A pro-vaccination Democrat official who said that teenagers could receive COVID vaccines without parental consent apparently faked a threat she claimed was designed to silence her. It may be yet another example of conservatives being so “violent” that deception has to be used to make them appear so.
Michelle Fiscus, then-medical director of Tennessee’s immunization program, “met with state investigators in July to report … [a] suspicious package mailed to her office containing a silicone dog muzzle,” writes The Washington Post.
During the meeting, the paper also tells us, Fiscus
told agents she suspected the Amazon package from an unknown sender was a “veiled threat.” The muzzle, she said, was meant to make her “stop talking about vaccinating people.”
But just a few weeks after the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security was first notified about the package, state agents learned the muzzle was purchased with a credit card under Fiscus’s name, according to a department report obtained by The Washington Post. (The findings were first reported by Axios.)
“At this time, there appears to be no threat toward Dr. Fiscus associated with receipt of the dog muzzle,” investigator Mario Vigil wrote in the report, which was released Monday.
The case is now closed, a spokesperson with the agency told The Post in an email.
“Fiscus told multiple media outlets, including CNN, that she received a muzzle, likely due to her statements on vaccines,” adds The College Fix. “Fiscus had told other state health officials that teens could receive vaccination without parental consent under existing state law.”
Fiscus denies the charges, claiming her credit card information was stolen and used by someone in Washington state. While perhaps anything is possible, the scenario she paints is that the person who stole that information, and was capable of doing so, just so happened to be the same person who had a vaccine-oriented axe to grind with her and was intent on sending her a symbolic threat. And the authorities sure aren’t buying it (short news video on the case below).
Fiscus also claimed that she was threatened for her minors-and-vaccines position, but “the police report only provides two emails as evidence of communications she received,” the Fix further informs. One just accused her of conflict of interest because her husband was on the Williamson County School Board while the other respondent was simply “boorish,” as the Fix put it. “‘I am putting you on notice that we will be holding you accountable for any adverse effects or deaths on children [due to vaccination],’” the Fix reports the e-mail as stating. “It also told her to ‘lose some weight’ to ‘[s]et the example’ of how to stay healthy.”
Fiscus was fired shortly after the muzzle incident, but according “to the Nashville Post, a memo from the Tennessee Department of Health said it terminated Fiscus due to a number of conduct problems,” the Fix also relates.
“Chief medical officer Tim Jones said Fiscus’ problems included, ‘alleged failures to maintain good working relationships, claimed her leadership and management of the state’s vaccine program was ineffective, and accused her of seeking to divert state funding to a nonprofit she founded to support Tennessee’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program,’ according to the Post’s summary,” the site continues.
Given that what we call “leftism” is today actually movement toward moral disorder — and since corresponding to this leftists are generally moral relativists lacking in virtue — Jones’s claims aren’t surprising. In other words, it isn’t just perception that leftists are inordinately corrupt and ridden with personality flaws.
This is why if Fiscus did perpetrate a hoax, as it appears, she’s just one in a long line of leftists who’ve faked “hate crimes.” There was liberal actor Jussie Smollett, of course, now infamous for having staged a bigoted and anti-homosexual attack on himself and blaming it on Trump supporters. But here’s a sampling of others, courtesy of the Daily Caller:
A Muslim woman at the University of Michigan received national attention from national outlets like The Washington Post in November 2016 after she claimed a drunk[en] 20-something man threatened to light her on fire if she didn’t remove her hijab. The university condemned the “hateful attack,” which turned out to be a hoax.
… Taylor Volk, an openly bisexual senior at North Park University claimed to be the target of hateful notes and emails following Trump’s election in November 2016. Volk told NBC News that “I just want them to stop.” But the “them” referenced by Volk turned out to be herself, as the whole thing was fabricated.
… Philadelphia woman Ashley Boyer claimed in November 2016 that she was harassed at a gas station by white, Trump-supporting males, one of whom pulled a weapon on her. Boyer claimed that the men “proceeded to talk about the election and how they’re glad they won’t have to deal with n—–s much longer.” Boyer deleted her post after it went viral and claimed the men had been caught and were facing criminal charges. Local police debunked her account.
… An 18-year-old Muslim woman in Louisiana claimed in November 2016 that two white men, one of whom was wearing a Trump hat, attacked and robbed her, taking her wallet and hijab while yelling racial slurs. She later admitted to the Lafayette Police Department that she made the whole thing up.
Literally hundreds more examples can be found at FakeHateCrimes.org.
As for Fiscus, she has asked for the authorities’ report so that she can investigate herself. Yes, I’m sure she’ll do a very thorough job and get back to us on that (read: get ready for the Memory Hole).
But Fiscus’s case is a good example of why faked “hate crimes” have become common. That is, if she really did perpetrate a hoax, why aren’t charges brought against her? Isn’t filing a false report of a crime itself a crime?
Moreover, we hear that hate crimes must be punished harshly because they damage society’s fabric. But don’t faked hate crimes do likewise? In reality, though, such hoaxers are rarely if ever charged.
Perhaps this is because they’re rarely if ever conservative. Whatever the case, zero accountability for a type of bad behavior guarantees more such behavior. It also means that we should take hate-crime claims as seriously as the authorities take hate-crime hoaxes. That’s what you call balance.
