No. 132: What's It Good For?

Good morning, everyone.

Below, we provide a preview of what's on the agenda for tonight's Metro Council Meeting, briefly discuss the Kyle Rittenhouse case, and much more. You can follow us on Twitter (@realpamphleteer), LinkedIn (@realpamphleteer), or Instagram (@realpamphleteer) for additional content.

Thanks for reading.

❏ TONIGHT'S METRO COUNCIL AGENDA

It’s been over a week since the Covid special session, a few days since Governor Bill Lee signed the new Covid bill into law, and tonight, the Metro City Council will be meeting at 6:30 pm. Of course, a few members of the council have already expressed their concerns over the recent Covid Bill.  We expect to hear more on that tonight. Here are some other things to expect at tonight’s meeting.

Party Buses (BL2021-1010)

• A resolution stating party bus goers can bring alcohol on board. The proposal specifies that it would only be alcohol below 8% alcohol by volume.
• Limiting party vehicles to a one-mile, downtown route during the daytime hours of 8am-4pm Monday-Friday.

Homeless Encampments in Parks (RS2021-1204)

• A resolution to renovate and repair damage done to Brookmeade Park by homeless encampments and to manage the homeless encampments.
• $1.9M in funds allocated from the American Recovery Plan Act

Other

• A resolution to eliminate emissions testing in Davidson County. (RS2021-1251)
• A resolution to increase recycling by 25% over the next two years and impose that goal on metro water and sewage services (RS2021-1252)
• A Resolution recognizing November 20, 2021 as Transgender Day of Remembrance in Nashville (RS2021-1256)
• A Resolution to bring awareness to human trafficking in Tennessee (RS2021-1254)

HEADLINES

• TDOT conducting study for HOV lanes across state (WSMV) The state is looking to convert to High Occupancy Toll lanes, which would be used to promote ride-sharing and reduce congestion by charging a variable fee to those who are not meeting the requirements of the number of occupants in a vehicle.
• New bill proposes permitting process for beer on Nashville party vehicles (Tennessean) The bill introduces a permit that vehicles must obtain in order for passengers to drink on board. Riders can bring their own alcohol or buy it directly from the vendor if he sells it.

DEVELOPMENT

• Here’s Your Exclusive Tour Of Novel Edgehill, In Nashville (Now Next)
• Austin company pays $24M for Murfreesboro Pike apartments (Post)
• South Nashville apartment complex sells for $73.6M (Post)

🎭 AMERICA'S TWO FACES

As the Kyle Rittenhouse case enters the first day of jury deliberation, it's worth remarking on the divide the case points to in America. To many, the trial of Rittenhouse is existential, representing the dueling forces of America's present political crisis. We will not talk of the particulars of the case here. If you're looking for an exhaustive overview of those, you can listen to Darryl Cooper's podcast wherein he details the events leading up to the Kenosha Riots culminating in the shootings. It's a sham that Rittenhouse is even on trial.

On the one side, you have the rioters and looters who operated with impunity during the whole of Summer 2020, destroying private property, disrupting towns across the Midwest, and taking the lives of over 30 people. Were one to make a historical comparison, one might compare them to Stalin's Shock Brigades or Hitler's Brown Shirts. Tasked with destroying and demoralizing the segments of society that government has the least sway over, these groups are filled with derelicts, pedophiles, and criminals. All three of the victims in the case had criminal records and one, Joseph Rosenbaum, was a known and convicted pedophile. Thomas Binger, the prosecuting District Attorney in the case, is simply one of many state apparatchiks willing to play fast and loose with the rules in order to achieve the outcome the state wants.

Which brings us to the other side: the group of people who volunteered to stand against the tyranny of BLM and Antifa. This is the group that the American government and those working hand-in-glove with them despise. The social responsibility expressed by men like Kyle Rittenhouse threatens the government's hold on the narrative that it is only through them that things can get better. He, after all, has nothing to lose. In the state's eyes, Rittenhouse is a threat precisely because he does not express any need for them. Rittenhouse is simply an impediment, a man in the way of higher initiatives the state wishes to undertake.

History is replete with examples of tyranny arising from such attitudes. The demonization of men like Rittenhouse, without whom the social fabric would be torn to shreds, serves only one customer: the state.

A subtext of the case that has largely gone unmentioned is the fact that the statute established should Rittenhouse be found guilty is that one can own a gun, but the conditions under which he can use to defend himself are razor-thin.

⚔︎ MISSIVES

• Beto O'Rourke announced his intent to run for Governor yesterday. O'Rourke's last two campaigns challenging Ted Cruz's Senate seat in 2018 and vying for the Democratic nomination in 2020 both ended in defeat.
• A line item in Biden's $1.8T Build Back Better Act would provide tax credits for local news outlets for up to $25,000 per employee. The government says it's responding to the certain death of local news, but it's not difficult to see how these incentives would create a massive conflict of interest.
• Predictably and as called out by anonymous "conspiracy theorists" across the web for months, the CDC now declares that the term "booster" may be a bit of a misnomer and the correct number of shots needed for maximum efficacy is still not known. Why not make it 100? Bullish on Pfizer ($PFE).

✽ A REAL HEADLINE

• Men now avoid women at work – another sign we're being punished for #MeToo Who would've guessed that incentivizing women to go public with sexual assault and sexual harassment claims—regardless of their veracity—would lead to men interacting with them less at work?

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

🍖 A Conversation with Stacey Abrams @ TPAC, 7:30p, $39.50, Link
+ YASSS KWEEEEEN

💥 Sweeping Promises @ The Blue Room, 8p, $13, Link

😳 Open Mic Stand Up @ The East Room, 8:30, Free, Link

Around the Web

⏏︎ Among the Elect Review of 'Woke Racism' by John McWhorter

✯ What Is Texas? The fight over the Lone Star State’s identity

◉ How Covid despots humiliated America The Democrats have become public health technocrats

Words of Wisdom

"Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom."

Friedrich August von Hayek