Blake Burman

Blake Burman joined the FOX Business Network (FBN) as a Washington correspondent in April 2015.  Before FBN, he was a weekend anchor and political reporter for the FOX Miami affiliate station WSVN-TV. While at the station, Burman covered the political landscape for the 2010, 2012 and 2014 races as the station’s main political reporter. While at WSVN, Burman covered the BP oil spill from the Florida Panhandle and anchored breaking news coverage of the George Zimmerman verdict and the killing of Osama bin Laden.  Prior to that, he served a news reporter for WBBH-TV (NBC) in Fort Myers, Florida and was a weekend anchor for KAUZ-TV (CBS) in Wichita Falls, Texas.  Burman is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Colonel Jack Jacobs

Jack Jacobs was born in Brooklyn, New York. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Rutgers University and entered the U.S. Army in 1966 as a Second Lieutenant through the ROTC program. He served as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division, executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 7th Infantry Division, and commanded the 4th Battalion 10th Infantry in Panama. A member of the faculty of the US Military Academy, Jacobs taught international relations and comparative politics, and he was a member of the faculty of the National War College in Washington, DC.

He was in Vietnam twice, both times as an advisor to Vietnamese infantry battalions, earning three Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars and the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest combat decoration. Jacobs retired as a Colonel in 1987.

He was a founder and Chief Operating Officer of AutoFinance Group Inc, one of the firms to pioneer the securitization of debt instruments; the firm was subsequently sold to Key Bank. He was a Managing Director of Bankers Trust, where he ran foreign exchange options worldwide and was a partner in the institutional hedge fund business, raising more than $2 Billion. Jacobs subsequently founded a similar business for Lehman Brothers and retired again in 1995 to pursue investments.

He is a principal of The Fitzroy Group, a firm that specializes in the development of residential real estate in London and invests both for its own account and in joint ventures with other institutions. He serves on a number of charitable boards of directors and is the Co-Chairman of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation and Director Emeritus of the World War II Museum.

Jacobs holds the McDermott Chair of Humanities and Public Affairs at the US Military Academy and is an on-air analyst for NBC News, where he was a member of the team that produced the 2011 Murrow Award-winning  Nightly News segment “Iraq: The Long Way Out.”  Colonel Jacobs is also the co-author of the memoir, If Not Now, When?, published by Penguin and winner of the Colby Award. His second work of non-fiction is Basic, released by St. Martin’s Press in 2012.

"Best of Imus"

Imus broadcast his first program from New York City back in 1971. His life journey has by some accounts been arduous, by other accounts a freak parade, and by still others as a matter for a RICO investigation. It began out in the great American West, California and Arizona, and eventually would make its way on across the country to Ohio and New York.

Imus was born in Riverside, California. Ranching was the family business and he was actually raised on a big cattle spread called the Willows near Kingman, Arizona. Don recalls that period of his childhood fondly and his familiar cowboy persona is completely legitimate. His irascibility appears to be equally legitimate, influenced by more than a few hard knocks along the way. If he revels in the agony of others, as he jokes, it may just be because he’s had a little of that himself. His parents divorced when Don was fifteen, he changed schools frequently, got arrested after a school yard fight, won election in secondary school as class president and was impeached, and, at seventeen, was pushed by his mother to join the marine corps as the best strategy to keep him out of jail. While it all added up to what Imus himself has described as a fairly horrible adolescence, it also disproves a theory that he actually had no parents and instead spawned spontaneously in dust clots behind the Laundromat dryers where one day he would seek shelter. When did all of these events unfold? It doesn’t really matter. And why annoy Don by asking?

Despite the occasional rough patch, Imus did spend a full twelve years in public school and emerged with no formal education…a product of automatic social promotion not even casually tied to merit. He graduated with no honors and no skills, a rare stroke of luck because a broadcasting career required neither. Difficulty continued to dog Imus after his school days: his undistinguished, infraction blotched stretch in the marines, onerous labor in a Superior, Arizona copper mine and a Grand Canyon uranium mine where an accident left him with both legs broken. There was work as a freight brakeman on the Southern Pacific railroad and a back injury suffered in an engine derailment and at one point the indignities of homelessness, hitching, being flat broke. Better, and worse days were to come. This quintessential American and often challenging personal passage materially defined Imus, instilling him with humility, a deep respect for our country and its workers, and a disturbing need to get even. He emerged from the experience with attributes that contributed enormously to the broadcasting distinction he would realize: an intrinsic, conspicuous authenticity, and a unique ability to connect with real people who work hard, serve their country, and care passionately about what really matters in the world.

Once Imus began broadcasting, fame and acclaim came quickly. He was showered with the laurels of radio celebrity including inductions into both the National Association of Broadcasters and radio halls of fame. He was the recipient of four Marconi awards, broadcasting’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscars. It got to the point that he would throw this or that slab of walnut with crystal crap glued to it against the wall of his office as a convenient means of intimidating horrified underlings. He was featured on television programs from NBC’s “Today” show to CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He was a guest of Charlie Rose, David Letterman, and of special note, Larry King, in shameless, mutual ass-kissing marathons that challenged the audience's gag reflex.

Don and wife Deirdre will continue to run the Imus ranch for kids with cancer, raise more millions for the Tomorrows Children Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS, America’s veterans and their care, autism studies, environmental concerns, and all the countless other things Don does, most with notice neither assigned nor sought.

Michael Riedel

Michael Riedel is the theater columnist for The New York Post and co-host of the weekly talk show Theater Talk on PBS.

Arthur Aidala

Arthur L. Aidala completed his undergraduate studies from the State University of New York, College of Purchase in 1989.  Upon being awarded his Juris Doctorate Degree from the City University of New York Law School at Queens College in 1992, he was also admitted to the New York and New Jersey Bars in that same year. Arthur worked as a Senior Assistant District Attorney in the Kings County D.A.’s office from 1993 to 1997, during which he supervised twenty-five Assistant District Attorneys in the Early Case Assessment and Investigations Bureau. Mr. Aidala honed his trial skills while trying multiple homicide cases as well as several other notorious trials during his prosecutorial career. He resigned from his seat in 1997, to run as a candidate for New York City Council. In 1997 Mr. Aidala opened his own law practices.

Mr. Aidala is now in private practice and is currently the Senior Partner at Aidala & Bertuna, P.C., a boutique law firm specializing in civil and criminal litigation. In his private practice, Mr. Aidala has served the needs of his community by assisting with matters that are of the utmost importance to them. Whether it is the purchase of a home, the formation of a business or an individual facing criminal charges within our legal system, it is his goal to counsel his clients to attain their desired result in an expedient and efficient manner.

In addition to his law practice, Mr. Aidala lectures regularly to the Trial Advocacy students at Fordham Law School, Brooklyn Law School and St. John’s School of Law. He has lectured at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the Kings County Criminal Bar Association. He was recently a featured guest speaker at Harvard Law School and was so well received he was asked to speak again.

Arthur Aidala is often seen on television as an expert in Criminal Trial Practice and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NY1 and many local New York television stations as well as appearing on and quoted in other various radio and print venues. In 2005 he became a legal analyst exclusively for the Fox News Channel and has appeared on Geraldo, Lou Dobbs Tonight and The Kelly File with Megyn Kelly among many others.

Mr. Aidala is a Past-President of the Columbian Lawyers Association, First Judicial Department. Additionally, he holds the position of Secretary of the Kings County Criminal Bar Association and is on the Board of Directors and the President-elect of the Brooklyn Bar Association. He is also a member of the Confederation of Columbian Lawyers, the Bay Ridge Lawyers Association, the New York Criminal Bar Association and is the legal advisor to the Neighborhood Improvement Association.

Arthur lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and is a doting father to his amazing son, Luca Joseph.