House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced the selection on Tuesday for the new Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic: Republicans who spread dangerous misinformation about COVID-19, compared wearing face masks to the Holocaust, and suggested the omicron variant. of the deadly virus is a Democratic hoax.
“118 districtTh Congress marks a new beginning for this institution,” McCarthy said in a statement announcing the selections for this subcommittee. “The Republican agenda will be based on transparency, accountability, and solutions.”
They’re not wrong that this is a fresh start: It’s a new infusion of bonkers at the top of the House panel charged with overseeing the government’s response to the COVID pandemic. Subcommittees are always destined to become reality TV rather than legitimate policymaking; McCarthy gave many high committee seats to extremists to secure votes for the speaker. But in this case, his appointment was just a laugh.
His picks for the coronavirus panel include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was routinely fired from Twitter for spreading COVID misinformation to hundreds of thousands of people in violation of company policy at the time.
Greene has postponed to July 2021 when they claim COVID-19 is harmless unless you are obese or over 65 years old. suspended again a month later when he mistakenly delivered a “failed” COVID vaccine. They permanently banned in January 2022 after falsely tweeting about the “extremely high number of Covid vaccine deaths.” (Twitter reinstated the account in November 2022 after Elon Musk took over the site.)
Greene also compared having to wear masks on the house floor to the Holocaust.
“You know, we can look back in history when people were ordered to wear gold stars, and they were always treated like second-class citizens, so they were put on trains and taken to the gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” he in May 2021. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”
Georgia’s firebrand comments came at a time of the pandemic when more than 100 House Republicans refused to say they had been vaccinated, prompting Speaker Pelosi to keep the mask mandate to the House floor.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), former physician to presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, was also tapped for the House coronavirus panel. In November 2021, he claimed the omicron variant of COVID was a Democratic hoax to justify new ballot rules — a version of a right-wing conspiracy theory that President Joe Biden and public health officials acted on COVID to boost Democrats. “district election prospect.
“Here comes the MEV – Midterm Election Variant! They need an excuse to push ballots around the country they don’t want,” Jackson tweeted, refers to omicron. “Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during the election – but we won’t allow it!”
In July 2020, in the early and deadliest period of the pandemic, Jackson called wearing a mask “Personal choice.” His comments at the time not only contradicted the universal guidance of public health experts, but also undermined another Texas Republican, Governor Greg Abbott, who ordered that most citizens in the state wear masks.
A staunch Trump ally, Jackson tweeted Tuesday that he can’t wait to work on the new subcommittee, where “Every CLASS used to lock you up will be dug up.”
McCarthy’s other GOP picks for the COVID subcommittee include Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa), sing spread false information about the CDC planning to order the COVID vaccine for children and about children not affected by COVID; Rep. Michael Cloud (Texas), who in March 2020 vote against The Family COVID Response Act, which provides emergency funding for free COVID testing and paid leave for workers affected by the pandemic; Rep. John Joyce (Pa.), who file a bill to prevent the government from issuing standardized COVID vaccine status cards; and Rep. Rich McCormick (Ga.), an ER doctor who spreading wrong information about masks and the COVID vaccine.
The good news about the new subcommittee, about GOP members with credibility, is that very few voted to throw out the results of the 2020 presidential election based on the same lies that fueled the attempted coup in the Capitol on January 1. 6, 2021.
Of the nine Republicans tapped for this panel, six tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of presidential power that day: Reps. Nicole Malliotakis (NY), Debbie Lesko (Ariz.), Cloud, Joyce, Greene and Jackson.
The other three GOP members of the committee are Miller-Meeks, McCormick and Chairman Brad Wenstrup (Ohio).