Today's Takes: Monday, August 23

Good morning, everyone.

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Headlines

🏛 From the Hill

• Biden admin cancels student debt for borrowers with severe disabilities (The Hill)
  • More than 323,000 borrowers will be covered under the loan discharge, which will total more than $5.8 billion
• FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated-sources (Reuters)
  • "Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations."
  • Incidentally, the only two groups who allegedly "planned" to break into the Capitol were the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. Both headed by FBI informants and detailed here by Revolver News (Read)
  • In other words, a full investigation of the "insurrection" would involve a full investigation of American intelligence agencies
• Kamala Harris tanking in poll as she goes to ground on Afghan withdrawal (NY Post)
• COVID-19 Relief Measures Make US Tax System ‘More Progressive’ (Epoch)

💭 That's Really Something

• An old, slimy clip of Gavin Newsom while mayor of San Francisco (Twitter)
• Homeownership can bring out the worst in you (Vox)
• It's time to add “chestfeeding” to your vocabulary (Today's Parents)

📲 High Priests of Technology

• Musk Says Tesla Will Have a Humanoid Robot Next Year (Barron's)
  • A rational response to a falling stock price is to invent more hype to drive the stock back up.
• Elon Musk says Tesla's robot will make physical work a 'choice' (Tech Xplore)
  • a 'hobby'*
• Inside Facebook's Metaverse for Work (Verge)

💰 Money Matters

• World’s Three Largest Auto Makers Face New Production Cuts. Other Stocks Are Falling. (Barron's)
  • Toyota Motor plans to cut global production in September by 40%
  • Ford Motor will temporarily close the Kansas City plant that builds its F-150 pickup truck for a week starting Aug. 23
• Big businesses have record levels of cash (Axios)
  • "At the end of Q2 2021, companies rated by S&P Global held about $6.8 trillion in cash. That's 45% higher than the average in the five years preceding the pandemic."
• ‘Unfortunately, business is booming’: Companies that fly home Covid-positive travelers have a busy summer (CNBC)
  • "Covac Global memberships have increased 500% this year, with a 250% increase in the last month alone, he said."
  • "So-called “breakthrough infections” caused by the highly contagious delta variant mean vaccinated people, too, can find themselves sick — or stuck — far from home. About 60% of current evacuees are vaccinated, said Thompson, because “they are the ones that feel most comfortable to travel now."
  • That's rough, man.

🌈 Woke-acracy

• Patagonia dumps Jackson Hole ski resort after far-right fundraiser (WyoFile)
  • "U.S. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) headlined the event."
  • Patagonia is owned by a billionaire, makes their cheap clothing with starvation wage Chinese labor, and is a big contributor to ocean trash piles. If you fall for their “pro-environment” messaging, you’re proving that the contempt that their executives have for you is correct. (@SpiritOfPines)
• OnlyFans is banning porn, the very thing that made it big (Input)
  • Likely to avoid future child trafficking lawsuits (Read)
• Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned (LA Times)
• Your Credit Score Should Be Based on Your Web History, IMF Says (Gizmodo)
• How climate change helped strengthen the Taliban (CBS)
  • "Everytime you start your car, an Afghan gets hungrier."
• Police pin hopes on ‘rainbow cars’ to drive out hate crime (Telegraph)
  • Uh. Sir? Can you, like, put the gun down please.

Original Essays

🤿   Masked Dereliction: State Republican legislators are trying to shore up their base with special sessions and anti-mask stances; They willfully failed to prevent this debate four months ago. by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)

In case you missed it

• Total Recall: California’s September election by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• Losing Christopher Hitchens by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• Entourage's Last Stand by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' and the Evergreen Ills of American Politics by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)

Nashville Politics

• Tennessee doctors rally to oppose governor's ban of school mask mandates (Tennessean)
  • These nut jobs wear masks on Zoom calls.

Nashville News

• Williamson County Schools meeting agitator answers questions about his behavior (WSMV)
• More mosquitoes than normal in the midstate (WSMV)
• Tom T. Hall, 'The Storyteller' of country music, dies at 85 (Tennessean)

Nashville Development

• Nashville has third highest bidding-war rate in the country (WSMV)
• Image finalized for Bellevue residential project (Post)
• Residential project planned for county’s north side (Post)
• Fresh Renderings Of Murfreesboro Pike Mixed-use Development; Next To Carl Black Chevrolet (Now Next)

Nashville Life

Tonight
💀 Grateful Monday ft. The Stolen Faces @ Acme, 7p, FREE (Info)
🎸 Mike Henderson Band @ Bluebird Cafe, 9:30p, $15 (Info)

Other

• The Best Kacey Musgraves Songs (Read)
• Frist Art Museum Announces 2022 Schedule of Exhibitions (Read)
• Belcourt Announces Upcoming Heist! Series (Read)
• Eastside Bowl Will Be a Boon to Madison’s Entertainment Scene (Read)
• Wedgewood-Houston keeps its edge, as development explodes (Read)

COVID Gutter

Headlines

• Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine Expected to Get Full FDA Approval Next Week (WSJ)
• Three US Senators Get COVID-19 Despite Being Fully Vaccinated (Epoch)
• San Francisco’s COVID-19 Vaccine Passport Mandate Begins for Restaurants, Gyms (Epoch)
• NYC Restaurateurs: It’s Not Our Job to Enforce Vaccine Mandates (Epoch)
• University of Virginia disenrolls unvaccinated students ahead of fall semester (WaPo)
• Rescue dogs shot dead by NSW council due to COVID-19 restrictions (SMH)
  • They shot them to stop volunteers at an animal shelter from travelling to pick them up.

Information

• Study supports widespread use of better masks to curb COVID-19 indoors (U of Waterloo)
  • Surigcal masks only absorb 10% of exhaled aerosol droplets while N95s absorb somewhere around 50%
• Children born during pandemic have lower IQs, US study finds (Guardian)
  • Masks will surely help with this.

Opinion

• Poor Jacinda Ardern, trapped in her arrogant Zero Covid policy (Telegraph)
  • "It has fetishised “zero risk” for the past 17 months and show little interest in updating its strategy. Last week, Ms Ardern announced that New Zealand would maintain an “elimination, or ‘stamp it out’, strategy” into the next stage of the pandemic, even when more people are vaccinated."
  • Jacinda Ardern has never heard no in her life. A lesson for parents.
• Regardless of how covid-19 spread, we need to better prevent lab leaks (Economist)
  • Hmm
• Biden Uses Bureaucratic Power Disguised As ‘Civil Rights’ To Force Schoolchildren To Wear Masks (Federalist)

Around the Web

⚔️ A soldier's reflection on his time in Afghanistan following the drawdown (Read)

🌈 It’s Time for the American People to Rise Up Against the Globalist American Empire (Read)

Stat of the Day

🏟 According to one recent measure, ninety-three of the top one hundred American television programs watched live across a single year have been sports-related. More people watched the Super Bowl than the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes, and Tonys combined. (Read)

Have a great Monday