News
Marjorie Taylor Greene Supports Infecting Kids at Measles ‘Parties’ as Outbreaks Turn Deadly
Amid measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico that have killed two unvaccinated people including a healthy six-year-old, while infected hundreds, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is promoting the long-denounced practice of exposing children to the potentially deadly virus at so-called “measles parties.”
Until the anti-vax movement—promoted by activists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s highly controversial Secretary of Health and Human Services, and far-right extremists often aligned with the President’s MAGA movement—took hold in the United States, fueling a significant drop in vaccination rates, measles was considered to have been eliminated in 2000.
The two measles-related deaths, the BBC reports, “are jarring to many in a country that, before last week, had not recorded anyone killed by measles since 2015. The 2015 death was the first one attributed to measles in the US since 2003.” Less than three full months into the year, the number of reported measles infections is rapidly approaching the total for all of 2024.
One of the most contagious diseases on the planet, according to Johns Hopkins University, “Nine out of 10 unimmunized children who are in contact with an infected person will contract the virus. The virus can linger in the air for about two hours after a person with measles has left the room.”
READ MORE: WWII B-29 Bomber Enola Gay Falls Victim to Pentagon’s Sweeping DEI Purge
Measles is about six times more contagious than the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the anti-vaccine movement—championed by activists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s controversial Secretary of Health and Human Services, and far-right extremists often aligned with his MAGA movement—has gained traction in the United States, leading to a significant decline in vaccination rates in children and adults.
The rise of social media has helped spread anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, despite numerous studies proving vaccines are safe and effective.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in addition to the well-known rash and red spots, measles can cause extreme fever, up to 104°F, conjunctivitis, and lead to hospitalization, pneumonia, encephalitis, and death.
“About 1 child out of every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis (swelling of the brain). This can lead to convulsions and leave the child deaf or with intellectual disability,” the CDC reports. “Nearly 1 to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from respiratory and neurologic complications.”
CDC also reports in rare cases measles can lead to long term complications, including subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), “a very rare, but fatal disease of the central nervous system. It results from a measles virus infection acquired earlier in life.”
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, however, is promoting measles and chicken pox “parties.”
The Georgia Republican who has become very influential in Congress, sitting on top committees and subcommittees, chose to ignore the science.
“They used to have measles parties, basically get all the kids together so they all catch it and develop immunity,” Greene declared on social media, as first reported by MeidasTouch News. “Then when I was a kid, they did the same thing with chicken pox. Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids.”
READ MORE: ‘Fiery Emperor Nero’: French Senator Denounces Trump and His ‘Ketamine-Fueled Jester’
Greene also reposted this video that appears to try to make measles “parties” a kind of feel-good, fun, retro event.
The video shows a portion of the 1970’s hit sitcom, “The Brady Bunch,” then cuts to an episode of the television crime drama “Law and Order: SVU.”
Watch entire video.
They used to have measles parties, basically get all the kids together so they all catch it and develop immunity.
Then when I was a kid, they did the same thing with chicken pox.
Now, they demonize parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids. https://t.co/IPazGiD4ip— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 7, 2025
Last week in Texas, where about 200 have been infected, a health official is speaking out, urging parents to get their children vaccinated and not hold measles “parties.”
“Dr. Ron Cook, chief health officer for the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, urged families to avoid such gatherings and instead get vaccinated,” The Dallas Morning News reported last week.
“We can’t predict who is going to do poorly with measles, being hospitalized, potentially get pneumonia or encephalitis, or potentially pass away from this,” Dr. Cook reportedly said. “It’s a foolish thing to go have measles parties.”
On social media, several medical experts responded to Greene, urging parents to not hold or allow their children to attend measles “parties.”
Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist, mocked Greene’s assertions.
“They used to put cocaine in Coca-Cola. Doctors didn’t use to wash their hands and sterilize instruments before surgery. People used to live in iron lungs because there wasn’t a Polio vaccine. We learn and apply that knowledge to be healthier and save lives. It is not a tricky concept, Marge,” he noted.
Watch the video above or at this link.
READ MORE: Elon Musk Cannot Say ‘You’re Fired’ Trump Tells Cabinet
Image via Reuters
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
