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 in-studio all-star panelist Crom Carmichael.
During the third hour, Carmichael weighed in on Seattle’s autonomous zone and the violent consequences the city is facing since the police precinct was forced closed by protesters in the six-block radius. He added that Democrat cities continue to have problems due to failed Democratic leadership who’s failed formula to solving problems can be handled with simple solutions.
Carmichael: I thought we’d switch gears. Seattle is interesting in that you have a Democrat mayor of Seattle and you have a Democrat Governor. It’s been that way for at least 20 years. I think the state used to have some Republican influence.
But for a couple of decades, the city of Seattle has been run by Democrats and the state has had a Democratic governor. So here you have this group of people who are taking over a six-block area of downtown Seattle including a very important police precinct.
So because of them taking over that police precinct the response time to calls from the citizens of Seattle for things like violence, robbery, rape, murder, or anything like that, the response times have tripled in terms of the police getting there because the demonstrators have taken over and changed their name. They called themselves originally the capitol hill autonomous zone.
Leahy: Oh, CHAZ.
Carmichael: CHAZ. But Tucker Carlson was making so much fun of their name CHAZ, that they now changed their name to CHOP.
Leahy: CHOP?
Carmichael: That’s capitol hill protesters or something like that.
Leahy: That name didn’t last long.
Carmichael: No it didn’t last long because it was being made fun of. But here’s what’s interesting. The mayor of Seattle took an oath of office to do her job and carry out the laws of the city of Seattle. Now you have residents and businesses in this six-block area who are being denied law and order. And the mayor is saying I’m not going to do anything to the protesters. When somebody asked, how long might it last? She said, we might have an entire summer of love was her response.
But the protesters now have given her a list of demands. So Michael, for these people of the left, the Joe Bidenites of the world now, and you really have to put this on Joe Biden because he won’t criticize these people. He won’t do it so he must be part of their group or he would stop them from doing it.
This is the new democracy. Rather than have elections where candidates get up and say what they intend to do, if you don’t get your way then you just go take over entire city blocks and force the government to yield to your demands. And in this case, their demands are not possible. There was an interesting story about Salt Lake. Not long ago Salt Lake City, the left held it up.
The Washington Post and there were stories on the news that Salt Lake City had solved the homeless problem. And there was a guy up there that said, you solve the homeless problem by giving the homeless homes. And then Jon Stewart said, gosh, what an elegant simple answer. Well, the problem with Salt Lake is they did all this and a lot of builders made a whole lot of money. The homeless people got a home for a little while.
Leahy: And what happened to the homes?
Carmichael: The homeless problem in Salt Lake City today, and this was only four years ago that it was supposedly solved. The homeless problem in Salt Lake City today is larger than it has ever been.
Leahy: What happened?
Carmichael: Apparently they didn’t build enough homes and give them away.
Leahy: Ah. What’s the condition of the homes they gave away?
Carmichael: Other people are now occupying the homes. They are now rented out. But this is how Democrats operate. I hate being partisan about this because there are a lot of Republicans who think like this too. So those people that are ineffective, let’s put it that way.
The ineffective sees every problem as a simple problem. So in this case they said, we have people that are homeless and they won’t be homeless if we give them a home. AÂ lot of homeless are homeless because they are mentally ill.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: And we don’t take care of that because we can’t take care of that by law. You can’t really help a mentally ill person who doesn’t want help. you see pictures of police trying to help the homeless and the homeless are screaming at them saying I didn’t ask for your help. So you have the mentally ill. You have a lot of other people who are homeless because of drugs. And the left loves drugs. So does George Soros.
And so do some libertarians. Yeah, let’s just have drugs for everyone. The problem is that just with alcohol. And by the way, there are a lot of homeless that are alcoholics. Just like alcohol, drugs will take over your body and take over your life. These are the elements that you have to address. The homeless are not homeless simply because they don’t have a home.
They are homeless for other reasons. But if you say I’m going to solve the problem with this simple solution you won’t solve the problem at all. So that’s just like the left says, how do we solve the education problems? Throw more money at it. That’s their answer. They’ve been doing that for 50 years.
Leahy: It’s very ineffective.
Carmichael: It does not work. In fact, it makes it worse. Because then the swamp that is protected by the money are more interested in protecting themselves.
Leahy: But Hollywood starlets can virtue signal about it and Hollywood actors. They can virtual signal.
Carmichael: I think that will stop soon that within a couple of weeks movies and TV shows can go back into production. And the people who don’t have anything to do except sit around their apartments and virtue signal and send out these silly videos.
Leahy: Yes. That’s a big industry now by left-wing Hollywood actors who don’t know anything. (Laughs)
Carmichael: When you see them doing that and then you see them acting you say wow. As actors, they are very good.
Leahy: Yes.
Carmichael: As human beings with solutions to real problems not so good.
Leahy: Not so good. We have a story at the Tennessee Star about Taylor Swift and Reese Witherspoon calling for the withdrawal of the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state capitol. I didn’t hear them call for the withdrawal of the portrait which I believe is there who is former governor Prentice Cooper who the father of Mayor John Cooper and congressman Jim Cooper who in 1958 ran against Al Gore, Sr. on a segregationist platform. I didn’t hear a call for that. Reese Witherspoon was a fabulous actress early in her career. We saw her for the first time when she was like 15 in movies and it was like this girl is going to be fabulous.
Carmichael: She’s a very good actress.
Leahy: Very good actress but not really the best in terms of understanding answers to complex public policy issues.
Carmichael: I would love it if they would lend their voice to increasing the number of charter schools and defunding the teachers’ unions. That’s my new mantra. Defund the teachers’ unions.
Leahy: Let’s ask Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift will support charter schools and maybe put a little bit of money into charter schools.
Carmichael: That would be great. The charter schools thrive. They do much more with less money than the government-run schools.
Leahy: I gotta tell you though Crom, I’m not holding my breath that they’ll follow that lead.
Carmichael: We can still ask. And you just never do.
Leahy: Because we are open to all ideas here.
Carmichael: No, we’re not. We’re open to good ideas.
Leahy: (Laughs) Well we’re open to the discussion of ideas (Carmichael chuckles) and the bad ideas that come in we are open to discussion. And to demonstrate using the edifice of logic that you’re building brick by brick here throughout an illustrious career.
Carmichael: Now that’s true. (Leahy chuckles) Because we’re not going to cancel people.
Leahy: No we will not cancel you.
Carmichael: We’re not going to have them fired just because they had bad ideas.
Leahy: But we will point out the bad ideas.
Carmichael: But we will point out the bad ideas and hopefully the good ideas will then carry the day.
Leahy: We hope.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: Well that’s been the history of the advance of western civilization as the marketplace of ideas. Which ultimately in the fair marketplace of ideas the best ideas do come to the top.
Carmichael: I heard someone this weekend and I don’t remember what program it was. But they said something incredibly insightful. And that is part of the reason the left wants to destroy the statues and destroy the history of our past or change the history of our past is that they don’t want people to see how much we’ve improved.
Leahy: Yes. That’s absolutely true. If you use those statues of an example of what it was, and we can get into Nathan Bedford Forrest, the arc of his life in terms of how attitudes changed over the arc of his life are a good example of how change is possible. But that is a discussion that the left does not want to have.
Carmichael: Right. And there we are.
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.
Photo “CHAZ” by Alex Glidewell CC4.0.
