Clint Brewer: This Week’s Big Winner is the First Amendment, but a Languishing Speedway Project Puts Mayor Cooper on the Loser List Again

For this week’s installment of Clint Brewer’s Winners and Losers, the Nashville-area public policy expert and recovering journalist lauded the First Amendment as the big winner, while once again Nashville Mayor John Cooper makes the Loser list as the Speedway project flounders on Thursday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, Clint, who are the winners? Who are the losers?

Clint Brewer: Well, let’s see. I’d say the winner this week is the First Amendment.

As our listeners probably know, a federal judge enjoined the Biden White House for making contact with the social media platforms and bullying them into censorship and what can and can’t be said.

Michael Patrick Leahy: There’s plenty of evidence that that happened. We’ve got a little angle on that, by the way for our site in Arizona, The Arizona Sun Times.

Included in that lawsuit apparently the Maricopa County Recorder guy, named Steve Richer, who, by the way, is, is suing Kari Lake for defamation.

He’s probably not gonna win that one. That’s a hard standard to meet.

But he apparently had those conversations with the Cybersecurity Infrastructure, Information Security Administration, CISA, back and forth and there’s plenty of evidence to that effect.

Clint Brewer: It’s a good day for the First Amendment.

I will say the social media platforms probably do need some kind of formal regulation.

If you’ve ever seen the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, it will terrify you.

Michael Patrick Leahy: I have seen that.

It’s, it’s absolutely terrifying, but I don’t think, you know, a clutch of White House officials sending emails and calling people over at the platform saying, “Hey, we don’t like this. Hey, we don’t like this.” That’s not really appropriate.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Not at all.

And now, of course, the Department of Justice is going to appeal it, but I think they’ll lose on appeal.

Clint Brewer: I mean, courts, you know, tend to come down the side of the First Amendment, that level.

Michael Patrick Leahy: We all like the First Amendment.

Clint Brewer: We do, especially here, we’re practicing it right now, and we are, yeah.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Okay, that’s your winner.

Clint Brewer: So on loser’s side, it’s something local. It’s Mayor John Cooper.

His sort of legacy project – or one of them – the Speedway project, seems to be on the ropes again.

Stories out this morning saying that without a special called session of the council, there’s not enough time to get the public hearing in and do the other things that would need to be done to make this project happen during this mayor’s term, or this council’s term.

So you’re looking at a new mayor and a new council for this project to go back before.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Start all over again, basically.

Clint Brewer: Not “all over.”

I mean, there’s a framework for a deal, but it’s a deal that whoever the new mayor is is gonna be inheriting the Titan Stadium deal and the East Bank deal and a lot of things that they didn’t have any hand in doing. And so what are the chances of them just picking up the structure right away and running with it?

Probably pretty small.

Michael Patrick Leahy:  Well and again, when you say, the new mayor will inherit the Titan Stadium deal. We’ve had a couple of candidates Jim Gingrich and Freddie O’Connell oppose the deal.

Outright opposed it.

But that doesn’t matter because the deal is a done deal.

Clint Brewer: Right. I think whoever’s elected is gonna honor the deal, but the question is, do they?

They certainly don’t have to honor the structure of a deal that’s not done, which is what the speedway will be. Plus, you’ve got a perfectly nice and well-functioning speedway with multiple races sold out one county over.

So I’m just not sure.

Michael Patrick Leahy:  Let’s just face it.

I gotta tell our listeners – you, sir, are pro-soccer and can I say, anti-NASCAR?

Clint Brewer: No! I love the track out where, I mean, I live in Wilson County. We’ve got a great track out there.

Michael Patrick Leahy: You like that track.

But you’re wearing the Nashville SC cap, right?

You and Derrick Henry buddy in together, right? The Nashville SC–

Clint Brewer: Yeah, that’s right – Justin Timberlake and Reese Witherspoon–

Michael Patrick Leahy: They’re the quote co-owners of it, right?

Clint Brewer: Yeah.

I go – I’ve been to the races out near my track.

It’s just, you know, we’re a region, we’re not a city.

Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s a good point.

Clint Brewer: And you know, it’s just I mean, Nashville needs a lot of things it’s just – is this the best use of time and money?

Michael Patrick Leahy: I still can’t get over the Nashville that you’re wearing.

Clint Brewer: It’s very popular, Mike, you should go to a game. You’d have fun.

Michael Patrick Leahy: You, you keep telling me that, and I keep snoring at these one zip – you know, just running up and down the field all the time – deals of soccer.

Oh, well – but, but you find excitement in that, right?

Clint Brewer: The whole world finds excitement. It’s, well, the most popular game on the planet.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Not the United States of America.

Clint Brewer: I don’t know.

Go to Williamson County on a Saturday afternoon. You see a lot of people playing soccer.

Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s a good point.

Clint Brewer: The heart of your listenership. You will find many, many, many families out there with their kids playing soccer.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Having said that, because I dis soccer. All the time here.

But I did play. I played soccer in one of the schools that I attended way back when in upstate New York.

They didn’t have enough kids to have a football team. They played soccer. This would’ve been in Dannemora, where they had a soccer team and, and but they had a bunch of, actually, we had a priest from Ireland – who was a great soccer player – and he’d come out and practice, I remember.

Clint Brewer: Well, New York and New Jersey is kind of where American soccer started.

Michael Patrick Leahy: There you go.

Well, Clint’s Winners and Losers of the Week – it’s always a delight.

You sir, are a winner.

Clint Brewer: Thanks, man.

Michael Patrick Leahy: As are our listeners.

Clint Brewer: You too, Mike.

Michael Patrick Leahy: We’ll be back with State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson.

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “John Cooper” by John Cooper. Background Photo “Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway” by Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.