No. 131: Ten Birds with One Stone

Good morning, everyone.

Marijus Gailius wanted to do the right thing. The Lithuanian delegate to COP26 chose to forgo a €30 flight to get to the conference in Glasgow, and instead, spent €300 traveling to the conference through a combination of bus, train, and boat. He undertook the endeavor to make a statement about carbon emissions expended traveling to a climate conference. The trip was so exhausting that he ended up taking a flight home and declared, impotently, “No matter how hard we try to save the planet, we will not stop the climate crisis with individual efforts. Let’s not fool ourselves, as long as it is possible to choose a cheap flight, people will choose it,” he wrote in an account of his journey for a Lithuanian media website. “As my experiment has shown, behaving differently is not only practical but also… pointless.” Bon voyage!

Below, we get into the details of the Omnibus Bill Gov. Bill Lee signed over the weekend, discuss the Biden administration's "Save the World" Act, and resurrect the Covid Gutter to catch up with the recent developments concerning everyone's favorite viral pandemic.

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⚑ GOV. LEE SIGNS THE OMNIBUS

On Friday, Governor Lee Signed the Covid Bill that was passed by the House and the Senate in the last special session. The pages of popular Tennessee publications allude to how “based” Lee’s decision is, but in doing so they lose the plot. Yes, many conservative Tennesseans are happy to be equipped with the tools to fight back against federal mandates, but this type of legislation is an anomaly for the heavily Republican state legislature.

Along with arming Tennesseans against federally mandated mandates, this bill has helped to unravel some of the political narratives trickling down from the President’s office. Businesses that disguised their decisions as apolitical and unavoidable when President Biden announced that there would be a mandatory vaccination requirement, now find themselves lobbying on behalf of their right to choose how to run their own business.

In the end, it will all land in the courts. In the meantime, Tennesseans have a few more tools to continue advocating on the behalf of their personal freedom when it comes to how they want to allow the government, including federal, state, and local, to proceed with Covid protocol.

Here’s a comprehensive list of what Governor Bill Lee signed into state law:

• Allows the governor to suspend the entire bill if he desires.
• No mask mandates for government entities and public schools unless severe case counts.
• Government entities, public schools, and many private businesses cannot require vaccines. There are exceptions.
• Allows for 14-day mask mandates for government spaces and public schools, if there are at least 1,000 cases for every 100,000 residents within the past 14 days.
• Requires licensing boards to develop a set of rules, subject to state Government Operations Committee's approval if they wish to discipline medical professionals for COVID-19 treatments.
• Allows those who quit their job because of COVID-19 vaccine requirements to collect unemployment benefits.
• Allows health care professionals to use independent judgment to prescribe monoclonal antibody treatments.
• Grants the health commissioner exclusive power to design quarantine guidelines.
• Requires hospitals to allow visitation by at least one family member for COVID-19 patients. The family member must test negative and be asymptomatic.
• Required approval from the comptroller's office if a business that receives federal funding wants to issue mask and vaccine mandates to protect its standing with the Fed.

HEADLINES

• Tennessee Titans hold off late two-point try to defeat New Orleans Saints (Tennessean) Without Derrick Henry, the Titans manage to hold out against the visiting New Orleans Saints.
• Apartment rents hit record high in Nashville (Channel 5) The average price for an apartment in Nashville has reached a new record high — more than $1,500. Just four years ago, it was around $1,150.

DEVELOPMENT

• Vanderbilt releases details, images of athletic facility upgrades (Post)
• REIT pays $16.15M for self-storage property (Post)
• East Nashville sites on river sell for $21.5M (Post)
• Additional images released for Germantown project (Post)
• Proposed Development Will Add 112 Townhomes Near The ‘Riverside’ Development In North Nashville (Now Next)

⚱︎ BIDEN'S BIG BILL (BBB) PLAN

Following the passage of the $1.2T Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF), Democrats up on the Hill seem to feel pretty good about themselves. Take it from Ron Klain, Biden's current Chief of Staff, who said, "Things are a lot better in this country than they were a year ago." Beaming into the camera lens, Klain then delivered his incisive commentary about what the American People actually want, saying that "voters are in a show-me, don't tell-me mode" where they "don't care as much" about what people are saying on TV. Nothing worse to the ears of the average man than hearing that the government is about to show them something.

If you're concerned, don't be. They've got the nation's great concerns squarely covered. Inflation? Pass the Build Back Better Act which will magically erase it. Oh, yeah, and get vaccinated because that will help too. Supply shortages? See previous answer. Racial tensions? See previous answer. Your depression? See previous answer.

To say that Biden is staking his entire Presidency on this bill would not be an overstatement. His approval ratings continue to plummet faster than you can say Build Back Better, and Americans tire of the 1st-grade level rhetoric directed towards them when they express concerns about inflation and supply shortages. It's clear that Biden and his administration have no idea what actually ails the American people, so they're relying on the symbolic passage of a massive spending bill to accomplish two things. First, to shore up Biden's legacy. After the bill passes, Biden will sit like a caged bird in the White House. Second, to provide people with an inscrutable initiative at which to direct their hope. Haven't we been through this before?

◉ COVID GUTTER RETURNS

It's been a while since we've checked in with everyone's favorite viral pandemic. The latest party line has been about how getting vaccination rates up will magically disappear concerns about inflation and the various supply chain snafus that have cropped up. Color us skeptical.

• For those Moderna ($MRNA) bulls out there, rest assured that the US doesn't plan to halt doses of the Moderna vaccine just yet despite ample evidence that incidences of myocarditis continue to occur at an "immodest" rate following the shot. As Germany, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have all suspended the Moderna vax for people under 30, in the US, the citizens are still prohibited from uttering the word "myocarditis" for fear it may create a bunch of fake news, or worse, some white supremacy.
• There have been a striking number of cardiac incidents in professional sports over the past few weeks as athletes across the globe have collapsed (with little to no warning) on the playing field with increasing rapidity (here, here, here, here, and here). In the US, "myocarditis" is a big boy word and only the expert health officials and politicians are the big boys. Again, good news for your Moderna position. Mum continues to be the word in the press.
• In Texas, if you are white, you'll need to stand in line behind "Black" and "Brown" citizens to receive monoclonal antibodies because your race is a determining factor in how vulnerable you are to Covid-19.
• Finally, in Austria, the government has begun to implement society-wide restrictions on the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated citizens cannot go outside except to buy groceries, seek medical care, or travel to school or work. At present, 65% of the nation is fully vaccinated. What could go wrong?

THINGS TO DO

View our full event calendar here.

🖼 Medieval Bologna: Art for a Universal City at the Frist is running until Jan 30. It's the first museum exhibition in the United States to focus on medieval art made in the northern Italian city of Bologna. Home to the oldest university in Europe, Bologna fostered a unique artistic culture at the end of the Middle Ages (Info)

Tonight

💀 The Stolen Faces @ Acme Feed & Seed, 7p, Free, Link

💃 Buena Vista Social Club (1999) @ The Belcourt, 8p, $11.50, Link
+ The legendary Cuban Ensemble plays in Amsterdam and at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

🎻 The Time Jumpers @ Third and Lindsley, 8p, $20, Link

🌾 Deer Tick @ The Brooklyn Bowl, 8p, $29.50, Link

🎺 Giovanni Rodriguez & 12 Manos @ Rudy’s Jazz Room, 9p, $12, Link
+ Hot latin flavor

OTHER

Around the Web

🎧 The Kyle Rittenhouse Trial Darryl Cooper provides some incisive commentary on the events leading up to the riots and shootings in Kenosha.

✘ The Cult of Experts Faith and Reason need not be the mimetic rivals our society has made them

✪ Climate change is no catastrophe Attempts to stop warming will backfire dangerously

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Words of Wisdom

"Inflation is a quiet but effective way for the government to transfer resources from the people to itself, without raising taxes."

Thomas Sowell