No. 270: Looking for Reader Input

Good morning, everyone.

They pay me the big bucks around here to coin fancy turns of phrase, but the job don't stop there. Today, we've got a reader survey. We want to understand what y'all like and don't like about how we do things.

You can find the survey here. It'd mean a lot to us if you took a minute to fill it out. We'll pick one person from the list — randomly, of course — and give them a prize (TBD).

You must be a subscriber who's been with us for at least a week to be entered, so don't try and game this by signing up your girlfriend or wife to get yourself an extra entry.

Onward.

Today, we look at what happened last night in the Metro Council, look at the latest in the Robby Starbuck fiasco, review an old look at baseball, and consider a graph that lays threadbare who receives the short end of the stick in the modern economy.

You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.

Also, be sure to check out our podcast. New episodes every Monday. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for reading.

NEW PODCASTS THIS WEEK

Monday Morning Podcast Transmission No. 5: Starbuck Returns, Enough Pride, and Schools (ft. Joshua Nelson) (Listen)
In Conversation The first in our series of conversations with Republican candidates for Tennessee's 5th congressional district. Today, we talk to Jeff Beierlein (Listen)

◉ LAST NIGHT AT THE COUNCIL

The clock is ticking for the Metro City Council to pass the changes they want to make to this year’s 2022-23 budget. If an operating budget is not properly approved by the council in time for the June 30th deadline, the Mayor’s proposed budget goes into effect on July 1st as written.

The council has set itself up with plenty of time to get things done. Last night they held their last public hearing for Davidson County residents to state their desired changes to the budget.

NASHVILLIANS ARE FEELING THE ECONOMIC PINCH

Economic burden was a recurring theme coming from citizens who stepped up to the mic in front of Metro City Council last night. Metro school employees and city workers were requesting a 5-8% living wage increase to make up for the burden of inflation. A Nashville 911 dispatcher stated, “It’s embarrassing to be here begging for a cost of living wage.” A woman who works as a clerk for Metro Nashville Public Schools used her time to state her concerns that after over 20 years of service, her wages have stagnated at $19.64/hr; a wage that won’t cut it in the city she works in. She emphasized the gravity of the situation by publicly announcing her resignation.

There were also dozens of requests for more subsidized housing funds. The Mayor’s budget included $15M for the Barnes Fund to build more affordable housing. Members from the Nashville Organization for Action and Hope (NOAH) were requesting the full $30M as recommended by the research done by the Mayor’s own office.

DEFUND THE POLICE TAKES NEW FORM

Members of the Black Nashville Assembly took their turn in front of the Council. Calling to divest from “courts, cops and cages,” one citizen recommended taking the $19M that was going to Metro Police and investing it in the Education system.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Two things are certain after last night’s meeting:

Everyone living in Nashville is feeling the pain of inflation while simultaneously feeling the pain of city growth which is leading to higher rent/mortgages.
No one is happy about the new stadium being built. There will be 3 more budget workshops before the final vote on June 21st. Those meetings are on June 9th, June 13th, and June 14th in the Metropolitan Courthouse.

✱ STARBUCK CASE MAY BE HEARD BY THE TN SUPREME COURT

Robby Starbuck filed his answer to the Appellate Court on Tuesday and it looks as though the entire appeal may get kicked up to the TN Supreme Court. State officials who were asked to take action by Judge Perkins' order, but who were not defendants in the case, have filed a petition to vacate the mandatory injunction order.

“Tre Hargett, in his official capacity as Tennessee Secretary of State, and Mark Goins, in his official capacity as Coordinator of Elections for the State of Tennessee, petition this Court pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-4-110 for a writ of common law certiorari and supersedeas vacating the June 3, 2022 mandatory injunction order of the Davidson County Chancery Court directing Petitioners to restore Plaintiff Robert Starbuck Newsom's name to the ballot as a candidate in the August 2022 Republican primary election for the office of U.S.House of Representatives for the 5th Congressional District.”

Nothing has changed the order reinstating Starbuck to the ballot, but a decision to kick this up to the TN Supreme Court will bring this unprecedented case right down to the wire. It is hard to tell what will happen if nothing is determined before the June 10th deadline. We will continue to update our readers as the drama unfolds.

HEADLINES

Construction of temporary safety barrier on Natchez Trace Bridge begins (Homepage) It has become synonymous with both scenic views as well as a string of suicides and suicide attempts since it was constructed in 1994, resulting in the death of more than 30 people since 2000.
Pride Month Promotions Out Of Step With Majority Of Tennesseans (TCN) Jumping on the bandwagon with countless other companies and organizations in the Volunteer State, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has expressed their support for the LBGTQ+ Community across their social media channels with posts celebrating Pride Month.
Nashville losing out on big money from golf courses as Metro Parks blames hiring struggles (Channel 5) Golf boomed in Nashville during the pandemic, but Metro Parks blames the hiring struggle for what could be hundreds of thousands of dollars left on the table.

POLITICS

Governor Lee Introduces Executive Order To Appraise Safety At Public Schools (TCN) The executive order contains requirements for everything from new school security assessments and funding to a new state school security plan template, discussion with the state fire marshal on school security improvements and an evaluation on the use of armed security guards at private schools.
Tennessee Department of Education releases draft rules for new student funding formula (Commercial Appeal) Tennessee school districts could receive additional state funding for some students who test among the lowest 40% in literacy under proposed state rules for Tennessee's new school funding formula.

BY THE NUMBERS

Tennessee has 11th best state economy in U.S. (Center Square) Tennessee ranked fourth in economic activity, fifth in economic health and was 38th in innovation potential. Tennessee topped the chart in change in gross domestic product from 2020 to 2021, a key factor in its economic activity ranking.

DEVELOPMENT

The 14-Story ‘Aspire Midtown’ Looks To Break Ground This Summer In Midtown Nashville (Now Next)
Developer buys Music Row property (Post)
Philadelphia-area convenience market chain eyes Nashville (Post)

↻ FROM THE ARCHIVE: AMERICA'S PASTIME HAS A MOMENT

In light of the recent attempt to force players to wear rainbow patches on their jerseys lest they be labeled "bigots," we review a moment of beauty in baseball from last year.

Walt Whitman said of baseball in 1888, "America’s game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life. It is the place where memory gathers."

Baseball is "America's Pastime". It is etched into the cultural firmament. Popular parlance accords euphemisms to its rules and intricacies ("out to left field", "three strikes you're out", etc.). It stands as one of, if not the, first wholly American cultural institution. The game lends itself to unique forms of personal expression from Hideo Nomo's zen-like windup to Dontrelle Willis' careening, coordinated lunge towards the plate to Mark McGuire's scythe-like swing and became the country's first cultural export spreading rapidly to Japan and Latin America soon after its inception.

During the early 20th century, a country comprised of many different ethnic and religious groups—with no shared history or aristocracy to look up to—found common ground in the sport. Baseball, with its pastoral stadiums set against the grime of the city, inherited a role in communities from the Roman bathhouses. So much sway did it hold over the public's imagination, that it became a staple of the American seasonal calendar: spring, marked by the onset of Spring Training, and fall by the World Series.

In many ways, the history of baseball has mirrored and presaged the trajectory of the nation. Conceived shortly before the Civil War, the first professional teams emerged shortly after the dust settled. It sputtered along in various forms until the Roaring 20s when it exploded in popularity with Babe Ruth as the Jupiterean lord of the diamond representing the new upwardly mobile American Empire emerging from WWI.

In 1947, nearly 10 years before the courts desegregated schools, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and in the 1980s and 1990s, the sport saw a large influx of Hispanic players reflecting the wider demographic shifts of the country.

Around the time of the Dot Com Bubble, the sport witnessed its own form of artificially enhanced dynamism as juicers like Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds shredded records standing for nearly 40 years only to be denoted by an "asterisk" after doping scandals swept through the league.

Today, baseball languishes amidst the myriad diversions offered to Americans. Plagued by its own wholly unique issues, it has suffered from dwindling attendance and a backseat position in the American cultural zeitgeist. The MLB has pondered rule changes to speed the game up and, recently, decided to "deaden" balls to reduce the monotony of the sport's reliance on the long ball that once made it a staple. Swallowed by the Woke Theocracy back in April when Georgia's "draconian" voting laws lead to the All-Star game being pulled out of the state, baseball has suffered much the same fate as other core American institutions: drowned among the demands of a humorless political class bent on sapping life from anything that bleeds American pride.

But last night, the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees gathered at the hallowed and holy Field of Dreams in Iowa made famous by the Kevin Costner movie of the same name. The game ended in a transcendent manner reminiscent of Robert Redford's famous light-shattering home run at the end of The Natural. White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson walked up to the plate with a runner on, one out, down by a run, and stroked the ball clear over the right-field fence. The scene was surreal. Fireworks immediately erupted as Anderson rounded the bases. A wide shot of the island of green in the midst of an inky black Iowa night, emblazoned with American symbolism, inspired pride. What would normally have been a fairly standard regular season baseball game, hidden deep in the woke catacombs that ESPN has become, poked its head through like the first corn shoot of the season. A flash of brilliance and beauty against our increasingly flat and mundane cultural landscape. The moment was a brief reminder of how a core American institution by and for the people can inspire pride in one's own country.

➫ GRAPH OF THE DAY: EARNINGS FOR WHAT?

From Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution:

People are more productive in cities. As a result, people move to cities to earn higher wages but some of their productivity and wages is eaten up by land prices. How much? In a new paper Philip G. Hoxie, Daniel Shoag, and Stan Veuger show that net wages (that is wages after housing costs) used to increase in cities for all workers but since around 2000 net wages actually fall when low-wage workers move to cities.

What happens when low-wage workers stop moving to cities?

Source: Moving From Opportunity: The High Cost of Restrictions on Land Use
Marginal Revolution, 2 June 2022, Read Online

⚔ MISSIVES ⚔

🚼 Pro-abortion terrorists firebombed a pro-life Christian pregnancy center in Buffalo, N.Y. on Tuesday, inflicting significant damage on the building and vandalizing the remains with their organization’s name.
🏛 A California man armed with a weapon was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home after telling police he wanted to kill the justice.
☀️ President Biden used emergency authority Monday in a bid to resolve a supply logjam that threatened the solar power industry, but the action drew complaints from U.S. manufacturers who say it will impede their efforts to build domestic production.
📉 The World Bank sharply lowered its growth forecast for the global economy for this year, warning of several years of high inflation and tepid growth reminiscent of the stagflation of the 1970s.
🚨 San Francisco residents voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin, one of the nation's most progressive top prosecutors.
⚡️ The Biden administration is crafting policy recommendations aimed at lessening the energy consumption and emissions footprint of Bitcoin and other proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrencies.
📈 Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis introduced the first major bipartisan legislation aimed at taming the “Wild West” crypto market on Tuesday that would classify digital assets as commodities like wheat or oil.
💸 President Biden is likely to decide later this summer whether to partially forgive student-loan debt for millions of borrowers.