Heartland Journal Podcast
Heartland Journal Podcast EP233 Michelle Foreman Interview & More 7 30 24
Joining us is Michelle Foreman a Franklin native and frequent Republican candidate for Middle Tennessee offices. Foreman's top-stated issue is closing Tennessee's open primaries, which allow people to vote in a political party primary without being a registered party member. At a recent local forum, she also said she would reject federal education funds for Tennessee schools. She can be found michelleforeman.comIf you like what you hear make sure to subscribe to the show and share it with your friends. You can find us at http://heartlandjournal.com
- Duration:
- 1h 26m
- Broadcast on:
- 30 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the Heartland Journal's podcast. With your host, Steve Abromowitz, editor in chief of heartlandjournal.com. >> Howdy, all, welcome back to the show for our second to last episode of July 2024. Also, last few days before election day in Tennessee, Thursday, August 1st, which is so weird to me, always a Tuesday in Washington growing up in California. And I am Steve A and this is the Heartland Journal podcast. So welcome to our people in the news, where I interview people who are making impacts and are lovers of truth. Today we are talking with special guest, candidate to Tennessee D65 General Assembly Michelle Foreman, full disclosure, all candidates in her race. We're invited and she's the one that accepted, so thank you Michelle. Michelle grew up in Franklin, Tennessee. We call that a unicorn being from here and not an immigrant refugee like me. Her and her husband, Tony, lived near all the superstar country music folks and leapers fork to adult children and 12 year old Ella. Michelle graduated from Brentwood Academy, like my daughter just did, Go Eagles. And Lipscomb, I'd say Go Bisons, but I'm a war eagle dad now, so can't do it. Nashville School of Law, she was elected in 2018 to the Tennessee GOP State Executive Committee and served as the chair of the permanent elections subcommittee, drafting election integrity resolutions and getting them passed in the SEC, sending them to the General Assembly, not the football and baseball league SEC that is our elections committee and working closely with the state legislature to pass election integrity laws as well as other conservative legislation. Hello, Mrs. Foreman, how are you today? Hello, I'm doing well. Thank you so much, Steve, for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's fun. It's gotten pretty hot out there. My dashboard said 102 this morning, not as hot outside as inside the hot, been raining though last week and weekend. So how is the door knocking gone? Door knocking is always phenomenal when we are able to get someone at the door. The message always resonates and it really starts off by being that hometown girl who is almost protective. I think I'll use that word. I feel very protective of my community and want very much to represent and serve them. I think sometimes we forget this is a public service position. And so when you tell someone at the door that you want to serve them, it's almost as if you're speaking a different language. So like I said, it does resonate very, very well and people feel like, great, I've got a hometown girl who's going to advocate for me at the state house. Yeah, I saw you out front of the voting place when I went to vote. Thanks for the shout out or tweet out for the show. We do have early voting in this county and a big day is Thursday, less than 48 hours. How's your internal polling or maybe unscientific gut feeling been telling you you're doing? Great question. So the polling that we have done has us really neck and neck with one of the candidates. So what that translates into is that the conservatives must come out on election day. If we want to get a true conservative elected, we must show up. And usually that's what happens, the conservative waits until election day to vote. As far as the temperature at the door, making phone calls, things of that nature, the voter is very, very receptive. So it's getting to the voter, it's educating them, it's letting them know you have a choice, but the only choice you have is going to be during the primary. Once we have the primary, Steve, the candidate is chosen. In Williamson County, whichever Republican wins the primary, they will be our representative. So it's communicating that with the voter and it will be a very close race, I believe. Williamson County has a little bit of a recent history, if not longer term history, of pretty low turnout, tell us about how you see the voters of D65 for those that don't live here. And what are the voter demographics in your perspective telling you they want that maybe they haven't been getting? The the Democrat or the voter here in Williamson County is largely conservative and we have a lot of folks moving in from from other states, predominantly, I think California, and that's just based on knocking the doors and they are desperately moving here to to find that conservative representative again. They lost it in California and they're they're they're very, very engaged or they're trying to be very engaged, but they also want to make sure that we do not elect someone who is what we call Republican and name only. And I don't use that as a disparaging term, a Republican is someone who follows that Republican platform, not the Democrat platform. And we have that in our elected officials, sometimes, and thus, you know, Rhino, but that, that demographic here in District 65 is very much wanting to see that true conservative Republican representative. I'm going to ask you about that a little bit more, but in the meantime, I read up on your legal issues, $100,000 court sanction to a former Metro national council member, the Tennessee lookout, wrote it up and people get mad at me if I don't ask, I want to just kind of get past it. But so what can you tell us about the news about that and what you learned from it, more importantly? Well, what this was was a lawsuit that I filed against a former Metro council member for defaming me. Now I've got very thick skin. I've been doing this for a long time, helping other candidates run for office. And so I've seen a lot. It's not my intention to ever or let me state this. When you file a lawsuit, it needs to be a matter of last resort. And this is a Metro council member who had targeted me and my family and harassed us for years. And so it finally came to the point when they violated Tennessee's little Hatch Act, you know, federally, we have a Hatch Act and Tennessee has its own. And so he engaged in the election in order to really an interfere. And what he did is he sent out defamation in his official capacity as a Metro council member. So he violated the little Hatch Act. And then again, we had just decided we needed to go ahead and take these steps because it had begun to affect my reputation in the community. We just can't have that. We need to be able to feel comfortable pushing back and fighting back against that type of thing. I was not the only candidate at that time who filed lawsuits. Let's see, I believe then Congressman Andy Ogles filed one during the same time period as well. Now he withdrew his. I did not withdraw mine and it was against someone separate. But at any rate, as we got into this lawsuit, the anti-slap petition, which passed the General Assembly in 2019, completely unbeknownst to any of us, that was the response that was filed to my lawsuit. And basically what that says, I won't get into the weeds, but if you defame or you're accused of defaming someone, you can assert that you are exercising your first amendment right. And then you show that the person who is suing you is a public figure. And then in essence, what this legislation does is it ignores our Tennessee rules of civil procedure and you basically lose your lawsuit right then and there because you're having to bring all of your proof up front, there's no discovery. It's just a poorly written piece of legislation and that has been acknowledged by many, many legislators. They said they messed up. Well, I got caught in that and there was no way out for me. And so what you ended up having to do is appeal that now in the meantime where the $100,000 sanction comes in, Steve, you're going to find this very interesting. We got in front of a liberal activist judge in Davidson County, go figure. She completely ignored controlling state opinion, the state opinion by our state Supreme Court. You are not, it is unconstitutional and you are not allowed to punitively sanction anyone for over $50 unless you afford that person a jury trial. So this activist judge completely ignored all of that and she sanctioned me anyway and she did it and get this. She and another person that was on the receiving end of a lawsuit are constituents of each other. So she's protecting her own. This is what we call law fair and basically what she said was, hey, you know what, these are things that your attorney did and I'm going to punitively sanction you because I don't want you bringing the lawsuit against my friend and I'm paraphrasing. But I now have to appeal that and of course we fully anticipate this being overturned on appeal. It's been overturned before with other people who have been sanctioned. So this is nothing but law fair and trying to really suppress the conservative and not just the conservative but the one that pushes back and tells the liberals you're not going to do this, you're not going to run over us. I'm fully prepared and we've engaged in that appeal and again Steve, like I said, we fully anticipate it being overturned but the bigger question is why is the liberal media? Why are they not reporting on the fact that this is unlawful? You cannot violate or just ignore the Tennessee rules of civil procedure and you can't sanction anyone. Like I said over $50, you can't punitively sanction them without a jury trial. I mean, if you're a judge, shouldn't you know this, don't you have a clerk that looks this up? I mean. We've done a lot of shows on law fair and we always clarify it's the process that is the punishment. So yeah, of course, when justice has its day, which could be years from now, everything should work out according to plan but they get you in the meantime and it costs a lot of money to lawyers. Okay, so thank you for that. Under 100 days until the November election, let's talk about your platform. But first, I saw on your bio member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. How far back does your family go? We first were here, I believe it was 1830 and I had ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War and when I looked to see when they first drew their pension, I realized based on the age and when they fought, they were around 70 plus years old when they drew a pension and I thought, wow, they were really working and they worked for a long time. So we've been in and around Franklin and Williamson County since then. Wow. Okay. Yep. You are soil salt of the earth, as we even say. It's always hard in a three way race to take over for a long time incumbent, you know, most Tennessee folks, if you look up their career, a lot of uncontested contest. No dam ran against them since 2012. The Republican takeover or assembly and Senate, right? There's been crossover voting, split voting, God forbid cheating, but we've done lots of shows on voter integrity here and nationally. Do you feel pretty good? It'll be a clean race this year? You know, no. We've already identified those who have bonafide Democrat voting records who have crossed over. So, you know, it's unfortunate that that happens. We have Tennessee code annotated that makes it a misdemeanor and a felony to cross over and vote just depending on the situation. We have those signs that are in the polling locations to educate, but we still have those that are going to be dishonest with their vote and I know what they're doing. I actually had one reach out to me on social media and they messaged and said, "Hey, I'm a Democrat, but I am going to cross over and vote in the Republican primary because it's the only time that I have a voice because Williamson County is a Republican stronghold, if you will." And I'm paraphrasing that I thought, "Wow, really?" So that's unfortunate. That is. So Sam Whitson, really nice guy by all accounts, never had him on, unfortunately. I don't know him, but you want to replace his D65 seat and he isn't running again. He won in 16, 18, 20, and 22 last time uncontested, but in 2020, he won 68, 32 against a Democrat. Same deal in 18, 68, 32, officially. Never a three-way race. Do you think he voted like a Republican most of the time and the Williamson County voters got what they overwhelmingly voted for all those times, or did he lack something that you're going to be able to bring that way they want? Right. No, I don't think that he voted the way that a conservative Republican would like for him to vote. I think he voted in a manner that a moderate Republican or Democrat would appreciate. And you said it very well, Steve. I mean, he's a very nice man, he's a veteran, he's a respectable man, and we need to remember that. But before Sam Whitson ran, we were represented by one of the most conservative legislators that Tennessee has probably ever had. And so the district itself is very conservative and wants to get back to that. What was surprising to me is that no one has ever run against Sam Whitson. He's never been opposed, like you said. So I think that the district is ready to go back to what is truly conservative. Do you remember the name of the person that was the most conservative one you talked about? That was Jeremy Durham. Jeremy Durham. And Jeremy served. Yeah, he served the district well as far as his legislation, again, very, very conservative legislation came from him, and I will say that in the past 10 plus years, we've had a lot of folks move in her unfamiliar with that. Mm-hmm. And then no. So what committees would you most like to be on? We'll talk about how that actually could happen or not. But what committees are you most interested in up there? Well, I'll tell you about some things that I'm interested in and wherever I get placed. You know, that comes from leadership, but illegal immigration has been such a hot topic and it's been an area of interest for me since law school. And education, when we talk about educating illegal aliens, you know, since the decision in 1982, the Supreme Court of Pined and Flyler versus Doe, states must educate the children of illegal aliens unless they show a substantial state interest. And back in the day, in 1982, Texas had just not been able to meet that burden, but we can more than meet that burden now, I feel like. We spend over $600 million a year just in Tennessee alone, educating illegal aliens. And so whether education is a committee to be on, you can really bring that legislation regardless of your committee. But I think it's very important that we dig down and we show, hey, $600 million could go a long way in Tennessee regarding our schools, our public schools. And when we have complaints on both sides of the political aisle, funding, curriculum, things of that nature, we can get in there and address that. And if I'm not mistaken, the attorney general has actually made some comments to that effect as well. So I think we need to challenge the Supreme Court ruling in Flyler versus Doe. We're poised to do that. An education committee would probably be best suited to bring that. You mentioned the education portion of that, but we actually spend near a billion dollars. I'm sure next year will be over a billion dollars on illegal immigrants to house, educate, pay for hospitals and all that money that could go to veterans or schools or potholes after the winter freeze, lots of new potholes. What are your ideas on de-magnetizing Tennessee for illegals to come here and flood the schools and sadly jails with criminals, taxpayers are on the hook for? Yeah, that's a great question. I hear sometimes for maybe some more moderate folks, even in the supporters of, let me rephrase that. For those who have a voice or an opinion in this race, they say that Tennessee and specifically Williamson County, we are not a magnet. We don't encourage that. And I would disagree strongly. Not only is it considered, is Williamson County considered the best public schools in the state of Tennessee? Well, if you're illegal, why would you not come here and bring your kids and have them educated? Given that it should be a crime to knowingly house illegal aliens, to rent to illegal aliens. If we made it a crime, I think that would be instant, almost instant de-magnetization, de-magnetizing the state of Tennessee and Williamson County also. We have E-Verify right now, but for companies that employ over 35 or 35 and over, employees, but if we did that for just one, and we had to do background checks and find out whether these folks were, you know, whether they had a Social Security number or any other identification. If they didn't, then if it were a crime to employ them without doing that check, these are areas that we need to flesh out, but they would, I think, almost instantly begin to de-magnetize Tennessee for illegal immigration. Okay. I spent a lot of time on this show going over the split in the Republican party after the 1976 race between Goldwater, Reagan, the Outsiders, and Ford, Kissinger, Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and many more what we call now the establishment, or like you said, less flattering rhinos, if they vote with Dems often. Tell us why you made the Republican party or ideological home, how the party is treated your campaign, and how you feel about all the messing they've done with the county and bona fides, and buying instead of leasing the darn machines? Well, I identify with the Republican party platform for reasons like marriage. It's between a man and a woman. We are pro-life. We are pro-second amendments. I don't believe that, you know, that should be infringed by any stretch of the imagination. Our 10th Amendment state sovereignty is something that we're really going to have to beef up on, because I think we've become a little more comfortable making excuses for federal overreach, and we need to exert our sovereignty. We need to really make sure we understand that that is our right. The Republican party platform is, I'm more aligned with it. I think that maybe I'm more conservative than a moderate Republican, obviously, but when it comes to this election, and correct me, because I don't want to veer off Steve, because you gave me a lot right there, but the party here in Williamson County is probably split, yes, between those that are conservative and then those that are a little more. I think establishment is a good word. I think we've got politicians who have become very comfortable in their roles. They've been in office for a very long time, and they are not beholden to the electorate, to the voter. They become, apparently, they have become beholden to those who fund their campaigns. In this particular race, it has become unconscionably dirty. There are supporters, and well, I'll leave it at supporters for another candidate who have reached out and thanked me for running a clean campaign, and we have also reached out to one of our other opponents and thanked them for running a clean campaign, because that establishment that backs another opponent, again, has been unconscionable, unconscionable in their actions towards me and the other candidate. A lot of out-of-state money, too. I'm sorry. And a lot of out-of-state money, too. Almost a million dollars. And here's the problem, that $1 million isn't going to support what people want, it's going to support what a politician wants, and what the special interests want. And that is so antithetical to what we are supposed to be doing. We as Republicans should, we should hold ourselves to a much, much higher standard. We should never be engaging in that type of behavior, and yet here it is right here. I think, Steve, in District 65 in this race, I think there's more money than being spent in this race in order to afford these special interests what they want than anywhere else in the state of Tennessee. I could be wrong, but again, almost a million dollars alone. I believe- We as a county is a prize for both sides, of course, and like you said, out-of-state money, and of course there's the 11th commandment, which everybody seems to have forgotten just like they don't go to church and actually learn anything. Governor Lee and many officeholders came out for one of your opponents, Lee Reeves, okay, whose wife is also on the ballot for school board. How do you feel about husband and wife officeholders? Well, regardless of how I feel, the electorate is very uncomfortable with that. We'll see what happens, but back to your question. I am uncomfortable with that just, well, I'll be honest, optics. Optics aren't good, and politics and optics go hand-in-hand. And so I think if you've got something to offer the community, okay, but for these individuals who have never been engaged or involved with the Republican Party before are unknowns, and there's nothing wrong with being unknown, but if you don't have anything to give and you haven't done it in the past, why not do that first? Why not come in, be engaged with the party, help other people, help other good conservatives get elected to office as opposed to just both jump right in. That's the way I approached it, and I think that's the way that politics is best approached. Get in, help other people, understand where the need is and where there's a need. If there's not a better person to fill that role, then jump in and run. Great. So his wife wants to be on the school board. I know the assembly doesn't really make school policy, local issues, but that could change with vouchers, and you live here and have a daughter in the system. Two cycles ago they made the school board race partisan, meaning candidates have to declare a party. Scott's a picky from Murray County, got that past and told us on the show it's good because you get to see how they vote, and if it's squares with their party, so we know a few on there who aren't really Republican because of the issues they backed, like with wisdom, agent appropriate books and class and library, and the big one vouchers. As a mom of a 12 year old here, how do you feel about the Williamson County schools, including their handling of masks during COVID? They kept the mandate on the longest, thankfully, before I got here, and how will the effect of voting in Nashville on things, tried like pride flags, vaccine schedules, and teachers carrying guns to prevent the next covenant shooting? Well, as far as the schools are concerned, my daughter has always been in a private school, or I homeschooled her for two years through COVID, and we made that decision based on what was best for her, and I do believe that parents should be supported in making the decisions regarding education and what is best for their children. As far as masks in vaccinations and things like that, as a registered nurse, I do still keep my license active, but my husband and I, who works in the operating room, we knew from the very beginning that the use of masks was inappropriate, and how it was being sold basically was potentially detrimental, it was never, those types of masks are not meant, and they cannot prevent someone from contracting a virus. They can't, and so I think that it really, it was a false sense of security that a lot of folks were sold, and then the fallout was horrible, the fallout from that was just horrible. But masking children against their wishes or against the wishes of the parents is inappropriate. It is fully and entirely inappropriate, and to mandate those, to mandate any type of vaccine, it's inappropriate. Putting that together with where we were and where we are and where we may be in the future, we need to make sure that we have legislators who understand that the government and the school board never, ever are they to mandate anything like that, under any circumstance. What we used to do, and I believe it was back during 1918, we quarantined the sick. We did not go out and tell the healthy, you have to do A, B, C, X, Y, Z, that's not how we handled things, and it was just a disaster how things were handled. What was really disappointing, too, is our governor, Governor Billy, there were a lot of folks that felt like they were not, there was no one to advocate for them because he let the governors, or excuse me, he let the mayors make their own decisions. Will that hurt people? What we needed was really a strong leadership at the state level to say, we're not going to mandate any of this, we're going to be careful, we're going to be conscientious, but we're also going to let people make their own decisions, but mandates, you know, we need less government involved in our lives, and that includes the public school system. More like what they did in Florida, less like what they did in Washington state, where I came from, Covenant highlighted the difference between private school, making their own security decisions, even ones that failed tragically and leaves $250 million program to provide public SROs, even if they didn't want them. Where do you fall on that and the other school versus state issue was homeschooling vaccine schedules and having to turn them over, Jody Barrett got that killed before it would have taken effect. Did you agree with him, homeschools should be left alone, but also benefit from voucher money just without the strings attached, where did you fall on all that? It's coming back, so where would you be? Right, so homeschoolers need to be left alone and they are a fierce bunch of men and women and children, hands off of the homeschoolers. They know what they're doing and we are not to, we're just not to bring those additional mandates, that's just wrong. And I would say that with the private school as well, going back to the SROs and how we protect the private school, my daughter was in a private school at the time who handles things incredibly when it comes to school safety. And after the covenant school shooting, they did hire another school resource officer. But those officers are out there in plain view, they have their weapons on their hip, they're very serious, there are other precautions that are taken at the school. I feel very safe and very secure there. They made their own decision, they're in control of what they do, as far as mandating certain things in the public school. I know that there are public schools out here in Fairview. There are folks that are requesting additional SROs or maybe an SRO during summer school. I was unaware that the SROs, at least out here, were not available during summer school. That is something that we need more parent engagement because first of all, there are second amendment rights that will not and should not be infringed. But when we're talking about additional safety, let's hear from the parents and then let's make sure that as they engage and we listen to them, that we provide what they need. And let me just say, if we weren't educating illegal aliens to the tune of over $600 million, we'd have the money to do a lot of things that we can do and should do. As far as vouchers are concerned, reading that voucher bill is something that I don't think either one of my opponents have done. That's a good, there are good intentions behind that and I will fight to make sure that parents have the tools that they need to educate their children in a manner that they see fit. What I would like to see is their tax money refunded to them in a manner that they can use for their children's education. What parents do not want? And I have gone to the doors, I have listened to people on both sides of the political aisle. What we do not want to see is any more government regulation, whether it's from the federal government or from the state of Tennessee, those regulations are not welcome in the private school sector and certainly not in the homeschooling sector. And that is what is in this current voucher bill. How that's not a problem to anyone calling themselves conservative? I have no, well, I do have an idea. Maybe they're not quite conservative. We cannot do that. Now what we can do is provide that additional money and I think that if it comes in the form of our tax dollars coming back to us, that's the appropriate way to start doing this. But again, the way that the bill is written, it just, it ushers in the federal government. We have problems with what's going on, some things that are going on in our public schools, right? Why would we intentionally put our public schools and our homeschool, excuse me, our private schools and our homeschools, potentially in that same position? That's just very, very unwise. So we need to clean that bill up. You know, something else I thought of too is why don't we offer some tax, some more tax incentives or let me rephrase that one. What if we dropped the tax altogether on food staples? Things like flour, bread, milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables. We could encourage a healthy lifestyle, but we could also save money in that regard. And if you allow parents to save that money, make those decisions, they can choose to use that money towards a private school education. Okay. So this is a non-income tax state, most of it is property taxes and sales taxes, years and eyes, town, Franklin, 53 percent of the budget is from sales taxes, Cameron Sexton, the speaker, leadership, potentially your boss. He made comments about giving federal funds back to D.C. and doing things more on our own way, which I love, states rights. I would love to see that, but do you agree, Tennessee can afford to be that independent and still not expand Medicaid or would you be in favor of expanding Medicare like most other states did and keep Department of Education funds to maybe expand charters, et cetera? Because if we start talking about getting rid of grocery store taxes, like they're saying up in Nashville itself, we're going to run out of revenue sources and then they may come back for more on what my next question is property taxes. You're right. And that's a really good question and good points that you made. We do have the money within Tennessee's state budget to completely forego the federal government's funding. And we should. I fully support that. And whatever we need to do, we have got to cut the strings, we've got to cut the federal government strings and get them out of education, completely out of education. So I fully support that. And then as far as removing some of the taxes on our food goods, we really would have to look and see if we could afford to do that. Maybe if we did a little bit at a time, I would always like to see fewer taxes. If we can afford to do it, let's look into that and let's do what we can, especially in their time of inflation like we have now. So interestingly enough, we talked about the billion dollars for illegal 600,000, 600 million of it for educational loan. Tennessee got $3.7 billion in 2021. And the Tennessean newspaper said only spent about 10% of the American rescue plan. What would you do with the $3.5 billion that's apparently sitting there earning interest? I guess I hope four years later, if you were an appropriator, well, I would save as much of that as possible. I really like to pinch. I really like to pinch pennies. I am truly, truly conservative in that regard. When I look at the things that need the most attention, I do think that roads, our roads, we need to spend some money there and we need to be more forward thinking when it comes to our infrastructure needs. We build, but I don't think we do the best job of anticipating who's coming in and building, living, bringing their business, bringing their family. We need to do a better job of that. And then creating the infrastructure that we need so badly and keeping up with our roads. As far as the rest of where money could be spent, I always like to hear from constituents and see where they think money should be and could be best spent. When we think about the corporate welfare, we need to stop giving our money towards corporations to come in here and set up shop in Tennessee because we're so, we're awesome anyway, Steve. We're awesome. We don't need to incentivize corporations to come in here and do business. But what we could do is-- I see the woke ones that hate us. Oh, absolutely not the woke ones. Look, we're nice and we're friendly, but we don't need to invite in that regard. But what we could do is use some of that money to help our hometown businesses. I'm sure that we have a lot of folks here who would like to expand, maybe even franchise. But let's help our own. Let's put Tennessee first. Yeah. Let's look into doing that. I like in an Alberta, but I would have loved to see the Loveless Cafe get as good of a deal as they got to come here instead of having to go to Southern California to hear them. Are you familiar with Tennessee's certified tax rate law or what we call truth in taxation? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. For the listeners who don't know, the law requires local governments to conduct public hearings before adopting a property tax rate that generates more taxes overall in a reappraisal year than were billed the year before at the previous year's lower values. Well, they're not doing that. The state controller, Mumpower's office, wants that annually instead of every four years, maybe three in some places here. I've been harping on property tax hikes ever since I discovered Tennessee doesn't have them a little too late or they bought in. But counties around us have anywhere from 16 to 52 percent overnight on the whim of county councils and mayors like Memphis and Nashville wants to do another after just doing it two years ago after Mayor Cooper had actually cut them a long time ago. Would you be in favor of a statewide property tax cap so people don't lose their farms if you were in office? Not only would I be in agreement on that in 2020 when we had that egregious property tax increase in Davidson County, I was part of a non-profit or excuse me, a nonpartisan group of folks who fought back against that, sustaining the targeting of the leftists there in Nashville who sued a bunch of us over a robo call that by the way I did not make, but we pushed back against that because Davidson County is known for being wealthy, wealthy beyond my ability to articulate and spending into oblivion. They are so incredibly unregulated in their spending and they have run over so many good people, really destroyed lives. It's egregious. But to your point, because we have run away local government, no oversight in regards to the property tax increases, I think what we do need to do as a state is to come in and in some way regulate the rate of increase when it comes to those property taxes because it is killing people, it's killing businesses, we're going to have to do something, we're going to have to address it. And like I said, I've been looking at this for several years. And the Supreme Court of the United States gave a pass to California's Prop 13. That was passed in 1978, 2% a year, 6% over three years max, which is a heck of a lot better than 52% the day you wake up and they say there was no public notice on that. All right, I'm going to run out of time and I got more questions, but I want to give you as many shots at the Apple as you bite at the Apple as you can. Tennessee is billed as a constitutional carry state. You can't take a gun into a Nordstrom's or most businesses. That prohibition would be considered unconstitutional, but has led to an epidemic of stolen guns from cars when people leave them in there. Duh, we've had shows with Tennessee Firearms Association, TFA, and they have ideas on how to get Tennessee law in line with the Second Amendment. They had a special session last summer on guns, red flags and such, nothing came of it. So I'd have been pretty mad if I were you and had to go downtown every day away from Ella for nothing, but any plans that you have to get Tennessee in line with two-way and who might you team up with up there to help you? Well, at the end of the day, the Second Amendment is not to be infringed and I will not vote for any legislation to infringe. We have a right to carry and honestly, Steve, when you think about the horrific things that have happened, if we had those individuals who carried their firearm in order to protect, because that's all we want to do is protect ourselves. You know, the average ordinary citizen that carries, they do it for protection. And if we had more people like that in places where, in any places, a potential for a crime to happen, we would better be able to protect ourselves. So we need citizens to be engaged, to understand, to feel comfortable carrying a firearm to protect themselves, their family, their community. There are a lot of good conservatives up at the legislature who understand that. And I look forward to working with them to protect against the unconstitutional red flag laws that are trying to be passed by those who call themselves conservatives. Okay. So, Patriot Front and neo-Nazis have been twice now marching on Broadway. I question who they really are, but when I was growing up in the 1970s Napa, California, the real Nazis wanted to march and flex their First Amendment rights to be idiots, which I actually am 100% in favor of being an idiot and expressing your First Amendment, even if it's dumb. Would you let them march or make it illegal for hate speech, quote unquote, and along the same lines, would you let pride parades and drag queens and bars under the same rules of engagement? You know, we already have laws. We already have First Amendment laws. We just need to follow them. So if people are wanting to protest and wanting to do whatever it is that they're doing right now in the media, I've had this question ask of me before. The way that I would approach it is just to ignore. The media gives attention to groups that, you know, that make headlines, but they don't have to, but they do. We'll just ignore them as long as they're within the constitutional, their constitutional bounds and they can't do these things. As far as gay pride and things of that nature, we've seen where the disruption has occurred, especially here in Williamson County. And if we want to keep an organization or a group from participating, let's just go ahead and talk about the pride taking part in what was it Steve was it last year, I believe it was last year, to keep these folks out of, say, a parade, they had been disruptive. So if you go ahead and you are violating laws, ordinances, things of that nature and you've been disruptive, then if we apply those laws generally, if they become generally applicable, we're not singling out gay pride or anything like that, we can make them generally applicable and keep them from participating. The, where it becomes a problem is when you're in front of children where we're bordering up against obscenity, there are places for your LGBT, it's just not in the public view or where our children are and so we need to understand that and feel comfortable pushing back against that. And if we do it generally and not target them, then we're going to be successful in keeping them out of situations like we had last year. Okay, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson, represent a small but let's say vocal minority in Nashville as Democrats, 75, 25. Shelby County is a mess of crime and Senator Taylor from Memphis is trying to do some things to clean it up like remove the DA who they say is George Soros back. What are you seeing in Memphis politics and Nashville, both blue areas and how successful they are at making Tennessee blue, instead of Tennessee assembly, making them more red like the rest of us? With their strongholds, now they've historically been Democrat and they've worked together for for many, many, many years. If you have never read Secrets of the Hope Well box, you must and your subscribers must read that book. But it explains pretty well the relationship between Memphis and Nashville, the crooks and the crime bosses and election, stealing elections and things of that nature. But this is very, very deeply rooted. It goes way, way back. So when you have forms of government that are deeply established, it is very, very difficult to have Republican influence. I think what you've got to do is do what the Democrats have done, get down into the grassroots level, get down into the neighborhoods and become those community organizers. And you know what we really need to do when we don't do a good job of is getting into our churches and getting our pastors. These men and women are extremely well connected to the community. And you make change by making change at the community level. Women do not do that the way that Democrats do. And so we need to take note, we need to study and we need to be passing these tests. We're not doing that right now. Yeah. They're more involved with Ford or Elon Musk or in an outburger than they are that. American Nurses Association, Tennessee Nurses Association, a lot of, that's your background, a lot of regional hospitals have closed last few years. Do you see a market based solution for that? I think that if we give nurses, nurse practitioners, more autonomy to work out into the communities, especially those that don't have those hospitals or the hospitals are closing. That's the best thing that we can do right now. We have extremely well educated men and women nurses who can do the job of a physician and they can go out into these underserved areas and have the greatest impact even if the hospital is not there. So we really need to go ahead and give these men and women autonomy to practice the way that they can and should. Okay. Like a time for one last one, you were a Trump delegate last time and you are again. They took a shot at him, our president, I pray they don't try again. But now with Kamala in the race, instead of Joe, do you still think he can win? I do. We're going to run up against the same issues that we did four years ago. And for those that deny that there was any kind of fraud, again, go back to secrets of the hopewall box, but just go and look at some of the footage of ballot harvesting and things of that nature. I think where we failed to see, because I want to see the facts. I want to see all of that, but we got shut down from seeing that when the election results were certified. Cases were dismissed and we couldn't actually see everything we needed to. We can expect that again. I do fully believe that that will happen and anything to keep President Trump from being reelected, make no mistake. The left will spare no expense. They will go to the extreme. And so I think that as Christians and as conservatives, we need to make sure we're covering him in prayer, his family, his staff, and all of us, everyone, whether you're Republican or Democrat, this is just an evil time that we live in when another party or I don't even know if I called the party, Steve. I might just call it a globalist experiment here. They're so desperate to keep him out of office. That's what's really going on here, I believe. So yes, I think we're up for the same challenges we were four years ago. They've tried all six ways from Sunday. All this left is World War III. So let's keep our fingers crossed the next 30 days. We don't end up with our kids in foreign shores. But Mrs. Foreman, thank you for your time. We are out of time. So please tell our listeners where they can go to find out more about your campaign with only a day left. Help out and volunteer and follow any social media, maybe staff your office if you win. Tell us. Yes, yes, absolutely. So they can go to my website, michelleformin.com. You can find me on Facebook, X, Instagram. I would love to meet as many people as possible and I would love to serve. So just let me know how I can reach out to me and let me know. Oh, great. Good luck. And hopefully we'll get you on again sometime and maybe as a winner. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Steve. Bye. I'm Monica Page with One America News and you're listening to the Heartland Journal Podcast. I was playing our sound track to my wife here today and she didn't even know you two had a Heartland song and she's been a you two fan since she was a wee lass. Welcome to the Stevens Eve segment of our show producer Steve, what do you think of our guest, Michelle Forman? Well, sounds good. Interesting. Up here in Washington, they are a little more progressive when it comes to nurse practitioners because that's what my wife does and she's been able to practice autonomously for 20 years. So it used to be where you'd have to be under an umbrella of a big medical establishment with an MD or whatever medicine doctor there, whereas here in Washington State, they said no, you're qualified, you've gone through the schooling and so consequently, she's been practicing that. So yeah, that what I would highly recommend, if there anybody down there that's listening, that's in legislation, please pass that. It is high time because these individuals quite frankly have a different set of skills than just your average doctor and they can do pretty much the same thing. That is right. And last week, if you tuned in or you can remember that far back, I told you all about California State Senator Scott, do it all for the wiener and the laws he's gotten past there. Let's start with this clip number one. And Elon Musk continued to quarrel on social media, the latest issue between them and altered video of Vice President Kamala Harris that Musk reposted on his social media platform X. The theory three's capital correspondent Ashley Zavala explains action. The governor says he is now taking him response. Because I am the ultimate diversity. The latest conflict between Governor Gavin Newsom and Elon Musk starting with this video Musk reposted on X. I may not know the first thing about running the country, but the video uses an artificial intelligence voice cloning tool to mimic the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris. And for it to seem like she's saying things she did not actually say. In response, Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted Sunday night, manipulating a voice in an ad like this one should be illegal. I'll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is. Musk replied, I checked with renowned world authority. And he said parody is legal in America. This comes as Newsom backs Kamala Harris for president and Musk has endorsed. Well, we have three branches of government, executive legislative and judicial, right? And at the state level, not just DC. So once again ends up in the courts, all that stuff I talked about that Governor Newsom rubber stamps, no pun intended, they'll save us, right? And I mean, the law, it's the law, it's a letter of law, black and white in the books. And there's always the initiative process for citizens to voice our concerns. We'll see, but California Supreme Court blocks anti-tax ballot measures siding with Newsom. The California Supreme Court said a proposed tax reform measure would illegally revise the state constitution. You know, the same guy Newsom who voted sorry, vetoed a bipartisan bill. Yes, there are a few Republicans there, a Republican and Democrat pass bill he vetoed that would have evaluated the 24 billion. He can't explain spent on cities and counties for homeless programs. That guy, the justice rule, justice is ruled that the initiative called the taxpayer protection and government accountability act, TPA, would illegally revise the state constitution. The TPA was proposed by business groups as a ballot measure, but only the state legislature holds the power to put a constitutional revision before gold state voters, the court said. The changes proposed by the TPA are within the electorals prerogative to enact, but because those changes would substantially alter our basic plan of government, the proposal cannot be enacted by initiative associate justice Goodwin Liu wrote in a 74 page opinion. They are long-winded, even if they're not legally, I don't know, smart. The TPA would have required California voters to approve any new statewide tax, in addition to two thirds of the legislature and force lawmakers to declare the duration and estimated annual revenue of any tax proposal, the act would also restrict how the state spends tax revenue and clarify that any fees imposed by the government are taxes among the reforms. Guess not. The decision was welcomed by Newsome, who joined forces with state lawmakers and former state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton to challenge the ballot measure in court. "We are grateful the California Supreme Court unanimously removed this unconstitutional measure from the ballot," Newsome spokesman Izzy Garden said in a statement. The governor believes the initiative process is a sacred part of our democracy, but as the court's decision affirmed today, that process does not allow for an illegal constitutional revision. Go figure, the justices said that by redefining government fees as taxes, the measure would remove the power to set fees from local government administrators and place them with a local legislative branch, legislative councils would have to set library fees or utility rates, rather than a mayor or local executive department according to the Sacramento Bee. Mayor Breed of San Francisco is so concerned she is losing cops, a few want to join the SFPD that she created a ballot measure. One part of the measure would make the average salary of a police officer to be...guess. That's not a typo. That is $100,000 more than the president of the United States. The governor of California gets $224,020 a year. The board voted 8-3 to advance a charter amendment that if approved by voters would offer financial incentives for older police officers to delay retirement, but it did so only after holding back-to-back special meetings to beat a deadline to get the measure on the ballot. Those moves came after supervisor Hillary Ronan attempted to spike the proposal last week by leading a 2-1 vote on the rules committee she then chaired to delay the measure past that deadline. Critics of the proposal like Ronan argue that it would send pay for some officers storing close to half a million dollars a year if accepted this will cause other police departments to give massive raises to their cops. This is an economic disaster, clip number two. Also, to the United States, remember when the old Biden booster network was literally standing in front of a flaming building and saying that the protests, they're mostly peaceful. Remember this image where "fiery but mostly peaceful" is what was the thing written in the bottom of a CNN thing, "fiery but mostly peaceful protest after police shooting"? Well guess what? Why are we starting to get the bill back from some of these riots? And they are still saying that despite the fact that more than a billion dollars worth of damage has happened, they're mostly peaceful. Nationwide unrest sparked by the police killing of George Floyd could lead to the highest insurance payout of its kind in history. The protests in late spring were mostly peaceful, but damage from looting and arson will cost one to two billion dollars in claims. That's according to the Insurance Information Institute, and that would have clipped the previous high, the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of four officers in the beating of Rodney King. It is literally a billion dollars, actually over two billion dollars of damage. Okay, another California resident, born and raised in Oakland, California, Camilla Harris, still raising money for Freedom Fund, that bus murderers and rapists out of jail, exactly who they were just talking about on that news clip. Of course you have to go to the UK to get that news. Minnesota Freedom Fund posted bail for rapists and other violent criminals. No way. Yes way. Andrew Kerr, July 22, 2024, Vice President Camilla Harris is actively raising money for, did you catch that date by the way, July 22? That's last week. Vice President Camilla Harris is actively raising money for a bail fund that bus violent criminals from jail, as her nascent presidential campaign signals her candidacy will lean heavily on her roots as a tough on crime former prosecutor in California. Harris urged her followers to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund in June of 2020 as Black Lives Matter writers wreaked havoc in Minneapolis in the days following George Floyd's death. Harris's fundraising efforts helped the fund raise more than $41 million in 2020, but the group only used a small fraction of that bounty, 210,000 to bail writers out of jail. The remaining funds helped post bail for violent criminals such as Christopher Boswell, a twice convicted rapist who was freed from jail in 2020 pending kidnapping and sexual assault charges after the Minnesota Freedom Fund paid $320,000 for his release. The last time we were down there, the clerk said, "We hate it when you bail out these sex offenders." That is why they said former Minnesota Freedom Fund interim executive director Greg Lewin told Fox 9 in August 2020. The Minnesota Freedom Fund continues to reap dividends from Harris' fundraising efforts well into 2024. The vice president's fundraising page for the group, which contains a photo of triumphant Harris before a crowd of supporters alongside her 2020 campaign logo is active and accepting a contribution from this reporter on Monday morning. Act Blue, the digital payment app for making donations, gets 4% of every donation. These remember and they've turned off the system matching names to account numbers so it's money laundering. Journalists found in Austin, Texas resident made 10,000 different donations to Dems from 2020 to 2022 worth $106,304. One person, 10,000 times. The FEC website says he did, but the resident said he didn't. It's called smurfing, skinning a large number of small transactions. The Democratic Party folks got to love it. All right, big finish, Secret Service ex-secretary Cheetah worked at Pepsi before doing such a great job protecting President Trump and Biden, clip number three. Much has been made of tonight's flashy Super Bowl ads from big companies with deep pockets. This week, one of the biggest of them all, Coca-Cola, announced it's changing. It's Canadian formula. It's just one offensive in its battle with rival Pepsi for hearts and taste buds. Tonight we look back on the front lines of the Cola Wars. Tomorrow, Coca-Cola Company will tell a thirsty world it's putting a smoother, sweeter taste into the most instantly recognizable bottle in the world. This has got to be the boldest consumer product to move of any kind of any stripe since Eve started to hand out apples. Here they drag out all the hoopla, thinking that they're going to war against the arch-frival Pepsi. But it turns out they've picked a fight in their own backyard with their best friends. I can't tell the difference between the New Taster Coke and the Old Taster Pepsi. Why are you upset about it? My oldest daughter is 22. Her first word was Coke, her second word was Mommy. What? For decades, Coke is stayed on top by being cautious and conservative. Lately though, Pepsi is growing faster than Coke. The Pepsi challenge is clearly hurting. Pepsi has captured a young, hip positioning that Coke by nature of its corporate culture is not really able to understand yet. Pepsi has an interesting history I thought y'all should know, especially if you're born in the 70s or 80s. You remember all that. A Marxist threat to cola sales. Pepsi demands a U.S. coup. Goodbye, Alandé, hello, Pinochet, by Gregory Paulist, November 8, 1998. Anyone alive in the 80s, like me, should remember the cola wars here in America when Coke and Pepsi were on TV nonstop trying to outcool each other for their sugar bubble water. Well, it was a cold war, but in some places on earth it was a hot one. It is the firm and continuing policy that, Alandé, be overthrown by a coup. Please review all your present and possible new activities to include propaganda, black operations, surfacing of intelligence, or disinformation, personal contacts, or anything else your imagination can conjure. Eyes only, restricted handling, secret message to U.S. station chief Santiago from CIA headquarters 16 October 1970. You would be wrong to assume this plan for mayhem was another manifestation of the cold war between the free world and communism. Much more was at stake. Pepsi cola's market share and other matters closer to the heart of corporate America in exclusive interviews with the observer last week. This is 1998. The former U.S. ambassador to Chile, Edward Corey, told the story in and behind these and other top secret CIA state department and White House cables recently released by the National Security Archives. Corey filed in gap, filled in gaps in the story by describing cables still classified and disclosing information censored in papers now available under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Isn't that crazy right, market share versus Marxism? Corey, who served president Kennedy Johnson and Nixon, told how U.S. companies from cola to copper using the CIA as an international debt collection agency and investment security force. Indeed, the October 1970 plot against Chile's president, elect Salvador Allende, using CIA's submachine guns and ammo, was the direct result of a plea for action a month earlier by Donald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, in two telephone calls to the company's former lawyer, President Richard Nixon. To get that, Kendall arranged for the owner of the company's Chilean bottling operation to meet national security advisor Henry Kissinger on September 15. Hours later, Nixon called in his CIA chief, Richard Helms, and according to Helms' handwritten notes, ordered the CIA to prevent Allende's inauguration. But this is only half the story. According to Corey, he claimed the U.S. conspiracy against Allende's elections not begin with Nixon but originated and read no further if you cherish the myth of Camelot with John Kennedy. In 1963, Allende was heading toward victory in Chile's presidential election. Kennedy decided his political creation at Eduardo III, the last father of Chilean's current president, Eduardo Frei, Ruiz Tagal, could win the election by buying it. Kennedy left it to his brother Bobby, the attorney general, to put the plan into action. The Kennedy's cajoled U.S. multinationals into pouring $2 billion into Chile, a nation of only 8 million people. This was not benign investment, but what Corey calls a mutually corrupting web of business deals many questionable for which the U.S. government would arrange guarantees and insurance. In return, the American-based firms kicked back millions of dollars to pay for well over half of Frei's successful election campaign. By the end of this process, Americans had gobbled up more than 85% of Chilean's hard currency earning industries. The U.S. government, guarantor of those investments, committed extraordinary monetary intelligence and political resources to protect them. Several businesses, friendly U.S. governments, front organizations and operatives were sent into Chile, including the American Institute for Free Labor Development, infamous for sabotaging military trade unions. Then in 1970, U.S. investments, both financial and political, faced unexpected jeopardy, a split between Chile's center and right-wing parties permitted an alliance of communists, socialist and radicals uniting behind the socialist Allende to finish the presidential election, 1% ahead of his nearest rival. That October, Corey, a hardened anti-communist, hatched an off-the-wall scheme to block Allende's inauguration and return free to power to promote his own bloodless intrigues. The ambassador claims he, quote, "back channeled a message to Washington warning against military actions that might lead to another bay of pigs fiasco," or he retains a copy of this still classified cable, but Corey's prescient message only angered Kissinger, who had already authorized the Pepsi-instigated coup, scheduled for the following week. Kissinger ordered Corey to fly in secret to Washington that weekend for a dressing down, still not knowing about the CIA plan, Corey told Kissinger in a White House quarter that only a madman would plot the Chile's ultra-right generals. Well, that's 20 years later, but so former Secret Service boss Lady Cheadle did security for Pepsi. That resume item got her the top job at Secret Service, the premier security entity on earth. I guess it's possible she didn't notice station a guy with a rifle on the second story above the uncovered building that was one story, in case the guy they saw 30 minutes earlier crawling on it with a rifle might actually use it on a high-value target 150 yards away, but I guess not since Doritos and Cola aren't Republican. Thank you George Jones. Before I share a reminder, I'll just go there and give us your email and zip code and we'll deliver it right to your inbox for free. I got this email, it's a little different of a quote, but I think you should hear this. A Secret Service counter sniper sent an email Monday night to the entire uniform division, not agents, saying he will not stop speaking out until five high-level supervisors, one is already down, are either fired or removed from their current positions. The counter sniper also said the agency "should expect another assassination attempt before November and complain that he is no longer proud to be a USS S counter sniper after leadership failed the officers at the Trump rally in Butler on July 13th." This agency needs to change, the sniper wrote in the email, "If not now, when? The next assassination in 30 days?" Sadly, we have fallen short for years. The counter sniper lamented, "We just look good doing it. I have conveyed these thoughts to not only supervisors to include the current captain of CS, but those responsible for training us, SOTS/CS, only to be brushed off as those with less experience somehow knew more than me. The team I was once proud to be a part of is something I have to somehow hide as I move into my next career," the counter sniper continued, "who wants to hire a USS CS guy who failed. That's the public perception I'm not faced with. The USS CS team is a stain I will never be able to cleanse." He concluded with these two lines, the motto of the USS S-C-Y-A, and every supervisor is doing it right now. The agency quickly deleted the email, a knowledgeable source told real, clear politics. The full email has his name redacted. I wonder if they're doing that at EPCI as well. That is it for this episode. Thank you, Michelle Foreman, for time away from your close race to talk to us. Good luck. And of course, like last time with the Franklin Mayors race, an interview, like a stupid harmless retweet on Twitter, does not mean an endorsement, but I'm sure the haters and hacks will call it one anyway. This is goodbye for now. I'm your host, Steve Abramowitz, editor-in-chief of Heartland Journal.com. See you all tomorrow and Thursday. Peace in our time and definitely, glory to God. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] This is it. [MUSIC] The streets of San Francisco for you. Any of you's or opinions represented on the podcast are personal and belongs solely to the creator and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the creator may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity unless it's explicitly stated. Steve Abramowitz is the CEO of Heartland Journal. Steve also hosts the Heartland Journal's Tennessee podcast. I hope that was not that Skype bloop sound was not the sound of Steve disappearing. Was it? Steve, you there? Nope, I'm still here. I think Steve that was indeed that sound. I've got, we'll get him back. All right, so let's go ahead and talk about what we're going to talk about here. So basically the Donald Trump campaign, I think it's very fair to say, has had to pivot really radically. They thought they were going to be running against Joe Biden, quite reasonably. Trump has complained about this. I don't know how much of this is just showmanship or if it's a genuine sense of frustration on the part of the Republicans. But when you're running a high stakes presidential campaign and then suddenly the opposition candidate switches radically from, and that is a radical shift between Biden and Kamala Harris, you have to rejigger everything, right? Everything has to be rethought, the whole, the whole, all the tactics have to change. And that's, and so, you know, I've got to think that that has put Maga world a little bit on its heels, right? I mean, Steve, is it fair to say that this is a, I wouldn't say, you know, big trouble for, for Trump, for the Trump team, but it's certainly a major challenge, you know? I don't think so. I mean, she was polled at like three and a half percent, right, when she was running for president. Now Fox News says 5747 for her in Michigan, which is still a crime scene from 2020. So I don't think the polls have changed for her, even though they're telling us they have. So you're right. I went from moderate Biden to try to replace Bernie Sanders, the radical to now gaslighting us turned up to 11 on the old spinal camp amplifier, because, you know, he just not moderate. You know, she's the most liberal senator we have had in a long, long time, and, you know, the cover of the New Yorker this month says Kamalaat, but that ain't JFK's Kamalaat. That's for sure with, you know, the post World War II piece, unlike today's war with everyone all the time and all the money. Well, yeah, it's definitely, it's, go ahead, Steve. Steve Gill. Part of her advantage is that there is a hundred day run, so she's not going to have to go through the real rigors of inspection as a normal candidate. You know, she's, she's a blank slate. They're trying to quickly write on her a completely rewrite of everything she's done. She's denying that she's in favor of banning fracking her own words on tape say she's for banning fracking. That's not going to play well in, you know, I'm not going to play well in Pennsylvania and other oil states. She's changing her view on a lot of policies and trying to deny them. It's up to the Republicans to submit who she actually is policy wise. And again, they've got a short time to do it, and they're going to have to ramp that up. I think pretty quickly, Ted. Yeah, no, I think that's right. Let's talk a little bit about some of the, what's going on. I mean, we heard about the polls in the headlines. There was a boost, you know, it's basically right now, it's like if you're looking at the good and the bad, the ugly from each side, from the Harris Democratic team, they're raising money like nobody's business. I mean, $200 million is just a massive amount of money. It breaks, shatters all records and just keeps going. All nearly $200,000 Democrats have volunteered to join the campaign. I mean, there's no doubt, you know, the giddiness on social media and everywhere on the part of Democrats. The enthusiasm gap, I think it's fair to say, has vanished. On the other hand, the bump in the polls hasn't really, it doesn't, hasn't stuck. So Joe Biden was losing by about six points before Harris announced, before he dropped out. Then she was basically neck and neck. And now he seems to be up by about two. Is it fair to say that we're probably going to end up seeing those polls tick up a little bit for former President Trump and probably settle out at about forehead or something like that, you know, ish, let's just say, I think, you know, Steve Abrahamowitz, I think that's probably the direction of the campaign. Could it just be that there's not going to be a significant difference because in the end, Democrats vote for Democrats, Republicans vote for Republicans, and there just aren't that many swing voters. No, I think my friend and neighbor Steve Gill said it really well. There's an old line in politics where you can't keep too soon. And I think the announcement of her replacing Joe was her peak. And it's all downhill from here because now you're going to start seeing all the clips of what she's actually said in politics over the last 30 years and how badly she did in California and why they didn't like her there. And that actually moving over to VP was really just probably some kind of insurance for the big guy because she was so bad she's not going to be wanted as a replacement that now all of a sudden they're trying to backroom deal to make her the front runner. And I think the polls are completely wacky because there's no way that they could get it together that fast and people who actually know who she is would say, yes, we're enthusiastic about her. We went from 3.5% just four years ago to now all of a sudden we can't wait for the next Reagan Eisenhower mix in combination in our leftist politician. No, it's too far left. There's never been a presidential victory from that far left. That's Mondale's the longest type of stuff. So I'm old enough to remember guys an assassination attempt. I believe the question. I've got to interrupt you with that. I can't let that go. I mean, how do you know where she is? I mean, on my side of the aisle where progressives left is we're trying to figure out who she is and what she stands for. There's really no record as vice president. She really didn't do anything. She wasn't allowed to do anything probably, but she just didn't. She was only in the Senate for four years, nothing that she sponsored ever became law. She was kind of all over the place. As a prosecutor, sometimes she tried to be missed tough on crime and even sent innocent guys to prison. But then at the same time, she was like Lucy Goosey on diversion programs. I mean, how do you know how do you know that she's a lefty? I mean, there's a lot of signs that she's a corporatist too, like she supports the Israel and Gaza. I mean, we just don't know. She was rated the most liberal senator of the hundred before she ran for vice president and her record in California is abysmal because black folks who she was appointed to represent, that's what Biden said when he was announcing who he was going to choose as a VP, literally can't stand her because she put a lot of their friends and family in jail on really low-level marijuana usage reasons and then went on the, what's his name, the God TV radio show and literally said... Charlemagne. It's Tupac before he was even in the music business, so she's just a fake, she's just a phony and I think people see through that and so whenever they play for DEI, let's just call it, I know that's now a bad word, all of a sudden it went from being like the holy grail of business to a bad word, she literally embodies that with absolutely no quality to behind it to say yes, you have a wonderful resume. She has a hand selected by mostly men resume, that didn't work for Hillary either, I remember that being a big mud slinger on her that stuck, that she was given everything by being the first spouse, not being a politician with a track record, so my theory is, and we'll see in three months, she is not going to be who she said she is and the voters will see through that and not have the energy and not have the usual exuberance and actually all this talk about white chicks for Kamala, white dudes for Kamala, that's racist, I don't think people like that and I didn't make that up, that's running around social media right now, I can confirm that, yes sir, so that's a very bad look. In my liberal whack job brother, youngest brother, is helping recruit people to white dudes for Kamala, sent a request to my sons and they said, you know, we can't live in a country if Donald Trump gets elected and my son's response was, bye, we'll miss you. The bottom line is she is the DEI candidate, she's running with white dudes for Harris, she is pushing women are saying, oh, you have to vote for it if you have a vagina, that is DEI as it gets to say vote based on gender, it's misogynistic on steroids and she doesn't have much of a record as Ted points out, but what records she has is abysmal and she's trying to cleanse it, oh, I had nothing to do with the border and the media is trying to help her with that bogus denial, as a prosecutor in California, she put about 1,400 people in jail for smoking marijuana while she was smoking marijuana, now her defenders were saying yes, but only 45 of them went to federal prison, right, that's still not solving the problem and she claims that she is for, you know, is real, except when she's not, you just had her condemn the death of children in Gaza, but Hezbollah killed children on a soccer field and Kamala is silent. She is very quick to talk about some things, denies others and let's not forget she went on the Ellen show and literally cackled laughed about killing Donald Trump, that might have been funny, it wasn't, a few years ago, it's not funny now and I think that clip of her laughing about killing Donald Trump juxtaposed against the assassination attempt is not going to play well for anywhere and again, I think when she was bailing out looters and burners in Minnesota so they could go out and loot burn again, which she denied and yet the record is still there, she was bailing people out to go commit more crimes, that's not going to play well in Minnesota or in any city that was subject to that, you know, riding, burning and looting. Steve and Brandon, let me ask you about the weird off, so about a week ago in the first week of Harris's campaign, the signals were coming out of MAGA world that one of the lines of attack was going to be that she's weird. Well now the Harris campaign, he's doing the same thing and they're calling Donald Trump and his Republican allies, quote, "just plain weird" and that's a whole talking point now. Pete Buttigieg said Trump is getting older and stranger, Tim Walts governor of Minnesota said that we're weird people on the other side of the Democrats, Chuck Schumer said that Vance is weird and erratic, who's weird, are they both weird, is nobody weird, is it a weird thing, weird, is it going to stick, I mean this is like, to me weird, really brings me back to like Dwight L. Barnes, junior high school in Carolina, Ohio in the mid-70s and you're weird, no you're weird, you're a weird out dude. You've got photos of Buttigieg out there, chest feeding his baby, you've got the White House Easter parade with transvestites and drag queens, you've got these people who have been in the administration that like to steal luggage from women at the airport, who's weird, right? I mean weird is in the eye of the beholder but I've been alive long enough to realize that there's actually weird policy that we are dealing with and people have to suffer under, like putting people in jail who are in their 70s with thermal illnesses for praying and kind of front of abortion clinics, I mean we've got some serious degeneracy that we've dealt with for the last four years, just like the Olympic, blasphemous opening and all the blowback to it, so I think the weird of the left is actually less popular than maybe Vance's is weird. I just watched his movie, he'll be the other day, that's not weird, that's actually a common American problem, opioid addiction and trying to overcome your problems to become what now may be the vice president of the United States, that's a huge racial-alder success story, so I'm not too worried about their weird versus our weird, let's just call it, I think our weird wins that competition, they're also trying to say well we're the pantsuit nation, so all of a sudden we're voting on fashion as opposed to policies, remember by the way, the reason why Biden was not so popular and decided not to run for your election when it really comes down to it is because you could never get any traction in the minority communities, which is a big democratic constituent because of his crime act, Paula was one of the people who was made successful by enforcing the laws of the crime act, and so her people quote unquote that she's asking for, not the wacky white women, not the dudes, not the weirdos I guess, but the people who actually went to jail are not going to be all that much more favorable to her than they were to him and he couldn't even run for reelection, it's funny, she has a new add-out talking about not quitting, well what is her boss just to do, quit. Very quickly Steve Gill, we have time for one more question. The other big problem is that she does not have any integrity, any honesty, we've seen that time and time again where she'll say one thing, do another, trying to deny her own record, and the claims of her $200 million in fundraising are an absolute fraud, act blue has had millions and millions of dollars per end, perhaps from overseas donors that they have been putting into the name of thousands of donors, there's little old ladies who supposedly have donated $20, $30,000, three or four donations a day that they're saying, I didn't do that. When that gets investigated, we're going to find that act blue and the Kamala Harris campaign has been an absolute financial fraud, the same way that transferring the money from the Biden campaign to her is not allowed under the law as well. She's going to have legal problems, act blue's going to have legal problems as these state attorneys start investigating the fraud, the money laundering that act blue has engaged in to claim she's raised $200 million, it's a lie. Steve A, very quickly, we have 30 seconds left. Oh, I don't hear Steve A, but that's okay because we really are out of time. Steve Abramowitz, thank you so much for joining us here on the final countdown, look forward to next time. Steve Abramowitz is the CEO of Heartland Journal, he also hosts the Heartland Journal's Tennessee podcast, both to two teams, both from Tennessee here.