SENATOR RON JOHNSON TWISTED THE DATA IN BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTS

 

                      …Senator Ron Johnson (R-WIS) the way most people see him

 

With today’s Republicans, the media's “Fact Checkers” have very secure job security

 

It’s a good sign when a politician can cite data to back up a claim, except when the researchers behind that data say it’s being twisted into a misleading talking point.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told a conservative news radio show that he “never felt threatened” by the mob of Donald Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.  “But he would have been fearful had they been Black Lives Matter or Antifa protesters.” The critics agree that his remarks were totally prejudiced against Blacks.

Johnson later issued a statement claiming: “Out of 7,750 protests last summer associated with BLM and Antifa, 570 turned into violent riots that killed 25 people and caused $1- $2 billion of property damage. That’s why I would have been more concerned.”

The senator's attributing “570 riots and 25 deaths to Black Lives Matter and antifa”.  He is using data from the nonprofit operation: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

A spokesman for that group said Johnson was misusing their findings.  In reality, very few of these events were associated with BLM or antifa, and even so, there is no information on the perpetrators or instigators of the violence.

Johnson’s use of the death statistic is especially misleading because a significant portion of the deaths are related to not to the BLM, but to right-wing violence.  This is the same type of violence he was playing down in these comments. In doing so, the senator earned Three Pinocchio’s from the Washington Post’s Fact Checkers.

In other news, former president Donald Trump and members of his administration would falsely claim that thousands of “known or suspected” terrorists were being caught at the U.S.- Mexico border.

The real number ranges from around three to a dozen per year, according to the real news reports.  This is from official statistics and a whistleblower complaint from a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security. The “known or suspected terrorist” list is broad enough to include convicted terrorists and people who have only derivative links to terrorism (say, the cousin of a friend of a terrorist), and U.S. officials keep the details closely under wraps.

House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Rep. John Katko (N.Y.), traveled to El Paso this week and claimed a Border Patrol agent told them several individuals on the list had been encountered recently.

When they were pressed for details, a House Republican aide said four individuals on the list had been encountered since October, which is within the usual range seen each year.

But when the U.S. immigration officials were asked for confirmation, they gave a vague answer that neither confirmed nor denied the Republicans’ account.

Meanwhile, the State Department consistently says in annual reports that there is “no credible evidence indicating international terrorist groups established bases in Mexico, worked directly with Mexican drug cartels, or sent operatives via Mexico into the United States.”

The Republican members of both the Senate and the House seem to be consistently twisting the data and the facts about the attack on the Capitol; the BLM protests; and the issues at the Southern Border.

The Post’s Fact Checkers are consistently having to correct many statements from both the Republicans in the U.S. Congress, Fox News and other far right media sources.

All that can be said about the nation’s Fact Checkers is that since the beginning of the Trump administration, The Nation’s Fact Checkers still seem to have more job security as their jobs continue to be needed for supporting "real democracy" in the United States.

Copyright G. Ater 2021