By Brandon Moseley
Republican gubernatorial candidate Dean Odle addressed a gathering by Alabama Liberty Action on the steps of Alabama’s historic 1859 Capital building Saturday to make his case for why he should be the next governor of the state of Alabama.
Odle suggested that incumbent Governor Kay Ivey has not done enough to protect Alabama workers from federal vaccine mandates or improve Alabama’s education system. Odle has made opposing COVID-19 mandates and vaccine skepticism core issues in his campaign.
“We have a vaccine that is not working,” Dean said. “We have a vaccine that is being covered up of the effects of it and we have people losing their jobs.”
Odle is not a doctor, medical researcher, or epidemiologist. Everyone is encouraged to consult their personal physician about any potential vaccinations or treatments that they might take. The Alabama Department of Public Health has extensive information about the COVID-19 global pandemic on its website, AlabamaPublicHealth.gov.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and other health officials believe that vaccines are working, and have published studies on the effectiveness of vaccines. The CDC has created a website page to dispel myths and rumors about the vaccine, which can be found at CDC.gov.
Odle is a Lee County pastor, whose Fire & Grace Church also maintains a school.
“I am just a regular Alabamian that wants to remain free,” Odle said.
“I am running as a Republican, but I am not like the Republicans that are in here right now,” Odle continued. “I am a true conservative. I am a Christian. I am a pastor in Opelika, Alabama. I have been in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ for 34 years, going on 35. Authored many books, we now have a ministry school. We do a lot. I am a very busy person but when I saw how things were going, how our freedoms were slipping away, when I saw how our so-called Republican Governor here in Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey, handled the coronavirus response to the pandemic and how things have been transpiring now with these vaccine mandates, I just knew that it was God’s direction for me to run for governor and talk about these things a year ago.”
Odle has been running for Governor for the past year with very little media attention.
“One year ago, I said on my website, that there would be a dangerous vaccine come out and that it would be mandated,” Odle said. “I was called a conspiracy theorist by the Alabama Press one year ago and yet here we are now with a vaccine with mRNA technology that has never been used on humans and we know that all the real deaths and adverse effects are being covered up. Dr. Robert Malone, the man who co-invented mRNA technology, said two things: the vaccine is dangerous and the government is not telling the truth to us.
“You see people in Alabama now about to lose their jobs,” Odle continued. “Boeing here in Alabama has 3,000 employees and many of them are not going to take the vaccine and their jobs are being threatened. I spoke at a rally up in Huntsville and afterward, dozens and dozens of workers in the defense industry came up to me and said that we are not going to take this vaccine and it is being mandated. I was in Dothan on Thursday in front of Flower’s Hospital with about 100 people, nurses there. They said we are about to lose our jobs because we refuse to get the vaccine or refuse to get these constant weekly tests to see if we have a COVID.”
Odle accused Ivey of sending out campaign fundraising emails claiming that she was standing up to the Biden administration, but then not actually doing anything to protect those Alabamians who are losing their jobs due to employer COVID mandates.
“She just had a special session a few weeks ago and didn’t put it in the session,” Odle said. “She could have dealt with it in the regular session; and it doesn’t look like she is going to deal with it in this next special session, while people are losing their jobs.”
Odle urged legislators to pass the Health Freedom Act, House Bill 31 by state Rep. Ritchie Whorton (R-Scottsboro) in the next special session. He said they should have addressed vaccine mandates by employers in the last special session or the 2021 regular session, which ended in May.
The Alabama legislature did pass a ban on vaccine passports, preventing businesses or government agencies from refusing service to nonvaccinated persons, but nothing in Senate Bill 267 can be construed to protect employees from being fired by their employers. It also prevents schools from requiring any vaccines not already required in 2019 – pre-pandemic. Some Alabama colleges have required unvaccinated students to engage in remote learning rather than allowing them on campus.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has urged the legislature to amend the law to include an enforcement provision and a private right of action to better deter violations, and he wants private employers to provide exceptions for religious or medical reasons, including natural immunity, when mandating the vaccine.
Odle said that renowned cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough testified to the Texas Senate that 85% of Americans who have died from COVID-19 could have been saved with early treatment rather than the mainstream response to a positive coronavirus test, which is sending the patient home to rest until they can’t breathe. Odle claimed that protocols using hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, zinc, blood thinners, and other treatments could have saved thousands of lives in Alabama without necessitating that everyone gets a vaccine.
“The press and the liberals in Washington and many even in the medical establishment do not care about you,” Odle said. “They don’t care about how many die, about how many get sick. It was all about pushing a vaccine.
“People are dying that don’t need to be dying. It is unacceptable that we have leaders who watched thousands of people die when they knew there were treatments because of either politics or ignorance.”
Odle said that the COVID-19 vaccine is not working and that the side effects of the vaccine are being covered up. He is not in favor of outlawing it, but would make it illegal to mandate it or use coercion to get people to agree to vaccinations,
Odle also denounced the performance of Alabama’s public schools which, pre-pandemic, were 46th in reading and 52nd (counting Washington DC and the schools run by the Defense Department) in math. Odle said that Ivey has had four years to deal with public education but that her plan, according to Odle, was just to dump more money into the “dumpster fire” that is Alabama public education.
“My plan is to have a full school voucher program,” Odle said.
Odle said that he wanted to get the state out of education because they have failed at it. He wants to simply let the money follow the student to their school of choice.
Former Morgan County Commissioner Stacy George is also running in the Republican primary for governor and State Auditor Jim Zeigler (R) is exploring entering the race. Activist and community organizer Chris Countryman is running as a Democrat.
The Republican primary will be on May 24, 2022.
