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 Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs to the newsmaker line to talk about how the federal government is maintaining its mask mandate which was upheld by out of County Senior Judge Ronnie Greer and new federal law prohibiting gum chewing in Knox County schools.
Leahy: We are joined right now on our newsmaker line by our good friend, the Mayor of Knox County Glenn Jacobs. Good morning, Glen. Thanks for joining us.
Jacobs: Morning, Michael. Thank you for having me.
Leahy: Glenn, I got to ask a personal question. Before we get into the politics here, I need some advice. Are you ready? Can you give me some advice?
Jacobs: Yes, sir. Well, it depends on what the question is. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: So you are an athlete. You played college football, college basketball, became a famous wrestler known as Kane. Weren’t you, like, a world champion?
Jacobs: Yes. Three-time World Champion!
Leahy: Three times! I mean, that’s something, man. (Jacobs chuckles) Not just once, but three times. I need some help on my own personal strategy because I’m getting up in years and it’s getting harder and harder to work out.
I was doing for a long time. I was doing Hot Yoga. That was great, except guess what? You can’t do it when you’re 67 years old and there’s COVID all over the place. You just can’t do that.
So I’ve been trying to move towards another regimen, and here’s what I think I’m going to do, I need to know what your workout regimen is because obviously, you’re very successful in that.
So I’m thinking of moving more towards a weight-only thing. I got a personal trainer who comes by three times a week, and he helps me out. Now it’s not really a workout.
I call him really, my organized movement consultant. (Laughter) What’s your workout routine and what’s your advice to me as I continue to decline in my physical capabilities?
Jacobs: Actually, that sounds a lot like me. I just try to do what I can. At this point. I’m not very worried about lifting heavy weights like I used to be.
I do a lot of push-ups. I do a lot of body resistance stuff. I do some yoga, but not Hot Yoga. Just like stretching and calisthenics. And I walk a lot, actually.
Leahy: Yes. I think I’m moving in that direction. So I think probably lightweights, push-ups, sit-ups and walking. Boy.
Jacobs: You’ll stay in shape doing that, man.
Leahy: Speaking of people that stay in shape, Herschel Walker, his regimen is like, incredible. He doesn’t do any weights. He does like 1,000 push-ups a day and like a thousand sit ups. Unbelievable. How do you do that?
Jacobs: Yes. I have no idea. He’s a genetic freak, but I think that’s it. He’s very blessed with great genetics. And of course, he’s worked hard, too. But like you said, he doesn’t lift weights. You look at the guy and he’s in phenomenal shape.
Leahy: Phenomenal shape. Okay. Thank you for that personal advice, and I hope I’ll be able to.
Jacobs: Yes sir. I’ll send you a bill. Okay? (Leahy laughs) Personal training agency.
Leahy: The Glenn Jacobs Organized Moving Consultation Company.
Jacobs: There you go.
Leahy: Okay, let’s get back to politics. Glenn, this whole mask mandate thing, there’s a very weird thing going on in Knox County.
We’ve been trying to report it, but it looks like there are some activist left-wingers up there who kind of went judge shopping to get this ruling that prevents the Knox County Board of Education from going with mask options. Catch us up on this. Where does all that stand? And what are you doing as a mayor in that area?
Jacobs: Sure. Knox County, I believe, is the only county in the country with a federal mask mandate. We have a mask mandate at our schools that has been in place since September. As you said, there is a pretty contentious decision handed down by a federal judge.
The school board twice voted down mask mandates. And then parents of four families with special needs kids sued the school system. And we’re struggling now that one guy gets to make the decision about when masks are finally listed at Knox County schools.
And it’s extremely frustrating because you look around the country and there’s a lot of very liberal areas that are dropping their mask mandates. And here we are with a mask mandate.
The latest is that a group of parents is now suing the school board in a countersuit to get the mask mandate lifted by showing the harm that is done to their children. And that lawsuit is being supported by State Rep. Jason Zachary and I. We’ve both made a financial contribution, and of course, you’re out there encouraging people to get on board with that. And hopefully, the judge will hear that soon, and hopefully, he will see that indeed, it’s time for this mask mandate to go away.
Leahy: So this is a suit. Is it being filed in federal court with the same judge?
Jacobs: It is.
Leahy: What’s that judge’s name?
Jacobs: Judge Ronnie Greer. And he’s a George W. Bush appointee.
Leahy: Judge Ronnie Greer. And where does he hold court? Is that in Knoxville or is it up some other part of Tennessee?
Jacobs: It’s in Greenville.
Leahy: Well, wait just a minute here. Isn’t there a federal judge closer in the Knoxville area?
Jacobs: Yes, Michael. I’m not exactly sure on that part of why it went to Greer’s court. Certainly. I think the plaintiffs in the original case, and this is me speculating may have looked around to try to find someone who is more sympathetic to their case and try to get in their court.
I believe that Judge Greer also, he’s a senior judge, which means he doesn’t actually hear that many cases anymore, from what I understand. But it is strange that it went to Greenville instead of Knoxville.
Leahy: Your words are, it’s strange. I got to tell you something, Mayor Jacobs. (Jacobs chuckles) All you said was this was strange. This is more than strange to me that the case happens to find a senior judge.
Judges at a certain age can take senior status. And what that means is that they don’t have to do things day to day. They get paid full-time no matter what. It’s a great deal for them and they get to somehow pick and choose their cases.
But he’s way up in Greenville. He’s not in Knox County. To me, this seems like an egregious example to me, not to you. These are my words, not yours.
This seems like something was going on behind the scenes. This looks a lot like judge shopping. My guess is the plaintiffs knew that Senior Judge Ronnie Greer up there in Greenville would give them a better hearing than anybody else.
And really this should have gone to a federal judge in the Knox County area. That’s my view, not yours. But it seems awfully weird to me.
Jacobs: Yes, I’m not going to speculate on that, Michael, because I don’t know. But this whole episode to me, I mean it just illustrates massive federal overreach and literally the federal government telling Knox County schools what to do.
We have another case now. I’m calling it Gumgate that Knox County schools are being sued for allowing gum chewing and eating food in academic classrooms. That’s not a joke.
Leahy: You’re kidding me.
Jacobs: Not a joke.
Leahy: This is not The Babylon Bee.
Jacobs: We just had a case filed demanding that in a certain school anyway that in the classrooms gum chewing and eating is prohibited by federal order.
Leahy: So who filed this lawsuit and where do they judge shop to get this in front of the federal judge?
Jacobs: Actually I don’t know where this is going because this one just popped up last week. But it is a family of a young person who has a condition called misophonia which translates to hatred of sound. And evidently, this person is triggered like a flight or flight syndrome by chewing sounds or whatever.
Leahy: Well, of course! (Chuckles)
Jacobs: And then schools have tried to accommodate. And our schools do. None of this stuff has been like, oh, it’s no big deal. Schools have always tried to accommodate everyone that has any sort of disability and including the masking case with those children as well.
But nevertheless, now they’re saying, well, schools haven’t done a good accommodation. So no more chewing gum in Knox County schools.
Leahy: You can’t make this stuff up.
Jacobs: No, I don’t know what happened here in Knox County. We went to the Twilight Zone over the past year. (Leahy mimicks Twighlight Zone theme song)
Leahy: I think it makes your job as mayor of Knox County interesting, shall we say.
Jacobs: Yeah, it gets very interesting at times. I never thought that the term Gumgate would leave my lips. But it has. But it’s very frustrating because it’s just more of the same with the federal government coming in instead of trying to work things out local level. Hey, let’s make a federal case out of chewing gum in Knox County schools. I don’t get it.
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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 “Glenn Jacobs” by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0.
