Today's Takes: Tuesday, July 27

Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to be scot-free after the DOJ announced that they'll drop the investigation into nursing homes in New York regarding their COVID-19 response. More on that below.

If you're in the Dallas area, please be sure to drop off some snacks for the fat Texas Democrats up in Washington D.C. protesting having to show your ID at the polls. They're collecting Dr. Pepper, salsa, hard candy, hairspray, travel toiletries, hand sanitizers, sewing kits, first aid, and positive COVID tests. I guess that last one is "on the house", so to speak.

Headlines

🎉 Biden's Blow-Out Spending Bonanza The Biden administration is in a pickle; plagued by the threat of the apocalyptic Delta variant, lingering inflation, and a leader whose mental capacity visibly deteriorates by the day. The much-debated infrastructure bill (that nearly all Americans agree we need) is moving slower than anyone wants. Additionally, Biden's End All Pain and Suffering Bill, which lays out $3.6 trillion over 10 years to squash climate change and uneven outcomes, appears likely to further stoke inflation concerns. Biden's ambition—if measured by the number of Executive Orders—exceeds Trump's and nears FDR's, but he lacks the requisite leadership skills required to get them done. The government's galactic scale game of musical chairs set to the tune of running an infinite deficit towards the sun marches on! What's the worst that could happen?

📰 General News

• Amazon ‘definitely’ lining up Bitcoin payments and token, confirms insider (City A.M.)
  • The price rose 13.5% towards $40k in response to the news
• ‘We’re f---ed’: Dems fear turnout catastrophe from GOP voting laws (Politico)
  • Big Foot, White Supremacy, and Voter I.D. laws are the biggest threats to our Democracy.
• Al Lord Profited When College Tuition Rose. He Is Paying for It. (WSJ)
  • A person above the age of 50 admits that college is prohibitively expensive. Progress.
• U.S. Drops Visa Fraud Cases Against Five Chinese Researchers (WSJ)
  • "Judges had dismissed parts of the cases against Ms. Tang and another researcher in recent weeks after finding that FBI agents hadn’t properly informed them of their rights against self-incrimination when interviewing them."

🌩 Just Weather or the Certain Destruction of Mankind?

• As China Boomed, It Didn’t Take Climate Change Into Account. Now It Must. (NY Times)
  • The following is a speculative statement: "...cities face the daunting new challenge of adapting to extreme weather caused by climate change..."
  • Here's the definition of speculation (Read)

🔥 The Tactics of Panic Porn

• The FBI’s Whitmer Kidnapping Case Looks Like A Potemkin Terror Plot (Federalist)
  • "With the help of snitches, the FBI rounded up some unemployed, homeless, mostly alone and angry loudmouths to build a fantasy football-style display of domestic terrorism fear-porn."
  • This meme sums it up pretty nicely
• PayPal to research transactions that fund hate groups, extremists (Reuters)
  • Taken in stride with the corporate ESG initiative, your politics will now dictate your money.

🧈 "I can't believe it's not racist!"

• Many Black women felt relieved to work from home, free from microaggressions. Now they’re told to come back. (WaPo)
  • Hard to believe that white-collar black women are as racist as the Washington Post makes them out to be.
• Kansas City mayor: ‘Young men of color’ weak point in boosting vaccination rate (Washington Times)
  • Before you pull out your race card, look up who the mayor of Kansas City is

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

💉 Vaccine Marketing Fracas The state plans to continue all vaccine outreach after purging its accounts of marketing materials deemed to subvert parental authority by marketing directly to children. The crux of progressive saint, new liberal martyr, and glowing super-bureaucrat Michelle Fiscus' firing hinged on her memo which advocated for marketing directly to children. For what it's worth, the mortality rate among healthy children under the age of 18 is zero which begs the question why marketing vaccines to children is even a priority.

• Rep. Griffey has a message for school districts (TNJ)
  • "The Paris Republican has sent a letter across the state (and copied it to all House and Senate members) declaring it unlawful for districts to require face coverings or 'create alternate learning environments for unvaccinated students, segregate such students, or treat them any differently.'"

Nashville News

• Knoxville man catches giant fish in Caney Fork River (Tennessean)
• Nashville’s Largest Private Employer Decides To Require COVID Vaccinations, Starting With Leaders (WPLN)
  • "Vanderbilt University Medical Center will become the first hospital system in the region to require COVID vaccination of employees, starting with those in leadership roles."
• Petition calls for Metro Schools to reinstate mask mandate (Channel 5)
  • It's only been signed by ~1,000 people
  • The mortality rate among healthy children under the age of 18 is zero

Nashville Development

• West End corridor building listed for $1.5M (Post)
• New E-Commerce Facility to Bring over a Thousand Jobs to Tennessee (Star)
• Stocking 51 lands five businesses in The Nations (Post)
• Details emerge for building eyed for Lower Broad (Post)
• Rundown Vista Inn motel to be converted into apartments (Main Street)
• Nissan Stadium overhaul is still in play, but details are slim (Tennessean)
• Vi-Jon announces $45M investment in Smyrna plant, adding to 600-plus existing jobs (Biz Journal)
• Local entrepreneur sells self-storage facility for $16.1M (Post)

COVID Gutter

⚰️ Death For Thee, But Not For Me The U.S. Justice Department has decided not to open a civil rights investigation into nursing homes in New York and two other states regarding their COVID-19 response, dealing a blow to several Republican lawmakers who had demanded a probe. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's directives at the height of the pandemic in New York resulted in 15,000 deaths. But Cuomo was not ignoring the directives of scientists and "experts" when he sent nearly 9,000 elderly COVID-19 patients from hospitals back to nursing homes, he was following their advice to a tee. A regular feature of the American bureaucracy is the distance between a decision and its effect on the person that made it. There is no better example of this than Andrew Cuomo, whose idiocy killed thousands, garnering him a book deal and an Emmy. In a just world, such men would be marched to the gallows or, at minimum, stripped of their power.

Information

• UK Covid cases drop for fifth day in a row (Standard)
• The Unvaccinated Low-Risk and the Vaccinated High-Risk Are The Same Thing. (Beyond the Optics)
  • What do you call a vaccine that reduces symptoms and limits spread, but does not provide immunity? A Preventative Therapeutic. It transforms the high-risk to low-risk.
• Here we go again (Alex Berenson)
  • Alex Berenson takes on the much-parrotted stat about 99% of deaths being amongst the unvaccinated.
  • No surprise, it is vastly overstated for shock value.

Politics

• Unjabbed students face ban as ‘raging’ Boris Johnson targets vaccine refuseniks (The Times)
  • That's one way to describe an erection
  • I'm sure he'll feel better once the Big Number reads 100%
• New York City and California will require workers to be vaccinated or face testing. (NY Times)
• Fauci Wants to Make Vaccines for the Next Pandemic Before It Hits (NY Times)
  • Are we going to start booking these things years in advance now?
• The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Bigger Threat: Vaccine Refusal (NY Times)
  • The Times loves to punch down. Admirable stuff.
• Protests Rage Across Europe as Lockdown, Vaccination Mandates Start (Epoch)

One Good Read

💥 The Myth of Panic (Read)

And the survey says...

📉 55% of Americans say they are pessimistic about the direction of the country despite Joe Biden's best, geriatric efforts to remind the world that "America is back". Apparently, simply not being Trump is an insufficient platform from which to govern and lead. Who would've guessed? (Read)

Stat of the Day

🥚 An egg in the supermarket uses 350 times as much energy as a locally produced egg ("from basket to table"). The only way to build a sustainable low-energy food production system is to go back to the local, decentralized, the personal and the small/human-scaled. (Read)

New Epic Just Dropped

All too Real

Have a great Tuesday