All-Star Panelist Clint Brewer Weighs In on Ortagus D.C. Fundraiser and ACLU Challenge to Hillsdale Charter Schools in Tennessee

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 all-star panelist Clint Brewer in-studio to comment upon Morgan Ortagus’s recent D.C. fundraiser and the current open records request by the national ACLU in regard to Hillsdale College Barney Charter Schools initiative in Tennessee.

Leahy: We are joined in-studio by all-star panelist and good friend Clint Brewer. Clint, last night in Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill, Trump-endorsed, Pompeo-endorsed, doesn’t-know-much-about-5th Congressional-District-candidate Morgan Ortagus, carpetbagger, held a fundraiser on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and the cameras of The Tennessee Star were there.

Brewer: Are we going to see that later today, Mike?

Leahy: Later today, you’re going to see it. Our own Neil W. McCabe, the best Washington correspondent in the country, and our new video team were up there.

Brewer: I’m going to assume she didn’t drive to the fundraiser. I’m going to assume she took a new car or a Town Car.

Leahy: She didn’t drive on I-40. She didn’t drive on I-65. She didn’t drive on I-24. Somebody drove her there, apparently, and we were there. And we welcomed all of her friends, none of whom, by the way, are from Tennessee, who helped raise money at a lobbyist outfit there on Capitol Hill.

And we interviewed them. Those interviews will be up. And we’ll see one of – former Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign staffer was there and said she was just wonderful to work with when we worked together going after Donald Trump, when we worked with Jeb Bush. Got that video. Dan Crenshaw – the congressman, the guy who’s lost an eye – the veteran.

Yes, Every Kid

We asked him about “why do you support Morgan Ortagus?” because he was there at the fundraiser. Lindsey Graham was there because, South Carolina, not Tennessee. The question was “why do you endorse somebody who only registered to vote three months ago in Tennessee?

And apparently, he endorsed the concept of carpetbagging. He said, “Well, she’s from Tennessee now, just like I’m from Texas now.” That was his response. Apparently, he and Mike Pompeo want to impose a parliamentary system upon America’s selection of members of Congress.

Brewer: The subject is a great political Rorschach test. I think it’s a really healthy debate to have. We’ve got all these new folks moving here. It’s a source of consternation and concern. And now we have one who wants to represent us in Congress.

And so your questions, I think, to Congressman Crenshaw and to others, I think it’s a great question. And for states like Texas and Tennessee, where a lot of people are moving, it’s an important issue. How vested do you have to be in your community to qualify to run for higher office?

Leahy: That’s a good question. We’re going to ask out-of-state former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, if he will actually answer the phone, and we want to get him in-studio and we’re going to ask him that question directly. I think he wants to build his own political machine. This is one of his first efforts to do that.

Brewer: It’s an incredibly important topic in a lot of the most important red states in the country, because, again, states like Texas and Tennessee are attracting people from all over the country, but specifically from places like California, Illinois, New York, places that have had a lot of shutdowns, places that have had a lot of mask mandates, places where schools have not been up and running.

And people have sort of seen the light and they’re coming to states like Texas and Tennessee. And this is going to continue to be an issue. I think it’s a proper issue to take up, and good questions to ask.

Leahy: If I can shift gears a little bit, you talked about Texas and people moving to Texas. There’s a story: a Republican congressman from Texas, his name is Van Taylor.

They had a primary in Texas yesterday, and he was in a runoff. He’s in a runoff with somebody else there. But on Sunday, some big news broke. He has now admitted he had an affair with an ISIS bride.

Paid her $5,000 to be quiet about it, but she wasn’t quiet about it. She shared, shall we say, a rather compromising text message between herself and this congressman. He’s dropping out of the race. And I don’t know.

Brewer: He’s the incumbent.

Leahy: He’s incumbent. Yeah, but he had an affair with this woman, Tania Joya, from November 2020 to June 2021. Before that, she’d been an ISIS bride. She married a guy who went over to fight for ISIS, and they lived in Syria for about five years.

Just a message to members of Congress: If you’re going to have an affair with somebody, don’t pick an ISIS bride, and don’t send lewd and lascivious text messages.

Brewer: I didn’t know an ISIS bride was a thing.

Leahy: Apparently it is. Okay, so we got that. I just had to mention that story because, again, it’s not The Babylon Bee. It’s very weird. Let’s get back to a little bit of a local story and this very interesting story.

Our own Susan Berry, our education editor, worked at Breitbart for 12 years now as our education editor, and writes about education and pro-life issues. Headline story: The “ACLU Requests Tennessee Records on Announced Charter School Partnership with Hillsdale College.”

The ACLU of Tennessee asked the state of Tennessee to release all records regarding an announced charter school partnership with Hillsdale College.

The organization sent open records on Monday requesting information about Governor Bill Lee’s “developing partnership with Hillsdale College to establish a number of publicly funded charter schools in Tennessee.”

They went on to say he’s developing a partnership with an out-of-state private Christian institution Hillsdale College to establish a number of publicly funded charter schools in Tennessee. “We demand that Governor Lee release the agreement and related records.” I’m all in favor of that. Get it out there.

Brewer: I like open records.

Leahy: Yeah. I mean, let’s see those records. Of course, this is Heidi Weinberg. She’s been the executive director for a long time. What she’s trying to do is she’s trying to say this is going to be a violation of the separation of church and state.

If you look at the charter schools, Hillsdale is primarily an independent institution that was founded in 1850 by Methodists, but it’s not really focused on being a Christian institute as well as being an independent institute and a conservative institute.

They don’t take any federal loans, by the way. Their students don’t take any loan money from the feds. I think that’s very admirable.

It’s a special program called the Barney Charter School, Charter School Program. They mostly do classical education. I looked at the curriculum. It’s not religious in that sense. But the ACLU is going to try to make that argument.

Brewer: Do the local ACLUs support the legislation in Tennessee that recognized our constitutional right to carry without government permits?

Leahy: My guess is probably not.

Brewer: It probably would be an issue the ACLU would be in favor of, I would think. The national ACLU, I’m just saying they often do things both on the left and the right side of the spectrum, sometimes making everyone uncomfortable. It would be nice if the local one would weigh it on maybe something for the right side of the aisle.

Leahy: It’s interesting. I have a very different perspective. I know this will shock you, on this thing about the ACLU of Tennessee. Get the records out. Let’s see it. My view on it is a little bit different. They’ve got this basic education program, the funding program that they want to redo.

Brewer: Created in 1992 by former Governor McWherter and his administration.

Leahy: And basically K-12 public education, about 10 percent of the money comes from the feds. On average, about 40 percent comes from local government, 50 percent from state government. But all counties are not equal in that distribution of money.

Some counties are poorer than others. So in Williamson County, which is wealthy, the wealthiest county in the state, I think their share is significantly greater than 40 percent.

Brewer: Are you talking about the local share?

Leahy: The local share in particular.

Brewer: And I don’t think it makes it into these numbers that we talk about because when we talk about funding education, I’m using air quotes for the agents here. We talk about funding education, education formulas.

What we’re talking about, I believe, is this cost per student. How much do we spend per student? Williamson County is a great example because I can’t imagine that that formula takes into account the money they have to spend to build schools.

Leahy: Well, that’s a very good point. And I think all that money is basically county indebtedness.

Brewer: It’s bonded debt. It’s not just Williamson County, let’s be clear. Wilson County, Sumner, Rutherford.

Leahy: All have grown like crazy.

Brewer: And one of the reasons they’re growing like crazy is because Metro Nashville Public Schools, people don’t want to send their kids there.

Leahy: They don’t.

Brewer: The performance of the school system is so bad and so what you have is all these folks moving to Middle Tennessee as we’ve discussed, and for all these jobs that are here, we’ve got a great economy.

But what happens is that they get here, they land in Nashville, they get great jobs, and then they start to have children. And when the children get to be school-aged, they move to a suburban county.

Leahy: Of course they do. Why would you really put your kids in Metro Nashville Public School?

Brewer: There are great people working in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Dedicated people, but the product is not there.

Leahy: There are a few exceptions.

Brewer: So this formula about the cost per kid, if you’re in a high-growth county, you can throw that out the window.

Leahy: Yes, very good point. My take on it, though, is the charter school thing is very modest. There will be three applications I think right now in various counties.

And it’s not going to be very much at all and I think it’s a little bit of misdirection because the budget itself is very much favored by the teachers’ unions and Left because it’s more money.

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Hillsdale College” by Hillsdale College. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Thought to “All-Star Panelist Clint Brewer Weighs In on Ortagus D.C. Fundraiser and ACLU Challenge to Hillsdale Charter Schools in Tennessee”

  1. 83ragtop50

    Crenshaw is a RINO. He is from a district in the liberal bastion of Houston.

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