crane, eli Rep
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asshole mkultra 7 26 // burchett
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) questioned Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi, former Scientific Program Official for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on the lack of transparency the agency showed in explaining the origin of COVID-19 and how its role has contributed to Americans’ distrust in the federal government. He also questioned the relevancy of her presence at a hearing meant to examine MKULTRA.
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Far-right House Republicans are pushing to impeach federal judges, alleging “high crimes and misdemeanors” in response to rulings that opposed actions by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). One congressman denounced a judge as a “predator” and a “radical anti-LGBTQ activist,” while another argued that blocking DOGE reflected bias against Trump voters. A third asserted that Congress has the “authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people.”
Courthouse News reporter Benjamin S. Weiss notes that three federal judges have been targeted for impeachment by multiple members of Congress.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates
On Monday, *:{*U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles** (R-TN) made unsubstantiated accusations against Senior Judge John Bates, a Bush appointee serving on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.}: Judge Bates was also appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts to serve on the FISA Court and to serve as the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
READ MORE: ‘Axis of Evil’: U.S. Slammed for Voting with Russia, North Korea Against Ukraine at UN
“I just formally introduced articles of impeachment against RADICAL LGBTQ ACTIVIST U.S. District Judge John Bates. His attempt to block President Trump’s order to remove webpages containing resources for ‘gender-affirming care’ from government sites is appalling,” Congressman Ogles declared.
“At no point in American history has the judiciary considered the surgical or chemical castration of healthy children to be a compelling or even legitimate health concern and it shouldn’t start now,” he alleged, wrongly framing the judge’s actions. “We must protect our children from predators like Judge Bates.”
According to an extensive report in The Washington Post, however, Judge Bates had “ordered the nation’s premier health agencies to restore online access to several websites that monitor HIV, health risks for youths and assisted reproductive technologies, which were abruptly taken offline to ensure they complied with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on gender.”
Judge Bates wrote in his opinion: “By removing long relied upon medical resources without explanation, it is likely that … each agency failed to ‘examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.’”
The Post adds that Bates found “that the health agencies probably violated federal law in taking down the scientific data. He ordered the agencies to restore access to the websites.”
In a video posted to social media (below), however, Rep. Ogles insisted the webpages Bates ordered restored were about “transgender surgeries.” In a press release attacking Judge Bates, Ogles went even further in wrongly characterizing the judge’s actions.
“The continued socialization of this grave moral evil necessitates immediate Congressional action against those promoting it. America’s founders gave Congress the authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people,” Congressman Ogles falsely claimed. The founders did not give Congress authority to impeach judges to defend the will of the people. “My articles will do just that. It is unacceptable for rogue judges to implicate taxpayers in woke LGBTQ propaganda and the irreversible destruction of children’s bodies.”
U.S. District Chief Judge John “Jack” McConnell Jr.
**U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde** (R-GA) has “threatened to file articles of impeachment” against U.S. District Chief Judge John “Jack” McConnell Jr. who, Fox News reports, “filed a motion ordering the Trump administration to comply with a previous restraining order. The order temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts to pause federal grants and loans.”
READ MORE: Trump Mass Firings May Be ‘Contrary’ to Law, Watchdog Rules
According to Fox News, “McConnell has since come under fire from Trump supporters and conservatives who have accused him of being a liberal activist after a 2021 video of him saying courts must ‘stand and enforce the rule of law, that is, against arbitrary and capricious actions by what could be a tyrant or could be whatnot’ resurfaced online.”
WPRI reports that Musk wrote on X: “Impeach this activist posing as a judge! Such a person does great discredit to the American justice system,” and later, “Impeach this pseudo-jurist!!”
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer
Last week, **U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden** (R-WI) filed articles of impeachment alleging U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer “engaged in judicial misconduct when he halted President Donald J. Trump’s Executive order establishing and implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency on purely political grounds, demonstrating clear bias and prejudice against the President and the 74,000,000 Americans who voted for him.”
Congressman Van Orden also charged the judge with “improper handling” of that case.
Reporting on the articles of impeachment, Bloomberg Law noted that **U.S. Rep. Eli Crane** (R-AZ) is also filing to impeach Judge Engelmayer.
In a press release, Congressman Crane says Judge Engelmayer “responded to an overtly political emergency request by 19 Democratic attorneys general aiming to prevent Trump administration officials from accessing a payment system within the Treasury Department.”
Bloomberg reported that the “acts against Engelmayer come after Musk called for judicial impeachments, in response to judges issuing court orders that blocked many Trump administration actions.”
During Musk’s Oval Office press conference, President Trump, Axios reported, had said, “Maybe we have to look at the judges because I think that’s a very serious violation.”
But it was Vice President JD Vance who perhaps made the most waves when he wrongly claimed that federal judges “aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Watch Congressman Ogles’ video below or at this link.
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10/31/2024
by
Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona appeared on a podcast hosted by misogynistic right-wing pastor Mark Driscoll, where he seemingly identified himself as a Christian nationalist.
Crane urged Christians to become more politically engaged, warning that if they don't, the Democrats will maintain political power and soon declare Christians to be "enemies of the state."
"For you Christians out there that aren't engaging and you won't participate in politics, it's only a matter of time before you feel the pain and the ramifications of your choice to sit out," Crane warned. "This is something I really saw in the last cycle. It's something that a friend of mine, Steve Bannon—who runs the show 'War Room,' [he] used to be very influential [in] running Trump's campaign and whatnot—he definitely highlighted it and it wasn't him manufacturing it but he would constantly play clips from the left and the mainstream media attacking Christian nationals and our beliefs and our values and how we are the problem."
"If you play this out, if you are a visionary of any type you have to understand where this agenda on the left is going," he continued. "You see it with the transgenderism. You see it with border security. You see it in so many different areas, but if you hold to a biblical worldview and you're unwilling to budge, it's only a matter of time before you become the enemy of this state."
"If these people continue to stay in power, it's only a matter of time before you will be targeted," Crane stated.
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Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina and current lieutenant governor, is in trouble again.
Not just because Robinson has referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and a “perv,” expressed support for reinstating slavery, said he watched transgender pornography, called homosexuality “filth” and the Holocaust “hogwash,” and has asserted that “some folks need killing.”
He’s in trouble now because he blew off a vote on a declaration that would have granted Governor Roy Cooper key emergency powers ahead of Hurricane Helene’s landfall. Robinson was the only member on the Council of State — a board of nine — who didn’t vote in favor of the declaration. Cooper got the power he needed, but Robinson is now criticizing him for not doing more in the wake of the storm.
Yet Robinson still commands the support of 63 percent of Republicans in North Carolina, according to an East Carolina University poll released Wednesday.
Something seriously troubling has happened to the Republican Party. It’s become filled with wacko candidates for office who are being supported by large percentages of Republican voters.
The trend started in the 1980s with Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, which attracted a wide audience with a toxic mixture of lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and thinly veiled racism.
It accelerated in 1996 when Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to emulate Limbaugh with a new TV channel, Fox News. Additional media imitators followed.
The growing supply of this poison offered the (predominantly) white working-class an easy explanation for why the wages and status of many blue-collar men had hit the skids: They could blame immigrants, Black people, Latinos, “coastal elites,” government bureaucrats, pedophiles, women, secularists, Muslims, liberals, Democrats, and Satan.
In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich saw an opportunity to build the Republican Party around similar lies and conspiracy theories. Gingrich’s efforts attracted the first group of modern crackpot candidates into the GOP.
Starting in 2016, Trump attracted another group, even wackier than the previous one.
It’s become a doom loop. As both the demand and the supply of these lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and racism have grown, the Republican Party’s base has ventured farther from reality. Meanwhile, sane Republicans have left, reasonable people have drifted away, and normal Republican officials have been purged or voted out.
If Trump loses the 2024 election, the Republican Party won’t change, because its base is filled with this poison. So it will continue to attract more crackpot candidates loaded with even more venom; it will nominate them, and some of them will win.
In the current election cycle, the poison doesn’t begin or end with Trump. It includes a Republican vice presidential candidate who calls women who choose not to have children “childless cat ladies,” claims Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, won’t concede that Trump lost the 2020 election, and won’t commit to be bound by the outcome of the 2024 election.
It’s produced a slew of Republican candidates for Congress saying similar things. In Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown’s Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, is parroting the same racist lies about Haitian immigrants.
In Arizona, the Republican candidate for Senate, Kari Lake, has denied the outcome of the 2020 election, tried to overturn the governor’s race she lost in 2022, appeared at QAnon and white nationalist-tied events, and has a history of violent rhetoric.
Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia has called abortion “elective surgery” and compared it to a “Hollywood nose job.”
Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who was at Trump’s January 6 rally and appears to have been among the insurrectionists who breached police barricades at the Capitol, calls abortion “genocide.”
Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane is promoting conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts on Trump — blaming a mole within Trump’s Secret Service detail and saying that the FBI can’t be trusted to “give us the truth”; that the shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania, didn’t act alone; and that the gunman behind the second attempt is an “asset” of a foreign adversary — despite evidence contradicting all these theories.
Back in North Carolina, Michele Morrow, the current Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, has been warning voters about a network of child traffickers and pedophiles that, she says, torture and kill children to harvest their blood for an anti-aging elixir known as adrenochrome.
Morrow says the plus sign in LGBTQ+ “includes PEDOPH*L*A!!” She claims that transgender therapy is “a disgusting plan of Big Pharma to make our children unable to reproduce” and that the World Health Organization has been using vaccines to sterilize people and kill children. She says Satan is “in cahoots” with Democrats, globalists, the “one world order,” the United Nations, China, and Russia “to take down the United States of America.”
Morrow discourages parents from sending their kids to public schools, which she refers to as “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers.” She was on the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021, and proposed then that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, which, she said, “completely puts the Constitution to the side and says, ‘Now the military rules all.’”
Despite all this, Morrow has an even chance to become the state’s top educator. A poll by Raleigh-based WRAL last month found that she is in a statistical tie with her Democratic opponent.
You see the problem. When the base of one of our two political parties both fuels and is fueled by crackpots, some of those crackpots get elected.
The only way forward is with an entirely new Republican Party that rejects and detoxifies the old one and puts an end to this doom loop. Will Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and some as yet unknown young politicians lead the way?
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When 2024 arrived, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was gone from Congress. McCarthy was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2006 midterms, but after being ousted as speaker in October 2023, he obviously lost his desire to remain a congressman. And instead of serving out the rest of his term, McCarthy made December 31 his final day in the House.
According to Politico reporters Ally Mutnick and Olivia Beavers, McCarthy and his allies are planning revenge against the Republicans who are responsible for him being ousted as speaker.
Far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) triggered a "motion to vacate" that led to a full House vote on McCarthy, and seven Republicans joined Gaetz in voting to oust him as speaker. Collectively, they are known as the "Gaetz Eight" on Capitol Hill, and Mutnick and Beavers report that McCarthy ally Brian O. Walsh is "overseeing an attempt to recruit primary challengers" against them.
"Behind the scenes," the Politico journalists report in an article published on February 1, "McCarthy allies have identified three of the Gaetz Eight as the most vulnerable in primaries — and thus, the ripest targets: Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Bob Good (R-Va.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.). Mace and Good already have strong challengers, but Crane still lacks a compelling prospective candidate to take him on. That quiet work shows McCarthy's appetite for payback remains intense, even months after his October ouster as speaker and December departure from Congress."
Mutnick and Olivia Beavers continue, "It also illustrates that even out of office, the former speaker and his supporters can make life miserable for his detractors — a further sign that the House GOP power struggle between burn-it-down hardliners and more establishment conservatives is alive and well."
Walsh's thirst for revenge was evident in a statement to Politico.
The McCarthy ally said of the Gaetz Eight, "These traitors chose to side with Nancy Pelosi, AOC and over 200 Democrats to undermine the institution, their fellow Republicans and a duly elected speaker. There must be consequences for that decision.”
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// Arizona Republicans convene a COVID hearing chock full of misinformation — again - Alternet.org
an 10 23 no lnx
Arizona Republicans convene a COVID hearing chock full of misinformation — again
Jerod Macdonald-Evoy, Arizona Mirror
October 21, 2023
For the second time in five months, Republican state lawmakers listened intently and offered no pushback during a day-long special hearing at the Arizona Senate billed as examining the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that was instead rife with conspiracy theories, misinformation and fear-mongering around vaccines and public health.
In May, the Novel Coronavirus Southwestern Intergovernmental Committee featured testimony from a group of supposed health experts who spread myriad misinformation about vaccines and the pandemic during the committee’s time. On Friday, the committee convened again, bringing some of the same people to speak.
The committee had previously faced criticism for its awkward name, which has been promoted in abbreviated form by the QAnon-friendly political nonprofit The America Project. The abbreviated name, NCSWIC, is a commonly used abbreviation in the QAnon world, where it means “Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming,” alluding to predictions of arrests and executions of members of the “deep state.”
Although the official name of the panel spells the word “southwestern” correctly, the committee was listed as “NCSWIC” on the Arizona Legislature’s website and the abbreviation was used by outside boosters.
The Republican elected officials on the panel were state Sens. T.J. Shope and Janae Shamp, the chair and vice-chair, respectively, of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee; state Rep. Steve Montenegro, who chairs the state House of Representatives’ Health and Human Services Committee; and U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs, Eli Crane and Paul Gosar.
While the state legislators were in attendance, Biggs, Crane and Gosar only appeared electronically and delivered pre-recorded video addresses. All three were in Washington, D.C., Friday as Republicans are locked in a fight over who should lead the U.S. House of Representatives.
“It’s disheartening to see Arizona’s elected officials once again provide a platform for spreading dangerous disinformation about vaccines for children,” Becky Christensen, founder and state campaigns director of SAFE Communities Coalition, the nation’s first pro-vaccine political advocacy organization, said in a statement to the Arizona Mirror. “Public health should be guided by fact-based information, not misinformation. Their actions undermine efforts to safeguard our communities.”
Christensen added that lawmakers should seek “responsible and informed discourse” to help better guide public health decisions.
Misinformation returns
Dr. Peter McCoullough once again boldly proclaimed that the COVID-19 virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. There is no consensus on the origin of the virus.
McCoullough is known for spreading unfounded claims, especially around the origins of the virus. He previously has stated that he believed the pandemic was “planned” and has promoted the QAnon conspiracy film “Plandemic.”
McCoullough has become a darling to those in both QAnon and the broader conspiracy world, appearing regularly on shows like the one hosted by conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, who said the COVID vaccine is a “bioweapon.” Peters also was behind multiple QAnon conspiracy documentaries that made dubious claims about the vaccine, including that it included snake venom.
McCoullough has also appeared on disgraced retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s “Reawaken America” tour, where he has denounced drag shows and gender identity issues.
During Friday’s hearing, McCoullough spread even more falsehoods around COVID-19 and vaccine efficacy.
“It is called ‘turbo cancer’ for a reason,” McCoullough said, adding that he believes it is “theoretically possible” that multiple vaccines “could be related to cancer.”
The term “turbo cancer” comes from people who have spread false information about the COVID vaccine, attempting to link it to an aggressive form of cancer. There is no established link between the vaccine and cancer, and studies have found either no association or found a decreased risk of lymphoma.
McCoullough also continued to spread a false claim that 17 million people have been killed by the vaccine. The notion comes from a highly flawed analysis of data claiming that mortality rates were spiking because of the vaccine. McCoullough also spread other similar claims, such as saying that more than 500,000 people in the United States were killed by the vaccine, an idea based on a misrepresentation of United Kingdom data.
And McCoullough appeared to make claims that alluded to a conspiracy theory widely adopted by QAnon adherents, which was featured in a discredited film, claiming that blood clots found in people’s bodies were caused by the COVID vaccine.
The film, “Died Suddenly,” suggests it is all part of a shadowy plot to depopulate the world. But experts who have examined the film’s claims have said that many of the clots appear to be post-mortem clots. Cases of clots caused by the vaccine are “very rare,” according to one study that found only approximately 1,000 cases out of 2 million. The movie also featured incidents that occurred before the pandemic in 2020, but presented them as consequences of vaccination.
A member of the panel also has a direct connection to the conspiracy film.
Dr. Peter Chambers, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, appears in the film speaking about the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database, or DMED, which he claimed showed a spike in medical conditions in the military which he attributed to COVID-19 vaccines.
Chambers’ claim has been debunked since 2021 by multiple fact-checkers.
The former military doctor is also a believer in the debunked conspiracy theory that 5G cellular technology is connected to the COVID-19 virus. Chambers also was part of a failed lawsuit seeking to prevent the military from implementing a COVID vaccine mandate.
Chambers’ presentation to the committee included a slide that referred to the “globalists.”
The globalist conspiracy theory is a far-right conspiracy theory with roots in antisemitism and is also often connected to the idea of a “New World Order” and a one-world government, most often with the Jewish people at the center of the conspiracy. Peters, the conspiracy theory talk show host and the man behind “Died Suddenly,” frequently works with antisemites and white supremacists. Chambers has also been supported by the America Project, which boosted the hearing and helped fund the Arizona Senate’s partisan “audit” of the 2020 election.
Also returning to the committee was Aaron Siri, an attorney who is most well known for his work with an organization called the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN.
ICAN has been on the frontlines of anti-vaccine misinformation and is led by Del Bigtree, a television and film producer who has become an anti-vaccine activist. ICAN was listed as one of the “key organizations” tied to the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s “The Disinformation Dozen,” the anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about COVID vaccines. Chambers mentioned that he worked with Bigtree on anti-vaccine issues.
Siri claimed that “you can’t say vaccines have reduced chronic health issues” among children.
“I’m not saying vaccines cause those,” he said, sharing a misleading claim on chronic illness in children. “Something is definitely going on.”
The committee also heard from Arizona resident Calli Varner, who claimed that she had a stroke due to the COVID vaccine.
Varner had an ischemic stroke when a blood-clot made its way to her brain. Strokes have been on the rise in younger populations, with doctors theorizing that one cause could be patent foramen ovale, which is present in between 24 to 40% of the population and generally goes unnoticed.
Varner told the committee that she has had various health problems develop, including an autoimmune issue, since she got vaccinated. McCoullough said he had been consulting with the Scottsdale resident about her experience and used the opportunity to say that strokes, infertility and immune disorders are being caused by the vaccine.
Studies have shown that those who contracted COVID-19 have an increased risk of stroke, while those who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and did not contract COVID -19 have “no difference in stroke risk.” There is also no evidence that the vaccine causes infertility and no conclusive evidence to suggest a link between the vaccine and autoimmune disorders.
McCoullough also once again spoke about the scientifically unsound plan to help people remove spike proteins from people’s bodies.
Shamp, a former nurse who has claimed she was fired because she refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine, came up with the idea for the hearing and those in attendance applauded her for putting it together.
Shamp, who was present during the events of Jan. 6, has spread a multitude of QAnon conspiracy theories online for years, including a post with “NCSWIC” in it. Shamp said at the end of the hearing Friday that another one will be happening “sometime in December.”
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
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arizona Senate Republicans began a two-day convening of hearings Thursday morning centered around "supposed 'atrocities' committed by public health officials in response to the Covid-19 pandemic," Rolling Stone reports.
Planned by the newly formed Novel Coronavirus South Western Intergovernmental Committee (NCSWIC), "the QAnon-inflected, anti-vaccine circus" according to Rolling Stone, will involve "appearances from a murderers' row of hard-right federal congressmen, including Reps. Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Eli Crane."
Additionally, the publication reports "The NCSWIC committee will take testimony from a panel of notorious doctors who have touted unproven and discredited treatments for Covid — includingone doc who preaches that Covid public-health restrictions were, in fact, 'Satan's Wholistic Health Care Plan.'"
READ MORE: 'Duct tape people to a tree!' Arizona GOP goes further off the rails
In 2021, according to AZCentral, Arizona State GOP Senator Ron Johnson tweeted a false claim saying, "in England, more vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals are succumbing to the disease."
Additionally, Arizona Republican Party Chair Dr. Kelli Ward retweeted the claim.
AZCentral reported, "According to the latest studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention individuals who are unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated," adding, "Likewise, vaccinated individuals are five times less likely to get infected and 10 less likely to end up in the hospital if they do."
Furthermore, the publication added "As factcheckers at Reuters concluded, 'Suggestions that higher numbers vaccinated individuals are dying in England than unvaccinated omits context that most of the population has been vaccinated. Evidence shows that COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death.'"
Per Rolling Stone, State Senate president pro tempore T.J. Shope insisted in a "teaser video" for the hearings, he and fellow state GOP leaders would "expose all the atrocities committed during the pandemic response, and Senator Janae Shamp added "she lost her" nursing "job for refusing to take the 'jab,'" claiming "lives and livelihoods were lost for no other reason than horrific government overreach."
READ MORE: How far-right MAGA conspiracy theorists are causing a 'near-civil war within the Arizona GOP': report
Refusing to elaborate further on the "atrocities" claim, Shope said, "Many of our citizens have had an evolution of thought on the pandemic — myself included. And that is why I believe it's so important for those of you feeling this way to tune in. You're not alone."
"Appealing directly to the mindset of conspiracy theorists," according to Rolling Stone, "the NCSWIC hearings promise to reveal hidden truths about the dark reality of the medical establishment, and implore viewers to trust their guts over mainstream scientific evidence."
Furthermore, Rolling Stone reports:
A look at the 'expert panelists' engaged by the committee does not reveal a lineup of overt QAnon proponents. But it shows the NCSWIC committee’s abiding interest in unproven cures and treatments for Covid, as well as the unhinged belief that public health interventions to curb the pandemic were more harmful than the disease itself, which has killed more than a million Americans.
Rolling Stone also notes:
In recent years, QAnon has transcended its origin story, and now lives on as a belief system for nearly anyone who believes that the world is run by nefarious, powerful forces who pose as virtuous, but are actually pure evil, whether they be in government, Big Tech or, specifically, Big Pharma.
READ MORE: 'Unqualified handover': Arizona AG sues Republican county for giving GOP recorder election power
Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link (subscription required).AZCentral's report is here. no lnx
Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party and (according to her website) still a practicing physician, has joined fellow high profile Republicans whose aim, it seems, is to put as many members of the GOP as possible in…the morgue.
Over the weekend Ward retweeted something from Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the most ardent anti-vaccine misinformation spreaders in the land.
Here is the bottom line.
According to the latest studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention individuals who are unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are vaccinated. Likewise, vaccinated individuals are five times less likely to get infected and 10 less likely to end up in the hospital if they do.
The science is clear. The numbers don’t lie.
What about 'first do no harm'?
Given that, you’d think that high ranking members of a political party would do everything in their power to protect their voters by encouraging them to get vaccinated.
And you’d particularly think that of a physician.
But, no.
Sen. Johnson published a tweet speaking about how, in England, more vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals are succumbing to the disease.
What he doesn’t point out is that a vast majority of that country has been vaccinated, so such a statistic shouldn’t be surprising. He also doesn’t point out that many more individuals would be dying if so many of England’s citizens weren’t vaccinated.
As factcheckers at Reuters concluded, “Suggestions that higher numbers vaccinated individuals are dying in England than unvaccinated omits context that most of the population has been vaccinated. Evidence shows that COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death.”
Still, Johnson published his tweet and Ward retweeted it.
As a result of conspiracy-driven misinformation like this there is an excellent chance that more Republicans will follow the apparent guidance of their leaders and…die.
Polls already show that the most unvaccinated group of individuals in the United States are members of the GOP, particularly those who were big supporters of former President Donald Trump.
I thought Kelli Ward liked those people.
Unvaccinated encourage new mutation
As for those who say we shouldn’t care if Dr. Ward transforms herself into Dr. Death, that we shouldn’t care about the unvaccinated, or who say the unvaccinated are only hurting themselves, I would defer to Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's preventive medicine residency program.
He said, "There’s no question that people who are unvaccinated are the main contributor to the continued transmission of COVID-19 and every transmission presents an opportunity for the virus to mutate to a more contagious and more lethal variant."
Not politics. Science.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
lijah James Crane (born January 3, 1980)[1] is an American politician and businessman elected as the U.S. representative from Arizona's 2nd congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Crane served in the United States Navy SEALs and co-founded Bottle Breacher, a company that manufactures bottle openers made of 50-caliber shell casings. In the 2022 election, Crane defeated incumbent Democrat Tom O'Halleran.[2]
Early life and education
Crane was born in Tucson, Arizona, and raised in Yuma.[3] His father worked as a pharmacist. Crane graduated from Cibola High School in 1998 and studied sociology at Arizona Western College and the University of Arizona. One week after the September 11 attacks, he dropped out of college and enlisted in the United States Navy.[4][5]
Career
Crane served in the U.S. Navy from 2001 to 2014.[6] He graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training BUD/S class 256.[7] After SEAL Qualification Training (SQT), he received the NEC 5326 as a Combatant Swimmer (SEAL), entitled to wear the Special Warfare Insignia. During his career, he was a member of the United States Navy SEALs and was deployed five times.[8] After leaving the military, Crane co-founded Bottle Breacher, a company that manufactures bottle openers made of 50-caliber shell casings. He and his wife pitched the product on an episode of Shark Tank and received investments from Kevin O'Leary and Mark Cuban.[9][10]
U.S. House of Representatives
2022 election
Main article: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Arizona § District 2
During his 2022 campaign for Arizona's 2nd congressional district, Crane was endorsed by Donald Trump.[11] Crane additionally accepted the endorsement of far-right state senator Wendy Rogers before the date of the primary election.[12][13] Crane won the August Republican primary, defeating state representative Walter Blackman and others.[14] Crane promoted the false conspiracy theory that there were "massive amounts of fraud" in the 2020 United States presidential election. Crane called upon the Arizona State Legislature to decertify Joe Biden's victory in the state, and for the Attorney General of Arizona to launch a criminal investigation into alleged voter fraud.[15][16]
Tenure
Crane did not support Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker, and was one of six Republicans to vote against him on every ballot in the 2023 election.[17][18] In the 15th and final round of voting, Crane dropped his support for a different candidate and voted "present".[19]
Syria
In 2023, Crane was among 47 Republicans to vote in favor of H.Con.Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.[20][21]
Committee assignments
For the 118th Congress:[22]
Caucus memberships
- Freedom Caucus[23]
Personal life
Crane is Protestant.[24]
:{Representative Crane:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-optical-sizing:inherit;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;font-variation-settings:inherit;vertical-align:top;display:inline-block;max-width:100%;white-space:nowrap;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis"):}:
Congressman Eli Crane is currently serving his first term in Congress. Born and raised in Arizona, Eli Crane has the privilege of serving as the U.S. Representative for Arizona's Second Congressional District. A week after the September 11 th attacks, Rep. Crane left college during his senior year at the University of Arizona to enlist in the ...
- ### About
Born and raised in Arizona, Eli Crane has the privilege of serving as the U.S. Representative for Arizona's Second Congressional District. A week after the September 11 th attacks, Rep. Crane left college during his senior year at the University of Arizona to enlist in the U.S. Navy. During his 13 years in military service, he participated in five wartime deployments - serving three with ...
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2001-2014. Unit. United States Navy SEALs. Elijah James Crane (born January 3, 1980) [1] is an American politician and businessman elected as the U.S. representative from Arizona's 2nd congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Crane served in the United States Navy SEALs and co-founded Bottle Breacher, a company ...
li Crane (Republican Party) is a member of the U.S. House, representing Arizona's 2nd Congressional District. He assumed office on January 3, 2023. His current term ends on January 3, 2025.
Crane (Republican Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Arizona's 2nd Congressional District. He won in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Crane completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Eli Crane was born in Tucson, Arizona. Crane served in the United States Navy from 2001 to 2014.[1][2] His career experience includes co-founding and co-owningBottle Breacher.[3]
Committee assignments
U.S. House
2023-2024
Crane was assigned to the following committees::{[Source]:(style="box-sizing:border-box;position:relative;vertical-align:baseline;top:-0.5em"):}:
- Committee on Homeland Security
- Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence
- Oversight, Management, and Accountability
Elections
2022
See also: Arizona's 2nd Congressional District election, 2022
General election for U.S. House Arizona District 2
Eli Crane defeated incumbent Tom O'Halleran and Chris Sarappo in the general election for U.S. House Arizona District 2 on November 8, 2022.
| Candidate | % | Votes | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔ |  | Eli Crane (R)  | 53.9 | 174,169 |
 | Tom O'Halleran (D) | 46.1 | 149,151 | |
 | Chris Sarappo (Independent) (Write-in) | 0.0 | 76 |
 | Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source | Total votes: 323,396 |
|---|---|---|
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. | = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. | = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. |
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. |
| Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. |
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Arizona District 2
Incumbent Tom O'Halleran advanced from the Democratic primary for U.S. House Arizona District 2 on August 2, 2022.
| Candidate | % | Votes | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✔ | | Tom O'Halleran | 100.0 | 71,391 |
| Incumbents are bolded and underlined. Source | Total votes: 71,391 |
|---|---|---|
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. | = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. | = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connectionsurvey. |
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. |
| Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. |
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Randall Friese (D)
Republican primary election...