Episode 57: Courtesy of The Red, White And Blue
America turns 245 years old on Sunday. The Fourth of July has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941, but the tradition of Independence Day celebrations goes back to the 18th century.
On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, and two days later, delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. From 1776 to the present day, July 4th has been celebrated as America’s birthday, with festivities ranging from fireworks, parades, and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues that showcase our team colors, Courtesy of The Red, White And Blue.
The History Channel documents the following seven events that escalated tensions between the British and Colonists that culminated in America’s War for Independence and resulted in the birth of our nation:
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Stamp Act (March 1765) : To recoup some of the massive debt from Britain’s war with France, Parliament passed laws such as the Stamp Act, which for the first time taxed a wide range of transactions in the colonies. Until then, each colony had its government, which decided which taxes they would have, and collected them.
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The Townshend Acts (June 1767) : Parliament again tried to assert its authority by passing legislation to tax goods that the Americans imported from Great Britain. Colonists struck back by organizing a boycott of the British goods that were subject to taxation and began harassing the British customs commissioners. To quell the resistance, the British sent troops to occupy Boston, which only deepened the ill-feeling.
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The Boston Massacre (March 1770) : Simmering tensions between the British occupiers and Boston residents boiled over when a disagreement between an apprentice wigmaker and a British soldier led to a crowd of 200 colonists surrounding seven British troops. When the Americans began taunting the British and throwing things at them, the soldiers lost their cool and began firing into the crowd, killing five colonists.
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The Boston Tea Party (December 1773) : The British eventually withdrew their forces from Boston and repealed much of the onerous Townshend legislation. But they left in place the tax on tea, and in 1773 enacted a new law, the Tea Act, to prop up the financially struggling British East India Company. (Several members of Parliament were investors in the company.) The act gave the company extended favorable treatment under tax regulations to sell tea at a price that undercut the American merchants who imported from Dutch traders. The Sons of Liberty, a radical group, decided to confront the British head-on. They boarded three ships in Boston harbor and destroyed more than 92,000 pounds of British tea by dumping it into the harbor.
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The Coercive Acts (March - June 1774) : In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British government decided to tame the rebellious colonists. In 1774, Parliament passed a series of laws, which closed Boston Harbor until restitution was paid for the destroyed tea and gave sweeping powers to the British military governor General Thomas Gage. But perhaps the most provocative provision was the Quartering Act, which allowed British military officials to demand accommodations for their troops in houses and buildings in towns rather than having to stay out in the countryside.
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Lexington and Concord (April 1775) : British General Thomas Gage led British soldiers from Boston to Lexington. He planned to capture radical colonial leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock and then head to Concord and seize their gunpowder. But American spies got wind of the plan, and with the help of riders such as Paul Revere, word spread to be ready for the British. The Colonists ambushed the British, and the redcoats suffered 73 casualties, with another 174 wounded and 26 missing in action. Seven Americans died, but other militiamen managed to stop the British at Concord and harass them on their retreat back to Boston.
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British attacks on coastal towns (October 1775 - January 1776) : British naval ships bombed and burned Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Norfolk, Virginia. The incident helped to unify the northern and southern colonies. It became clear to the colonists that they needed to band together for survival against a common enemy and embrace the need for independence.
More than 47 million Americans are expected to travel this holiday weekend, representing an increase of nearly 40% compared to last year. The vast majority of travelers (43.6 million) will hit the road, the most on record and 5 percent more than the record set in 2019. Approximately 3.5 million people will take to the skies, 164% more than last year. Travelers can expect to find higher prices for hotels and car rentals as demand climbs. Mid-range hotel rates have increased between 32% and 35%, with average nightly rates ranging between $156 and $398 for AAA Two Diamond and AAA Three Diamond hotels, respectively. Smaller fleets have translated in a spike in Rental car prices of 140% compared to 2019. Gas prices are the most expensive since 2014, with the national average above $3 per gallon. Top destinations this weekend are as follows: Orlando, FL, Anaheim, CA, Denver, CO, Las Vegas, NV, Seattle, WA, Chicago, IL, New York, NY, Atlanta, GA, Boston, MA, Maui, HI.
CHINA
America isn’t the only one celebrating a birthday. China’s President Xi Jinping delivered an address to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) founding. Thursday’s event began with dozens of military helicopters and jets, including the J-20 stealth fighters, flying in formation through Beijing’s skies, trailing flags and colored smoke over Tiananmen Square, where 56 cannon – representing the 56 ethnic groups of China – were fired 100 times. A 3,000-strong chorus sang seven socialist songs during the event. In a speech before a crowd of 70,000, Xi praised the ruling party for lifting China out of poverty and humiliation and pledged to expand China’s military and influence. Xi said the era of China being bullied was “gone forever.” He continued by saying, “anyone who dares to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people,” sparking applause from an invited audience gathered in the massive square in central Beijing.
Xi has served as General Secretary of the CCP since 2012 and President of China since 2013. Xi has cemented his eight-year rule through a personality cult, ending term limits and declining to anoint a successor. He has purged rivals and crushed dissent – from Uyghur Muslims and online critics to pro-democracy protests on Hong Kong’s streets. The CCP wields absolute rule over 1.4 billion people and one of the world’s largest economies. But China is also an increasingly isolated member of the international community due to its human rights abuses and actions towards regional neighbors who dispute China’s claims in the South China Sea. The CCP has never ruled over Taiwan but considers it a breakaway province of China that must be unified by force if necessary. Xi said Taiwan reunification remained an “unshakeable commitment.” A Pew Research Center survey in 17 advanced economies, including the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, and Germany, released this week shows the opinion on China and President Xi to be negative and near historic lows. This week also marks Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. There are usually protests around the date, but these have been banned under China’s national-security law.
POLITICS
The U.S. has vacated Bagram airfield, its main airbase in Afghanistan. While about 650 US troops will remain to protect the U.S. embassy and Kabul airport, the U.S. is set to end its occupation of Afghanistan by mid-July, ahead of the September 11th goal established by President Biden. The sprawling air base north of Kabul was the symbolic and operational heart of the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan. With that hub handed over to Afghan security forces, it sets the scene for the final departure of U.S. troops from the country only months before the twentieth anniversary of the start of U.S. operations to topple the Taliban, launched in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Built by Soviet engineers in the 1950s, the airbase has been at the heart of two ill-fated foreign military campaigns, one launched by Moscow in 1979, and America’s war on terror, dubbed the “forever war” because it seemed to have no endpoint. In 2001, the base was devastated by years of civil war, the two ends of its 3km-long runway held by opposing factions. But the U.S. quickly built it into a sprawling citadel with boardwalks, fast food restaurants, a sewage treatment camp, and even at one point a swimming pool. At its peak, 40,000 military personnel and civilian contractors were stationed there. Taliban spokesman Sohail Shaheen said the group welcomed the U.S. departure from Bagram. The militants have been seizing swathes of territory across the country in recent months as foreign troops headed home, taking control of 50 out of nearly 400 districts since May. Some intelligence analysts have warned the government in Kabul could collapse within months. Gen Scott Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned that the country could be headed for civil war. Ironically, a 20-year military project launched to destroy the Taliban ends with the same group resurgent across Afghanistan.
President Biden grew irked today with repeated press questions about the Afghanistan troop drawdown, saying he didn’t want to answer any more of the topic because it was a holiday weekend. Biden said he wanted to talk about “happy things.” Biden sniping at press questions is nothing new. He repeatedly lashed out at reporters who brought up investigations into his son Hunter on the campaign trail. He apologized last month after ripping a CNN reporter’s question about his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, scolding her , “if you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business.” One can’t help but muse that a political figure who doesn’t like reporters and their questions may be in the wrong business.
ECONOMY
U.S. hiring picked up in June as the economy added 850,000 jobs , the most significant single-month gain since August 2020, well above the consensus estimate of 706,000 . Hourly pay for private-sector employees was up 3.6% year-over-year, as companies raise wages in a bid to attract workers. According to the Labor Department, the economy is still not back to where it was before the pandemic – the U.S. has 6.8 million fewer jobs than it did in February 2020. The main question now for markets and economists is whether the positive June report could encourage the Federal Reserve to taper its monthly asset purchases – a form of monetary stimulus – more quickly. There’s a raging debate over the matter currently ongoing within the Federal Reserve over whether the U.S. central bank needs to throttle back from the stimulus as the economy accelerates out of the pandemic to keep inflation from getting too hot.
COVID
Coronavirus infections are up 10% since last week. And it’s primarily because of the Delta variant – the strain that’s 60% more contagious than Alpha and carries double the risks of hospitalization. Delta already counts for a quarter of all new cases and has been detected in every single state. It could become the dominant strain in a matter of weeks. And the CDC’s warning that the slowing vaccination rate could leave many vulnerable to the virus. More than 15 million people failed to get their second shot of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, making them susceptible to the Delta variant.
Most concerning is the spike in Covid cases in under-vaccinated states, based on a two-week average:
Alabama - +111%
Nevada - +107%
Arkansas - +80%
Mississippi - +64%
Missouri - +54%
According to the CDC, 172,549,399 or 66.8% of Americans age 18+ have received at least one dose of a vaccine. This mark means the country will miss President Biden’s goal of 70% vaccinated by July 4th by approximately 7 million shots.
SCOTUS
Yesterday, SCOTUS upheld Arizona voting restrictions in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines. It’s one of the court’s most significant voting rights rulings in years. The case looked at two-state rules: one, allowing it to throw out ballots cast in the wrong precinct. And two, banning “ballot harvesting” – when someone other than a family member or caregiver collects and drops off your ballot. Democrats argued they disproportionately impact voters of color. A lower court agreed. But most of the Supremes said just because there’s “some disparity” doesn’t mean there’s an unequal opportunity to vote. Republicans applauded the move, taking it as a hint SCOTUS could side with them on several voting restriction cases.
OTHER
Thursday at midnight, college athletics created a new billion-dollar industry. The relaxation of rules governing name, image, and likeness (NIL) allows college athletes to sign endorsement deals and make money off their fame for the first time. Twenty-five states passed NIL bills that challenged the NCAA’s rules banning student-athletes from monetizing their popularity. Seeing the writing on the wall, the NCAA lifted its restrictions on NIL on Wednesday, paving the way for college athletes to link up with brands just hours later. An entire roster of college athletes took advantage of the new NIL rules yesterday to launch their business careers. If you think NIL will primarily benefit the biggest stars in the most prominent sports (football, basketball), you wouldn’t be wrong. But there are plenty of exceptions for the most social media-savvy athletes. Industry insiders expect LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne to earn the most of any NCAA athlete from NIL endorsements. She’s the only one with more than 1 million followers on both TikTok and Instagram. In total, the NIL market could hit $500 million in 2022 and $1 billion/year annually after that, per athlete marketing platform Opendorse. Check out the top 20 athletes who could capitalize on NIL and the earning potential of athletes across sports and endorsement deals.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on federal executions. It’s so the DOJ can continue its review of the death penalty. There hasn’t been a scheduled federal execution since President Biden took office. But the former Trump admin carried out the first one in more than 17 years and 12 more after that. Now, Garland says the death penalty could be disproportionately impacting people of color. There are currently 46 inmates on federal death row.
I. Below are the articles I found interesting the past week:
II. Stats that made me go WOW!
- John Adams believed that July 2nd was the correct date to celebrate the birth of American independence and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest. Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
- The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have agreed to an $850 million settlement with more than 84,000 people who claimed they were sexually assaulted as Scouts. The high dollar amount and number of accusations, which date back to the 1960s, make this among the most prominent child sexual abuse cases in US history.
- The State Department said Americans could immediately pick whether they identify as “M” or “F” for their passport – without a medical certificate. Furthermore, a plan to add a third option – for those who identify as “nonbinary, intersex, and gender nonconforming” – is in the works. The Human Rights Campaign said that the State Department’s announcement could impact the more than 1.2 million non-binary adults in the US and the 2 million transgender people in the country, and 5.5 million people born intersex.
- The EU rolled out its vaccine passport yesterday. Vaccinated Europeans will receive their certificate for free through an app-based QR code. At this point, 50.4% of Europe’s population have received at least one vaccine dose, and over 200 million certificates have already been downloaded.
- Trading app Robinhood filed to go public under the ticker symbol HOOD. Robinhood’s revenue surged to $959 million in 2020 , a 245% jump from 2019. Robinhood wants you to buy into Robinhood’s IPO on Robinhood. In an unusual move, it’s setting aside 20%–35% of its Class A stock for its customers instead of bankers.
- Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Bytedance (TikTok’s owner), and Amazon now control 46% of the global ad market. The combined companies generated $296B in ad revenue. In 2010, the top five ad companies (Google, Viacom/CBS, News Corp/Fox News, Comcast, and Disney) only made up 17% of the market, with a total of $70B in revenue. Google and Facebook, known as “the Duopoly,” have combined ad revenues of $219B or 34% of the 2020 ad market. In 2015, they sold $101B in ads for 19% of the market. The two companies are respectively the largest and second-largest ad companies in every market outside China.
- While many poor people became poorer during the pandemic, the number of millionaires increased by 5.2 million to 56.1 million globally, Credit Suisse research found. In 2020, more than 1% of adults worldwide were millionaires for the first time.
III. Name that Tune!
I am listening to “Courtesy of The Red, White And Blue” by Toby Keith as I write this newsletter.
Toby Keith Covel is an American country singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. Keith was born in Clinton, Oklahoma. Keith attended Moore High School, where he played defensive end on the football team. Keith worked as a derrickhand in the oil fields after graduation. When Keith was 20, he and his friends formed the Easy Money Band, which played at local bars as he continued to work in the oil industry. At times, he would have to leave in the middle of a concert if paged to work in the oil field. In 1982, the oil industry in Oklahoma began a rapid decline, and Keith soon found himself unemployed. He fell back on his football training and played defensive end with the semi-pro Oklahoma City Drillers while performing with his band.
In the early 1990s, Keith went to Nashville, Tennessee, where he hung out and busked on Music Row and at a place called Houndogs. He distributed copies of a demo tape the band had made to the many record companies in the city. There was no interest by any of the record labels, and Keith returned home feeling depressed. A flight attendant and fan of his gave a copy of Keith’s demo tape to an executive at Mercury Records who was a passenger on her flight. The agent enjoyed what he heard, went to see Keith perform live, and then signed him to a recording contract with Mercury. Keith’s debut single, “ Should’ve Been a Cowboy ,” went to number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1993. By the end of the decade, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” received more than three million spins on radio, thus making it the most played country song of the 1990s.
Keith wrote “Courtesy of The Red, White And Blue” in late 2001, inspired by his father’s death, as well as September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Keith explained the song is a tribute to his father’s patriotism and faith in the USA, and it took him 20 minutes to write. “Courtesy of The Red, White And Blue” references the war in Afghanistan and was the last song aired by the Armed Forces Radio Network in Baghdad before ceasing operations during the drawdown from Iraq.
Keith had a public feud with the Dixie Chicks over both the song and comments about President George W. Bush. The lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, publicly stated that the song was “ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant.” Keith responded by belittling Maines’ songwriting skills and displayed a backdrop at his concerts showing a doctored photo of Maines with Saddam Hussein.
Keith has released 19 studio albums, two Christmas albums, and five compilation albums, with over 40 million albums sold worldwide. He has charted 61 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including 20 number one hits and 21 additional top 10 hits. His longest-lasting number one hits are “ Beer for My Horses ” and “ As Good as I Once Was.” President Donald Trump awarded Keith the National Medal of Arts in a closed ceremony on January 13, 2021.
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