The media got it wrong, again. They wanted to portray Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a loser. But the voters of Florida have just declared him the biggest winner in the 2022 Mid-Term Elections.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it this way: “The media have vilified both Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis to a degree that makes the treatment of Mitt Romney and George W. Bush look kind in comparison. Mr. Trump defied the odds and won in 2016, then lost in 2020 as voters tired of him. In his 2018 run for governor, Mr. DeSantis beat Andrew Gillum by less than half a percentage point. The media in Florida tarred and feathered him, but the national media barely knew who he was. Florida was a swing state where Democrats held a narrow registration edge. Then came Covid. Mr. DeSantis bucked the national panic and reopened the state quickly, inspiring legions of like-minded people to flock to the free state of Florida. Republicans on the voter rolls now outnumber Democrats by nearly 300,000.”

The media can be cruel – and absolutely wrong. They called him “DeathSantis” and tried to make him out to be the new lead villain, some calling him a threat to democracy, a monster who wanted to kill grandma, a bogeyman who wanted to ban books and push gays back into the closet. But Floridians weren’t listening.

As recently as September, some polls were giving DeSantis a margin of only 3 to 8 points. But with most of the votes counted, DeSantis crushed Democratic challenger Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points. Crist now has the distinction of losing elections as a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat.

None of the large Florida newspapers endorsed Mr. DeSantis. Instead, they echoed the national media in excoriating him. The Miami Herald opined that “Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida is a place of meanness. It’s a place where dissent is muzzled, where personal rights triumph over the greater good, where winning is more important than unity – especially if that victory moves him closer to a White House run.” It seems their own readers rejected this characterization of the governor as he flipped the usually Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County from blue to red.

The Tampa Bay Times called him a bully who “divides to conquer.” The Palm Beach Post wrote that he “relies on hubris and manufactured culture war drama to govern.” Fort Lauderdale’s South Florida Sun Sentinel asserted that “DeSantis rules Florida with an iron hand. He dictates what teachers teach, creates barriers to voting, uses raw power to punish critics and marginalizes women, Blacks and LGBTQ people.” There’s a reason why all these newspapers are struggling to maintain their readership.

In 2018, DeSantis got 39% of the vote in Miami-Dade County, which is 70% Latino. In 2022 he earned 55%. In Palm Beach County, he won 51% of the vote this year compared to only 41% in 2018. In Hillsborough County (Tampa), he went from 45% in 2018 to 54% in 2022. In Osceola County, near Orlando, where Trump lost by 14 points, DeSantis won by 7 points.

Just how big was his margin of victory? The last time a Republican governor in Florida won in a bigger landslide than DeSantis was way back in 1868, when Harrison Reed captured 59% of votes to 32% of his Democratic challenger, when fewer than 20,000 Floridians voted. In his victory speech, DeSantis proclaimed his state is where “woke goes to die,” adding that “Florida was a refuge of sanity when the world went mad. We stood as a citadel of freedom for people from across the country and across the world.” He credited his pandemic policies, stressing “freedom” over mandates, and “education” over “indoctrination.”

This huge victory elevates DeSantis to be the new leader of the Republican Party. There’s a reason why more Americans are moving to Florida than any other state.

In September I wrote about the new Covid-19 booster and this season’s flu shot. (Covid & Flu Boosters Together or Separate?) At that time most health experts not connected with the White House recommended getting your Covid shot first, then waiting to get your flu shot until later. Now it’s time for both.

In typical public health official propaganda, White House Covid coordinator Ashish Jha on September 6^th announced, “I really believe this is why God gave us two arms – one for the flu shot and the other one for the Covid shot.”  I’m not sure where he found that insight in the Bible, but the timing of that advice was poor. With six months to go before the peak of the usual flu season, many other doctors advised waiting until at least November lest the flu shot effectiveness wane before the greatest risk of infection.

But now it’s November and the calculus has changed. In fact, the flu season is well under way in many states already. You’ll see from the accompanying CDC graphic that the flu season is quite active in a band beginning in Texas and moving east thru Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and even up into Virginia, Maryland, and New York City. If you live in one of these states, your peak exposure may be now.

Who should get the Covid booster?

The new Covid boosters are a bivalent vaccine, which means it was designed to protect against the original Covid virus strains as well as the newly emerging Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which appear to evade some of the protection provided by the original vaccines. The new shots are manufactured by Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna, the original makers of the Covid-19 vaccines using mRNA technology. There is also a newly authorized Novavax booster that targets the original strain of Covid-19 and is protein-based, which might appeal to some of the people who have been reluctant to receive the two other vaccines. The Novavax booster is authorized for people for whom and mRNA booster shot isn’t accessible or clinically appropriate, or people who prefer the Novavax shot.

Peter Loftus, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says the FDA expanded eligibility for the new boosters to children as young as 5 years old. In that age category, there is much less indication for vaccination at all, since the incidence of serious illness and death is extremely low. Parents should consult with their doctor before considering vaccination of their children.

White House officials said they plan to recommend that people get Covid-19 boosters once a year, similar to the flu vaccine, starting with these new shots.

This is no surprise to me; I fully expected we would be getting annual Covid shots when the pandemic became an endemic – just like the flu. Each year a new booster will be needed to protect against the latest variations in the original virus strain.

Anyone in the high-risk category for Covid should get the new booster. That means anyone over the age of 65, and anyone at any age who has heart disease, diabetes, pulmonary disease, or obesity. Those who have immunocompromised conditions should consult with their doctor first. This advice goes for the flu shot as well. If you’ve recently had Covid, you need to wait three months. If you’ve had the original Covid shots within the last two months, you’ll need to wait, also.

People six years and older may get an updated booster from a different manufacturer than their original primary series, as long as it’s the updated Pfizer or Moderna shot. There is some evidence the Moderna shot produces more antibodies, probably because the dose is higher than the Pfizer shot. My wife and I just got both the Moderna shot and the flu shot and we’re both doing fine. If you need the shots, now is the time to get them.

America’s schools are failing. My last post made that clear with the latest Education Department data showing the test results for the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress – also known as the Nation’s Report Card.

These results show the nation’s schools recorded the largest drop in math scores ever this year, with fourth-and eighth grade students in nearly every state showing significant declines.

The pandemic will be used as an excuse by most in the education bureaucracy, but the issues go much deeper. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has had a life-long commitment to improving schools. He established some of the first school choice initiatives in the nation in his state while he was governor. Now he weighs in on the disastrous recent test results in an Op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

“Since March 2020 we’ve seen the largest learning loss in modern history. This catastrophe wasn’t inevitable. But what began as school closings in response to Covid morphed into an intentional effort by teachers unions to block the schoolhouse door,” said Bush.

What are the solutions?

Bush says, “The solutions are simple. There are math and reading policies every state should immediately enact and there are ways parents can contribute. Start with a call to all parents, guardians and families – those who know their children best. You were called on to step up when Covid kept kids at home. Now you are needed again to help close those learning gaps. Any trusted adult in a child’s life – parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, whoever – should lean into this moment. Help students recover lost learning by reading for 20 minutes a day. . . In addition, research has found that 30 minutes a week of extra math work can help students who are struggling or behind. If you aren’t up to writing math equations for your kids, seek out free, high-quality online math tools.”

He also goes on to call out lawmakers to step up, by eliminating barriers students face in accessing a better education. He cites Arizona, which has become a national model by creating a universal education savings account program with flexible, portable and customizable funding. This allows parents to make the best education choice for their children regardless of the expense.

Furthermore, he criticizes education practices that have failed. “Teaching models that include the “3-cueing” approach, which asks students to look at pictures and guess instead of sounding out words, should be scrapped. It’s a failed approach. Every state should require that students be screened in reading three times a year in grades K-3 and offer assistance to those struggling to learn to read. These critical years are too often ignored until it’s too late to catch up.”

“The same is true for math instruction. States should ensure that students have access to trained, effective math teachers. That may mean not all elementary teachers should teach math; only those who specialize in it. Students graduating from high school should have mastered at least Algebra I. . . Students who are behind need personalized math support, including tutoring two to three times a week.”

For those who want to dig deeper into this issue, I highly recommend a new book by former Education Department Secretary Betsy DeVos called Hostages No More. It is clear that our public education system is failing our children and our country. The main problem is poor schools and poor teachers who are protected by the teachers unions. The solution is allowing taxpayers’ money to follow the students, not the schools. This gives parents the freedom to choose the best education for the specific needs of their children. That’s the meaning of the term “school choice.” It is an issue that parents of all political persuasions should embrace – because the future of their children is at stake!