The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
✅A new strain of the coronavirus is dominant now. Is it more contagious? -- A mutant strain of the coronavirus that some researchers believe is more infectious is rampaging across the globe and has moved into the Bay Area, but there are conflicting views about how this tiny deviant is impacting people. Peter Fimrite in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/31/20
✅With California deaths surging, will Newsom have to do more? -- In a little more than a week, the state has set four coronavirus death records, hitting an all-time high — 193 deaths — on Wednesday. Experts say those numbers are the expected result of the surge in cases that started last month after communities around the state eased their lockdown restrictions. Marisa Kendall, Harriet Blair Rowan, Evan Webeck in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/31/20
✅Trump faces rare rebuke from GOP for floating election delay -- GOP officials from New Hampshire to Mississippi to Iowa quickly pushed back against Trump’s suggestion that it might be necessary to delay the November election — which he cannot do without congressional approval — because of the unfounded threat of voter fraud. Steve Peoples Associated Press -- 7/31/20
✅Record economic plunge, bleak jobs numbers reveal virus toll -- The coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy plunging by a record-shattering 32.9% annual rate last quarter and is still inflicting damage across the country, squeezing already struggling businesses and forcing a wave of layoffs that shows no sign of abating. Martin Crutsinger and Paul Wiseman Associated Press -- 7/30/20
Jonathan B. Imber, Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College and editor in chief of the journal Society, said in a statement that he regrets publishing a commentary by Lawrence M. Mead that many scholars say is racist.
Publishing the piece "was a mistake, and one I deeply regret," Imber said. "My intent was to have this commentary published alongside two critical reviews of his 2019 book, Burdens of Freedom, on which Mead’s commentary is based, that identify flaws in Mead’s arguments. The decision was entirely my responsibility and no other member of the editorial board of Society was consulted or participated in that decision."
Imber said he's "recommended the call for retraction," and that Springer Nature, Society’s publisher, is conducting an investigation to be completed shortly. "I deeply regret the pain that this has caused. I apologize to everyone affected by this," he said.
Mead, an influential professor of politics and public policy at New York University, denies that his article attributing poverty among Black and Latinx people to their "culture" espouses racist views.
[According to an earlier IHE article:
“Today, the seriously poor are mostly blacks and Hispanics, and the main reason is cultural difference,” [Mead] wrote. “The great fact is that these groups did not come from Europe. Fifty years after civil rights, their main problem is no longer racial discrimination by other people but rather that they face an individualist culture that they are unprepared for.”
Cultural difference, Mead says, “helps to explain the two most puzzling things about the long-term poor: their tepid response to opportunity and the frequent disorder in their personal lives.”]
Supervisor Don Wagner quibbles with typos and minor details, but fails to acknowledge the big picture about race relations and the Covid-19 crisis.
On race relations, Wagner refuses to address the fact the Board of Supervisors rejected the call to put a discussion of the renaming of John Wayne Airport, an avowed White Supremacist, on the agenda of its July 14 meeting or before voters.
Just like Trump, Wagner fails to take responsibility for the County’s failed response to the Covid-19 crisis. Other nations such as China, South Korea, and Italy have beaten back the Covid-19 pandemic with masks, social distancing, testing and contact tracing. But the United States is seeing a frightening resurgence, and Orange County has become a leading hotspot since Memorial Day because President Trump, much of the Republican Party, and the County Board of Supervisors have failed to provide necessary political leadership.
Medical experts agree that thousands of people could have been saved if Trump had not fumbled the national response. Similarly, the local Republican leadership bucked modest efforts to combat the virus. The Sheriff, with Wagner’s backing, initially refused to enforce the mask order and resisted the governor’s call to close Orange County beaches. Wagner resisted the mask recommendation of Nichole Quick–Orange County’s Dr. Fauci–telling Dr. Quick, on June 2, as Orange County cases began to spike, “We’re hearing from our citizens that this is a government overreach … Doesn’t that undermine the evidence that is supposedly behind your order (to wear masks)?”
Supervisor Wagner was part of the group that recommended that K-12 students return to school in Fall without masks or social distancing, and has continued to criticize Governor Newsom’s efforts to stem the virus.
And the virus cases and deaths in Orange County have, since late May and early June, spiraled out of control. This is not leadership.
We continue to believe that the national and local GOP are self destructing, largely due to the absence of leadership that takes responsibility, seeks to solve problems, and seeks to understand the harm that racism and science denial have caused, and continue to cause, in the County, and nationally.
The Orange County Board of Education in a closed session Tuesday night decided to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom to let schools in high-risk California counties reopen for the 2020-21 school year.
In an announcement earlier this month, Newsom said that any counties on the state coronavirus watch list, which includes Orange County, could not have students in classrooms.
In a 4-0 vote, the board decided to move forward with the lawsuit. [Democratic] Trustee Beckie Gomez was absent from the meeting when the decision was made.
“Many families will suffer greatly and experience many unknown, unintended consequences if schools remain closed. We believe students and their families must have the option for in-person learning,” said [Republican] board president Ken Williams Jr. “We have made the decision to put the needs of our students first.”
. . .
The decision to sue comes after a report published by the board calling for a return to schools without masks or social distancing, which saw Orange County pulled into a national spotlight in the debate over returning to schools.
The board’s recommendations directly opposed the county’s department of education’s guidance, which has called for widespread use of masks and social distancing in classes.
“We remain laser-focused on supporting our districts and programs as they develop plans for the fall, based on the guidance of state and local public health experts,” said department spokesman Ian Hanigan in a text to Voice of OC on Tuesday night after the board’s vote….
[Republican] Orange County Supervisor Lisa Bartlett is looking to push state health officials to allow indoor shopping malls to reopen as the coronavirus continues to rip through the Latino community in Anaheim and Santa Ana – where many of those mall workers live.
“A lot of these indoor malls have a wide expanse of space,” Bartlett said at Tuesday’s county supervisors’ Covid update at their regular public meeting. “I’ve been to some of the outdoor malls lately and, because the indoor malls are closed, the outdoor malls are jammed with people.”
She said the outdoor malls are so packed, that people can’t follow the CDC recommended six-foot physical distance from other people to help curb the spread of the virus. Reopening indoor malls would thin crowds at outdoor ones and the indoor malls would be able to do crowd control,” Bartlett argues.
“It also helps to offset the outdoor malls,” she said. “Outdoor malls — they can’t control the people coming in at all.”
“I think we really have to start looking at opening up the indoor mall sector, I think we can do it safely,” she said. “You can’t classify indoor malls as other indoor confined spaces, like movie theaters,
. . .
Yet UC Irvine infectious disease expert, Dr. Saahir Khan, who also treats virus patients at the UCI Medical Center in Orange, sees the move as premature.
“In terms of opening [indoor] shopping malls, I think it’s premature, given that we haven’t yet seen a sustained decrease in spread of the virus. So I think we made the mistake of reopening too quickly before and we shouldn’t make that mistake again,” Khan said in a phone interview.
Khan and his colleague, UCI epidemiologist Andrew Noymer, have repeatedly told Voice of OC business sector reopenings should be done in two to three-week intervals so health officials can measure the impact on public health.
. . .
Meanwhile, the virus has now killed 581 people out of 34,833 confirmed cases, according to the county Health Care Agency.
The total number includes 15 new deaths reported Tuesday, which can span a time frame of up to eight days.
There’s 640 people now hospitalized, including 203 in intensive care units. Nearly 400,000 people have been tested throughout OC, which is home to roughly 3.2 million people.
[County interim health officer Dr. Clayton] Chau noted that hospitalizations have remained high over the past few weeks and hospital staff are being worn out.
“What we are experiencing now is staff fatigue,” Chau said. “Some of them have been infected and so the availability of nurses to make sure the hospital functions is something of a concern for us … we have got people who can’t go to work because they’re exposed or they tested positive, or fatigued.”
“We have three large hospitals in our county [that] are requesting support from the state and for more staffing – and specifically nursing staffing, not so much physicians. So we know that’s something we are watching very closely. So bed availability, ventilator availability is good, but it doesn’t mean that those beds are available if you do not have the nursing staff to support it,” Chau said.
No Supervisor asked questions about the hospital staffing situation….
✅Top health official: More mask wearing could cut California coronavirus spread up to 60 percent -- The spread of coronavirus across California could be cut at least in half with a modest increase in the number of people wearing masks, one of the state’s top public health experts said Tuesday. Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 7/29/20
✅California Legislature to consider new tax on millionaires for schools, other services -- Democrats in the California Legislature have unveiled a new effort to significantly raise tax rates on taxable income of $1 million and higher, an effort they say would provide billions of dollars to improve K-12 schools and a variety of government services vital to the state’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. John Myers in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/29/20
✅California sues to stop Trump’s order to keep undocumented immigrants from census count -- Citing the constitutional mandate to count “the whole number of persons” in the census, California and the cities of Los Angeles and Oakland joined the wave of lawsuits Tuesday challenging President Trump’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from the 2020 census. Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/29/20
✅California’s recession could get worse if Congress cuts unemployment aid, studies say -- Unemployed California workers stand to lose about 43% of their weekly benefit — and the state’s already-reeling economy is likely to lose billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs — if the Republican plan to dramatically cut jobless payments becomes law, new studies reported Tuesday. David Lightman in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 7/29/20
✅Trump administration refuses to accept new applications for DACA program -- After the Supreme Court ruled last month that the Trump administration’s move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program nearly three years ago, was “arbitrary and capricious,” undocumented youth who have been barred from applying to the program while it was being litigated were hopeful that new applications would once again be accepted by federal immigration authorities. Betty Márquez RosalesEdSource -- 7/29/20
✅Mysterious seed packets, possibly from China, arriving in Southern California mailboxes -- Mysterious, unsolicited packets of seeds possibly from China are arriving in some Southern California mailboxes, prompting state officials to urge recipients to refrain from planting them. Scott Schwebke in the Orange County Register -- 7/28/20
Members of the Orange County Board of Education are expected to discuss suing the state over the mandatory school shutdown at their meeting this Tuesday night.
According to the agenda for the board’s upcoming meeting, members will be discussing potential litigation “regarding state orders and restrictions against reopening schools.”
. . .
The county board of education does not have the power to return students to classrooms, and that decision can only be made by the 27 individual school districts.
The guidelines also ran in direct opposition to the county’s own department of education, who released suggestions that encouraged the widespread use of masks and social distancing when children returned to school.
The report was also disowned by multiple members of the advisory panel that were listed as contributors, who said they never saw what was planned before it was released to the public. Those members included county supervisor Don Wagner and public health care agency director Dr. Clayton Chau.
The board has also limited in person public comment to 30 minutes for their upcoming meeting, with an additional 15 minutes after they meet in closed session.
✅One question still dogs Trump: Why not try harder to solve the coronavirus crisis? -- Both President Trump’s advisers and operatives laboring to defeat him increasingly agree on one thing: The best way for him to regain his political footing is to wrest control of the novel coronavirus. Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker in the Washington Post$ -- 7/28/20
An increasing number of protesters in Orange County are voicing concern over police officers’ recent conduct in cities where demonstrations against nationwide police violence have occurred.
Most recently, a protest in Anaheim against more federal agents dispatched to demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, was interrupted July 25 when a police car struck someone during the march and was filmed driving away….
✅Oakland mayor, Black Lives Matter allies warn that vandalism plays into Trump’s hands -- The latest peaceful protest to morph into late-night acts of vandalism in Oakland has unleashed a furious response, but this time the torrent of blame didn’t come from President Donald Trump. Angela Ruggiero in theSan Jose Mercury$ -- 7/28/20
✅UCSD, USD Investigating Social Media Accounts Posting Hate Speech -- UC San Diego on Monday denounced an Instagram account claiming an affiliation with the university that posted "hateful, racist content" on its page, while a similar investigation was underway at the University of San Diego. KPBS-- 7/28/20
Senate Republicans in their opening bid for negotiations with Democrats over the next coronavirus aid package proposed giving colleges and universities an additional $29 billion in aid, which is a figure American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called “woefully inadequate.”….
✅Oakland protesters set fire to courthouse, smash windows -- A protest in Oakland, California, in support of racial j ustice and police reform turned violent when a small group of demonstrators wearing helmets and goggles and carrying large signs that doubled as shields set fire to a courthouse, vandalized a police station and shot fireworks at officers, authorities said. Associated Press -- 7/27/20
✅Hundreds march in LA area Sunday after protests end with injuries, arrests Saturday -- Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Federal Building in Westwood on Sunday, July 26, to protest police violence and to stand in solidarity with protesters in Portland, Ore. who have recently clashed with federal police officers. The item is in the Los Angeles Daily News$ -- 7/27/20
Throughout the coronavirus shutdown, many of Orange County’s public agencies have struggled to provide access for constituent voices to be heard.
Since many government buildings closed their doors to the public in March, opportunities for county residents to comment on policy decisions have been limited by multiple agencies, with some favoring only in-person commenters or cutting out the observations altogether.
Orange County residents have taken issue with the decision across several meetings, accusing city councils and other elected officials of using the pandemic as an excuse to silence dissenting opinions. Additionally, legal experts have begun asking if municipal panels are circumventing open government and transparency laws to the detriment of constituents….
July has brought a month of grim COVID-19 headlines for California, with a state once seen as a model of prevention enduring a new surge in cases as the economy rapidly reopened.
Mike Adams, whom the University of North Carolina at Wilmington recently paid $504,000 to retire, was found dead at home last week from an apparent gunshot wound, Port City Daily reported. Sheriffs went to Adams’s house after a friend of his requested a welfare check, according to 911 records obtained by Port City Daily. The friend reportedly said that Adams had been “erratic” due to stress and that he had firearms in his home. No formal cause of death has been released.
Adams was due to retire Aug. 1, in accordance with his agreement with UNC Wilmington. The late professor of sociology and criminal justice had a long history of offending students and colleagues with his public statements. He most recently railed against COVID-19-related state shutdowns and some protests for police reform. In May, for example, he tweeted this criticism of Democratic governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina: “This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top. I almost felt like a free man who was not living in a slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go.” Adams condemned the police officers who killed George Floyd while calling rioters “thugs.”
Adams took UNC Wilmington to court in 2007 for allegedly denying him a promotion over his views and eventually won $50,000 in back pay and a $9,000 raise in 2014, according to Star News Online. Police are investigating his death but do not immediately suspect foul play.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Even as coronavirus cases rise across California, hundreds of people gathered at the beach in Orange County for a religious event despite warnings from local officials.
The Los Angeles Times reports Sunday several hundred people met in Huntington Beach Friday for Saturate OC, a weekly worship event that has been held since early July after the pandemic thwarted organizers’ plans to hold it indoors. Organizers provided hand sanitizers and masks, but many participants didn’t wear them.
Police cited 34-year-old Parker Green over allegedly promoting the event without a permit, a violation that carries a potential $1,000 fine, said police spokeswoman Angela Bennett. The city said in a statement that it supports religious organizations’ right to worship but permitting and safety protocols must be followed.
Green said he’s concerned about the virus but questioned why they were targeted when he sees crowds of people walking through the city’s downtown area not wearing face coverings.
“When is it enforceable and when is it not?” he asked the newspaper.
. . .
In Orange County, officials determined the Saturate OC event should be limited to fewer than 100 people and had asked organizers to postpone it to obtain a permit and follow health and safety protocols, the city’s statement said….
✅Willie Brown: We’re creating separate and very unequal school systems -- Distance teaching is turning into what could be a giant step back to the days of de facto segregation in American education. Willie Brown in- the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 7/26/20
At White House briefings, in far-right outlets and among Republicans, Trump’s allies have made a sound stage out of protests across four city blocks.
POLITICO
…At White House briefings, in far-right outlets and among Republicans, Trump’s allies have made a sound stage out of four blocks in Portland, turning it into a campaign ad for the president. On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany showed a video of Portland protesters yelling obscenities at police. On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Thursday announced he would hold a hearing on “antifa terrorism” and wrote an op-ed promising to “take back Portland.” On Fox News, pundits have turned attention to other cities, such as Chicago, that they claim are in similar situations. In short, they say, it’s the America Joe Biden would create….
✅40 million Americans face student loan cliff - Unless Congress or the administration intervenes, monthly loan payments paused due to the pandemic will come due for tens of millions of borrowers.
Politico
…The looming end of the benefits also comes with a clear political dilemma in an election year: Unless Congress or the Trump administration intervenes, the Education Department will demand monthly loan payments from tens of millions of borrowers in October, just before they head to the polls. The department is already preparing to send warnings to borrowers, starting Aug. 15, about the expiration of their benefits, according to people familiar with the plan….
Rather than bending others to his will, the president has reversed course from long-held positions in the face of resistance from fellow Republicans or popular opposition, scrambling to resurrect his reelection campaign while the pandemic continues.
Washington Post
"Saturate OC Continues Despite Citation In Huntington Beach"
Nice diversion, Don. Sure, two of your critics got some details wrong. The real issue is that we face a health crisis that requires such measures as mandated mask-wearing and social distancing—and who’s been pushing back against precisely those measures all this time? –Don Wagner, is who.
Wagner’s response (check it out) is all hat and no cattle; it does nothing to defend and explain his disastrous actions. The best leaders were those who took their cues from medical experts. Why weren’t you—why aren’t you—one of them, Don?
The number of people hospitalized with coronavirus in Orange County has plateaued at around 700 current patients – after rising sharply for several weeks starting in mid-June.
Doctors and hospital officials say they’re cautiously encouraged that hospitalizations are not rising, while also urging the public to wear masks and physically distance.
According to experts, the local hospital system can manage the current volume of patients, with several local hospitals converting regular patient rooms into intensive care rooms as part of their separation of COVID and non-COVID patients into separate wings of a hospital.
Yet at the same time, the pandemic is taking a toll on nurses and other staff, whom hospitals say are stretched thin, and some hospitals have paused non-emergency surgeries to help conserve protective gear.
“We’re at a sort of tipping point right now, where if things get worse, we are going to be in a situation where the hospitals are going to need help to deal with increased COVID hospitalizations,” including bringing in outside staff, said Dr. Saahir Khan, an infectious disease specialist who works at the intensive care unit at UC Irvine Medical Center, speaking about the overall hospital system in Orange County.
“So this is really a critical time for people to be responsible and maintain adherence to all the guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” he added.
“We’ve been able to handle what we’ve got. If we disregard social distancing, wearing a mask, if we start opening up in an irresponsible fashion, we’ll flood the system…you can see that in the states that did that” like Florida and Arizona, said Dr. Todd Newton, the Orange County medical director for Kaiser Permanente, which has two hospitals in Orange County….
✅California shatters another record for new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations -- Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that 12,807 new coronavirus infections had been reported statewide in the past 24 hours — a record high — bringing California’s total to 413,576. Luke Money in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/23/20
California’s online community college still has much to prove -- Calbright College, California’s online community college, may have survived elimination in the state’s budget, but the pressure is on to prove its value to the state. Ashley A. Smith EdSource -- 7/23/20
…Phil Hill, an online education consultant, who has helped the state’s community college system with its Online Education Initiative, enrolled in Calbright last year as a student on his own to see how it measures up to similar online college programs.
Hill said he wasn’t paid by the system or the college to test Calbright, and he doesn’t describe himself as a critic or advocate of the online college. As an online education expert and California taxpayer, he was curious. But what he found was a poorly-designed and confusing class that could hinder students’ and Calbright’s success…..
‘I don’t believe it’: Huntington Beach a symbol of mask resistance as doubters abound -- As Brad Colburn whisked his metal detector over the tan sands of Huntington Beach, a rejection of Orange County’s spiking coronavirus infection rates surfaced. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe the rates are rising,” Colburn said. “They’re inflated. It’s another way of shutting everything down … of the Democrats trying to get what they want.” Jake Sheridan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 7/22/20
“Joe should take that test because something is going on, and I say this with respect,” Trump said. “I mean, [it’s] going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know, it’s going to happen. But we cant take a chance of it happening.”
Ocasio-Cortez recounted the confrontation with Yoho — which was witnessed by a reporter — in a speech Thursday morning, lamenting the incident as an outgrowth of a toxic and sexist culture that some lawmakers still perpetuate on Capitol Hill.
“These are the words representative Yoho levied against a congresswoman,” Ocasio-Cortez said, saying aloud the words that Yoho was overheard saying to describe her: "F---ing b----.”….
Orange County’s Board of Education approved recommendations last week calling for a return to schools without masks or social distancing before giving any kind of voice to nearly 4,000 submitted comments from the community.
. . .
Public speakers at the meeting – which was streamed live on Zoom and YouTube – were widely supportive of the board’s plan.
Many viewers watching the public meeting wondered what had happened to all the comments that poured in. Voice of OC immediately filed a public records request to review the comments.
On Tuesday, OC Board of Education officials complied….
The board’s original report called for a return to school without the use of masks or social distancing in classrooms, directly contradicting the county’s own department of education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At the meeting, only 21 speakers were allowed in, and 18 were supportive of the Board’s plan, with many thanking them for their reliance on “the actual science.”
“This is not an at risk population, and they are not going to bring this disease home to grandma and kill grandma. There is no reason to make any changes to what we are doing,” said the first speaker on the dais.
One of the other commenters allowed to speak was Dr. Jeff Barke, husband of Mari Barke, the board’s vice president. Barke has been an outspoken opponent against masks and social distancing and is opening a new charter school this year. Their relationship was not disclosed from the dais.
. . .
The first batch of 50 comments released by the OC Board of Education [Tuesday] tell a very different story than what public commenters shared at the meeting.
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Only four of those emails supported the Board’s decision, and only one of the commenters said they currently had children in an Orange County public school. That commenter also identified themselves as an emergency room nurse at a local hospital.
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The rest of the emails sent were overwhelmingly against the Board of Education’s plan, and came from a variety of teachers, parents and community members who did not identify in their emails whether or not they were involved in public schools.
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The Board of Education released the remainder of the 4,259 emails to Voice of OC on Tuesday afternoon, and they are currently under review by staff.
“You are supposed to have the best interest of our students in mind when you make decisions. Use science, not politics when making those decisions,” one commenter wrote. “Thank you for considering my comments.”
