Tag: Extremism

Another local chiropractor spreads dangerous misinformation about Covid prevention and treatment

Photo: YouTube, 2010

In October, 2021, the U.S. News and World Report revealed chiropractors are a major force stirring up anti-vaccine sentiment and spreading medical misinformation across the country in the pandemic. Often regarded as trusted health professionals, chiropractors who do this pose a potent threat to the public by hawking supplements as alternatives to vaccines, working to help people evade vaccine mandates, recommending unapproved and potentially toxic medication regimens to treat and prevent Covid, and abetting anti-vaccine movements at the local level.

That is certainly happening here in Grand Junction, too.

Redlands chiropractor spreads dangerous medical misinformation amid pandemic

In a video on his business web page under the heading “Covid Treatments,” Grand Junction chiropractor Ronald Engler of the Redlands Chiropractic and Wellness Center administers horse deworming medication to himself and encourages others to do the same to themselves, in violation of FDA guidance on use of the drug.

NOTE: This video has been banned on YouTube previously for posing a serious risk of egregious harm. It was uploaded again here for purposes of criticism in this article. We’ll see if it lasts.

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While some Grand Junction chiropractors are profiting from the pandemic by marketing proprietary dietary supplements that they falsely infer will prevent or treat Covid-19, others are using their credibility as health care providers to openly promote dangerous medical misinformation to the public.

One of these is Ronald W. Engler of the Redlands Chiropractic and Wellness Center.

Cindy Ficklin ends her run for HD-55

————————————————————————–Local realtor and right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin posted on her Facebook page Sunday, 12/26/21, that she was withdrawing from the race for the House District 55 seat. She filed to run on 10/18/21. Her candidacy lasted only about two months.

Ficklin

Far right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin announced on Sunday, 12/26, that she has withdrawn her candidacy for the Colorado House District 55 seat.

Ficklin made the announcement in one of her usual extended, emoji-laden posts sprinkled with misspellings. She expressed shock that she had been called anti-semitic during her campaign, especially by her Republican Jewish friends, and admitted she had been ignorant about long-time anti-semitic tropes like saying Jews controlled all the banks the world. She expressed disappointment that people called her “gun-toting” when she only owns only “a couple baby Glocks.”

Ficklin lamented that the media had referred to her as a “conspiracy theorist,” saying

“I call it being the f*cking resistance, assholes.”

Anti-mask, anti-vax Republican candidate for HD55 Cindy Ficklin has Covid-19, blames it on government

Cindy Ficklin announced on December 19 that she has Covid-19. Ficklin is a militantly anti-mask, anti-vaccination Republican known for spreading the ideas masks are symbols of oppression and vaccines contain “nanotechnology.”

Anti-mask, anti-vaccination candidate for HD-55 Cindy Ficklin (R-Mesa County) announced December 19 on Facebook that she has contracted Covid-19 and is blaming it squarely on the U.S. government.

Ficklin announced she had the disease after emerging from a 30 day ban from Facebook. Facebook has banned Ficklin numerous times for spreading lies and conspiracy theories on her page. Ficklin has repeatedly asserted without proof that the SARS CoV2 virus was created in a laboratory to target obese, elderly and unfit people; she has spread lies about vaccine deaths and about public health physician Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease, profiting personally from the virus.

New conservative school board members violate CO Open Meetings Law, make decisions in secret

Newly-elected D-51 School Board member Andrea Haitz promised transparency, but is violating open meetings laws and attempting to enact policy without public comment. At about 4:43 into the meeting video, after a suggestion that the Board could get more information about potential law firms to hire, Haitz says “There’s a certain point where you can get too much information.”

It took no time at all for the newly sworn-in District 51 School Board members to violate Colorado’s Open Meetings Law (pdf), violate their campaign promises of transparency, and indicate their willingness to spend excessive taxpayer funds for no clear reason, and they did it all in one breathtaking move they sprang on everyone a full four hours into their first board meeting December 14.

“Stand for The Constitution” is little more than Constitution theater

Comments under a video Stand for the Constitution posted of the Tina Peters Rally Dec. 1. The group blocks speech they don’t like from their Facebook page, showing they oppose the spirit of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution

“Stand for the Constitution,” (SFTC) a Mesa County group that claims to defend the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the integrity of local elections, has started blocking critics and deleting comments it doesn’t like from its public Facebook page while defending the only person in Mesa County who has ever publicly refused to count hundreds of legitimately-cast ballots: Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

The First Amendment of the Constitution makes it illegal for government to enact laws restricting freedom of speech and expression. Stand for the Constitution is a private group, not a government entity, so it has every right to block people from its social media pages. But despite claims that it exists to promote freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, SFTC blocks speech they do not want to acknowledge.

Response from a local citizen to Republican CO House 55 candidate Cindy Ficklin’s spreading anti-semitic tropes and misinformation on social media

Cindy Ficklin (Photo Credit: video by Stand for the Constitution)

On November 21, 2021, the Daily Sentinel published an article titled “Ficklin denies anti-Semitic leanings,” that examined statements and outrageous, unfounded claims made by Republican Colorado House Representative District 55 candidate Cindy Ficklin in her social media posts.

Ficklin’s writings included anti-semitic tropes about prominent Jews being “monsters in the shadows” who “control all the banks in the world.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) makes homophobic comments about Transportation Secretary Pete Butigieg taking parental leave to care for prematurely-born newborn twins

Colorado Republican House Rep. Lauren Boebert, has been lobbing homophobic comments at U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Butigieg at fundraisers, on television shows, and in a YouTube video of her own making that she calls “Bullet Points.”

Boebert berated Butigieg, the first openly gay person ever appointed to a cabinet-level position in the federal government, for taking parental leave to help care for his and his partners’ prematurely-born adopted twin babies.

CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) uses bigoted joke to disparage Democratic colleague

While speaking at a campaign event in Pueblo on Saturday, November 20, during Congress’ Thanksgiving break, Republican CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert made a bigoted, anti-Muslim joke at the expense of her Muslim colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), intimating Omar could be a suicide bomber if she was wearing a backpack.

Boebert told the crowd she had just entered an elevator at the Capitol when a Capitol Police security guard came running just up as the doors were closing. Boebert said she turned and saw Omar and said to the guard, “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine.”

According to Rep. Omar, Boebert lied about the scenario, because the incident never happened. Omar condemned “hateful and dangerous Muslim tropes,” saying they don’t belong in Congress.

CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert challenges wheelchair-bound House colleague to a sprint

In a light-hearted competition among the most extreme right wing Republican members of Congress to see who could glorify killer Kyle Rittenhouse the most after his acquittal this week, Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert (Republican-CO) turned down an arm-wrestling challenge and instead challenged her colleague, House Rep. Madison Cawthorn, to a sprint.

Rep. Cawthorn is in a wheelchair due to injuries sustained in a 2014 vehicle accident.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). Photo: Campaign web page

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters takes charges of election fraud conspiracy further in new video

Embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters doubled down on her wild, unfounded claims of election fraud in a “Thursday Night Patriot” Zoom call held November 18 that featured both her and Sherronna Bishop, just days after law enforcement executed legal searches on both their homes pursuant to ongoing criminal investigations into Mesa County’s compromised election equipment.

Bishop posted a recording of the hour-plus long Zoom call on her Facebook page. Over 100 attendees joined the call, and the video has had over 5,800 views. The video excerpt above is the roughly four minutes in which Tina Peters spoke.

House District 55 Candidate Cindy Ficklin ignored her first campaign finance filing deadline, incurring a $200 fine

Cindy Ficklin is already blowing off deadlines for filing campaign finance information and incurring hundreds in fines.

Republican conspiracy theorist Cindy Ficklin has already been delinquent in filing her first campaign finance disclosure, incurring a $200 fine.

Ficklin announced October 18 that she was running for Colorado House District 55 in retribution against the “leftist progressive liberals” at the school district who dared not appoint her to the open School Board seat left by Paul Pitton’s retirement.

Colorado law gives candidates 10 days after filing notice they are running for office to submit a Personal Financial Disclosure to the state.

Cindy Ficklin in now-deleted video where she announced she was running for House District 55 to get back at the School District for spurning her

On October 27, the day before it was due, the state sent Ficklin a courtesy reminder about the deadline to file the disclosure.

But the October 28 deadline to file it came and went without Ficklin filing anything.

Jimmy Kimmel convinces people videos posted by CO House Rep. Lauren Boebert are Saturday Night Live skits

On his late night TV show November 12, Jimmy Kimmel showed passers-by clips of actual videos posted by Colorado Republican House Representative Lauren Boebert, like Boebert’s “Fauci eats puppies alive” video, told them the videos were shown on Saturday Night Live last weekend and asked people if they thought SNL had too mean in lampooning her.

All said they thought SNL had gone too far.

Then Kimmel revealed the truth, that all the videos were actual videos of Boebert.

Commissioner Scott McInnis: Upcoming election will cost County $1 million

Election conspiracy theorists are an expensive bunch to lend any credence to, and humoring them is about to cost Mesa County taxpayers dearly.

At the County Commissioners’ meeting yesterday, Monday, October 25, 2021, Commissioner Scott McInnis let it spill how much County Clerk Tina Peters’ election conspiracy antics are going to cost County taxpayers in the upcoming election.

Hold onto your hats.

McInnis says the tab is going to be about $1 million.

ROLLING STONE: House Rep. Lauren Boebert participated in multiple planning meetings with organizers of Jan. 6 insurrection

Oct. 24 Rolling Stone article says Boebert participated in planning Jan. 6th events at the U.S. Capitol

According to an exclusive article published in Rolling Stone magazine October 24, 2021, two people who helped plan and organize the violent January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, and who have already spoken to the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection, have named members of Congress involved in planning the attack.

One of them was CD-3 House Representative Lauren Boebert, who represents Colorado’s western slope.

New voter guide from the Best Slope Leadership Project explains the issues and candidates in the Nov. 2, 2021 election

The home page of the Best Slope Leadership Project’s 2021 Voter Guide

A new local organization called Best Slope Leadership Project has a plain language voter guide to help Mesa County citizens decide how to vote in the upcoming November 2, 2021 election. The guide explains the state-wide ballot measures, local propositions and District 51 School Board races, and gives easy-to-understand rationales for recommended votes.

On its website, BestSlopeLeadership.org, the Project describes the local group “Stand for the Constitution,” which is backing a bloc of three candidates for school board. this way:

Rabid right wing extremist Cindy Ficklin announces she is running for State Representative for HD-55

Update Monday, 10/25/21: “Stand for the Constitution” has pulled the video of Cindy Ficklin declaring her run for the Colorado HD-55 Rep. seat. But and article in the Daily Sentinel also transcribed what Ms. Ficklin said in the video, including her statement that she decided to run for the seat because the school board didn’t pick her to replace Paul Pitton on school board. The Sentinel article is here.

Starting at minute 8:00 in a “Facebook Live” video posted yesterday by “Stand for the Constitution,” local rabid far right wing extremist and realtor Cindy Ficklin announced she is running for State Representative from House District 55, the seat currently held by Janice Rich, who plans on running for state Senate.

Ficklin tells viewers she filed for the seat because the District 51 School Board did not accept her as a finalist to be appointed to the Board.

My Pillow Guy appears with Sherronna Bishop at Garfield County School District RE-2 Board Meeting

Mike Lindell appears alongside election conspiracy theorist/anti-mask activist/Tina Peters defender Sherronna Bishop at a Wednesday, Oct. 13 Garfield County RE-2 School Board meeting held via Zoom

In a bizarre scene, “My Pillow guy” Mike Lindell made a cameo appearance alongside Rifle election conspiracist and Tina Peters defender Sherronna Bishop at a Zoomed Garfield County School District RE-2 Board Meeting on October 13.

Bishop appears about three minutes into the meeting, speaking during the public comment period and accusing School Board members of abusing children by “forcing medical devices on them.” She condemns the Board for how her “kid had to wear a mask to his homecoming dance” and how the students were “interrupted” by an adult at the dance who reminded students how to correctly wear their masks. Bishop accused the school board of “assaulting and abusing” children by having them wear masks for protection at school amid the pandemic.

After a member of the school board warns Bishop she has 30 seconds left to speak, a man wearing a shirt and tie moves into the frame with Bishop. He then bends down to where viewers can see his face, and it was the clear the man is Mike Lindell. One of the school board members can be heard in the background saying “Jesse, turn it off!”

As Bishop ends her comments, Lindell starts weighing in with the District RE-2 School Board, saying “There’s more science than you guys even know of” about masking, and “[inaudible] suicide and addiction…”

The school board then cuts the couple off, and lets a student present know that it is her turn to speak.
Video of the meeting is below: