What did I miss?
Good afternoon, everyone.
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation warns you against eating the catfish you catch in Center Hill Lake if they're over 19 inches, due to the threat of mercury poisoning. Just thought you should know.
Onward.
Allegra Dru Milisitz has been in isolation since Inauguration Day for Greg Gutfeld’s What Did I Miss? Now, she’s ready to enter an entirely different world.
While the MAGA faithful and the TDS afflicted spent the last four months glued to screens, Allegra Dru Milisitz was holed up in an upstate New York farmhouse with three strangers making friendship bracelets. But the model, magazine publisher, and breakout star of the Food Network’s 2023 series Worst Cooks in America isn’t a Luddite or emulator of the Amish way of life. She was just making a second run at the reality TV life on Greg Gutfeld’s new Fox Nation game show, What Did I Miss?
Forged from the DNA of Big Brother and NPR’s Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, the latest project from the Fox News superstar and current King of Late Night cut off four Americans from the outside world the night before Trump’s inauguration. With no internet, cell phones, or way to contact the outside world, the quartet whiled away the days with arts and crafts and DVDs of The Sopranos.
In late April, Gutfeld whisked them away to a Fox studio in blindfolds and headphones to ensure the integrity of their total isolation. Once behind their respective podiums, each contestant was tasked with determining whether a news story was fake or real. With Fox personalities Kat Timpf and Jamie Lissow acting as resident BS artists, the teammates worked together so that one of them could go home with a $50,000 grand prize.
Milisitz sat down with The Pamphleteer to talk about navigating the political landscape, reevaluating her relationship with her phone, and participating in the freshest concept to hit the game show or reality TV worlds in quite some time.
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🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.
TODAY'S DOCKET
- AFP launches campaign against Mayor O'Connell's proposed property tax increase, what'd they say?
- WeGo ridership down 2 percent year-over-year, what's to blame?
- How important is nuclear energy to our future prosperity?
📜 Petition Against Property Tax Increase Americans for Prosperity has launched a petition against Mayor O’Connell’s property tax increase. “Property appraisals are in and city leaders are already saying there will need to be a property tax hike,” reads the petition. “This, after raising your property taxes 34 percent just three years ago. This, after raising your sales tax last year.”
In April, Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee, GOP-Nashville, and the Nashville Tea Party came out against a property tax increase. “Whether it’s sales or property taxes, the message is the same—people are being priced out of their own city,” said Pamela Furr, AFP Middle TN Grassroots Director.
The group also organized a protest at this year’s State of Metro address, which was colorfully dismissed by O’Connell: “Many of you undoubtedly walked past folks this morning who believe that the property tax going up for any Nashvillian, by any amount, is not necessary—just more government spending. These are the same people celebrating the chaos of federal cuts, which, make no mistake, are not about efficiency.”
“We heard Freddie O'Connell, but I don't think he is hearing Nashville residents about this issue,” GOP Nashville Chair Jason Weakley told us. “The mayor's claim that protesters want to gut essential services like teacher pay and police salaries is a distraction. We're demanding an end to wasteful spending that fuels dependency on federal subsidies and debt. Nashvillians deserve leadership that prioritizes fiscal responsibility and protects our most vulnerable citizens, not policies that deepen inequality and destabilize families.”
🚍 WeGo Ridership Decrease During yesterday’s Metro Transit Authority meeting, WeGo’s Scheduling and Service Planning Manager reported a decrease in bus ridership. “Ridership this quarter was down about 2 percent from the same quarter last year, in part due to some winter weather that we had in January and February,” said Katie Freudenberg. “And then we did also see slightly lower ridership than we did last year in January and February, even on days without winter weather.”
She went on to share that the numbers declined this quarter on routes that travel 8th Avenue, Murfreesboro Pike, and, notably, Bordeaux. “One of the biggest declines on the frequent network was on Route 22 Bordeaux,” said Freudenberg. “This is in part because all the parts northwest of the river were renumbered last year as parts of routes 14, 71, and 77, so those passengers are being counted on another route. But we also saw about a 20 percent decrease in ridership on Route 22 at the North Nashville Transit Center, which, on its surface, looks a little alarming, but overall, on all the routes that serve the North Nashville Transit Center, ridership has more than doubled since last year. So it means that people are shifting how they travel.”
🪫 Underperforming “Green” Energy According to the Tennessee Star, the Tennessee Valley Authority applied to build the nation’s first General Electric Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy small modular reactor near Oak Ridge on Tuesday. During Wednesday’s Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development hearing, Senator Bill Hagerty “received confirmation from Energy Secretary Chris Wright that nuclear energy is the most critical component to bring about the American Energy Golden Age.”
Secretary Wright told Hagerty that he’s all in on nuclear and called out the botched launch of “renewable” energy in the process. “We need a lot more energy to meet this AI,” he said. Wright compared the subsidization of underperforming green energy to investing in underperforming weaponry.
“Imagine if the military, the Department of Defense, sent out a quote to the defense companies and said…‘We want to buy tanks. We'll pay full price for high performance tanks, but you can deliver us a tank that only moves some of the time, maybe when the sun's shining and it's it only will shoot, maybe when the wind's blowing—and so it's an underperforming tank—but we'll pay you full price for it. And further, we'll give you a subsidy to build the factory to build these tanks,’” he said. “That's what we've done to our electricity grid.”
DEVELOPMENT
- Terry Black’s Barbecue eyes Nashville for first out of state location (NBJ)
- Bonus height sought for North Gulch project (Post)
- SoBro surface parking lot listed for $26M (Post)
✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: May 23-29
The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming titles, check out the 2025 Film Guide.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) While it’s almost assured there’s nothing final about the second part of 2023’s installment, the showdown between Tom Cruise and some rogue AI is the stuff summer movies are made of. See it on the biggest screen possible at Opry Mills or Thoroughbred. Now playing in theaters.
Lilo & Stitch (Dir. Dean Fleischer Camp) The live-action remake of Disney’s 2002 cult classic about an orphaned Hawaiian girl and a Gremlinish alien is superfluous, but in good hands thanks to the director of A24’s instant classic Marcel, The Shell With Shoes On. Now playing in theaters.
Theater of Thought (Dir. Werner Herzog) “A provocative journey into the study of the mind and consciousness, daring us to question whether we truly have autonomy over our thoughts, or if our brains will inevitably become infused with mind-controlling technology in the not so distant future. Gathering insight and predictions from some of the world's most influential scientists and innovators, Theater of Thought is an exploration of the ethical, and existential, effects that neurotechnology presents in our rapidly advancing world.” Now playing at The Belcourt. Post-screening discussion with Dr. René Marois, Vanderbilt University, at the 8 p.m. Tuesday screening.
The Last Rodeo (Dir. Jon Avnet) Angel Studios is enjoying its best reviews in quite some time with this tale of a retired rodeo star (Neal McDonough) who reenters the circuit to save his grandson and unexpectedly finds his faith. Now playing in theaters.
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
🎸 Amyl and the Sniffers @ Marathon Music Works, 6:30p, $86.50, Info
🎻 Guerrero's Finale: Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $64+, Info
🎸 Gillian Welch and David Rawlings @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p, $59+, Info
🪕 Mac Wiseman's 100th Birthday Celebration, "Remembering" @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, Info
🎸 Glamper @ The East Room, 8p, $15.42, Info
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik (Nashville), Camelia Brennan (Local Noise), and Davis Hunt (everything else).