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 Henry welcomed Pamela Provost with the Truth Be Told Conference to outline the speakers and event that will take place on October 2nd.
Henry: Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to The Tennessee Star Report. We are so happy to be joined by a fantastic guest online right now. Pamela Prevost. The website is truthbetoldtennessee.com. And let me just tell you all, it’s October 2nd of this year. 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Let me just give you a quick rundown of a few of the speakers, and then I’m going to get Pam to tell you what this is about.
We’re talking Steve Deace, Trevor Loudon, Sean Davis, Congressman Mark Green, Robby Starbuck. We’re talking David Fowler. I mean, the list goes on and on. It’s incredible. Pam, if someone were to come up to you on the street right now and just ask you, what is the Truth be Told conference? What’s your response?
Prevost: It’s really a conference about what’s going wrong with our culture, our Judeo-Christian culture. It’s really not a political conference. It’s a conference about what we can do individually, to become awakened, educated, and involved in making changes in our local community.
We may not be able to do much nationally or in D.C., but we can certainly affect change right here in Tennessee by working together again.
Henry: Truthbetoldtennessee.com. Here’s from the website. This informative conference will provide solutions to strengthen our children and family, strengthen our churches in the community.
Get plugged in and make a difference. Learn who to listen to and where to get accurate news. Learn what books to read and become educated. Where did the motivation for this come from? How did this crop up?
Prevost: I used to be a very busy mom raising my children and was really not involved at all politically locally, but I kept up with what was going on nationally. But my wake-up call was when Obama started running and he started talking about radically transforming America and all kinds of alarm bells went off in my head.
I mean, it was terrifying to hear what he wanted to do. So I started becoming educated. I got involved in local groups. I read everything I could get my hands on. Listened to the podcast. And that’s how I came across Steve Deace and his writings and his podcast and just became a huge fan.
And that’s why we’re inviting him back. He was here last February 2020 and did a co-event with the Family Action Council of Tennessee. Was very well received. And we’re just delighted that he is willing to come back.
Henry: There does seem to be something about sort of this idea that’s inherent in self-governance, self-responsibility, and self-control. The trade-off here is that as long as we’re here with this premise of a limited constitutional government, something somewhere in society has to sort of constrain the fleshly desires of men.
At one point in society, these lessons of virtues and values used to be taught by a multitude of faith communities all across the spectrum. All sort of commonly agreeing upon this idea of stabilizing society because it’s better for everyone to create better and more moral individuals.
I guess what I’m asking here, Pam, is if there’s anyone thing you hope someone takes away from this kind of conference and what would that be?
Prevost: You know they say that politics flows down from culture. Culture flows down from the church. And that’s really what the problem is when you boil it all down. Our churches are not leading. Our men are not stepping up.
That’s why this is not really a political conference. We’re not going to be talking about politicians. We’re going to be talking about us. Because when you get right down to it, it’s up to us. And to a certain extent, we’ve allowed this to happen.
Our slogan for this conference is “it’s up to us.” We have got to get in the public square, standing strong as we can do and standing for good and against everything that is not good and that is, in fact, evil in many cases.
Henry: What’s the reaction been like so far when you tell people about this?
Prevost: We’ve had so much interest. We’ve had just a swelling of support from all across the state. We have groups coming from Memphis and from the Chattanooga area. We’ve got support on our committee of all the surrounding counties. So we are really, really excited.
I think people are really concerned. They’re awakening. They’re discouraged and they really want to know how they can make a difference and who to listen to, where to get their news, and what they can do. I think that we are really becoming concerned about the direction our country is going in and how fast things are changing.
Henry: One place to get your news is either The Tennessee Star Report or thestarnewsnetwork.com. Quick shameless plug right there.
Prevost: That’s right.
Henry: But I know, Pam, you have an incredible guest speaker at this reception dinner speaking afterward as well. Give our audience a bit of perspective about who that person is and what their story is?
Prevost: Yes. We’re hoping that you’ll go to the website and consider being one of our donors and come to the evening event to be able to hear our guest speaker, who is Charmaine Hedding.
She will be here from Telev, Israel. She’s coming from Israel. And she’ll be talking about the amazing work her foundation, the Shai Fund, is doing right now in Afghanistan, rescuing Americans and persecuted Christians and getting them out of there.
She’s been working in the Middle East under cover for about 15 years. It will be riveting and incredible to hear from her in real-time about what’s going on. I’m sure, very inspiring. Please go to our website and consider becoming a donor and getting to hear Charmaine Hedding. We are privileged that she wants to come and speak to us.
Henry: That website is Truthbetoldtennessee.com. And Crom, did you have a question here, too?
Carmichael: I wanted to make sure she mentioned going to the website. Let me just say this, I don’t know much about the organization, but that speaker sounds absolutely fabulous. And the list of people that she said will be at the main event is also great. That’s a great list of people.
Henry: I’ll tell you who actually makes me think of is Victor Frankl. I speak about him quite often, but he really just touches me because I think Victor Frankl’s best understood as he is juxtaposed to other psychoanalysts of the day.
If Freud seemed to think he figured out humanity because he said, what motivates a man, his drive for pleasure. That’s just hedonism. And we’ve done that before. Adler said you motivate a man by his desire for powers. Well, that’s fleeting. I’m going to get weak one day.
But Frankl, he’s a survivor of the Holocaust. And while he was in the concentration camp, he developed his theory of life, saying how you truly motivate a man, what life is really about his purpose. It’s meaning.
What are you doing with your life? And, Pam, I guess, is that some sense of what you’re trying to touch on as well? What’s our purpose in this life? How do you find real meaning in our society?
Prevost: Yes. I think that we have really become somewhat complacent and comfortable in our prosperity in America. And I think that we have kind of lost our purpose. I think we had that purpose way back, and I think that just needs to be regenerated.
We really need to get back to what really works. We need to conserve the principles that have been time-tested and proven to work. And those principles actually come from our Judeo-Christian heritage.
All of our Founding Fathers may or may not have been Christians. Who knows if Thomas Jefferson was. But they all agreed and studied history and knew that Christian principles work for a moral society.
It gives people purpose. It is gratifying. It makes for a moral society, and it gives people a sense of well-being.
Henry: Ben, do you have a question there?
Cunningham: Pam, Ben here. A lot of people are discussing the role of the church these days, and there’s a lot of folks that think the church should get more active. Is that a topic that you’re going to talk about at the conference?
Prevost: We are. We actually are going to be talking about that. And there’s a way for the church and for Christians to be involved in the public square in the right way. And we are called to do that.
And some people that are truly leading the way in that are my Tennessee heroes, Bobby Patray with Tennessee Eagle Forum and David Fowler with the Family Action Council and so many others.
And we just need to follow their example and get involved and stand up to what Daniel Horwitz called ‘judicial supremacy.’ We’ve got to learn to be overcomers of evil and not overlookers. Because if we don’t, we’re going to be overtaken and not even realize what has happened.
Henry: That’s great.
Cunningham: I’m going to borrow that phrase. (Chuckles)
Prevost: We really need to wake people up, and I think people are becoming more awake and they want to know what to do. We don’t only want to educate people.
We want to really motivate people and encourage them. There are so many wonderful local groups in Tennessee doing amazing things, and I know I don’t have time to name them all.
Henry: Truthbetoldtennessee.com. Visit that. October 2nd. 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
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.
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 hosts Grant Henry and Ben Cunningham talk in studio about the need for a special session in the Tennessee General Assembly and for Lt. Governor Randy McNally to identify the momentum.
Henry: My name is Grant Henry. Enunciation for those in the know Ben Cunningham. I work for an organization called American’s for Prosperity. Ben’s over there. He’s just like anything and everything and uncomparable. You probably know him from the Nashville Tea Party.
Cunningham: Wow. What an introduction.
Henry: I tried my best on that one. (Laughter) I’ll give you $5 for that one. It’s great to be here. It’s fun to sit in when Michael is gone and rant and rave. There’s so much going on, you teether between total depression and slight optimism these days. But we’ve got a fight.
And there are so many good fighters out there to inspire us. I was reading an article yesterday about people standing up. Molly Hemmingway who is with The Federalist.
But she’s one of these people who is fearless. And we’ve just got to all be like Molly, basically, and stand up and fight for these basic values. And that’s what people were doing yesterday at the Capitol.
Henry: Here’s one of the headlines coming from The Tennessee Star. By the way, The Tennessee Star has some of the best reporting in the state as far as I’m concerned.
Chris Butler and Laura Baigert out there doing some incredible things amongst many others at The Tennessee Star. Tennesseestar.com. Here’s the headline. Angry Tennessee Residents Burden by Covid 19 Policies Rally for Special Legislative Session Without Delay.
I know you were streaming this on the Nashville Tea Party page. I streamed it on my old talk radio page Real News. Here’s the first paragraph.
There were hundreds of Tennesse and said their displeasure with COVID-19 mandates has intensified, and it’s time for Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally to relent and allow a special legislative session so that the state can fight back.
Now, I know a few other senators maybe like Senator Roberts in particular, I believe. I know he wrote a letter calling for a special session saying that he would like to see these six things that he outlined in a special session.
I think there are 70 House members in the state, don’t quote me on this number. There are 70 some in the House that have signed. And dozens of others, maybe 15-17 in the Senate that have signed on.
Cunningham: The House is ready to go, It looks like.
Henry: And Senator Robert says that he wants to see the following things addressed if and when a special session has opened up. One prohibiting mass mandates in public building schools and universities. Two recognizing acquired immunity or immunity from nobody satisfying vaccine mandates.
Three prohibiting Bridgestone Arena and other venues receiving government funds from implementing vaccine requirements, mask mandates, or segregating attendees according to vaccine status.
Four, placing the county health departments of these six counties under the direct oversight of the General Assembly. Five challenging federal overreach exercises by President Joe Biden related to these vaccine mandates.
And six and finally requiring executive orders issued during a state of emergency lasting over 90 days to be reviewed by a joint committee.
But quickly before I kick it to you, Ben, I did find an interesting that Chris Butler in that first paragraph touched on how it’s time for Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally to relent. You think it’s all hinging on him, as they say?
Cunningham: I think he’s the kind of the figurehead of the roadblock at this point. But Randy McNally is a good guy. And I think any politician, you can lower their threshold of action by rising up and saying, this is what we want.
And it’s extremely impressive to me that so many members of the House have already said that. They have stepped out publicly. They are willing to say, we need to have a special session.
And a special session like you were saying there, it’s not just Randy McNally who came out with a press release and said, hey, we’ll fight the Biden administration through the DAs and the legal avenues. But this is also about state issues.
This is not just about federal issues. If it was just about federal issues, I would say that he has a point. But I don’t think he has a point because lawmakers want to address the state, like Bridgestone Arena and perhaps the governor’s emergency powers.
There are all kinds of things that we need to talk about, and it’s going to take a few days to talk about this to sort it out. And I think that’s what these legislators want, and I’m certainly in favor of it. And I would like to see them come together.
This is the top issue for Tennesseeans right now. I don’t know if there’s any question about it. And we expect our legislators to respond when people say, hey, you need to come to Nashville.
As our representatives, you need to sit down, develop a consensus like the Supreme Court says and many of the justices say. We can’t decide on everything. It’s up to the legislative bodies to be deliberative and develop a consensus.
That’s what legislation and legislating are all about. And that’s driven by the people. And that’s why the rally yesterday was so important. And people who are opposed to the special session right now like Randy McNally can be convinced if enough people rise up and enough senators rise up and say, we want to a special session.
I don’t think it’s a question that Randy McNally would come around and say, okay. Hey, I see this huge groundswell of momentum basically building for this special session, and I think he would probably relent if he did see that wave of support.
Henry: I found it interesting yesterday, Senator Janice Bowling, again, I’d highly recommend you go watch the live stream on somebody’s account to see the legislators that were there, what they said, and the addresses they gave.
But Senator Janice Bowling, in particular, made the remark that if the Tennessee General Assembly calls for a special session, there are no restrictions upon what they can and cannot consider while they’re in that special session.
And I don’t presume to understand all the mechanics behind how this works. So take what I’m saying with a bit of a grain of salt. But if the General Assembly calls for one, they can kind of consider anything and everything on the table.
Conversely, if Governor Lee were to call for one, it’s limited exclusively to the things that Governor Lee calls for. And I find that interesting because I know there have been several talking points or push back about this idea of Joe Biden coming out with these vaccine mandates.
And they’re ridiculous. And in my personal opinion, the disgusting nature of some of the things that he’s doing withholding these antibody treatments. We’ll get into more of that later, right?
Cunningham: That’s maddening.
Henry: But at a practical level in the state, I do wonder here what can be done with e of the vaccine mandate stuff. And I also wonder, so much of this deals with the schools, Ben.
I want to get into this more in the show, but I’d love to know your thoughts on if we call for a special session, what can we do to consider doing something with education?
I believe education should create an environment that empowers the students to continually fulfill their unique potential. But it should also provide families and parents with the decisions about how to educate their children properly, giving parents more parental choice, right?
Every student should have equal access to education on equal terms regardless of their zip code and especially now dealing with some of the math stuff or the vaccine stuff or CRT stuff or whatever that stuff is, parents need more choice. More on this later on in the show. We’ll be right back after this break.
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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.
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 hosts Henry and Cunningham discuss big government and the role it plays in individuals lives.
Henry: My name is Grant Henry. I’m a grassroots engagement director with a group called Americans for Prosperity here in Tennessee. And Michael Patrick Leahy has been kind enough to ask me and this comparable Ben Cunningham to come in and do some co-hosting for him this morning.
I guess he’s spreading his empire across the vast reaches of America here. He seems like he’s opening up a new spot in a new state every single day.
Cunningham: He is. It’s a great service to Tennessee, service to the country because we just don’t have that many conservative news outlets these days. I don’t know if you follow Project Veritas with James O’Keefe who comes out with these corrections.
I forget what he calls them. But each time he forces somebody to make a correction. And these are all mainstream media like CNN, those kind of guys. He does this cute sarcastic video about how they’ve had to correct their news account of Project Veritas.
The point is that we just don’t have any good conservative news sites that we can follow in and know that we’re going to get a conservative voice. Which basically means a factual account of what’s going on.
And that’s why it’s so important for The Tennessee Star to be a part of it. There’s another story going around, Grant. I’m kind of going for a way later, this Gabby Petito story,
Henry: I don’t know. No, I have not even heard.
Cunnigham: This one girl and her boyfriend, I think her fiance, we’re traveling around the country and she disappeared. And it turns out that he is now back at their home in Florida and is refusing to talk about what happened to her.
And what’s fascinating to me is the way this story is kind of unfolded. And, of course, the news media loves these kinds of stories. There is a mystery. There’s a cute young couple. There’s just about everything that is interesting in a story.
But the really interesting thing to me again is how this thing is kind of unfolded. First, it seemed obvious that he was probably the prime suspect.
Then they had a police video where somebody had called the police when the couple had gotten into a fight. Not a big physical fight. And it looked like maybe from the police report that actually she was the aggressor and she was kind of beating up on him a little bit.
It’s still very difficult to know what’s going on. But they also revealed that both of them have some mental issues, some emotional issues which have factored into it. I got to thinking about this story and how similar it is to so many stories we see coming out of Washington, D.C. We’re just now getting an indictment on the Trump Russia probe.
And it takes forever to get information out of government. Thomas Massey, a great liberty-minded congressman from Kentucky, pointed out that some fact, I forget what the issue was but it had just come out of the CDC, and he was asking, why in the world has it taken so long to get this information out of government?
And the problem is as government grows and all these different agencies within the government start protecting their turf. Like the CIA and the national security agencies, it’s almost impossible to get information out of them.
And the parallels with this is Gabby Petito’s story and getting news out of our own government and how difficult it is like pulling teeth. And you talk to congressmen that say, I’m trying to get information out of one of the federal agencies, and I can’t get information.
What! This is a congressman. This is our elected representative. And these arrogant federal agencies are saying, eh, we don’t know whether we can give you the information, we don’t know whether you can be entrusted with the information.
And there’s always been a problem with the over-classification of documents. The security agencies want to classify everything because they don’t want to get anything out. It’s cover your behind basically. (Henry chuckles)
Henry: Right.
Cunningham: And as government grows bigger, it gets further and further away from the people. You get these entrenched cliques within each agency and they’re fighting with each other.
And they’re allied, for example, in the Department of Education, with the teachers unions. And you see that repeated over and over and over again. You got defense contractors that probably have more clout in the Defense Department than a lot of people at the Pentagon.
And as government gets bigger and bigger and bigger, we get smaller and smaller and smaller. And it’s just amazing how big our government is and how they treat us as outsiders.
We’re the citizens. We’re the ones that grant our power to the government, as the Constitution says. But we have gotten to the point where government is so big and so arrogant.
And the ruling class, especially the liberal elites really think the government should be the embodiment of their morality. That’s, again, the role of government that you were talking about. And it’s so important for us to come back to that basic question every time.
What is the role of government in their lives? Well, it’s certainly not to be an arrogant overseer, but that’s precisely what government has morphed into.
Henry: And I think going on that rant that you just went on there is so important on a day like today, Constitution Day. It’s so important on a day to recognize not just what the founding documents were and what it was about, but the philosophy by which it was meant to instill how we live in America.
And exactly what you just said. This inability to get information either out of D.C. or anywhere else. What’s most frustrating here also is that it seems like some of our politicians playoff that from time to time. They recognize the fact that it’s going to take months, if not years, to actually fully play out some of these stories.
Cunningham: Yes. They depend on it.
Henry: They depend on it. And by the time some of these stories come to fruition, we’ve all forgotten about it. Nobody really cares anymore. The gusto is gone. The real interest behind what the initial impetus for that story was, what do I care anymore?
My guy’s not even there now. But it goes back to what is the role of government in your life and how localized should we be? I’ve heard this phrase before. I’m a Nashvillian first, a Tennesseean second, and a United States citizen third.
And I think the concept there is the play in America was always meant to be that we have super federalism in itself which is a super small federal government, and the States rights are meant to make reign supreme.
Anything that’s not specifically given to the federal government by way, the numerator powers are meant to be left over for the states to control those powers. And we’ve lost sight of that entirely.
Cunningham: Lost sight is an understatement. A complete understatement. We have trampled on that concept completely and totally. And the states have given up their power in return for federal money. And we see this attempt by Tennessee to turn Medicaid into a block grant.
That’s a very small step at taking back some of the power that the federal government has taken from us. This is in terms of health care. TennCare has been a thorn in our side for decades. It was the main reason we had to push for the income tax.
The state income tax Don Sundquist, our governor back in 2000, said, threw his hands up and said I’m sorry, the budget is out of control. We simply don’t have enough money, and we got to have euphemistically they always say another revenue source. (Henry chuckles)
Henry: They always love their new revenue sources.
Cunningham: It would have changed Tennessee completely. And it’s just another indication of how much we really are just serving at the pleasure of the federal government now.
And why it is so important for that rally yesterday for legislators at the state level to say, heck, I want this power back. I don’t want you telling me, I don’t want you micromanaging me every day.
Henry: Well, that’s the idea, right? This concept, this notion that, you know best, what’s for someone else’s life is so pervasive now that it’s seeped into almost everything. There is a story coming out of The Washington Post that I just sort of went viral on Twitter last night.
Headline: Justice Thomas defends the Supreme Court’s independence and warns of destroying our institutions. That idea right there. Destroying our institutions is what I would speak about so much about losing faith in these institutions.
But Justice Thomas here was talking about defending the independence of the Supreme Court. And on Thursday, he said that he didn’t want us to destroy our institutions, and he didn’t want our institutions to basically give us what we want.
He said here, ‘That we’re not ruling based on personal preferences and suggested that the nation’s leaders should not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcome we like.’
And I think it hit me there in one swoop-in when I realized that the reason why there was so much backlash on Twitter is they just didn’t believe Justice Thomas. When Justice Thomas says, look, I’m not up here to rule on how I feel based upon my bias, I’m here to read the four corners of a document.
Most often when Justice Thomas is writing an opinion just like when Scalia did, his go-to default answer was, I’m not the guy to answer this question for you. This is not my role. It’s not my capacity to tell you how to live your life.
There are clear mechanisms by which you can do this through the Constitution. Convince your fellow man that you’re right or you’re wrong, change hearts and minds, established legislation, and cement it into stone.
My role up here is not to tell you as nine unelected individuals how to live your life, what ought to be and what ought not to be. That is a philosophical concept that I think the left just doesn’t understand and reads as bias. More than we get back from this break.
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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.
Live from Music Row, Wednesday 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 Cunningham welcomed 400-meter world champion and member of Team USA Cynthia Monteleone to the newsmaker line to describe her experience running against transgendered males and the media’s refusal to acknowledge the issue.
Cunningham: We do have a guest on the line this morning, Cynthia Monteleone. Cynthia, am I pronouncing that correctly?
Monteleone: That’s right on. That’s it.
Cunningham: All right. Well, great. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. We really do appreciate it. You have got a very interesting story about how you and it turns out your daughter has been put in competition against men, so-called transgendered men, and you both have had to run against them. Tell us a little bit about the history of that.
Monteleone: I am a 400-meter world champion masters track athlete. I run for Team USA.
Cunningham: Wow. That is a tough race.
Monteleone: It is right? At age 45, I’m actually running faster than I did in college and still faster than all the high school girls in the state of Hawaii. So that’s great.
Cunningham: Congrats.
Monteleone: Yeah. But it takes a lot of hard work and determination to get to that point, especially as we age. I’m constantly training, and my specialty is metabolic health. That’s my job. I’m a metabolic practitioner.
I tell people what to eat and what supplements to take for performance and things like that. There’s a lot we know that goes into a good performance.
Cunningham: Yes. Yes.
Monteleone: In my 2018 world Championship in Malaga, Spain, I was running the 200 as well as the 400. And in my 200 heats, I had twice because they run rounds, I ran against this individual who I had researched because a good athlete researches their competition.
And I had discovered that they were openly a transgender athlete, male to female. Very large bone structure, large muscle mass. And so I started to raise questions as to the fairness of this issue and nobody wanted to talk about it.
It was kind of swept under the rug. I was actually told that for my own safety, perhaps I should keep my mouth shut, which did not sit well with me at all. And so, as you can see, three years later, I’m still not keeping my mouth shut. (Chuckles)
Cunningham: That is so strange. You see that so often where women bring up this issue and they’re met with almost anger at the fact that they would even bring it up. It’s just a weird kind of dynamic going on.
Monteleone: It is really really strange. And I was told that I was just being a sore loser and that’s why I was speaking up. And I said to that person, well, I’m sorry you didn’t get the memo, but I didn’t lose, actually. (Chuckles)
Cunningham: Great way to put it.
Monteleone: I managed to squeeze out a win against this person by a few tenths of a second. But honestly, you could tell that they were possibly not properly trained. And six months later, with more training and at a shorter rate, over hurdles, this person about 6’3 I would say, over hurdles, this person took a spot on the podium, a metal where my Team USA teammate should have been.
Just because this individual didn’t beat me doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue because with proper training, comparably gifted and trained athletes, the male athlete will always win. And so fast forward a year and a half. My daughter lines up for her very first high school race, which was last year.
She was in grade with a biological male identifying as a female. So it’s happened now to a mother and a daughter. And the mainstream media will tell you, it’s not happening. It’s not a big deal. It’s not happening.
Cunningham: It is happening. And thank you for having the courage to step out because it does take courage because you’re met with so much really angry opposition these days. It’s just amazing. This is not a rational discussion.
Typically, people are angry and they think that you’ve violated some kind of universal code. And it’s a very strange dynamic, and many people simply won’t speak up.
Monteleone: That’s right. We live in a society of cancel culture. So people are worried about losing their jobs and athletes are worried about losing sponsors. I am proud to say that all of my sponsors, immediately when people come up to me, have one of my clothing sponsors that is Directional Force.
I had a meeting with the owner, and the first thing I said to him was, listen, I speak up for fairness in women’s sports. And if that’s going to be an issue, I’m not going to wear your clothes. And this individual was like, oh, no, he said, absolutely. Please do. We are behind you 100 percent.
So I am lucky that I choose sponsors, and they choose me because they support what I do and who I am and not something like a large company that would cancel an athlete for speaking up because come on, this is women’s rights. And I work with a coalition that even has Democrat feminist groups.
This is across the board. It’s not a partisan issue. I don’t know why the current administration is polarizing this issue and making it partisan because it’s a women’s rights issue. And that goes across both parties. My daughter and I had a great visit to the Senate and Congress last week. The Senate and the House.
Cunningham: Great.
Monteleone: We were able to meet with lawmakers and share our story. The Independent Women’s Forum hosted us and we met with all the different representatives. I mean, dozens. And I got to be the guest speaker for the Republican Study Committee luncheon, which was fantastic. And we were very warmly received.
We were told that they were going to keep fighting, keep fighting hard. And that one of the hang-ups was that even though they knew that their Democratic colleagues who were athletes themselves and have daughters and granddaughters that are athletes, that they personally feel the same way and that they are just strictly voting on party lines right now. And this is really an injustice.
And it doesn’t represent their constituents, because when you see the polling even Democrats agree that males should not be competing in the female category. So like I said, it really shouldn’t be a touchy issue. It shouldn’t be a sensitive issue. It should just be science.
Cunningham: Absolutely.
Monteleone: They follow the science, but they’re cherry-picking what they want to follow the science on.
Cunningham: And it is nice to hear that some of the feminist groups are taking up the cause. You would think this would be an absolutely natural issue for them to advocate for.
Monteleone: Yeah. There are several. Wolf is one of them. But, you know, they’re being silenced, just like we’re being silenced. The media will not report on this. We had one major publication decline our story, and then two days later come out and say, this is not happening. There are hardly any instances of this happening.
And when I talked to Congressman Steube from Florida, he said that their office gets several calls all the time. I can’t tell you exactly the number. But I would say in the hundreds of stories where these girls and these parents are reaching out and they’re saying, hey, my girl also had to race a biological male, blah, blah, blah or compete against. So he said, I confirmed that. You’re right. It is happening all the time and no one’s reporting on it.
Cunningham: And for me, that really is not an issue. The fact that it is happening at all is the issue. Whether the trend is up or down or whatever, the fact is, it shouldn’t be happening. And anyone with daughters that are out there training hard and trying to be good athletes, this has got to be an issue for them. Any parent, grandparent that’s involved with daughters and granddaughters.
Monteleone: Let’s talk about safe care for our girls. Not only for my daughter’s case, but it was also her first high school race. She trained really hard. She came in second. The person she raced was ahead of everyone by about 50 meters.
Cunnigham: You are kidding me? That much?
Monteleone: Yes. And my daughter had trained since she was 11. She was actually the one that got me inspired to run again at age 40 after 20 years of not running at all. (Chuckles) She’s been training for years for this high school debut race. And this individual she raced had only started trying track two weeks earlier and was not properly trained in the 400.
Cunningham: Cynthia, we really appreciate you joining us. We have got to run, unfortunately. Thank you so much for your courage and your bravery. Willing to step out. Where can people contact you or get more information?
Monteleone: Iwf.org. They have a petition they can sign and a video of our story.
Cunningham: Thank you so much. And we will follow that. And hopefully, you can come back on and report some progress
Monteleone: Instagram is Fastover40 in case anyone wants to follow me.
Cunningham: Thank you so much, Cindy, I appreciate you joining us this
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.
Photo “Cynthia Monteleone” by Cynthia Monteleone.
Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Cunningham welcomed Grassroots Engagement Director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee Grant Henry in studio to discuss the proficiency of the Tennessee legislature, getting involved, and grassroots training offered by AMF.
(Andrew Cuomo clip plays)
Cunningham: That was the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, trying to save his political career and life. Whether or not he will be able to is questionable at this point after the AG report came out yesterday. They didn’t charge him with anything. She’s leaving that up to the DAs.
I think there is one DA in Albany that is investigating, but the charges of sexual harassment or any criminal activity have not been brought yet. That was just a report which was pretty damning. And it’ll be really interesting to see how that plays out. He is trying to hold on.
I don’t know whether he will be able to at this point. There was some talk yesterday about impeachment proceedings. So real interesting, interesting political drama playing out there in New York and all among Democrats. (Chuckles) This is a Democrat state, and they will be hashing that out in the coming days.
It’ll be fascinating just as political bystanders to see what happens there. I think yesterday even the president said, yes, he ought to resign. So we’ll see what happens with that. We’ve got a little political drama playing out in Nashville.
Cameron Sexton, the speaker of the House, was on yesterday with us talking about the news conference that he and the governor and Jack Johnson and the commissioner of education had basically said to school systems, you guys got to get your act together and get kids back in school. There is a report that I guess it’s Speaker McNally.
Henry: That’s right.
Cunningham: In the Senate, it’s basically saying, hold on here. Let’s not rush into this. And that’s been fairly typical of the dynamic down at the legislature. Speaker McNally tends to be a little bit more of a slow walk on these kinds of issues and doesn’t join in sometimes.
But I think the governor is the one who calls a special session. So if he wants to call a special session, if these schools persist in masking up and staying remote. And the Democrats are really pushing back hard yesterday in Davidson County and Shelby County in saying we’re not going to go along with this, especially with the Delta variant.
So they were pushing back. It’s going to be really interesting to see how all that plays out at the legislature. The legislature is an interesting place. (Henry laughs) You’re down there a lot more than I am.
I used to be down there a lot, but I’m not. But you’ve got 132 people that you’ve got to kind of get going in one direction if you want to get something done. And, boy, it’s difficult to do sometimes.
Henry: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I will say out of the 132 people, I would say the overwhelming majority, if not every single one of them, that I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with wants nothing but the best for the state of Tennessee. And I say that sincerely Ben, honestly.
I’ve lived and done politics in several other states. Kentucky and Virginia. I’ve been around a little bit doing the political thing and I will say wholeheartedly those folks that have a true servant mentality in Tennessee are unlike any others. They really want the best for their constituents, for their state, and they want to lead the nation in liberty principles.
I truly do believe that. It is somewhat perplexing that these two men are not necessarily on the same page when it comes to how to approach this particular problem. But what do I know? I’m some random guy in radio and these guys are actually up there doing the job.
So I don’t know. We read the headlines and we see what they are. But like you said, I think ultimately it’s up to the governor as to whether or not to call a special session if need be. And we’ll see how that happens.
Cunningham: And they do react to the citizens and to the pressure of citizens. And you can call their office anytime. They’re not in session now. But if you feel strongly about this, you can call or go to the legislative website.
We do have a really good legislative website, and it’s fairly easy to find legislation to research. And you can go to the Tennessee legislature. Just go to Google and type in Tennessee legislature, and you’ll go right to it.
But they’ve got a good search where you can do searches on past legislation, on the code, on just about anything you want to. I think Tennessee legislative website has won several awards and they deserve it. It’s just a good, fairly easy-to-use website.
And their cold hard reality is not very many people ever interact with elected officials. That’s the cold hard reality. And if you do choose to interact with them, you’ll have an influence because you’ll be one of a very few people that ever do that.
Henry: Statistically speaking, that’s accurate as well. I said it yesterday, and it bears repeating today. The adage goes, we don’t have a democracy. We have a democracy of those that participate. Now, I get it. We have a constitutional republic. But you understand what I’m saying?
Cunningham: Absolutely.
Henry: Unfortunately, Tennessee has the second-lowest voter turnout of any state in the nation behind, I believe, Louisiana. Thank goodness for Louisiana. But it goes to your point statistically.
If you are involved, if you call your legislators, if you send them an email, if you go up there and meet with them personally, if you set meetings with them out of session, your voice is thereby amplified that much more than it would be in any other state because so few people are involved in the political process in this state.
Cunningham: And it is even more so at the local level. You go to most county commission meetings and you’ll see. Unless there’s some hot button issue like a dump area. Or a tax issue or something like that. Or zoning. Typically, there are very, very few people sitting there in the audience.
And, boy, I mean, it just makes a huge difference. If you go to these meetings, and you go up to the county commissioners afterward, you talk to them. You can have an extraordinary amount of influence.
And if you want to run for office, the county commission area, or the school board for $3,000 or $4,000, you can win some of these local races if you’re very strategic about choosing races.
Because people peel off of these bodies fairly regularly at the local level. I don’t know the statistics. I would guess, though, the turnover at these local bodies is more than it is at the state and the federal level.
Cunningham: And if you want to run for county commission, three or four grand and some shoe leather will get you elected – and going door to door.
Henry: (Chuckles) Shoe leather. Which is no small thing. I met with a guy, had done some politics out in California, and he was telling me in the county that they came from just a city council race alone, you’re talking six figures at a minimum.
A minimum of six figures to run for the city council race out there. So a couple of grand here, plus hitting the pavement, knocking some doors, I mean, hey, you can be a major influence in your area.
Cunningham: And speaking of grassroots, the young man is sitting across from me, Mr. Grant Henry with Americans for Prosperity is the grassroots director of Americans for Prosperity. It’s a statewide group that advocates and lobbies for free-market principles and have done some really great things in this state.
And you guys are always at the legislature every year. We want to talk more in this segment and the next segment about what you’re doing. But just kind of tell us, what are you working on and how you are looking forward to the legislative session that will be coming up in January of next year?
Henry: So we have two main things, I think, prior to getting to the legislative year next year. Two main things we’re focusing on right now, one of which we covered extensively yesterday, the – stop infrastructure spending, both the $1.2 trillion and oncoming $3.5 trillion infrastructure package.
We really want to do as much as we can to stop that. And again, big thanks to Senator Blackburn and Senator Hagerty for standing strong here. If you want to thank them personally: 202-410-2685. That number is a switchboard that takes you directly to them.
And just say, hey, look, I appreciate you guys for standing strong, and stand strong even more in this upcoming reconciliation bill. We’re really trying to get the word out. Tag those folks on social media too.
Let them know that you’re there and that you’re supporting them. They like to see that. And they do check that stuff. I promise you. And another thing that we’re setting up over the upcoming months here, Ben, is some grassroots training. And it’s exactly like it sounds.
We can tailor this training to what your specific group needs or we have a baseline, what we call Grassroots Leadership Academy training. There’s a couple of different things I’m trying to set up across Middle Tennessee, some of the southern parts, Middle Tennessee, maybe even up in Davidson County, if we can get enough people there.
But it kind of trains you to do what I do for a living. Figure out how to break down governmental barriers, figure out how to create a cause, figure out how to find organic social change entrepreneurs, and move that up to the legislature.
If you want to figure out how to do that in your area, here’s my personal cell phone number: 615-330-4569. Give me a call or just shoot me an email. It’s Ghenry@afphq.org. Trying to set up those grassroots training seminars.
Cunningham: It’s a great way to get people kind of over the hump.
Henry: It’s free of charge, too. No charge to ya’ll.
Cunningham: A little bit of nudging to get people to that comfort level. And that’s what AFP does such a great job on. They can do anything they want to once you train them. You’re not trying to corral them into something.
Henry: We just want them to take part in the process.
Cunningham: Yeah, absolutely.
Listen to the full first 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.
