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FREE V. SLAVE STATES: Masked, Lockdown California’s COVID Rate Is Now TWICE Florida’s

More news you will never hear in then Democrat state run press.

Masked California’s COVID rate is now twice Florida’s

California has mask requirements and a higher vaccination rate than Florida

By Emma Colton Fox News November 9, 2021:

Enriched Literacy Education Mary Cantwell and Brooke Ooten on research revealing children literacy suffering nationwide.

California’s coronavirus rate is double that of Florida, despite mask mandates and recommendations to prevent the spread of the virus.

“You’re paying for your success, which is weird,” Ali H. Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington, told the Mercury News when asked why Californians aren’t “reaping more reward for their adherence to health guidance.”

“You succeed in controlling the virus, and now you’re having infections.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom talks during a news conference at Universal Studios in Universal City, California. On Wednesday, he signed a bill into law intended to combat organized retail theft.  (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)

FLORIDA HOSPITAL CELEBRATES ZERO COVID PATIENTS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2020

Cases in California are no longer falling, with the rate increasing to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s red “high” level of virus transmission stemming from the delta variant, the outlet reported.

But Southern states such as Texas and Florida – where state leaders do not enforce face mask policies or support other strict mandates – are in the CDC’s orange “substantial” transmission level.

California’s vaccination rate is higher than states such as Texas and Florida, but that still hasn’t stopped the outbreaks. Sixty-two percent of California’s total population is fully vaccinated, while Florida reports 60% and Texas 54%.

FLORIDA COVID CASES, DEATH RATE AMONG LOWEST IN THE COUNTRY

Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California leaders put some of the most strict coronavirus measures in place last year, which have continued into 2021.

In the Bay Area, health officials reimposed indoor face mask orders and won’t lift the measures until the area falls below the CDC’s orange “substantial” transmission level for three weeks or more. So far, most of the Bay Area counties still remain in the orange zone, besides San Francisco, which is in the yellow zone, the outlet reported.

California saw fewer cases of the delta variant over the summer with the state’s higher vaccination rate. Those who were not vaccinated and have recovered from the virus now also have immunity, the outlet reported, and the virus has a more difficult time spreading.

DESANTIS: WE ARE ACTIVELY RECRUITING OUT-OF-STATE POLICE OFFICERS OUT OF JOB DUE TO VACCINE MANDATES

“These regions are now being partly protected by high prior infection rates,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the medical department at the University of California-San Francisco. “But these people whose immunity comes from COVID-19 are not very well protected, and their immunity will wane with time.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference before newly appointed state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo at Neo City Academy in Kissimmee, Florida, on Sept. 22, 2021.

Wachter added that with low booster shot rates and waning immunity, “the end result is that we’ve plateaued in our improvements, both nationally and in California, and it’s likely we’ll soon see some significant upticks.”

“California has done very well over the past few months, but we still have too many unvaccinated people,” he added. “People are spending more time inside and being more active, and masking is going down.”

Florida, meanwhile, hit another new benchmark last week. The first hospital in the state to treat a COVID patient last year, Doctor’s Hospital, announced that for the first time since the pandemic, it has no virus patients in its care.

“This is great news! For two weeks and counting, Florida has had the lowest rate of new COVID-19 cases in the entire country – with no mandates, vaccine passports, or lockdowns. Overall, COVID hospitalizations have been declining for more than 70 days straight, and we’re at an all time low in terms of the number of COVID patients hospitalized statewide,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, told Fox News on Monday when asked for comment about Doctor’s Hospital in Sarasota.

“Gov. DeSantis is proud of Florida’s success with launching monoclonal antibody treatment sites throughout the state, which made a huge impact on lowering hospitalizations and saving lives. Early treatment – getting the monoclonal antibodies as soon as possible after testing positive or experiencing symptoms – cuts the risk of hospitalization by 70% or more,” Pushaw added.

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Media DEAD SILENT ON How Florida COVID Cases Are Down 88% In Last 6 Months

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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The Best and Worst Cities in the United States

There are several options if you want to measure economic freedom and competitiveness among nations (rankings from the Fraser InstituteHeritage Foundation, and World Economic Forum).

You also have many choices if you want to measure economic freedom and competitiveness among states (rankings from the Tax FoundationMercatus Center, and Fraser Institute).

But there’s never been a good source if you want to know which local jurisdiction is best.

Dean Stansel of Southern Methodist University is helping to fill this gap with a report looking at the relative quality of government policy in various metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs encompass not just a city but also economically relevant suburbs):

…the level of economic freedom can vary across subnational jurisdictions within the same country (e.g., Texas and Florida have less-burdensome economic policies and therefore much greater economic freedom than New York and California). However, levels of economic freedom can also vary within those subnational jurisdictions. For example, the San Jose metro area has substantially higher economic freedom than Los Angeles. The same is true for Nashville compared to Memphis. In some places, metropolitan areas straddle state borders, skewing state-level economic data. This report quantifies those intra-state disparities by providing a local-level version of the EFNA, ranking 382 metropolitan areas by their economic freedom levels.

So who wins this contest?

Here are the five most-free MSAs. It’s worth noting that all of them are in states with no income tax, which shows that good state policy helps:

What if we limit ourselves to large cities?

Here are the five most-free MSAs with populations over one million. As you can see, Houston is in first place, and zero-income-tax Texas and Florida are well represented:

Now let’s shift to the localities on the bottom of the rankings.

Which MSA is the worst place for economic freedom in America?

Congratulations to El Centro in California for winning this booby prize. As you can see, jurisdictions in New York and California dominate:

What if we look at larger jurisdictions, those with over one million people?

In this case, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario is the worst place to live.

Though if you want to focus on big cities, the NYC metro area deserves special mention:

Now let’s consider why economic freedom matters.

I’ve shared charts showing how more economic freedom leads to more prosperity in nations.

The same thing is true for states.

So you shouldn’t be surprised to discover that it also is true for metro areas:

Last but not least, here’s a map showing freedom in all MSAs:

I’m not surprised to see so much red in California and New York, but I didn’t realize that Ohio (thanks for nothing, Kasich), Oregon, and West Virginia were so bad.

And the good results for Texas and Florida are predictable, but I didn’t think Virginia would look so good.

This article was reprinted with permission from International Liberty.

COLUMN BY

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review. 

RELATED ARTICLE: These are the worst cities to live in America. Is yours one of them?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Pixabay.

The Legacy of Arne Duncan, Common Core and So Much More: College (Part 2)

As noted in my last post, outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has done his part to transform America through K-12 education.  This has happened through Common Core and by expanding the Department’s reach into younger and older cohorts.  Duncan got the promise for an additional $1 billion for preschool education.  As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, Duncan is also leaving a “big imprint” on higher education.  His legacy is one of “innovation and regulation.”  College is put into a seamless web of K-16, or P-20, with an unprecedented federal role in admissions, placement, assessment, and financing.

The Chronicle notes that Duncan has deviated from the standard practice of Democratic secretaries who have just doled out money.  He has been “personally upbraid[ing] colleges over rising prices and low graduation rates, their handling of cases of sexual assault, their lax academic standards for athletes . . . , and their resistance to greater oversight.” Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, has become disillusioned with Duncan’s “top-down approach.” Institutions, like Yale University, get nervous about the Department’s investigations of “sexually hostile environments.”

The nonprofits, like the Lumina Foundation, that have been funding Common Core, however, give a positive assessment. Jamie Merisotis, President and Chief Executive, praises Duncan’s “strong leadership” in putting our higher-education system “a step closer to reflecting the needs of today’s increasingly diverse college students — and the changing meaning of ‘college’ to include all types of postsecondary learning.”  Competency-based programs that “measure learning” through demonstration of a skill set are among his many “innovations.”  Inside Higher Education calls it “new delivery model with the potential to improve degree completion, reduce costs to students, and improve transparency and alignment of learning outcomes to the needs of employers and society.”

Currently, over 600 colleges are designing, creating, or already have competency-based education programs. This number has grown from 52 last year. As with Common Core, it is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with “guidance” from the U.S. Department of Education.

The notion of “competency” changes the fundamental notion of education, taking it from learning for its own sake, with a knowledgeable, independent citizenry as an outcome, to producing workers with skill sets.  Colleges that have agreed to align financial aid to such tests have ceded their own power.

Funny, Arne Duncan, when he spoke at the 2013 meeting of the American Education Research Association (AERA) and promised a “sea-change” in assessments for K-12 students, included “competency-based education,” as well as “non-cognitive skills.”  Others at that AERA meeting of academics and researchers working at universities, federal and state agencies, school systems, test companies, and non-profit agencies were Linda Darling-Hammond, who oversaw the development of the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) tests, one of the two Common Core tests, and her close colleague, Bill Ayers.

Many colleges are following the Department of Education in emphasizing non-cognitive, “social and emotional learning” skills.  Seventeen colleges have received funds from the Department’s “First in the World” grants to identify and help at-risk students through the aid of a tool called Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills to measure such emotional attributes as “grit.”

Colleges have been targeted strategically.  Jacqueline King, director of Higher Collaboration at SBAC, has been working to “create greater academic alignment between K-12 and higher education.”  Common Core tests are determining placement in college courses.  In 2014, college faculty in Tennessee attended workshops to learn how to “synch up with Common Core,” in effect to teach grade 13.

I reported that the Department of Education had funded the 2013 working paper, “The Common Core State Standards: Implications for Community Colleges and Student Preparedness for College.”   It described the “Core to College” program in ten states: Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington.  Core to College is funded by the Lumina, the William and Flora Hewlett, the Bill and Melinda Gates, and other foundations.  Their report, “Making Good on the College-Ready Promise and Higher Education Engagement Core to College Alignment Director Convening, August 1-2, 2012,” provides a record of discussions by “alignment directors” and guest speakers on teaching “a new type of student, more prepared for college-level, discipline-specific work.”  (As a former college instructor I am skeptical: having “more prepared” students meant an easier time in teaching them—not the need for special workshops.)

The ten states are to serve as “bellwethers and models for the rest of the country.”  Among the strategies, directors suggested more data, outreach to other “stakeholders” and private colleges, and more meetings.  They are also looking beyond “the English and Math Departments” that receive Common Core-certified students.  Speakers proposed “engaging faculty in other disciplines that could be touched by Common Core implementation, such as history or the social sciences.”

WestEd, a major Common Core funder, is evaluating the initiative.

The push for new assessments (especially at community colleges) has been quickly followed by calls for free community college.  In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama cited Tennessee’s still-developing program as a model.  The American Association of Community Colleges welcomed the proposal.  This year, on September 9, Obama announced that the “College Promise Campaign” would be chaired by Second Lady Jill Biden.  AACC President Walter Bumphus and Trustee President J. Noah Brown will serve on the National Advisory Board.

Democratic front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, pushed free college in their first presidential debate on October 13, 2015.

To top it off, the federal government is providing a college “scorecard.”  Of course, those who continue to refuse federal aid, like Grove City College and Hillsdale College, will continue to be left off.

Students at these colleges will also find themselves at an increasing financial disadvantage. One of Obama’s first orders of business was to make the federal government the bank for student loans.  This “bank” practices “loan forgiveness,” by graduating payment to income and providing complete forgiveness through work in government jobs, such as in public schools or at Americorps, the federal agency.  Indiana University law professor Sheila Seuss Kennedy and Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce manager Matt Impink enthused about such a “tour of duty” that sounds like the “civilian corps” Obama put forth at the beginning of his presidency.

We are well on our way.  With schools producing graduates with competencies “align[ed] to the needs of employers and society,” and with Common Core spitting out high school graduates “college and career ready,” we will no longer worry about higher learning.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website. The featured image is of President Obama announcing free community college with Vice President Joe Biden and Second Lady Jill Biden.