The facts from PolitiFact, and what’s missing

Today is Jan. 6, and I felt I had to do something, and thought this was an important piece. Normally, I would post this on Facebook, but I am still wrongly jailed.

So it goes here.

PolitiFact knocks down some of the lies before and after the January 6 riot.

I choose to avoid the word “insurrection” because no rioter had a gun, as far as I can tell, and to try to overthrow the government with garbage cans and flag poles seems ridiculous.

But I won’t quarrel with those who use it because there was an attempt to interfere with the election.

I urge you to click on the link, read the reporting and click on other links for details. It seems on the money to me.

What I would like to see is further reporting on the insane exaggerations that followed Jan. 6.

Was it really the “worst attack on democracy” since (fill in the blank) the War of 1812, when the British burned the capital, or the Civil War, when the nation ceased to exist, or 9/11? 

My vote for “attack on democracy” goes to the four Puerto Rican nationalists who actually opened fire on the House floor from the visitors gallery in 1954. But that would take some knowledge of history and a willingness to be called a racist by offering unpleasant facts.

What happened on Jan. 6 was terrible, and I have not heard any Fox host say it was good, or justified. Not even Sean Hannity.

I have heard some Fox show hosts — as distinguished from Fox News journalists — try to minimize it, as I have heard CNN and MSNBC try to exaggerate it.

Example: The Left often mentions “deaths” that day, without explaining the only death from gunfire was an unarmed woman shot by a Capitol cop. Her name was Ashli Babbitt. The other “deaths” were from heart attacks, other medical problems and suicide. Trying to suggest the rioters caused those deaths is extremely misleading.

This piece mentions Tucker Carlson by name. He is a show host, a commentator, a talking head, but he is not a journalist.

He occasionally has some good ideas, but the rest of the time spews propaganda and half truths. I have posted his egregious distortions at least twice on Facebook.

You can read the PolitiFact information and decide for yourself. 

As regulars here know, I am a middelist, a guy in the middle trying to lift fog, and knock down bullshit from both sides.