Money, Money, Money
💸 Music City sues Trump · Birthright citizens · Repeat offender of the week · Week in streaming · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone.
Friday evening, our own Jerod Hollyfield will lead a discussion as a part of the Parthenon's Muses Educational Series, where he'll discuss the enduring power of Orpheus in film. You can learn more and RSVP here. The event is free to attend, but spots are going fast.
Onward.
💸 Music City Sues The Big Guy Nashville is suing the Trump administration over federal funding freezes. Alongside six other cities and eleven nonprofits, Metro Legal is hoping to claw back $14 million in transit and electric vehicle grants.
Music City’s Law Director Wally Dietz, who suffered a minor stroke last week, took a swing at Trump and Elon Musk in a press release. "No president, much less a non-federal employee at a fictional agency, has the authority to freeze funds appropriated by Congress," he said. "This lawsuit asks that the federal grant funding approved by Congress and awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation for projects in Nashville to connect our residents, make moving through our city easier, and our roadways safer be delivered to Nashville, as promised."
The writing’s been on the wall since the end of January when Dietz answered questions during one of Mayor O’Connell’s media roundtables. ”It's our position, and the courts have ruled, that the president cannot impound those funds,” he told the Pamphleteer. At the time, Dietz was waiting to take action until his office could verify how Metro would be affected by funding freezes.
🍼 Nixing Birthright Citizenship On Friday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of President Trump’s order to prohibit birthright citizenship in America. Among other things, the document contextualizes the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause based on historical evidence.
“In the 1880s, two different Secretaries of State denied citizenship to persons born in the United States. The reason? Their parents had ‘remained domiciled’ overseas,” reads the briefing. “The Secretary of the Treasury applied similar reasoning in an 1890 opinion letter, which denied ‘citizenship of a child born to a would-be immigrant who had not ‘landed’ but was awaiting immigration approval.’”
Though politicians and other government entities have operated under the assumption that birthright citizenship is codified under the 14 Amendment, the Supreme Court has never directly “addressed the scope of the Citizenship Clause.” Given Trump’s pursuit to deny automatic citizenship to children of illegals, this could be the opportunity to weigh in.
🌃 The State Of Metro This year’s State of Metro address will be held at the Nashville Public Library’s Grand Reading Room on May 1st. The mayor will recap his first full year in office and present this year’s budget proposal. The council members will be able to make their own changes to the budget until the end of June.
Speaking of the state of Metro, the Mayor’s annual Spring Clean event will be held this Saturday. According to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, 46 percent of litter in the state is intentional, “meaning it is thrown right out of vehicle windows.” The state contributes $23.2 million in taxpayer dollars for litter pickup and prevention education every year.
You can join or organize a clean-up crew in your neighborhood here.
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I-40 HIGHWAY EXIT CONSTRUCTION
DEVELOPMENT
- Sila Developments pays $5.22 million for prime Pie Town property (NBJ)
- Pete's Dueling Piano Bar opens downtown (NBJ)
- Sambuca in the Gulch closes after 20 years (Post)
- Quirky Five Points-area building listed for sale (Post)
- Status unclear for once-planned Elliston Place project (Post)
- Events production company owner sells property for $5.32M (Post)
- Chicago restaurant group plans Mediterranean, sushi restaurants (Post)
✹ REPEAT CRIMINAL OF THE WEEK
✹ THIS WEEK IN STREAMING (March 25th)
The Electric State (Netflix) We can’t quite endorse this $300 million post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic with Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown trying to survive amid a robot takeover. Still, it’s the best case for the return of theatrical moviegoing that we’ve ever seen. No wonder its directors are going straight back to the Marvel sandbox. Has to be seen to be believed.
The Studio (Apple TV) Seth Rogen stars as a newly minted head of a struggling Hollywood studio who is forced to balance the economic demands of a medium in crisis while trying to will projects into being that could make the movies relevant again. It’s not as glossy as Entourage and other Hollywood TV fables, but it’s a clear-eyed statement on American culture’s current identity crisis.
Goodfellas (Hulu) Though DeNiro’s The Alto Knights didn’t set the box office on fire over the weekend, his turn in Scorsese’s gold-standard gangster film is more than worth a rewatch to see one of America’s greatest actors at the peak of his powers.
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Gleemer @ DRKMTTR, 8p, $18, Info
🪕 Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival @ Multiple Venues, $15+, Info
🎸 Honky Tonk Tuesday @ Eastside Bowl, 8p, $10, Info
+ two-step lessons @ 7p, The Cowpokes @ 8p
🎸 Cole Ritter and the Night Owls @ The Underdog, 11:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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