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 welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to discuss the potential consequences if the Senate parliamentarian passes Democrat’s large spending bill, the PRO Act, and the unionization of America.
Henry: Crom Carmichael is in the studio with us. How are you doing this morning, sir?
Carmichael: Good morning. I’m doing fine. Thank you.
Henry: (Henry chuckles) That’s good. Now, as you walked in the studio, you did say that you had a little bit of a different take possibly on what’s the Democrats’ hopes sort of plan was with the agenda. What the end goal might be? Where are you coming from in that?
Carmichael: It’s all the other stuff that’s in the bill that has nothing to do with the money that they’re trying to pass as part of reconciliation. And if the Senate parliamentarian goes along with it, then the filibuster will be done away with without doing away with the filibuster.
It’s making millions of illegal immigrants legal. It’s changing the voting laws or is attempting to change the voting laws. It is all about giving Washington and the bureaucrats and the regulators more power.
And the way I look at the division in the country, it’s very similar to France before the French Revolution. If you are connected to the government in France, either part of the government or you benefited from the government or you are in the elite, then there are a set of rules that applied to you that were very different.
And there are actually a set of courts that adjudicated claims against you that were completely different from the courts and the rules that affected 80 percent of the population.
And so when the French Revolution actually got going and the elites who were semi-opposed to what was going on with the government, but then once it got going, they ended up being killed also.
Henry: So what you’re saying, possibly, maybe, is that some of the other things outside of the actual spinning of this bill could create a sense of class or caste system in America?
Carmichael: Well it’s happening now.
Henry: I agree. I hear you.
Carmichael: But the caste system is are you connected or are you part of the government? Are you connected to the government? And, for example, if you’re a government employee and you’re a Republican, where is your money going in terms of political support.
Your labor union dues are going to the labor union. And how that money is spent is not determined by you. It’s determined by the people who are run the unions. And virtually 100 percent of all government employee union does go to the Democrat Party.
Virtually 100 percent. $10 billion dollars every two-year election cycle. When they claim that the NRA is giving $50 million, think about $50 million as a percentage of $10 billion in perspective.
Henry: That’s right. It puts it into perspective.
Carmichael: Truly, it’s truly nothing. And in our media, the people who report the news are highly, highly paid. And they get to keep their jobs if they tell people what they’re told to tell people. And so Democrats can do literally whatever they want to.
Let me just give you an example. There is a son of a very, very powerful Democrat who had absolutely no experience with art, and yet his paintings, which he creates by blowing paint through a straw, sell for half a million dollars.
Henry: Wow. I’m in the wrong industry.
Carmichael: His name is Hunter Biden and they sell to people all over the world. They sell to people in Communist China. They sell to people in the Middle East. Perhaps they sell to billionaires who have investments in green energy and who want billions of dollars of tax credits.
This is well known to the people in the media. Do they report it? No. Because if they did, they would lose their jobs. And if you’re overpaid compared to what you could do otherwise in life, then you’re going to do what you’re told.
So our media do what they’re told. Now a real good example of somebody who did something that was a bit of a surprise. And I’m not also claiming that I follow this lady very much. And in fact, I’m blanking even on her name. And that is the pop star.
Henry: Nicki Minaj.
Carmichael: Nicki Minaj. Yes. She has now come out incredibly strong in favor of free speech. And by the way, she’s done it in a very, very persuasive way. And they don’t know what to do about that.
The left does not know what to do about that, because she has 22 million followers who don’t get that message from all of the places that they get it. And by the way, Twitter is controlled by the left because the billionaires who control Twitter get tremendous tax benefits from the Democrat policies.
Facebook is the same way. Warren Buffett was the first to do it many years ago. He said he should pay more taxes. And what was Obama’s reaction to Warren Buffett saying he should pay more taxes?
He started calling Warren Buffet his friend. (Henry chuckles) So what did that do? It insulated Warren Buffett from a tax by the left. Now, how does Warren Buffett make his money? How does Warren Buffett’s wealth increase?
It increases through the increase in the assets that he owns. Not the money he earns. If Warren Buffett wanted to, and this is true with any of the multi-billionaires, wants to live literally like a king and pay no tax here’s all that Warren Buffett has to do.
He has to sell a billion dollars worth of his stock and give a billion dollars to the charity, the foundation that he controls. Then he gets a billion-dollar tax deduction in the same year that he generates a billion dollars in cash.
And now he has a foundation to support whatever causes that he needs to support so that the government doesn’t start taxing unrealized gains.
And that’s the game that they all play. And the media lets them get away with it because the media is part of the billionaire elite class. They may not be billionaires, but they’re part of the class.
Henry: Let me ask this then. Has the train left the station? Are we too far gone? Is there any getting some of this stuff back? Do we need to look for something entirely different, revolutionary, in a sense, or where are we?
Carmichael: Well, that’s a great question. I don’t know the answer. But I look at Texas, for example, having passed the law that does two things regarding abortion. One is it makes abortions illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
And the second thing is it gives enforcement of that law not to the government but to the citizens, by suing and giving the citizens the right to sue.
And by the way, the left very badly says, wants, and maintains and it may even be a law in some states, that if a police officer does something wrong as a police officer, that they can be personally sued. I think if a police officer does something that’s really bad, frankly, I think they ought to be sued.
But then the question is if schools do a terrible job of teaching students, especially lower-income Black and Hispanic students, should school boards be suable personally or should principals be suable? Should teachers be suable?
One of the big problems we have in this country is in addition to having a divide in terms of whether you’re part of the government or not part of the government, is whether or not you are educated enough to be prosperous or financially independent in a world that requires better education.
And our government-run school educational systems are going backward. But that’s on purpose. That’s on purpose because the most powerful union in the country is the teachers’ union.
The second most powerful union in the country or the postal employees. What two unions do Biden mandates on vaccines don’t apply to? Oh! The teachers’ unions and the postal unions. Who would have thought?
Henry: Meanwhile we have the Biden administration trying to continually push this thing called the ProAct. And to lend credence to what Crom is saying here.
Carmichael: Explain the PRO Act.
Henry: The PRO Act is essentially forced unionization across the United States. It will nullify the right to work states overnight. I just finished reading this book by guiding Michael Lind.
It’s called the New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite. And in this book, he discusses how, like in Europe and North America, there’s the sort of populist revolts that have shattered party structures.
And there’s a pushback against technocratic neoliberalism and a squeezing in a consolidation of power. And his solution to all of this is something he calls Democratic pluralism. It sounds nice and flowery and fancy and wonderful.
It’s an idea to push the power back to the people. But what he says Democratic pluralism is, is forced unionization all across the United States for every single industry.
This is not just a mere theory anymore. Just like Crom is saying, they are starting to attach legislation to the high-level think tank stuff that people have been theorizing for a while. There is real-life action on this. We’ll have more of this and more of Crom and Ben right after this break.
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.
Photo “Crom Carmichael” by Crom Carmichael.
