by Rod Williams, June 29, 2026- This is an outrage. Government should not use eminent domain to take someone's property just because public opinion does not support what the owner wants to do with their property. I would bet that the owner will sue and win, unless the city so overpays for the property that the owner is happy to take the money and build elsewhere. Either way this will cost the city dearly.
If you are one who follows local news and politics in Nashville, you probably know Clint Brewer. He has worked as a journalist with several Nashville publications over the years and has served in government. He is now in public relations, so he very well may have a teck company as a client. That being said, that does not negate the essence of his argument. I am posting excerpts from an article in the Nashville Star where Clint makes his case.
It seems to me that a lot of people fear AI. Maybe robots will take over. Maybe AI will put most people out of a job. This fear of technological change, it seems, leads to opposition to data centers.
There is a large data center being proposed near the Nashville Zoo that has generated a lot of opposition. One argument I hear made in opposition to that data center is that data centers are noisy and emit a high hum. I would like to know just how bad that is. Many people live near interstates or busy roads, as do I. Others live in neighborhoods with the airport flight path over their house. People still buy homes near interstates and beneath the airport flight path. They get used to the noise. The proposed data center site near the Nashville Zoo is appropriately zoned for this use. It is not as if the data center was seeking a rezoning and trying to put the data center in a residential neighborhood. I would need to be persuaded that the noise is a danger to the mental health or hearing of residents near the center before I would be persuaded that this is a reason to stop the development. Is the data center more of a nuisance than what could otherwise be built on this commercially zoned property?
Another argument one hears in opposition to data centers is that data centers use a lot of water and electricity. Having served on the Planning Committee of the Council and having otherwise observed zoning battles for years, opponents of a new development always fall back on the argument that infrastructure does not support the new development. Sometimes it is the capacity of the local school, or the water system, or the wastewater system, or the roads. I am never persuaded by these arguments. A utility, a school system, or a city does not build excess capacity and just wait for it to be used. Demand for the schools, roads, or utilities bumps up against existing supply, and then new capacity is created, and this repeats over and over as long as there is new demand.
I could be persuaded that data centers are bad for certain places, but I am not persuaded yet. I assume if the land is zoned to allow a data center, then a data center should be allowed. For those who think a data center should not be permitted anywhere ever, please turn in your cell phone and get off the computer.
Here is the article.
Brewer: Data Centers Are ‘Non-Negotiable’ for America’s AI Race
by Kaitlin Housler, Nashville Star, June 29, 2026 - ... Brewer acknowledged that resistance stems from multiple concerns, including apprehension about AI and preserving rural communities.“It’s a complicated mix of fear of AI taking people’s jobs, coupled with… and rightfully… people in rural areas wanting to keep them rural,” he said. “If you look at where data centers go, disproportionately they go to rural areas.”... Brewer noted how many communities have responded by imposing restrictions before fully evaluating the industry’s long-term benefits.“I think there are many states and counties and communities reflexively putting a moratorium on them,” Brewer said. “I think it’s bad for the country overall. We desperately need data centers.”He argued that data centers are essential to the nation’s technological future and its competition with China.... Brewer also rejected the notion that data centers fail to generate lasting employment.“Data centers do create jobs not just in the construction phase, but there will be a long-term legacy sector for maintaining them, servicing them. It is not a jobless endeavor,” he said.... “I think the utility companies across the South have done a terrific job ramping up production to accommodate data centers,” Brewer said.Brewer pointed to neighboring states as examples of governments embracing artificial intelligence and related infrastructure.“Mississippi’s all in… Arkansas,” he said. “They’re incorporating them into their power grid plan. They’re incorporating artificial intelligence into making state government more efficient. There’s some real forward-looking things happening in some parts of the South.”... the issue has created an unusual political coalition.“It’s one of those weird places politically where, if you think of politics as traditionally a spectrum with a right on the one end, left on the other end, this is one of those issues where the right and the left come in the back door behind the spectrum and get together,” Brewer said.According to Brewer, that alliance combines “pro-rural populism coupled with progressive anti-Americanism and anti-growth and anti-industrialization.” (read it all)
What you are seeing is a mailer sent out by a Young Republican in Maury County. If you think "Young Republican" means naive young people and want to excuse this, don't be deceived. One is a Young Republican up until age 40.
I know some of my liberal friends will believe this; they always thought the Republican Party was fascist and weird, but I know this is not normal. This is not what Republicans have always been like; this is what the Republican Party has become since Donald Trump was elected.
Of course, there have always been nut-jobs and conspiracy theorists in the Republican Party. When you have a two-party system like ours, the nutjobs make up part of each coalition.
Not all the crazies are Republicans, of course. There have always been some Democrats who believed some crazy stuff and advocated nutty things like unilateral disarmament, defund the police, borders are racist, trans women are women, and many seem ignorant of economics. So, I am not saying it is only Republicans who are crazy, but crazy Republicans are now mainstream Republicans. What would have once been rejected and denounced and marginalized is now mainstream.
I am old, but not old enough to remember when it happened, but in the late fifties and early sixties, many chapters of the Republican Party had been taken over by the John Birch Society. If you only had a surface knowledge of the JBS, they seemed like normal but very conservative people. If you scratched the surface, you discovered they were really weird. They believed in a grand conspiracy. Not only was the government controlled by Communists, but Communism was just part of a bigger conspiracy that had been pulling the strings of world events since the Enlightenment. The world was controlled by a cabal of people called "the insiders." The insiders were also the Illuminati or something like that, and the insiders included the Rothschilds, the Council of Foreign Relations, the United Nations, and many others. Around 1962, led by National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., the JBS was marginalized and denounced, and the organization's power waned, almost disappearing.
Getting rid of the JBS, of course, did not mean the end of nuttiness in the Republican Party. There were always a few right-wing militia types and fringe groups that attached themselves to the Republican Party, but they were routinely denounced and marginalized.
I think following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, the Party became more comfortable with the crazies in their ranks. It became acceptable to be bigoted toward all Muslims and take a stand that freedom of religion did not apply to Muslim. Of course, President George W. Bush and other leaders and respected conservative journalists consistently advocated for our Constitutional liberties, but there was a Republican insurgency that welcomed the enemies of Constitutional liberties, and many were ready to receive a message that 9-11 was somehow an inside job.
Due, I think, to the rise of talk radio and then the modern internet and social media, there was a democratization of opinion. Whereas in the past one's reach with a bombastic tone or crazy theories was limited, in the new media environment, everyone had a megaphone, and there were plenty of people ready to listen and believe the loudest, most shrill voice and the one who could offer the simplest explanations to complex problems.
The rise of the TEA party movement further provided fertile ground for the growth of crazy ideas and dangerous ideologies. I was very much part of the TEA party movement. I attended the rallies. I favor lower taxes and a less intrusive government. However, as the movement grew, it attracted more and more fringe types, and they were tolerated. Being radical became the norm. The nerdy scholarly Republican and the Country Club Chamber of Commerce Republican were being replaced by the rabble rouser.
I was very involved in Republican Party politics around 2012, when a new hysteria swept through the Republican Party. It has pretty much disappeared now, but starting about 2012, concern over something called "Agenda 21" swept through Republican and conservative circles. Agenda 21 was a United Nations study that essentially warned of the threat of global warming and laid out what should be done about it. Agenda 21 amounted to nothing. It was just the opinion of the authors of the study. It was not a treaty nor even a resolution of the United Nations. Many Republicans, including people I knew and had worked with on campaigns, thought this was a serious plan to kill 98% of the world's population, and it involved killing us all with aspartame and fluoride. People really believed this crap. Everything from programs to have shady sidewalks, to reintroducing wolves into the wild, was denounced as part of the Agenda 21 agenda. If you think I am making this stuff up, follow this link. I covered this nonsense at the time.
And then came Donald Trump and the doors were swung wide open to the rabble rouser and the nutjob. I attended CPAC in 2015 and Donald Trump was not even invited to speak. CPAC, was for serious conservatives. What was once a gatekeeper to what was acceptable conservatism is now simply a part of the Trump machine. My, how things have changed.
Look at the list of points of the Austin mailer: The Great Replacement theory is a debunked white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theory that white people are deliberately being replaced by non-white peoples through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white people. Immigrants who come here as refugees fleeing oppression or simply for a better way of life are called invaders. Religious liberty is rejected and Austin Lee would ban two of the world's major religions. Antisemitism is expressed, and men should be in charge. This is nuts. This is fascist. This is authoritarianism. This is un-American. Unfortunately, people who advocate these positions feel at home in the Republican Party.
His speech at that event was among the least offensive of his speeches. He didn't talk about crooked Hillary or the autopen or the stolen election or Arnold Palmer's penis. He mostly kept to the teleprompter. He did do his America-is-the-hottest-country, growth-like-no-one-has-ever-seen, the best-this, unheard-of-that, Make-America-Great-Again spiel. But grading on a curve, it wasn't that bad. One reason it was not so bad was that it was only about half an hour long and not two hours long.
It did seem to me, however, that Trump was low-energy and the speech was just a streamlined version of what we have heard many times before. It was kind of like a rerun. Not being there in person, I don't know if there was enthusiasm and energy in the air, but media coverage of the event showed people leaving while he was still speaking, and it did not look like the frenzied adoring crowd of years past.
In part of the speech, he talked about how the economy is booming. I thought that could not be true. It is my understanding that while the stock market is performing well, the Trump tariffs, the Iran war, and inflation have put a damper on the economy, and we are experiencing a slowing economy. I was particularly skeptical of his claim of manufacturing job growth in America. I stay informed and consume a lot of news from reliable sources, and I am under the strong impression that America is continuing to lose manufacturing jobs. In fact, we are. In 2025, America lost about 108,000 manufacturing jobs and the manufacturing sector continues to shed jobs in 2026.
I have not done a fact-check of that State Fair speech. I have reached the point where I just assume Trump lies all of the time, and that if he tells the truth, it is an accident. On my more charitable days, however, I think maybe when he says something untrue, he is not actually lying. Sometimes I don't know if he is lying or if he really believes the crazy things he says. Maybe he really does believe the Haitians are eating the cats and the dogs. Maybe instead of lying, he really believes his own bullshit. Maybe he is not lying but is dilutional. I don't know, but I never assume what he says is the truth.
I have not fact-checked his State Fair speech, nor have I come across anyone else who has, but I have not looked that hard. I did come across a meme fact-checking a claim he made about manufacturing job growth in Pennsylvania. I fact-checked the meme pictured here, and the meme is correct about his claim of manufacturing growth in Pennsylvania.
Below is what Bing Co-pilot says about his claim of manufacturing job growth in Pennsylvania. I have followed some of the links and looked at other sources and confirmed that the meme is accurate and the Bing Co-pilot is correct.
Pennsylvania has lost approximately 4,500 manufacturing jobs recently, while the U.S. manufacturing sector has shed over 100,000 jobs, reflecting ongoing structural changes in the industry.
Pennsylvania Manufacturing Job Losses
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pennsylvania has lost about 4,500 manufacturing jobs in recent months, with a 12‑month change of roughly ‑1.6% in nonfarm manufacturing employment U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This reflects ongoing declines in the sector despite broader economic activity.
On a national scale, the BLS reports that U.S. manufacturing employment is down by about 108,000 jobs in 2025 www.progressivepolicy.org. This loss is part of a longer‑term trend: since 2000, the U.S. has shed over 4.5 million manufacturing jobs, even as manufacturing GDP has grown by about 45% due to increased productivity and automation wbooradio.com+1.
Key Drivers of the Decline
Automation and productivity gains: Modern manufacturing is leaner and less labor‑intensive, with fewer workers per unit of output wbooradio.com+1.
Sectoral shifts: Tech and printing manufacturing have been hit hardest, with over 750,000 computer/electronics jobs and 450,000 printing jobs lost since 2000 wbooradio.com+1.
Geographic patterns: The industrial Northeast, including Pennsylvania, has seen steeper declines than other regions, with some states losing over 40% of their manufacturing workforces wbooradio.com+1.
Economic and policy factors: While federal programs like CHIPS and tariffs aim to reverse some losses, reshoring efforts have not yet restored employment to pre‑2000 levels wbooradio.com+1.
Context for Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania’s manufacturing sector remains a significant part of its economy, but it faces headwinds from:
Global competition and offshoring trends.
Shifts toward high‑tech, capital‑intensive production.
Local economic diversification and competition from other industries.
In summary, Pennsylvania’s recent manufacturing job losses are part of a broader national trend, where automation, productivity gains, and sectoral changes have reduced labor demand in manufacturing, even as output continues to grow.
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| National Guard members have begun to patrol the pool's perimeter as workers try to remove the algae. / Aaron Schwartz / REUTERS |
But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.
 |
| The reflecting pool, seen from the Washington Monument, with workers attempting to contain the algae on Sunday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times |
The pool had been drained, resealed and then refilled by June 5. Four days later, Park Service workers discovered holes, cracks and peeling caulking in parts of the pool, along with cuts in sections of the foam, according to the documents.
... The Trump administration awarded two no-bid contracts for the Reflecting Pool renovations, bypassing the legally required process of seeking competitive bids because of what it called an urgent need to complete the project for events around the nation’s 250th birthday.
... Mr. Trump also told reporters on Monday, without offering evidence, that vandals had poured fertilizer into the pool to feed the algae.
... Neither the Interior Department nor the White House would provide charging documents, citations or the names of anyone arrested. They did share the Park Police incident report, which said any suspect or suspects were unknown. The report also did not mention any damage to the pool’s blue sealant, nor did it describe any vandals dumping fertilizer. (read it all)
In the big scheme of things, the Reflecting Pool screw-up is not that important. Out of the top hundred crazy, irrational, destructive, and detrimental things Trump has done that concern me, the screw-up of the Reflecting Pool ranks in the nineties. However, it reflects the way Trump thinks, the way he acts, and his level of immaturity.
Trump gave a $14 million no-bid contract to his pool guy, who was unqualified, who had contributed to his campaign, the work was defective and rushed in time for the 250th birthday bash, and the renovation was a disaster. This is the way Trump operates. He has disdain for experts and for methodical procedures and processes. He is a man of action, not study committees and expert opinion. While at times bureaucracy can get in the way of getting things done in an expeditious manner, there is usually a reason for the deliberative process.
We witnessed Trump improvisational, shoot-from-the-hip, make-it-up-as-you-go-along style of governance from the start of this term with DOGE, when vital agencies were shut down and people fired, without following procedure. This resulted in all kinds of harm, including harming America's standing in the world, a humanitarian crisis, and threats to public health and safety. Many of the fired had to be reinstated. Any savings proved minimal.
We witness Trump's style of management with the immigration policy. Trump thought it would be a good idea to build a $1.2 billion, 3000-bed immigration facility in the Florida swamps known as "Alligator Alcatraz." I think cruelty was the point. He partnered with the Florida governor to open the facility and bypassed normal procedures for making that decision. There were human rights abuses and lawsuits, and now the facility has been closed and is not slated to be reopened.
Trump's style of management is reflected in his approach to immigration enforcement, where legal immigrants and American citizens have had their rights trampled, and people have died due to Trump's policies. Trump sees norms and constitutional rights as just impediments to getting things done.
We have seen it in his tariff policies. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress, not the President, the sole authority to lay and collect tariffs under Article I, Section 8. Trump cannot be bothered by insignificant things like the Constitution- he has a job to do. That the tariffs raise prices to consumers and harm American industry and agriculture is irrelevant. That is just what experts say, and Trump knows more than all the experts.
We have seen it in his starting a war of choice with Iran. The war cost between $25 billion and $32 billion in direct military spending, with long-term economic estimates ranging up to $1 trillion, and it looks like we are going to end up with a deal worse than Obama's JCPOA, with the US giving more aid to Iran than did President Obama. And, the old theocratic dictatorship still rules the country.
There are example after example where Trump made policy and bypassed the experts, the Constitution, and norms and procedures. When his policies fail, or he is stopped from taking illegal action, what does he do? He deflects the blame, attacks his critics, and throws a tantrum. Two years after Biden left office, many of Trump's failures are Biden's fault. Nine years after Obama left office, Trump is still blaming Obama for things going wrong.
Judges who say, wait a minute, we have to follow the Constitution, are attacked as "left-wing lunatics." When members of the press question Trump's illegal and irrational actions, they are attacked as enemies of the people. If an election does not go his way, it is because it was rigged. The only honest election is one he won.
Now that the Reflecting Pool has been a failure, what does he do? He alleges the failure was the result of sabotage. "They took some form of knife or blade and put a 250-foot-long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete," he wrote on Truth Social. What?? This is so ludicrous it cannot possibly be taken seriously. In this highly visible area, people with knives got in the pool and cut up the liner? They cut a gash almost as long as a football field in the pool? And what about the algae? Was it bioengineered by Antifa in a secret lab?
Not only is he sounding like a lunatic, but a lunatic with power. He has ordered the Justice Department to find the saboteurs and has threatened 10-year prison terms for the perpetrators. People who have reached into the water to get a piece of the floating blue pool liner have been arrested.
Trump wasting a few million here or there does not concern me nearly as much as the fact that we have an erratic, delusional, megalomaniac with the self-control of a three-year-old in charge of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.
That statement includes multiple misunderstandings of the way Social Security works. And, it’s just one of the many popular myths about the program FDR created in the 1930s, and whose basic structure has never been allowed to change, despite the changes in the population it was created to serve.
1. The fact that you have worked your whole life and paid into Social Security is only marginally responsible for your entitlement. You need only work for 10 years, earning no more than $7,650 a year to be as entitled to a retirement benefit as someone who worked and paid payroll taxes their entire life.
2. Let’s talk about all that money you paid into the system. The more you paid in, the less you are entitled to get back. Here’s how the formula works.
• Social Security splits your lifetime average earnings (the top 35 years) into three chunks and pays back a different share of each chunk.
• The first chunk (a few hundred to about $1,300/month) gets paid back at 90 cents on the dollar. The middle chunk (up to about $7,750/month) only gets 32 cents on the dollar. Anything above that gets just 15 cents on the dollar.
• If you were a low earner, basically all your average earnings fall into that first generous 90% chunk, and you get back a big share of what you made.
• If you were a high earner, most of your earnings spill into the 32% and 15% chunks, so you get back a much smaller share — even though your dollar benefit is bigger in absolute terms.
3. Finally, let’s discuss your account. There is none. NONE, nada, zip, of the money you paid in payroll taxes ever did or will belong to you once you paid it. It’s long gone, as intended from the beginning. It is used to pay “current obligations.”
The ONLY relation between your payroll taxes and your entitlement is that you did pay, for a minimum of 10 years, on a salary of at least $7,650.
If you have ever said or thought something similar to the quote with which I started this post, you have been disserved, misled, misinformed, probably by multiple demagoues.
Or -- and this is a possibility -- you simply don’t want to face the truth, because the truth will one day possibly require you to do with less, and you don’t like that.
I don’t like it either, but the truth is, no-one has stolen from Social Security, illegal aliens are not to blame (they pay in, but they can’t take out) and the only reason you are entitled to Social Security is because Congress has said so. And Congress has the right and the obligation to alter that promise whenever necessary.
Sure, there has been some fraud. All massive government programs suffer fraud. A lot of it is caught and prosecuted, but when the bank is holding trillions, there will be robbers. Fraud is not the source of Social Security’s imminent insolvency.
The source is just as the trustees say. It is a system that was designed nearly a century ago, for a population with a ratio of workers to retirees much different from today.
By 1945, once the program matured, the ratio was about 42 to 1.
From there the ratio fell sharply as more retirees became eligible:
• 16.5 in 1950
• 8.6 in 1955
• 5.1 in 1960
• 3.2–3.4 through the 1970s–2000s
• 2.8 by 2013
• 2.7 today
• Trustees Report projects it'll settle around 2.3 by 2040.
So, that’s the good news, if you can call it that. The ratio is about as low as it will get – unless AI changes that, which it might.
That means, the next “fix” might be the last that’s necessary, at least for a few generations.
IN 1997, I gave a guest lecture to an economics class at Clemson University, laying out the problems with Social Security’s solvency and concluding that the proper thing to do would be to convert it into a defined contribution system, like 401(k)s, rather than a defined benefit system, like pensions.
My lecture was not well received, even by an economics class of young people, and the instructor was apologetic when I left. He had invited me because he heard me making the same case on talk radio in Greenville, SC, and he want his class to hear my case. He thought it would be better received.
George W. Bush briefly flirted with trying to convert Social Security to a hybrid defined benefit/defined contribution system, much like many states have done since, but his efforts were interrupted by 9/11.
Because the structure of Social Security has always been a simple pipeline from today’s workers to today’s retirees, the only thing that can keep up with the falling ratio is either higher taxes or lower benefits, on some or all taxpayers and/or beneficiaries. The more we choose “some” instead of “all,” through means-testing, the more we turn Social Security into another welfare program.
The next “fix” will almost certainly include more of the same, since the opportunity to convert it to a defined contribution program has long passed.
When I first proposed the conversion in 1997, with a 20-year phase-in, it was when our annual deficit will still small enough to absorb the temporary impact. Any conversion to a defined contribution program would require that the treasury be allowed to temporarily pay some of the defined benefits during the transition period.
Treasury, which is now repaying both interest and principal on Social Security’s special bonds, and, though not directly related, also paying $1 trillion a year just on the interest on money it has borrowed in the past, can no longer afford to fund the transition period.
When Congress can no longer avoid that third rail of politics, they will fix Social Security again, by increasing payroll taxes on some or all, by reducing benefits on some or all, or by borrowing even more money, or some combination of some of the above.
My best guess is that they will apply means-tested tax increases and benefit cuts, but they will also, for the first time, allow and instruct Treasury to borrow even more money to fund Social Security.
That will make the fewest people angry, which is always Congress’s #1 goal.
Ralph Bristol is the former long-time morning talk radio host broadcasting on Supertalk 99.7 WTN. He was one of the less provocative and bombastic of conservative radio personalities, more thoughtful and grounded in conservative ideas. He left talk radio in 2018 and retired. He lives in Nashville.
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