and moderate way of saying it is that the lockdowns seem to make no difference one way or the other.” Moreover, we’re now seeing the lockdown’s enormous human and social costs with most vulnerable groups in the US devastated by unscientific and ineffective policies. But even with the evidence before us, we’re now seeing the goal lines to end mandates continually moved outward to some distant time when we will all be “safe.” When do we get to the point when we can declare that – like all other viruses – we just have to learn to deal with its risks? Dr. Jay Richards is a professor at Catholic University, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, the executive editor of The Stream and the author The Price of Panic. John Tamny is the economic guru for FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets and the author of When Politicians Panicked. Both John and Jay have penetrating observations about the ordeal we’ve all been through and what we can learn from it about balancing the risks in life.

In this episode, Mark Mills, Energy & Tech expert at the Manhattan Institute, and I go in-depth about the perils of so-called “green energy.” Case in point: February’s deadly blackout in Texas. Texas, with the most wind farms in the country providing 25% of its energy, learned what happens when the weather gets cold and the wind goes away. Just when you need electricity the most, it’s not there. The National Academy of Sciences has declared the electrical grid the most important invention of the 20th century. But it doesn’t work if it depends on unreliable wind and solar sources. Reliance on green energy “is a really, really bad idea. With it, we are going to switch America’s energy from domestic production to imports. We’re going to switch America’s energy from liquids and gases which are easy to move and cheap to extract, to energy minerals, which are hard to move and energy-intensive to extract,” according to Mark. “We’re going to switch from a small footprint on the planet to a huge footprint on the planet because the land area required per unit of energy when it’s green, compared to hydrocarbons, goes up tenfold. All bad.” And of course, China is playing a clever strategic game having cornered the market for critical green energy components. Mark also clearly explains why nuclear is the smart green energy option, even though most so-called environmentalists oppose it. If you disagree with any of this, listen to Mark’s fact-based explanations. If you want to truly understand why depending on green energy is a terrible idea, start here.

This past year has been filled with adversity, but with tough times can come great blessings. In my case, Sarah and I have found a wonderful blessing in our friendship with Mercy and Matt Schlapp and their five daughters. We all found ourselves locked down in our places in Madison and Rappahannock County, Virginia during the pandemic. So what did we do? We formed a “quarantine club” and got together on weekends to talk deeply and at length about what’s going on in America, and what we can do keep it a free country. Since this is my inaugural show on CPAC Now, we thought you might enjoy hearing from Matt and Mercy in a wide ranging conversation that’s very much like our informal get togethers. Of course, Mercy was director of communications strategy for the Trump-Pence reelection campaign, and Matt is Chairman and CEO of the American Conservative Union, sponsor of CPAC. Things have changed so much in society in recent years. As Matt points out, “What’s interesting is we’re all used to having conversations about public policy. Now, we’re just trying to make sure that our family is safe. It’s a really scary time. I think there’s been so much change in society so fast that these esoteric policy conversations are really not a part of what we talk about now.” “We talk about how will you raise kids? How do you talk to them about gender and sex? What are they hearing in school, our schools? There’s complete chaos going on in society. So, for me personally it’s a hard time because people say, “You don’t seem as happy as you usually are.” It’s like you’re not happy when you’re seeing society being ripped apart.” Both Matt and Mercy are charismatic warriors for freedom and faith, and wise about how to stay centered in these tough times. “I think that part of it is that our faith is very important to us,” says Mercy. “It’s central to our lives. It’s the way we deal with the pressure, the abuse, the things changing in your life. If we did not have God in the center of it and faith, we know God will not abandon us because we have to do what God has asked us to do.” “It is our vocation. Our vocation is to ensure that we keep up this fight for America.” Please join me for this powerful and personal conversation with Mercy and Matt Schlapp.

What are the evolutionary differences between men and women, and how do they survive and thrive through differing competitive strategies? In this episode, Dr. Joyce Benenson talks with Bill about her book Warriors and Worriers,which draws her extensive lifelong research on children’s interactions. The result is fascinating array of studies and stories that explore the ways boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. Dr. Benenson, a retired professor of psychology at Emmanuel College and an associate member of the Human Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard University, turns upside down the conventional wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women. E.O. Wilson of Harvard praises her work as “brave, thoroughly documented, and written with unusual clarity … her book explains more about the fundamentals of gender differences – and the meaning of human nature – than a library of conventional social science.” An engaging conversationalist, Joyce quickly deconstructs the notion that being male, or female is simply a matter of “sex assigned at birth.” Human history is a story of men and women genetically built to specialize in different behaviors necessary to ensure the survival of their children to adulthood.

If it’s possible to have a fun and entertaining conversation about political correctness, critical race theory and the state of being “woke”, this is it. Joining me is James Lindsay, PhD, Co-author of Cynical Theories and founder of the newdiscourses.com website and podcasts. James, who has been called the Donald Trump of Intellectuals (meant as an insult), because of his courage to take on political correctness, guides me down through the stranger and stranger rabbit hole of “Theory.” Also knows as Postmodernism, it first took root in America in the Yale University English Department and since then, like a virus, it has jumped from this laboratory to infect all American society. In the wide-ranging interview, he explains things like “anti-racist”, systems of privilege, Queer theory and how all these theories start with the conclusions you want to reach. Thought experiment: You are a white shopkeeper and two customers enter your store, one black and one white. Who you serve first determines whether you are a racist. Be careful, the answer is not obvious. According to “critical race theory” it might be safest to serve neither. It is definitely worth taking an hour of your time to understand this world.

On this episode, our TBWS Roundtable discusses the push by the radical woke left to let transgendered boy/girl athletes participate in girls and women’s sports. After coming out strongly against trans men in women’s sports, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently vetoed a bill that would’ve banned it. Why? She says “it’s complicated” and she may be right. The very woke NCAA would ban her state from staging its competitions. But allowing trans men in women’s sports would gut Title IX. It seems that who and how you would define a boy or girl depends on your politics, not “the science.” Where are the feminists on this when all the victims are girls? Martina Navratilova has been excoriated for coming out against it. Why is this seemingly only an American issue? What are the implications for our military? And is this just the opening salvo in the race to replace the binary? Did you know there was a “race to replace the binary?” It’s a mess, and the Roundtable explores what it all means, and how we feel about it.

On this episode, we look into the life and presidency of Calvin Coolidge with Amity Shlaes, author of The NY Times bestsellers Coolidge, The Forgotten Man, The Greedy Hand and The Great Society. Amity is also co-editor of a fascinating new edition of The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge revealing how he embodied the best of America’s founding principles and the character of the American people. In this wide-ranging interview Amity and I cover Coolidge from his early days growing up in Vermont to how his legacy impacted Ronald Reagan. The thing to remember about Coolidge is that the federal budget was lower after he left office than when he entered the Presidency. What a different time. She also chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and we talk about its scholarships and programs for young people.

During the last several years, I have had the great pleasure of getting to know a wonderful actor, Tony LoBianco. It’s the 50th anniversary of his iconic movie “The French Connection” where he played Sal Boca, and a perfect occasion to invite him on the show to talk about the acting craft and working with other creatives. A leading actor in films, TV and the stage, he's made over 100 films during the course of his career and along the way won an Obie, an Emmy, an Outer Circle Critics Award, and was nominated for a Tony award for Best Actor. In this wide-ranging conversation, Tony and I talk about the days of Hollywood when it wasn't so woke. He shares stories of working with legends like Milton Berle, Richard Widmark, William Friedkin, Arthur Miller, Richard Gere, Alec Baldwin and James Gandolfini among others. Some of his great antidotes include how he got the role of Raymond Fernandez in the cult classic ”The Honeymoon Killers" by fooling a casting director into thinking he was Hispanic even though he doesn't speak Spanish. And what the very scary Richard Widmark thought about Tony’s acting. This is a truly fun and fascinating behind the scenes look at the movie industry of the 70s and since. I think you’ll enjoy it.

As we start a new year, I’m joined by my friend John Tamny with Freedom Works and Real Clear Markets to recap the events of the past month. We talk about the unrest at the U.S. Capitol, the first days of President Biden‘s administration, and the role Gisele Bundchen plays in the ongoing success of Tom Brady as he prepares for his 10th Super Bowl.

On this episode, the BWS Roundtable discusses how thousands so called amateur investors got everyone talking about GameStop and Robinhood. What caused the stock to skyrocket? What does it say about the future of Wall Street? How will the regulators react? Those questions and more will be answered during this in-depth conversation.