WI COVID cases up scores of thousands since GOP-Legislature last met

And as you absorb the numbers, remember this October 8 item: 

Leading WI Republican says 10x more COVID not worth mask order

 

Back to the COVID calendar:

Monday, October 12th will mark 180 days since April 15th - the last day the Wisconsin GOP-run Legislature passed a bill. 

On April 15th, data show that Wisconsin had reported 166 new cases of COVID-19; the same chart shows that the new case level had slowly crept up by another 290 on May 13 when GOP legislators won a ruling by the Republican-subservient State Supreme Court which killed Gov. Evers' extension of his COVID-19 'Safer-at-Home' preventive measure.

So where are we now?

1) The Legislature is still willfully inert - except that GOP legislators did hire private attorneys at taxpayer expense to fight Gov. Evers' masking order before the Supreme Court.

2) On Sunday - the 179th day of the GOP-led Legislature's flight from its public health duties - while also drawing their full benefits and salaries - the COVID-19 case total had exploded to 155,752, and 1,470 deaths. 

And daily case increases of more than 2,000 are commonplace.

* So our story of statewide suffering and slaughter is told in headlines like this one from October 1:

Wisconsin becoming national COVID-19 hotspot as cases rise

And this one from October 6: 

Latest WI COVID weekly deaths, 98. Greece 34. Finland, 2. Taiwan, O. Etc.

And this one from October 7: 

Tony Evers to open field hospital at State Fair Park to provide relief for overwhelmed hospitals in Fox Valley, northern countie 

WI COVID fatalities 11x state 2019 OWI death toll

Here's a way to grasp the COVID-19 carnage enabled in Wisconsin by AWOL and empathy-free Republican legislative partisans across Wisconsin.

As of Saturday morning, COVID-19 since March has produced 1,454 dead people - which is almost 11 times the 136 people who died in Wisconsin drunk driving crashes in 12 months last year.

Drunk driving in Wisconsin 

 

has extensive personal, social and financial consequences which have repeatedly documented by health care professionals and showcased righteouslyby media and grassroots activists:

The faces behind the stories: Meet the victim advocates trying to stop drunk driving

And yet reckless conduct by impaired drivers on state roads has been allowed to continue with only grudging attention from weak, special-interest-beholden GOP legislative leaders:

Criminalizing first-offense OWI won't get a vote in the Wisconsin Senate

The committee chairman, state Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine)....has vocalized his opposition to the bill a number of times, saying he believes it will increase repeat drunk driving in Wisconsin. 

That rang a bell for me: 

When I was researching this post, I did not know Sen. Wanggaard had played a key role in short-circuiting that key OWI reform - the same Sen. Wanggaard who just went on the record with the Journal Sentinel with even more callous objections to Gov. Evers pandemic-curbing measures:

While most of his colleagues were unwilling to talk to the paper on the record about COVID-19 and legislating, Van Wanggaard said that the GOP-controlled Legislature will meet after the November election...to kill Gov. Evers' emergency COVID-19 orders if litigation which GOP leaders have joined hasn't by then convinced Wisconsin's judiciary to get the job done.  

Which means Republican legislators will continue to evade any accountability in legislative chambers and at the polls for the virus's escalating suffering which in Van Wanggaard's home county has already spawned 5,933 cases (433 just last week alone) and 98 deaths, data show. 

In fact, Van Wangaard said he'd stand on a point of ideology against Evers' mask order even if COVID-19 tallies absolutely exploded:

He said he wouldn't back a mask requirement even if COVID-19 becomes 10 times worse than it is now. Wisconsin now has an average of 2,300 new cases per day — an increase of 180% over a month ago, according to the state Department of Health Services....“Nobody should be dictating to me when I have to wear a mask.” 

How many times will WI GOP legislative leaders and right wing judges here be allowed to implement their 'life is cheap here' agendas before voters replace them with elected officials who will put public health first? 

Wisconsin COVID-19 case tally balloons again

While the GOP-led, do-nothing Wisconsin Legislature continues on its six-month vacation, the state has registered another 3,218 COVID-19 cases, along with 17 more deaths, according to New York Times data. 

At least 17 new coronavirus deaths and 3,218 new cases were reported in Wisconsin on Oct. 9. Over the past week, there have been an average of 2,548 cases per day, an increase of 26 percent from the average two weeks earlier. 

As of Saturday morning, there have been at least 152,831 cases and 1,453 deaths in Wisconsin since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database.

Multiply those numbers by ten - so 153,000 cases becomes 1,530,000 in a state of 5,850,000 - and that still wouldn't convince WI GOP State Sen. Van Wanggaard of Racine to support Gov. Evers masking order. 

And here's a stunning fact: the City of Oshkosh has the highest rate of concentration of new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to this Journal Sentinel report:

I shouldn't be here': Oshkosh bar owner in ICU with COVID-19 blames Trump for out-of-control pandemic.  

[Mark] Schultz, 64, is the co-owner of Oblio's, a bar in Oshkosh that is beloved by a city that now has the highest rate of COVID-19 infection in the country, according to a New York Times analysis. 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump's debate punt costs him his snake oil pitch

Trump had no alternative to bailing from the next Presidential debate because Zoom's hinky sound and optics would destroyed his plan to use the format to tout the All-in-One Snake Oil

he'd invented when shaping a COVID treatment regimen at Walter Reed while his docs watched in awe.

His patented 'Perfect COVID immunity and cure' are based on a special blend of fetal tissue and 11 herbs and spices combined through self-taught hair dye chemistry and a unique five-iron grip developed at his New Jersey golf course.

The elixir may also address StephenMillerProximity, Comeyitis, Porn Star addiction, the vapors, bone spurs and Barackophobia. 

But some fake Deep State Presidential Commission full of losers and suckers decided otherwise.

Leading WI Republican says 10x more COVID not worth mask order

3:20 p.m. Update - the Covid situation in Wisconsin is worsening by the hour:

Wisconsin sets another COVID-19 record, reporting 3,132 new cases

Republicans in Wisconsin occasionally step out of the shadows and unmask

a truth which would shock your everyday Sunday School teacher.

There was then-GOP Governor Scott Walker's anti-urban dog whistle to an exurban Waukesha County audience towards the end of his 2012 recall election:

People do not want to see Wisconsin "become another Milwaukee," Walker said.

Or GOP State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald's oopsie admission on Fox News that Walker's union-busting Act 10 disguised as responsible, modest budget-balancing was a partisan scheme to undermine Pres. Obama's re-election chances in 2012 by stemming union donations to his campaign:

"If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin."

And there was a more recent admission by a GOP strategist to his Wisconsin helpers that voter suppression has always been in the party's traditional playbook: 

Leaked audio reveals a top adviser to Trump's 2020 re-election campaign said "traditionally it's always been Republicans suppressing votes in places" during an event for Wisconsin Republicans.

Now we have a fresh outbreak of stunning-and-callous transparency in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic in super US hotspot Wisconsin where the contagion has already sickened more 146,000 people and killed 1,427, along with ballooning state the state's unemployment rolls and Wisconsin hospital admissions:

Wisconsin activates field hospital as COVID keeps surging

I want to thank fine reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for getting remarks on the record by Racine's GOP State Sen. Van Wanggaard about COVID-19 issues and the GOP-controlled Legislature which has been unwilling to meet for six months as the epidemic has raged here.

(The Journal Sentinel's story is behind its subscriber-only paywall; I hope the paper soon puts it out on the more accessible portion of its website so everyone can get the benefit of the paper's reporting. I understand the paywall and I'm happy to be a subscriber to help keep local newspaper reporting alive).

While most of his colleagues were unwilling to talk to the paper on the record about COVID-19 and legislating, Van Wanggaard said that the GOP-controlled Legislature will meet after the November election...to kill Gov. Evers' emergency COVID-19 orders if litigation GOP leaders have joined hasn't by then convinced Wisconsin's judiciary to get the job done. 

Which means Republican legislators will continue to evade any accountability in legislative chambers and at the polls for the virus's escalating suffering which in Van Wanggaard's home county has already spawned 5,933 cases (433 just last week alone) and 98 deaths, data show.

In fact, Van Wangaard said he'd stand on a point of ideology against Evers' mask order even if COVID-19 tallies absolutely exploded:

He said he wouldn't back a mask requirement even if COVID-19 becomes 10 times worse than it is now. Wisconsin now has an average of 2,300 new cases per day — an increase of 180% over a month ago, according to the state Department of Health Services....“Nobody should be dictating to me when I have to wear a mask.” 

Trump is playing Ahab. On actual steroids. We hope for a better outcome.

It's fair to say that our drug-addled and now-even-more-unstable President 

resembles the monomaniacal Captain Ahab in Melville's classic novel Moby Dick, except that Ahab only had a single ship and crew to sink while Trump is jeopardizing a democracy, a populace reeling from discrimination and disease, and the most important economy in a highly-interconnected world.

And our Ahab-on-literal-steriods can authorize the launch of an arsenal of nuclear weapons in less than five minutes, with no one to stop him.

Before 2016, no reputable publishing house would have invested a penny in a manuscript based on such an absurdist Melvillian ripoff because no one would have bought it.

Because, you know, this is America, the greatest democracy ever seen, where the people are supposed to rule.

And, yet, here we are in real time and real life, with the biggest question being, 'if, and when he loses, can Trump steal back the Presidency through force, more fear-mongering, vigilante assistance and the corruption of the Justice Department, Supreme Court and Electorate College.'

I think it's an open question and we won't know the answer, or what's left of what we had, until Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021.

Latest WI weekly COVID deaths, 98. Greece, 34. Finland, 2. Taiwan, 0, etc.

The average number of reported COVIC-19 deaths daily in Wisconsin for the previous seven-days was 14, so that works out to 98 deaths for the week, the official state data show. 

Using a New York Times world COVID-19 case and death counting tool, take a look at my selection of the prior seven-day COVID-19 death tallies in a range of other entire countries to see how much greater is the outbreak in Wisconsin which delivered 98 deaths last week (use the search box below this line in the text: 

The coronavirus pandemic is ebbing in some of the countries that were hit hard early on, but the number of new cases is growing faster than ever worldwide, with more than 200,000 reported each day on average.  

Belgium, 91

Egypt, 89

Hungary, 84

Portugal, 61

Jordan, 59

Japan, 45

Switzerland, 37

Kenya, 35

Greece, 34

Austria, 28

Jamaica, 27

South Korea, 15

Sweden, 15

Australia, 13

Denmark, 10

Ghana, 4

Finland, 2

New Zealand, Bermuda, Singapore, Taiwan - none

---------------

And Wisconsin's GOP-run legislature hasn't met for nearly six months to address the crisis - and ditto for gun safety, policing and judicial reforms - but is in court right now trying to overturn Gov. Evers' statewide masking order.

Because the GOP's sole agenda is undermining Gov. Evers for having the temerity fair-and-square to defeat Scott Walker in 2018.

Walker who never left his 'victory' party digs election night to deliver a concession speech to supporters and media.

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, shown here in protective equipment after claiming in April that it was "incredibly safe" to go out into the pandemic and vote, has joined a lawsuit aimed at overturning Gov. Evers' subsequent masking order. 

Judge in relatively-COVID-19-free county has WI statewide masking case, but...

As COVID-19 rampages across Wisconsin, and especially through its more densely-populated southern municipalities, the course of the disease and the politics surrounding it is about to be addressed in more-rural St. Croix County along the Mississippi River in the northwestern Wisconsin.

That's because a judge there has been handed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Evers' masking order by right-wingers allied with the perpetually obstructionist and vacationing GOP-led State Legislature.

One news story yesterday seemed to suggest that the judge might toss the case back to the Legislature:

Judge Questions Need For Court To Rule On Mask Mandate 

Judge Michael Waterman Asked Why Lawmakers Had Not Voted To Overturn The Order If They Object To It

While the judge's ruling may not consider it, I think it's worth looking at how relatively unscathed is St. Croix County by COVID-19.

And let's also look at how dissimilar St. Croix County is from Wisconsin's urbanized counties - census data, here - and their large minority communities where COVID-19 tallies are among state's most severe.

Other noteworthy data points: with 1,066 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 9 deaths, St. Croix County has only minor fractions of the state's more than 134,000+ cases and 1,341 deaths, state data show.

By contrast, Waukesha County has reported 94 COVID-19 deaths, Racine County, 98 and Milwaukee County 545 deaths, the data show.

All off St. Croix County has about 90,000 people, or roughly the population of two City of Milwaukee Common Council districts. 

I'm not discounting the impact of the COVID-19 suffering on St. Croix County families, but I am trying to put it into a statewide context.

Consider also that St. Croix County is overwhelmingly white  - 95.9%, census data show -  with proportionally fewer Black, Hispanic or other minority residents - than heavily-white (87%) Wisconsin, statewide. 

(Please note the state and federal websites linked to above include some different racial and ethnic categories.)

The Wisconsin data also show disproportionally higher COVID-19 caseloads and death tally percentages statewide for most minorities than  in their statewide population totals.

The St. Croix decision is sure to be appealed by the losing side. 

Stay tuned.

------------

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, shown here in protective equipment after claiming in April that it was "incredibly safe" to go out into the pandemic and vote, has joined a lawsuit aimed at overturning Gov. Evers' subsequent masking order. The case was originally filed in slightly more Republican-leaning Polk County, but a transfer into St. Croix County could lead to a ruling against the plaintiffs wishes. The case will eventually work its way to the State Supreme Court.

COVID-19's spread & GOP enabling remain on repeat

The truth about the pandemic and the GOP's cavalier enabling - 

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in protective equipment while claiming it was "incredibly safe" to go out into the pandemic and cast an in-person April election ballot.

- go round and round:

----------

* Today, Oct. 5, 2020: 

Two More White House Press Aides Test Positive: Trump Update

* June 22, 2020:

Two More Trump Staff Members Test Positive for Coronavirus After Tulsa Rally

---------- 

* Oct. 3, 2020:

Wisconsin COVID-19: 2,892 new cases reported Saturday, another single-day high

* May 27, 2020:

Two weeks after court scraps Safer at Home, Wisconsin sets record for new coronavirus cases and deaths 

---------- 

* Today, Oct. 5, 2020:

COVID-19 hospitalizations at record levels in Wisconsin, Dane County

* May 20, 2020: 

State Sees Biggest Hike In New COVID-19 Hospital Admissions In 30 Days

----------

* Oct. 3, 2020: 

GOP leaders go to court in support of effort to strike down Tony Evers' mask mandate

* May 13, 2020: 

Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down Wisconsin's stay-at-home order that closed businesses to limit spread of coronavirus

---------- 

* Today, Oct. 5, 2020: 

A face mask might have protected Trump, his staff, and the people around them from the coronavirus.

* August 3rd, 2020: Scott Fitzgerald, on masks: 

Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress and faces a Republican challenger in the Aug. 11 primary, said whether to wear a mask should be an individual’s decision... “I think things are going well right now, people are complying if they want to.”

In deeds and words, Republicans are again 'the stupid party'

Sticks and stones may break their bones, but Republican words - and images -  

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in protective equipment while claiming it was "incredibly safe" to go out into the pandemic and cast an in-person April election ballot.

- keep hurting them.

* From former GOP presidential candidate Bobby Jindal to his party in 2013:

Bobby Jindal: GOP needs to 'stop being the stupid party'

* From a key Trump fundraiser, for the record, in the 2020 election's closing days:

As virus spreads across GOP ranks, some Republicans say party will pay price for ‘stupid’ approach

“There was a panic before this started, but now we’re sort of the stupid party,” said Edward J. Rollins, co-chairman of the pro-Trump super PAC Great America. 

* And here's a variation in June from conservative columnist George Will, the formerly-reliable GOP stalwart-turned-high-profile anti-Trumper:

George Will: Young people now consider GOP 'the dumb party'

Which is why Will said in July that his first-ever presidential vote for a Democrat would go to Biden this November.

* And may I add Ron Johnson to the stupid, self-inflicted wounding list?

People awaiting COVID test result should not go out; RoJo, now COVID + partied Friday anyway

 

WI daily COVID tally hit 3,022. Italy last saw that # in April.

Comparative COVID-19 data I recently posted showed Wisconsin faring poorly right now when matched up against the much more populous State of New York and the entire nation of Canada.

Consider another contrasting state-to-nation data trend that frames the pandemic's spike here. 

Begin with Wisconsin's new daily COVID-19 report of 3,022 cases on October 3rd.

Now go back to the spring, when Italy - 

- was the virus's global hotspot before Italy's strict and effective lockdown.

The new case data for Italy shows it has not reported a total equalling Wisconsin's October 3rd record of 3,022 since April 24.

While Italy dramatically flattened its virus daily data curve that is beginning to rise again, and may surpass Wisconsin's, Italy's recent daily case totals trail Wisconsin's while having more than ten times Wisconsin's population - 60.43 million to our 5.85 million.

Yet the Wisconsin Republican Party which controls the Legislature and has fought Gov. Eves' masking and 'Safer-at-Home' pandemic-mitigating orders is again in court working against him.

Republican legislative leaders went to court Friday to show support for a lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate after more than 17,000 people in Wisconsin tested positive in the last week and some hospitals are on the brink of being overwhelmed. 

You cannot say loudly enough that Republican 'leadership' in Washington, DC and in Wisconsin during the pandemic has been a colossal and deadly failure. 

People awaiting COVID test result should not go out; RoJo, now COVID + partied Friday anyway

If you were within coughing or hand-shaking distance of the COVID-19-contemptuous Ron Johnson 

at the GOP's Oktoberfest fundraiser in Mequon Friday you'd better isolate yourself until the results come back from the virus test you better be scheduling right now.

That's because Johnson attended the event while awaiting his test results, and, yeah, you know the rest of the story:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson announced Saturday he tested positive for COVID-19, a result that came after he attended a GOP fundraising event in Ozaukee County on Friday while awaiting the results — something federal guidelines advise against.

Johnson, R-Oshkosh, told reporters Saturday he didn’t quarantine while awaiting results because he had no symptoms and the test was precautionary. He also said he still does not think the state should require the public to wear face masks, which Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has ordered but Republicans are seeking to overturn in court. 

Did you know Johnson is a Minnesota native? Here's the advice that official Minnesota offers its people if they are awaiting their COVID-19 test results:

After you get tested

 Stay home and away from others, especially if you have symptoms. Even if you do not have symptoms, it is best to stay home, but if you have to leave, wear a mask and stay 6 feet from others.

Not seeing where it says 'head on over to Oktoberfest and pretend everything's okey-dokey.'

Blowing off basic, commonsense and proven distancing, masking and other pandemic-controlling practices and guidelines recommended wirkdwide is what has the President in the hospital, official DC in a panic and virus caseloads spiking from the Dakotas to Green Bay and all points beyond.

And Johnson still thinks mask-wearing is a personal matter while the easily transmittable virus has killed more than 208,000 Americans and sickened 7,000,000. 

Then I remembered when Johnson the accountant-turned-politician crunched the numbers and said a US COVID-19 death toll of 11 million might be the price we had to pay for open access to burgers and hair cuts, so I temper my disbelief in the face of his covidiocy.

 

 

With far fewer people, WI's COVID new caseload more than doubles New York State's

Let some sick numbers which are driving the poisoning of Wisconsin people and policies sink in:

While WI GOP legislators' leaders are continuing months of COVID-19 coddling by freshly joining a lawsuit aimed at overturning Gov. statewide COVID masking prevention order, Wisconsin's new positive case tally of 17,641 in the previous week is more than double New York State's new caseload of 7,877 - and New York with about 19.5 million people is more than three times Wisconsin's population of 5.85 million.

And Wisconsin has population densities in its populous areas nowhere near New York State's historically crowded neighborhoods, high-rise dwellings, massive office complexes, complex transit systems where COVID-19 can be expected to easily spread.

In fact, Wisconsin's relentlessly faster-spreading outbreak is sending more new COVID patients to ICUs than are getting that treatment across all of Canada. 

Yet Wisconsin GOP legislators remain on their campaign season-facilitating and extensive fully-paid vacation here, so are add to the problem they have enabled through self-centered sloth.

People of good will across party lines In Wisconsin have to vote out these failed office-holders and begin planning recalls of the most deleterious incumbents who remain in office after Nov. 3rd. because their unscientific dismissiveness - 

- or outright policy obstruction which has accelerated an out-of-control public health emergency.

Legislators swear an oath to faithfully and impartially carry out their duties to the best of their ability, but undermining the Democratic Governor's COVID-prevention obligations by sitting on the sidelines since March while the worst pandemic in a century rages on here makes this oath into just another COVID victim:

swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the State of Wisconsin, and will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of said office to the best of my ability. So help me God.

America's worst tenant breaks his lease. Evict him.

Spreading along with the virus's expanding power-patients' list are ironies heretofore never imagined on the eve of the country's most critical decision-making ritual because:

The temporary occupant of the most important publicly-owned house in the world - 

- a tenant who disregarded his decades of hotel and apartment management experience because rules are for losers and suckers invited in a huge crowd of reckless guests for an indoor/outdoor garden party - furthering his defiling of once-treasured grounds - during an epidemic - which devolved into a circular firing squad, and the home's public owners will have to pay all the resulting bills, one way or another.

And, unimaginably, the arrogant party-thrower expects the home's owners to let him stay another four years despite this most recent debacle because he wants to do even more damage in all directions with even fewer restraints and thinks he has all the cops and lawyers and judges in his pocket to help him get away with his perverse amusements free and clear.

You're tempted to say 'no way,' not after this carnage - but then you remember people said the same 'it'll never happen' thing four years ago, and that was before the reckless party-thrower, and his loyal, well-placed family members and a vast, cultish clutch of underlings (with vigilantes standing by) gained access to the vast resources and weaponry stashed in the unusual home's architecture.

We'll know in a month - think of it as the beginning of the lease’s 30-day notification clock - if the destructive mob and its boss can bulldoze and cheat their way inside again using force, various forms of chicanery and perhaps through the sewers, of if a saner, smarter group of occupants which knows its limits is able move in, expel the interlopers and clean the place up.

Stay tuned.

Oct. 1 measure of WI's dire COVID outbreak: 3,004 new cases vs. Canada's 1,777

The contrast is obviously more shocking because the entire ocean-to-ocean nation of Canada (its COVID case data are here) has about 37.8 million people, while the State of Wisconsin( COVID-19 data here) has just over 5.8 million people, or less than one-sixth Canada's total.

I began noting the imbalance On September 24 when I saw that Wisconsin was outpacing all of Canada in admissions to hospital Intensive Care Units (ICUs).

Canada reports 92 COVID-19 patients currently in intensive care units there, while Wisconsin exceeds that number by more than 50% with 140 [See "Hospital Capabilities" chart]. 

The data for October 1 using the same webpages above show Canada with 126 ICU admissions, Wisconsin with 181. So while the percentage spread fell marginally over a week, the gap in raw numbers between far-less-populated Wisconsin and all of the nation of Canada remains dramatically tilted against Wisconsin. 

And yet, Wisconsins GOP legislative leaders went to court Friday in support of a lawsuit to overturn the Governor Evers' COVID-19 pandemic-controlling masking mandate. 

MADISON - Republican legislative leaders went to court Friday to show support for a lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate after more than 17,000 people in Wisconsin tested positive in the last week and some hospitals are on the brink of being overwhelmed. 

The move also came the same day President Donald Trump, who does not wear face masks regularly, tested positive for the coronavirus and officials said he would be hospitalized for a few days.

It began two years ago and the power grabbing hasn't stopped since:

WI GOP Senate leader Fitzgerald unmasked as master of irony

While Trump and other important mask-declining Republicans - including two Senators - are now testing positive for the highly-contagious coronavirus, it was a mere two months ago when WI GOP Senate Majority Leader and man unmasked as a medical science know-nothing

threw out some 'thoughts' on the subject which absolutely qualifies him for entry into The COVID Irony Hall of Shame:

Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress and faces a Republican challenger in the Aug. 11 primary, said whether to wear a mask should be an individual’s decision. At some campaign events, no one in the room was wearing a mask, while at others, as many as 50% of the people are masked, he said.

“I just said I think it’s a mistake,” Fitzgerald said of the mask order. “I think things are going well right now. People are complying if they want to.”

Of course, Fitzgerald has lots of WI competitors for the honor, including Vos, several Supreme Court Justices, enabling attorneys, etc. Maybe the Hall will have a separate Wisconsin wing. On the right, of course.

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

COVID-19 in WI gets fuel from right-wing culture of science cancelation 

Tom Tiffany shows how to waste a Congressional seat

We knew Tom Tiffany 

was going to be a poster person for 'How to Waste a seat in Congress,' but who knew he would embrace it this deep and so fast?

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wausau, was one of 17 Congressional Republicans on Friday to vote against a House resolution to condemn conspiracy theory movement QAnon....

The FBI determined that fringe political conspiracy theories, such as QAnon, are likely to motivate some domestic extremists to engage in criminal or violent activity, and such conspiracy theories very likely encourage targeting and violence against specific people, places and organizations, according to [resolution author Illinois US Rep. Tom] Malinowski. 

Even Grothman voted "yes." 

The day Trump tested positive, WI COVID case count exploded by 3,004

It's definitely a big deal that Trump tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday, Oct. 1.

But in already hard-hit Wisconsin, where, thankfully, Trump's rally plans have been canceled, it should be just as big a story that on the same day Trump's infection became known, national disease hotspot Wisconsin reported a mind-blowing state-record-breaking 3,004 new cases, The New York Times disclosed:

At least 20 new coronavirus deaths and 3,004 new cases were reported in Wisconsin on Oct. 1. Over the past week, there have been an average of 2,490 cases per day, an increase of 68 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

As of Friday afternoon, there have been at least 132,176 cases and 1,358 deaths in Wisconsin since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database. 

That's more than one new positive every 30 seconds. 

Using similar but less severe data, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it this way:

Wisconsin reports more than 2,700 new coronavirus cases as outbreak continues to lead nation

This while the GOP-led state legislature is approaching 180 days without having created a pandemic prevention plan they claimed was their bi-partisan goal - before abandoning it and later letting surrogates go to court to upend Gov. Evers' effective masking and virus-management orders.

Update - and filing court papers to directly support the litigation:

Republican legislative leaders went to court Friday to show support for a lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate after more than 17,000 people in Wisconsin tested positive in the last week and some hospitals are on the brink of being overwhelmed. 

The move also came the same day President Donald Trump, who does not wear face masks regularly, tested positive for the coronavirus. 

And while legislators keep collecting full salaries and benefits without addressing or in any way accepting any accountability for the escalating outbreak they and their allies have been enabling since March.

Why is this intentional dereliction of duty in the face of an out-of-control killer epidemic in Wisconsin not a biggest source of outrage here? How is this in anyway acceptable? 

Why surging WI COVID caseloads don't concern GOP political 'leaders'

Rational Wisconsinites - partisan or solidly independent but with a normal share of concern for their fellow citizens, neighborhoods and state - may be somewhere between baffled or outraged by the deadly paradox between the the state's overwhelmingly Republican legislature remaining on its nearly-six-month long paid vacation while a statewide COVID-19 virus epidemic 

again overwhelms Wisconsin hospitals and drives the victim-counts near the top of the national tally:

Wisconsin Becomes Coronavirus Hotspot

The answer to the riddle is that to the Wisconsin's GOP legislators, inertia in the face of escalating disease and death is no contradiction at all.

It's the logical outcome of Ronald Reagan's sloppy 'government is not the solution to our to problems, it IS the problem,' slogan and Grover Norquist's even more contemptible 'drown [government] in a bathtub' bumpersticker.

So better for the Republicans to obstruct or cut public funding and services as a routine whenever possible (with self-serving exceptions to be noted, below), because public servants agencies able to quickly a deal with a healthcare crisis just might also successfully add value for the people to school systems, environmental protection, justice agencies, policing and even the easier provision of health insurance and treatments to everyone.

To be fair, Wisconsin Republicans proved they could act with breakneck speed to boost the re-election chances of former Gov. Walker by shoveling billions of state and local taxpayer dollars to the Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn whose operations are centralized in China and India.

Three years later, Walker is out of office and not a single promised flat-screen device has been produced on the Racine County farm and wetlands which were bulldozed at the company's request. 

The GOP Walkerites who ram-rodded through that historic taxpayer-dollar giveaway - along with special, fast-track access to state courts, suspension of environmental reviews and fresh, tazpayer-paid highway overbuilding - continue to excuse Foxconn's 'performance' and ignore Walker's promise that the project would create at least 13,000 high-paying blue collar jobs.

You can read a full, 40-month accounting of Foxconn matters - which is also a primer on the definition of Wisconsin Republican 'philosophy' - here. 

Implemented by the same group of self-serving partisans who remain officially inert - but collecting full pay and benefits - while the killer COVID virus crisis is now sickening more than 120 new Wisconsin victims every hour:

Wisconsin reported a record high number of 2,887 new COVID-19 cases, the highest number of hospitalizations to-date and 21 more deaths on Thursday.

The latest numbers come just one day after the state set a grim record with 27 deaths reported Wednesday.

These 'do-all-harm' and manically-partisan Republicans prefer to continue marginalized the state's leading health manager by refusing to confirm her appointment while continuing to aid and abet allied litigants 

hoping to undermine the still-acting health department secretary and further diminish Gov. Evers and his implementation of simple life-saving COVID-19 restraints, for two reasons:

1. Republicans prefer ineffective, even failing and harmful public policies to substantial and successful programs.

2. Because Evers had the temerity to send Walker packing, so the WI GOP simply extends its never-do-anything which might validate a Democratic Governor to do-nothing to save lives statewide - even in reliable red counties - because some random Democrats at the supermarket might inadvertently be saved from an infected cough by a 75-cent paper face mask.