Today's Takes: Monday, July 26

The Atlantic has a strange obsession with the hidden racism in board games that we point out in a section below, but first, some news from Montana.

A strange incident involving Tucker Carlson, which will likely get air tonight on his show, occurred over the weekend. A man named Dan Bailey confronted Carlson in a Montana fly fishing shop named, well, Dan Bailey's. Shortly after a clip of the confrontation went viral, the shop posted a message stating that Dan Bailey, the aggressor, had no relation to the shop and that the similar names were a coincidence. Later, internet sleuths deduced that the Dan Bailey in the video was involved with a clandestine CIA operation in Mongolia prior to his stint as an ecologist in Livingston, Montana.

The whole incident reeks to high heaven of conspiratorial intrigue, but if you watch the video, you're left wondering if Carlson was in on the joke. It's 100% possible that the incident has no sinister underpinning. An angry man in a rural fly-shop sees an "evil" demagogue and confronts him; his name, the name of the shop, his ties to the CIA, all mere coincidences. If this is political theater, it is of the Shakespearean line: cloaked in conspiratorial underpinnings, layered in meaning, and generally open to speculation.

Has everything always appeared so manufactured and fake? Or, is this just a side effect of our constantly documented lives that demand we always be on and ready for the camera? Watch for yourself. I'm sure there will be more to say about this tomorrow.

Headlines

📰 General News

• Texas Begins Arresting Illegal Immigrants for Trespassing as Part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Border Security Plan (Epoch)
  • Gov. Greg Abbott: "President Biden’s open-border policies have led to a humanitarian crisis at our southern border as record levels of illegal immigrants, drugs, and contraband pour into Texas,” Abbott said in a June 10 statement. “While securing the border is the federal government’s responsibility, Texas will not sit idly by as this crisis grows. The state is working collaboratively with communities impacted by the crisis to arrest and detain individuals coming into Texas illegally."
• Gas Engines, and the People Behind Them, Are Cast Aside for Electric Vehicles (WSJ)

📝 What Americans Really Want

• Parties split on some infrastructure proposals (AP)
  • 83% of Americans support funding for roads, bridges, and ports
  • 45% of Americans support funding for electric vehicle charging stations
• Two-thirds want BLM riots probed, more than Jan. 6 (Yahoo)

💰 Financial Markets

• Inflation Pushes Consumer-Goods Giant Unilever to Accelerate Price Increases (WSJ)
• U.S. Median Home Price Hit New High in June (WSJ)
  • From article: "The median existing-home price rose to $363,300, in June, up 23.4% from a year earlier, setting a record high, NAR said, extending steady price increases amid limited inventory."

🏞 The Land of Milk and Honey

• LA Homeless Crisis: Sheriff's dept. working to clear out encampments that pose wildfire threat (Fox LA)
  • Presumably, Climate Change trumps human rights furnished by California law
  • From article: "The sheriff said in the past 10 years $6.5 billion has been spent to address the homeless problem in LA County."
  • Hm. Wonder if spending more on the homeless invites more homeless to the state?
• Venice Beach Doesn’t Have a Homelessness Crisis (City Journal)
  • From article: "Rather than attempt to spend tens of billions of dollars a year to house the nation’s transients, California would be better off using limited resources to attempt to connect and re-integrate people like Angel into their home communities until they have the resources to start a new life by themselves."
  • Venice Beach is expensive because it is a desirable place to live. Go figure.
• UC raises tuition despite student outcry, touting more financial aid and budget stability (LA Times)

🏳️‍🌈 Woke News

• Kamala Harris is the highest-ranking mom ever in U.S. politics. Here's why that matters (SF Chronicle)
  • She's not a mom. She's a step-mom. She's never birthed a child herself.
  • J.D. Vance offered a good angle on this (Federalist)
• Argentina Formally Recognizes Nonbinary People, a Latin American First (NY Times)
  • Nice.
• NYC restaurants survived COVID only to be destroyed by woke complaints (NY Post)
• UK libraries become ‘death positive’ with books and art on dying (Guardian)
  • Here are some books they don't mention that deal with death and are infinitely better: the Bible, the Odyssey, the Illiad, the Aeneid, King Lear, the Divine Comedy, etc.

♟ The Terror of Board Games

• The Board Games That Ask You to Reenact Colonialism (Atlantic)
  • We need historically accurate board games in which sub-Saharans conquer England.
• The Prices on Your Monopoly Board Hold a Dark Secret (Atlantic)
• Why does white always go first in chess? (The Conversation)

Original Essays

🎥 Jerod Hollyfield discusses the enduring relevance of Entourage even in an age that consistently demonizes it (Read)

In case you missed it

• 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' and the Evergreen Ills of American Politics by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• Avuncular Tom by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)
• The Man Who Sued the World by Megan Lee Podsiedlik (Read)
• Tenured Negligence by Jerod Hollyfield (Read)

Nashville Politics

• There will be no Sept. 21 property tax referendum election (Scene)
• State Sen. Kerry Roberts Clears Up Misinformation About COVID-19 Vaccinations for Children in Tennessee (Star)
  • TDH clarified that ads will no longer target children directly and, instead, target their parents
  • Ads depicting children, by themselves, receiving vaccines were removed and will be replaced by ads depicting children with their parents.

Nashville News

• TDH: 98%+ of COVID deaths, 97% of hospitalizations are now among unvaccinated (Channel 5)
  • In Tennesse, as case counts inch upwards, the rolling seven-day average death count continues to diminish. It sits at 5 today.
  • Fear not.
• Franklin on the verge of being recognized as state’s first Smart Yards Community (Homepage)
• I-40 bridge over Mississippi River likely won't reopen until August (Channel 5)
• Nashville school leaders work to finalize plans for $276M in federal relief funds (Tennessean)

Nashville Development

• 12South Building Slated for Brooklyn Pizza Restaurant (Scene)
• Help Rudy’s Jazz Room Recover From Flood Damage (Scene)
• North Nashville mixed-use building sells for $3.8M (Post)
• East Nashville apartment building sells for $79M (Post)
• Jefferson Street property eyed for residential project (Post)
• Building with brewery eyed for Wedgewood-Houston site (Post)
• Vanderbilt sets implosion date for West End high-rises (Post)
• Craft Cocktail and Southern Tapas Bar, EG & Mc, opening this weekend on Jefferson Street (Biz Journal)

COVID Gutter

• DeSantis Rejects Federal Mask Guidance for Children: ‘Not Doing That in Florida’ (Epoch)
• House Democrats Block Bipartisan Bill Declassifying COVID-19 Origins (Epoch)
• U.S. Buys 200 Million Covid-19 Vaccines From Pfizer and BioNTech at About $24 a Shot (WSJ)
• Pfizer Shot Just 39% Effective Against Delta Infection, But Largely Prevents Severe Illness, Israel Study Suggests (Forbes)
• Fauci: CDC Looking at Changing Mask Guidelines for Vaccinated People (Epoch)
• Britain tests the limits of mass vaccination (Economist)
• US Won’t Investigate Governors Who Ordered Nursing Homes to Accept COVID-Positive Residents (Epoch)
• The right and wrong ways to reduce vaccine hesitancy (Econmist)
• The Panic Pandemic (City Journal)

Provocative Read of the Day

🏆 Why Not Award Ashli Babbitt’s Killer the Medal of Honor?  by Angelo Codevilla (Read)

Good to Know

🛣 Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse (Read)

Something to Watch

Graph of the Day

On Dinner Parties

Have a great Monday