'Downright idiots': California Republican blasts fellow GOP officials for elevation of 'weaponized bug' conspiracist

County officials in a deeply conservative part of California selected a right-wing conspiracy theorist to fill a voluntary mosquito control position over a trained epidemiologist.

Three right-wing supervisors in Shasta County appointed hydroponics store owner Jon Knight, a right-wing conspiracist who was present at the Jan. 6 insurrection, to oversee the local government's response to mosquitos – about which he has some highly unconventional opinions, reported The Daily Beast.

“I know a lot about this stuff," Knight told the board of supervisors during public comment on his appointment. "I know a lot about some of these Bill Gates programs. This is not conspiracy, this is a fact. There’s Japanese scientists who have created flying syringes that will mass-vaccinate the populations."

Knight warned the board of the dangers of “genetically-modified mosquitoes," saying the British biotech company Oxitec had released "weaponized bugs" in several California counties, but the company says it has bred and released genetically modified mosquitoes in the Florida Keys meant to fight an invasive species that spread yellow fever.

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West Nile virus has been detected in 152 mosquito samples so far this year in Shasta County, more than three times higher than the previous high of 48 in 2015, including three human cases, and the St. Louis encephalitis virus was also detected there for the first time since 1972.

“It’s almost laughable that you would disregard the application from probably the most qualified person in this county, and basically try to appoint someone who got his education about mosquitos on the internet,” said Mary Rickert, one of two supervisors who voted against his appointment. “Do you know how that makes us look as a county? It makes us look like idiots. Downright idiots.”

The board of supervisors has been captured by far-right members Patrick Jones, Kevin Crye, and Chris Kelstrom, which has been aided by Connecticut-based billionaire Reverge Anselmo as part of a long-standing grudge against the county over a Catholic chapel he built without permits at his Shasta vineyard.

“We are the guinea pig. I’ve said this from the very beginning," said Rickert, who describes herself as a conservative Republican. "We are the poster child for a takeover of local government. This is methodical, planned, orchestrated to overthrow and take complete control of Shasta county and sever themselves from the thumb of Sacramento.”