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 for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
CROM CARMICHAEL:
Michael, first, let me mention that a friend of mine told me that Donald Trump, who doesn’t drink, actually lifted a glass of champagne last night when hearing that disinformation in our country would be reduced by 50 percent for 24 hours. Do you know what that’s about? The New York Times writing staff went on strike for 24 hours.
That was a friend of mine. I would like to take credit for that, but that was actually my friend who wants to remain anonymous because he’s so well known. But anyway, on to the commentary. I want to cite Michael because I want to go back because this is going to be a theme of mine as long as you’ll have me on the show.
But the theme is what needs to be done to right the ship. And so I want to go back. Jon Meacham, in his speech at Pinnacle. I’m reading his book, and I’m finding that Jon Meacham and I agree on many, many things. We agree that Abraham Lincoln was a great president, and we agree that the Declaration of Independence is the bedrock document of our country.
Let me just read a couple of passages from the Declaration of Independence and talk about how we think it should be applied in modern times. The very beginning of the Declaration of Independence begins with when, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them.
A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Okay, that’s pretty interesting. It says that if you’re going to do something that dramatic, it is important that you explain and make your case.
It also then later on it says prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes and accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
So, Michael, when I say that the president has the unique power under our Constitution to do many more things than any president has done. Abraham Lincoln, for example, fought a civil war with 600,000 Americans. According to Meacham, it was closer to 750,000 Americans back when our population was actually quite small and died as a result of that.
Now, I’m not advocating for civil war. I’m just showing that the Civil War is an example of when you have a difference that is so great among the populace that the normal way things are done simply won’t work. Our revolution itself, our American Revolution itself, was an act of war to tell the powers that be that what was going on would not stand.
And the Declaration of Independence makes an argument for that. And so what I’m going to be doing, Michael, in the future for some indeterminate period of time, is I’m going to be articulating what is wrong with our country today and make the argument that a president needs to assert much more power than any president has since Abraham Lincoln.
They need to assert much more power. If the American people accept it, then the other politicians and the political forces will fold in the face of it. If they don’t, then that American president will be impeached and will be convicted. And what we have today and the trends that we have today will continue.
Anyone will tell you that if we continue to run up deficits of five to $10 trillion every five years, they know that at some point, we lose our reserve status, and our currency collapses. 2008 to 2010 looks like a great time. I will be laying this out and pointing out just how terrible things are. And I’ll give you the first example.
We just passed a giant appropriation for the military. That’s what the reports are. That’s not what happened. It’s a giant pork barrel program for the greenies in the country. This is not about the military. This is about special interest.
And the bill itself is no more appropriate than President Biden swapping an arms broker who is responsible for hundreds, by the way, hundreds of thousands of lives lay at the feet of this arms broker that Biden swapped for Griner the basketball player. And he left the Marine. That part. He did.
No question about that. If he had gotten the marine and grinder, it would have been just as bad that he’s swapping a guy who is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Africa, no less. If we agree that our country is in very, very difficult shape, then the question is if you had the power to do something, what would you use that power to do?
And then the question is, how would you go about tactically doing those things? And so that’s what I’m going to be talking about in the future. And I’m going to be basing it on what Jon Meacham and I both believe is the most important document perhaps in political history, and that is the Declaration of Independence.
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.
Photo “Declaration of Independence” by Josh Hallett. CC BY-SA 2.0.
