The Best in the World

Well, Gov. Bill Lee has finally done it. Tennessee is the best. Not just the best in the South. Not just the best in the United States. Tennessee is the best in the whole WORLD!

Yes, you read that right. A guy who previously ran a mildly successful HVAC company has now led his state to become the BEST in the whole world at something.

What is it, you might be asking. I mean, this is an education blog, so maybe it has to do with schools.

It does, sort of .

Tennessee is number one in the world in the number of new COVID cases per population.

Here’s a tweet (and maps/graph to follow):

Here’s the thing: Gov. Lee refuses to lead on this issue. He won’t talk mask mandate. He won’t close schools to in-person instruction statewide. Hell, he won’t even properly deploy CARES Act funding.

Teachers across the state are dying of COVID and Lee’s best idea is to make sure kids take EOC tests.

Oh, and this is interesting — Lee’s lack of leadership means we also lead in another category – 9 of the top 20 cities where COVID is spreading the fastest are in Tennessee.

Oh, and if you’re a parent wondering what to do about childcare in case your kid’s school is closed into 2021? Yeah, Bill Lee doesn’t give a damn about that, either:

I keep trying to think of an example of a Governor in our country who has failed more spectacularly than Bill Lee. But, he’s basically cornered the market on governmental ineptitude.

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39 thoughts on “The Best in the World

    • Where is the real evidence that mask do
      Anything to protect you from getting the virus? I wear one out of respect for now, but let’s be honest w each other- If the most protected man in the world, our president, got the virus as well as mask wearing VP elect Harris…. u really think most of our population is safe from virus w masks? Face it- it’s the flu and yes sadly people
      Die of the flu every year…. some years more than others when the strain is different than the flu shot was. 25% of the world has TB and it’s spread way more efficiently through water vapors in air than covid and it’s been this way for years amd no one has ever worn a mask to protect against it worldwide in past, have they?
      If ur afraid of death, read the Bible and let’s work
      On our faith as a state. Gov Lee is the best governor we could ask for. He loves Jesus and ran an absolutely successful hvac company. U disqualified ur argument immediately by stating that he ran a “mildly” successful
      Company…. but that is par for a left leaning liberal who doesn’t believe in hard work and building wealth in the land of the free. Keep up the good work Governor Lee and please know that the overwhelming majority of Tennesseans are praying for you often as we are taught to pray for all of our leaders by our Lord God and are thankful
      For your unselfish public service. May God continue to bless you, your family, your company and the state of TN.

    • Good for him! Treating his citizens like adults who are capable of making their own risk assessments. Number of so called cases, when there is an 80% false positive rate, means nothing. The death rate is stil only 0.5%. If you tested everyone in the country for the cold virus probably have a very high rate as well yet we don’t close down, we don’t wear masks…and.close yo a half million children die each year from RSV, one virus that causes colds.

      • Nearly 6000 Tennesseans have DIED from COVID — how many died from the cold? The flu? Your comments are relatively insensitive and reflect a moral deficiency I can’t quite comprehend.

    • No, “We” Tennesseans don’t want him to do what he is doing”. People are getting sick and dying more and more because he isn’t doing anything. He’s a terrible governor and leader of this state. Open your eyes to what’s happening in our state.

        • Of course this is all coming out of the mouths of communist brain washed idiots who know nothing of what they speak of.
          Probably a carpetbagger trying to infiltrate once again a right thinking Southern life which their feeble minds cannot begin to comprehend.
          Bless their heart.

          • All that right-thinking has earned TN the top spot in global infection rate, so keep it up. If COVID is “fake,” please explain the deaths? The crowded hospitals? Are people just “pretending” to be sick? Are they actors sponsored by some plot? Please, enlighten us.

    • Keep doing what youre doing cicud numbers are so outta proportion and faked it ain’t funny almost as fake as that election scam . ice gotten two letters saying I’m positive yet never been tested. A friend had stage 4 lung cancer no covid symptoms yet death certificate says cocus . Keep it Gov Lee you’re doing great

  1. Such BS… why not do a story on how useless the PCR tests really are and quit lying about all theses teachers dying … hogwash.!!! Death rate is less than the seasonal flu… oh wait… no ones dying of the flu this year !! Stop lying to scare people to follow your great reset political charade..!! Take your crap to CA or NY..!! Show me the lines of all these supposed people getting tested… FAKE NEWS..!!!!

    • Did two teachers die in Rutherford? Do you want to tell their families this is all fake? Explain the “hoax” of COVID to students who lost a teacher and teachers who lost a colleague?

    • The profound hypocrisy of demanding a statewide halt to all in-person learning and more funding for childcare for school aged children in the same article is phenomenal. How about an emergency executive order declaring education and childcare workers as essential? No one had any problem when healthcare, fastfood, and big-box retail workers were given no choice but to continue providing services to the public regardless of risk back in March. That is Lee’s true cowardice, allowing our children to suffer and be held hostage by teachers’ unions and allowing taxpayers to be defrauded by paying for a service they are no longer receiving.

  2. Just another liberal union socialist party fake news scare tactic… laughing at the bs in this story after watching a legislator stand in front of the legislature and administer a test to a can of Coke… and get a positive test result!! My best friends wife is a teacher, and she and almost 60 coworkers at her school were told via email to report to a clinic on a Tuesday between 10-2 to be tested.. problem was they didn’t get the email till the Wed after test day.. on Sat, ALL were notified they had tested positive !!! And ZERO had taken test ins ZERO were told they were negative … we are on the the BS your pushing..!!!

    • So, Bill Lee refuses to infringe on the rights of his citizens, and realizes that students benefit from in-person instruction–not only producing better academic outcomes but also allows abuse cases to be noticed and reported, and this is being reported as a bad thing. The wellbeing of the kids should come first, not the liberal agenda.

  3. That’s because everyone is going to get it sooner or later, no matter what you do. It’s just now getting to East Tennessee. It is like the common cold.( Which is caused by other coronaviruses) . It will never go away. Get used to it.

  4. Sounds like Andy Spears doesn’t like the governor, and is in a position to tell the state about it. Andy’s words appear as childish as statements from Dems on President Trump.
    A waste of time, reading nonsense.

    • Another attempt to shame a conservative. Cynthia Johnson (Michigan State Representative) can tell her “soldiers” to murder Trump supporters, Debra Messing can say Trump should be raped in prison for the rest of his life and the left will condone their actions by saying nothing. If conservatives did such things, the “media” would demand justice. Conservatives need to stop hoping for everyone to play nice. It’s time to call out these liberal lies (like “baseless claims of voter fraud”).

  5. I am so very glad that we have an abundance of Virologist and Epidemiologist reading this article. And I hear you in your assessment of this current pandemic “people die get over it”. The profound essence of your findings does mirror the position of the Governor and gives me faith in our ability to lead in our current rankings. As leaders in Healthcare I am sure that the esteemed commentors of this article also know that the Tennessee political engine has been very successful in closing many hospitals throughout the state over the past 8 years by refusing medicaid expansion and allowing for the ownership of the majority of our Healthcare facilities by a handful of very few entities. This has provided an excellent environment for your views to be realized in real time and the most important things in life to be put first and for most (profit). And let’s face it if you die from COVID you probably just didn’t try hard enough to stay alive. Shame on you Andy Spears for using facts and accurate data sets to spread your lies/hard truths that don’t really matter anymore because we can say they don’t.

  6. What is wrong with you people?? Visit a local ICU unit and see patients unable to breathe and coding & dying all alone. This is like nothing we in healthcare have ever seen! Pity you have to be touch by this personally to take it serious.

  7. I live in tn, or schools are closed, and I don’t know if anyone with covid or that has died of it, I do know of family that have lost family members to cancer and heart attacks that have been offered large amounts of money to let them out cause of death covid, now that’s some bullshit , that goes right along with this take ass news

  8. The profound hypocrisy of demanding a statewide halt to all in-person learning and more funding for childcare for school aged children in the same article is phenomenal. How about an emergency executive order declaring education and childcare workers as essential? No one had any problem when healthcare, fastfood, and big-box retail workers were given no choice but to continue providing services to the public regardless of risk back in March. That is Lee’s true cowardice, allowing our children to suffer and be held hostage by teachers’ unions and allowing taxpayers to be defrauded by paying for a service they are no longer receiving.

  9. Tell me Mr. Spears, why should we close schools for traditional learning, but then turn around an place our children into childcare centers? How does that make sense? Also, as an educator, I am still required to go into work but now have to figure out what to do with my school-aged child. As a traditional teacher who has had to fill in for a distance learning teacher this semester I have witnessed, firsthand, the difference between the children learning in the classroom and learning from home. The majority of children learning from home are not meeting the standards for the first semester. You may hate the Governor and how you think he is failing in his job, but I would challenge you to do a better job. We should not rely on the government to tell us how to live. We should all be responsible enough to make our own decisions.

    • COVID IS A PANDEMIC and TN is the worst place in the world in terms of speed of spread. I don’t “hate” anyone, but would welcome some degree of leadership.

      Nearly 6000 Tennesseans have died and the situation is getting worse here, not better. Tell me, what would YOU have us do?

      • I would tell you to do whatever makes you comfortable. And it sounds to me like you would be more comfortable in New York or California. I believe their Governors are doing more of what you want to see done here. You are free to leave. As for the pandemic, this is mother earth’s way of cleaning herself of the virus known as man. If you are truly that scared of this virus, just stay inside until it is gone. I’m sure you will be just fine.

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