Morgan Margolis, CEO of Knitting Factory Entertainment

Margolis has decades of experience in the entertainment industry and is the President and CEO of the ever-expanding corporation Knitting Factory Entertainment.

A graduate of Stony Brook University, Mr. Margolis launched into the New York restaurant, bar and night club industry in 1988 and later in Los Angeles, where he landed with Knitting Factory in 2000. He took over as VP of West Coast Operations as they expanded, as well as producing tours and concerts throughout the nation. After successfully running Pacific Northwest operations, Margolis was promoted in 2007 to Vice President of National Operations.

Margolis was named CEO of Knitting Factory Entertainment in 2008. A decade in the seat, he currently oversees a vast team of employees in numerous states: handling day-to-day operations of the multi-million-dollar enterprise including concert houses, touring, festivals (Desert Daze, Travelers Rest, Rootfire, Hortons Hayride etc) management, restaurants/ bars (The Federal Bars, El Tejano, The Thirsty Merchant) record labels (KFR / Partisan), media portfolio companies, strategic partnerships and strategic alliances.

Michael Fumento, attorney, author, journalist, and former Army paratrooper.

Michael Fumento is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and member of the Pennsylvania bar, he also has a B.A. in political science from Fayetteville State University at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which he earned while serving as a paratrooper.

Author of five heavily-annotated published books, co-author of two more, and writer of several monographs, Mr. Fumento has been a fellow with Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, Consumer Alert, and was the 1994 Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, all based in Washington, D.C.

Fumento has been a nationally syndicated columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, a legal writer for the Washington Times, a science correspondent for Reason magazine, editorial writer for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and was the first “National Issues” reporter for Investor’s Business Daily. He embedded four times in Iraq and Afghanistan, including with the Navy SEALs and 101st Airborne. His research and reporting from Ramadi, Iraq, then the most dangerous city in the world, was highly praised by Gen. David Petraeus who called it “Great stuff with a great unit in a very tough neighborhood!”

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Psychiatrist and author of The Body Keeps The Score

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, is a clinician, researcher, and teacher best known for his work with posttraumatic stress. Active in the field of mental health since the 1970s, he currently serves as medical director at the Trauma Center in Boston.

Van der Kolk has contributed significantly to the field of trauma treatment. He believes an individual’s body resets to interpret the world as a dangerous place upon experiencing trauma. Critical of using exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for trauma, he believes trauma is experienced physically rather than cognitively. Consequently, he has practiced psychomotor therapy, a technique developed by a dancer that focuses on healing the body. Van der Kolk posits the key to resolving trauma is helping people repair the connection between their mind and body instead of self-numbing or dissociating. He works with people in addressing their bodily sensations in order to better process trauma.

Robert Muise, constitutional law expert and co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center

Robert J. Muise is an expert in constitutional law.  Since 2000, his law practice has been dedicated to defending religious liberties, the freedom of speech, and the right to life in state and federal trial and appellate courts all across the country.  More recently, Mr. Muise has been involved in numerous cases defending American freedoms against the growing threat of sharia.

In 2012, Mr. Muise, along with David Yerushalmi, co-founded the American Freedom Law Center, a national public interest law firm dedicated to fighting for faith and freedom and defending our Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values.

In 2015, Messrs. Muise and Yerushalmi co-authored the monograph entitled, Offensive and Defensive Lawfare: Fighting Civilizational Jihad in America’s Courts as part of the Center for Security Policy’s Civilization Jihad Reader Series.

Garret Graff, author of  The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

Garrett M. Graff, a distinguished magazine journalist, bestselling historian, and regular TV commentator has spent more than a dozen years covering politics, technology, and national security—helping to explain where we’ve been and where we’re headed.

Today, he serves as the director of the Aspen Institute’s cybersecurity and technology program, and is a contributor to WIRED, Longreads, and CNN. He’s written for publications from Esquire to the New York Times, and served as the editor of two of Washington’s most prestigious magazines, Washingtonian and POLITICO Magazine, which he helped lead to its first National Magazine Award, the industry’s highest honor.

His most recent book, an instant New York Times bestseller and #1 national bestseller, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, compiling the voices of 500 Americans as they experienced that tragic day, was called a “a priceless civic gift” by the Wall Street Journal.

Robert Muise, constitutional law expert and co-founder of the American Freedom Law Center

Robert J. Muise is an expert in constitutional law.  Since 2000, his law practice has been dedicated to defending religious liberties, the freedom of speech, and the right to life in state and federal trial and appellate courts all across the country.  More recently, Mr. Muise has been involved in numerous cases defending American freedoms against the growing threat of sharia.

In 2012, Mr. Muise, along with David Yerushalmi, co-founded the American Freedom Law Center, a national public interest law firm dedicated to fighting for faith and freedom and defending our Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values.

In 2015, Messrs. Muise and Yerushalmi co-authored the monograph entitled, Offensive and Defensive Lawfare: Fighting Civilizational Jihad in America’s Courts as part of the Center for Security Policy’s Civilization Jihad Reader Series.

Rosemary Frei, investigative journalist and former board member of Canadian Science Writers’ Association

Rosemary began her writing career while completing an M.Sc. in molecular biology/biotechnology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary in 1988. She has been a freelance broadcast and print journalist for outlets ranging from “Canada AM” and CBC Radio’s “The Calgary EyeOpener” to Equinox and Canadian Business magazines. She is a former board member of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association (CSWA) and has been a judge for the National Newspaper Awards and the CSWA’s journalism awards.

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, systems scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur

Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, the inventor of email and polymath, holds four degrees from MIT, is a world-renowned systems scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He is a Fulbright Scholar, Lemelson-MIT Awards Finalist, India’s First Outstanding Scientist and Technologist of Indian Origin, Westinghouse Science Talent Honors Award recipient, and a nominee for the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Ayyadurai went on to receive four degrees from MIT, including a bachelors in electrical engineering and computer science, and a dual master’s degree in mechanical engineering and visual studies from the MIT Media Laboratory. In 2003, he returned to MIT to complete his doctoral work in systems biology within the Department of Biological Engineering, where he developed CytoSolve®, a scalable computational platform for modeling the cell by dynamic integration of molecular pathways models.

Rosemary Gibson, author of  “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”

Rosemary Gibson writes and lectures about health care, health care reform, Medicare, and patient safety.  She led national health care quality and and safety initiatives at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She was chief architect of the foundation’s decade-long strategy that successfully established palliative care in more than 1,600 hospitals in the United States. She is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Gibson is an editor for JAMA Internal Medicine. Previously, she worked with Bill Moyers on “On Our Own Terms,” a PBS documentary viewed by more than 20 million people that showed ways in which the U.S. health care system can better care for seriously ill patients and their families. She is an author of the critically acclaimed book, Wall of Silence, which tells the human story behind the Institute of Medicine report, To Err is Human. Her other books include The Treatment Trap which puts a human face on overtreatment; The Battle Over Health Care: What Obama’s Health Care Reform Means for America’s Future; and Medicare Meltdown,examines the business of Medicare and its impact on the fiscal challenges facing the federal program for older Americans.

Gibson is a graduate of Georgetown University and has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Matthew Larosiere, The Firearms Policy Coalition -Director of Legal Policy

Matthew Larosiere is the policy director for the Firearms Policy Coalition. He writes on the subject of the 2nd Amendment, gun law, taxation and gun violence. His work has been featured in National Review, Cato Blog, Fox Nation, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and more.

Matthew graduated cum laude from the University of Alabama with a J.D. and Master of Laws in Taxation. During law school, he served as the president of the Federalist Society and the ethics opinion editor of the Journal of the Legal Profession. He holds a B.S. in Business Management from the University of Central Florida.

Mark Meuser – Constitutional Law Attorney

Mark Meuser is a Constitutional/Election Law Attorney in California. He was the Republican nominee for California Secretary of State in 2018. He is an avid student of American History.