Michael, we are living in almost a giant Saturday Night Live skit. You have crime across the country going through the roof. You have over a hundred thousand people, mostly young people under age 40 who are dying from fentanyl poisoning and you have homelessness that is going crazy.
You have just a degradation of social and societal values and you have a financial mess at the federal level in that the deficits are ridiculously high, and the regulations are forcing businesses and institutions to waste money complying with regulations.
And then you have the banks, which now we see a report over the weekend that up to 200 banks have similar problems to SVB and are at risk of a similar fate. You have JP Morgan and 10 other banks essentially extending a low-interest line of credit to First Republican.
You have Janet Yellen ridiculously saying, this is, I’m quoting here. “Administration officials maintained that the move to say First Republic was done at the initiative of the private sector.” But multiple outlets reported that Janet Yellen leaned on Jamie Diamond to get the deal done. I believe the second comment is more accurate than the first.
I don’t think a bunch of CEOs from 11 of the biggest banks all called each other and got on a conference call and said, hey, let’s all pony up a total of $30 billion. I think they were strong-armed to do it. And that in itself is telling. But you have all of that and you have many problems.
You have the tremendous stories out there now about the level of corruption between all these entities in China giving money to various Biden family interests, and then you have an indictment from New York over an issue that is seven years old. And it has to do with some hush money that Donald Trump paid to Stormy Daniels, as if that’s news.
It’s not news.
And then you have from The Epoch Times they’re now investigating gifts that were given by foreign dignitaries to Trump claiming that he didn’t properly register the foreign gifts when they came in. As I say, it’s like a Saturday Night Live skit.
You have Jonathan Turley who has said that the biggest initial hurdle that Alvin Bragg is gonna have to overcome is the statute of limitations on the use of a particular section of the code that that they’re trying to leverage to indict Trump. But the code says that there’s a statute of limitations of two years, but then if you can tie that particular offense to some federal offense, then it extends to five years.
The problem is that the document in question is more than six years old. And that doesn’t even matter when you think of what it really means is there’s zero question in my mind, zero question in my mind that the people in Washington signed off on Alvin Braggs, if he indicts Trump that this is a political prosecution that was approved by the powers in Washington.
And you have this expression, what goes around comes around. I’ve had discussions with people about what if Republicans get power. What if they treat Democrats the same way? And most of my response was, oh, that would not be good. That would not be good.
And then I asked him, I said how do you stop a bully from being a bully? Well, you punch ’em in the face.
And if they recognize it, that every time they’re a bully, they’re gonna get punched in the face. They’ll quit being a bully. I said, okay. I agree with that. And so now the question is if Republicans do regain power, and that’s an open question, and Republicans believe that the way the Democrats, the two-tiered system of justice that we have is akin to a bully on the playground. The question is how should Republicans respond. Historically, how Republicans have responded has not yielded a change in the direction of the country.
And that’s the great question here. No matter who is president, if Republicans are president we don’t go in the wrong direction at as a rapid speed as when Democrats are in power, but we still go in the wrong direction. We have an opportunity here to see what bullies do and we’ll see how we react.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this Crommentary:
Michaelm this commentary is not about any particular thing that’s happened. When you look at all the things that are happening that are inspired by leftist thinking and then you see what the results are, you begin to recognize that the way the Left thinks and the way they want to organize the world is through pure force.
And even when things don’t work exactly the way that they expected, or in fact worked out to be exactly the opposite of what they say, they continue with the idea of force.
There was a testimony yesterday; I don’t know the name of the female professor from one of the universities in California, and she was testifying before a Senate committee over Roe v. Wade.
It became clear that she thinks that a man can identify as a woman and if you don’t then call that person a woman, just by the fact that they identify or vice versa, that somehow you are encouraging them to commit suicide.
She wouldn’t answer Senator John Cornyn’s question about whether or not a baby the day before birth has value. It took her two full seconds to answer the question, does a baby that has been born alive have value?
She had to really think hard about how to answer that question. And so you see that the Left’s value of life is determined by their view and their view alone. Now, you also see now evidence around the world where ESG, especially on renewable energy, is destroying entire countries and rendering some populations to possible famine.
Tucker Carlson last night talked about Ghana and what they’re doing in the Netherlands, and talked about Sri Lanka. These are countries in the case of Ghana and Sri Lanka, they used to be able to produce 100 percent of their own food.
In the case of Ghana, they exported food to their neighboring countries. Now they are experiencing it, without a great deal of international help they’ll have massive famine.
But yet the Left continues to think that ESG and renewable energy is the key to world order. This is fascinating. In St. Paul, the voters up there, last November, 53 percent of the voters voted for rent control in St. Paul for all rental property and put a cap of 3 percent a year. Since then, the number of permits for multifamily housing has dropped 82 percent – has dropped 82 percent since the voters voted for that. In Minneapolis, which voted in rent control, but left the rent control up to the city council, which hasn’t acted, the multifamily permits are up 68 percent, right across the river.
Now, you would think that the Left or that a rational person would recognize that this was a bad policy, because the Left in St. Paul says we need affordable housing, so therefore we need to control rents.
Well, if you try to control rents, especially in an inflationary environment, you’ll end up with no new construction or virtually none. And so that’s what they’re doing.
Then you see how the justice department can’t bring itself to do the job that it’s supposed to do, yet it somehow has the time and the money and the resources to launch an investigation into the PGA as a potential antitrust violation, and side with the Saudis.
Which is just amazing to me, but not surprising. Then we learned that Biden, in the bill that did pass, it had a giant provision in there for the Biden administration to bail out unions where their pensions are not adequately funded.
Now, they’re not adequately funded because they’ve been mismanaged. So what does Biden do? He takes all the people who are not members of a union and requires them to pay for the bad decisions and bad judgment and probably corrupt judgment by the people who run the unions.
Then you have New York State, where the Supreme Court ruled that their gun law is not constitutional. So they just passed another law in New York State that is equally unconstitutional. But they’ve essentially stuck their finger in the eye of the way that we conduct ourselves.
And then the last one that I have that’s just funny is Joe Biden and the whole Biden administration’s view on minorities. They think that black people, as Biden once famously said, if you don’t know how you’re going to vote, you ain’t black.
Meaning that that’s what he thinks, that black people are just too stupid to decide what’s best for themselves. And then you have Jill Biden, who goes down to San Antonio, and according to Hispanic newspapers, the way that she characterized Hispanics was she said, the Hispanic journalist said, we’re not tacos, don’t call us tacos.
And she couldn’t even pronounce the words properly. She called a bogada, which is a bodega, which is a convenience store in New York. It’s a bodega. She called it a bogada. And so she’s reading off of a teleprompter.
And the Hispanic community, by the way, is picking up on all this, as is the black community. And I think what you’re going to see in the midterms is how the Democrats are just making a complete hash of themselves, but what they are showing is that they truly are a party of billionaires and white elitists. And that’s what drives and motivates them.
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 U.S. (R-TN-07), Rep. Mark Green, to the newsmaker line to discuss Biden’s no show at annual Army-Navy football game, the destruction of tornadoes in Tennessee, and the Democrats quest for authoritarianism.
Leahy: On the newsmaker line, our good friend, Representative Mark Green, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, served in combat in Iraq and decorated. H also left the army, was a major, I think when he left the army. Welcome to The Tennessee Star Report, Congressman Green.
Green: Hey! Thanks for having me on.
Leahy: Did you watch the Army-Navy game? Who won that game? Oh, that would be Navy. 17 to 13. What was your reaction to that?
Green:(Chuckles) Well, I think the Navy wanted it more. I think the Army went in a little too confident. They had a great season so far. And, of course, we had a few of our better players on injured reserve, but we just didn’t look like we wanted it. And Navy did.
Leahy: What’s it like being a cadet going to the Army-Navy game?
Green: Oh, it’s pretty amazing. Of course, you’ve got always in the background the life of being a cadet. So it’s sort of like you’re out of prison for four hours or five hours for the weekend. And you’re there in Philadelphia most of the time. In all my years at West Point, except for one when we went out to Anaheim. But, yeah, it’s a great game. A great American tradition.
Leahy: Well, I noticed that the current President, Joe Biden, broke with tradition. Former President Donald Trump went to every single Army-Navy game.
Joe Biden didn’t go. I don’t know. I mean, if I were a cadet or a Midshipman, I don’t think I would be very pleased with that. What’s your reaction to Biden’s not showing up?
Green: I really don’t know. I didn’t give it much thought. The only thing when I think about Joe Biden, I think about the destruction to the country. I don’t think about whether he goes to the football game or not. But it is a little bit of a slap in the face I suppose.
Leahy: One of your colleagues, Lee Zeldin from New York. I’ll just throw this out there. Said the reason the White House staff didn’t want him to go there was because they were afraid the crowd would break out in chance of Let’s Go Brandon!
Green: I don’t doubt that there’s a reason why Kamala Harris doesn’t go to the border, even though she’s the border czar. It’s because the cameras go there and they see things they don’t want to see. So in that case, they would hear things they don’t want to hear.
Leahy: Well, parts of your district had very, very I think it was parts of your district were affected by these tornadoes late Friday night, early Saturday morning. What’s the status? What can you report on that?
Green: Well, obviously, just like the floods in Waverley, just like the floods in Hardin County. I mean, Tennessee and rally to each other. People are all over the district helping those who’ve lost property damage and things like that.
Our district fared better than David Kustoff’s district. The tornado actually started out there in West Tennessee. The big tornado that ripped through Kentucky. And of course, the images from Kentucky are just grieving everyone.
Leahy: I want to follow up on another question. I call this Build Back Broker bill. What’s the status of that bill?
Green: So it looks like the Senate is going to hold it. I mean, so far Manchin has done what he said he was going to do and pushed back. Now, both he and Kyrsten Sinema have said that they aren’t supportive of the bill.
And I think after Virginia, both of those folks saw what happened there and realized this kind of woke craziness that’s going on and I would even say Marxist stuff that’s going on in the far-left Democrat Party are not going to be a part of it. And they know it’s not very good for their political lifespan.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael has a question for you, Mark.
Carmichael: Congressman, on the Build Back Better, his bill. Whatever you want to call it. I’m of the opinion that there are at least a half dozen other Senate Democrats that do not want it to come to the floor for a vote, but they don’t want to be vocal against the bill.
They just want it to die and never come to the floor. And among those would be Mark Kelly, Hassan in New Hampshire and the Senator from Nevada, and then also Tester who’s not up for reelection this time but still does not want to have to vote for that bill. Your comment on that?
Green: Well, I can only share what our senators say with me or say to me. And Marsha has made it very clear that there are five to six over there who definitely will not vote for it if it comes to the floor. And so that kind of confirms your suspicion. But yeah, Marsha has said that there’s more than just Manchin incentive.
Leahy: Congressman Green, I have a question on a breaking story to see if you can give us some insight into this. So the January 6th ‘select committee’ that is looking into the breach of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, subpoenaed Steve Bannon. He said he wouldn’t comply with the subpoena due to executive privilege.
The committee wanted to hold him in contempt. The House voted yes to hold him in contempt. And now the Justice Department is prosecuting him. Just yesterday, apparently, or Friday, the committee then also said they want to hold former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also a former congressman in contempt.
That’s going to the House for a vote. Do you think that House vote will have the same result as the recommendation to hold Bannon in contempt, or will it be different because he’s Mark Meadows?
Green: It’s very interesting. Mark Meadows was a member of the Freedom Caucus. He was a very conservative member of Congress, and Democrats liked him. It’s very interesting. He would always get extra courtesy when debated in committee beyond what others would get.
And I think it’s because he just was a very nice person and worked very diligently for compromise at times. And so I think there’ll be some Democrats who do not vote to hold Meadows in contempt. Now we’ll see. Pelosi is the master at whipping her caucus. So we’ll see.
Carmichael: Is that literally or figuratively?
Leahy: She’s got the whip. Boom! (Laughter)
Carmichael: I just want to be clear, because it could be either. (Laughs)
Leahy: When will that vote come up?
Green: That’s a hard question. So we may be voting Tuesday or Wednesday this week and that’s on passage of some budget-related stuff. But if we go for that, they’ll put the Meadows thing on. If not, it’s going to be the first week of January.
Leahy: You had a piece at the Washington Examiner. I think recently talking about the triangle of tyranny. I thought that was quite profound.
In the minute and a half we have, describe the triangle of tyranny and what reaction people have had to that piece that you wrote.
Green: Basically, if you look at the Os Guinness Freedom Triangle or Golden Triangle, where freedom is the objective to get there, you have to have a virtuous society. To get a virtuous society. You have to have a fixed moral right.
And to get faith or a fixed moral right, you have to have freedom. So there’s this circular. And I wondered, what is it that’s driving the Democrats? Not all Democrats, but at least these Marxists.
And instead of freedom, they want authoritarianism with themselves in control, dictating to everybody else. And in order to get everyone to want authoritarianism, you have to have chaos.
So when there are riots in the streets, people will even accept martial law when there are riots. So to get authoritarianism, you have to have chaos. And to get chaos, you have to have moral relativity. And you can see moral relativity and the best example, of course, is their views on abortion.
And of course, once you get moral relativity and morality is relative, the authoritarians can tell you what’s right and wrong. They can tell you what they want to say and what you can say. So that is my vision of what the leftists and the Democrats want.
Leahy: What’s been the reaction to people who have thought about that?
Green: People really go, wow, that’s pretty deep thinking.
Leahy: Something profound from a member of Congress. It rarely happens. Congratulations on getting something profound out there.
Green: I’m a reader. I love to read and to think about these kinds of things.
Leahy: We’re out of time. But thanks so much. We got so much more to talk about. Come in studio sometime, if you would please. We’ll have a full hour. All right?
Green: I will. Absolutely.
Leahy: Congressman Mark Green, always interesting to talk to you.
Carmichael: It sure is. It sure is.
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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.
Leahy: We are joined in studio by the original all-star panelist and my good friend for more than 30 years. We met when we were teenagers, (Laughter) Crom Carmichael, the original all-star panelist. Good morning, Crom.
Carmichael: Michael. Good morning, sir.
Leahy: It is a beautiful fall day. We were talking earlier at 5:45 with Mayor Glenn Jacobs, who’s got a big fall festival going on next Tuesday in Knox County.
I would go up there if it were on a weekend just to see him and see all that kind of fun that they’re having up there. I’m looking forward to the football season. I’m looking forward to some of the games like UT playing Alabama this week. And that should be a lot of fun.
Carmichael: We hope it is. (Chuckles)
Leahy: It’ll be better than it’s been recently. It’s time now, ladies and gentlemen, people wait for this every day. It is time now for Crom’s Commentary. Crom, what do you have for us this morning?
Carmichael: Michael, we tried to talk with Neil about the $3.5 trillion deal.
Leahy: Neil McCabe, the best Washington correspondent in the country.
Carmichael: Yes, I think that thing has been deep-sixed. I don’t think there’s a chance that that will pass. But here’s what’s interesting.
Manchin is apparently sticking to his $1.5 trillion, but he’s also saying which entitlement programs will not be included. And it’s virtually all of them.
He’s willing to spend money on some very specific things. But none of it is these long-term entitlements that the Democrats are using trickery to get the amount down. Here’s how the trickery works.
Let’s say that you have a program that you want to spend $500 billion a year. Let’s say you want to spend $100 billion a year to make the math simpler. What you’re supposed to do is you’re supposed to take that $100 billion and multiply it times ten because you’re supposed to provide the amount of spending over a 10 year period.
So that would be a trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money. You’re supposed to be able to fund that. The Democrats have a bunch of those types of things in their package. And the total of all of those things if you went the full 10 years is actually closer to $6 trillion.
So the Democrats have already said, well, we’re only going to run those programs for five years. And then what’s going to happen? Well, then they’ll go away. Everybody knows they won’t go away.
And so what the Democrats are doing is they’re trying to get people hooked on the heroin of government programs. And then at the end of five years, then they’ll have to renew them. Well, Manchin will not have any part of that on the other side of the Senate.
Or when I say the other side, I don’t mean really the other side, but Kyrsten Sinema has said that she will not support increases in marginal tax rates on personal income, corporate income, or capital gains. Well, enter Ron Wyden.
Now, this is an interesting article. Ron Wyden is now calling for a capital gains tax on unearned capital gains for people over a certain wealth. Now let me say this. As you and I have discussed, the multi-billionaire class is heavily Democrat.
This tax right here hits the multi-billionaires right where they live. And he has a special tax on the first one because his argument is that people like Zuckerberg and Bezos have been building these unrealized capital gains for many years.
So there will be a special one-time tax on those guys. And to me, this is going to show that the Democrats and especially Bernie Sanders don’t really really want to tax the billionaires as he likes to say.
What he really wants to do is he wants to tax the people making a million dollars. I think that what’s going on in Washington right now is a Kabuki dance that may end up in a colossal mess come December.
Leahy: As always, Crom’s Commentary, on point and very insightful. I think that’s a very interesting point. I think you’re right. I think you’re going to see Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to tax the billionaires. He wants to tax the self-made millionaires.
Listen to the 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.
Live from Music Row Tuesday 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 official guest host and Grassroots Engagement Director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee Grant Henry in studio to discuss the Democrat’s multi-trillion-dollar spending package and how they have connected moral values to products.
Leahy: Joined in studio by the official guest host of The Tennessee Star Report, Grant Henry. Ben Cunningham has passed the baton to Grant. I think the reason is that he doesn’t like getting up at 3:30 am in the morning.
Why would anybody not like doing that? (Henry chuckles) And you are prepared to get up at 3:30 a.m. in the morning.
Henry: That’s God’s time, man. (Leahy laughs) That’s when the real work gets done. I’m telling you.
Leahy: Grant, we were talking during the break, and there may be some fraying going on among the Democrats in Washington, D.C. Tell us about that.
Henry: Yes. Look, I think y’all the pressure is working. The pressure you’re putting on these Democrats, especially in DC, it’s working specifically as it pertains to this boondoggle of a $3.5 trillion spending package.
We already heard that Democrat Senator Joe Manchin last Sunday said he will not support the three $5 trillion package in its current form. Now, Kyrsten Sinema has also come out, and Politico is reporting that she apparently told Joe Biden, they had a private meeting on Wednesday that “If the House delays it scheduled September 27 vote on this spending ing bill or if it fails, she will also not be backing the reconciliation bill.”
Not just her, Michael. Representative Kurt Straighter over in the House, one of approximately ten moderate House Democrat members is playing hardball with leadership over there. He said that several members of their group are on the same page about this.
Some of the lawmakers have convened and say that the message is that it’s up to chain leadership to convince them that they need to keep these two bills together. And saying, if they delay the vote or if it goes down, then I think you can kiss reconciliation goodbye.
Leahy: I’m glad you said that because I thought you were about to say, kiss something else. (Laughter)
Henry: Maybe that’s what some people are feeling. But if this doesn’t make sense to some of y’all, the reason why this whole idea of keeping them together and keeping it up together. What they mean by that is Nancy Pelosi is taking a big gamble in the House.
She’s trying to satisfy the progressives in the House by saying look. If you pass both of these things together, the one $2 trillion in big air quotes here infrastructure package, at the same time as the three $3.5 trillion boondoggle bill, then the progressives will be satisfied.
The moderates in the House are saying, look, I’m not for this nonsensical three $5 trillion spending. The parliamentarian in Senate just said that you can’t include amnesty on the Senate side. So you’re pushing stuff in there that has nothing to do with spending.
Leahy: And from Breitbart News, I’ll read the story. The Senate parliamentarian ruling Sunday effectively kills any chance of illegal alien amnesty through 2024. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s rule that the Democrats plan to slip a massive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens into a bill does not comply with the Byrd rule.
That’s a former majority leader, Robert Byrd, regarding budgetary reconciliation. Democrats hope they could use their $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill to pass an amnesty.
MacDonough said Democrat lawmakers could not use reconciliation, which primarily relates to spending changes to the budget. To make sure such a drastic policy change as granting amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Henry: Here’s the calculation as far as Politico sees it. They think it’s a progressive think that if they band together and threatened to kill this infrastructure bill, the $1.2 trillion, it will convince moderate members to go along with the larger reconciliation package.
But multiple sources, including a senior Democrat aid and several in the decenters camp are telling Politico that the left is misreading their colleagues. If Nancy Pelosi gambles here it is to keep these two ridiculous things together, $4.7 trillion worth of spending to keep them together to satisfy the progressives, the moderates are saying we’ll kill all of it.
We’re not going to risk our reputation of $4.7 trillion worth of nonsense spending that will hit the people least able to afford it. So here’s how I think we win as Republicans. visit. stopthespendingspree.com. Sign that letter.
I think if we continually push this message that $4.7 trillion is wasted spending with historic tax increases that would lower worker wages and crush small businesses. Massive energy taxes and California-style mandates will add hundreds of dollars to your energy bills and it’ll put the government in more control over your health care.
Michael, this bill has nearly half a trillion dollars in healthcare spending. That’s one and a half times more than it was in the entirety of Obamacare.
These types of messages will force Nancy Pelosi to make a distinction between the two bills, possibly separate them, or have moderates kill the entirety of all of them. It’s encouraging for me. I think we keep the pressure on.
Leahy: Grant, we need encouragement. And I’m glad you’re encouraged because if you’re encouraged, I’m encouraged. And our listening audience, which really needs encouragement, is encouraged as well.
Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee was also encouraged. He tweeted this out yesterday. He said the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Democrats’ mass amnesty plan cannot be included in a budget bill.
Their tax and spend spree remains dangerous for our economy. But on immigration, Democrats will now focus hopefully on the massive border crisis they’ve created and ignored. I think hopefully was the active word there Grant.
Henry: Yes. The immigration situation is something that needs a full-on look. Republicans continue to believe that immigration is still good, but our system is broken especially in times of unprecedented economic challenge.
Republicans, we stand behind the idea that we welcome immigrants who are motivated to improve their lives and contribute to society that will enrich American lives.
Many immigrants or entrepreneurs who start businesses create jobs, generate demand for other goods and services, which in turn requires businesses to hire more people. It works out better for all of us!
However, Democrats in this administration need to acknowledge that Americans are feeling unsafe about their health and are feeling anxious about their economic future, and may feel threatened because of that.
They also need to acknowledge that there is an unprecedented crisis going on at the border and we simply cannot afford to kick this issue along extreme party lines anymore.
We’re dealing with real situations here that have real effects on real lives. This is no longer theoretical, Michael. We need to build a better immigration system for the long term.
We also need to focus on fixing the broken system immediately. I feel like what Democrats are doing is trying to cram something in an alleged spending bill that does not do service to what we really need to focus on here in this country.
Leahy: Democrats also want to do this, I’d be delighted to hear your reaction to this. They plan a $12,500 tax credit for pricey electric car purchases. This is at The Tennessee Star. Tennesseestar.com. House Republicans are arguing against a Democratic proposal to increase the $7,500 taxpayer-funded credit for electric car purchases to as much as $12,500, arguing that it would disproportionately help wealthy Americans who can afford to buy pricey electric vehicles.
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have proposed increasing the credit as part of their party’s filibuster-proof $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill which includes new social programs and billions for electric vehicle infrastructure. Your thoughts Grant.
Henry: Go some research on the amount of energy it takes to create one of those cars versus the amount of energy that you’re saving out of it. What kind of metals do you need to get those batteries? What is going on?
Leahy: I think it’s Lithium.
Henry: What’s the human cost involved?
Leahy: That’s pretty darn high from what I can tell. It’s interesting because when you look at what the Democrats on the left have done is they have attached moral values to products.
So an electric car is a moral good. A car powered by gasoline is a moral, bad. That’s the simplicity of it. But the reality of it is if you look at the power and the impact on the environment, to me, I think that the evidence is that electric vehicles have a more destructive impact on the environment.
If you go all the way back to the key factor, which is lithium batteries, the mining of lithium is extraordinarily destructive from what I’ve read.
Henry: No, exactly. There’s a human toll involved as well. There’s child labor, possibly in some of the situations going on to mine some of this stuff out.
Leahy: It comes from third-world countries.
Henry: And I think you hit it on the head when you add a moral component to pushing some of this in the guise of, I don’t know, doing something to say, save the world or carbon tax credits or a Green New Deal or anything that you’re really trying to push through an ulterior motive, you get a problem because you’re pushing something you don’t fully understand.
You’re pushing something to win in PR points but not understanding what the policy might actually be doing to our country.
If we really want to have a conversation about energy, I don’t know why nuclear is not brought up every single time. But no one ever brings that up anymore. I don’t know. Maybe for reasons I don’t fully understand.
Leahy: Nuclear is interesting because it was for a period of time, morally bad. Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas in the China Syndrome movie, morally bad. But now they don’t know what to do because it doesn’t have bad emissions on it.
But, you know, way back when, 40 years ago, the left and Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas and Jack Lemon all said it was bad. Personally, I think the idea of Adam Smith’s idea of the marketplace working, that is a way to go.
We’re moving more towards the government working and telling everybody what’s a good product, what’s a bad product. I say it’s none of their business.
Listen to the 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.
