In part two of my conversation with Michael Pack, I talk with Michael about what it’s like to be a conservative filmmaker in today’s America and how documentaries have become almost the exclusive playground of the left. Michael Pack is an extraordinary man. President and co-founder of Manifold Productions, he has produced and directed over 15 documentaries, broadcast on PBS and has had an incredible career moving back and forth between making documentaries and also working in public television and information agency non-profits. He has been President and CEO of the Claremont Institute, head of Worldnet then part of the US Information Agency, and senior vice president for TV programming at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is President Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Join me as go behind the scenes with writer, director and producer Michael Pack about the making of his extraordinary film about Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Distilled from over 30 hours of interviews during a six-month period with Justice Thomas and his wonderful wife Ginni, for the first time, he tells his entire life’s story, looking directly at the camera, speaking frankly to the audience. 

What comes next when we emerge from the COVID-19 lockdown? What is “normal” is going to be like? Well in the case of America’s K-12 schools we should not want a return to normal, where “normal” means a nation where fewer than 30% of students – and fewer than 15% in poor communities – read, write, spell, do math or know history, science, or civics on grade level.

“There is more to life than economic freedom. And there is more to economic freedom than economic freedom. A society that attempts to maximize everyone’s freedom at every moment will fail miserably in preserving individual liberty and limiting government over time.”

China presents a vastly different challenge from anything America has confronted before.

The United States economy has never been as deeply dependent on an oppositional government the way we are with China. We have outsourced significant portions of virtually every important supply chain to China.

Cyber warfare is raging around the world, with China as the leading state actor. But unlike Russia, and unlike Iran, and unlike North Korea, China is deeply integrated into the US economy and many aspects of our national strength. This is one reason why Congress wanted to learn from my guest Klon Kitchen about the Chinese app TikTok.

John Tamny and Arnold Kling discuss the problems of political parties in the US – and why are political elites still buying oceanfront property if the world climate crisis is so dire.

Robert D. Atkinson, founder and president of ITIF, describes the United States role in the war for influence and control.

Dr. Robert Epstein and Reggie Littlejohn describe how a leaked internal Google video describes their goal of impacting the beliefs, attitudes, purchases, and votes of 2.5 billion people around the world.

C.D. Dickerson, III, Curator, and Head of Sculpture Department at the National Gallery of Art, comments on issues around art ownership and repatriation – including art that was taken from Africa in the colonial era that now resides in museums all over the world.

C.D. Dickerson, III, Curator, and Head of Sculpture Department at the National Gallery of Art, comments on issues around art ownership and repatriation – including art that was taken from Africa in the colonial era that now resides in museums all over the world.

Has Facebook corporate become a parody? They banned a Prager University video on the “Ten Commandments.” Their explanation? “Well, it mentioned murder.” Maybe next time Prager should do a video on the “Nine Commandments.”

For decades, the U.S. has given China preferred trade & economic status. In a long overdue effort, President Trump is now negotiating new and more balanced trade deals with China, but however effective new trade deals will prove to be, they cannot address the many other dangers posed by China’s Communist Party.

Our military has a disturbing tendency to keep fighting the last wars, not the likely future ones. Now a visionary general is being forced into retirement because he’s advocating a very different approach to counter Chinese aims to achieve dominance in space.

We know from history and evidence all around us, which economic system works, and which one makes people the happiest. It’s the economic system of free enterprise. But is it the most moral? Bill Walton explores the question with Jay Richards, author of the newly reissued book “Money, Greed and God.”

By some estimates, the cost of government regulation in the U.S. exceeds $2 trillion. An amazing number. And while we’re paying a fortune for existing regulations, major new ones are coming out at the rate of 3,000 per year, so fast that the White House can only do a cost-benefit analysis on less than one half of one percent of them.

China is a mass of contradictions. Intellectual property thief. America’s largest trading partner. Home to 476 billionaires. Choked with air and water pollution. A rapidly aging population. And leadership eager to project its national will.

Ronald Reagan was a winner who believed in the boundless potential of America. Sound familiar? It’s one of the reasons Donald Trump is succeeding despite the relentless criticism. He “has a finger on the pulse of millions and millions and millions of Americans.” He beat 17 other candidates to get elected and then outsmarted Congress and his own advisers to get a much better tax bill. Learn how Trump gets what he wants on “The Bill Walton Show” with guest Steve Moore.

I believe that growth can benefit all Americans, yet while our GDP has tripled in size from 1975 to 2015, average wages have barely risen. The response from both political parties has been to double down on policies that have failed to address this reality Maybe they’re missing something crucial in their economic calculations. A focus on work. Author and scholar Oren Cass explains on my new podcast. www.cgtv.us

People look to the government to prevent future financial crises and too many trust that politicians and economic experts can create policies to protect us and our 401(k) plans. We shouldn’t rely on them. These experts are smart, mostly well-intentioned people but they can’t prevent the next crisis. No one can. Why is that? And why is a future crisis inevitable? I discuss these and many other questions with “Finance and Philosophy” author Alex Pollock.

Since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, progressives have kept claiming that government bureaucrats know better than the rest of us. But putting more power into the hands of administrative agencies instead of our elected representatives leads government by the people to the road to extinction. American Enterprise Institute’s Peter Wallison and I explain why this is such a huge problem on my new podcast.

Over the past forty years, since Deng Xiaoping began his policy of “Reform and Opening,” the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has evolved from a less developed country to the second largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world. Over the past 25 years, it has also steadily transformed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into a force that is capable of influencing regional, and increasingly global, security environments.

“Any rational observer of the Democrats’ non-stop character assassination machine can see that something is seriously sick in our republic. Instead of allowing Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were permitted to use trumped-up, hip-pocketed charges to stage a show trial more in tune with a totalitarian system.” Stella Morabito – The Federalist

Lower taxes and less regulation are great for business, but some are thriving in high-tax states like New York and California. On my new podcast, Ralph Benko explains the “Tamny Axiom”. Hint: there’s something more valuable in those states than low taxes.

Why do 53 percent of millennials prefer socialism to capitalism? Probably because they don’t know what socialism is and neither does Bernie Sanders and others who embrace it. But how bad can it get? Democrats might be moving further to the left but it’s absurd to compare them to Marxists, right? My podcast guest, Ralph Benko, says you might be surprised at how similar their beliefs really are.