Planned Appearances

• Friday Night Lines -- Betting w/ Barnes: https://sportspicks.locals.com/post/6878290/live-betting-w-barnes-friday-april-25-2025
• Saturday Movie Night: TBD
• Sunday Law for the People w/ Viva at 6 pm eastern

Art of the Day: Old books, the kind you can find undervalued at estate sales, or hidden away in new England antiquarian book stores (as I once found an original of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), or dusted deep in the cellars of great libraries. I began collecting as a kid, having to sell early when the family hit tough financial times later on, but my fondness for old books never left. The rich leather binding, the craftsmanship of the book binders of old, the delicate care of a bookstore owner or devoted librarian, and the buried truths within these texts penned and published from a different time and place, where the written word mattered, whispering to us truths too occasionally forsaught or forgot. 

Book Recommendation: War Is a Racket. The infamous text of General Smedley Butler representing the rightful protest against the war machine after witnessing the horrors of World War 1.

Wisdom of the Day: “War is but a matter of profit for the few.” Senator Gerald Nye.

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Planned Appearances

• Betting w/ Barnes: https://sportspicks.locals.com/post/6857917/betting-w-barnes-ama-friday-april-18-2025

Art of the Day: Swiss Master Craft

Patek Phillipe, the Swiss watchmaker whose rare watches can fetch millions at auction. The signature accessory of successful men, and the Swiss tradecraft remains world renowned for a reason. I uncovered the significance after a client gifted me one of their watches years ago, only to uncover I was giving would-be bandits about six-figure reasons to machete my hand off. I generally avoid watches to this day. The artistic rendering of time in the Swiss skill-craft proves an art of its own kind which I leave at home rather than accompany me in public. Indeed, a well-chosen watch can be a valuable asset of a financial freedom plan. My favorite watch I still cherish the most though still recalls my Dad’s favorite watch, a then $49.99 calculator watch he could use to do math in a jam, which he showed off to everybody. It wasn’t Swiss-made, but it represented an equally true form of expression and real wealth.

Book Recommendation

 Wealth & Democracy by Kevin Phillips includes a substantial section dedicated to the economic rise and fall of great powers, with a particular focus on trade and industrial policy.  

Wisdom of the Day

“The fact that hearings are utilized by the Executive to secure an informed basis for the exercise of summary power does not argue the right of courts to retry such hearings not bespeak denial of due process to withhold such power from the courts.” Justice Frankfurter, Ludecke v. Watkins (1948).

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Schedule

Past

• Interview w/ George Gammon

Future

• Friday at 9ish pm eastern: Betting w/ Barnes AMA
• Saturday Movie Night at 9 pm eastern: Val Kilmer Movie TBD
• Sunday at 6 pm eastern: Viva & Barnes, Law for the People

Book Recommendation: The VBL book list, a humble 568 of them. An example: Kevin Phillips’ biography of President McKinley, a book enjoyed by President Trump.  https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/130921670-robert-barnes?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=vivabarneslaw

Art of the Day: The effusive ebullience of jazz, the colorful spirit the saxophone sings in its inventive riffs, the chic cool of a jazz club off an alley in Paris or hidden in a cave-like basement in Gotham or enveloped by the memory of history in New Orleans amongst the young folks’ revelry. The explosion of color in the art evinces that echoed memory of jazz clubs on a warm summer night, where everybody is a cool cat. In another life, I’d be a jazz drummer.

Wisdom of the Day: "It was the stage in which they were starting to lose what had been built up by the solid things: industry and physical commerce and agriculture and maritime industries. If we look at what happened to them, it's confirming the dangers of letting yourself get into this posture of thinking that you can provide services and finance to the world and that works. It never has." Kevin Phillips. 

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