Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs: ‘The Family Is the Building Block to Our Society’

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs: ‘The Family Is the Building Block to Our Society’

Live from Music Row, Friday 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. – guest host Gulbransen welcomed Tennessee’s favorite mayor, Glenn Jacobs of Knox County to the newsmaker line to discuss his governing style.

Gulbransen: On our newsmaker line, Tennessee’s favorite mayor, my friend, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs. How are you this morning?

Jacobs: Good morning, Aaron. How are you?

Gulbransen: I’m doing well. So I think this is probably a little insight that people don’t get to get to have often. As the audience knows, I get to work at the General Assembly and I’m there every day. You were just there this week doing the business of Knox County. Touch on that and what that kind of looks like.

Jacobs: Yes sir. It was county down the hill where the Tennessee County Services Association which represents the interest of counties across the state. We all gather and have a meeting and talk about issues facing our counties and then go over and in many cases talk with the General Assembly.

A couple of things that we’re working on that are really internal to the workings of the government, of how sales tax administration is done and that fee, as well as a single item of sales tax and the splits.

There’s a cap on that as far as the local amount which is a little different than how sales tax is run and everything else. But those are more internal to the workings of local and state governments.

Gulbransen: As everyone probably realizes at some point in their lives without thinking about it a lot of what you see often in your daily life is what happens in local government.

So it’s important to have a good working relationship as a county mayor with the General Assembly. I know you have a very good one. You’ve been mayor for several years now. What was it like the first time you went to the General Assembly?

Jacobs: (Chuckles) The, the first time, of course, it’s really cool and you get struck a little bit because there are just so many things happening and you’re getting used to it. It’s a little different now cause I’m used to going over and talking with people and all that sort of thing. For a wrestler now it’s a little different.

I remember the first time that I wrestled here in Knoxville, the Civic Coliseum, and you know, I was like, golly, this is like the biggest place I’ve ever been in. And of course, it sees about 7,000 people and we’ve been to much bigger places now. But I always remember that as the biggest. It’s probably the same there. The first time you go it’s like, oh, that’s so cool. And nothing compares to it after that.

Gulbransen: No, this is very true. Although I will give the audience a little tidbit. I’ve worked in several different state Houses and when you get to the office building they all start looking the same after a while. The turns in the elevators and that sort of thing.

Of course, the governor did sign two bits of legislation and of course, made a lot of national news. Leader Johnson was the sponsor of SB 1 and SB 3. He was the common denominator. Leader Lamberth and Representative Todd were sponsors in the House respectively on the two bills. Can you talk about the importance of SB 1 and SB 3?

Jacobs: Sure. One bill prohibits genital mutilation of minors in the state of Tennessee. Sex change operations are what we’re talking about here. The other outlaws all-age drag shows in public and defines what a burlesque show is and includes some of the things that we’ve seen around the country.

You know, we’re in the middle of a really, of a counter-revolution to the American Revolution. We are in the middle of a cultural Marxist revolution with the people on the far left, not everybody. Cause I don’t think everybody realizes what’s really going on. They want to destroy the country and destroy its institutions.

I think that the family is very important. It’s the building block of our entire society and also ensuring that kids can grow up and not have their lives run by things that are going on now as far as, oh, it’s in vogue to say I’m not sure if I’m a boy or a girl.

And then in almost all cases, that gets worked out even for youngsters that might suffer from gender dysphoria. I’m really happy that the state did that. And of course, I believe we’re the first state in the Union to take those steps.

Gulbransen: I think personally and in my capacity as executive director of Tennessee Faith and Freedom Coalition, I think those are model bits of legislation that the rest of the country should follow. Of course, I agree with you entirely on it.

It’s somewhat become fashionable to question yourself as a teenager and there are a lot of social media issues with how people get pressured into it. Of course, when I was young, I seem to remember the fads of the day being baseball cards and did you know what Michael Jordan did on the basketball court that day? There were odd jeans that people wore and that sort of thing.

Jacobs: Life was a little simpler back then. (Chuckles) It’s like we are old fogies now. (Chuckles)

Gulbransen: Yes. I remember walking to school in the snow at five in the morning. I know I’ve had you on so much. I forget if I’ve asked you or not, but I think it’s a good time. Can you give us your generic governing philosophy? It’s a fun question. I’d like our audience to hear that from you.

Jacobs: Sure. I’m a small government conservative which means I would keep the government out of my life and out of everybody’s lives as much as possible. There’s a certain role the government is going to play, and I think that needs to be confined and constricted to a case of the federal government within the confines of the United States Constitution and state constitutions as well as local governing documents. So, uh, for me it’s pretty much live and let live as long as you’re not hurting other people.

Gulbransen: That’s a very important distinction to make. Those on the left, say they wanna live and let live, but they really really mean they wanna live and then force their worldview on everybody else.

Jacobs: That’s very well, very well said.

Gulbransen: Did, did you see the bill that passed the Senate that’s banning TikTok and WeChat on Tennessee Public College networks?

Jacobs: I did not. No, I did not see that. It’s very interesting to see where we are as a country in a world and what people sometimes believe is, you know, innocent, no big deal is really more than that. I didn’t see that, but you know, South Carolina of course has prohibited TikTok use on state-owned telecommunication devices.

There is a security risk there when you’re using a government device, you are making your network vulnerable to folks like the Chinese government and those sorts of things. There really are major concerns with platforms like that.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Glenn Jacobs” by Glenn Jacobs. Background Photo “Family” by Luemen Rutkowski.

 

Adventures in Headlines: Hosts Leahy and Carmichael Talk AWOL Buttigieg, Balloon Shootdowns, Virginia High School Rape, and LA Crime

Adventures in Headlines: Hosts Leahy and Carmichael Talk AWOL Buttigieg, Balloon Shootdowns, Virginia High School Rape, and LA Crime

Live from Music Row, Friday 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 the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss a myriad of headlines.

Leahy: Crom Carmichael, the all-star panelist is in studio. Crom, there is a little hobbyist group that involves kids and a couple of adults. It’s called the Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade. The Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade. And there’s a story in Aviation Week, that I saw yesterday I sent to you.

They are concerned. They put a little balloon up as part of their little hobby group. It cost about $12 to put it up. They can’t find it. They’re pretty sure that the United States Air Force actually used a $400,000 missile to shoot it down.

Carmichael: Well Biden himself and I don’t know why he did this, but he gave a press conference and seemed to be proud of the fact that his military has shot down three balloons for literally no good reason. Because he couldn’t give a good reason.

He couldn’t give any reason. He said all we know for sure is that they weren’t spy balloons by any other government, but other than that, we don’t know why we shot them down. Literally, he had no good reason.

Leahy: So let me get this straight Crom. The Chinese government launches a spy balloon. Our intelligence people know that they’ve launched a spy balloon. They let it come into American airspace. They don’t tell anybody in Congress about it.

Carmichael: As big as a school bus.

Leahy: As big as a school bus. Obviously spying, sending information back to the Chicoms. And then an amateur photographer sees it up in the sky in Montana, tells the Billings Gazette, all of a sudden, it’s a problem that we’ve identified. Our military decides we’re not going to shoot it down until it’s finished all its spying.

And then we shoot it down after it’s accomplished its mission. And in response, the next week, President Biden gets together this group. It tells the military, shoot down this little Northern Illinois bottle cap balloon brigade. $12 balloon. And it’s not just that. The first missile didn’t hit.

Carmichael: Oh, it missed?

Leahy: It missed.

Carmichael: Where did it go?

Leahy: I don’t know, but it missed, and it so they took a $400,000 missile to shoot down a $12 balloon put up by the Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade.

Carmichael: I just think that’s just amazing. You know, there are so many other interesting stories, and it’s about institutions. Pete Buttigieg his political fate was sealed by his response or lack thereof, to this terrible train derailment in Ohio.

And his excuse was, there are three trail derailments a day. I can’t go to every one of them. That’s saying that all trained derailments are of equal devastation, which is, of course, utterly false.

Leahy: When you have vinyl chloride that explodes and then you do a controlled burn, you don’t know who actually authorized the controlled burn. And it puts hydrochloric acid and phosgene, that World War I gas up in the air above East Palestine, Ohio, you got to do something about that.

Carmichael: And Buttigieg doesn’t even show up. The Secretary of Transportation doesn’t even show up. But here’s another example. This guy Gastone.

Leahy: Gastone sounds like a character in a Disney movie.

Carmichael: But he’s a character, alright. He won’t prosecute. This is a progressive California district attorney.

Leahy: The guy in LA?

Carmichael: Yes.

Leahy: The guy who ruined San Francisco.

Carmichael: Yes, he did. And now he’s ruining LA. They had a recall that didn’t get him. He’s ignoring cases involving child sex crimes, domestic violence, and sexual assault. They have doubled on his watch, but the number of prosecutions continues to fall.

So it’s just astounding. In Virginia, you heard about this case where a high school student went into the girl’s room and raped the girl, and they moved him to another school where he did it again allegedly. The school board has voted to not release the information, so people and parents are having to fight to get the information. This one is hysterical.

The Canadian Taxpayer Federation filed a legal action to find out who paid $6,000 a night while they were in London at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. The Canadian officials gave them the report and redacted the name, claiming security issues for the person that would have been named. (Laughs)

Leahy: Yeah.

Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:

– – –

Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Reporwith Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Background Photo “U.S. Capitol” by Ramaz Bluashvili.