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Todd Hinkle returns for his second appearance to talk about pulling off the Harvest Jam Music Revival—a five-band festival happening September 26th at the Patton Sportsman's Club. We dive deep into the challenges of organizing a DIY event, the economics of live music, and Todd's philosophy of "letting it develop into what it's gonna be." James also opens up about losing his father in April, how grief is fueling new songwriting, the unexpected gift of therapy, and why catastrophizing doesn't change outcomes. Plus: a surprisingly nuanced conversation about AI, synthesizers, auto-tune, and why the tools themselves aren't the problem—it's how we use them. Features five killer bands: The Balladeers, Forrester Gray, Spaces in Between, One Sock Ollie, and Owen Garrison. 

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America spends $4.3 trillion annually on healthcare—and 90% of it goes toward managing chronic disease, not curing it. Dr. Kevin Smith explains why the conventional medical model is broken and what actually works for long-term health.

In this eye-opening conversation, we explore the reductionist vs. holistic approach to medicine, why your insurance company controls your treatment plan, and the six pillars of wellness doctors overlook. Plus, real talk on food toxins, glyphosate, why kids are hitting puberty at 7, and when surgery is actually worth the risk.

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Joel Rakow spent most of his life as a registered, generational Democrat — socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and, by his account, never a party-line voter. That changed when he resigned from the Democratic Party, a decision he says came down to feeling the party no longer represented the middle class or the values he'd always held.

Joel's background is a lot: postdoctoral work at Harvard, a stint as a cybersecurity advisor to the Secret Service (where he identified building-management systems as the entry point for roughly 60% of national-actor breaches), a former national park ranger, a software entrepreneur who sold millions of instructional app guides, and — perhaps most personally — a longtime court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for foster children.

That last role directly shaped his new novel, "Life in Woke America," which follows a young man named Xavier King and is loosely inspired by a real congressional investigation into a biological research facility in Reedley, California. In this conversation, Joel and I talk through:

• Why he left the Democratic Party, and why he thinks the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" middle is politically homeless right now
• How he says media and NGOs shape the perception of how many Americans are actually "progressive"
• Stories from inside university administrations, including a writing assignment at USC and a library at UCLA that Joel says has been stripped down to a single genre of book
• Jordan Peterson's take on whether traditional universities can be saved
• Shadow banning, deplatforming, and Joel's own experience trying to get his book's website indexed by search and AI tools
• The Liberty Index — an AI tool Joel built (using Grok) that scores politicians, school boards, and institutions on alignment with the Constitution and Bill of Rights
• Money in politics, ESG/DEI in corporate boardrooms, and how Joel says NGOs are used to influence corporate leadership
• The real Reedley, CA case that partly inspired his novel, and how he built the story from congressional documents and firsthand interviews
• His decades of work as a CASA advocate for kids in the foster system, and how those experiences shaped his main character

Joel doesn't claim to have all the answers — he's upfront that this is one perspective, shaped by his own experience. But it's a conversation about institutional trust, free speech, and what it feels like to no longer recognize a party you grew up in, whichever side of the aisle you're on.

Find "Life in Woke America" in hardcover, paperback, and ebook at lifeinwokeamerica.com, and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Blair County has 62,000 open jobs and only 57,000 people looking for work. Carter Cerully from PA CareerLink joins the show to explain the free resources every Blair County business owner should be using — and most aren't.

In this episode:

• Why Blair County has more jobs than workers
• Free hiring help, internships, and job fairs for local businesses
• Tax credits for hiring second-chance workers
• How local businesses are using AI (and how you can too)
• The CDL driver shortage nobody's solving
• How to reach PA CareerLink: 814-410-9053

Whether you're starting a business or already running one, this episode shows you where the free help is.

#BlairCounty #SmallBusiness #Hiring #Workforce #PACareerLink

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Dan Behrman changed his middle name to "Taxation Is Theft"—and he's serious about why. In this episode, we dig into his philosophy on money, government, and freedom. Dan breaks down why money is fundamentally a promise (he's writing a book about it), why that promise is broken, and how taxation works as systematic theft. He shares his experience running for president on the Libertarian ticket, why voting alone can't fix the system, and why he's moved beyond party politics entirely. We also explore fiat currency, crypto, gold standards, government spending parallels with HOAs, and the real odds of IRS enforcement.

Perfect for anyone questioning the financial system, interested in libertarian philosophy, or wondering what money actually is.

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Dr. Robert Wolf is a retired radiologist and the son of Hungarian Jewish parents who survived forced labor camps, Nazi occupation, and life under Hungarian communism before escaping to the United States in 1956. His father was a four time escape artist, twice from a forced labor camp and twice from communist Hungary, once as a medical student and once during the Hungarian Revolution.

In this conversation Rob talks about reading his father's manuscript years after it was written, what it took to turn that story into the book Not a Real Enemy: The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man's Fight for Freedom, and why he thinks apathy, not hate, is the real opposite of love. We also get into what antisemitism actually looks like today, how his parents' experience shaped the way he sees the current moment, and what he hopes readers and listeners take from it.

Book: Not a Real Enemy, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart
 Website: robertjwolfmd.com
 YouTube: Not a Real Enemy by Robert Wolf

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Jessica Morris grew up the youngest of four kids in a minister's home that looked perfect from the outside. Behind closed doors, her father was an abusive alcoholic, her mother was the family's chief enabler, and at a young age her father told her she was a mistake — that her parents only wanted three children. She carried that as her identity for decades.

In this conversation, Jessica walks through what it was like growing up terrified of both her father and God, how shame turned into resentment and then addiction — first food, then alcohol — and the years she spent quietly convinced that as long as she had someone to blame, she didn't have to change anything. She talks about the moment in early recovery when an older woman in the program told her, "you're a victim until you're 18, and after that you're a volunteer," and how that line cracked open everything she'd been avoiding.

We get into the difference between shame and resentment, what it actually looks like to take responsibility for your part in your own suffering, her complicated and eventually redemptive relationship with faith, and the counseling session that reframed her entire life story — from "nobody wanted me" to "somebody really important wants me here."

Jessica is an author, poet, and spiritual director. She's the author of Higher Powered and her newest release, Sunbathing: Basking in the Word of God, and is currently working on a poetry collection.

This one goes deep into faith, addiction, family dysfunction, and what it means to finally stop volunteering for your own pain.

🌐 Learn more about Jessica, read her blog, or find her books: https://jessicalmorris.com/

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What does it actually mean to be a man — not just grown, but a man?

James sits down with Corwin Johnson, better known as CJ Moneyway — host of the CJ Moneyway Show and Planting Seeds with CJ, and author of "Both Eyes Open and Both Eyes Shut" (2015) and the newly released "Faith Through Trials" (2025) — for a conversation that was never supposed to go where it went.

It starts with an unlikely admission: James voted for Trump three times. CJ's a Democrat. Instead of the conversation falling apart, it becomes the foundation for something better — a real, man-to-man discussion about what actually holds people together when politics tries to tear them apart.

From there, the conversation moves into faith and fatherhood. James and CJ walk through the stories of Abraham, Job, Moses, and Daniel — not as Sunday school lessons, but as blueprints for how a man carries his household through uncertainty, failure, and consequence. CJ opens up about his own life falling apart in his twenties, discovering discipline through scripture, and what it actually took to become the man his kids needed — not the one he used to be.

The conversation gets pointed when they talk about presence versus performance: men who are physically home but absent, men who've traded discipline for comfort, and CJ's unfiltered take on what it means to actually lead a household — even when you're wrong, even when it's hard, even when nobody's clapping for you.

This is a conversation about growing up — really growing up — not just getting older.

🎙️ Guest: Corwin Johnson (CJ Moneyway)
 Find CJ Moneyway on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram — search "CJ Moneyway"
 New project: "Planting Seeds with CJ," launching June 19th

🎨 This episode is sponsored by Vitale Painting, serving Blair County, Altoona, and State College. Call today for a free estimate: 814-937-8663

Subscribe for new episodes weekly. The James Finochio Show — real conversations about the things that actually matter.

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Pennsylvania is $4.8 billion in the hole and the governor wants to use the rainy day fund to buy himself one more year before the bill comes due. District Representative Scott Barger from the 80th district in Blair County Pennsylvania sits down with James to break down exactly how the state got here, who's responsible, and why he thinks every Pennsylvanian is looking at a tax increase by 2028 if nobody makes the hard cuts that need to happen.

Scott doesn't hold back. He explains why legalizing recreational marijuana only generates $140 million in year one — a drop in the bucket against a $4.8 billion structural deficit. Why taxing skill games buys maybe 10% of the gap and wipes out small businesses and fraternal organizations in the process. And why he believes the only real solution is cutting spending, which nobody in Harrisburg wants to do because cutting spending doesn't get you reelected.

He also gets into the data center boom that's coming to Blair County whether people are ready for it or not, and why he's urging local township supervisors to get zoning ordinances in place now before corporations show up with lawyers and a checkbook. Including the possibility of small nuclear power plants attached to these facilities — something most municipalities haven't even begun thinking about.

The childcare crisis in Pennsylvania gets real time in this conversation too. Scott breaks down a package of 14 bills Republicans just introduced aimed at cutting red tape for daycare centers — staffing ratios, square footage rules, trash can lids, all of it — because the state has lost 60% of its in-home daycare providers and some centers have waiting lists of 600 kids.

Plus the cell phone in schools bill that just passed the House and why Scott voted against it even though he agrees with the idea behind it. And the ongoing drama around SB9, the bill that says only girls can compete against girls in Pennsylvania school sports, and why House Democrats keep moving it from committee to committee to avoid bringing it to a vote.

If you live in Blair County, central Pennsylvania, or you just want to hear a state representative talk about what's actually happening in Harrisburg without the spin, this one is worth your time.

Find The James Finochio Show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. 

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Chet Denny and Michael Thomas of The PennSoulvanians join James for one of the most genuine conversations about music, identity, and staying true to yourself when everything around you says conform.

They were doing it different back when different wasn't cool — writing original, soulful hip hop in an era that wanted gangster rap, building a seven piece live band nobody asked for, and refusing to play covers when every venue told them they had to.

In this episode: how the band formed by accident, what grief taught Chet about music, why Pennsylvania is their whole identity, and the philosophy behind staying original for over two decades.

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