A child receives a COVID-19 test (Credit: Envato) Daily confirmed pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in California reached an average of 102 for the week ending September 2. This is 770 percent above the level in early June 2021 before schools reopened and only 29 percent below their previous high of 144 in January 2021. This rapid increase in incidence of severe COVID-19 is a devastating indictment of the Democratic Party and its pandemic strategy of allowing the virus to circulate widely in reopened schools, businesses and sporting events with token mitigation measures in place.
As the September 14 deadline approaches for the gubernatorial recall election, the surge in child hospitalizations also exposes the central lie upon which Newsom’s entire campaign is based: that his administration’s policies have protected Californians, particularly children, from the pandemic.
The national Democratic Party is deeply concerned that Newsom may lose the election, with the party and wealthy Silicon Valley and Hollywood donors flooding over $60 million into his campaign, against roughly $8 million raised by the far-right backers of the recall.
No serious attempt is being made to present the recall as an endorsement of Newsom’s record. Instead, they are relying on workers’ justifiable fear that a “yes” victory would usher in the ultra-right Republican talk show host Larry Elder, who, in addition to scrapping the minimum wage and attacking reproductive rights, explicitly aims to remove all remaining efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in favor of a homicidal “herd immunity” policy.
Former President Obama recently released an ad stating that the election is a choice “between protecting our kids and putting them at risk.” One of Newsom’s major video ads begins with the claim that “with Delta surging, Gavin Newsom is protecting California.”
To justify this assessment, Democrats point to a full vaccination rate of 66 percent for those 12 and older, according to the New York Times . Daily new cases of COVID-19 in California, reported by Worldometers.info, for which the 7-day average was 10,176 on September 8, was a 77 percent reduction from the high of 45,021 in December 22 of last year. Texas, which has banned masks in schools and has a lower 12 and older vaccination rate of only 58 percent, has 18,532 daily average new cases, approaching the all-time high of 22,968 in January 2021.
However, these case numbers mask the reality of a poorly developed testing and reporting infrastructure. California’s reported 7-day average case rates were 37 percent higher the day before Labor Day weekend, with the New York Times noting a dip in reported numbers across the country over the long weekend. Hospitalizations provide a more accurate picture of the true state of the pandemic and the realities workers face under a Democratic-led mitigation policy.
Data from the “COVID-19 Reported Patient Impact and Hospital Capacity by Facility” dataset, compiled by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, illustrates trends in pediatric and adult COVID-19 hospitalizations. Data presented in this article demonstrates the choice workers face between the twin ruling class policies of herd immunity (promoted by Republicans in states such as Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas) and mitigation (advanced by Democrats in states such as California and New York, as well as the Biden administration).
Pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations in California remained below 35 per day from May 1 through mid-July of 2021, as schools were largely closed and the Alpha variant remained dominant in the state, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. Schools began to fully reopen in August at the orders of the Newsom administration, following the lead of the Biden administration, with the full support of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and the teachers unions.
Figure 1: Daily average pediatric hospitalizations in California, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. Total state pediatric populations (ages 17 and under) listed above each graph. Source: US Department of Health and Human Services Students were herded into full classrooms, making physical distancing impossible. Remote learning options were offered only at the last minute, with many districts refusing to allow students to opt into remote learning or placing steep barriers to entry. Testing was left up to cash-strapped districts. The definition of “exposure” and requirements for quarantine were changed on an entirely unscientific basis to allow the continuation of in-person instruction amid widespread community transmission. Wildfire smoke forced educators in much of the state to choose whether to open doors and windows for ventilation while inhaling dangerously polluted air or keeping them closed and worsening the risk of transmission. Everyone was asked to wear masks indoors.
The result is illustrated in the rapid rise in pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations beginning in August, which has strained pediatric emergency care capacity in parts of the state. In the week ending August 26, reported hospitalizations reached 112 children per day, falling slightly the next week. This is likely due in part to the increased effects of the Delta variant on children. However, it also suggests massive undercounting of pediatric cases of COVID-19.
The case of New York, which has not yet opened most schools for in-person learning, illustrates the obvious role of schools in transmitting the virus. Pediatric hospitalizations in that state are just above 31 per day, less than half the level in California on a per capita basis.
With the exception of mask mandates and other tepid mitigation measures, the same basic reopening policy was pursued in states such as Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. The results in Florida, South Carolina and Texas have been record-shattering levels of pediatric hospitalizations.
Levels in Texas are now at 227 per day, roughly double the per capita rate in California. Florida spiked at 104 per day in the week ending August 12, a per capita rate commensurate with the current levels in Texas, before changing its COVID-19 reporting protocols to reduce reported numbers.
South Carolina largely avoided a pediatric surge last winter but has now risen above 25 pediatric hospitalizations, a similar per capita level to Florida and Texas. Oklahoma has a population smaller than South Carolina but has reached 50 pediatric hospitalizations per day, making its per capita level twice that of Texas and roughly four times that of California.
Adult hospitalization levels in California, Oklahoma, Florida and New York mirror pediatric trends. South Carolina and Texas are seeing levels of adult hospitalizations similar to, but not exceeding, previous peaks.
Note that all numbers presented in this article report only confirmed and not suspected COVID-19 cases, meaning that these are conservative estimates.
Figure 2: Daily average adult hospitalizations in California, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. Total state adult populations (ages 18 and over) listed above each graph. Source: US Department of Health and Human Services This presents the “choice” workers face between the Democrats and mitigation vs. the the Republicans and herd immunity.
The latest reported California pediatric hospitalization rate of 102 children per day equates to 3,060 children per month, or one in every 2,900 children, aged 17 and under in the state. If this level were to hold for a full nine-month school year, one in every 320 children would be hospitalized, meaning that most children in the state would likely know a child who was hospitalized this school year.
At 7,070 adult hospitalizations per day, this amounts to 2.3 adult hospitalizations per 100 children in the state every month. By the end of nine months of school, most children would likely see a family member or close adult friend hospitalized with COVID-19. This all assumes that hospitalization rates hold at present levels and do not continue on their current upward trajectory.
These numbers illustrate the devastating cost the Democrats are asking workers to bear as they “learn to live with the virus.” The fact that these numbers could double under a Republican-led herd immunity policy does not change the fact that the Newsom administration and the rest of the Democrats, not to mention the teachers unions, have utterly failed to keep workers, and especially children, safe from this deadly pandemic.
The choice between herd immunity and mitigation is just as false as the choice between the Republican and Democratic parties. Eradication of COVID-19 can be accomplished, but only with a socialist strategy. As illustrated by Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz of University of Calgary at a panel discussion hosted by the World Socialist Web Site , a scientifically guided lockdown of about two months could bring transmission down to levels that could be isolated and contained through mass testing, contact tracing, as well as masking and vaccination.
The Democrats and Republicans refuse to even acknowledge the possibility of eradication even though countries such as New Zealand, China and others have been generally successful in pursuing an elimination strategy, even with the Delta variant, a policy that could lead to eradication if adopted globally. The reason for this is simple: In their “cost-benefit analysis,” they value the profits of ultra-wealthy capitalists like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos far more than the lives of the highly exploited workers risking their lives under sweatshop conditions in their factories and warehouses.
Tony Blinken Confirms Child Brides Evacuated with Older Men from Afghanistan US Senate Committee Foreign Relations 1:39
Secretary of State Tony Blinken confirmed reports during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that young children were transported from Afghanistan with older men as child brides.
During the hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Blinken about the numbers, citing data form the World Health Organization that over 50 percent of wives in Afghanistan were married as child brides.
Blinken said he did not know the exact number of underage girls who were evacuated with older men or how many were separated by officials after they landed.
Cruz cited reports of a State Department document seeking “urgent guidance” from other agencies about the issue after child brides were brought to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, noting that tens of thousands of Afghans were evacuated from the Kabul airport.
Blinken insisted the entire government was following the issue with “extreme vigilance” to uncover and separate child brides of older Afghan men, but he tried to downplay the numbers.
“To my knowledge, a limited number of cases where we have seperated people because we were concerned…” Blinken began.
“How many?” Cruz interrupted.
“The cases I’m aware of? A handful,” Blinken replied.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is also investigating reports of child brides, according to Yahoo News.
“The concern is, we’re seeing a lot of family units with very young girls. These girls are brought into the U.S. as wives,” a government official said to Yahoo News. “It’s not a small number.”
Analysis: Afghan Population in U.S. Explodes, Majority Live on Welfare Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 4:10
The Afghan population in the United States has exploded in recent decades as a majority of Afghan immigrants in the U.S. live on at least one major form of welfare, funded by American taxpayers.
New analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reveals that the number of Afghans living in the U.S. has shot up to 133,000 in 2019 — more than three times the 44,000 Afghans who lived in the U.S. before the start of the Afghanistan War in 2001.
California remains home to the largest Afghan population in the U.S. with about 54,000 Afghans residing in the state, while about 24,000 live in Virginia and 10,000 live in Texas.
(Center for Immigration Studies)
(Center for Immigration Studies)
“We also found that a large faction, by no means all, struggle in the United States,” CIS Director of Research Steven Camarota said in remarks .
Specifically, Camarota’s research found that more than 65 percent of households headed by Afghan immigrants use at least one major form of welfare — that is, food stamps, cash assistance, or Medicaid. If other forms of welfare were included in this tally, like free school lunch and public housing, “these high rates of welfare use would almost certainly be much higher,” Camarota notes.
Compare Afghan immigrants’ rate of welfare use to that of native-born Americans, where less than 25 percent of native-born American households use one major form of welfare.
Afghan immigrant households use more than three times the food stamps as native-born American households. In 2010, about 19 percent of Afghan immigrant households used food stamps, but that total has skyrocketed to 35 percent in 2019.
(Center for Immigration Studies)
(Center for Immigration Studies)
Likewise, the number of Afghan immigrant households that live in or near the U.S. poverty line is close to 51 percent. This is significantly higher than that of households headed by native-born Americans, where about 27 percent live in or near poverty.
More closely, about 1-in-4 households headed by Afghan immigrants live in poverty compared to less than 2-in-16 households headed by native-born Americans. The share of children in Afghan households who live in poverty is more than twice that of the children who live in American households.
(Center for Immigration Studies)
(Center for Immigration Studies)
As the Afghan population in the U.S. has increased, the less likely it is for Afghans to hold a bachelor’s degree. For example, in 2005, the number of Afghan immigrants with at least a bachelor’s degree was about the same as the number of native-born Americans with at least a bachelor’s degree — roughly 29 percent.
By 2019, though, the education gap between Afghan immigrants and native-born Americans has hugely expanded. Today, more than 35 percent of native-born Americans hold at least a bachelor’s degree and only 26 percent of Afghan immigrants.
Afghan immigrants continue to have high school drop-out rates, more than 22 percent, compared to native-born Americans, with less than seven percent.
(Center for Immigration Studies)
(Center for Immigration Studies)
Where Afghan immigrants do beat native-born Americans is in birth rates. In 2019, for instance, native-born American women had about 56 births per 1,000 compared to Afghan immigrant women who had 155 births percent 1,000.
This indicates that Afghan women in the U.S. have nearly three times the birth rate of native-born American women.
The research comes as President Joe Biden’s administration executives a massive resettlement operation from Afghanistan to the U.S. Over the next 12 months, Biden is hoping to bring 95,000 Afghans to the U.S. for permanent resettlement at a cost of at least $6.4 billion to taxpayers.
In a 21-day period from August to September, Biden brought more than 48,000 Afghans to the U.S. — a population more than four times that of Jackson, Wyoming.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here .
Democrats Justify Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants by Arguing It Will Increase Deficit Dems hope reconciliation end-around can achieve amnesty through party-line vote
Immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border / Getty Images Joseph Simonson • September 13, 2021 4:50 pm
Democrats are trying to grant mass amnesty to illegal immigrants by arguing that amnesty's $140 billion price tag qualifies as a budget issue—a legislative maneuver that will allow millions of people to achieve legal status through a party-line majority vote.
According to Politico , Democratic congressional staffers argued on Sept. 10 that because mass legalization will add to the deficit, the provision should be included in a reconciliation bill nominally meant to fund the federal government for the next year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Democratic plan to legalize eight million immigrants will add $139.6 billion to the budget deficit by 2032, almost entirely due to increased use of entitlement programs and tax credits.
"Democrats' central argument to the parliamentarian is that offering green cards to certain undocumented immigrants would unlock federal benefits for them, causing effects on the budget that they say are a substantial, direct and intended result," Politico reported.
The Democrats' argument contradicts the rhetoric of amnesty supporters, who often point to the cost-saving measures of a mass amnesty program. During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden attacked then-president Donald Trump for "costing taxpayers billions of dollars" on border security measures, said Trump's hardline stance against immigration was "bad for our economy," and cited the "$23.6 billion from 4.4 million workers without Social Security numbers" who "contribute in countless ways to our communities, workforce, and economy."
To include a provision into the massive reconciliation plan, Democrats need to prove that it would have a significant impact on the federal government's debt, spending, or revenues. Democrats are opting to pass Biden's $3.5 trillion budget through the parliamentary trick to avoid a GOP filibuster, a move Republicans call an abuse of the process.
Senior GOP aides who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon balked at the argument, with one calling it "obvious desperation." Another called it "pathetic" and added that the Senate parliamentarian might have felt "insulted" by the proposal.
Many illegal immigrants who work in the United States already pay into Medicare and Social Security through payroll taxes. With permanent residency, they would now be able to fully partake in those programs. The immigrants covered by the Democratic proposal would include Temporary Protected Status holders, farmworkers, "essential workers," and those enrolled in the Dreamer program.
Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected a Democratic scheme to include a $15 minimum wage into the pandemic relief bill. MacDonough called the wage's potential impact on the budget "merely incidental."
Democrats were careful to say that the proposed bill would not grant citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Federal immigration law, however, states that anyone with a green card can apply for citizenship after five years. And left-wing activist groups such as the National Immigration Law Center have called the proposal a "pathway to citizenship."
"Immigrants are an essential part of our communities, not only as our family members and neighbors but also as people who have continued to show up day after day during this pandemic to keep our country going," National Immigration Law Center executive director Marielena Hincapié said in a statement. "As we enter our recovery phase, we must also recognize that there is no recovery without immigrants—and passing a pathway to citizenship through reconciliation would provide urgently needed relief and stability for millions of DACA recipients, [Temporary Protected Status] holders, farm workers, essential workers, and their loved ones."
OVER 70% OF THOSE EMPLOYED IN SILICON VALLEY ARE FOREIGN BORN. JOE AND HIS MARKY WANT TO MAKE THAT 110%
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
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Two weeks ago, the Biden administration, which is mostly a replica of the Obama administration, “gifted” the Afghan radical Islamist Taliban that enabled al-Qaeda training-camps, whose “graduates” attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, at least $85 billion worth of weapons and piles of cash.
Amnesty Alert: Bill ‘Blows Away All Numerical Limits’ on Employer-Based Green Cards — for an Entire Decade Tzido/Getty Images 8:48
The Democrats’ proposed amnesty for migrants creates a hidden pipeline for U.S. employers to flood more cheap foreign graduates into millions of middle-class careers needed by American graduates.
‘This is the American aristocratic class being rewarded for being in financial bed with the Democratic Party,” said Robert Law, director of regulatory affairs and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies.
Democrat leaders “are blowing away all the numerical limits” on employers offering green cards to employees, said Rosemary Jenks, policy director for NumbersUSA. “There’s no limit anywhere.”
The bill was revealed Friday, and on Monday, was quickly rushed through the House judiciary committee without C-SPAN coverage . Mark Zuckerberg’s astroturf empire is marketing it as a relief bill for deserving illegal migrants — but it boosts investors by dramatically expanding the flow of cheap workers, government-funded consumers, and room-sharing renters into the U.S. economy. Democrat leaders hope to squeeze the bill through the Senate via the 50-vote reconciliation process.
The expanded foreign worker pipeline will remain open until at least September 2031, even though many millions of Americans will need jobs during the next ten years after they graduate with debts and degrees in health care, accounting, teaching, business, design, science, technology, or engineering. “If you’re in the pipeline by September 30, 2031, you’re in [the 2021 amnesty bill],” Jenks added.
People attend a protest supporting DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, at Foley Square in New York, on August 17, 2021. (Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)
The new pipeline is created in Section 60003 on page 12 of the draft bill , which says, “The secretary of State shall exempt an alien (and the spouse and children of each alien) from the numerical limitations described in sections 201, 202, and 203.”
Section 201 sets annual limits of 226,000 green cards for “family-sponsored preference” and the “employer-based” green cards that companies can offer to cooperative foreign workers. Section 202 sets so-called country caps for Indian or Chinese workers who are trying to earn green cards via their employers.
The white-collar pipeline is hidden under obscure legal references, and it connects and widens existing pipelines that are unmentioned in the amnesty bill. The pipelines include the well-known H-1B program and the little-known but huge Optional Practical Training (OPT) program invented by deputies working for President George W. Bush. A similar pipeline expansion was included in the January immigration bill introduced by Biden’s deputies.
The imported visa workers are fed into an indentured workforce that now includes at least one million foreign graduates , including J-1 science workers, L-1 managers, and Curricular Practical Training students. The workforce also includes an uncertain number of illegal white-collar workers, including B-1/B-2 visitors.
These pipelines bring roughly 600,000 foreign graduates into the U.S. workforce each year — although about half leave after two to three years — even as about 800,000 Americans graduate from four-year c0lleges with technology-intensive degrees, such as engineering, health care, management, science, software, and architecture.
In this Saturday, Aug. 6, 2011 file picture, students attend graduation ceremonies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
The draft bill also allows the roughly one million foreign students in the United States into the green card pipeline — along with all future foreign college graduates who get into the pipeline by late 2031.
U.S. executives and foreign-born managers use the green card workforce to displace many Americans who sought desirable careers at Microsoft , Intel , Facebook , Apple , and Amazon, in numerous other Silicon Valley firms, science laboratories, insurance companies, consulting firms, universities, hospitals, and major banks.
Amid this displacement, median salaries for Americans with bachelor’s or advanced degrees rose slowly. Overall, salaries rose only by 15 percent in the 40 years from 1979 to 2019, according to a December 2020 report by the Congressional Research Service. During the same period, the median housing prices also rose by 500 percent . Correspondingly, investors’ wealth in the stock market rose by 900 percent during the same period.
The green card workforce tilts the playing field against American graduates and their parents, said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers:
Parents are hoping that their kids will find lucrative careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics [health care, business, and design, but] they’re going to be competing with foreign people that are prepared to work for much less, because to them, it’s not the salary [that matters], it’s the pathway to citizenship, and companies exploit that.
The government’s offer of green cards with citizenship for the migrants and all their children and descendants “is the greatest deferred compensation bonus that can be offered,” said Law.
He continued:
That’s exactly why employers dangle it there to entice foreign workers. The employer holds all the cards there, which ensures that the foreign worker stays compliant and immobile, and doesn’t ask for a raise or better working conditions. There’ll be no point in sending an American to college — which continues to become astronomically expensive — when you won’t get a decent job and you might not even get a job. You’re must just rack up debt, and then you’re going to end up living back at home, and be forced onto the dole.
This is creating a permanent underclass of actual Americans who used to view colleges as an opportunity for advancement.
In many cases, executives prefer foreign graduates for the desirable starter jobs because the workers do not have the legal rights held by Americans.
Without legal rights, they can be sent back to their poor homelands at the direction of a mid-level manager. This lack of power allows executives to pay them little, ignore their opinions, work them long hours, switch them from one location to another, and transfer from one company to another company.
This photo taken on May 22, 2019, shows Indian youths at a class for a three-month course on computer hardware at a training centre run by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in New Delhi. (Photo credit should read PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images)
Most of these foreign gig workers are imported and paid by pyramids of sweatshop subcontractors. This domestic outsourcing means they cannot complain as they are hired, fired, moved, and abused by Fortune 500 clients. These prestigious companies face minimal risk of bad publicity from the many progressive journalists who are required to cover the concerns and priorities of migrants.
In the tech sector, their foreign workers’ lack of skills is not a problem for most companies’ executives. Most of the foreign graduates are mid-skilled workers hired for drudgework, such as maintaining and modifying software at insurance companies, which would ordinarily go to recent American graduates.
The exclusion of innovative American graduates minimizes the risk that corporate technology or business secrets will be leaked when American graduates quit or form rival companies. This informal knowledge-sharing was critical to Silicon Valley’s growth versus tech centers in other cities — but was largely shut down by the tech leaders in the early 2000s. The CEOs first used an illegal hiring cartel but then shifted to greater use of foreign graduates. The result is that the tech industry uses the green card workforce to corral the technology under their control.
When Americans work alongside visa workers, they often face fraud, discrimination, and hostile work conditions, partly because U.S. executives can dismiss their professional advice. But they also face workplace harassment because foreign-born managers can use the visa program to sell American jobs to foreign graduates in exchange for illegal, backdoor payments.
“I was brought up that if you find an [technical problem] issue, raise it immediately,” one American professional told Breitbart News. However, the rules are different in an office run by Indian managers who gain from the expanded outsourcing instead of long-term innovation and profitability. He said:
When you find a bug, don’t announce it [to your department colleagues]. Announce it to your [Indian] boss [because] they want to make sure it’s not their problem and not their bug. Don’t go through the normal process.
“This is the [white-collar version of the] ‘Any Willing Worker ‘ provision” that President George W. Bush pushed in 2001, Law added. “This is a big payback to Silicon Valley for their continued dedication and financial support of the Democrat Party.”