Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, the erstwhile candidate for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is facing another election: the Republican primary for the congressional seat he has held since 2015.
Palmer is facing at least two candidates in the primary for Alabama’s 6th Congressional District after insurance agency owner Ken McFeeters became the latest to qualify for the race, according to the Alabama Republican Party.
McFeeters, a 63-year old Hoover resident, owns the Hoover-based PAC Insurance, Inc., which also has locations in Birmingham and Bessemer. He was also a former president of the Mid-Alabama Republican Club.
“The reason I’m running reminds me of an Albert Camus quote: ‘The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion,’” McFeeters said in a statement to AL.com. “I’m running because everyone is sick and tired of the status quo in DC and deserve someone who is not weak, clueless, nor complicit and will stand up to the public/private overlords in DC,”
On his campaign website, McFeeters voices deep mistrust of government and the media.
His platform includes ending U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine, changing the leadership of government agencies (”Those leaders no longer regulate/protect us as the government intended,” his website states), defunding and withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization and banning mRNA shots like the coronavirus vaccine for infants and children.
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McFeeters is also running on repealing the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which went into effect in 2013 and allows content from government-funded news networks like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to be broadcast in the United States.
McFeeters said the law “allows the U.S. government to use propaganda against its own citizens.”
The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the networks, disputes the characterization from McFeeters and other critics that their content is American propaganda.
“Our journalists must abide by legally mandated broadcasting standards and principles to present accurate and objective news and information. They do so in 63 languages for audiences in more than 100 countries countries where it is often difficult or impossible to receive locally-produced, uncensored or unbiased programs,” the organization says on its website. “They provide responsible discussion and open debate in places where it is rare in the media. To call these efforts ‘propaganda’ is an affront to those journalists, many of whom work in some of the roughest spots in the world, putting themselves and their loved ones at great risk.”
McFeeters also alluded to Palmer backing out of his promise to run for no more than five terms, saying Washington doesn’t need “career politicians.”
“Let’s hold Gary Palmer to his 10-year pledge and elect new politicians who will change the political environment in D.C.,” McFeeters says on his website.
The primary is taking place on March 5.
Besides Palmer and McFeeters, Vestavia Hills businessman Gerrick Wilkins has qualified for the primary.