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 marketing guru, Craig Huey of The Huey Report in studio to describe his recent trip to California where he witnessed the overwhelming homeless condition and vibes of oppression.
Leahy: In studio, our very good friend, a recent California refugee, a very successful businessman with a database marketing company, Mr. Craig Huey. Good morning, Craig.
Huey: Good morning, Michael. How are you?
Leahy: Craig, I have failed the test of being a good host in previous times here when the coffee that I’ve made for you and the container in which it’s been held have not been top-rated.
Huey: Well, that’s true. But, Michael, you have really achieved a great accomplishment, this coffee is great. What is this coffee?
Leahy: (Laughs) It’s called liberal tears.
Huey: Perfect.
Leahy: By Black Rifle Coffee. And you can get it at liberaltears.net.
Huey: That’s awesome.
Leahy: It’s important to me that when guests come in studio, they have a pleasant experience, and I’m a good host.
Huey: Or a little energy.
Leahy: A little energy. And so the coffee is good today. You like it? Drinking it as we speak. (Huey chuckles) So now, Craig, you’re always so much fun to talk with. I lived in California for a period of time, but I got smart earlier. (Laughter) I left 31 years ago.
Huey: Yes. Which was probably a good time.
Leahy: And you left, what, two years ago?
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: But you have a hugely successful database and marketing company here now, based in Nashville.
Huey: In Nashville. And no regrets.
Leahy: How could anybody regret living in state income tax-free Tennessee? But you do a lot of traveling.
Huey: Oh, yeah. And occasionally you give us the reports from your travels, particularly back to California.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: How bad is it getting there?
Huey: Worse.
Leahy: It’s even worse.
Huey: It’s even worse. (Leahy chuckles) You know, I am so astonished by instead of seeing improvements, I see declines. I got to tell you, I was traveling through Los Angeles just recently.
You’re talking about a week ago. I made a trip to Arizona and made a trip to California. And in that time, I was so beyond discouraged, really discouraged, because I love California.
Leahy: It’s beautiful. There is no more beautiful place in the world.
Huey: Or weather.
Leahy: Or weather than California. But they’re ruining it.
Huey: The politics have ruined the state of California. I had to leave California from a business perspective because of its anti-business policies. I left as a personal matter because of the crime, the homelessness, and the high taxes in a state that you cannot live in or retire in, you cannot build a business in anymore.
Leahy: And now there are people, the Silicon Valley oligarch billionaire types, they can live there. And the Hollywood types, who are worth over $10 million or so, can live there. But what did you experience in Los Angeles last week that was an indication of the further decline of California?
Huey: I was around an area called Griffith Park, and it’s a beautiful area, except the homeless control the Griffith Park area. The homeless are just encamping there with their tents, and it’s become like many cities with nobody doing anything about it. And then I watch the news.
I take a look at what’s going on in the local area and it’s one attack by a homeless person against somebody walking down the street, threatening somebody at a school or church, intimidated because these people are all around harassing the people trying to come into the church. It is a nightmare for people living there.
Leahy: It really is. For like an average, an everyday person who’s trying to basically just make a living and take care of their family.
Huey: Oh, it broke my heart as a business owner to see all these retail stores. I told my wife, I looked at my wife, Shelley, I said, Shelley, can you imagine walking to one of these retail stores with all these homeless camped out in front? It wouldn’t be safe for you.
Leahy: Not exactly what you call a pleasant shopping experience, is it?
Huey: No. Not at all.
Leahy: And then you come back to God’s country, Middle Tennessee beautiful and the people are nice and no state income tax. I don’t know if I mentioned that.
Huey: I talk about the fact that there’s oppression. There’s a feeling of oppression.
Leahy: Oh, yeah, in California. And there’s a feeling of freedom and liberty in Tennessee.
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 “Craig Huey” by Craig Huey. Background Photo “Franklin, Tennessee” by Brandon Jean.
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 Bob Woodson founder of The Woodson Center and 1776 Unites to the newsmakers line to discuss his new book, Red, White, and Black, and highlight a few of the chapters and their context.
Leahy: We are welcoming to our microphone right now our good friend Bob Woodson, civil rights pioneer and the editor and contributor to a great new book, Red, White and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionist and Race Hustlers. Welcome, Bob.
Woodson: I’m pleased to be here.
Leahy: Now I’ll tell you what. Talk about a family of intellectual thinkers. I’m delighted to find out about this book. It is published by Emancipation Press, a new imprint of Post Hill Press. Post Hill Press is based in Nashville and New York. And I’m guessing your editor there was the great Adam Bello.
Woodson: Adam Bello was one of them. Yes. David Bernstein, I work with him and Adam Bello. He and I go way back because when he was with the basic books, and then he published my first book. One of my first books was Triumphs of Joseph. He worked with me on that. Adam is a good friend.
Leahy: Adam is also a very good friend of mine. He published when he was at Harper Collins. He had the Broadside Books imprint. My first published book that wasn’t self-published, called Covenant of Liberty, about the Tea Party movement back in 2012.
And also the first book from Emancipation Press was by my good friend Bishop Aubrey Shines, Questions About Race that was published back in October. I have read the outline of this book.
You have a who’s who of great thinkers with great essays, including our own original all-star panelist, Carol Swain, who’s written a couple of essays here as well.
Woodson: Yeah. Carol is one of our stars. She did a great job on Fox last night, and as she does, she’s almost a regular there. So we are really proud of the group, an outstanding group that we brought together not only scholars but also the community activists because we really believe that one of the ways that we can help recruit people to re-embrace the principles of the founders is when we can demonstrate that following yet as the foundation really improves the quality of your life.
Self-determination, perseverance, you know, achieving against the odds. America is a country of second chances, redemption, and transformation. And so we try to celebrate the values of our founders by illustrating them in this book.
Leahy: John McWhorter has a great chapter. Slavery does not define the black American experience. Tell us about that chapter.
Woodson: What he’s really saying is that the radical left would have you believe that American Blacks are defined by oppression and slavery. That is not the total story. So what we do in this book and in this essay is that we counter this false narrative that somehow Black American’s history is defined strictly and limited to oppression.
Here, we celebrate the fact that when whites are at their worst, Blacks were at their best. When we were denied access to banks, we established our own. When we were denied access to hotels, we built our own.
We had our own education system. 5,000 schools were built by Booker T. Washington and the CEO of Sears. And so Julius Rosenwald. So we really provide evidence to refute the notion that Blacks are defined by oppression and slavery. So John McWhorter’s chapter supports that whole thesis.
Leahy: What I find interesting about the book is this is not all the writers are not Conservatives. For instance, Clarence Page, a well-known liberal reporter, and columnist has a chapter.
Children achieve the expectations we teach, turning a path to the more perfect Union begins with our guidance. Tell us about Clarence Page and how he came to be included as one of the authors you selected in this book client.
Woodson: Clarence Page has always been a long-time friend of mine. We never voted the same way, but he shared a passion for the virtues and principles of this nation and has always been projected in his writings.
And so Clarence was born in Middleton, Ohio, the same place that J.D. Vance. And they were trying to desegregate poverty as we are trying to de racialize race. Clarence did an important seminar interview with J.D. Vance and me in Cincinnati right up the road from Middleton to emphasize that the biggest barrier for people who are disadvantaged in America is not race.
You cannot generalize about race, but it is a lack of opportunity to progress. So Clarence and J.D. did this talk about the common ground between low-income and working-class white and lower-income and working-class Blacks that they have more in common than they do their racial differences.
And so Clarence has been a leader and standing up for that principle, that America is a country of redemption and transformation and a country of second chances.
Leahy: Charles Love has a great chapter. Critical Race Theory’s Destructive Impact on America. I see this all the time. Tell us about what Charles argues in that chapter.
Woodson: Well, critical race theory, we used to call that prejudice. We used to call it stereotyping. It’s just a fancy name for stereotyping. If stereotyping was bad and evil when it was applied to Blacks is bad and evil when applied to whites or anybody.
Nobody should be defined by the color of their skin. That tells you nothing. And yet that’s what critical race theory tries to make a case that whites are engaged in racism and therefore are engaged in white suppression of Blacks.
And so we really rip apart this whole notion and we go back to the King doctrine that we should be judged by the content of our character and not to color our skin. But this poisonous doctrine is bad for everybody.
It exempts Blacks from any personal responsibility. And nothing is more lethal when you have some doctrine that says to people there exempt from any personal responsibility because of their color.
And therefore the destiny of Black America is determined by what white America will concede. And that’s really sowing the seeds of self-contempt to say to people that somehow your destiny is determined by people who don’t like you. That’s poisonous to this nation.
It’s poisonous. These essays serve as given the foundation to attack that. We have developed so far, the 10 lessons that our curriculum has been made available free online. We’ve had 11,000 downloads in just a period of two weeks.
Leahy: Bob Woodson, that sounds like a great effort. And we keep us posted on how that goes. A Civil Rights icon. Great thinker. Great intellectual editor and contributor to Red, White, and Black, Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers. Bob, thanks so much for joining us. Come back again if you would please.
Woodson: Thank you for having me.
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 “Robert Woodson” by Gage Skidmore CC By-SA 3.0.
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 the creator of the Huey Report and direct mail expert, Craig Huey, in-studio to discuss what he saw in California on a recent trip citing limited amounts of liberty and freedom and an environment of fear.
Leahy: We welcome to our studios our good friend, a California refugee, a smart man who’s come to Nashville, Tennessee. Has a business in Nashville and lives in Williamson County now, Craig Huey. Good morning, Craig.
Huey: Michael, it’s great to be with you.
Leahy: Did we send you off on a reconnaissance mission back to your home state of California recently?
Huey: Yeah. I snuck back into California, and I got to tell you, it is pretty oppressive.
Leahy: It’s gotten worse in the years since you left.
Huey: Oh, my gosh. Over 12 months, I officially left in June. I bought a place out here back in March of last year. And so I’ve been back and forth. And the devastation is unbelievable. So back in California, I was there just when they started opening up the restaurants after 12 months.
Leahy: You went back to Los Angeles or Orange County.
Huey: The Los Angeles area in San Bernadino area. That area.
Leahy: Did they require that you show an ID before you got on the plane?
Huey: They did require it. How about that?
Leahy: Was it Delta or some other airline?
Huey: This one was Delta.
Leahy: So let me just be clear.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: Delta Airlines, which is a virtue-signaling opposition to the Georgia law election law that requires an ID to get an absentee ballot.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: The same people that cheered on Major League Baseball, moving the All-Star game from 50 percent Black Atlanta.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: To 10 percent Black Denver, where they have the same election laws.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: This company, Delta Airlines, would not allow you to get on the plane unless you show them your ID.
Huey: Michael, the hypocrisy is so clear and so damning. But you know what? The hypocrisy extends throughout California. You take a look here in Tennessee. I see a booming economy. I see people in restaurants. I see people in churches. I see people going about their lives. I see more and more people being free from the fear that has happened over the last 12 months. And in California, the fear is real.
Leahy: So let’s track your journey. So you show your ID.
Huey: Yes.
Leahy: You get on Delta Airlines. They don’t allow you to get on unless you show that ID.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: You wear your mask the whole time.
Huey: Oh, I have to.
Leahy: Got to wear the mask. You land in California, at LAX, probably.
Huey: LAX.
Leahy: Los Angeles International Airport. You get out. Describe what you see after you land.
Huey: I get out. And as soon as I walk through the airport, it’s so much different than the Nashville airport. You feel a feeling of fear and oppression just on the people themselves. In Nashville, I can kind of have the mask down and not have it fully on. In LA people will turn you in.
Leahy: They’ll turn you in? Where’s that? Were there people out there looking for Craig Huey to see if he wasn’t wearing that mask ready to turn you in?
Huey: There were people looking to see and make sure they had it over their noses. And so I get into the car and the car is taking me to my place there.
Leahy: Okay. You’ve got a driver.
Huey: I have a driver. Super nice guy. And let me tell you what this driver goes. I say, in Tennessee, I go to the market and we go to a store and people aren’t really wearing masks. People are at concerts. People are doing different things. But out here, they’re not. And he goes, I can’t believe that. He had no clue that people weren’t living in fear and in a lockdown-type society.
He had not been to a restaurant in 12 months. He doesn’t go outside his home without a mask. And even if he’s walking the street alone, even if he’s in the car alone, he’s got the mask on in fear. Because, first of all, Dr. Fauci told him and President Biden told him to do so. And second, he doesn’t want to have the neighbors turn him in.
Leahy: He doesn’t want to have the neighbors turn him in.
Huey: That’s right.
Leahy: Another good reason to leave California. Your neighbors are crazy.
Huey: Crazy. Well, I went down to the place called Manhattan Beach. Absolutely beautiful.
Leahy: It’s in Southern Los Angeles County, almost into Orange County, right on the beach.
Huey: That’s where I grew up. In that area. I was surfing in that ocean throughout junior high.
Leahy: And by the way, just for our listeners, Craig Huey is the ultimate California kid. Craig Huey was a surfer boy.
Huey: Love it.
Leahy: When the Beach Boys got started, you were part of that crowd.
Huey: I was part of that crowd. That was my music. So I go down to Manhattan Beach and I’m not wearing a mask. And somebody on what’s called the Strand which is a walkway along the beach comes up to me, says, you can’t do this. You don’t have a mask on. I said, what are you talking about? They’re going to give you a ticket.
They’re giving thousands of tickets to people who don’t have the mask on or properly. $500 tickets. They have an army of people out there making sure everybody’s regulated when they’re out in the fresh air when they’re maybe by themselves, and they may have nobody around them, they have to be obedient.
Leahy: And there’s no science that backs up any of that stuff. And by the way, so I looked at the latest COVID stats from free states like Texas. No masks. And Florida, no masks. You’re free to roam about the state. They have lower cases of COVID.
Huey: Yes. Lower cases, hospitalizations, and death.
Leahy: In those free states. Unlike California, New York, Michigan, all of the blue authoritarian control you’ve got to wear a mass state.
Huey: Yes. It’s the principle of freedom and personal responsibility versus collectivism statism where the government’s telling you what to do. And there’s not individual freedom being respected in a state like California or New York or Connecticut. But in Florida, in Texas, and here in Tennessee, we have liberty. We have choices to make. And our choices are something where you see it in unemployment. In Florida, the unemployment rate is around three percent. In California, it’s close to 10 percent.
In California, half the restaurants are closed forever. In Florida, I was down there with my wife in Florida at a conference, a full-on conference mind you, with people there in the conference. I was down there in Florida about a week ago, and the restaurants are expanding. They’re booming. They’re full. People are back. And that’s freedom and in action. That’s freedom working. And in California, it’s like, I don’t know if I can go to a restaurant. I’m afraid.
Leahy: It’s kind of crazy. By the way, this is new information for you, but it fits our theme here. So I was down in Tallahassee and about a week and a half ago and cooking up a little expansion of the Star News Network. As you know, I’m the majority owner of Star News Digital Media. We operate the Star News Network. We currently have six conservative, state-based news sites. The Tennessee Star, The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, The Ohio Star, The Michigan Star, and The Minnesota Sun. And on April 21 we are opening The Florida Capital Star. How about that?
Huey: Congratulations. That’s awesome.
Leahy: Then then wait for it. Wait for it. In May, we’re gonna open up The Texas Lone Star. Do you like that?
Huey: I love it.
Leahy: And what is our theme here? Our theme is liberty. Yes, we are featuring state, state-based pushback to federal usurpations. Right now ironically, Craig, if you look at our new sites, we get a lot of traffic from California.
Huey: I’m not surprised. Let me tell you, the exodus out of California is huge. Where I live, in my community, out in Williamson County I would say the neighbors are from California. I was at church. A car pulls up next to me and a family gets out. I look at the license plate. It’s like mine. (Leahy chuckles) It’s from California. They had just moved out just a couple of weeks ago. And we’re seeing Californians making a decision to leave family, friends, work, and places they were born to venture out in freedom and get away from the oppression of California.
Leahy: Famously, in 1876, a newspaper publisher and presidential candidate who did not succeed, Horus Greely famously said, Go West Young Man. I think now, go away from the West of California is the theme.
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.
