Roger Marshall left little doubt who’s to blame for a number of issues facing the country.
Kansas’s junior U.S. Senator was in Iola Monday for a town hall meeting. The Republican rattled off a laundry list of complaints, from rising gas prices to the opioid pandemic, that, in his opinion, are the fault of President Joe Biden.
“Anybody in the room concerned about inflation?” he asked at the start. “Concerned about the price of gasoline? Concerned about the southern border and lawlessness in this nation? National security and the direction the president has taken us as far as foreign policy standpoint?
“I never would have imagined we’d be in the situation we’re in,” he said.
When prodded by one attendee, Marshall said he was frustrated, “but I’m good. I’m solid. There are so many people praying for me. I do feel like I have a shield in my right hand, and a breastplate of righteousness.”
With that prologue out of the way, Marshall fielded questions from a group of about 15 like-minded Allen Countians. And while such topics as infrastructure spending and an investigation into meat packers suspected of fixing beef prices were mentioned, the bulk of the discussion focused on the ongoing ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s time to go back to normal,” Marshall said. “It’s time to live with (COVID) and not in fear of it. Americans are scared to death.”
With the surging omicron variant, a highly contagious, but milder version of COVID-19 spreading across
the country, it’s time to put COVID-19 in the same category as other illnesses, the senator said.
“The virus at this point is not that much different than the common cold or flu,” he said, lambasting the Centers for Disease Control for focusing too much on testing and vaccines, and not enough on therapeutics. He also faulted the CDC, Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci for pushing for asymptomatic Americans to be tested at all.
“I’m all about local control,” Marshall said. “Maybe it does make sense to keep kids out of school when omicron is peaking, maybe a week or two, but not for months,” though that has not been suggested locally now that vaccines are available.
He encouraged Americans to get vaccines, but said those decisions should be made between people and their doctors.
Mandates have aggravated a shortage of healthcare professionals, Marshall continued, alleging many doctors and nurses have left their jobs in opposition to getting vaccinated.
Marshall also tied opioid deaths, suicides and other psychological problems with the federal response to the pandemic.
“You’re making people wear masks, kicking people out of school, people are not going to work,” he said. More people are dying of opioids than COVID. Why doesn’t the CDC understand that? We’re causing more problems than good.”
(An aside. According to the CDC, deaths due to drug overdose total 932,364 for the last 20 years. In the last two years, more than 866,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.)
