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 original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
There are actually two issues that fit together in this Crommentary. One is a headline in The Wall Street Journal this morning that says “Biden Goes After Gig Workers.” There are 20 million. A gig worker is somebody who’s an independent contractor.
They might be an Uber driver or a Lyft driver. They might be a programmer. But they want to have the freedom to work when they want to. And they work typically by the hour, or as a Lyft driver, for a fee that they charge.
But they get to choose their own hours and they get to have flexibility. Well, Biden wants to force 20 million gig workers to become employees by definition. This is against their choice.
Many of these gig workers, by the way, are female. My body, my choice? Not when it comes to your employment, thank you very much. But there are 20 million. And the courts have already ruled and defined what a full-time employee, what the definition is.
So I’m not quite sure what Biden expects to accomplish from this, because there’ll be some lawsuits and then his initiative will fail. But it shows you that Biden wants to use the government to force – force employees, no choice – force employees, men and women, into unions.
A related story – and there are two of them from The Epoch Times headline: “Pfizer Executive Concedes COVID-19 Vaccine Was Not Tested on Preventing Transmission Before Release.” So what the heck was the whole purpose of it if it wasn’t for that?
But there are many healthcare workers and military people, women, especially in health care, but also in the military, who did not want to take the vaccine because they were young and healthy.
My body, my choice. Once again, what did Biden do? He said I’m going to force you to put something in your body that you don’t want. And now we know that the whole purpose of the vaccine, if it was to help prevent transmission, which is what they said it would do, was a lie.
It had not been proven. In fact, it’s now proven that it didn’t do that. Then the next one is also from The Epoch Times. “CDC Won’t Release Review of Post-Vaccine Heart Inflammation.” We now know from other studies from other countries that young men between the ages 18 and 29 in particular, who’ve had the vaccine, have many, many times greater likelihood of getting a serious, serious heart issue, including death.
And the CDC apparently finally has the information and it must be so bad in the U.S. that they won’t release it. But once again, my body, my choice. And so what you get with the Democrats is that they’re all in favor of pro-choice on one issue.
They want women to have the ability or the right to have an abortion all the way up to the day of or including the day of delivery. And by the way, that issue is not resonating the way the Democrats wanted it to because it’s a state-by-state issue now to determine what the limitations are.
But the whole my body my choice when it comes to working, when it comes to where you’re going to send your kids to school or whether or not you are forced to take the vaccine, women have no choice in the world of the Democratic Party.
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 “Pro-Choice Supporters” by Lorie Shaull. CC BY-SA 2.0.
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. – guest hosts Grant Henry and Ben Cunningham talk in studio about the need for a special session in the Tennessee General Assembly and for Lt. Governor Randy McNally to identify the momentum.
Henry: My name is Grant Henry. Enunciation for those in the know Ben Cunningham. I work for an organization called American’s for Prosperity. Ben’s over there. He’s just like anything and everything and uncomparable. You probably know him from the Nashville Tea Party.
Cunningham: Wow. What an introduction.
Henry: I tried my best on that one. (Laughter) I’ll give you $5 for that one. It’s great to be here. It’s fun to sit in when Michael is gone and rant and rave. There’s so much going on, you teether between total depression and slight optimism these days. But we’ve got a fight.
And there are so many good fighters out there to inspire us. I was reading an article yesterday about people standing up. Molly Hemmingway who is with The Federalist.
But she’s one of these people who is fearless. And we’ve just got to all be like Molly, basically, and stand up and fight for these basic values. And that’s what people were doing yesterday at the Capitol.
Henry: Here’s one of the headlines coming from The Tennessee Star. By the way, The Tennessee Star has some of the best reporting in the state as far as I’m concerned.
Chris Butler and Laura Baigert out there doing some incredible things amongst many others at The Tennessee Star. Tennesseestar.com. Here’s the headline. Angry Tennessee Residents Burden by Covid 19 Policies Rally for Special Legislative Session Without Delay.
I know you were streaming this on the Nashville Tea Party page. I streamed it on my old talk radio page Real News. Here’s the first paragraph.
There were hundreds of Tennesse and said their displeasure with COVID-19 mandates has intensified, and it’s time for Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally to relent and allow a special legislative session so that the state can fight back.
Now, I know a few other senators maybe like Senator Roberts in particular, I believe. I know he wrote a letter calling for a special session saying that he would like to see these six things that he outlined in a special session.
I think there are 70 House members in the state, don’t quote me on this number. There are 70 some in the House that have signed. And dozens of others, maybe 15-17 in the Senate that have signed on.
Cunningham: The House is ready to go, It looks like.
Henry: And Senator Robert says that he wants to see the following things addressed if and when a special session has opened up. One prohibiting mass mandates in public building schools and universities. Two recognizing acquired immunity or immunity from nobody satisfying vaccine mandates.
Three prohibiting Bridgestone Arena and other venues receiving government funds from implementing vaccine requirements, mask mandates, or segregating attendees according to vaccine status.
Four, placing the county health departments of these six counties under the direct oversight of the General Assembly. Five challenging federal overreach exercises by President Joe Biden related to these vaccine mandates.
And six and finally requiring executive orders issued during a state of emergency lasting over 90 days to be reviewed by a joint committee.
But quickly before I kick it to you, Ben, I did find an interesting that Chris Butler in that first paragraph touched on how it’s time for Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally to relent. You think it’s all hinging on him, as they say?
Cunningham: I think he’s the kind of the figurehead of the roadblock at this point. But Randy McNally is a good guy. And I think any politician, you can lower their threshold of action by rising up and saying, this is what we want.
And it’s extremely impressive to me that so many members of the House have already said that. They have stepped out publicly. They are willing to say, we need to have a special session.
And a special session like you were saying there, it’s not just Randy McNally who came out with a press release and said, hey, we’ll fight the Biden administration through the DAs and the legal avenues. But this is also about state issues.
This is not just about federal issues. If it was just about federal issues, I would say that he has a point. But I don’t think he has a point because lawmakers want to address the state, like Bridgestone Arena and perhaps the governor’s emergency powers.
There are all kinds of things that we need to talk about, and it’s going to take a few days to talk about this to sort it out. And I think that’s what these legislators want, and I’m certainly in favor of it. And I would like to see them come together.
This is the top issue for Tennesseeans right now. I don’t know if there’s any question about it. And we expect our legislators to respond when people say, hey, you need to come to Nashville.
As our representatives, you need to sit down, develop a consensus like the Supreme Court says and many of the justices say. We can’t decide on everything. It’s up to the legislative bodies to be deliberative and develop a consensus.
That’s what legislation and legislating are all about. And that’s driven by the people. And that’s why the rally yesterday was so important. And people who are opposed to the special session right now like Randy McNally can be convinced if enough people rise up and enough senators rise up and say, we want to a special session.
I don’t think it’s a question that Randy McNally would come around and say, okay. Hey, I see this huge groundswell of momentum basically building for this special session, and I think he would probably relent if he did see that wave of support.
Henry: I found it interesting yesterday, Senator Janice Bowling, again, I’d highly recommend you go watch the live stream on somebody’s account to see the legislators that were there, what they said, and the addresses they gave.
But Senator Janice Bowling, in particular, made the remark that if the Tennessee General Assembly calls for a special session, there are no restrictions upon what they can and cannot consider while they’re in that special session.
And I don’t presume to understand all the mechanics behind how this works. So take what I’m saying with a bit of a grain of salt. But if the General Assembly calls for one, they can kind of consider anything and everything on the table.
Conversely, if Governor Lee were to call for one, it’s limited exclusively to the things that Governor Lee calls for. And I find that interesting because I know there have been several talking points or push back about this idea of Joe Biden coming out with these vaccine mandates.
And they’re ridiculous. And in my personal opinion, the disgusting nature of some of the things that he’s doing withholding these antibody treatments. We’ll get into more of that later, right?
Cunningham: That’s maddening.
Henry: But at a practical level in the state, I do wonder here what can be done with e of the vaccine mandate stuff. And I also wonder, so much of this deals with the schools, Ben.
I want to get into this more in the show, but I’d love to know your thoughts on if we call for a special session, what can we do to consider doing something with education?
I believe education should create an environment that empowers the students to continually fulfill their unique potential. But it should also provide families and parents with the decisions about how to educate their children properly, giving parents more parental choice, right?
Every student should have equal access to education on equal terms regardless of their zip code and especially now dealing with some of the math stuff or the vaccine stuff or CRT stuff or whatever that stuff is, parents need more choice. More on this later on in the show. We’ll be right back after this break.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio to discuss the backfiring of vaccine mandates on federal employees and the looming implosion of the Democrat Party.
Leahy: In studio with us, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael. Crom, good morning.
Carmichael: Good morning, Michael.
Leahy: I see you have the Happy Camper coffee that we just brewed for you. Are we doing okay with the coffee today?
Carmichael: It’s delicious.
Leahy: It’s delicious. Happy Camper Coffee is from BROASTTN, out of Cookeville. They sent us that care package. We thank them for it.
Carmichael: What’s their website?
Leahy: Broasttn.com.
Carmichael: There you go.
Leahy: Crom, you know what’s interesting? You came in and I said, well, Crom, what’s on your mind today? And when you told me what’s on your mind, I said, great minds think alike. Share with our listening audience what you want to discuss this morning.
Carmichael: I’m kind of looking at what I now believe is the impending implosion of the Biden administration. And frankly, maybe even of the left, at least for a period of time. And let me see if I can answer that. How many federal employees are there?
Leahy: Two million.
Carmichael: Two or three million. Something like that. And how many contractors? Another million or 2 million maybe? At least.
Leahy: Maybe more.
Carmichael: So he is forcing – and that’s the right word – he is forcing those four or five million people to all be vaccinated, regardless of their condition and regardless of their, I guess, their religious views or anything. Here’s my question. We know from the data that some people who take the vaccine, unfortunately, some people die from the vaccine. Is a person who forces somebody to take the vaccine accountable for a death or an extremely negative health outcome?
I don’t know the answer to that. But if a policeman is responsible for the results of his actions, it would seem to me that when a person uses force, and there’s no other way to describe it. The head of the teachers’ union, they’ve been supporting the mandates. But now that the mandate applies to the teachers’ unions, the head of the teachers’ unions are against the mandate.
Leahy: When did that come out?
Carmichael: It’s right here. (Leahy laughs) It’s right here in the Free Beacon. I’ll read the headline, Top Teachers Union Refuse Vaccination Requirement.
Leahy: Which one was it – was it?
Carmichael: No, it was the National Education Association. I’ll read the paragraph: The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are pushing against mandatory teacher vaccination. (Leahy laughs) So what you now see is that this was really all about politics because now that the force can affect the constituency of the Democrat Party, (i.e. government employees) all of a sudden they are going, whoa, whoa.
That doesn’t work that way. We’re the privileged. We’re part of your group. Now, who isn’t part of that group? Everyone else. And so everyone else is affected by what? Immigration. And where is most of the COVID coming from today? In terms of the percentage of the population, it’s coming from south of our border. And then Biden is bringing them in. He’s not requiring them to be vaccinated. You don’t even require them to do much of anything. He loads them on buses and planes and sends them out hither thither all across the country.
Leahy: It’s almost as if it’s a deliberate intention to spread COVID.
Carmichael: Why do you throw the word almost in? He knows what the facts are, and yet he continues to do it anyway. So when I look at the amount of force now, I look at the inflation that’s coming. That’s not coming, it’s actually here. Our prices are rising now at about one percent a month, which is an unsustainable rate if it continues.
And Biden still thinks that he’s going to throw in his three-point-five, which I’ve now heard is actually closer to $5 trillion, not counting the infrastructure of the actual stuff because it’s entitlement stuff. It’s not a budget where we’re going to spend $100 million on this bridge.
Leahy: To build something.
Carmichael: It’s an entitlement. Let’s go back. Medicare. When Medicare was passed, it was projected that by 1988, Medicare would be an $8 billion a year program. By 1988, it was an $80 million program. So he missed by a factor of 10 because it went to everybody who fit by definition.
If you give an entitlement that is significant enough, more and more people will make sure that they fit the definition. And so it’s just the same thing with the states that expanded Medicaid. The budgets and the cost of the expansion of Medicaid are much greater than what the so-called experts said.
Leahy: It always is, though, isn’t it?
Carmichael: But the point is, it’s because it is an entitlement based on definition, there is no ceiling. Because I’m over 65 and paid into Social Security, my entitlement is a fixed amount. In other words, every year it’s a fixed amount, and when I die, it goes away. But in the case of Medicaid, it’s not a fixed amount, even for the beneficiaries.
You can’t properly project the number of even people who will fit the definition. And so that’s what this so-called human infrastructure is. Now they’re throwing the word infrastructure at everything. I actually heard somebody talk about voting infrastructure.
Leahy: Oh please.
Carmichael: The word infrastructure now has no meaning.
Leahy: It means nothing.
Carmichael: It’s just destroying the language when you take the current pop word and stick it on top of everything. But when I look at what’s going on, do you think that these mandates of federal employees and federal contractors are going to rile those people up who previously might have been – not have cared that much?
But now they’re being forced to do something, many of whom if you are in your twenties, you don’t need it. The data shows that your risks are greater. If you don’t have a pre-existing condition, your risks are greater. And you’ve already had COVID and your antibodies are high, other data is showing that the vaccine might not be advisable.
Leahy: Here’s the phrase that comes to mind, Crom. Rules for thee, but not for me. And federal employees and contractors think that should apply to them. Well, now they’re saying, oh, no, you don’t get away.
Carmichael: And now they’re on the side. What I’m saying is that there’s going to be very, very interesting to see if the empire strikes back on itself.
Leahy: Here’s where I think it’s going to be even more significant. It’s with the teachers’ unions. The teachers’ unions will be more significant because they consider themselves more independent from the federal government. Because their school – public schools – are paid for mostly by state and local.
Carmichael: Government-run schools.
Leahy: Government-run schools. Thank you for that correction. But it’s interesting. Usually, the Democrats and the establishment media and the unions coordinate their messaging. So what this tells me immediately after President Biden, the legal but not legitimate president, my words not yours –
After he comes out and says that, well, we’re going to mandate these vaccines for all federal employees and contractors, like within hours, the heads of the teachers’ unions say not for us. This is a mistake.
And by the way, if you saw what’s happened with Jen “circle back” Psaki, the press secretary, she’s been absent from the podium for about three days. I think what they’re realizing is their messaging is a mess. And this latest kerfuffle with the teachers union, their core constituency.
Carmichael: Government employees are the core constituency of the Democrat Party. And here’s what’s interesting. Here’s the question that Biden was asked. Well, if you think corporations should require their employees to take the vaccine, are you requiring federal employees to take the vaccine – because he’s supposedly their boss? And lo and behold, he fell for it.
Leahy: He probably wasn’t thinking that one through.
Carmichael: Well he doesn’t think anything through.
Leahy: You’re not being mean. You’re just observing the fact.
Carmichael: I’m observing 40 years. And when he does think something through, it’s meanness. And he’ll think through how to be mean. But in this case, he was simply reacting to a logical question. And that is if you’re going to urge businesses to mandate that their employees take the vaccine, are you going to do the same thing?
How else can you answer that question unless you go, that’s a great question. And I’m going to take back asking CEOs to mandate the vaccine. That would be the other answer. That’s a great question. But he didn’t. (Laughs) He didn’t give that answer.
He said, okay, well, I’m going to force everybody to do it, too. What he didn’t realize is that a lot of his constituents don’t want to take the vaccine because they have their own personal reasons for not wanting to.
Leahy: Another Democratic leader who seems to have kind of gotten off-message maybe, depending, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House. There was a report that she had ordered the capitol police to arrest anybody in the capitol who wasn’t wearing a mask. You saw that report?
Carmichael: Yeah, but it doesn’t apply to her. And it doesn’t apply to – who’s the guy?
Leahy: Jerrold Nadler.
Carmichael: Jerrold Nadler. He got caught. And AOC. The Democrats had been caught walking through the capitol without wearing masks, and they’re not being arrested. And by the way, this is exactly what we’ve been saying now since I’ve been coming on your show. And that is that we have a two-tiered system of justice. And now it’s out there for everybody to see.
Leahy: Everybody to see.
Carmichael: It’s like the January sixth, the so-called rioters, they’re being held without even being charged. And they’ve been held in solitary confinement, some of them for months without even being charged.
Leahy: Yes. That’s unconstitutional.
Carmichael: It goes so much further than the Constitution because it gets into this question of equal treatment under the law. And you have in the case of – I think it was St. Louis. It was the black chief of police who was standing up there saying, this is absolutely ridiculous.
Murderers that we catch and that we bring in are being released by the district attorney. Murderers are being released back on the street. How are we supposed to do our jobs?
Leahy: You can’t do that job in that case.
Carmichael: You can’t. And this chief of police is – man, I just feel so sorry for him and the police officers under him.
Leahy: There’s a lot of people that feel sorry for this country today, Crom.
Carmichael: Yes. And that’s what I’m saying. That’s the implosion, once it starts.
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 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 (TN-16) Senator Janice Bowling to the newsmakers line to discuss her priorities in the current session with common-sense bills that she’s passed and continues to work towards.
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by our good friend, State Senator Janice Bowling from Tullahoma. Good morning, Senator Bowling.
Bowling: Good morning, Michael. How are you in Nashville?
Leahy: Well, we’re delighted that we have this time to chat with you. Very busy time in the Tennessee General Assembly. You’ve been pretty busy at it as well. Tell us what your priorities are and how they’re doing so far.
Bowling: Well, I’ve had several priorities with this session, and one was to get the bill passed that allows for the burial of the human remains of a child after an abortion. And that sounds like, my goodness, what were they doing prior to now? But that legislation has passed out of committee very handily. And hopefully we will get that on the floor and that will be passed in Tennessee. There had been no regulatory oversight for that. And even though we had regulatory oversight for veterinarians on what to do with animals, we had nothing for the human remains, even abortion.
Leahy: That sounds like common sense legislation to me, Senator Bowling.
Bowling: It really was common decency, common sense. I think it was Supreme Court Justice Thomas and his talk with the majority when it was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court that he said the insane thing is that we would have to be even discussing that this would take place and would be appropriate to take place.
Leahy: I agree with Justice Thomas. I almost always agree with him.
Bowling: So do I. I really admire him so much. And then another bill that I’ve carried now for multiple years, Michael, is the expansion of fiber to the premises in Tennessee, particularly in rural Tennessee. Fiber to the premises. And at one time I said high-speed Internet. But then you get into discussions with all of the providers about what constitutes high-speed Internet.
And they were trying to say 10 megs down and three megs up. Well, you need symmetrical these days. You’ve got to have upload and download speeds. The only thing that really gives you symmetry is fiber. So rather than trying to argue the points that 10 megs down and three megs up is more like a tom tom drum or kerosene lantern that you waive in the window it’s really not appropriate for 21st century needs.
I just left off anything that said broadband and went straight to fiber to the premises because, with that, you can stream videos. You can do voice over Internet. You will have more than adequate bandwidth and speed for everything. And it’s really 80 percent of your cost is going to be in the installation of the product. So go ahead and put in what’s future proof. You don’t need radio waves in rural Tennessee. Hills, hollers, trees, and weather, those things all interrupt. Plus they’re not secure. So that was one thing. And I did get four votes in committee this year.
Leahy: So you keep making progress on that. Senator Bowling, you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of the Rural Electrification Act in the 1930s.
Bowling: 1937. You are exactly correct. And what some of my colleagues say incorrectly, in my opinion, is that you’re trying to interfere with the free market. Well, I would submit to you that when a company has regulatory protection and has tax subsidies, which is what the legacy providers, as they call them have and they’ve gotten the benefits of universal tax since the 1990s.
About five years ago, one of the largest providers had received over nine billion dollars of tax subsidy in order to expand broadband into rural America. And one of the providers gets $500,000. a month from Tennesseeans to expand the product. And we are still without it.
Leahy: What is the state of that in the status of fiber to the premises in rural Tennessee right now?
Bowling: Well, right now, the sad tragedy is that if you have electricity anywhere in Tennessee, you have fiber running in front of your home because TVA requires SCADA systems and those are internal auditings if you will. They determine if there’s an outage. Where is it? It’s an internal ability to know exactly where you are online, where you’re not, and many other facets of the provision of electricity.
Now, Chattanooga got a grant back when Obama was President, and fortunately, they used it successfully. They created the SCADA system for Chattanooga, and they then expanded that into fiber to the premises. And we all know what has happened in Chattanooga since that happened. Someone complained about the source of the original grant. And my theory on that is, I don’t like for the government to pay for things, but once they roast that hog, I want to make sure that my people, my constituents, get as many ribs as they can.
Leahy: (Laughs) I’ve not heard that phrase, but where did you pick up that phrase? That’s a good one.
Bowling: That is a Janice. I have lots of phrases.
Leahy: Do you? I love that phrase. That’s very good.
Bowling: But it’s very common sense. And on my mountain, within my district and the rural seven counties, they have a lot of sayings that I have picked up on, such as plain talk which is easily understood. And when you talk plainly it is. Everyone knows exactly what’s being discussed, and you don’t need to flower things up. Sometimes you just need to give the truth, the plain truth, and nothing but the truth. And they also say if there’s a problem, there’s a solution. If there is no solution, there is no problem. Think about it.
Leahy: Well, I think also, your ability to craft a phrase may come from your long experience as a teacher. You were a teacher. And now you represent the Tullahoma and the surrounding counties in the state Senate.
Bowling: Yes. As a matter of fact, I taught when my husband was in graduate school, then he went into the Air Force and we went to California, and we began our family…
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.
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