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No team in NASCAR has achieved the same level of success as Hendrick Motorsports. In this DJD Classic, which originally aired 9/23/19, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his former boss, Rick Hendrick, sit down for an in-depth discussion about Rick's origins in motorsports, how he built up NASCAR's winningest team, and his plans for sustaining excellence in the future. Hear Rick recount the famous rental car ride between Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine that was orchestrated by Mr. Bill France himself. Plus, what did Kenny Schrader do with Dale Jr. that made Dale Sr. mad enough to not speak with Schrader for a full year? The stories are plenty, and the laughs are hearty - nobody in NASCAR can replicate the subdued humor of Mr. H.And for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.
The Fearing Tavern Museum is located in Wareham, Massachusetts and has original parts that have stood for 335 years. It's history is rooted in the incorporation of the town, which was considered the "Gateway to Cape Cod" and has had literally thousands of people pass through its doors. The name comes from the family who kept it and managed it for over 200 years. The tavern is considered by paranormal investigators to be one of the most haunted locations on the South Coast. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Fearing Tavern. Check out the website: http://historygoesbump.com Music used in this episode: Main Theme: Lurking in the Dark by Muse Music with Groove Studios Outro Music: Happy Fun Punk by Muse Music with Groove Studios Other music in this episode: Creepy Asian Theme created and produced by History Goes Bump Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Today on Your Money, Your Wealth podcast 562 (an encore of episode 513), Joe Anderson, CFP® and Big Al Clopine, CPA spitball for YMYW listeners in their 40s who are ready to call it quits at work, become financially independent, and retire early. Can they afford to do it? Peter and Joanna want to retire in the next two years. Burned Out and Ready to Retire wants out of his toxic office. If Maryland Chicken Man never earns another dollar, how much can he afford to withdraw from his retirement accounts each year? And Suzanne in Massachusetts is 69 and needs $60K a year for the next 30 years. Is she all right? (While Joe and Big Al enjoy a little seasonal downtime and Andi recovers from surgery, enjoy this encore presentation of these questions from an early 2025 episode.) Free Financial Resources in This Episode: https://bit.ly/ymyw-562 (full show notes & episode transcript) 2025 Key Financial Data Guide - free download 10 Big Retirement Regrets to Avoid (Before It's Too Late) - YMYW TV Financial Blueprint (self-guided) Financial Assessment (Meet with an experienced professional) REQUEST your Retirement Spitball Analysis DOWNLOAD more free guides READ financial blogs WATCH educational videos SUBSCRIBE to the YMYW Newsletter Connect With Us: YouTube: Subscribe and join the conversation in the comments Podcast apps: subscribe or follow YMYW in your favorite Apple Podcasts: leave your honest reviews and ratings Chapters: 00:00 - Intro: This Week on the YMYW Podcast 01:30 - We're 45 and 44. Can We Retire in the Next 2 Years? (Peter & Joanna, NJ) 10:45 - Watch 10 Big Retirement Regrets to Avoid (Before It's Too Late) on YMYW TV, Calculate your Free Financial Blueprint 11:44 - I'm 42 and I Work in a Toxic Office. Can I Afford to Retire? (Burned Out and Ready to Retire, NJ) 21:53 - Download the 2025 Key Financial Data Guide for free 22:53 - I'm 69 and Need $60k/Year for the Next 30 Years. Am I All Right? (Suzanne, MA) 25:40 - I'm 45. If I Never Earn Another Dollar How Much Can I Withdraw Every Year? (Maryland Chicken Man) 35:15 - Outro: Next Week on the YMYW Podcast
Ocean Vuong is the author of the novel The Emperor of Gladness, available from Penguin Press. Ocean's other books include the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Instagram TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nate is back with Jeff Mlinar from Empire State Takeover for the annual Section IV Girls Basketball preview with a focus on the WCDO listening area. Jeff and Nate break down the teams and players making noise around our region. With coverage that spans most of New York State along with parts of Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, Jeff brings a wide perspective and a deep understanding of the game. His commitment to shining a light on small schools is a big part of what makes this conversation so valuable. Settle in for a good one!
Episode 1863 - brought to you by our incredible sponsors: BUBS Naturals - For a limited time only, get 20% OFF at BUBSNaturals.com Collagen Peptides by using code HARDFACTOR at checkout RIDGE - Take advantage of Ridge's Biggest Sale of the Year and GET UP TO 47% Off by going to https://www.Ridge.com/HARDFACTOR #Ridgepod DaftKings - Download the DraftKings Casino app, sign up with code HARDFACTOR, and spin your favorite slots! The Crown is Yours - Gambling problem? Call one eight hundred GAMBLER Lucy - Level up your nicotine routine with Lucy. Go to Lucy.co/HARDFACTOR and use promo code (HARDFACTOR) to get 20% off your first order. Lucy has a 30-day refund policy if you change your mind Timestamps: (00:00:00) - Was it the Jack in the Box that did it?? (00:06:57) - Massachusetts town sick of smelling like donuts, but people do love Dunkin, so... (00:17:28) - Mom of 11 year-old VA Beach boy suing AI company over Marilyn Monroe and Whitney Houston sex chat-bots allegedly manipulating her 11 year-old son (00:29:00) - Stanford study theorizes that AI will almost always lie to you to attempt improving results, the White Moose, and Penguin killing Pumas (00:38:58) - Former reality "star" from short-lived "Neighbors with Benefits" exposed on child and animal s3x charges Thank you for listening and supporting the pod! go to patreon.com/HardFactor to join our community, get access to discord chat, bonus pods, and much more - but Most importantly: HAGFD!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Anne Holway Higgins, from West Wareham, Massachusetts, USA
Filmmaker Ben Leonberg (GOOD BOY) joins Adam and Joe to discuss the making of his indie darling and working with his dog "Indy" as the film's star. From starting out working in commercial production in Massachusetts… to making dozens of short films and honing his craft… to the over 400 days that it took to shoot GOOD BOY with only himself and his wife as crew… to working with his own non-professionally trained dog "Indy" and how his lead's performance was crafted in editing… to the mad dash to get the film finished after it was accepted to the South By Southwest Film Festival… to his favorite screening of the film (so far), Ben's story is quickly becoming one of legend and will serve as immense inspiration for anyone who is dreaming of making a movie but tired of waiting for permission to do so. Also, Dr. Arwen provides "Hollywood Therapy" to a single father who is juggling his love for filmmaking with his day job and the boys react to a weekend filled with senseless violence as they say farewell to 2025. Fresh off of its theatrical run, GOOD BOY is currently streaming on SHUDDER and will be getting a physical media release soon! TIRED OF THE COMMERCIALS YET? Support THE MOVIE CRYPT on Patreon for just $1 a month, keep THE MOVIE CRYPT alive and get every new episode commercial free! www.Patreon.com/TheMovieCrypt
In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins sits down with Bob Cooley, the once–well-connected Chicago lawyer who lived at the center of the city's most notorious corruption machine. After years out of the public eye, Cooley recently resurfaced to revisit his explosive memoir, When Corruption Was King—and this conversation offers a rare, firsthand look at how organized crime, politics, and the court system intersected in Chicago for decades. Cooley traces his journey from growing up in a police family to serving as a Chicago police officer and ultimately becoming a criminal defense attorney whose real job was quietly fixing cases for the Chicago Outfit. His deep understanding of the judicial system made him indispensable to mob-connected power brokers like Pat Marcy, a political fixer with direct access to judges, prosecutors, and court clerks. Inside the Chicago Corruption Machine Cooley explains how verdicts were bought, cases were steered, and justice was manipulated—what insiders called the “Chicago Method.” He describes his relationships with key figures in organized crime, including gambling bosses like Marco D'Amico and violent enforcers such as Harry Aleman and Tony Spilotro, painting a chilling picture of life inside a world where loyalty was enforced by fear. As his role deepened, so did the psychological toll. Cooley recounts living under constant threat, including a contract placed on his life after he refused to betray a fellow associate—an event that forced him to confront the cost of the life he was leading. Turning Point: Becoming a Federal Witness The episode covers Cooley's pivotal decision in 1986 to cooperate with federal authorities, a move that helped dismantle powerful corruption networks through FBI Operation Gambat. Cooley breaks down how political connections—not just street-level violence—allowed the Outfit to operate with near-total impunity for so long. Along the way, Cooley reflects on the moral reckoning that led him to turn on the system that had enriched and protected him, framing his story as one not just of crime and betrayal, but of reckoning and redemption. What Listeners Will Hear How Bob Cooley became the Outfit's go-to case fixer The role of Pat Marcy and political corruption in Chicago courts Firsthand stories involving Marco D'Amico, Harry Aleman, and Tony Spilotro The emotional and psychological strain of living among violent criminals The decision to cooperate and the impact of Operation Gambat Why Cooley believes Chicago's corruption endured for generations Why This Episode Matters Bob Cooley is one of the few people who saw the Chicago Outfit from inside the courtroom and the back rooms of power. His story reveals how deeply organized crime embedded itself into the institutions meant to uphold the law—and what it cost those who tried to escape it. This episode sets the stage for a deeper follow-up conversation, where Gary and Cooley will continue unpacking the most dangerous and revealing moments of his life. Resources Book: When Corruption Was King by Bob Cooley Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here. To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:03 Prelude to Bob Cooley’s Story 1:57 Bob Cooley’s Background 5:24 The Chicago Outfit Connection 8:24 The Turning Point 15:20 The Rise of a Mob Lawyer 23:54 A Life of Crime and Consequences 26:03 The Incident at the Police Station 50:27 The Count and His Influence 1:19:51 The Murder of a Friend 1:35:26 Contracts and Betrayal 1:40:36 Conclusion and Future Stories Transcript [0:00] Well, hey guys, this is a little prelude to my next story. Bob Cooley was a Chicago lawyer and an outfit associate who had been in, who has been in hiding for many years. I contacted him about six or seven years ago when I first started a podcast, I was able to get a phone number on him and, and got him on the phone. He was, I think it was out in the desert in Las Vegas area at the time. And at the time he was trying to sell his book when corruption was king to a movie producer And he really didn’t want to overexpose himself, and they didn’t really want him to do anything. And eventually, COVID hit, and the movie production was canceled. And it was just all over. There were several movie productions were canceled during COVID, if I remember right. A couple people who I have interviewed and had a movie deal going. Well, Bob recently remembered me, and he contacted me. He just called me out of the clear blue, and he wanted to revive his book and his story. He’s been, you know, way out of the limelight for a long time. And so I thought, well, I always wanted to interview this guy because he’s got a real insider’s knowledge to Chicago Outfit, the one that very few people have. [1:08] You know, here’s what he knows about. And he provides valuable insight into the inner workings of the Outfit. And I don’t mean, you know, scheming up how to kill people and how to do robberies and burglars and all that. But the Chicago court system and Chicago politics, that’s a, that’s a, the, the mob, a mafia family can’t exist unless they have connections into the political system and especially the court system. Otherwise, what good are they? You know, I mean, they, they just take your money where they give you back. They can’t protect you from anybody. [1:42] So I need to give you a little more of the backstory before we go on to the actual interview with Bob, because he kind of rambles a little bit and goes off and comes back and drops [1:54] names that we don’t have time to go into explanation. So here’s a little bit of what he talked about. He went from being, as I said before, Chicago Outfit’s trusted fixer in the court system, and he eventually became the government star witness against them. He’s born, he’s about my age. He was born in 1943. He was an Irish-American police family and came from the Chicago South side. He was a cop himself for a short period of time, but he was going to law school while he was a policeman. And once he started practicing law, he moved right into criminal law and into first ward politics and the judicial world downtown. [2:36] And that’s where the outfit and the old democratic machine intersected. He was in a restaurant called Counselor’s Row, which was right down. Bob had an office downtown. Well, he’s inside that system, and he uses his insider’s knowledge to fix cases. Once an outfit started noticing him that he could fix a case if he wanted to, he immediately became connected to the first ward power broker and outfit political conduit, a guy named Pat Marcy. Pat Marcy knew all the judges He knew all the court clerks And all the police officers And Bob was getting to know him too During this time But Bob was a guy who was out in He was a lawyer And he was working inside the court system Marcy was just a downtown fixer. [3:22] But Bob got to where he could guarantee acquittals or light sentences for whoever came to him with the right amount of money, whether it be a mobster or a bookmaker or a juice loan guy or a crap politician, whoever it was, Bob could fix the case. [3:36] One of the main guys tied to his work he was kind of attached to a crew everybody’s owned by somebody he was attached to the Elmwood Park crew and Marco D’Amico who was under John DeFranco and I can’t remember who was before DeFranco, was kind of his boss and he was a gambling boss and Bob was a huge gambler I mean a huge gambler and Bob will help fix cases for some notorious people Really, one of the most important stories that we’ll go into in the second episode of this is Harry the Hook Aleman. And he also helped fix the case for Tony Spolatro and several others. He’s always paid him in cash. And he lived large. As you’ll see, he lived large. And he moved comfortably between mobsters and politicians and judges. And he was one of the insiders back in the 70s, 60s or 70s mainly. He was an insider. But by the 80s, he’s burned out. He’s disgusted with himself. He sees some things that he doesn’t like. They put a contract out on him once because he wouldn’t give somebody up as an informant, and he tipped one of his clients off that he was going to come out that he was an informant, and the guy was able to escape, I believe. Well, I have to go back and listen to my own story. [4:53] Finally in 1986 he walked unannounced they didn’t have a case on him and he walked unannounced in the U.S. Courthouse and offered himself up to take down this whole Pat Marcy and the whole mobster political clique in Chicago and he wore a wire for FBI an operation called Operation Gambat which is a gambling attorney because he was a huge gambler [5:17] huge huge gambler and they did a sweeping probe and indicted tons of people over this. So let’s go ahead and listen to Robert Cooley. [5:31] Uh, he, he, like I said, he’s a little bit rambling and a little bit hard to follow sometimes, but some of these names and, and, uh, and in the first episode, we’ll really talk about his history and, uh, where he came from and how he came up. He’ll mention somebody called the count and I’ll do that whole count story and a whole nother thing. So when he talks about the count, just disregard that it’ll be a short or something. And I got to tell that count story. It’s an interesting story. Uh, he, he gets involved with the only own, uh, association, uh, and, uh, and the, uh, Chinese Tong gang in, uh, Chicago and Chicago’s Chinatown. Uh, some of the other people he’ll talk about are Marco D’Amico, as I said, and D’Amico’s top aide, Rick Glantini, uh, another, uh, connected guy and worked for the city of Chicago is Robert Abinati. He was a truck driver. [6:25] He was also related to D’Amico and D’Amico’s cousin, former Chicago police officer Ricky Borelli. Those are some of the names that he’ll mention in this. So let’s settle back and listen to Bob Cooley. Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. And, you know, we we deal with the mob here once a week, sometimes twice a week on the podcast. And I have a special guest that hadn’t been heard from for a while. And, you know, to be honest, guys, I’ve kind of gotten away from the outfit. I’ve been doing a lot of New York stuff and Springfield, Massachusetts and all around the country. And I kind of got away from Chicago. And we’re going back to Chicago today. And I’m honored that Bob Cooley got hold of me. Now, you may not know who Bob Cooley was, but Bob Cooley was a guy. He was a mob lawyer in Chicago, and he really probably, he heard him as much as anybody’s ever heard him, and he did it all of his own accord. He was more like an undercover agent that just wasn’t officially designated an FBI agent rather than an informant. But anyhow, welcome, Bob. [7:37] Hello. Nice meeting you. Nice to meet you. And I’ve talked to you before. And you were busy before a few years ago. And you were getting ready to make some movies and stuff. And then COVID hit and a lot of that fell through. And that happened to several people I’ve talked to. You got a lot in common with me. I was a Kansas City policeman. And I ended up becoming a lawyer after I left the police department. And you were a Chicago copper. And then you left the police department a little bit earlier than I did and became a lawyer. And, and Bob, you’re from a Chicago police family, if I remember right. Is that correct? Oh, police, absolute police background, the whole family. Yes. Yeah. Your grandfather, your grandfather was killed in the line of duty. Is that right? [8:25] Both of my grandfathers were killed in the line of duty. Wow. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I eventually did what I did. I was very, very close with my dad. Yeah, and your dad was a copper. [8:38] He was a policeman, yeah. And in fact, you use that term. I, for many, many years, wouldn’t use that word. It just aggravated me when people would use the word copper. To me, it would show disrespect. Oh, really? I said to us in Kansas City, that’s what we call each other, you know, among coppers. Oh, I know. I know. But I know. But, you know, I just, for whatever reason, one of the things that aggravated me the most, in fact, when I was being cross-examined by this piece of shit, Eddie Jensen, the one I wrote about in my book that was, you know, getting a lot of people killed and whatever. And he made some comment about my father. and I got furious and I had to, you know, my father was unbelievably honest as a policeman. [9:29] Everybody loved him because they didn’t have to share, uh, you know, but he was a detective. He had been written up many times in true and magazines and these magazines for making arrests. He was involved in the cartage detail. He was involved in all kinds of other things, but honest as the day is long. And, and, um, but, uh, again, the, uh, my father’s father was, uh, was a policeman and he was killed by a member of the Capone gang. And, uh, and when he was killed, after he was killed. [10:05] The, uh, well, after he got shot, he got shot during a robbery after he got shot, he was in the hospital for a while. And then he went, then he went back home. He went back home to his, uh, you know, to his house, uh, cause he had seven kids. He had a big family too. And, uh, stayed with his, you know, with his wife and, and, and eventually died. And when he died they had a very mediocre funeral for him. They had a bigger, much bigger funeral when Al Capone’s brother died. But during that time when I was a kid when I was about 13, 12, 13 years old, I worked among other places at a grocery store where I delivered to my grandmother. My grandmother lived in South Park which later became Mark Luther King Drive. She lived a very, very meager life because she basically had nothing. [11:09] What they gave them for the, at that time, what they gave them for the police department was a portion of the husband’s salary when they died, whatever. It was never a big deal like it is now, you know, like it is now when policemen get killed in the line of duty. and I’m thinking at the same time I’m thinking down the road, You know, about certain things from my past did come back to affect me. [11:38] Doing what I was doing, when I got involved, and I got involved absolutely with all these different people. My father hated these people. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t realize how much. I didn’t realize much when I was growing, you know, when I was growing up and whatever. And even when I was practicing law and when I opened up Pratt-Mose, I would have my father and mother come along with other people. And the place was all full of mobsters. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, a lot of Capone’s whole crew. A lot of the gunmen were still alive. In fact, the ones that ran the first award were all gunmen from Capone’s mob. And never said a word, never said a word about it. You know, he met my partner, Johnny Diaco, who was part of the mob, the senator, and whatever colitis could be. My dad, when my dad was dying. [12:38] When my dad was dying, he had what they didn’t call it, but it had to be Alzheimer’s because my dad was a unbelievably, he was a big, strong man, but he was never a fighter, sweet as could be to anybody and everybody. When he started getting bad, he started being mean to my mother and doing certain things. So we finally had to put him into a nursing home. When I went to see him in the nursing, and I had a close relationship with my dad because he saved my life many times when I was a kid. I was involved with stolen cars at school. I should have been thrown out of school. It was Mount Carmel, but he had been a Carmelite, almost a Carmelite priest. [13:25] And whatever, and that’s what kept me from being kicked out of school at Marquette when they were going to throw me out there because I was, again, involved in a lot of fights, and I also had an apartment that we had across the hall from the shorter hall where I was supposed to stay when I was a freshman, and we were throwing huge parties, and they wanted to throw me out of school. My dad came, my dad came and instead of throwing me out, they let me resign and whatever he had done so much, you know, for me. Yeah. [14:00] Now when I, when I meet, when I meet him up in the hospital, I, I came in the first time and it was about maybe 25 miles outside, you know, from where my office was downtown. And when I went in to see him, they had him strapped in a bed because apparently when he initially had two people in the room and when somebody would come in to try to talk to him and whatever, he would be nasty. And one time he punched one of the nurses who was, you know, because he was going in the bed and they wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t let him take him out. You know, I was furious and I had to go, I had to go through all that. And now, just before he died, it was about two or three days before he died, he didn’t recognize anybody except me. Didn’t recognize my mother. Didn’t recognize anybody. Yet when I would come into the room, son, that’s what he always called me, son, when I would come in. So he knew who I basically was. And he would even say, son, don’t let him do this to me when he had to go through or they took out something and he had to wear one. Of those, you know, those decatheters or whatever. Oh, yeah. [15:15] Just before he died, he said to me, he said, son, he said, those are the people that killed my father. He said, and his case was fixed. After, I had never known that. In fact, his father, Star, was there at 11th and State, and I would see it when everyone went in there. Star was up there on the board as if there’s a policeman or a policeman killed in the line of duty. When he told me that it really and I talked to my brother who knew all about all that that’s what happened, the gunman killed him on 22nd street when that happened the case went to trial and he was found not guilty apparently the case was fixed I tell you what talk about poetic justice there your grandson is now in that system of fixing cases. I can’t even imagine what you must have felt like when you learned that at that point in your life. Man, that would be a grief. That would be tough. That’s what eventually made me one day decide that I had to do something to put an end to all that was going on there. [16:25] I’m curious, what neighborhood did you grow up in? Neighborhood identity is pretty strong in Chicago. So what neighborhood do you claim? I grew up in the hood. First place I grew up, my first place when I was born, I was at 7428 South Vernon. Which is the south side, southeast side of the city. I was there until I was in sixth grade. That was St. Columbanus Parish. When I was in sixth grade, we had to move because that’s when they were doing all the blockbusting there in Chicago. That’s when the blacks were coming in. And when the blacks were coming in, and I truly recall, We’ve talked about this many times elsewhere. I remember knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell all hours of the day and night. A black family just moved in down the street. You’ve got to sell now. If you don’t, the values will all go down. And we would not move. My father’s philosophy, we wouldn’t move until somebody got killed in the area. Because he couldn’t afford it. He had nine kids. he’s an honest policeman making less than $5,000 a year. [17:45] Working two, three jobs so we could all survive when he finished up, When he finished up with, when we finally moved, we finally moved, he went to 7646 South Langley. That was, again, further south, further south, and the area was all white at that time. [18:09] We were there for like four years, and about maybe two or three years, and then the blacks started moving in again. The first one moved in, and it was the same pattern all over again. Yeah, same story in Kansas City and every other major city in the United States. They did that blockbusting and those real estate developers. Oh, yeah, blockbusters. They would call and tell you that the values wouldn’t go down. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20. [18:49] As soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing and I became a policeman. During the riots, I had an excuse not to go. They thought I was working. I was in the bar meeting my pals before I went to work. That’s why I couldn’t go to school at that time. But anyhow, I took some time off. I took some time off to, you know, to study, uh, because, you know, I had all C’s in one D in my first, in my first semester. And if you didn’t have a B, if you didn’t have a C average, you couldn’t, you kicked out of school at the end of a quarter. This is law school. You’re going to law school while you’re still an active policeman. Oh yeah, sure. That’s okay. So you work full time and went to law school. You worked full-time and went to law school at the same time. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20, as soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing, and I became a policeman. Yeah, yeah. But anyhow, I went to confession that night. [20:10] And when I went to confession, there was a girl, one of the few white people in the neighborhood, there was a girl who had gone before me into the confessional. And I knew the priest. I knew him because I used to go gambling with him. I knew the priest there at St. Felicis who heard the confessions. And this is the first time I had gone to confession with him even though I knew him. [20:36] And I wanted to get some help from the big guy upstairs. And anyhow, when I leave, I leave about maybe 10 minutes later, and she had been saying her grace, you know, when I left. And when I walked out, I saw she was right across the street from my house, and there’s an alley right there. And she was a bit away from it, and there were about maybe 13, 14, 15 kids. when I say kids, they were anywhere from the age of probably about 15, 16 to about 18, 19. And they’re dragging her. They’re trying to drag her into the alley. And when I see that, when I see that, I head over there. When I get over there, I have my gun out. I have the gun out. And, you know, what the hell is going on? And, you know, and I told her, I told her her car was parked over there. I told her, you know, get out of here. And I’ve got my gun. I’ve got my gun in my hand. And I don’t know what I’m going to do now in terms of doing anything because I’m not going to shoot them. They’re standing there looking at me. And after a little while, I hear sirens going on. [22:00] The Barton family lived across the street in an apartment building, and they saw what was going on. They saw me out there. It was about probably about seven o’clock at night. It was early at night and they put a call in 10-1 and call in 10-1. Assist the officer. Is that a assist the officer? It’s 1031. Police been in trouble. Yeah. And the squad’s from everywhere. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So you can hear, you can hear them coming. And now one of them says to me, and I know they’re pretty close. One of them says to me, you know, put away your gun and we’ll see how tough you are. And I did. [22:42] Because you know they’re close. And I’m busy fighting with a couple of them. And they start running and I grab onto two of them. I’m holding onto them. I could only hold two. I couldn’t hold anymore. And the next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital about four days later. Wow. What had happened was they pushed me. Somebody, there was another one behind who pushed me right in front of a squad car coming down the street. Oh, shit. Yeah, man. And the car ran completely over me. They pulled me off from under the, just under the back wheels, I was told were right next to, were onto me, blood all over the place. Everybody thought I was dead. Right. Because my brothers, my one brother who was a police kid that, you know, heard all the noise and the family came in. I tried to prostrate my house and they all thought I was dead. But anyhow, I wake up in the hospital about three days later. When I wake up in the hospital, I’m like. [23:54] Every bone of my body was broken. I’m up there like a mummy. And the mayor came to see me. All kinds of people came to see me. They made me into an even bigger star in my neighborhood. The Count lives down the street and is seeing all this stuff about me and whatever. Jumping quickly to another thing, which got me furious. Willie Grimes was the cop that was driving this quad. He was a racist. We had some blacks in the job. He was a total racist. When my brother and when some others were doing their best to try to find these people, he was protecting them. Some of them, if they caught, he was protecting them. [24:48] I was off the job for like nine months when I came back to work. I never came to the hospital to see me. I mean, everybody came. Every day, my hospital went. Because one of the nurses that I was dating, in fact, she was one of those killed. That’s when Richard Speck wound up killing her and some of the others at the same time. It was at the South Chicago Hospital. Holy darn. What they did for me, I had buckets in my womb with ice. We were bringing beer and pizzas and whatever. Every day was like a party in there. When I finally came back to work, it was 11 o’clock at night. I worked out in South Chicago, and I’m sitting in the parking lot, and the media is there. The media, they had all kinds of cameras there. Robert Cooley’s coming back to work after like nine months. They wouldn’t let me go back. [25:51] I’m walking by the squads. And Willie was a big guy. He was probably about 220, a big one of these big muscle builders and all that nonsense. [26:04] He’s sitting in the first car. The cars are all lined up because when we would change, when we would change at like 11 30 uh you know the cars would all be waiting we jumped into the cars and off we go as i’m walking by the car i hear aren’t you afraid to walk in front of my car. [26:26] I look over and he had a distinctive voice i walk over to the car and i reach in and i start punching them, and I’m trying to drag them out of the car. The cameras, the cameras are, you know, they’re all basically inside. They’re all inside. You know, as you walk in there, they’re all inside there. When I do, I eventually walk up there. But the other police came, and they dragged me. They dragged me away, and they brought me in, and whatever. We got transferred out the next day out of the district. And the first policeman I meet is Rick, Rick Dorelli, who’s connected with, who’s a monster. He’s connected with them. And, and he’s the one who told me, he said to me, you know, we played cards and he realized I was a gambler, but I had never dealt with bookmakers. And he said, he says, yeah, you want to make some money? You want to make some easy money? Well, yeah, sure. You know, uh, you know, and thinking that’s, you know, working security or something like that, like I had done back in Chicago, you know, like I had done on the south side. And he said, I want you to make some bets for me with somebody who said. [27:43] And I remember him using the term. He said, I want you to be my face. He said, and I want you to make some bets for me. He said, and he said, and if you, if you’ll do it, I’ll give you a hundred dollars a week just to make the bets for me. And then, you know, and then meet with these people and pay these people off. And I said, sure. You know, I said, you know, why? He says, because I can’t play with these. people he said i’m connected with him he said and i’m not allowed to gamble myself he said but he told me he said i’ve got a couple people i take bets from i’ve got my own side deal going so i want you to do it i want you to do it and i’ll give i’ll give you to them as a customer, and you’re gonna be a customer and he’s and he tells people now that i got this other police He’s in law school. He comes from a real wealthy family, and he’s looking for a place to bet. He’s in Gambia. He’s looking for a place to bet. [28:47] So I call this number, and I talk to this guy. He gives me a number. When you bet, you call, and you do this, and you do that. And I’m going to get $100 at the end of the week. Now, I’m making $5,200 a year, and they’re taking money out of my chest. I’m going to double my salary. I’m going to double my salary immediately. Why wouldn’t you do it? That’s fantastic money at the time. So I start doing it. And the first week I’m doing it, it was baseball season. [29:19] And I’m making these bets. He’s betting $500 a game on a number of games. And he’s winning some, he’s losing some. But now, when I’m checking my numbers with the guy there, he owes, at the end of the week, he owes $3,500. [29:38] And now, it’s getting bigger and bigger, he’s losing. I’m getting worried. What have I got myself into? Yeah, because it’s not him losing, it’s you losing to the bookie. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking, holy, holy, Christopher, I’m thinking. But, you know, I’ve already jumped off the building. So anyhow. I’d be thinking, you better come up with a jack, dude. It’s time to pay up, man. Anyhow, so when I come to work the next day, I’m supposed to meet this guy at one of the clubs out there in the western suburbs. [30:21] I’m supposed to meet the bookmaker out there. And Ricky meets me that morning, and he gives me the money. It’s like $3,400, and here’s $100 for you. Bingo. That’s great. So, okay. When I go to make the payment to him, it’s a nightclub, and I got some money in my pocket. Somebody, one of the guys, some guy walks up. I’m sitting at the bar and, you know, I hear you’re a copper. I said, pardon me? He says, I hear you’re a copper. He was a big guy. Yeah. I hear you’re a copper. Because at that time, I still only weighed maybe like, well, maybe 60, 65 pounds. I mean, I was in fantastic shape, but I wasn’t real big. And I said, I’m a policeman. I don’t like policemen. I said, go fuck yourself. or something like that. And before he could do anything, I labeled him. That was my first of about a half a dozen fights in those different bars out there. [31:32] And the fights only lasted a few minutes because I would knock the person down. And if the person was real big, at times I’d get on top and just keep pounding before they could do anything. So I started with a reputation with those people at that time now as I’m, going through my world with these people oh no let’s stay with that one area now after the second week he loses again, this time not as much but he loses again and I’m thinking wow, He’s betting, and I’m contacted by a couple of people there. Yeah. Because these are all bookmakers there, and they see me paying off. So I’m going to be, listen, if you want another place to play, and I say, well, yeah. So my thought is, with baseball, it’s a game where you’re laying a price, laying 160, laying 170, laying 180. So if you lose $500, if you lose, you pay $850, and if you win, you only get $500. [32:52] I’ve got a couple of people now, and they’ve got different lines. And what I can do now is I check with their lines. I check with Ricky’s guy and see what his line is. And I start moving his money elsewhere where I’ve got a 30, 40, sometimes 50 cent difference in the price. So I’d set it up where no matter what, I’m going to make some money, No matter what happens, I’ll make some money. But what I’m also doing is I’m making my own bets in there that will be covered. And as I start early winning, maybe for that week I win maybe $1,000, $1,500. And then as I meet other people and I’m making payments, within about four or five months, I’ve got 10 different bookmakers I’m dealing with. Who I’m dealing with. And it’s become like a business. I’m getting all the business from him, 500 a game, whatever. And I’ve got other people that are betting, you know, are betting big, who are betting through me. And I’m making all kinds of money at that time. [34:14] But anyhow, now I mentioned a number of people, A number of people are, I’ve been with a number of people that got killed after dinner. One of the first ones was Tony Borsellino, a bookmaker. Tony was connected with the Northside people, with DeVarco, the one they called DeVarco. And we had gone to a we had gone to a I knew he was a hit man, we had gone to a basketball game over at DePaul because he had become a good friend of mine he liked hanging with me, because I was because at that time now I’m representing the main madams in Chicago too and they loved being around me they liked going wherever I was going to go so I always had all kinds of We left the ladies around. And we went to the basketball game. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant, a steakhouse on Chicago Avenue. [35:26] Gee, why can’t I think of a name right now? We went to a steakhouse, and we had dinner. And when we finished up, it came over there. And when we finished up, I’d been there probably half a dozen times with him. And he was there with his girlfriend. We had dinner and about, I’d say it was maybe 10, 30, 11 o’clock, he says, you know, Bob, can you do me a favor? What’s that? Can you drop her off? He said, I have to go meet some friends. I have to go meet some friends of ours. And, you know, okay, sure, Tony, not a problem. And, you know, I took her home. [36:09] The next day I wake up, Tony Barcellino was found dead. They killed him. He was found with some bullets in the back of his head. They killed him. Holy Christopher. And that’s my first—I found that I had been killed before that. But, you know, wow, that was—, prior to that, when I was betting, there was i paid off a bookmaker a guy named uh ritten shirt, rittenger yeah john rittenger yeah yeah yeah he was a personal friend yeah was he a personal friend of yours yeah they offed him too well i in fact i he i was paying him i met him to pay him I owed him around $4,500, and I met him at Greco’s at my restaurant he wanted to meet me out there because he wanted to talk to me about something else he had a problem some kind of a problem I can’t remember what that was. [37:19] But he wanted to meet me at the restaurant so I met him at Greco’s, And I paid him the money. We talked for a while. And then he says, you know, I got to go. I got to go meet somebody. I got to go meet somebody else. I got to go straight now with somebody else. And he said, I’ll give you a call. He said, I’ll give you a call later. He said, because, you know, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. He says, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. I said, okay, sure. He goes to a pizza place. Up there in the Taylor Street area. That’s where he met Butchie and Harry. In fact, at the time, I knew both of them. Yeah, guys, that’s Butch Petrucelli and Harry Alem and a couple of really well-known mob outfit hitmen. Yeah, and they’re the ones that kill them. I’m thinking afterwards, I mean, But, you know, I wish I hadn’t, I wish I hadn’t, you know, I wish I could save him. I just gave him. Man, you’re cold, man. [38:34] You could have walked with that money. That’s what I’m saying. So now, another situation. Let me cut in here a minute, guys. As I remember this Reitlinger hit, Joe Ferriola was a crew boss, and he was trying to line up all the bookies, as he called it. He wanted to line them up like Al Capone lined up all the speaks, that all the bookies had to fall in line and kick something into the outfit, and Reitlinger wouldn’t do it. He refused to do it no matter. They kept coming to him and asking him his way. I understand that. Is that what you remember? I knew him very well. Yeah. He was not the boss. Oh, the Ferriola? Yeah, he wasn’t the boss, but he was kind of the, he had a crew. He was the boss of the Cicero crew. Right. I saw Joe all the time at the racetrack. In fact, I’m the one who, I’m the one, by the time when I started wearing a wire, I was bringing undercover agents over. I was responsible for all that family secret stuff that happened down the road. Oh, really? You set the stage for all that? I’m the one who put them all in jail. All of them. [39:52] So anyhow, we’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves. Reitlinger’s been killed. Joe Borelli or Ricky Borelli’s been killed. These guys are dropping around you, and you’re getting drawn into it deeper and deeper, it sounds to me like. Now, is this when you – what happens? How do you get drawn into this Chicago outfit even more and more as a bookie? Were you kicking up, too? Well, it started, it started, so many things happened that it just fell into place. It started, like I say, with building a reputation like I had. But the final situation in terms of with all the mobsters thinking that I’m not just a tough guy, I’m a bad guy. [40:35] When I get a call, when Joey Cosella, Joey Cosella was a big, tough Italian kid. And he was involved heavily in bookmaking, and we became real close friends. Joey and I became real close friends. He raised Dobermans, and he’s the one who had the lion over at the car dealership. I get a call from Joey. He says, you’ve got to come over. I said, what’s up? He says, some guys came in, and they’re going to kill the count. They want to kill the count. And I said, And I said, what? This is before the Pewter thing. I said, what do you mean? And so I drive over there, and he says, Sammy Annarino and Pete Cucci. And Pete Cucci came in here, and they came in with shotguns, and they were going to kill them. I said, this was Chicago at the time. It’s hard to believe, but this was Chicago. And I said, who are they? I didn’t know who they were. I said, who are they? I mean, I didn’t know them by name. It turns out I did know them, but I didn’t know them by name. They were people that were always in Greco’s, and everybody in Greco knew me because I’m the owner. [41:49] But anyhow, so I get a hold of Marco, and I said, Marco, and I told him what happened. I said, these guys, a couple of guys come in there looking for the talent. That are going to kill him because apparently he extorted somebody out of his business. And I said, who were they with? And he said, they were with Jimmy the bomber. They were with Jimmy Couture. [42:15] I said, oh, they’re for legit then? I said, yeah. I said, can you call? I said, call Jimmy. I knew who he was. He was at the restaurant all the time. He was at Threatfuls all the time with a lot of these other people. And I met him, but I had no interest in him. He didn’t seem like a very friendly sort of anyone. I could care less about him. I represented a lot of guys that worked for him, that were involved with problems, but never really had a conversation with him other than I. [42:53] I’m the owner. So I met with him. I wrote about that in the book. I met with them and got that straightened out where the count’s going to pay $25,000 and you’ll get a contract to the… He ripped off some guy out of a parlor, one of those massage parlors, not massage parlor, but one of those adult bookstores that were big money deals. Oh, yeah. So when I go to meet these guys, I’m told, go meet them and straighten this thing out. So I took Colin with me over to a motel right down the street from the racetrack, right down from the racetrack, and I met with him. I met with Pete Gucci. He was the boss of, you know, this sort of loop. When I get finished talking with him, I come back, and here’s the count and Sammy, and Sammy’s picking a fork with his finger and saying, you know, I rip out eyes with these. [43:56] And the count says, I rip out eyes with these. And I said, what the fuck is going on here? I said, Pete, I said, you know, get him the fuck out of here. And you all at the count said, what’s the matter with you? You know, these guys are going to kill him. And now the moment I get involved in it, he knows he’s not going to have a problem. You know, he’s pulling this nonsense. [44:23] So anyhow, this is how I meet Pete Gucci and Sammy Annarino. After a while, I stopped hanging around with the count because he was starting to go off the deep end. Yeah. Yeah. [44:39] And we were at a party, a bear party with, I remember Willie Holman was there, and they were mostly black, the black guys up there on the south side. And I had just met this girl a day or two before, and the count says, you know, let’s go up to a party, a bear’s party up there on Lakeshore Drive. If we go up there, we go to this party, it’s going to be about maybe 35, 40 people in there, one or two whites, other than the players. And other than that, we’re the only white people there. When we walk into the place, there’s a couple of guys out there with shotguns. It was in a motel. And you walk through like an area where you go in there, and there’s a couple of guys standing there with shotguns. We go in and we go upstairs and, hey, how are you? And we’re talking with people. And I go in one room. I’m in one room. [45:45] There were two rooms there. I’m in one room with a bunch of people and, you know, just talking and having a good old time. And the count was in the second room. And I hear Spade. He always called me Spade. Spade, Spade, you know. And I go in there, and he’s talking with Willie Holman. I remember it was one of them. He was the tackle, I think, with the Bears and a couple of others. And this whole room, all these black guys. And he goes, that’s Spade Cooley. He says, him and I will take on every one of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re in a room, and he goes, that’s what he says. You know, him and I will take it on every one of you. And Willie did that. He calmed down. He’s telling him, calmed down. What the fuck? It was about a week or so after this. And because I had been out with the county, he’s calling me two or three times a week to go out. And we’re going, a lot of times it was these areas in the south side with a lot of blood. He liked being around Blacks. [47:00] That’s when I met Gail Sayers, and I met some of these others through him. But a lot of the parties and stuff were in the South Side out there, mostly Blacks and all. But we had gone someplace for dinner, and we’re heading back home. We’re heading back to my place, and we’re in his car. He had a brown Cadillac convertible. On the side of it, it had these, you know, the Count Dante press. And he always ran around. He ran around most of the time in these goofy, you know, these goofy outfits with capes and things like that. I’m driving and when we’re talking and I’m like distracted looking at him. And I’m waiting at a stoplight over there right off of Chicago Avenue. And as we’re there. [47:48] I barely touched the car in front of us, you know, as I’m drifting a little bit and barely touch it. There were four guys in the car and, you know, and the one guy jumps out first, one guy jumps out first and then second one, and they start screaming. And when the count gets out, the guy starts calling you, you faggot or something like that, you know, whatever. And as the other one gets out, I get out of the car. And the next thing I know, they jump back in the car, and they run through a red light, and they disappear. Somebody must have recognized them. One of the other people there must have realized who this is that they’re about to get into a little battle with. In fact, they ran the red light. They just ran the red light and disappeared. They come, no, no, no, no, no. And we go off to my apartment and I’m here with this girl, another girl I had just met a day or so before, because I was constantly meeting new people, uh, running around and, uh, we’re sitting on the couch. I’m sitting in the couch next to her and the count, the count was over there. And he suddenly says to her, he says, he says, this is one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. He said, and he says, tell her how tough you are. Tell her how tough you are. [49:10] I said, you know, I said, you know, you know, and he says, tell them how tough you are. And I said, John, you know, and he walks over, And he makes a motion like this towards me. And he barely touched my chin. But I thought he broke it. He then steps back and he goes, I got to cut this hand off. He says, you saved my life. He said, you saved my life. He said, the only two friends I’ve had in the world were my father and you. He says, I wasn’t even that crazy about my mother. That’s when I said then he goes and he stands and I’m looking at it now he stands up against the window I looked up on the 29th floor, he stands by the window he says get your gun he says and I want you to aim it at me, and say now before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet, I’ll stop the bullet this guy was nuts and I said I said, what? [50:28] He says, before you pull the trigger. [50:36] Tell me before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet. He wanted me to shoot him. He stopped the bullet. When I got him out of there, Now when he’s calling me, I’m busy. I’m busy. Once in a while, I’d meet him someplace. No more driving or whatever. That was smart. I hadn’t seen him in probably five or six months. And this is, again, after the situation when I had met with Anna Randall and Gooch and the others. I’m up in my office and I get a I get a call from the county, and he said and I hadn’t probably seen him even maybe in a month or two at all and he said, can I come over and talk to you and I was playing cards in fact I had card games up in my office and, we called him Commissioner. [51:41] O’Malley Ray O’Malley, he was the head of the police department at night. On midnights, he got there at 4 to 12. He started at 4 to 12 until midnights. He was the head of them. He was the commissioner. He was in charge of the whole department. He used to play cards up in my office. We had big card games up in my office. And when he’d come up there, we’d have the blue goose parked out in front. We’d have his bodyguard sitting out there by my door. When he was playing in the games. This went on for a couple of years. [52:15] I was at the office, but, you know, I’m at the office playing cards. [52:20] And I had a, it was a big suite. We had, you know, my office was a big office in this suite. We had about six other, you know, big, big suites in there. And so he comes over, he comes over to meet with me. And so I figure he’s in trouble. He’s arrested. He says, I’ve got a situation going. He says, well, you can get a million dollars. And he said, but if I tell you what it is, he says, and you’re in, he said, you got to be in. I’ll tell you what it is. I said, John, if I need money, I said, you get $2 million, then you can loan me if you want, but I don’t want to know what it is. I said, I just don’t want to know what it is. [52:59] It was about a week or two later. It was a pure later, basically. It was a pure later caper. Yeah, guys, this was like the huge, huge. And the one he set it up with was Pete Gucci, the guy that was going to kill him. That was the one who set it up. I knew that. I thought I remembered that name from somewhere. I don’t remember. They ended up getting popped, but everybody got caught, and most of the money got returned. No, no. No bit that the outfit kept, I understand, if I remember right. What was the deal on that? There was more to it than that. Just before that happened, I go up, and Jerry Workman was another lawyer. Actually, he was attorney up in the office, post-rending bank. When I’m going up into the office, I see Pete Gucci there. This is probably a week or so after the situation with the count. Or maybe even a little bit longer than that. I said, Pete, what are you doing? I said, what are you doing here? Jerry Workston’s my lawyer. Oh, okay. [53:55] Okay. He said, I didn’t know you were off here. I said, yeah. I said, Jerry’s a good friend of mine. Okay. And as I’m walking away, he says, you tell your friend the count to stop calling me at two, three in the morning. He says, I got a wife and kids and whatever. And I said to him, I said, Pete, you got no business dealing. I don’t know what it is. I said, but you guys got no business dealing involved in anything. You got no business being involved with him. And I walked away. I see him and I see him as he’s leaving. I see him as he’s leaving and say goodbye to him. Jerry was going to be playing cards. [54:39] It was card night too. Jerry was going to be playing cards in my office because the people would come in usually about 9 o’clock, 9.30 is when the game would usually start. I talked with Jerry. He had been in there for a while. He was arrested a day or two later. The fbi comes in there because he had stashed about 35 000 in jerry’s couch oh really that was his bond money he got that was his bond money if he got to get bailed out to get him bailed out that was his bond money that was there that’s how bizarre so i got involved in so many situations like this but anyhow anyhow now sammy uh, So it’s about maybe a week or two later after this, when I’m in the car driving, I hear they robbed a purulator. The purulator was about a block and a half from my last police station. It was right down the street from the 18th district. That was the place that they robbed. And not long after that, word came out that supposedly a million dollars was dropped off in front of Jimmy the bomber, in front of his place. With Jimmy the bomber, both Sammy Ann Arino and Pete Gucci were under him. They were gunmen from his group. Now I get a call from, I get a count was never, you never heard the count’s name mentioned in there with anybody. [56:07] The guy from Boston, you know, who they indicated, you know, came in to set it up. The count knew him from Boston. The count had some schools in Boston. And this was one of his students. And that’s how he knew this guy from Boston that got caught trying to take a, trying to leave the country with, you know, with a couple thousand, a couple million dollars of the money. Yeah, I read that. It was going down to the Caribbean somewhere and they caught him. And Sammy Ann Arino didn’t get involved in that. He wasn’t involved in that because I think he was back in the prison at the time. [56:44] Now, when he’s out of prison, probably no more than about maybe three or four months after all that toilet stuff had died down, I get a call from Sam, and he wants me to represent him because he was arrested. What happened was he was shot in a car. He was in a car, and he had gotten shot. And when they shot him, he kicked out the window and somehow fought the guys off. When they found him there in the car and in his trunk, they found a hit kit. They said it was a hit kit. How could they know? It was a box that had core form in it, a ski mask, a ski mask, a gun, a gun with tape wrapped around it and the rest of it. Yeah. And he’s an extra time. Mask and tape or little bits of rope and shit like that. I’d say no. So he was charged with it, and he was charged with it in his case, and he had a case coming up. I met him the first time I met him. He came by my office, and he said, you know, and I said, no, that’s not a problem. And he says, but I’ve got to use Eddie Jensen, too. [57:52] And I said, I said, what do you mean? I said, you don’t need Eddie. And he says, I was told I have to use him. Jimmy Couture, his boy, he said, I have to use him. I know why, because Eddie lets these mobsters know whenever anybody’s an informant, or if he’s mad at somebody, he can tell him he’s an informant, they get killed. And so I said, you know, that piece of shit. I said, you know, I want nothing to do with him. I had some interesting run-ins with him before, and I said, I want nothing to do with that worthless piece of shit. You know, he’s a jagoff. And I said, you know, I says, no. He said, please. I said, no. I said, Sammy, you know, you don’t need me. He knows the judge like I know the judge, Sardini. I said, you know, you’re not going to have a problem in there. I get a call from him again, maybe four or five days after that. He’s out of my restaurant and he says, Bob, please. He said, You know, he says, please, can I meet you? He says, I got a problem. I go out to the meeting. And so I thought, there’s something new. I want you to represent me. I want you to represent me, you know, on the case. And I says, did you get rid of that fence? He says, no, I have to use him. But I says, look, I’m not going to, I want, no, Sammy, no, I’m not going to do it. He leaves the restaurant. He gets about a mile and a half away. He gets shotgunned and he gets killed. In fact, I read about that a couple of days ago. [59:22] I know it’s bullshit. They said he was leaving the restaurant. It was Marabelli’s. It was Marabelli’s Furniture Store. They said he was leaving the furniture store. What they did was they stopped traffic out there. They had people on the one side of the street, the other side of the street, and they followed, they chased him. When he got out of his car and was going to the furniture store, They blasted him with shotguns. They made sure he was killed this time. After that happened, it’s about maybe three or four days after that, I’m up in my office and I get a call. All right, when I come out, I always parked in front of City Hall. That was my parking spot. Mike and CM saved my spot. I parked there, or I parked in the bus stop, or in the mayor’s spot. Those were my spots. They saved it for me. I mean, that was it, for three, four, five years. That’s how it was. I didn’t want to wait in line in the parking lot. So my car is parked right in front of the parking lot. And as I go to get in my car, just fast, fast, so walking, because he was at 134 right down the street from my office and he parks like everybody else in the parking lot so he can wait 20 minutes to get his car. [1:00:40] And, and, and Bob, Bob, and, you know, and when I meet up with him, I’m both standing and we’re both standing right there in front of the, in front of the, uh, the parking lot. And he was a big guy. He weighed probably about 280, 290, maybe more. You know, mushy, mushy type, not in good shape at all. In fact, he walked with a gimp or whatever. And he says, you better be careful, he says. Jimmy Couture is furious. He heard what you’ve been saying about me. [1:01:17] You’ve been saying about me. and something’s liable to happen. And I went reserved. I grabbed him, and I threw him up on the wall, and I says, you motherfuckers. I said, my friends are killing your friends. [1:01:34] I said, my friends, because he represented a number of these groups, but I’m with the most powerful group of all. And when I say I’m with him, I’m with him day and night, not like him just as their lawyer. Most of them hated him, too, because most of them knew what he was doing. Yeah most of these and most of these guys hated him and i said you know but i and and i just like you’re kissing his pants and i don’t know if he crapped in his pants too and uh you know because i just turned around i left that same night jimmy katura winds up getting six in the back of the head maybe three miles from where that took place yeah he was uh some kind of trouble been going on for a while. He was a guy who was like in that cop shop racket, and he had been killing some people involved with that. He was kind of like out away from the main crew closer to downtown, is my understanding. Like, you were in who were you in? Who was I talking about? Jimmy Couture? Jimmy Couture, yeah. He was no, Jimmy Couture was Jimmy Couture, in fact, all these killers, we’ll try and stay with this a little bit first. Jimmy Couture was a boss and he had probably about maybe a dozen, maybe more in his crew and, He didn’t get the message, I’m sure. [1:03:01] Eddie Jensen firmly believes, obviously, because it’s the same day and same night when I tell him that my friends are killing your friends. [1:03:14] He’s telling everybody that I had him kill, I’m sure. Yeah, yeah. Because it was about another few days after that when I’m out in Evanston going to a courthouse. And there you had to park down the street because there was no parking lot. Here I hear Eddie, you know, stay. I’m going to say Bob, Bob. And when he gets up, he says, Bob, he says, when I told you, I think you misunderstood. When I told you it was Jimmy Cattrone. it was it was jimmy katron was a lawyer that you know worked in out of his office close friend of mine too he was a good friend of mine it was jimmy it was jimmy katron that you know not because he obviously thought he believed so he’s got all these mobsters too bosses and all the rest thinking that i was involved in that when i when i wasn’t uh when i was when i wasn’t actually But it’s so amazing, Gary. And that’s one of a dozen stories of the same sort. I met unbelievable people. I mean, we’re talking about in New Orleans. We’re talking about in Boston. Now, if you were to say, who were you with? Always somebody’s with somebody. Were you with any particular crew or any particular crew. [1:04:41] Buzz, were you totally independent? [1:04:46] Everybody knew me to be with the Elmwood Park crew. And that was Jackie Cerrone before Michael, I mean, before Johnny DeFranco. That was Jackie Cerrone. Okay. That was Giancana. That was Mo Giancana. Mo was moving at the clubhouse all the time. That was the major people. [1:05:13] And where was their clubhouse? What did they call their clubhouse? Was that the Survivors Clubhouse, or what was the name of their operation? Every group had one, sometimes more clubhouses. Right. That was where they would have card games in there. They’d have all kinds of other things going. the place was full of like in Marcos I call it Marcos but it was actually Jackie Sharon’s when I first got involved Jackie Sharon was the boss who became a good friend of mine, Jackie Sharon was the boss and Johnny DeFranco was, right under him and then a number of others as we go down, our group alone we had. [1:06:04] Minimum, I’d say, a thousand or more people in our group alone. And who knows how many others, because we had control of the sheriff’s office, of the police department, of the sheriff, of the attorney general. We had control of all that through the elections. We controlled all that. So you had 1,000 people. You’re talking about all these different people who we would maybe call associates. It would be in and out of our club all the time. Okay. Yeah. We’re talking a number of policemen, a number of policemen, a number of different politicians of all sorts that we had. I knew dozens of people with no-show jobs there. We had control of all the departments, streets and sanitation, of absolutely urbanizing. We controlled all the way up to the Supreme Court. What about the first ward, Pat Marcy, and the first ward now? Was your crew and Jackie Cerrone’s crew, did that fall into the first ward, or were they totally there? How did that relate, the Pat Marcy and the politicians? And I found out all this over a period of time. [1:07:28] Everything had changed right about the time I first got involved with these people. All these people you’ve read about, no one knows they were still alive. I met just about all of them when I got connected over there with the first word. A lot of the, we were talking about the gunmen themselves. All the Jackie not just Jackie but I’m talking about Milwaukee Phil Milwaukee Phil and all the rest of them they were over there at Councilors Row all the time because when they were to meet Pat Marcy, what they had there in the first war and, It just so happened, when I started in my office, it was with Alan Ackerman, who was at 100 North, where all their offices were upstairs. The first ward office was upstairs. [1:08:22] And below the office, two floors below, I found out on this when I got involved with them, we had an office. looked like it was a vacant office because the windows were all blackened out. That’s where he had all the meetings with people. When Arcado or Yupa, anybody else, any of the other people came in, this is where he met them. When the people from out of town came in, we’re talking about when, what do you think? [1:08:58] But when Alpha, when Fitzgerald, when all these people would come in, this is where they would have their meetings. Or these are the ones who would be out with us on these casino rides. When these people came in, this is where they would do the real talking because we’d go to different restaurants that weren’t bugged. If this office was checked every day, the one that they had down below, and nobody, nobody, their office was, I think it was on the 28th floor, the first ward office. You had the first ward office, and right next to it, you had the insurance office when everybody had to buy their insurance. Obviously at upper rates big office connected to the first ward office when the back there’s a door that goes right into into theirs but the people were told you never get off or you get off you get off at the office floor but then you you walk you you get off it and i’m sorry you get off it at the. [1:10:11] You don’t get off at the first ward office you get off at one of the other offices one of the other offices or the other floors and when you come in there, then you’ll be taken someplace else after that a double shop that’s where they would go and in fact when I had to talk to Petter Cary messages or whatever people like Marco couldn’t talk to Marcy. [1:10:41] Only a few people could. Only people at the very top level could. Marco, he was a major boss. He could not talk to Marco. If he needed, you know, whatever. Marco D’Amico. Marco was, you had, Marco was the one right under Johnny DeFonza. Yeah. Marco’s the one that was in charge. He was the one who was in charge of all the gambling. Not just in Chicago, but around all those areas in Cook County. We had not just Chicago. They were also the ones that were in charge of all the street tax, collecting all the street tax. That’s where the big, big money was also. Everybody paid. What happened was in the 70s, right as I got involved
It's been another interesting year in the world of personal finance and macroeconomics. As we look ahead to 2026… well, who really knows what's coming? I'll be sharing my own take—and making a few predictions—in an upcoming episode. What's hard to ignore is just how unusual this moment in history is. We're coming off COVID. We went through a rapid rise in interest rates, and now a pullback. Tariffs are back in the conversation. There are a lot of moving parts, and as usual, the consensus hasn't exactly nailed it. Almost every expert was convinced tariffs would push inflation higher. I expected at least a temporary bump—some transient inflation while markets adjusted. Then the CPI report came out at 2.7%. That's a lot closer to the Fed's 2% target, and nearly half a percentage point lower than expectations. Clearly, something else is going on. At the same time, GDP came in at around 4.3% growth. That's real strength. Inflation is coming down, growth is strong, and while the labor market is still a little murky, there's no question there's underlying momentum in the system. Investors haven't quite felt it yet. It's been a sticky environment. But my sense is that we're getting closer to a shift—more liquidity, more money in the system, and markets that may start moving meaningfully again. Of course, we'll see how it all plays out. For this episode, my producer Phil pulled together some of the highlights from the show in 2025—a look back at the conversations and ideas that stood out in a year when the data kept surprising just about everyone. I hope you enjoy it. And again, happy holidays. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at phil@wealthformula.com. Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with D Wealth Formula Podcast, coming to you from Montecito, California and, uh, want to wish you, first of all, a happy holidays. Merry Christmas, happy new Year, all that. And, uh, yeah, it’s been, uh, it’s been another, uh, another interesting year in the world of personal finance and macroeconomics is what, what we talk about on the show. And as we look forward to 2026, gosh, who knows what’s gonna happen, right? Uh, well I’ll give you my take in, uh, show coming up where I’m gonna make some predictions. However, you know, it’s just, it, it, it’s just such an unusual time in, in history. Um, as we kind of look at. Coming off of COVID and having those high interest rates and then coming, uh, coming down and then having Trump elected and now the tariffs and well, gosh, who knows? Right? I mean, just for example, you know, almost every expert was pretty much guaranteeing that inflation would go up because of the tariffs. I mean, even if it was transient, which frankly I thought it was gonna be transient, meaning that there was gonna be a bump in inflation. For a period of time until there was a readjustment after tariffs. Well, TPI comes up most recent CPI is actually 2.7. You know, that’s much closer to the fed target of 2%. And, um, 2.7 was, you know, I think, uh, almost a half, half percentage point less than the expected, uh, CPI, uh, report. So that, that’s obviously something else is going on there. And then. GDP numbers came out and we had a four handle. It was like 4.3, I believe, GDP. So we’ve got incredible growth. We’ve got decreasing inflation. The labor market is still, I know, a little unclear, but it seems like there’s a lot of strength in this market. Of course, it’s really sticky investors. We haven’t quite felt that strength yet, but I do think you need to start anticipating. That markets are gonna come back pretty heavy, uh, with increased liquidity, uh, and a lot of money in the system. But we shall see, uh, this show. What we’re gonna do here is, uh, my, uh, producer Phil put this together, but it’s basically some of the highlights of, uh, the show in, in 2025. So hopefully you enjoy it. Uh, and again, happy holidays. Merry Christmas, new Year. And we’ll be back right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own. Bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here’s the key. Even though you’ve borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying. You compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it at result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique, it’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its back. Turbocharge your investments. Visit wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. How do you approach the process of identifying stocks that are maybe best suited for consis consistent cash flow? Or do you just pick the stocks that you like and, and create the cash flow? Or are, you know, fundamental metrics that maybe you prioritize? Yeah, the, the, the first thing to determine. I think real estate investors understand this is if I were to invest in real estate, I’m gonna determine whether I’m gonna be a flipper, or I’m gonna try and buy low forced depreciation, sell high. Or if I’m gonna be a cashflow investor where I might invest in syndication, or I am, I’m gonna have tenants in property management. And the same is true with stocks. Most people start off by thinking about price rather than cash flow. They think about buy low, sell high, like a house slipper, and that’s, that’s less tenable in stocks because in real estate, if I buy low and sell high, I can do things to force appreciation. I can renovate, I can get new management, I can put in new appliances. I, there’s things I can do to force appreciation. But once a person buys a stock, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to make the stock price go up. But if you take a a, if you think of it like a real estate investor. You think about it like owning a business where the priority, as you mentioned these metrics, the priority is, Hey, what kind of cashflow will this produce be in terms of dividends and in my case, option premiums. And so some of the key metrics is, you know, if I, I’m basically buying a financial statement, same as real estate. You know, I, I, I, it is just a little different numbers in real estate. I wanna know what the net operating income is. In stocks, I might wanna know what the EBITDA is ’cause they’re essentially looking at the same types of things in real estate. I wanna know what the cap rate is in stocks. I wanna know what the PE ratio is, which is just the same number inverted. They just put the price on the top instead of the bottom. To me, I don’t see a difference between real estate and stocks, uh, in that they’re both a business or they charge someone for a good or a service. And there’s either cashflow there at the end of it or not. If people take a cash flow approach, they can begin to build on their passive income. And that contributes to that blueprint we mentioned earlier to get ’em outta the route race. So if you take a Warren Buffet approach, the most important number in that business is operational cash flow or earnings. Meaning does what they do, their operation. You know, you walk in there, a nice operation you got going here, you know, trucks are moving and you know, products are being built and shipped and, and nice operation. If they’re earning money, that means that’s the life flood of the business. That means it’s got a good moat. That means it’s pretty protected and that allows them to do two things for me. Number one is a dividend, which is exactly the same thing as a distribution in real estate. Uh, there is no difference, uh, in a syndication. I have a whole bunch of investors I’ve joined with where you have a share of this project and when the earnings come out, they distribute the, the distributions among the share shareholders. Same is true with stocks. They take the earnings, uh, we call it a payout ratio, and they take a, a, a significant amount of that money and they pay it in a dividend, same as a distribution. But what I do that’s a little bit unique buck is, uh, is I also have the options market on my side. Where I can use options to control risk, uh, to get guarantees where I can buy and sell, but even more importantly, I can offer, uh, and get paid for making promises to people. This is very much a Warren Buffet deal where it, it brings a significant increase to my monthly cash flow beyond the dividend, up to three, two and three times. Uh, the amount of money, two to 300% more cash flow. By being involved in the options market and that’s, that’s a nice secret sauce. The yield max Tesla option income, ETF, which is TSLY. And basically what it does is. Is it just does a series of longs and shorts and, and then generates what looks like to be kind of a, a ridiculous amount of, uh, dividend, uh, per, per month. So what are we missing here? What, what’s, well, you’re, you’re basically hiring those guys to mow your grass. It’s just like any other mutual fund or any other. They’re doing something you could absolutely do by yourself and not pay them a fee. There’s two cultures. There’s the advice culture and there’s the education culture and the advice culture. People say, look, I don’t wanna learn anything. Just gimme the advice. Well, you’ll pay for that in fees. And the problem with doing that is if you really listen to Warren Buffett, which 1% is enormous. Because in the wealth blueprint that we do for people, we use compounding. We use the compounding calculator to see what we’re gonna need. You drop that 1%, you give up 1% of your compounding powers as an investor over your life, it, it wouldn’t seem like 1%, but Buffet knows the truth. It’s enormous. So yeah, absolutely there are ETFs and there are funds that will do exactly what I do or what I teach people to do, but we have some advantages in doing it yourself because risk is about control. I trust myself more than I trust those guys any day of the week. And like I say, I’m doing this by month, so yeah. But it’s legit. How do you even make predictions? And second of all, I mean presumably you still have some forecasts over the next, uh, 12 to 24 months, and maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. Our methodology lends itself to times of uncertainty like this, and that’s the benefit of really relying on the leading indicators that we have. Now. We do have to take a little bit of a different approach. We have to look at data in a lot higher frequency today. You know, a lot of the data you get from government sources or quarterly data, monthly data, but we’re having to track weekly trends with the ever-changing environment that we find ourselves in. So we’re not surprised by the time any monthly or quarterly data comes out. The level of uncertainty that we’re dealing with is certainly unprecedented. I share an index each day, um, and we are three times more uncertain today than we were at the height of the pandemic. You know, put that in perspective, right? Yeah. So we do have to adjust, um. The, the way that we’re looking at data with higher frequencies, we also have to rerun a lot of these correlation analysis. Every single time we get a new data point to see are these lead times becoming more condensed? Do we have to make adjustments in our models as a result to maybe data reacting quicker than it might have in the past? So those are some of the ways that we’re, we’re continuing to evolve in these interesting times we live in. This relates to our forecast. Our team expected some weakness in the first part of this year, and, and we knew that coming in with the, with the tariffs that were proposed during President Trump’s campaign, we did have a weak first quarter GDP number forecast. Our team was 0.1% off of nailing that first quarter GDP number, so they were right on the money there. Uh, we were very impressed with that, but we do expect a sluggish first half of the year. We call it the recovery phase of the cycle. What we mean by that is our growth rates are still building momentum, but are still negative year over year. You know, ITR. Really known for its emphasis on leading indicators. So which of the leading indicators you guys rely on the most when and, and I guess which are flashing red or green right now? I’ll give you one of each. Uh, yeah. The one we’re in right now, we look at the purchasing managers, index isms, purchasing managers index. Now we look at at on a one 12 basis. What I mean by that is we compare the most recent month, the same month one year ago. The reason we look at it on that basis is it gives us 12 month lead time into the future when you correlate it to the economy. That index was recently rising until we got the most recent month of data, and then it dropped back down. So that is giving us the mixed signal of, hey, we need to be a little bit more concerned about the prospect for growth moving forward. Now the opposite is true when we look at an indicator called capacity utilization. What Capacity utilization measures, it’s about an eight month lead time to the economy. So still a nice view into the future, but what it measures is output over capacity, and that actually continues to improve meaning. And again, really all that means on a simple level is we’re utilizing more of our existing capacity, so we’re getting busier. If we look at the consumer side of inflation that the Fed’s more concerned about in terms of setting policy, we have inflation essentially flat this year from where we are today. Now, if you look at the CPI, it’s at 2.8%. Our projection for the end of the year is 2.8%. We don’t see inflation coming down much at all. As a result of that, that’s why you’re seeing Chairman Powell back off being able to cut rates and is holding these rates steady because he sees these higher inflation risks as well. And so from our perspective, it’s very unlikely you see any meaningful interest rate decline this year. Yeah. Now again, the second quarter, GDP number can have an impact on that. We do see a very weak second quarter chairman Powell alluded just a couple of days ago to some slack in the labor market. Maybe you can get a quarter point if we have a really weak second quarter, quarter point cut, but it just seems very unlikely given how persistent inflation has been. And so we tell all of our clients, prepare for interest rates to be relatively flat this year, and prepare for interest rates to rise through the balance of the second half of the decade. It’s not just tariffs, it’s employment costs, it’s electricity costs, it’s material costs. There’s a lot more driving higher inflation than just tariffs. What macroeconomic trends are you watching right now with regards to how they’re shaping the markets today? I think there’s really three things right over the long run. They’re gonna debase the currency, that’s gonna be a persistent tailwind for all liquid, uh, assets, including stocks. Bitcoin gold and bonds. And then I think that you also are going to have a, uh, very interesting dynamic around all these tariffs, uh, and kind of the administration’s economic policies. And then the third thing is that there is a whole technology, uh, trend to, uh, pay attention to. Uh, obviously innovation is very deflationary. Uh, we’ve got, you know, things from humanoid robots to rockets to gene editing, to uh, to crypto and everything in between. And so I think those three things really tell the story of where, uh, markets potentially go in the future. When I grew up, um. S and P 500 was the benchmark. There’s a risk-free rate in bonds. I believe that my generation and younger sees Bitcoin as the benchmark. And so, uh, it’s very simple. If you can’t beat it, you gotta buy it. And I think that there’s institutions around the country who are realizing they can’t beat the benchmark and therefore they will end up buying it. And really, to me, that is, uh, maybe the most interesting. Part of the entire conversation is that Bitcoin obviously has risen significantly on a percentage basis in appreciation. Bitcoin has kind of infiltrated every corner of finance, but most importantly is it has transitioned from a high risk, you know, kind of asymmetric type asset to now it’s becoming the hurdle rate uhhuh. And if you’re the hurdle rate, you suck up a lot of capital. Yeah. Because there’s not a lot of people who can beat you. And I think that that is a very powerful position for Bitcoin to be in. And that’s how you infiltrate into, uh, the institutional portfolios. Bitcoin will stop going up. When they stop printing money. I don’t think they’re gonna stop printing money, so I don’t think Bitcoin’s gonna stop going up. That’s kind of one huge component of this. The second thing is that Bitcoin is very unique in that the higher the price goes, the less risky it is deemed by the largest pools of capital. Mm-hmm. And so usually, you know, if NVIDIA’s at a $4 trillion market cap, people like, oh, it might be overvalued there. A lot of debate. Right. Bitcoin if it was at a $4 trillion market cap would be way less risky than it when’s at 2 trillion. And so there is a lot of structural advantages, both from the legacy world but also from the Bitcoin market that I think will continue to lead to these large institutional capital pools. Uh, allocating some percentage. And the beauty is right now we have very small adoption in that world. Uh, it’s only gonna get bigger. It’s only gonna get more normalized. And I think that one of the parts people really underestimate when it comes to Bitcoin is how important time passing is. You know, if you think back, uh, there is not anyone under the age of 16 that has lived their life without Bitcoin existing. If you’re keeping large chunks of money in savings account, paying less than 1% or any percent less than inflation, you’re bleeding wealth every single day. It feels safe. It looks safe, right? ’cause the numbers may not be moving nominally but it, but it’s not safe. It’s a bucket with a hole in the bottom and you don’t even notice until it’s almost empty. That’s why the wealthy don’t hoard cash. They own assets. They own assets that inflate with inflation. If you can’t beat ’em, join them. They buy things that grow in value as dollars shrink because they understand the system. They don’t fight it, they ride it. So you’ve said many times that the current monetary system is broken and headed for reckoning. So from your perspective, what are the core flaws in the system right now and how do we get here? Well, probably the largest and most obvious underlying flaw in the monetary system is the fact that the federal government just can’t balance its budget. And so they have to take on debt to cover the deficit that they run and that deficit. Well, you know, over the course of the last 20 years, it’s gone up and down. More recently, it’s gone mostly up and, uh. We just came through a period where, you know, it was reemphasized to everybody. Just what a problem this is. Because as you’ll recall, when Trump was first elected, they were talking about those, the Department of Government Efficiency and cutting expenses and you know, maybe 2 trillion or 1 trillion. Of course, then Elon got frustrated and left and the numbers have come down and you know, Trump and the Freedom Caucus was saying they were gonna try and balance the budget or at least cut expenses. And of course, what we know is that they just passed this big beautiful bill. Which really increases the deficits and they bump the debt, uh, ceiling up by another $5 trillion. So sadly, what do many of us have seen and been saying, which is to say they just can’t stop, kind of continue. Seems to be continuing. And, um, you know, the reason why that, just to close the full circle, the reason why that matters is they, they do this debt, they issue debt to cover these deficits, and then the debt requires interest payments and, you know, there’s not enough money to make the interest payments. And so. They more or less have to print the money, you know, and inflate the money supply to keep the system going. And that’s why it’s so important to hard assets. You know, we need to grow the economy at, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7% a year, which, which we’ve never really done on real terms. Well, I think that is kind of what they’re projecting it might be, but it, it’s gonna be harder than hell to achieve. I mean, it just, where you can’t just snap your fingers and create that growth. Now, don’t get me wrong, if you start to, if you ramp up inflation. If you have 10% inflation, well then the GDP number’s gonna get bigger, fast. And so really the model they’ve used, they call it the R Star model, is that they’ve got to have faster growth. Growth rate has to be higher than interest rates, or else you’re in a debt spiral. And so what’s been happening is, by the way, that’s why Trump wants to take interest rates down so much. You know, he is called for a 300 basis point cut. Imagine right now with inflation running at three plus percent, if they cut rates to one point a half percent or one point a quarter percent, I mean, it would be good for the economy. People would refi their houses. You know, there were all kinds of, you know, growth, right? Huge. But in turn it would be inflationary, very inflationary. That’s the trap. They’re really kind of caught in. It’s a seventies kind of stagflation sort of environment. You know, if they don’t keep rates low, they’re not gonna have any growth. If they want to get growth, they’ve gotta keep rates low. That’s gonna lead to monetary creation, which is gonna lead to inflation. Look how it all resolves is very complicated and none of us know. Yeah, sure. But what I do know with very high certainty, with a lot of confidence is this is going to be an inflationary decade. It’s already been an inflationary decade, and because of the way the math is today is very highly likely to continue to be an inflationary decade until we fix this monetary system. Well, we have less than 3% adoption. Three goes to six fairly easily. You know, human beings underestimate how long change really requires, and then we really underestimate how much change actually occurs. Think the internet like we are moving into a digital planet, right? Robots are not going to use credit cards, man. They’re not gonna use, they don’t need visa. We don’t need middlemen. The cool thing about Bitcoin, unlike the Rolls Royce, is you don’t have to buy the whole Rolls Royce. You can buy a fraction of it. You know, you don’t, maybe you guys partner with each other to do apartment buildings. Well, you’re already doing fractured deals on apartment buildings, so Sure. It’s not really that different. 2%, 3% goes to six. I mean, it does go to six. You have the largest ETF in the history of ETFs, okay? This supersedes the goal. ETF by orders of magnitude. I study markets very, very well, price. Really gets people’s attention. I think price is, uh, 90% of Bitcoin. Like I am truly a supply and demand guy. Oh wow. 21 million. And you guys have lost four. You lost 4 million coins. Oh, how’d you lose the 4 million? You lost the 4 million. I know how you lost it. You mispriced it. Bitcoin has been mispriced every day. Its entire history. Dude. 19 million coins have been issued. The addressable market is 8 billion people. You don’t need ’em all. Yep. You just need a small function of those 8 billion to go, Ooh. 21 million units and and four have been lost. It’s already mispriced. Okay. They’re pricing Bitcoin at one 15 Today, assuming there’s 21 million units, we know there’s not. There’s 17, so the supply shrunk. The market caps at 2 trillion. Hello. The standard deduction for a household is now, uh, what in a low 32,000 range. And it turns out that 60% of the households in the United States cannot take advantage of itemized deductions. That is when they take their mortgage interest, property taxes, charitable deductions, they don’t get that number. And so there’s not as much benefit to home ownership as there used to be in the United States. With our big institutional players, nobody wants their appraised values to be quickly marked down to market, because if your competitors don’t do the same thing and they’re part of the index and benchmark that you compete against, you’re going to underperform. And so we’ve traditionally had a lot. Appraised values for real estate among the institutional players, especially. You don’t get this out of the private market, but you get this from the nare players, the institutional type players, and, um, and everybody’s, uh, uh, fearful of underperforming that index. I would prefer as a private investor just to go ahead, bite the bullet and mark it down. Now take the pain if in fact you’ve seen it go down. Some markets have seen property values go down 30, 35% even in multifamily, but they’ve bottomed out in the transaction market and, and absolutely the, uh, the appraisers are gonna have to bring it down and the owners are gonna have to ease up that pressure and say, yes, I want a realistic appraisal. But, um, but there is that fear of underperforming the index and that’s. What’s holding up the American appraisal firms in 2008, 9, 10, 11, we saw a lot of deep distress. The the smart money was ready for it. Now, there’s a lot of people with dry powder, as we say. Ready to p on the market hoping for some distress from those who cannot refinance now, whose, whose CMBS loan or other money is, is rolling. A couple points there. One is, I think you’re going to see more loan modifications this cycle than last time because they realize it’s temporary and they realize that not all properties are in trouble. And these tend to be the higher leverage properties. The smart private wealth investors tended to use conservative leverage over the last several years knowing we’d hit a cycle and, and they probably are 65% or less. Leverage some of the, um, greener newer investment managers might have gone up to 80% and might have even used variable rate debt when they shouldn’t have. They’re the ones getting nailed. They’re losing all their equity and that property is distressed. So there’s not that much of it out there. But there’s a little bit, and I would certainly pounce on it if you can find it. There are often a lot of sort of hidden costs associated with buying versus renting. Can you talk about trying to weed through some of that? Sure some of the highest costs that we don’t think about when we own, although we do take cut down on risk. And also I think that’s come back to consumption. I, I is the fact that there’s the opportunity cost. So think about having 50%, a hundred percent of your home paid for. This, it’s the opportunity cost. You’ve actually taken capital out of play at higher returns to put it into something that perhaps, yes, you see it as a form of an investment, but it’s also partly consumption. And I think that’s why many people end up paying for their homes when they can, because there’s an old saying, and that is, you can’t go broke if you don’t owe money on it. Right? So if you, it’s hard for the lender to come get your home and you don’t really care, right? You wanna be able to. Have no debt on your home. It doesn’t make the typical financial sense if we argue at it from leverage and returns and maximization of returns. I think most people this high end level are looking at, you know, I, I, I, I have high net worth. I’m looking at both consumption and the investment side of the component. But very often the consumption wins and the investment is I can be safe and I can own this house. Outright in many states too. Your homeowner, the home that you live in, you are actually, if you’ve homesteaded the home, you’re actually protected against lawsuits and other things that are out there. Divorce cases will protect your position in, in terms of a homestead, so you can protect a significant portion of wealth by having a paid for home. What are some of those markets that are really overpriced versus. I guess underpriced right now. So when we look at the top 10 most overpriced markets in America right now, we look at their prices, where they are and compare them to where they should be statistically modeling them. We’re seeing the most overpriced markets are Detroit at 33.5% and then falling, falling, descending. Order of Cleveland, Ohio. New Haven, Connecticut, Akron, Ohio, Worcester, Massachusetts, Las Vegas, Nevada, Hartford, Connecticut. Rochester, New York, Knoxville, Tennessee, Toledo, Ohio. You’ll notice. And these are overpriced. These are overpriced. These, the overpriced mark. That’s so, that’s sort of counterintuitive, isn’t it? Ab absolutely. But yes. Wow. Okay. And then h how about the, uh, underpriced markets? I’m curious on that too. Sure. So when we then go to the opposite end of the spectrum, and usually now with underpriced comes risk and there’s risk in both of these markets, what you wanna do, both overpriced and underpriced, what you wanna be long term in a housing market. Uh, ’cause you want to be really close to that trend and not have these dramatic swings. It’s just like stock price. We don’t like volatility. Housing, it’s, it’s dangerous for performance. The most underpriced markets. We only have four markets in America right now that are trading at a discount relative to their long-term pricing trend. In other words, statistically, where they historically prices say prices should be today only four cities are underperforming. That that’s Austin, Texas at 3.1% below where they should be, or a discount of 3.1%. San Francisco at a discount of 6.5%. Wow. New Orleans, Louisiana at a discount of 8.7 and Honolulu, Hawaii at a discount of 10.3. Notice I’m not saying these markets are inexpensive. They’re just below where they’ve historically been. These are the best buys right now because they’re below their long-term trend. One of our other indices, we call it our price to rent ratio. It’s really a PE ratio for rents versus home ownership. And then so we can look at that. So if you’re in our a hundred markets, we know the average price, right? So it’s gonna be priced, divided by the annual average rent. So it’s gonna be how many dollars in price do you pay for every $1 and annual rent? And that gives us the relative difference between owning and renting. The higher that ratio. The, the more you should on in general be leaning towards renting, the lower that ratio, the more you should be leaning towards owning. And we used to do an old buy versus rent index for 23 cities. We now do it for 100 cities. And this price to rent ratio produces almost the same exact answer. So when we look at the average price to rent ratio in an area and we just compare, are they above or currently are you above the price to rent ratio? Uh, for Los Angeles, California. Are you below it? If you’re above that average for say the last 10 years, you’re gonna be rent friendly. If you’re below it, you’re gonna be bio friendly. I can do this very quickly. Pick a California market you’d like to know about. Why don’t we try Dallas, Texas. Okay. Dallas, Texas. That one’s in the top 100 in terms of population. So Dallas, Texas, uh, their price to rent ratio is at about a, just below a 6% premium. In other words, that trade off between renting and owning is about 6% above where it should be, so it slightly favors renting. I’ll jump to the next index. If we look at actual prices in Dallas, there’s a slight premium. So it’s, it’s, it’s telling me, Hey, that my price to rent ratio’s high, slightly favoring ownership, but it’s probably because prices are a little high and they might change. Uh, Dallas has had a bit of a. Premium right now. So I will now go look at Dallas rents. My gut feeling is they’re gonna be below average and they are. They’re at about a 4.5% discount. So that’s just market dynamics in motion right there. And we can do that for a hundred cities pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. You make a lot of money, but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until your thirties, now you’re trying to catch up. Meanwhile, you’ve got a mortgage, a private school to pay for, and you feel like you’re getting further and further behind. Good news. If you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program. M put off by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world. It’s called Wealth Accelerator, and it can help you amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens to you. The concepts here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you. Check it out for yourself by going to wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Hope you enjoyed it and uh, once again. Thanks again for listening. Uh, I truly appreciate your support. I hope, uh, I hope it’s been entertaining for you and that you’ll learn something along the way and, um, you know, always appreciate your feedback. Shoot me an email, bucket wealth formula.com. Let me know if there’s things that you want me to do. Let me know if there’s things you wanna hear more about. Uh, but hopefully it’s gonna be a good year and we’re gonna keep plugging away talking about the, you know, try to get educated myself and pass along information to you on Wealth Formula Podcast. That’s it for me this week on Wealth Formula Podcast. This is Buck Joffrey. If you wanna learn more, you can now get free access to our in-depth personal finance course featuring industry leaders like Tom Wheel Wright and Ken McElroy. Visit well formula roadmap.com.
The Power of Purpose and People with Stephen Dwyer In this episode, I sit down with Stephen Dwyer, Incoming CEO (January 2026) of the American Staffing Association (ASA), to explore the intersection of purpose, leadership, and the future of work. From his early ambitions of becoming a lawyer to leading one of the most influential organizations in the staffing industry, Stephen shares the pivotal moments that shaped his journey—and the values that guide his leadership today. We unpack the evolution of the staffing sector, how ASA is addressing today's workforce challenges, and why people-centered leadership is not just a philosophy but a necessity. If you're passionate about shaping workplaces where people thrive, this conversation is one you won't want to miss. Episode Highlights [0:51] – Stephen's unconventional path from law to leadership [3:20] – Lessons from two decades at the American Staffing Association [6:45] – Navigating workforce disruption and embracing innovation [10:12] – The human side of staffing: why people matter most [14:05] – Stephen's vision for the future of work and leadership [18:40] – Advice for leaders navigating change in today's world
Are you ready to graduate from the grind in 2026? Then here's your most important project: Future You. Join our small group coaching program and design your new life after work. Learn more “Eye opening and provocative.” “Challenged me to get out of the starting blocks and far down the path of really thinking about this next phase of my life in very different ways. I now feel like I have a solid road map.” “I wish I'd taken this program earlier.” __________________________ Start the new year right with new habits. FREE 3 session program – 3 Fridays in January at Noon Eastern January 2, 9 and 16 Sign up here ____________________________ Thank you for joining us and listening this year. This special year-end Best Of episode is a collection of valuable insights from our recent guests. If you missed Part One, you can find it here ____________________________ Listen in to full conversations: Harry Agress Kerry Burnight Nathalie Martin Ken Stern Joseph Magueri Christine Platt Michael Long Carl Landau Francine Toder Diane Button ________________________ You May Also Like The Very Best of 2024 – Retirement Wisdom Best of 2023 – Part Three _________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You'll get smarter about the investment decisions you'll make about the most important asset you'll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren't quite done yet, discover what's next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn't just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how the Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one — on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a 26-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Joe has earned Master's degrees from the University of Southern California in Gerontology (at age 60), the University of Pennsylvania, and Middlesex University (UK), a BA in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his coaching certification from Columbia University. In addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, ranked in the top 1% globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.6 million downloads. Business Insider recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He's the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.
E.J. Dionne brings moral clarity and humility to the hardest questions in public life — this “Best Of” episode reminds us what real dialogue can be. Best Of TP&R As we close out the year, we're resurfacing a small handful of conversations from the Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other archive that best reflect what this show exists to do: create space for thoughtful disagreement, moral seriousness, and the hard work of living together in a pluralistic democracy. In this Best of 2025 spotlight, we revisit one of the year's most profound and inspiring conversations — a powerful episode featuring journalist, scholar, and public intellectual E.J. Dionne Jr. From discussing the soul of democracy to the essential role of faith and hope in civic life, E.J. offers wisdom forged over decades of public service, writing, and dialogue. Calls to Action: ✅ If this episode resonates, consider sharing it with someone who might need a reminder that disagreement doesn't have to mean dehumanization. ✅ Subscribe to Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Check out our Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion What We Explore: How E.J.'s upbringing shaped his approach to political argument. The moral imperative of engaging with ideas we disagree with. The difference between optimism and hope — and why the latter is vital. How faith and pluralism can bridge deep divides. Highlights & Timestamps: [00:03:00] E.J. on his father's influence in encouraging thoughtful disagreement. [00:06:00] Delving into DEI and the “woke” discourse — beyond caricatures. [00:10:00] Unexpected ways the Trump era united pro-democracy coalitions. [00:15:00] Economic pain and populist anger in Fall River, Massachusetts. [00:24:00] The virtue of hope in sustaining public life and discourse. [00:36:00] E.J.'s personal faith journey and the humility of belief. [00:48:00] Reflections on Pope Francis and the Catholic Church's evolution. [01:05:00] What keeps E.J. up at night — and what gives him hope. Memorable Quotes: "In real argument, you enter imaginatively into the ideas your opponent holds." — E.J. Dionne "Hope is the virtue on which faith and love depend." — E.J. Dionne "You can really disagree with people you love, and you can love people you disagree with." — E.J. Dionne "We find sanctity even in mundane conversations." — Corey Nathan Resources & Mentions: E.J. Dionne, Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu/people/e-j-dionne Column, New York Times: www.nytimes.com/by/e-j-dionne-jr Connect on Social Media: Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials... Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to Our Sponsors: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group It's not about agreeing on everything. It's about disagreeing with integrity, and listening with love.
As 2025 wraps up, Steve revisits five standout moments from some of our most impactful Great Life conversations this year. Like Part 1, this episode is built as a highlight reel, with short clips pulled from full-length interviews, but this time the focus is on building a great life so your great practice can grow quicker and easier. The goal is simple: give you the best ideas from 2025 in one place, so you can reconnect with what matters, protect your energy, and approach the new year with more clarity and intention. You'll hear: Lea Anne Groover on gaining clarity and focus through simple daily structure, movement, and intentional prioritization Dr. Deborah Day on why sleep, exercise, and nutrition are non-negotiables for sustained performance under pressure Brother Curtis on navigating anxiety by bringing it into the light with perspective, trust, and support Matthew Emerzian on the mattering mindset and finding purpose, meaning, and significance in everyday work Blinn Bates on planning real breaks through intentional absence and why "forced exile" strengthens both life and business As you listen, treat this like a personal reset session. Steve tees up five questions to keep in mind: What tiny daily habit can restore clarity and focus? What routine keeps you in a healthy peak state during intense weeks? How do you stop running on anxiety and choose a sustainable performance state? How do you keep meaning, what "great life" means to you, front and center at work and at home? How can you design your firm so you can truly step away? If a clip makes you think, "I needed to hear that," check the show notes and jump into the full episode for the complete conversation. In this episode, you will hear: Five standout Great Life moments from 2025 A tiny daily movement habit that supports clarity, energy, and focus The Top 3 daily focus method for reducing overwhelm and prioritizing what matters Trial-season self-care: sleep hygiene, nutrition, exercise, and why alcohol undermines recovery Anxiety as "fog," and how trusted support and better language can reduce its grip The mattering mindset, values, and meaning in stressful seasons "Forced exile" as a true time-off strategy and a systems test for a healthier firm and life Follow and Review: Subscribe & Review Never miss an episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. ⭐Like what you hear? A quick review helps more people find the show.⭐ Supporting Resources: Part 1 Episode 163 – The Best of 2025: Great Practice (Top 5 Moments) https://atticusadvantage.com/podcast/best-of-great-practice-top-5-moments-2025/ Episode 141: Your Firm Gets Stronger When You Do with Lea Anne Groover: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/your-firm-gets-stronger-when-you-do Lea Anne Groover: groover.law/attorneys/lea-anne-groover Groover Law: groover.law Episode 85: Exercise: Is it a Waste of a Billable Hour? with Jonathan White: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/exercise-is-it-a-waste-of-a-billable-hour-with-jonathan-white Episode 99: Do Happy Lawyers Make More Money? with Kevin Snyder: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/do-happy-lawyers-make-more-money-with-kevin-snyder My Great Life Focus: mygreatlifefocus.com Episode 155: Handling Stress in Your Law Firm: Routines, Boundaries, Debriefs with Dr. Deborah Day: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/law-firm-stress Dr. Deborah Day: www.psychologicalaffiliates.com/deborahdaypsyd Psychological Affiliates: www.psychologicalaffiliates.com Episode 116: Breaking Free from Fear: Finding Clarity and Resilience in Your Life with Brother Curtis: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/breaking-free-from-fear-finding-clarity-and-resilience-in-your-life Brother Curtis Almquist, SSJE: www.ssje.org/br-curtis-almquist Society of Saint John the Evangelist, Massachusetts: www.ssje.org Episode 145: How the Every Monday Matters Mindset Can Reignite Your Law Practice with Matthew Emerzian: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/every-monday-matters-matthew-emerzian Matthew Emerzian: www.matthewemerzian.com Every Monday Matters: www.everymondaymatters.com Episode 134: What Surviving a Plane Crash Taught Me About Running a Law Firm with Blinn Bates: atticusadvantage.com/podcast/what-surviving-plane-crash-taught-me-about-running-law-firm Blinn Bates: woodsandbates.com/william-blinn-bates-jr Woods & Bates, P.C.: woodsandbates.com Workshop: The Path to a Great Practice and Great Life: atticusadvantage.com/workshops/the-path-to-a-great-practice-great-life (Get $500 off with code Podcast500) Sign up for the Atticus newsletter! If there's a topic you would like us to cover on an upcoming episode, please email us at steve.riley@atticusadvantage.com. Curious about growing your own practice? Contact Atticus to see whether our law firm coaching can help you strengthen attorney success, refine your law firm business strategy, and build a practice that actually supports your life. You can also sign up for our newsletter to get practical insights on how to grow a law firm: from law firm leadership and management to marketing, hiring, operations, culture, and profitability, so you can build a Great Practice and a Great Life.
Join the C3 crew as they react to the Carolina Panthers playing their final home game in Bank of America Stadium against the Seattle Seahawks in week 17 of the NFL season!
Allen delivers the 2025 state of the wind industry. For the first time, wind and solar produced more electricity than coal worldwide. The US added 36% more wind capacity than last year, Australia’s market hit $2 billion, and China extended its 25-year streak of double-digit growth. But 2025 also brought challenges: the Trump administration froze offshore wind projects, Britain paid billions to curtail turbines, and global wind growth hit its lowest rate in two decades. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: 2025, the year the wind industry will never forget. Let me tell you about a year of records and reversals of triumphs and a bunch of turbulence. First, the good news. Renewable energy has done something historic for the first time ever. Wind and solar produce more electricity than coal worldwide. The energy think tank embers as global electricity. Demand grew 2.6% in the first half of the year. Solar generation jumped by 31%, wind rose nearly 8%. Together they covered 83% of all new demand. Coal share of global electricity fell to 33.1%. Renewables rose to 34.3. A [00:01:00]pivotal moment they called it. And in the United States, turbines kept turning wood. McKinsey and the American Clean Power Association report America will add more than seven gigawatts of wind this year. That is 36% more than last year in the five year outlook. 46 gigawatts of new capacity through 2029. Even Arkansas by its first utility scale wind project online through Cordio crossover Wind, the powering market remains strong. 18 projects will drive 2.5 gigawatts of capacity additions over the next three years. And down under the story is equally bright. Australia’s wind energy market reached $2 billion in 2024 by. 2033 is expected to reach $6.7 billion a growth rate of nearly 15% per year. In July, Australian regulators streamlined permitting for wind farms, and in September remote mining operations signed [00:02:00] long-term wind power agreements while the world was building. China was dominating when power output in China is on track for more than 10% growth for the 25th year in a row. That’s right, 25 years in a row. China now accounts for more than 41% of all global wind power production a record. And China’s wind component exports up more than 20%. This year, over $4 billion shipped mainly to Europe and Asia, but 2025 was not smooth sailing, as we all know. In fact, global wind generation is on track for its smallest growth rate in more than 20 years. Four straight months of year over year. Declines in Europe, five months of declines in North America and even Asia registered rare drops in September and October. The policy wind shifted too in the United States. The Trump administration froze offshore wind project work in the Atlantic. The interior [00:03:00] Department directed five large scale projects off the East Coast to suspend activities for at least 90 days. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cited classified national security information. That’s right. Classified information. Sure. Kirk Lippold, the former commander of the USS Coal. Ask the question on everyone’s mind. What has changed in the threat environment? Through his knowledge, nothing. Democratic. Governors of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New York issued a joint statement. They called the pause, a lump of dirty coal for the holiday season, for American workers, for consumers, for investors. Meanwhile, in Britain, another kind of problem emerged the cost of turning off wind farms when the grid cannot cope, hit 1.5 billion pounds. This year, octopus Energy, Britain’s biggest household supplier is tracking it payments to Wind farms to switch off 380 [00:04:00]million pounds. The cost of replacing that wasted power with. Gas 1.08 billion pounds. Sam Richards of Britain remade called it a catastrophic failure of the energy system. Households are paying the price. He said, we are throwing away British generated electricity and firing up expensive gas plants instead. In Europe, the string of dismal wind power auctions also continued some in Germany and Denmark received no bids at all. Key developers pushed for faster permitting and better auction terms. Orsted and Vestas led the charge. And in Japan soaring cost estimates cause Mitsubishi to pull out of three offshore projects. Projects that were slated to start operations by 2030. Gone. The Danish shore Adapting Ted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer sold a 55% stake in its greater Chiang two offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan. The Buyer [00:05:00] Life Insurance Company Cafe, the price around $789 million. With that deal, Ted has signed divestments, totaling 33 billion Danish crowns during 2025. The company is trying to restore investor confidence amid rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and uncertainty from American policy shifts. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency is sounding the alarm director, Fadi Beal says Solar will account for 80% of renewable capacity growth through the end of the decade. And that sounds about right. So it’s got a bunch of catch up to do, but policymakers need to pay close attention. Supply chain, security grid integration challenges and the rapid rise of renewables is putting increasing pressure on electricity systems worldwide. Curtailment and negative price events are appearing in more markets, and the agency is calling for urgent [00:06:00] investments in grid energy storage and flexible generation. And what about those tariffs? We keep reading about wood McKenzie projects. Tariffs will drive up American turbine costs in 2026 in total US onshore wind capital expenditure is projected to increase 5% through 2029. US wind turbine pricing is experiencing obviously unprecedented uncertainty. Domestic manufacturing over capacity would normally push down prices, but tariff exposure on raw materials is pushing them up. And that’s by design of course. So where does this leave us? The numbers tell the story. Renewables overtook Coal. America will install 36% more turbines. This year, Australia’s market is booming. China continues. Its 25 year streak of double digit growth, but wind generation growth worldwide is at its lowest in two decades. And policy reversals in America have stalled. [00:07:00] Offshore development and Britain is paying billions to turn off turbines because the grid cannot handle the power. Europe’s auctions are struggling and Japan’s developers are pulling back and yet. The turbines keep turning. You see, wind energy has had good years and bad years, but 20 25, 20 25 may be one of the worst. The toxic Stew Reuters called it major policy reversals, corporate upheaval, subpar generation in key markets, and yet the industry sees reasons to expect improvement changes to auction incentives, supply chain adjustments, growing demand for power from all sources. The sheer scale of China’s expansion means global wind production will likely keep hitting new highs, even if growth grinds to a halt in America, even if it stays weak. In Europe, 2025 was a year of records and reversals. The thing to remember through all of this [00:08:00] is wind power is low cost power. It is not a nascent industry. And it is time to deliver more electricity, more consistency. Everyone within the sound of my voice is making a difference. Keep it up. You are changing the future for the better. 2025 was a rough year and I’m looking forward to 2026 and that’s the state of the wind industry for December 29th, 2025. Have a great new year.
E.J. Dionne brings moral clarity and humility to the hardest questions in public life — this “Best Of” episode reminds us what real dialogue can be. Best Of TP&R As we close out the year, we're resurfacing a small handful of conversations from the Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other archive that best reflect what this show exists to do: create space for thoughtful disagreement, moral seriousness, and the hard work of living together in a pluralistic democracy. In this Best of 2025 spotlight, we revisit one of the year's most profound and inspiring conversations — a powerful episode featuring journalist, scholar, and public intellectual E.J. Dionne Jr. From discussing the soul of democracy to the essential role of faith and hope in civic life, E.J. offers wisdom forged over decades of public service, writing, and dialogue. Calls to Action: ✅ If this episode resonates, consider sharing it with someone who might need a reminder that disagreement doesn't have to mean dehumanization. ✅ Subscribe to Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other on your favorite podcast platform. ✅ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen: ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics ✅ Check out our Substack: coreysnathan.substack.com ✅ Watch the full conversation and subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@politicsandreligion What We Explore: How E.J.'s upbringing shaped his approach to political argument. The moral imperative of engaging with ideas we disagree with. The difference between optimism and hope — and why the latter is vital. How faith and pluralism can bridge deep divides. Highlights & Timestamps: [00:03:00] E.J. on his father's influence in encouraging thoughtful disagreement. [00:06:00] Delving into DEI and the “woke” discourse — beyond caricatures. [00:10:00] Unexpected ways the Trump era united pro-democracy coalitions. [00:15:00] Economic pain and populist anger in Fall River, Massachusetts. [00:24:00] The virtue of hope in sustaining public life and discourse. [00:36:00] E.J.'s personal faith journey and the humility of belief. [00:48:00] Reflections on Pope Francis and the Catholic Church's evolution. [01:05:00] What keeps E.J. up at night — and what gives him hope. Memorable Quotes: "In real argument, you enter imaginatively into the ideas your opponent holds." — E.J. Dionne "Hope is the virtue on which faith and love depend." — E.J. Dionne "You can really disagree with people you love, and you can love people you disagree with." — E.J. Dionne "We find sanctity even in mundane conversations." — Corey Nathan Resources & Mentions: E.J. Dionne, Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu/people/e-j-dionne Column, New York Times: www.nytimes.com/by/e-j-dionne-jr Connect on Social Media: Corey is @coreysnathan on all the socials... Substack LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Threads Bluesky TikTok Thanks to Our Sponsors: Pew Research Center: pewresearch.org The Village Square: villagesquare.us Meza Wealth Management: mezawealth.com Proud members of The Democracy Group It's not about agreeing on everything. It's about disagreeing with integrity, and listening with love.
What if social-emotional learning, culture, and instruction could move in rhythm with the real seasons of a school year instead of feeling like “one more thing” on everyone's plate? In this episode of Aspire to Lead, Walter McKenzie, Heather Lageman, and Leigh Alley introduce their book School Seasons xSELeratED and the xSELeratED Schools Framework, a month-by-month roadmap that helps educators care for the whole child and the whole educator with small, doable practices that fit into the flow of each month. The trio shares how their adult-first approach to SEL honors educator wellbeing, offers 5–10 minute micro-moves that feel human rather than scripted, and uses seasonal themes, from belonging and renewal to closure and celebration, to build trusting, relationship-rich school communities over time. Whether you are a teacher, coach, or school leader, this conversation will help you see SEL less as a program and more as a sustainable way of being together that strengthens both people and practice. About Walter McKenzie: Walter McKenzie is the founder of The Worthy Educator, a thriving community of leaders in education supporting each other to have impact and build lasting legacies in their work. He has always embraced the heart in his work, and in the power of relationships. In joining forces with Heather and Leigh, he proudly adds his voice to their efforts to reclaim the mantel of social-emotional learning, for both students and adults. Before retiring from ASCD, he served 25 years in Massachusetts and Virginia public schools: 14 years as a classroom teacher and 11 years as a district director and assistant superintendent. He also served as a senior training specialist for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., and its field offices around the nation. Across the span of his career, he has pursued uses of technology to support multiple paths to learning and knowing and being and doing. In addition to his work in public education, Walter is an internationally known presenter and author. He has been instrumental in launching and leading online professional development programs and postgraduate professional education courses, and he has actively facilitated online educator communities and web-based interdisciplinary instructional projects over the past 40 years. Follow Walter McKenzie: Website:https://www.theworthyeducator.com/ssxandhttps://www.theworthyeducator.com/xselerated Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/groups/theworthyedcator Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-worthy-educator/ YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorthyEducator
In South Ashburnham, Massachusetts, something unsettled a household and left a woman forever changed. This episode examines the strange events that took place in a normal home in a quiet town, the people involved, and the ripple effects that followed. We dive into a story that is vivid, confounding, and completely terrifying — a story that exists entirely within the walls of one home and the mind of its witness. Until we discovered a drawing that blasted the vacuum apart. In this episode, we get to the bottom of that specifically technical drawing, where it came from, if it existed earlier that Betty indicating that it was borrowed or copied, and most importantly, if it can help prove or debunk another all too famous UFO encounter. -----------------Head to the Strange Places home website, asylum817.com to keep up with all things Strange Places, as well as the host. Billie Dean Shoemate III is an author with over 40 novels published, a master-trained painter, and multi-instrumentalist musician with multiple albums released. To check out Billie's books, albums, paintings and other artistic ventures, head to asylum817.com. Official Strange Places merch is now available as well!-----------------This podcast can also be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Pandora, and wherever you get your Podcast listening experience.-----------------If you like what you hear and wish to donate to this podcast to help keep it going, visit:https://www.fiverr.com/s/WEY9lex-----------------
One can see the true heart of the Democrats' so-called concern for the most vulnerable among us in Caetano v. Massachusetts, decided just a month after Justice Scalia died, in March of 2016. They criminalized a woman for innocent conduct. The Republicans corrected this. Democrats and some Republicans have made the grave error of upending the true purpose of government : by criminalizing paradigmatically innocent conduct. The Republican Professor is a pro-non-criminalization-of-innocent-conduct podcast. The Republican Professor is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D.
GloucesterCast 823 Livestream 12/28/25 Audio Podcast Click Here- Video Podcast Click here-
In this final episode of 2025, Radio Night Live: Fun Friday's Kevin McCullough and Cristyne Nicholas are joined by Tom Harris, the mastermind behind New York City's iconic Times Square; and Delfin Ortiz, General Manager, Senior Vice President of Operations at Jamestown. He leads operations of One Times Square, a $500 million project transforming the property into an experiential hub at the intersection of art, technology, and entertainment. Radio Night Live: Fun Friday dives into the history of the famous New Year's Eve ball drop, from its origins in 1907 to the current preparations for the 2026 celebration. Tom "T-Square" Harris shares behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the ball, the confetti drop, and the symbolism behind the event. With the 250th anniversary of the United States just around the corner, Tom reveals a special surprise for the 2026 ball drop, making this episode a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the magic of Times Square! DELFIN ORTIZ, General Manager of One Times Square and Senior Vice President of Operations, Development & Construction at Jamestown. This is Delfin's 1st time on Fun Friday, though Cristyne and Tom (KMC was in in Italy) welcomed President & CEO of Jamestown, Michael Phillips, on August 5th, to preview One Times Square. Delfin Ortiz is a General Manager, Senior Vice President of Operations at Jamestown. He leads operations of One Times Square, a $500 million project transforming the property into an experiential hub at the intersection of art, technology, and entertainment. Prior to joining Jamestown, Mr. Ortiz was Managing Director at One World Observatory overseeing observation deck, restaurant, cafe, event space, and tenant space at One World Trade Center and 151 W 42nd St. He also oversaw Sky View Observatory in Seattle, Washington, View Boston in Massachusetts, Vue Orleans in Louisiana, and the Shard in London, England. Mr. Ortiz has more than 25 years of experience in the hotel industry, operating and promoting Four/Five Diamond Properties for Omni Hotels & Resorts and Hilton Hotels in New York, Houston, Miami, Austin, Virginia, Pittsburgh, and San Antonio. During his time in the hotel industry, he was the recipient of the Associate of the Year, Manager of the Year, Executive of the Year, and General Manager of the Year. Mr. Ortiz earned an Associate of Applied Sciences from the City University of New York and a Diploma in Hospitality Management from New York University. ABOUT ONE TIMES SQUARE: One Times Square is the focal point of the Times Square New Year's Eve Celebration and home of the New Year's Eve Ball! The 26-story building, originally built as the headquarters for the New York Times in 1904, the 121-year-old building will offer visitors a new way to experience one of the world's most renowned locations. The building will continue to host New Year's Eve celebrations and house the New Year's Eve Ball as it enters its next chapter. Following a $500 million redevelopment, the historic building in the heart of Times Square will feature a range of exciting attractions, designed to engage visitors throughout the year. These experiences will establish One Times Square as a year-round hub for experiential entertainment, celebrations, and new traditions in the heart of New York City.
Good news: Kids in New York City public schools are benefitting from a system-wide ban on cell phone! They're socializing, and there is a noticeable improvement in focus. Bad news: Without their phones to assist them, these kids have no idea how to read analog clocks. Nicole and Jack discuss and weep for the nation's future. Also discussed in this episode of Hardly Focused: Nicole recounts her trip to Goodsprings, Nevada for the annual gathering of Fallout fans! "Mr. Goodman, please report to the office." Folks in the Massachusetts town of Haverhill are actually upset over the new Dunkin' plant smelling of fresh-baked donuts. FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE! https://hardlyfocused.com/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Happy Boxing Day! Sue and Janra talk about some possible ballot questions and then argue in favor of things they absolutely do NOT believe. Massachusetts 2026 ballot measures - LINK Beginning Music: Glenn Gould - Goldberg Variation #5Ending Music: Electronic - Getting Away With it (Instrumental)Remember to Register to vote! Mass Residents should go to: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/For more Civil Politics visit our website, civilpoliticsradio.com!If you want to get alerted to new episodes on social media, follow our Bluesky: @CivilPoliticsRadio.comDon't miss another episode - subscribe to our podcast (iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and more!)This podcast is a member of the Planetside Podcast Network. Visit PlanetsidePodcasts.com to find other Planetside Productions!
The discussion focused on various pressing issues, including healthcare costs, immigration policies, and public safety. Ray and Jeffrey addressed the high prices of eye drops, linking them to the complexities of the Affordable Care Act and critiquing the political narrative surrounding healthcare costs. They also discussed a recent judicial order allowing deported individuals to contest their status, raising concerns about the judicial branch's influence on immigration. The conversation highlighted a disconnect between local policies and national narratives, particularly regarding gas prices and infrastructure in Massachusetts. Jeffrey expressed concern over the increasing number of no-shows in immigration court, arguing that it undermines the legal system. Brian pointed out the penalties faced by American citizens who miss court dates, emphasizing the disparity in treatment. The discussion expanded to public safety issues, particularly regarding illegal immigrants involved in violent crimes, and questioned policies that permit illegal immigrants to obtain commercial driver's licenses without proof of citizenship. The group concluded with a call for stricter immigration law enforcement and accountability for businesses employing illegal immigrants.
On this episode, we welcome Sheryl Ann Syby, Assistant Vice President of Women's and Children's Services at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center. Sheryl has over 35 years of nursing experience, specializing in women's and children's health including pediatric care, OB Clinic, Family Centered Care, and Neonatal intensive Care unit. This is one of the topics that is near and dear to our hearts at Seelaus. Sheryl's career journey has given her a front lines of the myriad issues that women and babies face and how the medical community is evolving to address their most critical needs including a Centering program for women that empowers women to advocate for themselves. About Sheryl SybySheryl has over 35 years of nursing experience, specializing in women's and children's health. Prior to joining CBMC in 2024, she worked at Holy Name Medical Center as Director of Women's and Children's Services. More recently, Sheryl worked as the Assistant Vice President of Nursing at Hudson Regional Hospital. There she obtained operational experience broadened by her work in various clinical areas, including emergency medicine, perioperative services, case management, emergency management, security, and hospital education. Sheryl has a bachelor's degree from Farleigh Dickinson University and her master's degree in Leadership/Administration from Aspen University.About Cooperman Barnabas Medical CenterCooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC) is a fully accredited acute care hospital and offers a comprehensive array of services including advanced cancer care, sophisticated neurology and neurosurgery services including a neuro-interventional lab and cardiac care featuring three cardiac catheterization labs.About R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. was founded in 1984 by Richard Seelaus, originally as a municipal bond broker-dealer. The firm has since become a certified women's business enterprise ("WBE") and has grown into a full-service financial firm that is mission driven in its commitment to creating more opportunities for women in the financial services. R. Seelaus & Co., Inc. and its subsidiaries offer investment advisory, asset management, capital markets, brokerage, fixed income and equity trading, institutional sales, leveraged finance and insurance services. The R. Seelaus & Co., LLC subsidiary is a broker dealer registered with the SEC and member of FINRA, and the subsidiary Seelaus Asset Management, LLC, is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor ("RIA"). With various fixed income trading desks and more than seventy professionals, both entities serve individuals, families, public and private companies, non-profit organizations, and institutional investors. The firm has offices in NJ, CT, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, South Carolina, and Massachusetts. For more information about R. Seelaus & Co., and its subsidiaries visit www.rseelaus.com
Mark shares a recent conversation from The Dr. Joe Show centered on Dr. Joe's new book, Don't Lose Your Sh*t at Work, co-authored with executive coach Karen Thrall. The discussion explores how anger and frustration show up in the workplace, why staying calm is essential to being heard, and how emotional awareness can interrupt cycles of conflict before they escalate. Drawing on neuroscience, real-world examples, and the I-M Approach, this episode offers practical insight into communicating clearly, advocating for yourself without losing control, and building healthier, more respectful professional relationships! Affiliate Links: Unleashing the Power of Respect: The I-M Approach by Joseph Shrand, MD This episode is brought to you in part by SecuriTitle, a fractional paralegal service assisting with all things real estate in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Stay connected with the Joze.ai team on LinkedIn! Interested in recording your podcast at 95.9 WATD? Email clarissaromero7@gmail.com
Gaea Star Crystal Radio Hour #650 is an hour of dynamic, inspired, visionary acoustic improvised music played by The Gaea Star Band with Mariam Massaro on vocals, Native flute, Celtic harp, double flute, acoustic guitar, mandolin and 4- and 8-string ukulele, Bob Sherwood on piano and Craig Harris on Native drum and congas. Recorded live at Singing Brook Studio in Worthington, Massachusetts in mid-December of 2025, today's show begins with the meditative, impressionistic “Living In The Bliss”, a tone poem with soaring Native flute and fundamental, earthy accompaniment before we move into the upbeat, joyful, spacious “Rising”, a fine folk air with a gorgeous vocal from Mariam above an effervescent accompaniment of galloping congas, chiming ukulele and rich, burnished piano chords that unhurriedly explores and inspires. “To The Crystalline Temples Of Light” is a deeply emotional, mystical air driven along by Mariam's chiming, eldritch mandolin, overtone-soaked double flute and Bob's romantic, Prokofiev-like circular minor figure that lingers after the music ends. “Gather Together” is a prayer of peace and unity from the “Gaea Star Crystal” album that the ensemble portrays as a staid, formal opera aria with tight acoustic guitar work, imaginative piano and a foundational conga groove. “Jophy” is a character to whom Mariam has turned to during several episodes, a monkey who finds a purple flower in a “Jabarandi” tree and the ensemble illustrate the tale in yet another Prokofiev homage, this time to the narrative, onomatopoetic embodiment of characters through music. Learn more about Mariam here: http://www.mariammassaro.com
The podcast makes its first visit to Massachusetts. UIAAA Connection #260 – Ann Trytko, CAA, Executive Director - MSSADA, is now available. Ann grew up in WesternMassachusetts after her early years in Boston, attending parochial schools that offered limited athletic options for young women. She competed in basketball while also cheering for the boys' team on the same days, gaining early insight into multiple roles. Her first teaching position came at a middle school, allowing her to coach independent athletes in skiing and gymnastics, sports not provided by the school. She speaks with gratitude about mentors Walter Sargentand Fran Whitten, both former Massachusetts executive directors. Her advice: call colleagues directly, engage locally, and stay active at state and national levels. This podcast is also available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Castbox, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube.
Georgia Polemenakos a Public Administration Professional with over 7 years of experience in various roles within the Massachusetts state government. She has a strong track record in political action, legislative relations, and effective public policy advocacy. Georgia is particularly interested in Women's Leadership and Empowerment, which she explored during her fellowship with the Women's Public Leadership Network. She was also recognized as a Suffolk University 10 Under 10 Honoree, reflecting her determination to excel in her career. With a passion for public service and nonprofit work, Georgia serves on two boards. Notably, she has worked for Governor Charlie Baker's administration in Massachusetts where she progressed from Program Coordinator to Senior Deputy Director. While she previously worked for the Massachusetts Republican Party, she has now transitioned to the private sector and is pursuing a master's degree in public administration. Today, I’m so pleased to chat with Georgia about our shared goal of getting young women interested in politics and the importance of their voices being heard. Georgia reflects on how her experience growing up in a politically engaged household started her on her journey in the field of politics. We discuss how Georgia has worked toward increasing gender diversity on boards and commissions and what happens to the conversation when you add more diverse voices. We highlight the significance of women's voices in politics, the challenges faced by women in the field, and the importance of supporting and empowering women in leadership positions. We discuss our experiences in politics and the need to understand different perspectives and work across party lines. We highlight the dedication required in public service, the value of women's representation in politics, and the importance of organizations like the Women's Public Leadership Network and the Pocketbook Project in supporting women in politics. We also share how you can become more informed, engage in respectful political discussions, prioritize personal well-being, and encourage more women to participate in public service. “Women need to have perspective in public service, and we have such a different, unique perspective than what a man's perspective may be.” - Georgia Polemenakos This week on Political Contessa: Why young women need to become interested in politics and the importance of amplifying their voices How working for Governor Charlie Baker influenced Georgia’s political journey The impact of more gender diversity on boards and commissions The challenges faced by women going into politics The need for understanding different perspectives and working across party lines The tremendous value of women in public service How to become more informed about politics The importance of respectful political discussions How to prioritize your well-being How to encourage women in your life to participate in public service Resources Mentioned: Women’s Public Leadership Network Website The Pocketbook Project Website Connect with Georgia Polemenakos: Georgia Polemenakos on LinkedIn Awaken Your Inner Political Contessa Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Political Contessa. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Spotify I Stitcher I Apple Podcasts I iHeart Radio I TuneIn I Google Podcasts Be sure to share your favorite episodes on social media. And if you’ve ever considered running for office – or know a woman who should – head over to politicalcontessa.com to grab my quick guide, Secrets from the Campaign Trail. It will show you five signs to tell you you’re ready to enter the political arena. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Massachusetts attorney general Andrea Campbell joins 19 other states in suing the Trump administration, Someone is Arkansas is the power ball jackpot winner, Bostons roman catholic spiritual leader reflects on the life of the faithful in Venezuela. Stay in "The Loop" with WBZ NewsRadio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dick Van Dyke just turned 100 years old. Fellow comedian and long-time friend Mel Brooks reflects on their relationship and what it feels like to head toward the century mark. Then, Grammy-winning songwriter John Prine died of COVID-19 complications in April 2020. More than two years later, musicians gathered to pay tribute. Now, a new documentary film, "You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine," captures those concerts. We speak with Fiona Whelan Prine, Prine's widow, and producer of the concerts and the film. And, the Capitol Movie Theatre in Arlington, Massachusetts, has also turned 100. Here & Now's Thomas Danielian heads to the theater to see how they're doing on their big birthday.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
In this episode, Diana Richardson, President and CEO of Merrimack Health, shares how the newly formed Massachusetts health system came together at unprecedented speed, the operational and financial challenges of integration, and how a strong commitment to community and safety net care is guiding the organization forward.
Today, Hunter wraps up 2025 with one last episode! Guest: Resources: Top 10 Episodes of 2025 334 | Was a Former Colorado Public Defender Fired for Raising Concerns over his Workload? w/Travis Weiner 335 | How Sec Def Austin Interfered with the 9/11 and U.S.S. Cole Case Plea Deals w/Allison Miller and Katie Carmon 336 | How the San Mateo Private Defender Program is Trying to Earn Back the Community's Trust w/Lisa Maguire and Harpreet Samra 328 | How the Laken Riley Act Could Get Innocent People Sent to Guantanamo Bay w/Ann Block and Nithya Nathan-Pineau 331 | How the Far West Texas Public Defenders Uncovered a Pattern of Discovery Violations in El Paso w/James McDermott and Paul Chambers 333 | How The American Eugenics Movement Helped Create Habitual Offender Laws w/Daniel Loehr 355 | How Missouri Public Defenders are Leading the Nation In Statewide Holistic Defender Services w/Missouri Public Defenders 322 | The Impact of and the Resistance to Mass Deportation Policies w/Hans Meyer and Holly Lucas 400 | Why the Lawyers Handling 80% of Massachusetts's Public Defender Cases Stopped Taking New Cases w/Shira Diner 316 | The Everyday Cruelty in Westminster Municipal Court w/Alison Gordon Contact Hunter Parnell: Publicdefenseless@gmail.com Instagram @PublicDefenselessPodcast Twitter @PDefenselessPod www.publicdefenseless.com Subscribe to the Patreon www.patreon.com/PublicDefenselessPodcast Donate on PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=5KW7WMJWEXTAJ Donate on Stripe https://donate.stripe.com/7sI01tb2v3dwaM8cMN Trying to find a specific part of an episode? Use this link to search transcripts of every episode of the show! https://app.reduct.video/o/eca54fbf9f/p/d543070e6a/share/c34e85194394723d4131/home
Like the episode? Let us know with a quick text!In this episode, Allison interviews Becca Pizzi, an accomplished runner and Ironman world champion.Becca shares insights into her running journey, starting from her childhood in Belmont, Massachusetts, to achieving world records and running marathons on all seven continents.She discusses her experiences in various races, including the World Marathon Challenge and the Kona Ironman World Championship.Becca also talks about her contributions to the running community, such as organizing a local 5K in Belmont and authoring a children's book.She emphasizes the importance of community support, maintaining determination, and setting goals, regardless of their scale.Becca Pizzi - https://www.facebook.com/beccapizzihttps://beccapizzi.com/Races MentionedNorth Pole MarathonWorld Marathon ChallengeBoston MarathonLondon MarathonShanghai MarathonShout OutsSteven PlakasSeanOliver WangTeam HoytSupport the showFor more details on Run Your Story happenings, visit https://runyourstory.com/For web development or tech services, visit https://gaillardts.com/Go Run Your Story and take a piece of this story with you! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for the latest news on upcoming episodes. Support me on Patreon!Can't wait to hear Your Run Story!! Thank you to all of our Patreon supporters!Kristen RatherSteve TaylorMary TrufantSuzanne CristSuzanne ClarkAnna SzymanskiDave McDonaldKarla McInnisJames ContrattoJordan DuBoseCristy EvansSharonda ShulaNell GustavsonMeredith NationsAllyson SwannChris StrayhornKaren SaldivarStefan ClaytonRachael McRaeScott Thornhill
Glennon sits down with artist and healer Eset Rose for a grounding, soul-stirring conversation – live from the Kripalu Center in Massachusetts – about what it really means to stop abandoning ourselves. They discuss burning old scripts, reimagining relationships, claiming agency, the spiritual power of midlife and menopause, and why “enoughness” can feel terrifying when we've been raised inside capitalism. This one is for anyone craving rest, renewal, and a gentler way to begin again.
This episode originally aired on December 16th, 2014. If you've been moved by a story this year, text 'GIVE25' to 78679 to make a donation to The Moth today. A special holiday edition of The Moth Radio Hour: Simon Doonan encounters challenges when called on to decorate the White House for Christmas, a man is hesitant to work with a ‘Hollywood' style church in his neighborhood, a Jewish girl meets Santa, and a boy thinks his dreams have finally come true when he gets an exotic pet. This hour is hosted by Catherine Burns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Storytellers: Simon Doonan stirs up controversy with small details on his Christmas ball decorations. Mark Redmond works with a homeless shelter in Vermont. Ophira Eisenberg wanted to meet Santa Claus. Taylor Negron grows up “California Gothic” and must balance the joy of owning a monkey with his fear of Charles Manson. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dale Earnhardt and Cale Yarborough surely won't be exchanging Christmas cards in 1980. The three-time champion has had quite enough of the overzealous sophomore from Kannapolis, but as the season comes to a close, he continues to stand in the way of crown number four for Cale and the Junior Johnson team. Dale and the Osterlund team are going to have a difficult day in Atlanta, and his late race effort to gain his lap back will bring his rivalry with Cale to its absolute breaking point. The two exchange blows in the media, and the points margin stands at 29 as they head to Ontario, California for the season finale. Before making the trip out west, Dale is going to ink a sponsorship deal that he will become synonymous with for most of the 1980s: Wrangler Jeans. With a major brand behind him and his future secured in a five-year deal with Osterlund, the sophomore needs to go into the last race of the season and perform. Wouldn't you know it, Dale and Cale lock up the front row for the race at Ontario, and the dash for the 1980 championship is on. Will it be four-time championship glory for Cale, or can Dale Earnhardt become the first driver in NASCAR history to win a championship in his sophomore season after being crowned Rookie of the Year?FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Dale Earnhardt has been leading the NASCAR Cup season points for most of 1980, but it hasn't been smooth sailing. In fact, stock car legends Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and Cale Yarborough have all been within striking distance at one point or another, but attrition has kept the field even. Engine failures, crashes, injuries, and team disharmony have plagued everyone in the Cup garage, and it appears the 1980 crown will come down to whoever can manage the chaos best. And thanks to Jake Elder's untimely departure, Dale has to depend on a young, inexperienced, newly promoted Doug Richert to help keep things on track.As the season wages on, the championship contest really comes down to two: Dale and Cale. The two can't stop finding each other on track, and things are getting tense. This will be Dale's first real taste at a Cup series rivalry, and neither driver is willing to back down. Dale is going to again pick up back-to-back wins, including a triumphant hometown victory in Charlotte, but a disastrous showing in Rockingham allows Cale to close in as the season winds to a close.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has sold more than 300 million books since the first installment was published in 2007. The star of the series is the famous line drawing, Greg Heffley, a frequently frowning, middle-school-aged antihero. Now, Kinney is out with Partypooper, the 20th book in the series. In today's episode, Here & Now's Robin Young travels to An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Massachusetts, the bookstore Kinney owns with his wife. There, Young and Kinney discuss the inspiration behind Greg, whom Kinney says is a “funhouse” version of himself.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Imagine being a sophomore, leading the NASCAR points with Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough breathing down your neck. That was Dale Earnhardt's reality in May of 1980. He and the Osterlund Team are fresh off back-to-back wins in hot pursuit of more trophies, but the competition is heating up. The young outfit gets a lesson in stock car excellence from Buddy Baker and Waddell Wilson, as Dale has a rematch with the Gray Ghost at Talladega. After a quiet race at Nashville and an engine failure at Dover, things begin boiling over in the 2-car's garage.As the Cup Series returns home for World 600 weekend, there was a tension you could cut with a knife between team management and legendary crew chief Jake Elder. The decision is made to turn their focus away from their Cup program to run the Mello Yello 300 Late Model Sportsman race, and Jake declares he's had enough. To make matters worse, the weekend proves disastrous when a cut tire dashes Dale's hopes of a hometown victory and slashes his points lead in half. The next day, Dale and the Osterlund team get a harsh reminder of why they call Jake Elder: “Suitcase”.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
It's February of 1980, and Dale Earnhardt is hungry to return to victory lane. The Osterlund-2 car hasn't brought home a win since David Pearson filled in for Dale at the Southern 500 the previous year. Plus, with a new contract and sponsorship comes expectations, so needless to say, he's eager to hold up his end of the bargain. Thankfully, he won't have to wait long, as he overcomes adversity at Atlanta for his first speedway win and follows it up with a repeat at Bristol. He quickly goes from a potential flash-in-the-pan, one-time winner to etching his name into the NASCAR history books.But racing is a humbling sport, and his jubilation won't last long. More engine problems and a lack of speed would relegate him back to the middle of the pack, and that pressure to perform would build up again. Unfortunately, this time, the pressure pushes Dale to make a blunderous mistake on the opening lap of the spring Martinsville event, and he has a run-in with a fella you never want to cross: King Richard Petty.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Thanks to Allstate for sponsoring today's episode! Click here [https://bit.ly/3Kj2XLO] to check Allstate first and see how much you could save on car insurance.Thanks to Hankook for sponsoring today's video! Click here [https://bit.ly/44f5Sgl] to learn more about Dynapro tires!Thank you EveryPlate for sponsoring this episode. Try EveryPlate and get $2.99 per meal on your first box, plus free steak for a month. Go to https://everyplate.com/podcast and use code gassteak to claim your offer.And thank you Underdog Fantasy for sponsoring this podcast. Download the app today and use promo code GAS to score $75 in Bonus Entries when you play your first $5. Must be 18+ (19+ in Alabama & Nebraska; 19+ in Colorado for some games; 21+ in Arizona, Massachusetts, and Virginia) and present in a state where Underdog Fantasy operates. Terms apply. See https://assets.underdogfantasy.com/web/PlayandGetTerms_DFS_.html for details. Offer not valid in Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Concerned with your play? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.ncpgambling.org. In New York, call the 24/7 HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY or Text HOPENY (467369)This week, in the season 1 finale of Past Gas, we finish the story of Enzo Ferrari and the era that turned the Prancing Horse into a global obsession: the iconic 250 GT and 250 GTO, the tragedies that haunted Ferrari racing, the moment Ford tried (and failed) to buy Ferrari, and the final thunderclap of Enzo's reign: the Ferrari F40.Thanks to all of our listeners, we will see you in 2026! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Welcome to New England Legends From the Vault – FtV Episode 145 – Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head to the Roxbury section of Boston, Massachusetts, searching for the factory that produced America's first Christmas cards. Back in 1875, Louis Prang took a chance that Americans might want to send Christmas cards like they do in Europe. His risk paid off. Within a few years 5 million cards per year were leaving his Roxbury factory, and sending holiday cards became an institution. Jeff and Ray wish you the happiest of holidays! This episode first aired December 22, 2022 Listen ad-free plus get early access and bonus episodes at: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends
The Other Side of the Story with Tom Harris and Todd Royal – The National and Liberal parties in Australia have also called for a retraction of dangerous and expensive climate plans? Or that New York State and Governor Kathy Hochul appear to have stepped back from green energy, regarding buildings and pipelines. Or that Massachusetts also seems to be stepping back from renewable energy?
Another year, another scrapbook. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back on his quest to learn the origins of his father's legendary NASCAR career, and in this season of Becoming Earnhardt, he is unpacking the 1980 season. With the help of some family scrapbooks and his personal collection of racing artifacts, Dale Jr. is seeking to gain a deeper understanding of who Dale Earnhardt was before his seven championships and numerous wins.In the first episode of this season, we set the scene of 1980, both in the world of motorsports and the world at large. The star of our story, Dale Earnhardt, is fresh off winning the NASCAR Cup Rookie of the Year in 1979, ready to take on the mainstays of stock car racing with his Osterlund Racing crew. His path to stardom goes through the legends of the day, such as Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, and David Pearson, but with veteran crew chief Jake Elder atop the pit box, Dale is feeling confident in his chances. The goal is a season championship ring, but before he can get there, he will have to weather the storms of competition, attrition, and personality.This episode of Becoming Earnhardt is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. North America's premier outdoor and conservation company. Plan your next adventure at a Bass Pro Shops near you, or online at BassPro.com. This project is in partnership with MRN, the Motor Racing Network, and the Appalachian State University Stock Car Collection.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
With the scene set, it's off to the races in 1980. The NASCAR Cup Series heads out to Riverside, California, to begin the season, and sophomore Dale Earnhardt is hoping to improve his road course performance. He will, in fact, finish runner-up to Darrell Waltrip, who, after a narrow loss in the 1979 points race, is regarded as a championship favorite for this year. Dale caps his successful West Coast trip off with a new season sponsor and a contract extension with Rod Osterlund, and he's understandably feeling at the top of his game.He rolls that confidence into Daytona Beach, where he shows his first glimpses of supernatural ability on the superspeedway high banks. He makes a last lap pass on the outside of Darrell Waltrip to pick up his first victory at the track, the Busch Clash. But when all the marbles are on the line in the Daytona 500, he has to go toe to toe with Buddy Baker and the fastest stock car in the country: Waddell Wilson's Gray Ghost.This episode of Becoming Earnhardt is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. North America's premier outdoor and conservation company. Plan your next adventure at a Bass Pro Shops near you, or online at BassPro.com. This project is in partnership with MRN, the Motor Racing Network, and the Appalachian State University Stock Car Collection.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
After 27 grueling weeks, it comes down to the final four races. Somehow, after all the roster changes, crashes, fights and calamity, there are two tight points races to be decided. As the NASCAR Cup contingent prepares for the last stretch, the season points championship and the Rookie of the Year battles have never been closer. Dale Earnhardt surely had the rookie crown locked up after his stunning victory at Bristol in April, but the trusty DeWitt team and their unproven chauffeur Joe Millikan have kept him in sight. After Dale's disastrous crash and time on the sideline, Millikan took full advantage and strung together a series of top-10 finishes to take over the top spot in the standings.In the Grand National points race, Darrell Waltrip jumped out to an early lead and never looked back for most of the season. But after a catastrophic sequence of engine failures and crashes, the DiGard team seems to have begun to crumble under the pressure of winning their first season championship. Even worse, the King Richard Petty has been steadily getting closer in the rearview mirror, and he has his sights set on an unprecedented seventh Cup crown. Join us as we go down to the wire in the greatest NASCAR Cup season in history. We'll unpack the final four events: North Wilkesboro, Rockingham, Atlanta and Ontario. By the end of it, we will have decided two incredible points contests, with winners who represent NASCAR's past and future.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
As we roll into the CRC Chemicals 500 at Dover Downs International Speedway, our hero Dale Earnhardt has settled back into his role as driver of the Osterlund Racing number 2. However, six weeks out of the action has compromised his stamina, and his first race back the prior week in Richmond saw him seeking out assistance from fellow racer Lennie Pond. 500 miles at the challenging, high-banked one-mile oval in Delaware is demanding enough for a healthy driver, but for someone who is still mending two broken collarbones it's unthinkable. Then again, that's the Dale Earnhardt we've all come to know so well: never backing down from any challenge.In episode seven of Becoming Earnhardt, we deep dive into races 25 through 27 of the 1979 NASCAR Cup season. Three 500-mile contests at three of the most demanding speedways on the circuit: Dover Downs, Martinsville and Charlotte. With the Rookie of the Year battle at stake thanks to the continuous, consistent performance of Joe Milllikan, Dale Earnhardt is prepared to risk further injury to his already weakened body to claim the title sure to be the ticket to a bright future in the top ranks of stock car racing.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The dust has settled on the greatest NASCAR Cup season in history, and it's time to recap all that we've learned about 1979. Dale Earnhardt Jr. invites some of the guests from BECOMING EARNHARDT for a roundtable discussion to recount all that we've learned and conclude some of our favorite characters ' stories. Dale's aunts, Cathy Watkins and Kaye Snipes, as well as Osterlund Racing crew member Doug Richert, return as first-hand character witnesses who helped bring the story of 1979 to life.The chat once again sets the dial back to the beginning of 1979 and views Dale Earnhardt through the eyes of his family, as he's getting ready to embark on the biggest opportunity in his young racing career. It also dissects complicated characters like Jake Elder and the team dynamic at Osterlund Racing. They dive into the significance of the NASCAR Cup Rookie of the Year in 1979 and just how close things got in the race between Dale and Joe Millikan. Finally, some new details are revealed about the severity of Dale's injury at Pocono and his lengthy hospital stay and time out of the driver's seat.FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets, which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.