Before writing the decision that killed Gov. Evers' virus-controlling "Safer-at-Home" order extension, right-wing Wisconsin State Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack had opined during case argument
that the spread of COVID-19 in hot-spot and populous Brown County was not a problem for the area's "regular folks.
"It's elitist, and it's racist," said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera, noting that a high percentage of workers at meatpacking plants are minorities and immigrants.
It was fashionable at the time among state right-wing 'leaders,' like Wisconsin GOP Assembly Speaker-and do-nothing-power-grabbing Robin Vos that immigrants without regular 'ole American cultural standards - and not their low-wage-front-line working conditions - had brought on their own COVID-19 suffering.
So "R" these days in Wisconsin is shorthand for Republican and regular, and "D" stands for Democratic, and disposable, too.
But what of all that deplorable rightist disease dismissiveness now, since it's probably safe to say some of Roggensack's regular folks in Brown County and elsewhere across Wisconsin are caught up in Wisconsin's nationally-significant COVID-19 spike which is third most-intense among the 50 states, data show.
Brown County last week had the state's highest case rate increase of COVID-19 per 100,000 residents data show, and more than 8,600 cases in all.
Anybody who thinks Brown County, which includes Green Bay, has a handle on the virus spread there is living in a state of denial.
Which is where Vos and his Republicans legislative majorities actually live, since they continue to refuse to take any positive COVID-19 action, or even convene to address other serious matters, like justice and policing reform or gun violence.
Here's a fact and story from July 26 exactly two months ago which awards Republicans a third "R" designation - reprehensible -
It’s been 100 days since the Legislature met in session and passed an initial response to COVID-19.
- while they enjoy something else hundreds of thousands of regular Wisconsin folks haven't seen spring - months of unbroken state-provided salaries and benefits amounting to quite the paid pandemic vacation.
More Brown County data, here:
