Today's Takes: Friday, September 24

Good morning, everybody.

The US Health Department has begun to heavily regulate the distribution of monoclonal antibodies leading to hospitals in Tennessee, where demand is high, having to triage treatment to those most vulnerable. Among the most vulnerable are unvaccinated patients.

Predictably, local journalists like Sam Stockard at Tennessee Lookout and Brett Kelman at The Tennessean reframe the issue as something we should, again, blame on the great mass of "unwashed" citizens. When blame is laid at the feet of a vague, nebulous group of people, it becomes less important the particulars of their situation. The animus expressed here, as so eloquently stated by the preening Brett Kelman, is directed at "conservative circles... in red states rampant with vaccine hesitancy."

Are people willing to vet these circles to determine who and who is not vaccinated in order to adjudicated if their prejudice is correct, or more directly, do they simply despise conservative seeming circles in red states? We doubt Brett Kelman would know anything about these people as Gannett shipped him into town to parrot COVID-19 case count numbers like a windup doll, so he probably doesn't get out much.

Everyone from Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey Piercey to Patron Saint of Medical Resources Dr. Anthony Fauci has touted the antibodies as the second most effective treatment behind the vaccines. Piercey even went so far as to call it a "miracle drug". Prior to the new rules, there was ample supply, no signs of a shortage, and no story.

The federal government bought all of Remdesivir's available reserves in order to manage the distribution of them more "equitably" under the guise of protecting the supply during a period of surging demand. The government now allots states a portion based upon need.

Approximately 70% of these drugs are being used by seven states—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. Coincidentally, the "conservative circles in red states" our Gannett-bot Brett Kelman talked about.

This week, the state of Tennessee received 7,700 doses which is roughly double the amount they'd receive if allotments were based on population though the timetable for when the next batch will arrive is not clear. Florida, upon hearing news of the move, set off on its own to purchase the antibodies from another supplier.

North of us, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned people that what this wholly artificial shortage ought to tell you is "that if you're unvaccinated and you get really sick, not only might there not be a bed in the hospital for you because they are so full, but that monoclonal antibody treatment might not be there for you, either." If we're to take Beshear at his word, it would appear that federal officials are threatening to withhold treatment in order to coerce citizens into getting vaccinated. Honorable.

Thanks for reading.

Headlines

📰 Today's Front Pages

A quick look at this morning's front pages so you know what you're supposed to be mad about.

• Reuters: Evergrande investors in limbo after payment deadline passes (Read)
• New York Times: C.D.C. Chief Overrules Agency Panel and Recommends Pfizer-BioNTech Boosters for Workers at Risk (Read)
• Wall Street Journal: China Evergrande Never Got Auditor Warning Despite Big Debt Load (Read)
• Fox News: Gabby Petito case: Where could Brian Laundrie be 10 days after slipping away? (Read)
• CNN: Sham Arizona 2020 review blows open Trump's election lies -- but he's trying again in Texas (Read)
• NPR: Tens Of Thousands Of Black Women Vanish Each Year. This Website Honors Their Stories (Read)
• Breitbart: Fauci Defends NIH Funding Wuhan Lab: ‘Only Regret’ Is That It’s Caused ‘Such a Degree of Distraction’ (Read)
• HuffPost: House Votes Down Amendment To Limit Transfer Of Military Equipment To Police (Read)

🗺 From the Frontier

• French envoy to return to U.S. after fence-mending Biden-Macron call (Reuters) What a whirlwind romance. Biden and Macron already kissed and made up.
• Psaki Announces Del Rio Border Patrol Will No Longer Use Horses in Response to False ‘Whip’ Narrative (NRO) The blind leading the blind. Twitter trolls win the day!

💸 Money Moves

• Powell’s market-moving comments, when the taper is coming (CNBC) Half of Federal Reserve Reps. expect interest rates to rise in 2022—a revision of their previous stance in March that rates would not rise until at least 2024. Additionally, Powell mentioned that tapering could begin as soon as November contingent upon a "reasonably good" jobs report. Despite these hawkish expressions, the market continued its Icarian rise.
• Weekly Jobless Claims Jump to Highest Level in a Month, Far Exceeding Expectations (NRO) The great unemployment mystery continues... National Review portrays it as a drastic increase, the WSJ as only a slight increase.

📉 Future of Finance

• Biden’s Proposed IRS Bank Account Snooping Authority Runs Into State Resistance (Forbes) Biden wants to monitor all inflows and outflows of accounts exceeding $600 in transactions. The current limit is $10,000. An unhinged expansion of the surveillance state.
• SHOT: Financial systems creep slowly towards a social credit system
  • In Support Of Trans People, Mastercard No Longer Requires A Legal Name (Daily Caller)
  • PayPal blocks site that helped raise funds for those who attended U.S. Capitol violence (CTV News)
  • PayPal halts payment support to PornHub models (Reuters)
  • Bank Of America Will No Longer Do Business With Companies That Run Private Prisons, Detention Centers (Daily Caller)
• CHASER: Bitcoin (not cryptocurrencies or "blockchain") offers an alternative
  • How Bitcoin Can Immunize America From Cancel Culture (NYT)
  • Don't fall for the social credit scoring system Trojan Horse (BTC Magazine)
  • UAE regulators approve crypto trading in Dubai free zone (Coin Telegraph)
  • You can now get paid in bitcoin to use Twitter (CNBC)

🦄 Woke-acracy

• ‘No Time to Die’ director says Connery’s Bond was ‘basically’ a rapist (NY Post) Get ready for the soyboy, male feminist James Bond to take over the silver screen!
• True Privilege (City Journal) CVS launches a program that forces hourly employees to discuss their “privilege.”
• CDC's 'woke' new language guide proposes replacing 'dehumanizing' words like inmate, poor and ELDERLY (Daily Mail) Glad to see the health czars have their priorities straight.
• The ACLU rewrites a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote in favore of abortion to be more "inclusive" (@ACLU) Ginsburg was famously supportive of abortion for its utility in reducing "certain types of people"—namely poor African-Americans.

Nashville Politics

• Council approves $1.28B for refinancing, future spending on water and sewer projects (Main Street)
• Tensions flare among Republicans ahead of redistricting (Post)

Nashville News

• Metro Health defends decision not to issue mask mandate, will continue to 'follow the science' (Main Street)
• Nashville-based Bitcoin Magazine opens bureau in Ukraine (Bitcoin Magazine)
• Blackburn, Hagerty want to expand 'Save our Stages Act' to help 'blue collar' industry workers (Channel 5)
• Garth Brooks moves to dive bars for live performances (Channel 5)

Nashville Development

• Skyscraper project planned for SoBro progresses (Post)
• Tile maker to undertake $35M expansion in Clarksville (Post)
• Multiple West Nashville homes sell for $48.05M (Post)
• ‘Selective demolition’ sought for bomb-damaged buildings (Post)

COVID Gutter

If you're going to wear a mask for health purposes and not to signal political affiliation, buy an N95 or double mask. Those blue surgical masks only stop 10% of exhaled aerosol droplets.

***

Lots of scary stats running around about how deadly COVID-19 has been. We've seen comparisons to everything from the Civil War to the Spanish Flu. These are deliberately misleading representations of the danger COVID-19 poses. The Tennessean has begun to run a "scare reel" at the top of its Gannett-bot penned articles to further stoke panic. Here's some perspective of that particular reel which points to the deadly Spanish Flu and Civil War as somehow comparable to COVID-19.

In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, the population of the US was around 31 million. 750,000 people died over the course of the war (the most deadly event in the history of the United States) which is a whopping 2.4% of the population, most of them young men.

In 1919, at the height of the Spanish Flu (which lasted roughly 1.5 years), the US population was 104.5 million. 675,000 people died of the Spanish Flu in the US which is 0.65% of the population, most of them young men.

In 2021, in the midst of COVID-19 (which has lasted almost exactly 1.5 years), the US population is 331 million. 680,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the US which is 0.2% of the population, most of them elderly.

In order to reach a magnitude of severity equal to the Spanish Flu (ironically named as such because the Spanish press was the only source of truthful information about the virus), we'd have to continue at our present pace for another 3.5 years which is so unlikely that we'd be willing to bet the house on it.

Following the Spanish Flu, Ohio senator Warren Harding won the 1920 Presidential election in a landslide armed with the slogan "Return to Normalcy".

Headlines

• BLM organizer says de Blasio vaccine mandate weaponized against black community (Washington Examiner) 72% of black people in NYC from ages 18 to 44 are unvaccinated. Might be the first time BLM has actually done something positive for the black community if they succeed.
• CNN's Leana Wen: The Unvaccinated Should Not Be Allowed To Leave Their Homes (Reason) "You have the option to not get vaccinated if you want," said the doctor. "But then you can't go out in public."
• Biden Pledges 500 Million More Pfizer Vaccine Donations for Poor Nations at U.N. Covid-19 Summit (WSJ)
• Florida Acquires Monoclonal Antibodies From GlaxoSmithKline After Biden Administration’s Rationing (Epoch Times)

Information

• Confirmed: You Can’t Sue Pfizer or Moderna for Severe Covid Vaccine Side Effects (Becker News)

Around the Web

👓 Peter Thiel’s Origin Story (Read)
📉 How the “Buy the Dip” Generation Came to Be (Read)
🦓 The world's most expensive animals (Read)

From the Archive

🍺 Saloons were once everywhere in America, from urban alleys to rural crossroads. They were about more than drinking; from the 1860s through 1920, they dominated social life for the laboring majority building a new industrial nation. By 1897 there were roughly a quarter of a million saloons, or 23 for every Starbucks franchise today. During Prohibition, the number of patents generated dropped by nearly 15% (Read)

Something to Look At

Have a great weekend!