Houston doctors protest Rep. Dan Crenshaw over his coronavirus lies
And a look at Rep. Ilhan Omar's primary challenge
Doctors tend not to be the most political bunch. (Their professional associations, however, lobby on health care policy all the time.) But generally speaking, in a well-intentioned effort to keep partisan fights out of hospitals and to not alienate any patients, most medical professionals try to come off as politically neutral as possible.
So it was a very big deal last week when over 100 doctors, medical professionals, and emergency room physicians in Houston signed a letter condemning Republican Rep. Daniel Crenshaw for spreading so much misinformation about COVID-19. Houston has been having an outbreak of cases over the last two months, and their freshman Congressman, a stalwart defender of the president, has been downplaying the severity of the crisis and undermining public health directives.
I covered this letter for The Intercept, where the medical workers beg their federal representative to change course. I also interviewed a pediatrician who helped spearhead the effort.
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In Minnesota, Rep. Ilhan Omar is facing her first election as a Congressional incumbent. She’s well-positioned to win, but she does have one primary opponent who has launched a credible challenge and has raised buckets of money. Just as controversy around Israel/Palestine and the Jewish community have been high-profile aspects of Omar’s first term in Washington, national pro-Israel groups have helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to unseat her. I reported a story for Jewish Currents on this race, and tried to flesh out some of the feelings of local Jewish constituents around all this.
Thanks for reading,