On Monday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy chatted with good friend Howie Carr, known as the king of Boston talk radio, to discuss the recent obscure Tweets followed by an even more un-credible story by the New York Times.
Towards the end of the segment, Carr and Leahy talked about how Elizabeth Warren’s Tweet about impeaching Brett Kavanaugh was based upon very ridiculous and fake news claims in relation to the New York Times article.
Leahy: On the phone lines with us right now our good friend and Boston Talk Radio King, Howie Carr. Howie welcome!
Carr: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me on.
Leahy: Before we talk about Elizabeth Warren I have to talk about it, I listened to it last night after you and I talked. You have a new podcast. People can go to howiecarrshow.com/podcasts and listen to dirty rats. I love it. I think of Jimmy Cagny. Tell us about dirty rats the podcast.
Carr: It’s about the political organized crime corruption in Boston. The president of the Massachusetts state senate the most powerful politician in the state Billie Bulger and his older brother Whitey Bulger who was on the FBI’s ten most wanted list, a cocaine dealer, serial killer – basically head of a mob.
Whitey was bribing the FBI in Boston. He had 6 agents he was paying off. They got rid of the mafia. The FBI got rid of the mafia for them. They got rid of his colleagues in the non-mafia organized crime. They made sure Billie Bulger was never prosecuted. It’s just an amazing story of corruption. Until this last Russiagate thing I don’t think the FBI had ever been involved in as much corruption as they were in Boston.
It’s quite a story and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of putting it together. We have victims, survivors, congressional testimony, recreations from the court transcripts on Whitey Bulger. We’ve worked pretty hard on it.
Leahy: You’re one of the most prolific writers and talk radio hosts in the country. I really admire the way you write and the way you pick your titles for your stories. They’re very concise. For instance, you have, “Hit Man.” That’s a great title. Now, “Dirty Rats” Who’s not going to want to listen to a podcast called “Dirty Rats.” (Leahy laughs)
Carr: That’s what they are. If you listen to a couple of them Mike, I think you’ll know they’re dirty rats killing their girlfriends. Strangling them and burying them in other peoples houses. It’s insane what was going on and it went on for 30 years. They had the cops paid off.
Leahy: Speaking of insanity. (Leahy laughs) You and I have been tracking the hypocrisy of Elizabeth Warren since May of 2012 when you and I discovered the “Pow Wow Chow Cookbook” and you found out the recipes there of cold mayonnaise and crab was actually plagiarized from the New York Times right?
Carr: Yeah, it was an arduous work of investigative journalism. I just typed in a few words and all these recipes came back from the New York Times cookbooks and Better Homes and Gardens from 1959. It was ridiculous. So now they’re leaping on this discredited report in the New York Times. The New York Times is more disgraceful by the day.
This may be a real new low though. They knew there was nothing to the story. It wasn’t a front-page story. It wasn’t in the lead. They were doing a favor to a couple of lousy reporters who had written this new book. And the reporters pointed out in the new book in the excerpt, there was no evidence for these allegations. And then some editor cut out the paragraphs so there was nothing to it. Amazing!
Leahy: And so the allegation was, just for our listeners. This guy Max Steyer who saw something 35 years ago.
Carr: Yeah, Max Steyer was the lawyer for Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky thing. They’re describing some good government. First of all, he’s from Washington. He’s an attorney and he runs a non-profit. Those are three strikes right there. (Inaudible talk) As it turns out he’s a Clinton hack. And so he says that someone that told him that this girl, this woman that was at a party and Brett Kavanaugh was drunk.
Think about this. Think about all the crazy drunken parties you’ve been to over the years. All of them. Ask yourself if this ever happened. There was a drunk guy and a drunk woman. So the other guys at the party pulled down the drunk guys pants, took his johnson in their hands went over to the girl and then put the drunk guy’s johnson in the girl’s hand.
Did anything remotely resembling that course of events ever happen in your life or anyone else’s life? Of course not. It’s preposterous on its face. And the woman said she doesn’t want to talk about it but she told her friends she has no recollection of it. So it’s obviously just totally fake news. And again, the New York Times buried it and didn’t think anything of it.
And it’s on a back page of a secondary or tertiary section of the paper. But you know, Walter Winchell the old New York gossip columnist for the Hearst empire used to say, “a lie goes around the world in the morning while the truth is putting its pants on.” And this is a great example of it.
I think if Molly Hemingway, she wrote her own book about the Kavanaugh hearing. This new book is a competition for her book so she got a galley and she read and she immediately got out the word that the New York Times had cut out the paragraph that made the entire story pointless.
And I’m just wondering if Molly Hemingway or somebody else hadn’t called them immediately this story would still be taking off. Instead of being a story about the disgrace of the New York Times it would be the story about how Brett Kavanaugh has to go.
Leahy: Well not only that. Now Elizabeth Warren, based upon this standard of this evidence put a Tweet out yesterday that he should be impeached. My Constitution doesn’t say uncorroborated stories or allegations that are hidden for 34 years are standard.
Carr: She was a law professor. She hasn’t even read the Bill of Rights. What about the 6th amendment. You have a right to confront your accuser. There is no accuser. Think of it this way. Think if you went down to the police station and said, “What are you here for sir. When did it happen? 35 years ago. Did you see it? No, I heard about it.
Well, who did it happen to?’ Then they give a name. “Does she want to testify? No, she can’t remember it happening. Oh, OK. Yeah, we’ll get right on that. We’ll send out every available cruiser to the scene of the crime.” I mean how ridiculous is this?
Leahy: And so this Max Steyer guy Howie, he says he didn’t see it somebody told him they saw it. Is that what the story is?
Carr: I believe that’s what. I think it’s like double or triple hearsay. (Leahy laughs) But again have you ever heard of a story like that? Have you ever heard of anything like that happening? I wasn’t a member of a fraternity but I went to fraternity parties at UNC. But nothing like that ever remotely happened. That stuff happens but not that kind of bad stuff.
Leahy: And it was a year after this that Elizabeth Warren started claiming to be a Cherokee with no evidence whatsoever. (Leahy laughs)
Carr: Yeah, but the thing though is Michael she was like the fourth of those candidates to demand his impeachment. I think Julian Castro was first.
Leahy: Yeah. Kamala Harris
Carr: Kamala Harris. Another extinguished member of the bar you know? Jesus, what is going on here? (Leahy laughs) And the New York Times. And then the other thing about the New York Times is they put up that weird Tweet on Saturday night telling people, trying to guide people to the story. Did you see that?
Leahy: I saw that. Tell me about that. What was in the weird Tweet?
Carr: The weird Tweet was something like, “For some a harmless penis can just fun at a party.” That’s what they said. A harmless penis.
Leahy: Are you kidding me? The New York Times said that?
Carr: The New York Times said that in a Tweet. So then everybody starts going crazy and says “A harmless penis can be fun?” So they corrected the Tweet but they left in harmless penis. So at like midnight, they put out a third version of the Tweet apologizing for the first two tasteless Tweets that they put out.
And again, this is all going down into the dustbin to the dustbin of history. Nobody on MSNBC or CNN is even talking about that. I mean there are multiple levels of embarrassment here for the New York Times if they’re capable of being embarrassed. I was thinking about it Michael, when everybody walks in today, everybody’s going to walk in from Salzburger nobody’s going to care about this.
They got what they wanted to accomplish. They dusted up Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump. So what if it was probably fake news. They’ll probably give themselves a Pulitzer Prize for their deeply reported stories like the Russiagate hoax.
Listen to the full hour:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
