Today's Takes: Thursday, July 15

Despite selling just 3,500 copies in its first week, Robin DiAngelo's new racist polemic received placement on the New York Times Bestseller List while Michael Knowles' book (which sold 4xs as many copies in its first week) was curiously absent. DiAngelo’s newest work is called “Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm” and is ranked #2,288 among all books on Amazon, where it had only 13 reviews. Knowles’ book, whose full title is “Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds” is ranked #23 on Amazon, where it has 178 reviews.

The people have spoken.

Today's Headlines

📰 General Headlines

• Powell Expects Inflation to Moderate, but Will Likely Remain Elevated This Year (WSJ)
• U.S. Senate Democrats agree to $3.5 trln for budget reconciliation bill (Reuters)
  • No news on how the bill will be paid for though talk of corporate and wealth taxes continue to circulate
  • One wonders why they don't just run the money printers over at the Federal Reserve. Take the burden off the tax payer, yanno?
• Biden wants to boost policing — after spreading toxic lies that tore it down (NY Post)
  • Are police shootings still a thing or have we moved on to railing against showing your ID at the polls?
• European Union Releases ‘Green Deal’ to Cut Emissions in Half in Ten Years (National Review)
• Texas Senate Passes Voting Bill, as Democratic Rivals Push Federal Bill (WSJ)
  • Cringe: Kamala Harris likens Texas Democrats to suffragettes, civil rights leaders (Reuters)
  • The reality is that the bill is benign and Texas Democrats crusade for nothing but a chance to kiss Kamala Harris' Converse
• Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say (NY Times)
  • Iran feeling pretty good with Biden in the White House
• China Isn’t Keeping Its Promises on Climate Change (National Review)
  • China's carbon emissions grow at the fastest rate in more than a decade
  • But, yeah, you're going to have to suffer through paper straws and gas taxes

🇺🇸 Only in America

• Elon Musk lives in tiny house that cost less than his Tesla (NZ Herald)
  • Does Elon live in the pod? Will Elon eat the bugs?
• Half of people released from S.F. jail before trial were accused of a new crime while free, according to four-year study (SF Chronicle)

🏟 Sports news, but not about sports

• Candace Parker Graces NBA 2K Game Cover as First WNBA Player (Bloomberg)
  • At least she can dunk
• Italy’s government basks in the glow of footballing success, A victory for the European idea, but also for the Italian right (Economist)
  • "The most striking aspect of Italy’s 26-man squad before it took to the pitch was that, alone among the main contenders, it did not include a single player considered as being of colour"
  • How many token "colored" players is a sufficient expression of diversity?

Nashville Politics

• Tennessee health officials ordered not to promote Immunization Awareness Month (Channel 5)
• Nashville Referendum Opponents Have More Money, But Supporters Have Powerful Backers (WPLN)
  • 4GoodGovernment, the group that proposed the property tax referendum, refires its engines to appeal the ruling levied against it last month
  • Save Nashville Now, the group fighting the referendum, sued the Davidson County election commission to stop the vote
• Tennessee abandons vaccine outreach to minors — not just for COVID-19 (Tennessean)
• Critical race theory, curriculum finds support from Nashville parents, board (Tennessean)
  • Contrasts with Williamson County's strong condemnation of CRT

Nashville News

• Survey from Nashville community group details concerns about Fairgrounds track (Lookout)
• What other states can learn from Tennessee’s free college plan (Main Street)

Nashville Development

• Hillsboro Village building sells for $2.1M+ (Post)
• Mixed-use tower eyed for Midtown (Post)
• Pennsylvania developer seeks to buy Hillsboro Road site (Post)
• The Mainland Cos. pay millions for tiny bite of Germantown land (Biz Journal)
• New images released for tower rising in Pie Town (Post)

One Good Read

🏡 What Happens When a Buffett Buys Your Town? (Read)

The Vine Rots

🎓 Cornell West, who is likely one of the few Harvard professors you will actually recognize, resigned his post with a scathing indictment of Harvard's "woke" agenda claiming all his courses were subsumed by Afro-American Religious Studies (Read)

Feudalism 101

Stat of the Day

🏭 Just 25 'mega-cities' produce 52% of the world's urban greenhouse gas emissions — and 23 of them are in China (Read)

Words of Stupidity

It’s no longer about who gets to vote... it’s about who gets to count the vote.

— Joe Biden in Philadelphia Wednesday

Have a great Thursday