Those GOP politicians - like Scott Fitzgerald - who love to shoutout their Badger and Packer loyalty on Twitter (see below, for example), but who also continue to obstruct measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19 might - and I say only might - begin to take the pandemic more seriously as the infection spreads among players, some staffers and further jeopardizes public health, team health, land local businesses.
As the pandemic races towards 250,000 cases in Wisconsin - with 9,199 cases and 116 deaths in GOP Assembly Speaker Robin (Still-in-Recess-since-April) Vos's home County of Racine, data show - I give you the most recent Tweet on his Speaker's Twitter page.
It's actually a retweet from @RepWarrenPetryk that is now two-and-a-half-days old. It has generated three retweets of its own: Speaker Robin Vos Retweeted
If I read the data correctly in the New York Times daily COVID tracker for Wisconsin on Monday -
- Dodge County where GOP Senate Majority leader and mask-opponent Scott Fitzgerald lives - and whose residents he represents - has, with 159.6 COVID cases per 100,000 residents, the second-highest infection rate among the state's 72 counties over the last seven days.
Only Menominee County with 191.3 has a higher infection rate.
Scott Fitzgerald turns 57 on Nov. 16th, so Happy Birthday, probable Congressperson-elect, and enjoy the midlife crisis which awaits you: life in a shrunken House of Representatives minority caucus where you will be outranked by plenty of Democrats and some former GOP senate colleagues, like Tom Tiffany and Glenn Grothman, who used to call you 'Leader' with committee assignments you made and agendas you set.
Daily living in an ultra-liberal Democratic city where masks are ubiquitous and mandatory to stem the pandemic you've enabled here, but which, ironically, have the side effect of granting you even more anonymity than is already enjoyed in DC by impact-free representatives like Mike Gallagher and Bryan Steil who 'represent' districts in Wisconsin as gerrymandered as the one Jim Sensenbrenner left for you to pocket like a $20 bill which blew under your wingtip.
Fascinating, isn't it, that these so-called small government penny-pinchers say they hate Washington.
Yet they can't wait to get there and more than triple to $174,000 the annual $50,000+ salaries paid by the 'hard-working Wisconsin taxpayers.'
You know, those bumper-sticker people these phony conservatives love to tweet about come election season - and, in Fitzgerald's case whose paycheck money he shamelessly collected after adjourning the Senate more than six months ago.
While the deadly COVID-19 pandemic his bull-headed official inaction and partisan obstruction helped relentlessly spread, sicken and kill across Wisconsin statewide.
Five minutes ago, The New York Times again reported giant spikes in pandemic illness, hospitalizations and deaths in Wisconsin.
Where is Fitzgerald and his Assembly absentee counterpart Robin Vos today? No doubt planning their next lame-duck attack on the Governor and long-term strategy to pull off another self-preserving, paycheck-guaranteeing gerrymander instead of action against the virus.
I only hope that someone reminds Speaker Nancy Pelosi before she assigns your office space that you helped undermine and humiliate the duly-and-repeatedly elected Democratic Secretary of State Doug La Follette by ejecting him from the constitutional office's traditional Capitol spot and forcing him - and the only staff member whose job survived the same petty Republican partisan purge - into a remote state Capitol basement warren with nearly one-seventh the square-footage.
Surely the Speaker knows which office is closest to the cleaning supply closet, farthest from the House chambers and most fittingly-appropriate for you to decamp for the years you helped scam for yourself.
------------------------------
I have contrasted Wisconsin's COVID-19 case numbers with entire countries' numbers to illustrate how disproportionate is our suffering here.
For example, when Wisconsin was reporting 98 deaths a week in early October, these were among the international numbers for the same week:
Japan, 45
Switzerland, 37
Kenya, 35
Greece, 34
Austria, 28
Jamaica, 27
South Korea, 15
And I saw a fact this weekend in Wisconsin's COVID counts which offered another way to understand the severity and depth of the pandemic's grip:
Of the 228,863 residents who have tested positive...47,551, or 20.8%, are considered "active," meaning they aren't recovered and haven't died.
Pay attention to those 20.8 % of Wisconsin's cases - 47,551 people - who are alive but "aren't recovered."
* 47,551 is larger than the entire population of each of dozens of Wisconsin cities with familiar names: Fond du Lac, Wausau, Neenah, Beloit, Stevens Point.
* It's more than four times the population in Brown Deer, Grafton, Waupun and Marinette, to name but a few.
* Here's another way to grasp the active impact of the pandemic here; a sellout at Miller Park before COVID-19 cancelled ballpark attendance was 41,900.
Like I said, 47,551 is a big number, and that means a huge group of Wisconsinites have not recovered from COVID-19.
And as I keep repeating here, WI Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard, (Racine), said he'd still fight a statewide COVID-19-controlling mask ordinance even if the state's case load exploded ten fold.
So in addition to the more than 2,000 deaths here, and as hospitals are filling up in Wisconsin again, Wanggaard would still oppose a mask mandate even if Wisconsin were to have almost half a million citizens whose recovery from COVID-19 is less than complete.
The Long-Hauler State. You could stamp that on our license plates.
