For State Rep. Hennessy, Problems With Vaccines, House Speaker Ritter And A Primary Opponent

Hennessy rallies in Hartford against vaccines. Image from his government web page

On March 16, 2020, as Covid-19 exploded onto the scene in Connecticut forcing government emergency measures to cancel classes at all public schools and limiting commerce and human gatherings, State Rep. Jack Hennessy authored this op-ed that still appears on his State House page opposing elimination of the religious exemption that allowed Connecticut parents to refuse vaccinations for their children.

The religious-freedom opinion piece is accompanied by a emphatic image of Hennessy at a State Capitol rally fronted by a puzzling sign “VACCINES ARE MADE WITH ABORTED FETAL CELLS.”

Well, not exactly.

At the time the scientific industry was in the early stages of a furious pace to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.

In the 1960s aborted fetal cell lines were used in the implementation for some vaccines, but according to the CDC, COVID-19 vaccines do NOT contain ingredients like preservatives, tissues (like aborted fetal cells), antibiotics, food proteins, medicines, latex, or metals.

Though Hennessy’s still-available opinion piece was clearly centered on religious freedom from vaccines it has created some lingering questions about his overall opinion on vaccinations as well as a subsequent ruptured relationship with Speaker of the House Matt Ritter who sanctioned him on at least two occasions, stripping him of a deputy speaker position and a place on the Public Health Committee because Hennessy’s vaccine views breach Ritter’s public safety concerns, and that of a majority of the state legislature, according to a source close to the speaker.

House Speaker Matt Ritter at odds with Hennessy.

It’s not how Hennessy voted on the bill, says the source, but the “manner in which he did it” including rallying protesters to and outside the capitol. Particularly unnerving to Ritter is a continued alliance and “giving legitimacy” to Republican State Rep. Anne Dauphinais who helped organize and attended the 2021 Connecticut rally in Plainfield of anti-vaxxer Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green who was stripped of committee assignments for supporting the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook School shooting was a staged event.

In October 2021, Dauphinais was rebuked by state Republicans for comparing Governor Ned Lamont’s state employee vaccine mandate to Adolf Hitler.

Anti-vaxxer State Rep. Anne Dauphinais.

Ritter called Dauphinais “the Marjorie Taylor Greene of Connecticut.”

Hennessy and Ritter have not spoken in about two years leaving Hennessy little leverage to maximize goodies to bring home to his city, according to members of the city’s legislative delegation and Hartford insiders. One noted “he’s dead weight.”

On August 9, Hennessy faces a primary test from City Council member Marcus Brown in Connecticut’s 127th District that covers a bulk of the North End and piece of the West Side.

In 2019, Hennessy and anti-vaxxer Dauphinais hosted vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Hartford who made his case to a crowd of vaccine skeptics, “as he denounced the makers of childhood vaccines and the institutions he sees as their collaborators,” according to a story by Mark Pazniokas of the CT Mirror.

Hennessy has often connected vaccines with autism, though the science does not back that up. From the CT Mirror:

The New England Journal of Medicine published a Danish study in 2002 that found no difference in the incidence of autism among children who were vaccinated with a measles vaccine and those who weren’t. A new study published two weeks ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine, also based on Danish vaccination data, reached a similar conclusion.

So where does Hennessy stand on vaccines? In his 2020 op-ed Hennessy writes:

I am not an “anti-vaxxer.” I only seek to be informed and do what I believe is right. I grew up in the 1960s, and if there was one thing I learned back then, it was to question authority, rather than to blindly trust the government. If we would just open our eyes to see and our ears to hear, we could stop enabling the criminal pharmaceutical corporations that brought us the devastation of Vioxx and Oxycontin.

Hennessy is battling a dichotomy of science and religion. Is big religion any less powerful, corrupt and influential than big pharma?

Institutional health organizations say vaccines save lives including those of children. Environmental activism has been one of Hennessy’s public career calling cards. Does he trust science on the environment but not vaccines?

In 2021 the state legislature eliminated the religious exemption, signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont, from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and day care facilities, becoming the sixth state to end that policy. Hennessy was a lonely Democratic voice against eliminating the exemption.

Marcus Brown

Along the way Hennessy encountered an unexpected primary opponent in Brown who had last December pledged support for his reelection. Word filtered down from Hartford that Hennessy’s heretic actions did not sit well with legislative leadership. The decennial redrawing of legislative maps was underway. A narrow piece of Brown’s neighborhood was carved into Hennessy’s district.

So it goes, the machinations of politics.

It has set up a generational battle between baby boomer Hennessy and millennial Brown.

On June 30, OIB emailed Hennessy questions about his vaccine positions and relationship with state leadership. He acknowledged receipt. Awaiting his response to questions.

2+
Share

4 comments

  1. Well, he’s not wrong, in ways, for the most part.

    The hypocrisy is blatantly apparent on both wings of this bird, with video clips plastered over social media with politicians, and news networks contradicting themselves repeatedly, Trump included. 😊
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AwAAh60jBo.

    It doesn’t matter though, Do you know why? Democracy! 🤣
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYz733MT9Y

    I can’t really speak on the 70-year-old fetus’ pioneering today’s vaccines. But one would think that cells in a fetus are present in one’s own body throughout their life, like stem cells, or other immunotherapies.

    While political and religious hypocrisy is present though it’s not about saving lives, more than political identity ideology and agendas. For the most part, the science has been coming in on this issue. The blue states that shut down schools and businesses during the first two years of Covid 19, and everything that went with it, to save lives, didn’t fare better than the Red states which were on the opposite side of those issues. Ironically it’s been pretty silent in this third year. I guess, with all the other political noise going on there’s nothing to see there. But case-wise, this respite between waves in these summer months is worse than the first two years of covid, deaths are par-ish, depending on the state. I believe. I am sure the political noise will change in the Fall. Time Will Tell

    Like lives and religion, it’s really not about abortions or woman’s rights though. Well, depending on your political view, men’s reproductive rights too, you know that science thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTgHW4Hxq1w

    If it was, you would be hearing about the first amendment rights challenging any outright ban on abortion procedures. Islam clearly states its religious practice allows for abortion procedures. Since the fetus is not considered a United States human citizen it has no constitutional rights. Any ban, to stop or prevent an abortion, I assume, would be in violation of their 1st amendment religious rights. You would think the D’s could halt any ban and bring these constitutional questions before the SC for their opinion, at least. To my understanding, the SC ruled that abortion is not in the constitution as a constitutional right like the right to bear arms. However, freedom to practice one’s religion. No? You know, problematic Hadiths. 🙃 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8B54B9KNhs

    At any rate, people. Let’s, not Charleston Heston on this planet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvuM3DjvYf0

    Try to play nice, and not be the evolutionary animal/organism originated from.
    https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10156030915645973

    I depart with the prophet Eminem.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EosMazKaPbU

    JS, IMO

    1+
  2. P.S Not sure who this woke mob is that I keep reading about, who’s always being either offended, feeling unsafe, or their space being violated. If it’s anything like the invisible hand of the free market. We may never know. However, they struck again against Macy Gracy.

    We can clarify this up, people It’s not rocket SCIENCE

    If the human natural form comes with a penis reproduction anatomy that’s a male. If it comes with a vagina preproduction anatomy it’s a female. When “evolving” outside of the natural human form. If a male or female keeps their natural-form body but finds it pleasurable to wear the clothing of the opposite gender. They are Transvestites. If a natural-born male acquires an aesthetically surgical female breast but keeps their penis or a natural-born female who removes their breast but keeps their vagina. They are Trannies. If they are a natural-born male or female who fully surgical transitions into the opposite sex of their natural-born body, they are transgender males or transgender females, respectively, and grammarly speaking, pronouns apply. You don’t have to be petty assholes, people. It’s not a sporting competition or lockerrooms that has a larger aspect to it.
    (disclaimer: surgical, physically Transgendering of the natural body should be performed no earlier than 18 medical drugs no earlier than 16 years of age)

    That being said, anything outside of being in the closet, on the down-low, or outside of it like you non-binaries are walking a silly tightrope, pick a side. 😛

    For you bisexuals, that’s just one foot keeping the closet door jarred. 😂

    To be honest, not sure if natural-born female tannies exist. According to human understanding of my porn search,😎

    I haven’t seen any natural-born females remove their breasts yet keep the vagina. That’s probably because transgendering is mostly a natural-born male thing, due to their male reproduction aspect, and the sexual gratification associated with it. Along with its daily build-up and manual release. Unlike the natural-born female’s monthly cycle.

    However, I find some freaky midget going at it, though 🤣

    Bam I’m out of here, you freaky heathens. Tell you next time, 🤪

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk9xTTww-JE&list=PL8cWZvLHbJITPpgxYx428ktliR71FuNSD&index=4

    0
  3. Lennie….
    You might want to do some fact checking. It is my understanding of the redistricting timeline that the maps had been drawn in November, before Brown’s emails of support for Jack Hennessey’s reelection bid.

    Note: my attention to the redistricting process and timeline was because of the way Trumbull was screwed: divided into 4 House districts, so 4 Incumbent Republicans could keep their seats in a tradeoff for protecting 4 Democrat seats upstate.

    The voters be damned, protect incumbents at all costs,

    3+

Leave a Reply