Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed creator of the Huey Report and direct mail expert, Craig Huey, in-studio to outline the specific techniques used by the Democrats that will aid in their quest to turn red states blue.
Leahy: In studio is our good friend California refugee Craig Huey. He’s the founder and CEO of Creative Direct Marketing Group. He saw the light moved them from Southern California here to Nashville. Lives in Williamson County. Welcome, Craig.
Huey: Hey, Michael. It’s great to be here with you. And it’s great to be in Tennessee.
Leahy: Isn’t it great to be in Tennessee?
Huey: Awesome. (Chuckles)
Leahy: Now you are an expert on California and California politics. You lived there your whole life.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: You were a surfer kid. You ran for Congress here in 2011, and you saw something about how the Democrats were organizing. Now, I always want you to come in here because one of the main themes of this program is we want to prevent the Californication of Tennessee because a lot of Californians are fleeing that blue state.
That high tax heavy regulation blue state and moving to Tennessee because we have no state income tax. It’s a good environment. And we were talking about this off-air. What is it that we can do to prevent the Californication of Tennessee?
Huey: Well, you know what? There is no stopping Californians from fleeing. But the good news is, like in our neighborhood, the majority of the people moving in, and what I’m talking about not just a dozen, I’m talking about close to 40 to 50 people already and more coming all the time.
They are California refugees like me. They can’t stand the politics that has taken place and they’re fleeing. They’ve given up hope on being able to change anything. And so they have left. They have businesses like mine. I was forced to leave California just for one thing, that I couldn’t do business by hiring independent contractors.
Leahy: We were talking about that.
Huey: Regulations.
Leahy: But they won’t let you have independent contractors, which is stupid.
Huey: Absolutely. It hurts the workers. It hurts the businesses. It hurts the economy. They have an eight-point-five percent unemployment rate. Plus, you add in those others who are on welfare forever. You talk about the tax is 16.5 percent is what they’re going up to.
Right now it’s a 13.5 percent income tax. And when they hear Tennessee has no income tax, it’s so attractive. The Tax Foundation just came out with a report. Tennessee is the lowest taxed state in the nation for your lifetime of paying tax.
Leahy: I love it! That’s why you are living in Tennessee. I’m living in Tennessee.
Huey: But there is a problem other than California.
Leahy: I asked you to talk about how we prevent the Californication of Tennessee. But there’s another state, and that represents a bit of an issue in Tennessee.
Huey: The Georgia-fication of Tennessee.
Leahy: Elaborate on that if you would.
Huey: That is what the Democrats are talking about. That’s what the National Democrats are putting in nationwide $35 million. to transform, not their blue states but to go after a state like Tennessee. And Tennessee is one of the targets because they believe they can bring a mobilization of voters in Tennessee like they did in Georgia.
Leahy: The mobilization in Georgia and I don’t want to get off point of this. A lot of it was helped by, in essence, cheating and changing election rules unlawfully.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: That is going to have less success in Tennessee. But the digital marketing efforts, the organizational efforts that they’ve used to basically turn Georgia purplish. Right. Tell us about that. And there’s actually a specific instance right now going on. And you told me about it. And I said, oh yeah that makes sense.
Huey: (Chuckles) So listen, here’s the thing. They have determined how to win an election even in a red state. They have determined how to be able to transform politics. They can take five to 10 percent higher voter turnout, which could flip a Republican seat nonetheless, protect the Democrats.
Leahy: If it’s like, typically 53 to 47 D, they can change.
Huey: They can change that.
Leahy: How do they do that?
Huey: So here’s how they do it. I got a letter from the head of the Democrats National Committee. He explained, exactly what he was going to do.
Leahy: I’m guessing you do what I do.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: I get on their email list.
Huey: Absolutely.
Leahy: And they think I’m one of them. And they send me all their emails. So you’ve got that.
Huey: I got that. Let me just read the real quick part. This is from them to their Democrats, the top Democrat donors. This agreement we reached as a game-changer. And it’s the easiest commitment we’ve made to state parties and grassroots ever to fight the Republicans.
Leahy: What agreement?
Huey: The agreement is that they would spend $32 million to hire high school and college organizers here in Tennessee and other states.
Leahy: In Tennessee.
Huey: Just in the Republican states like Tennessee. They feel they can switch. So there are about 10 Republican states they’re dividing this money up with.
Leahy: And so they’re hiring high school and College organizers.
Huey: And they’re targeting churches and the black community.
Leahy: Churches, churches, churches.
Huey: They have organizers. Paid staff organizers. Here’s what they’re going to do. Number one, register to vote. Number two, do a digital campaign of petitions and polls to identify what issues. If issues of education, then somebody concerned about retirement and inflation.
What is it? And they do a profile of these people. And then from that, they go to that door and find out how to develop a relationship with them. It’s supported by a digital campaign. So if somebody’s really concerned about education, they’re going to get digital ads on Facebook and Google that are all about how bad the Republicans are about education and how good the Democrats are.
Then they’re going to take that data and have people knocking on the door. And they’re going to be saying, you’re for good education. So is our candidate. We got to stop this abuse of the kids. Can I count on you for support? And they say either they’re persuadable or in agreement.
And if they’re not, they won’t get any more contact. And if they are, can I give you a babysitter to get you to the poll? Can I give you a voter guide? They’re putting money into a voter guide that tells them how to vote from the school board all the way up to the top of the ticket.
And so it’s a complete mobilization and organization, of paid staff. The Republicans act like it was 30 years ago. They don’t understand these techniques. The Democrats think they can wipe out marginal districts in red states.
And that’s what they plan to do. If you remember Michael in California in 2018 and then this last election, there was all this, wait a minute. I won on election day.
Leahy: But what happened!
Huey: And a week later…
Leahy: I lost!
Huey: But that’s not just voter fraud. And some of the areas where that change took place. It’s because they got in the vote by mail ballots. And they did an amazing job.
Leahy: The vote by mail is the key. The Zuckerberg money went there. And, of course, it is a lot easier to commit fraud with vote by mail.
Huey: Totally.
Leahy: And we’ve documented it. In Georgia, they did that. The fraud took place because we’ve done stories at The Georgia Star News. 600,000 of the vote by mail ballots were deposited in drop boxes. 700,000 went by regular mail.
The ones in dropboxes six months later still, the Secretary of State down there has not yet produced a chain of custody documents for 333,000 of them.
Huey: It’s corrupt. It’s wrong. And it happens. And that’s why voter integrity is so important. And part of this money is going to lawsuits in Tennessee. You are going to see lawsuits to weaken the voter laws.
Leahy: That’s what they did in Georgia. That’s exactly the plan. The Secretary of State caved there. The Republican Raffensberger caved and basically, they let the Democrats set the rules illegally. But with the approval of the Secretary of State under rulemaking authority that they usurped the legislative authority down there.
Now, what’s interesting about this and I’m going to tell you, the plan is diabolically evil and effective. And the reason I know that is because it’s like they’re working hand in hand with the teachers’ unions and with the left-wing administrators of school districts. Because, as you know, they’re all pushing critical race theory.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: And so the kids are going to be overwhelmed with this I hate America idea. And then the Democrats come in and they go and they hire some of these kids who are being taught I hate America. And so they’re going out and they’re promoting well, we have to fix that.
And so we’re going to go with a Fix America because I hate the America program. And it’s easy for them to recruit people and talk to them. But they’re paying high school kids to do this.
Huey: They are paying high school kids and college kids and College kids that’s exactly what they did in California. It was the training ground. And so much of what goes on in California spread nationwide and they’re just exporting that.
Leahy: And it’s in the churches here too. One of the difficulties that you have is if you’re a Christian who believes in Orthodox Christianity, it is increasingly difficult to find a church in Tennessee that is not imbued with left-wing social justice warriors at the minister level. And it’s a consequence, I think, of decades of this kind of activism among Democrats recruiting church leaders.
Huey: It’s a great divide in the church community. It’s a great divide in America. And people have to stand up. They can’t go to a church that is teaching racism and bigotry.
Leahy: And the problem is finding a church right now like that. And there are some.
Huey: There are some.
Leahy: But it’s a diminishing number because the Democrats are very aggressively promoting social justice and equity and all those critical race theory-type things at schools and in churches.
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 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 authors of Uprising, Diamond and Silk to the newsmaker line to weigh in on what’s going on in D.C., their new show on Newsmax, and social media site Chatdit.com
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmakers line by Diamond and Silk! Good morning, Diamond and Silk. How are you doing?
Diamond: Wonderful. We hope you are doing well.
Leahy: Well, the last time we met was about a year and a half ago in Washington, D.C. A lot has happened since then. Give our listeners an update on what Diamond and Silk have been doing lately.
Diamond: Well, what we’ve been doing is calling out the obvious. When we look at everything that’s happening in our country when we look at what’s happening in D.C. You have the military in D.C. You have somebody that says, hey, the President, but we look at him as the resident.
Leahy: That’s a good line.
Diamond: We’re checking all of this out and we’re calling out the obvious. That’s what we’ve been doing. And what we’ve also been doing is telling people to drop the party affiliation and stopped picking a side and get on the same side. Because right now, our freedoms are being dismantled.
Silk: That’s right.
Diamond: Piece by piece and bit by bit and we’re tired of it.
Silk: And when you look at the parties, they’re both the same thing. One dirty bird with two corrupt wings. And with the way that our Republicans, even though they fought for our freedom, during slavery, and they are supposed to be the party of freedoms, they handed our freedoms over to the left, Liberal, white Liberals.
Leahy: Your phrases are really good. One dirty bird with two corrupt wings. I like that one, too. That’s very good.
Diamond: Well, we figured it out after this election. I’ve never seen anything like this here. And I know people don’t want you to talk about the election of 2020, but let me tell you something. There would never be another free and fair election if they don’t straighten out what happened in 2020 because constitutional laws were broken.
Silk: That’s right.
Diamond: We are a Republic government by constitutional law, and there’s no other law that supersedes that. So when you see people breaking the law, when you see the highest court in the land ain’t standing up for the law, where do we go? Where do we turn? What’s happening? We’re not a Banana Republic. We’re the United States of America, and we want to remain that.
Leahy: I’m told and I think this is true that Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook doesn’t like you guys very much.
Diamond: Oh, no, he sure doesn’t. Let me tell you something. They censor us so much it’s pathetic.
Silk: But if you look at it, a lot of them, the one thing that scares a lot of these Liberals is the fact that you have Black women or Black people who are awakening from the Democrat stupor. So they don’t like that regardless.
Leahy: About Facebook, it’s hard for me to keep track of when you’re officially on Facebook when they censor you. What’s your current status? Are you on Facebook today, or are you in the censor mode with them?
Diamond: Okay, we’re on Facebook, but we’re in the censor mode. We have over two million fans and followers. But if we come on live, they’re only going to let a few people be able to see it.
Silk: Right. They are purging our page.
Diamond: Sometimes people can’t like our page. They can’t follow our page, they can’t see our content, they can’t see our videos. These are the games that they play. They do it to a bunch of Conservatives. They do it when you start questioning their motives. They do it when you start questioning things like the vaccine. They want to say you’re a conspiracy theorist. But there ain’t nothing conspiratorial about want to those facts before you tell me to stick something in my arm.
Leahy: Let’s follow up with that on Facebook because we’ve had our own experiences with them. And the question is, you don’t know why. So you’re up on Facebook, but they won’t let all the people that like your page see what you do. When you talk to Facebook, what do they say to you?
Diamond: It’s the same old, same old. We’ll check it out, we’ll get back to you. All you can do is document this stuff because one day I just believe that the chains and fences are going to open up and somebody is going to be able to sue Facebook.
Silk: That’s right. But keep in mind that you can still stay connected to Diamond and Silk on our own social media platform Chatdit.com. What we’re not going to do is just sit back and cry like babies. What we’re going to do is join them if we can’t beat them and that’s what we did.
Leahy: Okay, so give me that detail on your own social media platform. Spell it out again.
Diamond: C-H-A-T-D-I-T.com.
Leahy: I am going there right now, and there you are on Chatdit.com. When did you open up Chatdit? When did you open it up?
Diamond: Actually, it was a year ago, April 26, and it appeared to be the same day that we were on the Hill back in 2018 April 26th. So we utilized that particular day as our day of getting started. So it was April 26, 2020, that we started Chatdit and opened IT up to the world, and we are growing leaps and bounds.
Leahy: How many people are using Chatdit now?
Silk: We have close to over 200,000 and we’re doing it independently. You know, we’re not trying to be like Facebook. We’re trying to be better than Facebook. We want to be honest with everybody, and we want people to come there. You sign up at your own will. And then one thing we do not do, we do not censor you. If there is something on there that you do not like then you can block yourself and seeing that person. This is how we operate.
Diamond: And whenever we put out a live video if we want the public to see it. We like to put it over there because you can’t talk about certain things on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter anymore.
Silk: That’s right.
Diamond: So we put it over there so people can see the full context of the video.
Silk: And the video is on our home page where you can see it without having to log in because we want you to see our content. We want you to see what Diamond and Silk have to say.
Diamond: Right.
Leahy: So what’s the home page again?
Diamond: Chatdit.com.
Leahy: When you say the homepage it’s Chatdit.com. Are you two doing live appearances and speeches, or are you just online these days?
Diamond: Okay, so we are doing live. We were on tour when this pandemic hit. And now that we’re still in the midst of this pandemic, we stopped touring because we didn’t think it was fair to make our people wear masks and have to follow all of these Draconian measures just to come to a show. We do have our new show on Newsmax called Diamond and Silk Crystal Clear that comes on Saturdays at 8:30 pm Eastern at a time. That keeps us busy.
We have a weekly podcast that comes out. You could find it on where you find your podcast. That way you get your podcast that’s weekly and that keeps us busy. And we do have a best-selling book called And you can get the book at D&SStore.com and a signed autographed copy.
Listen to the full first hour:
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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 “Diamond and Silk” by The Alex Jones Channel CC 3.0.
Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to question whether or the continued killing of Christian Africans was considered racist or a hate crime by the Biden administration and the lingering issues surrounding the Senate filibuster.
Leahy: Crom we were talking a little bit in the earlier segment about viewpoints of the world that are held by Biden administration members now that are just not reconcilable with views that most of us in America hold today.
Carmichael: That part is accurate. But more importantly, the way that they view it, it’s unfixable. You can’t address it. All you can do is complain about it and then see anyone who disagrees with you as an opposition that needs to be crushed.
Leahy: Well, if they want it to be unfixable because that means they can crush the opposition.
Carmichael: Yes. Correct.
Leahy: Thank you. (Laughter)
Carmichael: It’s an echo in here.
Leahy: Do I get an Amen? Amen, brother. Amen. (Chuckles)
Carmichael: But here is something that’s an interesting story. This is in The Wall Street Journal headline, Islamic State (this is ISIS) Seeks Revival in Christian Countries. Now, this is in Africa. So a question that should be asked of our new ambassador to Africa Linda Thomas-Greenfield is if a black Muslim kills a Black Christian, is that racist?
Leahy: Or a hate crime?
Carmichael: Or a hate crime? In fact, is it even wrong? That would be a question asked because so far the genocide that is now going on in Africa has been unaddressed by the Biden administration. And ISIS is resurrecting itself in countries in Africa that are dominated by Christians. In the Congo, it’s 95 percent, Christian.
The Congo is almost exclusively Black, but it’s also almost exclusively Christian. And the jihadists are going in killing men, women, and children just because of their religion. Now does the Biden administration think that’s wrong? Does either of the Muslim members of Congress think that Black Muslims killing black Christians is wrong? We don’t know. They don’t say anything about it.
Leahy: Certainly the mainstream media has not reported much at all.
Carmichael: It doesn’t even talk about it. So that’s an interesting thing. So let’s switch over, though, Michael, because as I was getting out of my car, you were talking about court-packing and you made a comment that I want to push back on just a little bit.
Leahy: What Crom? Pushing back on a comment from me?
Carmichael: You said that Mitch McConnell is not good at playing offense, but he’s very good at playing defense.
Leahy: That’s what I said.
Carmichael: Yes. And the difficulty is this, Mitch McConnell is a traditionalist and I’m not saying that’s necessarily wrong. I’m just saying that that’s a fact. So Mitch McConnell believes that to filibuster is a tool that the minority should be able to use in the Senate to thwart legislation that they don’t agree with.
Leahy: It’s been a rule of the Senate since 1806 and that major legislation can’t come to the floor unless basically, 60 senators agree.
Carmichael: Right. So if Schumer, if there are 48 Democrats, I’m just picking a number that is less than 50, it can be 45. It doesn’t matter if Schumer can keep his minority already grouped together, but have it be greater than the number of 40, then they can filibuster. And now they’ve changed the rules of the filibuster so that you don’t actually have to filibuster.
You just have to say we don’t agree with that, and we’re going to filibuster and so, therefore, if you just say it, then the filibuster is in place. McConnell believes that that tradition is good for the Senate. I’m not saying otherwise. When Harry Reid broke that tradition for judges, Mitch McConnell said, if you do that, you’ll rule the day that you did it, because when we get in charge, we will use that rule, which is a simple majority.
And Mitch McConnell, as a traditionalist, says, if you’re changing the rule, I’ll play by the new rule. But what Mitch McConnell has not done, and I’m not trying to find fault with this I’m just making a statement of fact, but like all majority leaders before him for over 200 years have honored the filibuster. And so things can’t get through the Senate unless there are 60 senators. So he can’t play offense because he abides by the Senate rules.
Schumer wants to break the Senate rules which would allow him to play offense and defense. But if he breaks the rule on the filibuster, here’s what Schumer’s great risk is. If they break the filibuster, which I think they have the ability to do with a 50/50 vote and Kamala Harris breaks the tie, Mitch McConnell has said, if you do that, we will not show up. You will not have a quorum.
Leahy: Has he said that?
Carmichael: Yes. He has said that.
Leahy: He must have listened to this program when you said that previously.
Carmichael: Well, I’m not going to try to take credit for that.
Leahy: I’ll let you take it.
Carmichael: Thank you.
Leahy: I will give you credit for it.
Carmichael: I will humbly not take credit for it. (Leahy laughs) But anyway, he said I might have just actually been quoting him, to be honest with you.
Leahy: No, he was listening. (Laughter)
Carmichael: So anyway, he said he said, if you do that, you have to have a quorum. You will not have a quorum. Business in the Senate will grind to an absolute halt. Nothing will happen. If McConnell was to do that after the filibuster is broken and McConnell actually does that and nothing happens, now if Republicans were to retake the House, the Senate, and the presidency, McConnell would play by the new rules. And if they had a majority in the Senate, then things would happen. So the Democrats take a huge risk at 50/50. Now, if they had a 51/49 majority right now they could get away with anything that they wanted to because 51 would be a quorum.
Leahy: Let me give you my view, an insight into how they think. They want power. And they look at the world today. What they have today. And they try to accomplish everything they possibly can today. They’re not looking long-term. They are looking for let’s get it done now. That’s a difference. And it’s a very ruthless approach.
Carmichael: It is.
Leahy: A very destructive approach.
Carmichael: Yes, it’s all those things. But if they do away with the filibuster, and then McConnell plays defense by eliminating the quorum, and nothing happens in the Senate, then the voters will probably react in the midterm.
Leahy: I think you’re right about that.
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.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Tennessee State Representative (R), Chris Todd of Jackson, to the studio to discuss court-packing, keepnine.org, and attention to national issues that affect constituents.
Leahy: In studio with us, our good friend, State Representative Chris Todd. Chris, you’re ready for the big question?
Todd: I guess so. Been waiting on it. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: Here it comes. The big questions. The progressive Democrats in the House in the United States Senate are going crazy. They want to pack the court. They want to add four left-wing lunatic justices to the Supreme Court and make it 13 instead of nine. And my question to you is, do you think in this current session of the Tennessee General Assembly, there would be a possibility that the General Assembly in the House and the state Senate would pass a resolution strongly opposing any efforts to pack the United States Supreme Court?
Todd: I believe it’s a significant possibility. Yes.
Leahy: Terrific. That’s very good news. I think Tennessee could lead the way on this. I don’t know if other states have looked at this in terms of opposing this resolution. Have you heard of this group called Keep Nine?
Todd: No.
Leahy: There’s a group called Keep Nine and they actually have another element to this. They are asking state legislatures to pass resolutions to support a constitutional amendment that would limit the number of justices to nine.
Todd: I think that’s a good idea as well. It’ll be a challenge to get that through. But just because of all the concerns of an Article Five that we talked about a while ago.
Leahy: Well, this wouldn’t be necessarily Article Five the resolution to ask Congress to pass that amendment and then to go to the states for ratification.
Todd: But I think the chances of Congress doing that are almost as slim as them putting limits on themselves right now.
Leahy: Now, you raise an interesting point. Let me just throw this out there. This is real time now. You just proposed a bill that would support an Article Five Amendment for the specific purpose of just looking at term limits. Would such a bill that specifically looked at an amendment to limit the Supreme Court to nine justices? Would that be a possibility?
Todd: I would say it’s a possibility. And I don’t know how strong that group is and how well funded they are, but it takes a significant effort to get the public informed and it costs money to get the public informed. You would need lobbyists in order to go to each one of these legislatures and work that kind of a bill to find a sponsor and then to get the support for it just like we’ve done with term limits. I had quite a few folks helping me on this from U.S. term limits specifically and then some local groups. So I think it’s very possible and that’s just going to take an effort. And if the people really want it, they need to put their money where their mouth is and support these groups.
Leahy: I’ll send you the link. There is a group called the Keep Nine Amendment and they are basically the local representative, actually here from Tennessee, former Attorney General Paul Summer. And he is working with this group. And they are submitting a series of resolutions that would establish an amendment to the Constitution to keep nine in the Supreme Court.
Todd: I think that’s very worthwhile.
Leahy: Keepnine.org. There’s a guy in Washington, D.C., Roman Bueller has been putting this together. You talk about lobbyists. He calls me like every two weeks. He says, Mike, Mike, are you ready to help us? I said, as you said, I think it’s a great idea. I just don’t have the time for it. I think maybe now I’m going to have the time to help. What do you think?
Todd: It’s all a matter of priorities. When we see the threat to our way of life, to the point that it motivates us, that’s when it will happen.
Leahy: Exactly. It’s keepnine org. Take a look at it. Because you just you don’t have enough to do, right?
Todd: Oh, no. I’m looking for something.
Leahy: You’re looking for some other challenges right now?
Todd: Absolutely.
Leahy: When you go back and you talk to your fellow members of the Tennessee General Assembly most of the time, the conversation is about the bills, right?
Todd: Probably so.
Leahy: You are all narrowly focused on getting your bills. But when something like this happens, when there’s a national effort by the Progressives to pack the Supreme Court you kind of have a reaction to that, don’t you?
Todd: It gets bumped up in priority, just like with our citizens. When something reaches that level that says, okay, this is contradictory to what we’ve always done. This is a threat to what I do day in and day out, the way I raise my kids, the way my family operates, the way our country operates. Then I’m going to be motivated to do something either, to donate money, to make phone calls, to write emails, whatever it might be.
Leahy: You talk about getting things done, right. And you have to understand the committee process. We’ve talked about that quite a bit. You also have to have relationships with people, right?
Todd: Critical.
Leahy: Very, very important. And are there different styles that people decide to follow when they go to the state General Assembly?
Todd: Oh, absolutely. I think most people come with their own style, just from their nature at that stage of their life. Will it change? I think somewhat. You probably change a little bit from the people that you’re around, but your basics are still the same. Your tendencies are still the same. If you’re an honest person, you’re going to stay honest. If you’re not, you’re probably going to get worse.
Leahy: I was under the impression that every single member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and the Tennessee state Senate honest as the day is long. (Chuckles)
Todd: That is a primary assumption that you should make.
Leahy: That’s my assumption.
Todd: Let them prove you different.
Leahy: But occasionally human nature being what it is people reveal themselves as perhaps not totally being people of their word.
Todd: Sometimes. That doesn’t happen all that often. But most of the time, the differences are about how you accomplish something. I find that we have the same goal. Let’s say that is to make sure that our children are brought up in a great education and are provided a good education so that they can enter the workforce and be successful.
How to get there is where we might differ on. Does that mean how we choose textbooks? Does that mean how we fund the schools? Does that mean all of these things? Do we bus them? You get all the fine details of how do we get to that end goal? But most of the time we have the same goal in mind, but it’s the method of getting there that is where we differ.
Leahy: So we’ve got about three more weeks left I think the Tennessee General Assembly.
Todd: Probably.
Leahy: So then the legislative side of this job ends. What happens to a state legislature later after you’re in session? Is your job over? Or do you still have lots of stuff to do, but different kinds of stuff?
Todd: It’s just lots of stuff to do, but different kinds of stuff. Last year was quite different with COVID. Most everything was canceled. Meetings were canceled, events were canceled, but I think this year will be back to fairly 80 percent normal, which is many days of the week you’re required to be somewhere with at least a jacket on and make an appearance, make a speech or meet with a group and hear their concerns about legislation for next year or just dealing with phone calls and emails from constituents that have an unemployment issue or they can’t get broadband even though the company ran it in front of their house and had the grant to do so. A state grant that didn’t hook them up. There are just all kinds of things that we deal with. I have a person in my office that’s full-time to answer those questions.
Leahy: Back in Jackson?
Todd: Here in Nashville. A legislative assistant, but I still field a lot of that, and we bounce things off of each other about what the right path is.
Leahy: So do you have, like, just one staff member?
Todd: Yes.
Leahy: Just one. in Congress. They have what, 25 staff members?
Todd: Nobody knows.
Leahy: They have quite a few up there.
Todd: And here, back in the district.
Leahy: But it’s pretty much you.
Todd: Pretty much.
Leahy: When you say that you’ve got to go, like, you have to go and make it, you don’t really have to go to thee events.
Todd: Correct.
Leahy: People will introduce you and say, Hey, come on in.
Todd: It’s expected and it’s good manners. It’s expected.
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 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 National Correspondent Neil McCabe to the newsmakers line to discuss where the irresponsible Democratic spending stands on both infrastructure and tax bills and the upcoming red wave of 2022.
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by our Washington Correspondent for the Star News Network, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Michael, very good to be with you, sir.
Leahy: Is there anything in the Democratic dictionary when you go look up infrastructure, is there anything that’s not included in that definition?
McCabe: Yes. Highways, roads, and bridges. (Laughter)
Carmichael: Now that’s funny.
Leahy: That is very good.
Carmichael: Very quick. (Laughter)
Leahy: You just made our day here, Neil. (Laughs) So, Neil, let me ask you this.
McCabe: This is why you bring me on board here. I’m good at my job. This is my function. I deliver the mail.
Leahy: So where is that boondoggle? How many trillion dollars is this infrastructure bill that’s basically a bunch of Democratic slush fund monies for liberal groups. Where does that stand now?
McCabe: I think it’s in really big trouble right now because three big reasons. Number one, the Republican moderates, especially those 10 moderate senators who are going to the White House and meeting with the President they have now come forward and say we’re sick of being used. The president uses us as props, and we were embarrassed and we’ve had no input. And we’re tired of being props. And that took two months.
So that didn’t take long for these guys to figure that out. The second problem is that they’re running out of runway on their calendar. Remember, the Biden administration went with the soft opening. They haven’t had a joint address to Congress yet. Now comes word that Nancy Pelosi the Speaker has invited Biden to speak to a joint session of Congress on April 28. We talked a while ago when I said the earliest it was going to be like this week.
So I wasn’t that far off. The problem is after July 4 nothing gets done until people get back from Labor Day. And then you’ve got the budget crisis because it’s the end of the fiscal year. They don’t have the runway to get done what they needed to do. And one of your clues about that is that at the press conference, Biden said that he was going to put forward his gun legislation after he got infrastructure done because he wanted to do everything at the right time.
And he wanted to schedule everything. He said that the part of presidential leadership is doing everything step by step. And then they panicked and then released their gun agenda and infrastructure isn’t in the bank yet. The third thing that’s going to really hurt that infrastructure bill is the fact that people in Washington are now very much aware that there is severe inflation on the horizon. We’re seeing it in home prices.
We’re seeing it in commodity prices. We’re seeing it in gas prices. There is price inflation. A lot of this rise in the stock market is not attributed to increases in productivity, innovation or future earnings it’s just sheer inflation. And one of the problems that you’re going to run into is that the more you spend like crazy, you’re going to continue to feed that inflation with that big COVID bill that they pushed through.
There was an argument that Trump’s government spending was responsible for that inflation. When Biden pushed through that COVID bill and then now talking about this infrastructure bill and his other spending bill, he is going to own the inflation that is going to come from all of this spending.
Carmichael: Neil, add to that their proposed tax bill, which essentially when you get to the fundamental understanding of the way the Democrats are thinking is they want to spend trillions of dollars from Washington, and they want to suck trillions of dollars from the private sector. So they’re essentially becoming for lack of a better term a kind of a fascist of government where Washington is in league with certain industries in the private sector. And I think the tax bill is also in tremendous trouble. And it should be. What do you think about that?
McCabe: What’s going to kill the tax bill is that everyone knows that there’s a red wave coming. Everyone knows that the polls severely undercounted or underrepresented the strength of Trump, especially with the irregular voters. And they’re sort of the unlikely voters who all showed up. So people are very scared of what Trump is going to be able to do.
Leahy: You mean Biden.
McCabe: I mean, Trump is going to be able to deliver.
Leahy: In the 2022 midterm. Thanks.
McCabe: Everyone everyone knows that Trump is out there. He’s not being treated like an ex-President. Believe me, I’m old enough to remember. Nobody was afraid of ex-President Jimmy Carter. No one was afraid of ex-President George H.W. Bush. Nobody was impeaching George H.W. Bush because they were afraid he was going to run again. Okay, that was clear very quickly. He was never running again. But Trump is active and he is there.
And the Democrats know they have one shot at smash and grab. The problem is if they do a smash and grab tax bill, the thing they have to fix is the limit on the deductibility of property taxes in these states, especially in the Northeast, where the property in California, where the property taxes are so high and that’s capped, I think the cap is what $10,000 from the 2017 tax bill? And that is really hurting the Democratic machines in New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts and Connecticut.
And people, can’t deduct their property taxes anymore. So what you have is what was happening before is the rest of the country was subsidizing the high taxes in the Northeast and these blue states, and they’re desperate to fix that. No Democrat in Colorado or Arizona or New Mexico or Missouri is going to defend cutting the taxes of rich people in New York.
Leahy: Last question for you, Neil from Crom.
Carmichael: I think Neil hit it right on the head on that because that’s called the salt. The state and local taxes. And they’re only about six states that get pounded by state and local taxes. But that’s because the Democrats in those states tax their citizens at such high rates, and especially the rich. And so I’m with you.
They’re not going to be the Democrat senators from the states with relatively low taxes. If they do vote to repeal taxes, give billionaires in high tax states tax breaks then they’ll be facing a rough midterm. Do you know how the Republicans are doing in recruiting candidates for the House and Senate?
McCabe: This is going to be a great recruiting year for Senate races and House races for the Republicans going into these midterms. And remember that with Trump, he wasn’t personally popular, but his policies were. Biden is personally popular, but his program and agenda are not. And if the Republicans focus on the agenda, they will crush the Democrats.
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.
