Free Fauci Facts
Monday, May 24th – Sunny, 91°/66°, Fauci-Facts, Shots for Dates, Labor Denial, Showdown with China, and More
🦠 Fauci-Facts Prior to last week, anyone who speculated that COVID could've originated in Wuhan and, more specifically, in a lab in Wuhan, received the leprosy treatment. Now that evidence has surfaced in support of this theory, it's become appropriate for the high priest of science himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci, to openly support the idea.
🤳 Shots for Dates Hate online dating? Well, it's about to get worse. The White House has teamed up with Hinge, Tinder, Match and Bumble to promote vaccinations by adding a badge to vaccinated user's profiles. If you're like us, you're wondering when they'll add an STD badge.
💪 Labor Denial People continue to support and bash the idea that giving people free money affects their desire to return to work despite mounting evidence to the contrary—in case you needed evidence to figure that one out. As inflation fears grow and labor shortages linger, all signs point in one direction:
New This Week
The Pamphleteer
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- Burt Reynolds' Southern Vision: How a Legend Chronicled the Region’s Potential (Read)
- The Last Action Heroes: 'Nobody' and 'Fatman' Face the Twilight of the Genre Star (Read)
- Ordinary People, Pt. I: On Artistry and Hollywood’s Insular Diversity (Read)
- Ordinary People, Pt. II: An Oscars Postmortem (Read)
Battle for the Throne
The looming threat of a showdown with China grows by the day. Biden, in a recent interview with NY Times columnist David Brooks that I would've loved to witness, even indicated as much. Much like the Cold War with Russia, the conflict is framed as a battle between two radically different political ideologies: Chinese communism vs. American democracy; the Eastern collective vs. the Western individual.
At the height of the COVID pandemic, some Americans lamented the ineffectiveness of American government. Donald Trump left it up to the states to handle business closures and mask policies, expressing a trust in American Democracy that few Presidents in recent memory have shown. In response, the press churned out article after article about how poorly the country handled the pandemic while salivating over the competency of the Chinese Communist Party.
Based on recent evidence that the virus emerged from a virology lab based in Wuhan, it's tempting to theorize that the CCP setup the pandemic to underscore the differences between its strain of Communism and Western democracy. Furthermore, it would appear that in an attempt to further emphasize America's difference from the Chinese, who have displayed restrictive attitudes towards minority groups, the Biden administration has chosen to underscore the country's support of these groups.
From legislation that offers relief payments to minority farmers to hanging the pride flag at American embassies to the protection and export of movements like BLM, it's clear that part of the new American foreign policy platform is the promotion of its half-baked ideas on identity, race, and gender. If the administration's treatment of corporations in the US is any indication, this new ideology will be used as a bludgeon to negotiate with countries abroad as people line up for and against China on their quest to steal the global throne from the US.
Why is this worth noting? Well, it's become difficult for many to understand why we've seen a radical uptick in concern and thought policing around concepts like race and gender. Aside from the fairly obvious effect that it has on obscuring the actual source of the country's problems (old fashioned divide and conquer), it has proven an effective means by which to bully people and institutions into submission. Resistance to these sweeping, categorical changes means one must be racist, misogynist, fascist, maybe all three at once. By dangling the specter of social shame over its subjects, the US government and the institutions it supports have discovered the most effective means of coercion to date. It's the kind of passive-aggressive threat one has come to expect from an increasingly sissified and feminized world.
If the US hopes to maintain its position as global leader, it will eventually have to return to championing a sustainable ideology predicated on family, God, community, or, really, just anything that does not attempt to subvert the standard definition of a good life. As tensions flare between the two world powers, it will become clear that leading with divisive, half-baked ideology in an attempt to form an anti-Chinese coalition will not work. The US is a case study in how divisive such rhetoric can be. American leadership must carve a new path forward based on a shared vision of the future absent any racial or sexual animus.
Nashville Politics
- Governor Lee to sign Criminal Justice Reform bills today (WSMV
- Both bills were proposed by Gov. Lee
- The first bill establishes a way for local governments and private organizations to establish community-based alternatives to incarceration
- The second creates mandatory supervision programs for people recently released from prison.
- Will also create programs meant to find former inmates jobs.
- Legislators Urge Biden Administration to Cease Importing Migrants into TN (Star)
- Metro Nashville Public Schools Board Chair Joins Campaign to Stop Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act (Star)
- Because their pay raises depend on it
Nashville News
- Tenn. could lose 240M ash trees if they go untreated from invasive beetle (Channel 5)
- After 20 years in Nashville, The Turnip Truck carves out a place in a changing grocery scene (Tennessean)
Nashville Development
- Fairgrounds-area site could land mixed-use building (Post)
- Restorations, cleaning give Nashville's historic Union Station Hotel a fresh face (Tennessean)
- East Nashville developer pays $7.2M for Antioch apartments (Post)
Nashville Events
The Pamphleteer
Good to Know
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One Good Read
📖 The world's oldest continuously operating company closes its doors (Read)