All-Star Panelist Crom Carmichael Returns from New Zealand with Viewpoints of America from Abroad

All-Star Panelist Crom Carmichael Returns from New Zealand with Viewpoints of America from Abroad

Live from Music Row, Monday 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 in studio to discuss his perspective on the United States after a recent trip to New Zealand.

Leahy: We are delighted to welcome back to our microphones for the first time in a couple of weeks, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael. Good morning, Crom.

Carmichael: Good morning, Michael.

Leahy: Well, you had an adventure.

Carmichael: We did. We went on a golf cruise to New Zealand. And I don’t know if the people here were paying any attention, and no particular reason to, but New Zealand was experiencing incredible floods.

Leahy: Let’s just stop. The idea of going on a golf cruise to New Zealand, which is a beautiful country, I am told is great.

Carmichael: And the golf courses are spectacular, but when they’re played in the rain and 30 miles hour winds, and then you’re on a ship with 20-foot waves, it’s not an experience that you want to repeat. That particular experience.

The staff and the organization could not have been better under incredibly difficult circumstances. Kathy and I ended up catching a bit of a cold. You may recognize that. I’m having to not project that loudly, otherwise, I’ll start coughing.

Leahy: You don’t sound bad.

Carmichael: Well, thank you.

Leahy: Those of our listeners who remember the Kermit the Frog voice that I had back in October, you are not even close to Kermit the Frog territory. You like that?

Carmichael: Okay. That’s good.

Leahy: This New Zealand cruise was memorable, I would say then the golf cruise was memorable.

Carmichael: Yes.

Leahy: Were you able to play much golf?

Carmichael: We played some golf.

Leahy: Some golf.

Carmichael: The combination of not feeling well and the weather made golf playing less likely than it would have been had I not been feeling poorly, also. Other people managed to golf and we were only completely rained out once. Completely rained out. But a lot of people played nine holes.

Leahy: Instead of 18.

Carmichael: During the bad weather. But I met a lot of nice people and a lot of people from Chicago and a lot of people from California.

Leahy: So they went to New Zealand on their way to Tennessee, is that right? (Laughter)

Carmichael: There are also a lot of people who now live in Florida, who used to live in New York.

Leahy: I saw a story that said there have been, like, a million new residents in Florida in the past four or five years, and only 17,000 of them have registered as Democrats.

Carmichael: Right.

Leahy: Did you see that? Crom, we are glad you are back. We missed you. And do we have a commentary this morning?

Carmichael: We kind of had a discussion. When you were out of the country, it’s not really a Crommentary per se.

Leahy: We are going to ease into this folks. This is not a commentary officially, that will come on Wednesday, but here’s Crom’s discussion on viewpoints of America from abroad.

Carmichael: When you’re out of the country, first of all, you’re on a boat. So the amount of news that you’re getting is somewhat limited. And then I would log in and I would go to some of my sources and kind of get the news from time to time. So not nearly as much reading as is typical. New Zealand is a very small country.

New Zealand only has four and a half million people. It has the North Island and the South Island and one of the islands, is built right on what is called a Ring of Fire. And so the South Island is very prone to earthquakes. The North Island is very prone to volcanoes.

And in fact, Auckland, a major city in New Zealand, is built on a series of volcanoes. It’s really kind of interesting. They live with the idea, and I guess it’s similar to California in the sense that you’ve got the San Andreas Fault, which could be catastrophic at any particular point in time, but people live there anyway, assuming it’s not going to happen during their lifetime. And the North Island had terrible volcanoes that were hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Leahy: The soon-to-be-former prime minister.

Carmichael: I think she’s already resigned…

Leahy: Is she out of the office now? I don’t know what her departure is but it can’t be soon enough.

Carmichael: But she announced her resignation, which was I don’t think it was a surprise to her party, but it wasn’t on the calendar. Let’s put it this way. It wasn’t re-election, but she just announced that she was out of gas and she kind of recounted all of the crises that have befallen New Zealand and the world since she became the prime minister, and it was a litany of issues that she has had to deal with. Then shortly after, she admits it, and says this and announces her resignation in the airport and goes foot underwater. (Leahy chuckles)

Leahy: Another crisis.

Carmichael: And they had the giant floods of Auckland. Now we started in Sydney, Australia. And Sydney is a very large city with probably five or six million. It’s an incredibly clean city. Incredibly clean. You see a real difference. The politics are much lower-key. The partisan nature. There’s not a bunch of yelling and screaming about racism and sexism and one thing or another. It’s just not present there. And then you come back here, you get an earful, then you see this balloon. And essentially the balloon was a spy balloon and it was collecting data as it floated across North America. And we didn’t shoot it down until it had collected all of its data.

Leahy: Until it had done all of its spying, as The Babylon Bee reported accurately.

Carmichael: Right. That’s not even being funny. It’s apparently what happened. And then you had the Biden excuse machine

Leahy: That’s a good phrase.

Carmichael: Parroted by the media. And you say, well, not much has changed since I’ve been gone for three weeks because that’s pretty much the way it was when I left. One thing that has happened that I did notice is that during the first 90 days of this year, the federal government is going to borrow $900 billion.

Leahy: B with a billion.

Carmichael: In 90 days.

Leahy: In 90 days.

Carmichael: So that implies north of $3 trillion is the deficit they are running on an annualized basis. I don’t think it will be that great.

Leahy: Pretty close.

Carmichael: But for Biden to claim he is reducing the deficit is a farce. But he can still say it and the media will repeat it. So nothing much has changed. But I did learn that the United States cannot default on its debt.

So people that say, if the Republicans don’t agree to an increase in the debt ceiling and the US is in default. That is false. It means it can’t pay for other things. But constitutionally, the debt of the United States shall not be questioned. That’s what it says.

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 Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Auckland, New Zealand” by Pedro Szekely. CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

Tennessee Star National Political Editor Neil McCabe Talks Build Back Better Bill and Nancy Pelosi’s Future

Tennessee Star National Political Editor Neil McCabe Talks Build Back Better Bill and Nancy Pelosi’s Future

 

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. – host Leahy welcomed The Tennessee Star’s National Political Editor Neil McCabe to the newsmaker line to discuss the status of the Build Back Better bill and the fate of Nancy Pelosi.

Leahy: On our newsmaker line by the best Washington correspondent in the country and the National Political Editor for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil. How are you?

McCabe: Phenomenal, Michael. Great to be with you.

Leahy: So the bill back broker bill, it passed November 21st in the House. It’s before the Senate. The Congressional Budget Office says, oh, it’s going to cost $3 trillion extra or some big huge number. Where does that stand in the Senate, Neil?

McCabe: Yeah, I think that bill is on the morphine drip right now, and I think they’re just going to have to tell the family that it died in its sleep. I just don’t see Mitch McConnell doing what he needs to do.

And they’re going to have to break it up into some of its more popular components. But this idea that you could just basically throw everything into the salad bowl, mix it up and pass it, it’s just not going to fly between now and Christmas.

Leahy: Another failure for the Biden maladministration. Of course, they’ve been slapped down in federal court. A half a dozen federal courts have slapped down their vaccine mandates. But the good news for the Democrats, Neil, Nancy Pelosi has announced she’s going to run for reelection in San Francisco in 2022. Your thoughts. She’ll be 82.

McCabe: Well, let me talk about Pelosi for a second. I do want to point out that we’re focusing that tremendous leverage on the debt series. Every Republican senator voted against raising the debt ceiling, like yesterday.

But a week ago, the Republicans voted to basically allow it to go through without the filibuster. So they basically created procedural things so that the Democrats didn’t need their vote. Like yesterday they go ahead and pass it so that it goes through but a complete charade.

Leahy: That sounds like a Mitch McConnell’s special, right. That’s how he does things.

McCabe: The only problem is that she can’t stand Steni Hoyer who is the number two House Democrat. She will not step aside to let Steni Hoyer take over. She doesn’t want Clybourn to take over who’s the number three.

And basically, there is no successor. She’s been unable to groom a successor. So basically she has to stay on because otherwise, the whole thing will fall apart. She’s the only one.

Leahy: Now, she will run if she runs in 2022, as she says she will and she’s elected in San Francisco, which is a given. She’ll be 82 years old.

But, Neil, the probability that the Democrats lose the House is very high as we speak right now. If the Democrats lose the House of Representatives, will Nancy Pelosi stay on as minority leader in the next Congress?

McCabe: (Inaudible talk)

Leahy: We lost Neil there. Crom, let’s talk about this. I like what he said.

Carmichael: How do they break it apart, though?

Leahy: I don’t know.

Carmichael: Neil made an interesting point. But if they break it apart, then they lose the ability to lie about it. When I say that, I mean that in the truest sense of the word because they’re using 10 years of revenue to pay for 24 months of spending.

So they’re going to spend all the money in two years and then raise the money over 10 years. So if they break it up, then that tactic or that strategy becomes completely apparent. They can’t lie about it.

Leahy: Well, they can.

Carmichael: Well, no. Then it takes us 10 years to raise them. The one thing they can pass, and this is one that Trump tried to pass, but Pelosi wouldn’t let him and that is that Medicare can negotiate with Big Pharma. And that one actually makes great sense. And if they were to just simply advance that as a bill I believe that that would get bipartisan support.

Leahy: Well, you mentioned Big Pharma. I got to go with this. One of the problems that we have in the country right now is inflation, right? It’s huge. The highest it’s been in 40 years or so. And depending on the measurement, it’s from seven percent. I’ve seen others say wholesale prices are up 10 percent.

Carmichael: And if you just do rent, food, and energy, it’s close to 20 percent.

Leahy: Yeah, it’s terrible. And it’s all at the feet of the Biden maladministration.

Carmichael: Yes.

Leahy: Because they’re spending like drunken sailors with apologies to drunken sailors because they’re more fiscally responsible than Joe Biden is. But listen to this. This was a statement made by Jen Psaki yesterday.

Our Fox News correspondent, Peter Ducey asked her, how do you explain inflation? And her answer was this, wait for it…let me give you an example of why prices are going up. Here’s one. Why are meat prices going up? Well, this is due to, wait for it…the greed of the big meat conglomerate. Big meat. Who knew?

Carmichael: Well, you had big meat and big oil. Big something else. Everything has to have big before it.

Leahy: This is the worst possible propagandize you can ever see. This is Orwellian because it is an utter rejection of our free market system that has led to economic efficiency and lower prices over two centuries of time.

But now they are trying to vilify companies that have been producing goods and services at a decent price. Prices are going up because Joe Biden and the Democrats are spending like drunken sailors.

Carmichael: Yes.

Leahy: That’s why prices are going up, giving money away.

Carmichael: You have a whole bunch more money chasing a static, essentially amount of goods.

Leahy: But the villain and the piece, the big meat. The greedy big meat conglomerate. Who knew?

Carmichael: Bread prices are up because of big buns.

Leahy: Big buns. (Laughter)

Carmichael: Big buns.

Leahy: Or, big bacon.

Carmichael: Big bacon. Big bacon. (Laughter) Big chicken.

Leahy: Is there a more accomplished liar in the country than Jen Psaki?

Carmichael: Well, let me say this. Jen Psaki enjoys calling on Peter Ducey because she enjoys the back and forth. She thinks she’s smarter than Peter.

Leahy: Well she thinks in that back and forth that she is better. She thinks.

Carmichael: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. She thinks she’s smarter than Peter Ducey so she wants to best Fox News.

Leahy: And so obviously, when he asks about inflation and she blames the greed of the big meat conglomerate in her mind, she thinks she won that exchange.

Carmichael: She thinks she won the exchange.

Leahy: I’m all in favor of big bacon personally.

Carmichael: Yeah, I like big bacon, but it’s going to be interesting, but I want to get back to this breaking things up. If he breaks up Big Pharma, if he brings that one out, that would pass in a heartbeat.

But then the question is, if you pass that, then there’s really nothing else in it. There’s really nothing else in it that makes any sense. And if you pass the big Pharma that Medicare can negotiate, that actually doesn’t cost anything. It’ll save money.

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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.