Masks Weaponized

Wearing a face mask is not a weapon

Not wearing one is

My wife and I are in our late 70s with health conditions making us high-risk to have a bad, if not fatal, reaction should we catch the COVID-19 virus. We have been self-isolating since early March and wearing masks and gloves if we had to leave home. We had groceries delivered, stopped seeing friends and family, stopped going to the Y, only did curbside or take out from our favorite restaurants and waited to see what would happen.

We felt reasonably comfortable with Governor Evers’ stay-at-home orders and his Badger Bounce Back plan to reopen. Then the conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of the GOP legislative leadership who sued challenging Evers’ orders. Not having a plan of their own, the GOP leadership refused to work with Evers to craft new rules to help keep us safe. They just told Wisconsin counties and municipalities that you are on your own when it came to public safety during the pandemic even as the numbers of dead and infected continued to rise. It is no surprise that Washington County is now seeing a significant increase of positive COVID tests and deaths.

The predictable result is the wild, wild Midwest where there are no uniform rules, just suggestions that come from the Centers from Disease Control and other experts on how we should act in public passed on through suggestions from local leaders to follow some of them or just those you like or find convenient.

Recently, we have started to venture out of our home to see how the new normal looks and to try and measure how safe we feel being around our neighbors. I have to say, it is really scary out there. We still wear our masks when we go places. The businesses we have gone into in Kewaskum and West Bend have adopted some stay safe practices, but they are far from uniform. Here’s a sample of what we’ve experienced.

 Our Kewaskum Piggly Wiggly grocery store is the best of the bunch. They have Plexiglas barriers between customer and cashier, 6-foot distances marked on the floor in lanes leading to the checkouts, and all staff are masked. The store offers same- or next-day curbside pickup of online orders and limited delivery.

Some West Bend grocery stores present a different picture. One offers all of the same precautions and adds sanitizing carts after each use. Another has some of the same precautions, but staff masks are spotty and often worn below the nose.

One local hardware store is a hot mess. They have barriers between cashier and customer, but the lane up to checkout is right in the middle of the path customers must use to enter the store. There are 6-foot marks on the floor around the checkout. None of the staff wears masks.

The most significant problem we experienced in all of these businesses was with other customers. Many more came in without any face coverings than those with masks. Physical distancing, except in check-out lanes, was pretty much nonexistent. There were no limits on the numbers allowed inside. Unmasked staff came right up to unmasked customers and carried on conversations before moving on to help others.

While we have not had a personal experience with mask shaming, some of our friends have been challenged in public places for wearing face coverings. The choice to ridicule or shame someone for wearing a mask boggles my mind.

We wear masks because the sound science tells us that it is the best way, short of staying home, to prevent the spread of the virus by an asymptomatic or infected carrier. Even though I have taken more-than-reasonable precautions to keep myself safe, I may be a carrier who shows no symptoms. My mask helps you by keeping the droplets in my breath from reaching you should we interact. Why on earth would any rational or sane person take issue with efforts I make to keep them safe?

It appears that mask shaming is part of our larger political divide where those who care about others and the safety of our family and neighbors are thought to be inferior because we subscribe to a work for the greater good philosophy. Our rugged individualistic neighbors are feeling invincible because our president tells them they are on the right path and are better than us. After all, he refuses to wear a mask, so why should they?

Those who refuse to mask up, fearing a governmental obliteration of their liberties, put not only themselves at risk, but their elderly family members and friends as well. Even if they don’t get sick, they are more likely to become a virus carrier by not wearing one.

As we top 100,000 dead nationwide from the virus, it is time to listen to those who actually know what they are talking about because they have studied the science and learned from experience and history.

Stop weaponizing masks and put one on in public while keeping your distance. It may just save a life.

Barr Must Go

US Justice Dept. is a political weapon
William Barr must resign

While most of us were consumed or distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Department of Justice took a nearly unprecedented action that signals the end of the rule of law, the bedrock of our democracy. 

It is rare when the government asks the court to dismiss a criminal case. When it does happen, it is usually at the beginning stages of a case when new and exonerating evidence comes to light. In almost 40 years of federal criminal law practice in federal courts, I have never heard of the government asking to dismiss a case after the defendant has pled guilty to the offense charged and admitted to the court, under oath, that he committed the offense charged knowing that it was a crime at the time. 

That is exactly what happened in the case of a Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Trump. Flynn was charged with lying to FBI agents who interviewed him about his contacts with Russians during then candidate Trump’s 2016 campaign to become President of the United States. The agents were investigating whether Russia was involved in activities aimed at influencing the outcome of the presidential election which is a crime under federal law. 

In order to constitute a crime, Flynn’s lies about contacts with Russians about the election had to be “material” to that investigation. Flynn was known to have financial and other ties to Russia and other foreign governments at the time. During his FBI interview, Flynn denied having telephone conversations with a Russian diplomat during the campaign. Flynn not only had those conversations, but in the conversations, Flynn asked the Russians not to react too strongly to the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration. The Russians knew Flynn had those conversations, making him subject to later blackmail should he be needed to advance Russian interests. His lies were clearly “material” to the agents’ investigation.

Trump’s second hand-picked Attorney General, William Barr, directed the case against Flynn be dismissed based upon a non-sensical claim that Flynn’s statements to the FBI were not “material” to their investigation. Barr believed the Flynn interview never should have taken place because the FBI was prepared to close the Russia investigation when the Flynn telephone contacts with the Russian ambassador became known.

Barr’s position is a perversion of the law and the process. Flynn twice swore under oath that he lied to the FBI agents about the conversations with the Russian ambassador when he pled guilty. His lawyers acknowledged that he committed the acts required for the offense before he pled guilty. Flynn agreed that he knew his lies were important when he made them.  Both Vice-President Pence and President Trump believed Flynn’s lies were important. They both said so and Trump fired Flynn for lying to Pence.

Since the government’s request that the case against Flynn be dismissed, there has been outrage from former career justice department prosecutors about the blatant politicization of this case in order to protect a presidential crony. Legal scholars have weighed in on how Attorney General Barr is turning the Justice Department into a weapon to be used against Trump’s enemies and a shield to protect Trump’s friends. Former Watergate prosecutors have urged the judge in Flynn’s case to deny the government’s request to dismiss the case and proceed to sentence Flynn. 

Under the Rules of Federal Criminal Procedure, the presiding judge has the power to grant or deny the government’s request to dismiss and gets to make the final determination whether the dismissal would be “in the interest of justice.” Usually when the prosecution and defense appear in court, both sides of the issues are fully aired and discussed. Here, those adversaries are united. Both want Flynn to walk out of court a free man. 

Judge Sullivan has taken the unusual step of appointing an independent lawyer to present arguments on the government’s request. He chose a retired federal judge and former federal prosecutor to provide the rest of the story by presenting evidence and legal arguments. He has also been asked to advise the court whether Flynn should be charged further with perjury for lying to the court when he admitted to commission of the crime when he pled guilty. It appears that Flynn cannot avoid that one given his current argument that he did not commit that crime after admitting under oath that he did in two earlier court hearings.

Whether Flynn walks free or goes to prison, the damage to the reputation of the United States Department of Justice that is tasked with seeking justice will take a huge hit. William Barr should heed the call of over 2,000 former federal career prosecutors and resign from his post before the damage from his politicization of the Department becomes permanent.

No time for partisan privilege

No time for privileged partisanship

Virus threatens us all, regardless of where partisan lines lie

Once again, we see the partisan divide rear its nasty head. This time it is about how we should confront the pandemic, but the underlying arguments are the same as they have always been. They boil down to local versus broader geographical control and white privilege.

Starting at the local level, moving on up to counties and then states and then countries, we hear leaders say they are best equipped to deal with the crisis, especially when it comes to allowing businesses to reopen.

I understand the arguments from individuals wanting to go back to work in order to feed themselves and their families. I understand the need of small-business owners to do the same. When I see the “reopen now” protesters’ signs and listen to them, their arguments seem to center not on their individual need to make a living, but on their desire for others to provide services to them such as a haircut or the ability to go shopping as they please. When I dig into large business arguments, I see the need for corporate profit. What we have is a worldwide problem. In our global community with its global economy and ease of international travel, what happens in one place will eventually have an impact every place. It is not as simple as closing national borders; we are too dependent on foreign supply chains for that to be a reality. That leaves us with the need for national leadership to address the problems within our national borders. Unfortunately, our president and his team have not been up to the task.

President Trump has used the pandemic to create his reelection campaign events. Where he could have enlisted the aid of scientists who understand the problem and are the best equipped to solve it, he delivered inconsistent and even conflicting messages that were sometimes life-threatening. Where he could have coordinated a national response to the shortages of personal protective gear for health care workers and first responders, he seized orders for the gear placed by states for a federal stockpile his son-in-law thought was for the federal government to have, not the states. When he could have implemented plans to reopen the economy that protected workers in essential and other endeavors, he left it to employers to look out for the welfare of their employees.

With the failure of our national leadership, each state has been left to its leaders elected to manage the crisis within their respective borders. In states with single-party control in at least two branches of government, responses have been comparatively effective to the extent that those plans have relied upon the advice of scientists and health care providers. Governors Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Larry Hogan, RMd., have all shown what effective and responsible leadership looks like and brought some measure of control to the spread of the virus in their states. States with responsible leaders are forming regional alliances in the West, Northeast and Midwest to coordinate uniform responses to help contain the spread of the virus.

In those states where governors and legislatures have been led by business interests and not science and health care, the virus continues to spread.

Within states like Wisconsin with divided government and a strong partisan divide, the problem becomes much clearer. We have a state where the virus is just about everywhere, but the numbers of people infected and the numbers of deaths are far greater in urban communities of color and places where hourly wage earners work shoulder to shoulder, like meat processors.

Those who live outside of these hotspots have not seen the impacts up close and personal, except on the news or if a friend or relative got sick. In this space of privilege, leaders feel comfortable opposing state-level controls and demanding local or regional control efforts more closely tailored to the needs and desires of their constituent populations.

Here in Kewaskum, our village president rails against outside control because our numbers are zero. He conveniently ignores Highway 45 that leads directly from urban Milwaukee through our village and those who will commute to the city if and when it reopens for business. We have county leaders who have penned their own blueprint for reopening and joined the lawsuit against Governor Evers’ statewide orders aimed at containing the spread. Their arguments are similar, noting our county’s numbers of those infected and those who have died are low so we should be allowed to move faster than other places to reopen for business. They, too, ignore the reality that what happens in Milwaukee or Kenosha or Jefferson or Brown or Dane County will eventually impact us here.

This is not a time for local, much less individual, control of the response to the virus. We are all in this together and unless we all work together to contain the spread, the virus will spread to all our communities, infecting and killing even those privileged to live in what are now relatively safe places.