Live from Music Row Thursday 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 all-star panelist Roger Simon in studio to discuss Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN-05) statement asking the DOJ to investigate The Covenant School shooting as a hate crime.
Leahy: We have some breaking news. A statement from Congressman Andy Ogles about this. He represents this district.
Simon: Oh.
Leahy: Before we get to that though, what do you make of this Transgender Day of Vengeance Rally in Washington? They seem to be promoting violence.
Simon: Something I talk about in my column today is, the difference between the tolerant and the intolerant. We’ve had a, speaking of transgenderism, a role reversal in that because the people who were supposed to be intolerant always were pretty tolerant. It’s those who were demanding tolerance to the ends of the world are really the intolerant ones. This is an example of that.
Leahy: I agree completely. And if they were wise, they would’ve canceled it just because of timing. It’s likely to get a little bit incendiary there, it would seem to me.
Simon: For sure. Andy Ogles represents the 5th Congressional District and the area in which Covenant Presbyterian School is located. So that’s part of his district.
Simon: Yes, indeed.
Leahy: As is the eastern half of Williamson County, the western half of Wilson County, and all of Marshall.
Simon: I always admire you for remembering all of that.
Leahy: Oh yeah. But he sent a letter to Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice, along with Congressman Lance Gooden from Texas. The letter was dated late last night. We got an email with the press release just about half an hour ago.
Let me read this to you. He issued the following statement: “In the wake of the Covenant School shooting, there has been a movement by radical leftists to victimize and legitimize the actions of the shooter because she identified as transgender.
Make no mistake, she was a domestic terrorist who sought to kill and destroy. This type of targeted, brutal assault on Christians is nothing less than a hate crime.” And he said, also, I joined my colleague, Representative Lance Gooden from Texas in a joint letter to U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland urging him to open a hate crime investigation into the Covenant School shooting.
The plain text of federal law makes clear that an act of violence against any person based on a number of factors, including their religion is a hate crime. Your thoughts on this, Roger?
Simon: I agree. They’re a little behind Senator Josh Hawley, who already very publicly called for this. I’m a huge Hawley fan, frankly.
Leahy: Josh Hawley. Former AG from Missouri senator. Very articulate.
Simon: Very articulate, and courageous often. A rarity. Look, Andy’s statement is well reasoned, and I have no qualms whatsoever ever. He’s a little bit under fire as we all know, because of some resume padding and other stuff, but he is our representative and he’s doing it, doing the right thing for the community there.
Leahy: The left is really targeting Andy actually. And you saw after the shooting some left-wing groups and media outlets went back, and he had a Christmas card from what, 2021 picture of his family with guns.
Simon: With guns.
Leahy: Promoting the Second Amendment. He was criticized for that. It seemed to be totally off-point.
Simon: Yes. It is totally off-point. Weirdly, it’s even wrong because if there had been better defenses at that school, that crazy person, which is a simple way of phrasing her, might have been stopped even earlier. In this instance, the police did a fantastic job.
Leahy: And you watched that video? Compelling. They were on it.
Simon: Yeah, I watched it. Really gutsy. They learned the lesson and the criticisms of many people in these mass shootings as the police. A, arrive late and B stood outside while the killer was doing his or her work. In this case, they dodged bullets themselves and, hats off.
Leahy: As to the specifics of this particular incident in which the killer killed six innocent people what wasn’t released was about seven minutes preceding that of video from inside, which apparently showed the actual killings conducted by the 28-year-old.
What’s interesting about this Roger, as to your point is probably a couple of things. Had they hardened the exterior securities of that school would’ve likely prohibited this.
Number one, if they had an armed individual inside. In public schools as a school resource officer and in private schools, the teachers could have been armed. They weren’t. So there was that.
Simon: That’s going on all over the country. We, it’s a very sad situation. Speaking of a friend, Vivek Ramaswamy, he’s called for the arming of our schools that way.
Leahy: Public and private.
Simon: Yes. And it’s sad that we’re at that pass. It’s sad. Excuse me. It’s tragic actually.
Leahy: It’s the reality of the world we live in when so many. mentally ill people are out there. And it seems to be that the number of mentally ill people is increasing.
Simon: It seems to be. We have to face it. You know another thing that concerns me that you guys discussed in the previous hour is The New York Post report that the FBI is now gonna make the decision on releasing the so-called manifesto and other documents that say what she was up to. I am highly suspicious of that. The FBI is now essentially a dead letter office for true information. Who could trust the FBI anymore after what they’ve done with the Biden laptop and all the rest of it?
Leahy: And to your point on this and back to the call for it, a hate crime investigation that Andy Ogles has made in a very detailed and compelling letter sent to the Department of Justice and Attorney General Garland, which outlines the federal law of which if they followed, they would initiate a hate crime investigation.
But he was testifying at Capitol Hill yesterday and he was asked specifically, will you initiate a hate crime investigation? And he said we don’t know what the motive was. How stupid can you be?
Simon: He’s not stupid. He’s lying. Yeah. And that’s what they do. Why would there, why would Hunter Biden still be running around? But it’s very obvious. Just look at her. This was a troubled person who was under the care of a doctor for an emotional disorder, who self-identified as transgender and self-identified legally as a female. But self-identified as a transgender male using the name Aiden.
Simon: With photographs of herself dressed as a male.
Leahy: This clearly was somebody who was perhaps somewhere in the process of doing a transition.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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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.
Background Photo “Covenant School Shooting Scene” by Metro Nashville Police Department.
