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 creator of the Huey Report and direct mail expert, Craig Huey, in-studio who identified a coalition of left-wing groups in Nashville actively organizing to get out the vote for Democrats.
Leahy: In studio with us, Craig Huey. The man who’s leading the charge against the Californication and the Georgiafication of Tennessee. Craig, during the break, you told me about an effort to oppose this referendum that will roll back for a 34 percent property tax increase. It’s a coalition of lefties called Save Nashville Now?
Huey: Yes it’s called Save Nashville Now. And basically, what it is, it’s left-wing groups and the Chamber of Commerce.
Leahy: Which is now a left-wing group.
Huey: And the unions.
Leahy: This is like a match made in hell.
Huey: Right. It’s terrible. Lots of money, lots of organization, a lot of political consultants telling them how to get out the vote, how to identify their voter, and get it out.
Leahy: This referendum to roll back the 34 percent property tax increase that our tinpot dictator Mayor John Cooper, that’s my friendly name for him and his left-wing minions on the Metro Council passed. There is a referendum that the Davidson County Election Commission scheduled now to be on the ballot on July 27.
There are, in fact, several legal efforts to stop that. Our friend Jim Roberts says they’re not going to succeed. He thinks it’ll be on the ballot. I think he’s probably right. That’s going to be voted on July 27th. Now, this alliance out of hell from the Chamber of Commerce and the unions and these left-wing groups are funded by the Democrat National Committee and other usual left-wing billionaires. They’re putting together a big campaign to oppose this rollback. Tell us who the left-wing groups are.
Huey: The left-wing groups include Equity Alliance.
Leahy: You know, (Huey chuckles) nothing says left-wing social justice like the Equity Alliance. I think this guy who’s involved in it was a former member of the Community Oversight Board who was a convicted felon and resigned suddenly. I think he may be affiliated with that group.
Huey: It’s a left-wing organization that’s dedicated to the mobilization of the voters. And then Stand Up Nashville, which, again, they’re trained on how to register and get out the vote.
Leahy: So Stand Up Nashville has been around for a while. Isn’t that this group that kind of held up the soccer stadium guys and got, like, $100 million community benefits agreement.
Huey: And part of what they do are these lawsuits and legal actions. They have a team of lawyers. That’s part of their strategy because they know it works as intimidation.
Leahy: And they basically threaten lawsuits against the soccer state guys. And again, that itself was a bad deal. But nonetheless, taxpayers are footing the bill for that. And then they gave a whole bunch of money in this. It’s kind of like a community development arrangement or something like that. Community benefit agreements are what I think it is. They got around one million bucks to play around with.
Huey: Well, see, here’s the thing. They are going to put together an organization to defeat this initiative. The people who want to pass this initiative, the business owners. I mean, I’m a small business owner. And the fact that I moved to Nashville, not knowing I was going to be hit with this extra tax, that’s horrific.
Leahy: So if you had perfect information when you moved from California you would have set your offices up, not in Nashville, but probably in Williamson County?
Huey: I don’t want to get anybody upset with me, but I will speak the truth and that is I tell companies in California all the time, move to Tennessee, and I tell them, don’t go to Davidson County. Don’t go to Nashville. You have to go outside. And that’s because of what Cooper has done.
Leahy: Yeah. Don’t you wish somebody told you that? (Laughter)
Huey: Yes. But I’ve got a lease.
Leahy: You got a lease. (Huey chuckles) Downtown Nashville, a lot of good things about downtown Nashville.
Huey: I love it. I love it. I’m in a historic building. We got everything we need.
Leahy: But you’re gonna get pain. You are going to get dinged.
Huey: I’m going to see the initiative passes. There’s a group called Speak Up Tennessee. You’re going to see them involved in this too because they understand how to mobilize the voters with data and identification.
Leahy: Where does all this money come from? It just says that this is sort of a truism. But I’ll just tell it to everybody. If you are a conservative nonprofit group and you are trying to raise money, lots of luck because it’s going to be, you know, it’s really something. It’s hard to do it because the reason it’s hard to do is that the wealthy people on the right just aren’t generous. But there are exceptions.
Huey: There are exceptions, yes.
Leahy: But on the left, they are going to give you tons of money.
Huey: Because they’re trying to transform America.
Leahy: Exactly.
Huey: The government is our God. Their religion is to be able to expand the coercive power of the state over the lives of the individual. They want to take away individual freedom. And they basically want to have an elite control of us.
And the fact is, they are dedicated to donating these groups between foundations. And the Chamber of Commerce is involved in this. You’ve got these business elites and top corporations doing this against the small business owner.
Leahy: As a graduate of a top business school, I can say this. If you think that most Fortune 500 companies support free markets, you are dead wrong. They want monopolies.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: They want power.
Huey: They want favors.
Leahy: And they structure it so that they can maintain those favors. And as a result, they end up getting barriers to entry. All sorts of small monopolies. They want to crush small business guys. There’s no question about that. You’ve experienced it your whole career.
Huey: All my career I’ve seen this happen and we’ve got to stop that in Nashville.
Listen to the full second 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.
