Continuing with the week's theme...
Hailey Branson-Potts and Jessica Garrison writing for the LA Times:
As soon as Jon Knight applied for a seat on the Shasta Mosquito and Vector Control District board, the conspiracy theories started flying.
Knight, who owns a hydroponic gardening supply store in Redding, spoke darkly about his suspicion that Bill Gates had helped unleash genetically modified mosquitoes in California. And he warned about “flying syringes that will mass vaccinate the population.”
Knight was considered along with Donnell Ewert, a retired epidemiologist who once was the Northern California county’s public health director.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors chose Knight — a right-wing political activist who was pictured outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, holding what appeared to be a white power symbol.
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There are parts of California that have doubled down on their political conservatism in the face of the state’s largely Democratic bent — and then there is Shasta County.
Home to 182,000 people, the mostly rural county has long been governed by mainstream Republicans such as Rickert, a cattle rancher.
But there is a bitter divide in Shasta County between traditional conservatives and the far right, akin to Washington, D.C., where ultraconservatives led the revolt that just ousted California Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.
Hard-right politicians — supported by members of a local militia, State of Jefferson secessionists and residents furious about COVID-19 pandemic restrictions — hold a majority on the powerful Shasta County Board of Supervisors.
Earlier this year, the board voted to dump the county’s Dominion voting machines, citing discredited allegations of voter fraud pushed by President Trump, and moved to hand-count ballots for its more than 110,000 registered voters. The decision prompted new legislation — signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday and set to take effect immediately — that limits the ability of local governments to hand-count ballots.
Last year, the Board of Supervisors fired Karen Ramstrom, the county’s public health officer, for following state laws requiring masks and vaccinations during the pandemic.
The appointment of Knight to the vector control board is just the latest example of what many exasperated residents describe as Shasta County’s descent into a political sideshow.
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Knight said he recently got West Nile virus and was more sick than he ever had been.
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Anita Brady, a retired high-school biology teacher, said Knight’s appointment to the vector control board terrifies her.
“The fact that he’s been swayed by these conspiracy theories, evidently for years, doesn’t give me much hope for what’s going to happen with this board,” she said.
Brady, who lives a few miles east of Redding, said she just wants the mosquito threat to be taken seriously — with a science-based approach.
In August, one of Brady’s neighbors contracted West Nile virus from a mosquito bite and was paralyzed by the disease. After weeks in the hospital, Brady said, he recently returned home in a wheelchair, unable to walk.
* As with a few of these theories, the idea of using mosquitos for mass vaccination was not invented out of whole cloth, rather it is a highly speculative proposal that has been elevated to the level of a massive secret operation.
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