Today is Tuesday, April 19, 2022. This is my last entry before heading to Los Angeles on a Delta flight where the now-former mask mandate enforced by the Biden administration has been quashed by a 33-year-old Dumpf appointee to the federal court in the waning days of the former president’s term as she was confirmed on November 18, 2020, by a straight party line vote of 49-41 by the Republican Senate, then controlled by “Bitch” McConnell. The American Bar Association (ABA) had labeled her “unqualified” in opposing her nomination because of her inexperience. Kathryn Kimball Mizelle – remember her name – was an intern while in law school at the time of her appointment. These startling facts are presented in an online article for RawStory by Ray Hartmann entitled “Trump-appointed judge lives up to her ‘not qualified’ bar rating with stunning ruling.”

Yesterday, the nation learned what could happen when an uncredentialled ideologue gets a federal judgeship for life. “She rocked the world of air and train travel by broadly banning mask mandates, punctuated by a false claim about masks that showed she was equally unqualified in public health.” She had the temerity to say that “Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” writing in her decision. As anyone who has worn a mask already knows, a mask neither “sanitizes” the person wearing the mask nor “sanitizes” the conveyance. So her statement here doesn’t make any sense at all. It shows that this young judge has no public health credentials at all.

Mizelle’s views on the efficacy of wearing a face covering are directly refuted by a recent international study that found masks play a “crucial role” in slowing virus spread, as reported last month at Science News. The Mayo Clinic also continues to state that “face masks combined with other preventive measures, such as getting vaccinated, frequent hand-washing, and physical distancing, can help slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the judge’s misguided ruling “disappointing.” Mizelle’s decision could be viewed as the product of the repugnican politicization of the judiciary as well as the pandemic.

In order to receive her lifetime confirmation, Mizelle checked off the right MAGA-world boxes before being confirmed. She had joined the Federalist Society. She had clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is embroiled in his own scandal involving his right-leaning wife. Her husband Chad Mizelle had served as chief of staff and acting general counsel in Dumpf’s Homeland Security Department.

After holding a job in the Dumpf Justice Department that involved supervising litigation handled by its Civil Rights division, Mizelle’s experience there prompted the Leadership conference on Civil and Human Rights to condemn her as “an ultraconservative ideologue” and a “Trump loyalist” who “worked to dismantle many critical civil-rights protections.”

What truly sets this judge apart from others is her confirmation at the age of 32 and its political timing that couldn’t be more unprecedented, as the Daily Beast reported at the time.

The true villain in this piece, “Bitch” McConnell, distinguished himself in continuing to confirm nominees of a lame-duck Senate after the sitting president had been defeated in the general election. This cynical timing was also nearly unheard of – until now.

This next fact, as reported by the Daily Beast, should really worry everyone, and that is that “Mizelle is the 227th Trump nominee confirmed to the federal bench – in what has been this administration’s real ‘operation warp speed’ – and the 10th to be found ‘not qualified’ by the ABA, a stigma that prior administrations sought to avoid and that Trump supporters treat as a badge of honor, evidence of Trump’s disruptive power.” It’s also evidence of Dumpf’s pathology, I believe.

For its part, the ABA did write a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee stating that the candidate for the judgeship had a “not qualified” label on her record and that Mizelle’s mere eight-year career as a lawyer at the time was a “rather marked departure” from its 12-year minimum standard for judges. The committee just ignored the reservations of the prestigious ABA and rammed her confirmation through nevertheless.

Now we can thank this inexperienced judge for making air travel a little less safe. This is yet another reason why we should have no faith in repugnican lawmakers ever again until the taint of Dumpf is scrubbed from their ranks forever! Now we just need the Justice Department to appeal this unsavory court ruling, especially if the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deems the mandate is still necessary to protect public health.

Anyway, I will still board my flight tomorrow with my white mask on, no matter what. I will be interested in seeing how many passengers will continue to wear their face masks. It might be a small number or I could be pleasantly surprised to see a substantial number of fliers wearing their masks at their seats. I’ll keep you posted.

So this is my last entry before Tuesday, April 26. I come back late Monday evening.

Have a few good days off.

Stay safe and be well.