“Not qualified” judge strikes down mask mandate on domestic flights
This post is as much about the requirements to hold political and judicial positions at the federal level as much as the revocation of the mask mandate on domestic flights and other public transport.
Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who was deemed by the American Bar Association “not qualified“, was pushed through by the GOP-led Senate and appointed to the 11th circuit district court of Florida very late in the Trump presidency after he had already lost the election to the current President Joe Biden. At the time of her appointment, she had literally never tried a case, either civil or criminal, and only served internships, notably with SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, which given recent revelations about Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas is not high praise. In short, Ginni Thomas was an active participant in the attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election, Justice Thomas should have recused himself from ruling on anything related to the 2020 presidential election, due to a clear conflict of interest, but didn’t.
Mizelle is the 10th “not qualified” nominee to be appointed to the federal court during Trump’s four years as President of the United States. Clearly, the federal court system is broken, when Judges are appointed based on ideology, and partisanship, not experience, qualifications, or impartiality.
US District Judge Mizelle ruled on Monday, 4/18 that President Biden’s federal facemask mandate be revoked, with immediate effect for airplanes and other transportation, stating such gems as “Wearing a mask cleans nothing,”, and “At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither sanitizes the person wearing the mask nor sanitizes the conveyance”. Ignoring the science of how wearing a mask significantly reduces the chances of transmission, but Republicans don’t care about such things as the truth, facts, and science.
The right-wing is acting like the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the evidence says otherwise, although they’d say that the current rate of deaths and infections is an acceptable risk. The 7-day average for new infections is 38,482, with over 60,000 reported yesterday, April 18, 2022, while the 7-day average for Coronavirus deaths is 471 in the same period of time, with a peak of 994 within that week in the US.
The bigger issue I feel is the minimal standards required to hold federal office. Trump was elected to the highest office in the United States without any political experience, never holding any sort of political office, at the federal, state, or city level prior to taking up residence in the White House. And, that inexperience showed time and time again during his tenure in Washington DC. The same is true of Mizelle, being handed a lifetime appointment to the federal court without ever trying a single case as a lawyer, with her only legal experience being as an intern, and is now ruling and life and death issues.