Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer to the studio to weigh in on John Kerry’s no mask flight and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s irresponsible and historically inaccurate rhetoric to remove the filibuster.
Leahy: We are talking with all-star panelist and recovering journalists Clint Brewer about our big story at The Tennessee Star with a picture of John Kerry on a commercial flight yesterday not wearing a mask. That story has gone all over the place. It was a lead story at Fox News.com all yesterday. It was on Brett Beers and Fox News, followed by Tucker Carlson, followed by Sean Hannity, followed by Shannon Bream. All these stories last night. Breitbart has covered it. The Dail Mail has covered. The Daily Caller has covered it. TheBlaze has covered it.
Brewer: They’re crediting you guys appropriately?
Leahy: All of them. Crediting The Tennessee Star.
Brewer: Good.
Leahy: A couple of questions from Breitbart that boil my friends on the editor at Breitbart. John Kerry said to Tweet about the photographic evidence about this clear violation of the Federal Order and American Airlines policy that it was ‘momentary.’ He was not eating or drinking. He does not claim that he was.
If that is okay for John Kerry to do, can anyone else have “momentary slip of the mask?” This was a question to American Airlines. Second, what is an acceptable amount of time for someone to have their mask slip off their nose and mouth for a momentary period? Has John Kerry been disciplined in any way for violation of this health order? Will American Airlines allow John Kerry to continue to fly or ban him from future flights for this violation?
Brewer: Does President Biden have a press briefing today? I kind of think he does.
Leahy: He has like a March 25 press conference. Somebody will ask him about that.
Brewer: As an avowed, dedicated mask-wearing American (Leahy laughs) during this pandemic and as a Republican I wish Czar Kerry would set a better example for the American
Leahy: A pretty bad example. Let me tell you what the consequences of this is. I suppose at the Tennessee Star we will be responsible for more global warming because clearly what John Kerry is going to do now is he’s going to go to the President and say, Mr. President obviously, I cannot fly commercial flights anymore because they’re going to take pictures of me not wearing my mask. I need to use my private plane now.
Brewer: Mike, you’re in talk radio, all the hot air alone is hurting the climate. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: That’s good. Speaking of hot air in Washington, DC, Senator Elizabeth Warren is generating a lot of hot air with her desire to get rid of the filibuster. You just saw this the story come out. Tell us about it, Clint.
Brewer: There’s a story on Axios about her saying that the filibuster is racist because it is used based on what I read, she seems to believe it’s used primarily by Southern politicians to hold back advances and civil rights legislation. Now, I hate to sound like a musty old historian here, but let’s get our facts straight. The filibuster is not something created in the Constitution, but it has existed as a rule of the Senate since 1806.
Leahy: That was before civil rights legislation, I would think, right?
Brewer: Yes.
Leahy: It’s 150 years before.
Brewer: And it was not used until 18 37 but it has been used ever since then. And I’m pretty sure that Democrats have had the majority in the U.S Senate several times since 1837. now, Yes, it is correct that the longest and most famous filibuster was sent by the late Senator Strom Thurmond fighting the federal Civil Rights Act. That is accurate.
But to put it in a modern-day context and say that it only exists for Southern politicians to hold back civil rights, first of all, it’s irresponsible rhetoric. Second of all, it paints a large group of very dedicated public servants from one part of the country with a broad brush that is unfair and inaccurate. And it’s just more of the same from Elizabeth Warren. It just feels like her usual level of attention-seeking and grandstanding.
She couldn’t get nominated president, and she’s not in the cabinet, and it’s just gross and it’s irresponsible. And it’s the kind of partisan hackery we don’t need in this country right now. We’ve got bigger problems to deal with. But this is like the whole talk about packing the court. And this flies all over me as a taxpayer and as a voter with both parties. Just because you’re either out of power or in power, you don’t change the institutional rules of something like the U.S. Senate just to suit your immediate purposes.
Go win some elections. Quit trying to move the goalposts to suit your agenda. Work within the system that has brought this country along successfully for 200 plus years. You don’t just flip the paradigm in an institution like the Senate because right now it suits your purposes. That’s very short-sided. It’s not good for the Republic, and it’s not good for the American people.
Leahy: Isn’t that what the Democratic Party is about right now, though? Will for power? Having power and exercising it with no regard for the institutions of the American country?
Brewer: What you’ve got in the senators is a very thinly, divided Senate with a couple of very moderate Democratic senators who are siding as much with Republicans as they are with Democrats. That’s uncomfortable for progressives like Elizabeth Warren. Now in the House, it’s less struggle because they got more of a majority.
Progressives like Warren in the Senate are feeling the heat because they can’t move the ball for their particular agenda. And so what’s the answer? Well, we’ll just change the rules that have existed since 1806. It’s cheap, I guess, is the best way to say it. It’s a cheap attempt at moving the goalposts. And other than that, it’s also just inaccurate.
Leahy: Yes. But you’re talking Senator Elizabeth Warren, who’s been known for being inaccurate about her own personal heritage and other things. I look at Democrats, and I think they are generally a bunch of insane liars who hate the country. But that’s just my view.
Brewer: Look, I know plenty of good people who are Democrats. I just don’t think Elizabeth Warrens one of them.
Leahy: I’m with you on that.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
