SOUTH BEND, Ind. — REAL News Michiana discovered the new President of the St. Joseph County Board of Health has spent years donating to lefist Democrat causes and candidates. This comes as revelations have surfaced that Dr. Jason Marker is currently over-serving his term on the board. According to the St. Joseph County website, Marker’s term ended in August of last year.
Now that Republicans have control of the County Council and County Commissioners, voters expect his immediate removal and replacement. This type of decision is why Republicans were elected. Dr. Maker does not represent the will of the voters in St. Joseph County. The St. Joseph County Commissioners can, and should, replace Dr. Marker immediately.
DONATIONS
According to donor financial records, Marker has consistently opened his wallet to fund Democrat campaigns and causes. Marker donated $500 to Democrat State Rep. Candidate Heidi Beidinger, $100 to Kamala Harris, $100 to Joe Biden and another $100 to the Pete Buttigieg presidential campaign. He’s also made numerous donations to the extremely progressive ACT Blue PAC.
During the election of Board leadership at a Board of Health meeting last week, Marker also promised to fight against a push for smaller government.
“There’s a fairly large groundswell interest for smaller government.” Marker said during the meeting. “One of the emerging problems is… the desire for small government and the will and interests of those who cannot help themselves and that’s going to come to a head in the Department of Health.”
TIME AS BOARD’S VP
As the Vice President of the Board during the COVID19 pandemic, Marker bragged about destroying local businesses in emails with his colleagues about the “Draconian” measures taken by the board and Health Department that also stripped citizens of their constitutional rights and shut down schools.
RNM discovered Dr. Marker’s braggadocious “Draconian” comments through a public records request of emails during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which Dr. Marker also insults anyone who questions his methods of shutting down businesses and forced masking.
“Contrary to what may be generally believed, we and our Health Officer, Dr. Robert Einterz, have pushed extremely hard for Draconian restrictions on business activities…” Dr. Marker wrote in part of an email from December of 2020.
In March of 2020, the South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing 62 local businesses that had closed in the year of COVID. In October, the SBT wrote another article showing business closures were up 50-percent.
And, it appears, Dr. Marker showed little care for the livelihoods of local business owners with what he continued to write in an email chain between the then president of the board and Health Officer, Dr. Robert Einterz. He also appears to show he was aware of the problematic nature of the actions he was pushing.
I prefer these conversations to happen in a dark corner of a local pub, but since you and Heidi (Dr. Heidi Beidinger-Burnett, former President of the St. Joseph County Board of Health) and I can’t quite get away with that, we’ll have to consider alternatives! Marker wrote.
I don’t want to speak for Heidi (though I fear I’m about to) but I suspect that she and I are willing to rock whatever boats we need to in the interest of public health advocacy if that gives you cover to do whatever needs to be done.
Dr. Beidinger–Burnett responded enthusiastically.
I couldn’t agree more … I’m willing to rock the boat w you! I don’t know that it will matter whether we offend the commissioners or not since two of three have all declared their anti sci sentiment UNLESS Andy can reel them in.
Dr. Marker also rips into elected officials and concerned citizens for voicing their opinions. He describes people with a differing opinion than his as “anti-science”, “ignorant” and “crude”.
…the public has given us hours of crude, anti-science, willfully ignorant and grossly ill-informed opinions of our work including 4 personal threats and numerous broadly encompassing law suits to slow us down. Certain members of our County Council and County Commissioners are happily in their camp and have blocked our efforts to make progress in these areas while stripping the “teeth” from all of the interventions that they have been willing to pass to appease us.
At no point does Dr. Marker discuss the very real economic and social impacts of what he is pushing. Nor does he refer to any expert of public and economic policy. However, like a true professional, he alludes to punching a wall and abusing narcotic prescription drugs.
I’ll now be going to take a Xanax and find the drywall patch kit! He wrote.
You can read the entire email chain here.
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Who a man contributes to is his own business, even, I presume the head of a County Health Department. However, if he has over-served his term, plus had seemingly no regard for the economic and/or personal health of local citizens, the question is when will the Commissioners let him go? And will Federal charges be warranted for Mr Marker?