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 Dr. Carol Swain to the studio.
At the end of the second hour, Swain questioned the science behind Governor Lee and Mayor Cooper’s mask mandates suggesting that it appears that conservatives are the target of citations.
(Betsy DeVos clip plays)
Leahy: That’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos following President Trump’s lead saying its time to get back to school. Particular elementary school students and secondary school students. The teacher’s unions though don’t want to do that Carol.
Swain: Of course they don’t want to do anything. They see an opportunity to extort the government for more money.
Leahy: Yes. I’m a big proponent as you know of elementary school students and secondary school students going back to school. We talk with our good friend Thales Academy-Franklin’s principal Rachael Bradley about what’s happened with kids.
Particularly elementary school kids that have been out of school since March. They have not developed. This is across the board. They’ve not developed at the level that they should have. They are three-fourths of a year and it shows.
Swain: I just think its important for the public to realize that the political left and I would include the CDC in this they have an agenda. And they believe that if they can keep the country shut down and locked down in chaos that they have a better chance of winning in November. And I believe that we need to get back to normal. I don’t believe Bill Lee’s mask edict was necessary.
Leahy: Yes. I agree.
Swain: Even in Gatlinburg and Sevierville they are requiring masks to be worn. I just don’t think that science backs this up nor does science suggest that we should keep our children out of school.
Leahy: Absolutely on the science. All of the science shows that children don’t get it and don’t transmit it. It’s out there, numerous studies to that effect.
Swain: And the teachers would love to have a situation, and I don’t mean this as the teachers. Maybe I want to say the NEA. The National Education Association.
Leahy: The teacher unions.
Swain: The teacher unions. They would love to have online teaching and be paid the same amount or more.
Leahy: Yes. And online teaching is disastrous for the development of elementary school kids.
Swain: And you may remember a few weeks ago that Metro Nashville purchased thousands of tablets.
Leahy: Yes. Computer tablets.
Swain: Yes. Because they were planning this.
Leahy: They used federal money from the COVID for this.
Swain: Because they were planning in advance to have everything shut down. And I don’t know what Nashvillians can do. I do know what they can do. One of the things that you can do is go to notax4nash.com and download a petition if you are a registered Nashville voter. Sign it. And get other people to sign it.
If you can get nine other people to sign it. But it’s ok if it’s just your signature and your family. If you are registered voter, mail it back in. We have to get a lot of signatures and we can recall the mayor and also the four at large council members who supported the tax increase. But this is about more than the tax increase.
This is about the future of Nashville and whether or not we are going to be governed by law and order. We see how the mayor and the police department, they have not been enforcing the laws against the protesters yet they give citations to people who are law-abiding that they find without masks.
Leahy: Yes. It’s selective enforcement of the law. If you are a conservative you are going to get a fine if you are out there without a mask. But if you are a progressive Black Lives Matter supporter you can apparently do anything short of breaking into a business and trying to set it on fire.
Swain: Well we find selective enforcement of the law when it comes to bars and restaurants owned by people who did not support John Cooper. And the same type of retaliation that the Democrats in Nashville and other cities have been doing for decades by retaliating against the people perceived to be their political enemies. That’s unacceptable in our nation.
Leahy: So Mayor John Cooper is targeting bars owned by people who are his political opponents for enforcement.
Swain: I would say that it appears that way. He may not be doing it directly but he’s doing it through his health officials and through people who work under his guidance such as the police. And I think it was totally unacceptable to give a $50 citation to a person that was outside.
When we had those tables set up for NoTax4Nash, the workers had masks that they put on if there was an elderly person that comes and has a mask on. There is no reason why you sitting outside in 100 degrees temperature or 90-degree temperature that people should have masks on. The virus doesn’t survive out there in hot weather above 70 degrees.
Leahy: It’s interesting this mandate of masks that Mayor Cooper has put out. There is no medical evidence to support the claim that you are going to lessen the spread of COVID-19 if you are wearing a cloth mask or a surgical mask. There is nothing out there to support that.
Swain: And Bill Lee knows that. And he has put our whole state under this type of edict and it’s totally unacceptable. We are focusing on John Cooper. We need to focus on John Cooper and Bill Lee. People need to start calling the governor’s office.
If you are a business, because I’ve been going to Williamson County, that was the one place where you could go and feel like life is normal. They have destroyed that. You go into the restaurants now and there are not many people in there because who wants to wear a mask? You get greeted by a sign on the door of the restaurant to put on a mask in most cases.
Leahy: And I think the way that ordinance reads is you have to wear the mask according to all of these orders to force people to wear masks with only the superstition as opposed to the science supporting the efficacy of masks.
I think all of these executive orders issued by county mayors some with the blessing of the legal allowance shall we say that Governor Lee gave them. I think they are all illegal and unconstitutional. And if challenged in court ultimately they will be found to be unconstitutional.
Swain: They need to be challenged because they are actually just destroying our way of life and they are inconvenient and it’s about the control of people. What will be next? Will it be the mass vaccinations?
Leahy: I think you are exactly right. The reason that Governor Lee and Mayor Cooper and other mayors are requiring masks to be worn without any scientific evidence to support their efficacy is that they want to be able to exercise their power over citizens to see if they will submit to these illegal orders.
Swain: Stop submitting so readily.
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.
Governor Lee gave the green light for these mask mandates, and I do believe he is a RINO. I am not wearing a mask, it is worth $50 to push back on this nonsense.