Oklahoma State Rep. Justin “J.J.” Humphrey sounds like just another Trumpist when he says that the pandemic is a Chinese attack on America and that there was massive voter fraud in the presidential election and that antifa was likely behind the storming of the U.S. Capitol and that big tech has an algorithm that addicts us to our phones.
But the second-term Republican legislator really went fringe this month by putting two absolutely nutty bills before the legislature in as many days in the midst of a pandemic.
On Jan. 19, Humphrey introduced Bill 1643, which would require the makers of COVID-19 vaccines to notify health-care providers, and through them the patients, if the shot “contains human parts, animal parts, metals in any quantity, tracking devices, or any DNA-altering properties.”
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Contamination by metals and bits of animals or humans are figments of anti-vaxxer paranoia. The phobia has become full-blown lunacy when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, with imaginings that they can alter your DNA and contain microchips for the government to track you.
On Jan. 20, Humphrey filed Bill 1648 to establish a hunting season for Bigfoot.
“The Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission shall promulgate rules establishing a big foot hunting season,” this bill says. “The Commission shall set annual season dates and create any necessary specific hunting licenses and fees.”
In an accompanying press release, Humphrey, 54, made clear that he was not talking about anybody’s feet, but about the legendary creature Bigfoot that inspires an annual festival in his district.
“Tourism is one of the biggest attractions we have in my House district,” he said. “Establishing an actual hunting season and issuing licenses for people who want to hunt Bigfoot will just draw more people to our already beautiful part of the state. It will be a great way for people to enjoy our area and to have some fun.”
The release added that Humphrey “doesn’t want people to actually kill Bigfoot, so he will be working with the state wildlife and tourism departments to craft final language for his bill that specifies only the trapping of Bigfoot.”
He hoped to secure “at least $25,000 that can be used as a bounty for the first person to trap the creature.”
“A lot of people don’t believe in Bigfoot, but a lot of people do,” Humphrey said. “Just like some people like to go deer hunting, while some don’t.”
He suggested the season should coincide with the Bigfoot festival scheduled each October in the town of Honobia in his legislative district. He did not mention that this past fall’s Honobia Bigfoot Festival and Conference was canceled due to a pandemic that has been stoked by far more lethal fictions than the creature that the state Department of Wildlife Conservation dismisses as imaginary.
“Oh, we don’t recognize Bigfoot as a species,” a department spokesman told The Daily Beast. “We rely on science and research.”
Humphrey’s background might lead you to expect he would rely more on proven fact than hare-brained fictions. His mother is a librarian and his father was a longtime school superintendent in the family’s hometown, Lane. He himself worked as a corrections officer until he retired and ran as a cowboy-hatted law-and-order candidate for state representative in 2016.
He won with 52 percent of the vote in a three-way race and immediately made a name for himself by introducing a bill that would require women to secure the written consent of the father before obtaining an abortion. He was quoted saying that women are just “the host.”
“I understand that they (women) feel like that is their body,” the father of three told The Intercept. “I feel like it is a separate—what I call them is, is you're a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant.”
Humphrey was re-elected in 2018 with 68.7 percent of the vote in the two-way race. That was the same year fellow Republican Kevin Stitt was elected governor of Oklahoma.
The two men have something else in common: They’ve both voiced big-time support for Trump’s COVID-19 “cure” of choice, hydroxychloroquine.
Stitt announced in April that he had bought a $2 million stash for the state. That was the same month a major study involving every Veterans Affairs hospital in the nation found that COVID patients given the drug had a significantly greater chance of dying than those who just received standard care. Stitt said he was “being proactive” by stocking up—while he continued to oppose a statewide mask mandate that actually would protect his constituents.
Four months after Stitt’s purchase, Humphrey issued a statement calling on Oklahomans to demand that the state allow hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID—claiming it had “saved my life.”
He said that he had sought the anti-malarial drug after he began having difficulty breathing, but then revealed that he had never actually had a COVID test because he didn’t trust the state health department’s tests and policies.
“I did not want to subject my family and friends to demands of forced house arrest by the Health Department,” he said, apparently referring to quarantine for those infected with the virus.
In the same statement, he flogged the baseless conspiracy theory that the virus was designed by China “to infect overweight, diabetic, elderly people who have low immune systems.”
“Where are the majority of overweight diabetic people found? That would be America!” he declared. “China has executed a biological and economic attack on our nation.”
In his twisted account, once the virus hit America, “China began buying up all personal protective equipment such as ventilators. When the virus was widespread, China made huge profits by infecting the world and selling protective and medical equipment.”
He believes the use of masks and shutdowns to contain the virus is “irrational” and he has posted photos of maskless political and social gatherings on Facebook. This as the latest COVID-19 numbers place Oklahoma fourth in the nation in deaths (66 per 100,000) and in cases (9,710 per 100,000).
Should Humphrey catch the virus again, he will find that Stitt has plenty of hydroxychloroquine. Unless, that is, the governor is successful in his effort to return the drugs for a refund.
There is no bringing back the many lives lost due to COVID myths as fantastical as Bigfoot, only lethal.
