The Bill Walton Show

The Bill Walton Show

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The Bill Walton Show episodes

  • Episode 187: "The Federal Government Is Using Twitter to Censor Speech" with Jenin Younes and John Vecchione

    Is this right and lawful? Well, we now have a test case to find out.

    In a first-of-its-kind First Amendment lawsuit against the federal government, attorneys Jenin Younes and John Vecchione of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, argue that the government acted wrongfully when it "directed social media platforms, including Twitter, to censor alleged "misinformation" about COVID-19."

    Both Jenin and John join me on this episode to explain the suit and what's at stake for free speech.

    To recollect, in May 2021, the White House began a coordinated and escalating public campaign to stop what it called the flow of purported "health misinformation" related to Covid-19.

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki went so far to say that the President believed social media platforms have a responsibility to censor health "misinformation" related to Covid-19 vaccinations. She then added ominously that by not doing so social media companies were responsible for American deaths.

    Next, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directed social media platforms including Twitter to censor alleged "misinformation" about Covid-19. They also demanded that the tech companies turn over information about individuals who spread such "misinformation," a clear intimidation tactic that HHS has labeled a "Request for Information".

    And "after the Biden administration started their campaign to silence Covid policy opponents, there's been a massive increase in Twitter suspensions."

    The speech ban has included information the Government later conceded was true but that conflicted with the Government's messaging on Covid-19 at the time.

    This censorship strikes at the heart of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect—free speech, especially political speech.

    But the heart of the matter is that by instrumentalizing tech companies, including Twitter—through pressure, coercion, and threats—to censor viewpoints it deemed "misinformation," the Surgeon General has turned Twitter's censorship into state action.

    And this has to be brought to an end.

    Jenin Younes and John Vecchione of the New Civil Liberties Alliance explain why and how it can be done.

    52 min
  • Episode 186: John Tamny and I Don't Agree About Everything, and That's OK

    Author John Tamny joins me on this episode for a freewheeling back and forth about some of today's big concerns. John, a free market fundamentalist and original thinker, almost always has a contrarian take on things. John's books include Who Needs the Fed, When Politicians Panicked, Popular Economics and The End of Work. Some of the questions we get into: Elon Musk's plans for Twitter Why credit's never there when you need it What it means when Jeff Bezos says your margin is my opportunity Has social media censorship been overstated Have social media companies created a market opportunity for Musk Should we have more engagement with China, not less Is the Fed just an outsourced function of Congress Why you're hard pressed to find examples where governments have created much wealth Are the agendas of big multinational companies and government converging What it might mean if Elon Musk sells more Tesla stock to buy Twitter Did Twitter's censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story matter Has Wall Street, just like Silicon Valley, taken a hard left turn. And John's upcoming book Bringing Adam Smith Back into the American Home Join in for a fun and of course, contrarian conversation with John who's favorite phrase is "I am skeptical."

    53 min
  • Episode 185: The Behind The Scenes Story Meeting with The Bill Walton Show Team
    Listen in to a behind the scenes story meeting as the Bill Walton Show team speculates on what's going on in the world. Starlink satellites and all the junk flying around in space, Elon Musk vs Jeff Bezos, Ukraine, the domino theory, Biden's open borders, Alyona's Kazakhstan take on Russia, media's monolithic coverage of Ukraine, inflation, cooking oil and fertilizer prices, the insane (perhaps) Shanghai covid lockdown, the fragmenting world order and the dollar's reserve currency status, what's going on with China and Russia, corporate profits at all time highs … and more. Send us your thoughts about what we should cover.
    36 min
  • Episode 184: "A Final Report Card on the States' Response to COVID-19" with Phil Kerpen
    We're more than two years into the Covid-19 pandemic. So by now, we should know enough to assess what we've learned about the measures our governments took to mitigate the virus? What worked? What didn't? Fortunately, we now have a comprehensive comparative study, published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, authored by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan - and Steve Moore and Phil Kerpen of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. They compared Covid outcomes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on three variables: the economy, education and mortality. Their conclusion? "The correlation between health and economy scores is essentially zero," say the authors, "which suggests that the severe lockdown states that withdrew the most from economic activity did not significantly improve health by doing so." The bottom 10 are dominated by the states and D.C. that had the most stringent lockdowns and were among the last to reopen schools We can't let this conclusion go. We must absorb now what we've learned from what worked - and what didn't work. We can't mindlessly respond to the next pandemic - and we know there will be a next one - with failed policies. To dig into this, Phil Kerpen, President on American Commitment, an author of the Study, and a deep subject matter expert on Covid policies, joins me for a thorough look at how to avoid repeating the policy blunders of the past two+ years.
    47 min
  • Episode 183: "Have US and EU Blunders Led to Putin's War?" with J. Michael Waller
    In this episode I'm talking again with Dr. J. Michael Waller, Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy, Mike's Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today predicted the rise of the KGB, and inevitably, a Vladimir Putin. He was also Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics, and instructor in SYOPS operation at the Kennedy Special Warfare Center School at Fort Bragg.

    In this wide ranging and of necessity, speculative conversation we ask whether, after the Cold War ended, the United States could have brought Russia into alignment with the West. There are many what if's. Here's some of what we speculate about. Is the war in Ukraine a product of Putin's aggression or US/EU fecklessness, or both? Why did President Bush 41's Administration fear the collapse of the Soviet Union? and even urged countries, such as Ukraine, to temper their hopes for a popularly elected government? After the USSR collapsed, the U.S. had a real opportunity to shape post-Soviet Russia. Why did we leave it to an unholy alliance of criminal cartels, oligarchs and KGB officers? Was Vladimir Putin's rise inevitable? Has he become unstable, or a master chess-player? Or something else? How good is US spy craft in understanding Putin's mindset? Who is Claus von Stauffenberg and what did he do? Hint: he's why Putin has a blast barrier under his 50' conference table. Has weak US national security leadership e.g. our catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal, been provocative? Did Putin decide that with America's national security leaders obsessed with climate change and "white rage", not war fighting, there's been no better time to invade Ukraine? How did our main central European NATO ally - Germany - become completely dependent on Putin's good graces in order for its economy to continue? Mike Waller brings a lifetime of national security intelligence research and tradecraft to our conversation. His answers are fascinating.
    41 min
  • Episode 182: "Are We Misreading Putin's War Aims" with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry
    This episode is a follow-up to my conversation a few weeks ago with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry about our concerns that our Administration's responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine could lead to nuclear war. Today, we consider also an alternate possibility that Vladimir Putin is playing a much deeper game than most in the West have imagined. As Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, former Chief of Staff of the Congressional EMP Commission and Director of the US Nuclear Strategy Forum, Dr Pry brings a vast and imaginative knowledge of history and of modern warfare. "Most analysts, including myself, thought that the relevant scenario was Crimea and that the Russians would go for a quick, almost bloodless, victory," speculates Peter, "but there is another Russian way of war that was right under our noses. And that is a long protracted war … it's almost like they're deliberately doing everything they can to try to provoke the West to intervene, to jump into the war." There are a lot of strange things in the way the Russians have conducted the Ukraine War that have violated most all of the fundamental elements of their military doctrine. They didn't go for tactical and strategic surprise. They attacked openly in the face of the West. They haven't cyber attacked although the Russians have demonstrated the ability to isolate their cyber attacks to Ukraine itself. They haven't committed some of their best conventional forces. Their best and most modern tanks haven't been committed to Ukraine. Of their 20,000 tanks they're using mostly older models and only a small fraction of those. "The Russian air force has almost been absent without leave, hasn't been deployed in its best capabilities," explains Peter, "and has played a very limited role." Why? We need to consider the possibility that this whole thing right from the beginning might not be just about Ukraine. "It might be aimed at creating a long period of chaos in the center of Europe," reasons Peter, "that it's going to put such stress on its economies and the NATO Alliance that the NATO Alliance will come apart at the seams."

    Putin isn't returning phone calls from the White House and Russian general staffs are not talking to our Pentagon.

    "They've basically stopped communicating with us," says Peter. "That isn't the action of a country that's badly losing a war and is desperately seeking an exit." We should be cautious about what we believe of what we're being told in Ukraine and about the performance of the Russian army. We're told Russia is on the ropes, that it looks like it could lose the Ukraine War, Putin could fall from power and that he and the elites who support him and his family could be executed. But consider this: Putin has postured Russia's nuclear arsenal in such a way that they can launch most of their forces in just a few minutes without telegraphing any messages to us. This a time for America to stop saber rattling and develop a sober considered strategy to defuse the Ukraine tinderbox. Dr Peter Vincent Pry outlines some sensible and constructive strategies to wind down the hostilities, up to and including hitting the reset button with Russia, reminding us that our real object in our new Cold War is China. There's a lot to learn from this conversation. Please listen in.
    42 min
  • Episode 181: "A Brave New-and More Dangerous-World" with Brandon Weichert
    Since the COVID-19 virus was loosed upon the world, either intentionally or accidentally, from Wuhan, China, the world has been fundamentally changed. The globalist economic and geopolitical fabric has been torn. There is no one single dominant power anymore and the post Cold War, unipolar world system is gone and is not coming back. Russia now is the first to take advantage of what they think is a window of opportunity. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is but the beginning of many conflicts that will emanate over the next decade.

    So argues Brandon Weichert, my guest on this episode, publisher of the Weichert Report and author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower.

    Brandon, who has been called a "brilliant and anxiety inducing scholar," believes mainstream American analysts have been wrong from the start on the war in Ukraine. "Even if they have gotten some details correct, they are missing the picture: there is no rolling Russian power back in Ukraine and should Russia exhaust itself militarily, there is no guarantee that Putin will not attempt to escalate into a wider regional war–with WMDs having been deployed–nor is there a guarantee that any diplomatic settlement will be conducive to Washington or Kiev."

    Putin has banked his entire regime on the notion that he will reestablish the Russian empire by expanding Russia's geopolitical influence into the former Soviet Eastern European states, notably Ukraine.

    Is the Biden Administration playing with nuclear fire in its brinksmanship with Putin? The question answers itself. "You've got to think about escalating the conflict in the way the Russians do," explains Brandon. "The Russians look at tactical nuclear weapons as just big artillery pieces."

    America may be facing its most dangerous time since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

    President Biden should be on the phone with Putin every day, trying to deescalate. But as far as has been reported, this isn't happening. "You look at the last 30 years, the people who've been running foreign policy and economic policy in this country are the same people who got us into Iraq," reminds Brandon.

    Agree or disagree, for a deep understanding of the dynamics at play, listen in to this conversation with Brandon Weichert.
    55 min
  • Episode 180: "America's Open Borders" with Ken Cuccinelli and Russ Vought
    "No borders. No walls. No USA at all." Chant by Antifa rioters marching in the streets of Denver. With Ukraine and Russia dominating the headlines, America seems to have lost focus on the border - and the war - that really counts. It's not Ukraine, it's America's southern border with Mexico. The Biden Administration seems simply to have "opened it up." Completely. And what's happening is an ongoing catastrophe that's fueling illegal immigration, human trafficking and drug smuggling. People from over 100 countries around the world have crossed the border illegally in the last year. We need to focus on this war on our own border here, at home - a strange war where it seems our adversary is our own federal government. What the Biden administration is doing is not incompetence at protecting our border, it's a deliberate policy to open it up. But we don't have to wait for a change in the Administration. "A plain reading of the Constitution gives border state governors war powers under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 to interdict and remove illegal aliens to Mexico without the permission of the federal government" says former Trump homeland security official Ken Cuccinelli. If the federal government won't protect the southern border, the states themselves can; moreover, governors from non-border states can also send help. Explaining how this could happen are my guests on this episode, principals in an exciting new policy shop, the Center for Renewing America. Russ Vought, the Center's president, Director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Trump's full term in office, responsible for overseeing the implementation of the President's policy, management, and deregulatory agendas across the entire Executive Branch. And Ken Cuccinelli, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) and Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) under President Trump. Ken also served as Attorney General of Virginia, where he was the first in the country to sue over Obamacare, and made critical advances against human trafficking, health care fraud, gangs and child exploitation. This is a fascinating discussion, and not only about how we might deal with our border crisis, but also the many ways we could get a federal government that works for us, rather than the other way around.
    54 min
  • Episode 179: "Taking a Hard Look at our Dependence on China for Our Drugs" with Rosemary Gibson and Frank Gaffney
    Thirty years ago, the United States, Europe, and Japan manufactured 90 percent of the global supply of the key ingredients for the world's medicines and vitamins. No more. China is now the largest global supplier. Millions of Americans are taking prescription and over-the-counter drugs made in, or with critical ingredients from China and they don't know it and neither do many of their doctors. This is becoming a grave concern. As we've seen, first with the global pandemic driven lockdowns and now, with the Russia/Ukraine war, the world's economy has acute supply chain interdependencies. And for America, among the top of our concerns, has to be our dependence on an increasingly hostile China for our pharmaceutical drugs. Sharing my concern and joining me on this episode are my returning guests: Rosemary Gibson, author of "China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America's Dependence on China for Medicine" And Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, Vice Chairman of the Committee for the Present Danger: China and who hosts Securing America with Frank Gaffney on the Real America's Voice Network Some highlights: The FDA not only approves new drugs, but also inspects drug manufacturing plants. Worryingly, that's happening less and less with our drugs made in China. In the spring of 2020, the US was just weeks away from not having the most basic medicines. Why? Our dependence on India, and in turn China. Is Congressional leadership so compromised by its ties to China that it is not willing to address our growing supply chain vulnerabilities? We're told we pay more for prescription drugs to cover pharma's huge domestic R&D costs. Pharma's solution? Move its R&D to "low cost" China, a move that makes America ever more vulnerable to the whims of the CCP. These are complicated and important issues. Worth a listen as we work to dig into what's at stake.
    50 min
  • Episode 178: "Stops Along the Way" with Brent Bozell

    Growing up Bozell. Stops Along the Way: A Catholic Soul, a Conservative Heart, an Irish Temper, and a Love of Life. Talking in this episode with L. Brent Bozell III, author of Stops Along the Way and who is one of the most outspoken and effective national leaders in the conservative movement today. Brent founded and is president of the Media Research Center, the largest media watchdog organization in America; and ForAmerica, which the New York Times declared was "one of the greatest unexpected influences on the 2016 election." Lecturer, syndicated columnist, television commentator, debater, marketer, businessman, author, publisher, and activist … Brent's done it all. He's also has the great gift for friendship. This episode though, is about a Brent Bozell that we don't know enough about. What was it like to grow up as one of 10 children as part of the nomadic family of amazing consequence of Brent Bozell Jr and Patricia Buckley? He, who headed the Yale debate team (with roommate and best friend William F Buckley Jr. as his second), who was ghostwriter of Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative, a seminal figure in the conservative resurgence and who died a Third Order Carmelite monk. She, a towering intellect, the closest sister to Bill Buckley, and who had a famous confrontation with T. Grace Atkinson, a militant feminist anti-Catholic who had been going around the country saying that the Virgin Mary had been knocked up. What happens when your parents move you and your menagerie of pets and siblings from the leafy suburbs of Chevy Chase out to a dilapidated estate in rural Virginia? What happens when, without batting an eyelash, your father sends you and your two brothers off to boarding school in Spain when you didn't speak a word of Spanish and who simply expected that as Bozell's you would thrive? This is just a sampling of an intimate and revealing conversation. Hope you'll find the time to listen in.

    50 min

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