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.
(John Rich clip plays)
It is a disaster. It is gutted. Mayor John Cooper has betrayed our town. He has betrayed Music City. He is a Judas of this town. He is now the DeBlasio of the South. That is what he is. He has lied to our town for months and months on end.
And there are real casualties with this Laura. Forget some of the big companies that have lost a lot of money. Let’s talk about musicians, bartenders, servers, and security guards, and all the people that work downtown in Nashville that were targeted by this Judas of a Mayor John Cooper who claims he loves Nashville and loves Music City yet he had the information at his fingertips that told him Broadway and the music scene is not what is creating the COVID-19 problem in Nashville. And yet, he decided not to display that information to us and instead week after week lied to us and kept us under control.
Brought this town to its knees to try to put us into submission thinking that with his elitist arrogance could overcome a bunch of dumb country hicks that live in this town. And that he could override us with his will. Let me tell you something. He’s got a real high faluted education. Go look him up. I bet there is a phrase he understands really well but I’m going to remind him of what it is. Class. Action. Law. Suit. That is what is coming for this Judas of a mayor next. The DeBlasio of the South.
Leahy: And that is John Rich on Laura Ingraham last night. Wow!
Carmichael: Strong words to follow. (Laughter) And the class-action lawsuit, it is my hope that it is actually against the mayor personally. It is my hope because when public officials get elected and you take the oath of office, he took an oath. He has broken that oath.
And the taxpayers in Nashville should not be the ones who have to pay the money for the class action lawsuit, because there will be one as John Rich says. So I hope its the mayor. And if there are any other public officials including council members who were aware of this they may be held to account also. I’m only saying that because I don’t think they were involved. I think Cooper made all these decisions as a dictator.
Leahy: As if he were a dictator. He’s been behaving like one as to one that the law does not apply.
Carmichael: I don’t think he went to the council for example to get a vote to shut down bars and restaurants. I think he did that on his own authority. If the council members did not participate in a vote then they of course should not be sued.
Leahy: Let me revise and extend that comment. He did it on his own hubris, not on his authority.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: You will see that the authority that he claimed was unconstitutional.
Carmichael: So if council members did not participate in a vote on this information. But the council members right now are scurrying around. They can’t even vote to cut health benefits for future council members. Can you believe that?
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmichael: They voted 20 to 18 to deliberate further on legislation that could adjust how much Metro will pay for lifetime health benefits for Nashville council members citing confusion on the issue.
Leahy: There is no confusion.
Carmichael: No. There is none and this is the problem. This is the problem. The cronyism of the political class in Nashville has taken advantage of the taxpayers in Nashville, the people they claim to serve. And this is going to be an awakening moment.
This actually is going to help our public education system because if this ballot initiative passes then they are going to have to find budget cuts and they can find it in the bureaucracy of the non-teachers. There are way more non-teachers in our government-run school system then there should be.
And those are the people who are at risk. Now, what did Cooper say he was going to do? He said if he doesn’t get the money he’s going to cut 500 police officers and 500 firefighters. This reminds me of McQuarter of shutting down the school buses for a few days claiming that they couldn’t run. And it reminds me of Don Sundquist who said we were in such terrible shape that we had to have a state income tax.
Leahy: Everybody knows John Cooper’s threat to fire 500 firefighters and 500 police officers is a brazenly dishonest political move.
Carmichael: Yeah. Just like the rest of them apparently.
Leahy: Dave in Springfield wants to talk about the mayor. Good morning Dave you are on the Tennessee Star Report.
Caller Dave: Good morning guys. But this story is so far beyond Nashville. I don’t know if you guys realize this. I’ve got friends across the country and in Michigan where they are really shut down and they are not digging into the same type of corruption or obstruction I should say that you see in the Nashville mayor.
And I think this could open the floodgates around the country where we know statistics have been better than they’ve been talking about and we should be opened up again. That’s what I believe. I think it’s just starting right now. So it’s good that it made national news.
Carmichael: That is a really really good point for the nationwide politics of this because if the data in Nashville shows that bars and restaurants are not where the coronavirus spread happens, and we now know that to be true. Then that data is likely true elsewhere.
Leahy: Elsewhere in the country.
Carmichael: Our caller is correct because if John Cooper were personally sued for what he is doing then it would cause government officials to act more responsibly and to consider their actions and make sure that what they are doing is in the interest of all the people that they represent rather than the political class. And this is interesting because we played that Joe Biden soundbite that he claimed Trump killed everybody. Every coronavirus death is at the hands of Trump. That’s just as dumb as the things that John Cooper has been saying.
Leahy: It’s hard to say which one is dumber. John Cooper may not be dumb but he’s dishonest.
Carmichael: Joe Biden is dishonest because we’ve got stories about him and Hunter Biden. I’ve got friends that are Democrats. Clean out your party. Clean out your party. Get rid of the government employee unions. Get rid of the union thugs that control your party. John Cooper’s tap dance is to the heads of the government-run unions. That’s who he talks to.
That’s all he cares about. He wants to make sure they are happy because they have so much power in the crony establishment in Nashville. This is an opportunity to break that hold. And the teachers’ unions, in particular, are the bad apples. Not the teachers but these union thugs, they are the bad apples. They are the bad apples.
Leahy: Dave in Springfield, thanks for those comments. And I think Crom, he’s quite right. This is a national issue now.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: This is a national issue and I think, by the way, I love what John Rich said calling Mayor Cooper the DeBlasio of the South.
Carmichael: That might have been unkind to DeBlasio. (Leahy laughs) It’s possible.
Leahy: Mayor DeBlasio is now asking for an apology. (Laughter) for being compared to John Cooper.
Carmichael: You know, before the election I really thought when John Cooper said that he wanted to control expenses and he was not for a property tax increase. Shame on me. I actually believed him.
Leahy: Boy.
Carmichael: That’s what he said before the election. He said he would be a great business manager and control expenses.
Leahy: This isn’t business. This is an authoritarian dictatorship.
Carmichael: I thought finally we have a mayor who is a business guy and he’ll be able to make cuts where there needs to be cut. He’ll be able to make reforms where there needs to be reformed.
Leahy: He hasn’t done any of that.
Carmichael: Boy was I fooled. I’ll admit it. I was fooled.
Leahy: Who has been a worse mayor of Nashville? John Cooper, David Briley, or Megan Barry. They are all awful.
Carmichael: No. Cooper.
Leahy: Cooper is the worst?
Carmichael: Cooper wins that prize, because Barry she wanted to do a mass transit deal but she put it up for a vote. Lost 70 to 30 and moved on. She honored the will of the people. And Briley was more or less kind of feckless. But he didn’t hurt people. He didn’t go out of his way.
Leahy: Cooper has gone out of his way to hurt 10s of t1,000s of people in Nashville for his own political gain.
Carmichael: Yeah. And that’s not a good reason at all.
Leahy: Not a good reason at all.
Listen to the full 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 “Nashville” by Peyri Herrera CC2.0
Cooper is doing damage control and saying the story was fake news and demanding an apology in a typical liberal move. The lawsuit is great but what really changes? How do we prevent this in the future? Will Democrats re-elect this clown?