The Bill Walton Show

This is a very upsetting episode. I'm joined by my frequent guest Dr Peter Vincent Pry and we're talking about Ukraine and the likelihood of nuclear war. Dr Pry is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, served as chief of staff to the congressional EMP Commission, and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum. Just recently, he published a piece titled, "The Nuclear Crisis Nobody Knows" "I think we're facing an unprecedented danger that we've never experienced in the nuclear missile age, worse than Cuba, a circumstance where we are on the threshold of a nuclear war, nuclear attack, from Russia." Nobody knows what's in Putin's mind but apparently he going to just keep using his conventional forces to overwhelm the Ukrainians and eventually achieve victory in Ukraine at a conventional level. But many people predicted that the Russian conventional military would just steamroll through Ukraine in a couple of days, and that hasn't happened. So what's the probability Putin then decides, "I'm under pressure from my political enemies and I've got to wind this thing up. Maybe use a few tactical nuclear weapons in order to bring this to more rapid conclusion." If he did, how would the Biden administration respond? He knows that Biden's is the most anti-nuclear administration that we have ever had. There are many anti-nuclear activists in the Biden administration and their agenda is to deeply reduce US nuclear weapons and US dependency on nuclear deterrence. Peter explains, "these people don't believe that any rational actor would ever use nuclear weapons and, therefore, all you need is a bare-minimum deterrent. That's one of the things that makes the current nuclear crisis most dangerous, because Biden is acting as if Putin would have to be a mad man to use nuclear weapons, that it was not a rational decision that he would make, despite the fact that Russian doctrine calls for that, that they've exercised it, that their force structure is clearly designed for war fighting and surprise attack. And that's why the Biden administration are like children playing with nuclear fire." Most of our information about Ukraine is coming from two biased sources that have an interest in making the Russian army look as bad as possible: the Ukrainians and the Biden administration. Putin has put his forces on nuclear alert and there are reports that he has self-deployed himself to his nuclear bunker. Also, that the United States put its "Doomsday Plane" into the air last week. Is this true? Are we going to blunder into a nuclear war over Ukraine? Peter has a comprehensive grasp of the issues. Another listen well worth the time.

In the past two years, measures taken to deal with Covid have resulted in extraordinary losses of freedom in the West - in fact, all over the world - driven by government mandates and lockdowns. Now that it's clear that we're no longer in the throes of a pandemic, what next?

For how long are citizens prepared to accept these extraordinary extensions of state power and loss of their civil liberties? Have we slid into permanent tyranny in the name of "protecting us?"

Joining me on this episode are two people who refuse to accept this tyranny. Dr. Naomi Wolf, author of seven best-selling books, who writes on Substack as the extraordinary and fierce "Outspoken with Dr. Naomi Wolf" (see below) and

Jenin Younes, litigation council for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, NCLA, a former public defender, and a warrior against the massive encroachment of the Administrative State.

Both Naomi and Jenin have made an intellectually and emotionally difficult break with the Left over governments' totalitarian response to Covid, and in this episode they explain why. It's not so much that they've changed their views, rather the ideological tectonic plates have shifted.

Some excerpts:

"I do think there's been quite a realignment" Jenin explains … "it's now more like authoritarianism versus freedom. I get contacted by disaffected Democrats every day. So I think a lot of people are seeing through this."

"When I met Jenin maybe a year and half ago," says Naomi, "she and I were like refugees from the left. Having a glass of wine and saying, "What is happening to the people around us?" I agree with Jenin a 1,000% again. It is a realignment, a different axis of authoritarianism versus freedom"

We're living in different information worlds.

"We are, as a country getting two absolutely different information streams … I was always told that Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are evil, but they're doing better reporting on this than the New York Times or the Washington Post, let alone CNN and CNBC."

And it's driven people mad.

"It's been called a mass formation psychosis, but there are other names for it. It's a kind of mass hysteria and you can't really chip away at it with facts or logic and that's sadder than anything. I mean, it's dividing families. It's dividing friends.

"… it's scary to see people (on the Left) be unwilling to hear evidence to the contrary of what the narrative is. They've changed. They don't say, "That doesn't hold up or those sources are not good." They say, "Don't show me that" It's like a religion and that's scary."

This episode is filled with insightful, brave and personal truths from Naomi Wolf and Jenin Younes. Another must listen.

By the way, you have to love an author whose most recent essay is titled:

"I'm not 'Brave'' You're Just a P---y"

James Lindsay is someone who truly understands Critical Race Theory and doesn't believe a word of it.

As James explains in this episode of The Bill Walton Show,

"Critical Race Theory is a disaster. Critical Race Theory is the tip of a 100 year-long spear that's being thrust into the side of Western civilization. In its simplest terms, CRT is Race Marxism."

Like Marxism, CRT is a fundamentalist religion, a comprehensive belief system that claims to address the fundamental questions of human existence.

CRT rests upon a belief that racism is the fundamental organizing principle of society. It claims that racism is systemic and that it was created and maintained by whites to maintain their privileges and advantages over every other race.

According to CRT, racism - as a form of power - can only flow from "whiteness" and it lays the problems of society on the doorstep of "whiteness."

Critical Race Theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including the principle of equality, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and the principles of Constitutional law.

Like all other totalitarians before them, Critical Race Theorists are interested in reordering the world according to the vision contained in their Theory.

But what its proponents are chiefly interested in is increasing power for themselves.

James Lindsay, author of Race Marxism, is founder of New Discourses! which he calls a home for the politically homeless, especially for those who feel like they've been displaced from their political homes because of the movement sometimes called "Critical Social Justice."

He is smart, engaging and funny - CRT easily lends itself to parody.

Listen in and learn. It's worth your time.

The subtitle of Matt Schlapp's new book, written with Deal Hudson, sums up well why this book is a must read. Defeating the cancel culture mob and reclaiming one nation under God They write: "For half a century, people of faith have seen traditional ideas of morality undermined as a cascade of progressive revolutions impacted society. The waves of change hit the shores, but most nevertheless believed that families, the Church, truth, and education would all weather the storm. But we were overconfident. We fought, but we also rested in the confidence that common sense and decency would prevail. It was impossible, it seemed, that the basic values held by our parents and grandparents would ever be challenged by charges of racism and, for many, their "whiteness." Each day now brings news that defies common sense; it's as if the world has turned upside down and none of the old verities matter anymore. When a society begins to unwind, chaos ensues. It's now crystal clear that our opponents - The Desecrators - want to create confusion, undermine basic truths, and take down America." Matt and Mercy Schlapp join me for a compelling and highly personal conversation about our struggle to push back against these forces. "What's going on is much more diabolical than mere cancel culture," warns Matt. "Everything that's good, that's true, that's holy, that's inspirational, that brings people joy is under a coordinated attack." As a close personal friend, I've watched Matt and Mercy withstand the onslaught of the Left. They've paid the price for fighting back. Ending up on the Antifa execution list and "no hire" lists because they worked for Trump, accosted by neighbors, fired by clients… Matt and Mercy Schlapp have faced this hell, continue to fiercely speak out and, as I have observed, ended up stronger. Partly it's their love of country, but most importantly, it's their faith and family. "We feel very strongly that teaching our kids about our faith, getting them to church, praying together as a family is essential," shares Mercedes. The struggle America's struggle today is in part about principles and politics, but we need to face up to the reality that it is really about the brass knuckled raw exercise of power. "Conservatives have to stop talking about the past and lofty notions of the way life should be. We need to start talking about what we want to do in the present. We can't let ourselves be cancelled," asserts Matt. There's a lot to unpack in this conversation with Matt and Mercy Schlapp. I hope you'll find the time for their inspiring and trenchant observations.

There are growing calls among political elites in Washington for the United States to "do something" about preventing a Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

But do we have the military capabilities to stop it?

Why do we want Ukraine to join NATO?

Does Ukraine matter?

Why are American politicians who have been so soft toward Moscow for their entire political careers all of a sudden turn uber hawks against Vladimir Putin.

Are we pushing China and Russia to make common cause with each other?

Does the Biden foreign policy team have a clue what they're doing?

To get some answers to these and many many other questions, two seasoned national security analysts - and returning guests - Peter Pry and Mike Waller - weigh in.

• J. Michael Waller, PhD, is Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy and
• Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, is the former Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security

Some sample observations:

"Russia and China are already in an alliance that poses the most formidable combination that the Western democracies have faced in their history," warns Peter Pry

It's worse than that. This combination also includes North Korea and Iran creating a new power block that Washington just doesn't seem to want to acknowledge.

Russia can overrun Ukraine and the frontline NATO states in 72 hours. The Pentagon's had 18 Taiwan war games and in its own war games scenarios, we have lost every one of them.

If you want a real and informed tutorial about the possibilities of war with Russia, Ukraine, China and Taiwan, this is a must listen. It's a sobering 60 minutes, but well worth your time.

On this episode we're talking with economist Steve Moore about his terrific new book Govzilla.

It's a sobering, yet easy to read, tale of the gigantic expansion of government over the last 50 years, and especially over the last two years since COVID hit.

"The virus became an excuse to massively expand the powers of government," says Steve, "the size of government, the regulatory reach of government, in ways that I think we would've found unimaginable a decade ago."

With so many other issues before us: borders, education, mandates, Ukraine, election integrity, and on and on, it's easy to lose focus on Washington's catastrophic federal financial mismanagement.

Watch this show to regain focus. And if you're looking for an excellent primer on economics, Steve's book is it.

It's relatively short and easy to read. It's filled with very clear graphs. It covers all the major issues. It talks about who the heroes are (too few), who the villains are, what the money is going to, and what kind of future we're going to have if we don't put our financial house in order.

Steve, in his usual entertaining style, weighs in on:

• Congressional accountability
• Canada's truckers protest
• Entitlements and the social security "lockbox"
• The 3 steps to a country's financial ruin
• What we ought to do with China's U.S. Treasury holdings
• Modern Monetary Theory
• Federal government accounting
• Republican Governors
• The 1619 Project and our "school choice moment"
• His support for tariffs on trade with China

And much more.

My agenda item would be to have Steve's book as part of curriculum in every school in America.

Listen in. I think you'll agree.

America's founding ideals and our nation's rich Judeo-Christian heritage have been under constant attack from a so-called "progressive" Left for over a hundred years.

Yet as they've marched through and deconstructed America's great cultural institutions, instead of the "progress" they claim, we're seeing the opposite.

It's abundantly clear now that as the progressive elites prevail, the rest of us lose.

And more and more we feel a growing urge to push back.

We know now that America's flourishing will depend on prevailing in a successful cultural counter revolution.

And it's beginning to happen.

On the front lines leading this fight - and my guests for this episode - are President Ryan Anderson and Senior Fellow Roger Severino of the Ethics & Public Policy Center.

Prior to leading EPPC. Ryan Anderson was the William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation

He is also the Founding Editor of Public Discourse and the author of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment and Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.

Before joining EPPC, Roger Severino was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he led a team of over 250 staff protecting our nation's civil rights, conscience and religious freedom.

In response to the Biden administration's hostility to sound medicine and the rights of conscience, EPPC has launched a major initiative, its HHS Accountability Project led by Roger.

As Ryan explains:

"Ethics needs to be at the heart of public policy. Every piece of public policy, every piece of law embodies someone's morality, and we work to make sure that our laws embody true morality."

"There's no such thing as moral neutrality when it comes to the law, whether it's private property, free speech, definition of marriage, or our laws about homicide."

A fascinating conversation. Please listen in.

In this episode we get to talk with George F. Will about his latest collection of essays, American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020, and also about his magnum opus, The Conservative Sensibility.

Joining in on the conversation are John Tamny, Vice President of FreedomWorks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of When Politicians Panicked,

and Don Boudreaux, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, research scholar at Mercatus Center, who runs the go-to blog for free market economic thinking, Cafe Hayek.

Always witty and erudite, George offers up his views on today's pressing concerns, queried, challenged and amplified by John and Don, two very smart men.

Among our questions:

• How and when do Americans recover the liberties lost from over two years of government lockdowns and mandates?
• Why did so many libertarians acquiesce?
• Public choice theory says that people in government are not any different than people in the private sector. Is this still true?
• A prosperous and free society depends on trust. Will America's government health establishment be able to recover the public's trust?
• Can woke progressivism's long march through American institutions be reversed?

And more: on families, voting rights, campaign finance, college campus fragility, social media's power, judicial restraint, closed questions in an open society, majority rule, self-regarding versus other regarding acts, China's future … almost everything except baseball.

We'll get to that next time.

Definitely worth a listen.

The 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing China opens a few weeks from now, and the International Olympic Committee's 2015 decision to have China host the event looks ever more dubious.

Since then, it's become obvious to most observers that China, never a champion of human rights, is growing ever more oppressive. It's Communist Party leadership has become even more deeply committed to preserving its monopoly on power through state sponsored repression, surveillance, and indoctrination.

Witness its takeover of Hong Kong, the internment of Muslims in Xinjiang, the disappearance of tennis star Peng Shuai, its totalitarian social credit system, the Covid coverup and mounting threats to democratic Taiwan.

So why are democracies from all over the world moving ahead to send their athletes to a country so antithetical to their values?

My guests for this episode provide a first hand and stark assessment as to why they should not.

Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese civil rights lawyer, was imprisoned and under house arrest by the Chinese government for seven years for his human rights activism. Since escaping to America, he has remained a persistent voice for freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law in his native country.

Reggie Littlejohn, who as the president of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, has spent years campaigning against China's forced abortion policies.

and

Yaxue Cao, who grew up in northern China during the Cultural Revolution, and went to college at Peking University in Beijing. She founded DC-based ChinaChange.org to inform the world about human rights, rule of law, and civil society in China - aspects of China's political landscape that are the most censored and least understood.

China claims that the Chinese people "experience a broad, thorough and true democracy" and the China's National People's Congress "guarantees that the people are masters."

To this Guangcheng responds "the Chinese people have never had a free election, the National People's Congress is made up entirely of the party's handpicked officials and the subject of democracy has been banned from kindergarten to university classrooms since 2013."

Surveillance and social control are pervasive.

Yaxue Cao explains, "If you speak any dissent on the internet, your accounts will be suspended or deleted. And not only that, policemen will quickly be able to identify who you are, and find you offline, and threaten you, sometimes take you away to the detention center."

When the Olympic athletes go to China in a few weeks, they are entering into this surveillance culture.

"They need to understand their movements are going to be tracked, all of their social media posts," says Reggie. "What if an athlete posts something that is very critical of the government? What's going to happen then?"

It's not just governments, it's also the major multinational corporations, who are looking the other way.

"The Chinese Communist Party is very calculating and has used China's market, the world's second largest, as an enticement," says Guangcheng.

With billions at stake, the multinationals do not want to risk offending the CCP.

These are but a fraction of the endless issues surrounding this Olympics. Why it's going ahead is not a mystery, but it is wrong.

Listen in as my guests, with first hand experience of the CCP's iron hand, talk about what's at stake.