GOP Sen Ron Johnson complained angrily early this year that Democratic colleague Gary Peters had

[Celerity]

accused him of spreading Russian propaganda, but report by US intelligence officials last week showed that spreading Russian propaganda is exactly what he did.

Link to tweet

Assaulting the Truth, Ron Johnson Helps Erode Confidence in Government

Pushing false theories on the virus, the vaccine and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Mr. Johnson, the Republican senator from Wisconsin, has absorbed his party’s transformation under Donald Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/us/politics/ron-johnson-wisconsin-misinformation.html




BROOKFIELD, Wis. — Senator Ron Johnson incited widespread outrage when he said recently that he would have been more afraid of the rioters who rampaged the Capitol on Jan. 6 had they been members of Black Lives Matter and antifa. But his revealing and incendiary comment, which quickly prompted accusations of racism, came as no surprise to those who have followed Mr. Johnson’s career in Washington or back home in Wisconsin. He has become the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation now that Donald Trump himself is banned from social media and largely avoiding appearances on cable television.

Mr. Johnson is an all-access purveyor of misinformation on serious issues such as the pandemic and the legitimacy of American democracy, as well as invoking the etymology of Greenland as a way to downplay the effects of climate change. In recent months, Mr. Johnson has sown doubts about President Biden’s victory, argued that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was not an armed insurrection, promoted discredited Covid-19 treatments, said he saw no need to get the coronavirus vaccine himself and claimed that the United States could have ended the pandemic a year ago with the development of a generic drug if the government had wanted that to happen.

Link to tweet

Last year, he spent months as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee seeking evidence that Mr. Biden had tried to pressure Ukrainian officials to aid his son Hunter, which an Intelligence Community report released on Monday said was misinformation that was spread by Russia to help Mr. Trump’s re-election. Mr. Johnson has also become the leading Republican proponent of a revisionist effort to deny the motives and violence of the mob that breached the Capitol. At a Senate hearing to examine the events of that day, Mr. Johnson read into the record an account from a far-right website attributing the violence to “agents-provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters.” On Saturday, he told a conference of conservative political organizers in Wisconsin that “there was no violence on the Senate side, in terms of the chamber.” In fact, Trump supporters stormed the chamber shortly after senators were evacuated.

Link to tweet

His continuing assault on the truth, often under the guise of simply “asking questions” about established facts, is helping to diminish confidence in American institutions at a perilous moment, when the health and economic well-being of the nation relies heavily on mass vaccinations, and when faith in democracy is shaken by right-wing falsehoods about voting. Republicans are 27 percentage points less likely than Democrats to say they plan to get, or have already received, a vaccine, a Pew Research Center study released this month found. In an interview, Mr. Johnson repeatedly refused to say that vaccines were safe or to encourage people to get them, resorting instead to insinuations — “there’s still so much we don’t know about all of this” — that undermine efforts to defeat the pandemic.


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[BobTheSubgenius]

1. What I thought was going to be a joke in 2015 and 2016 has turned out to be

SO MUCH WORSE than I ever thought it could be.

[Mr. Scorpio]

2. A hit dog will holler

[BlueStater]

3. I hate this fucking jerk so much.

Why did Wisconsin re-elect him? What is wrong with them?!?

Hopefully, we’ll only have to put up with his shit for 22 more months.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Ronanom Johnson was Putin's employee of the month

More than once

[niyad]

5. KNR

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Twitter replies:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[yellowdogintexas]

7. The 4th of July Russian trip included my Congressional Rep: Granger TX 12

I have no idea why she would have been included.

[DanieRains]

8. He Loves Putin Just Come Out And Say It Ronnie

You can do it.

[Ford_Prefect]

9. We have Daines who is a super spreader of Russian disinformation and Trumpian lies.

I have no doubt whatsoever that he's got Russian money coming in by one means or another. I am sure he's also got one of Putin's whisperers on his staff. Steve's not dumb like Johnson seems to be. He's clever and can be subtle when it suits him. He's on the propaganda bandwagon to attack the COVID relief bill as a Democratic hijacking of legislation to subvert America to Nancy Pelosi's mad liberal agenda.

What he said today in the Missoulian editorial below is a model of the language used across the country to thoroughly misconstrue the intent and the function of the bill, the funding included in it and how it became law. This is classic RW propaganda with full Russian orchestration.

Opinion: Montana taxpayers should not foot bill for liberal agenda disguised as COVID relief
Steve Daines 3/22/2021 The Missoulian

Over the course of 2020, Congress passed five bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages. Republicans were in the majority in the Senate and President Trump was in office.

As Republicans, we committed to working in a bipartisan manner to deliver needed relief to Montanans and all Americans struggling because of this historic pandemic.

We thought President Biden was on board with this mission. He campaigned on a promise of bipartisanship and unity, but he threw that out the window as soon as he finished his inaugural address and chose to jam a $1.9 trillion spending package through Congress without any Republican input, and without a single Republican vote.

I sought compromise and supported a targeted, $650 billion bill that truly focused on ending the pandemic, getting folks back to work and our children back in the classroom. I could not support the Democrats’ so-called “COVID-19 relief package” and could not ask Montanans to cover the cost when 90% of this bill does nothing to address the core health needs of combatting COVID-19. Rather than provide COVID relief, Democrats capitalized on the crisis to push their liberal agenda and unleash a new era of big government.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and the White House are even calling this bill the “most progressive legislation in history.”

Democrats rushed this package through Congress on a party-line vote so that the American people would not have the time to learn what was actually in it.

A few of the most egregious pieces of the legislation include:

• A $350 billion bailout for blue states that had financial problems before the pandemic — some of these states, like California, are now experiencing significant revenue surpluses.

• Nearly $130 billion for schools even though 95% of the funds will not be used to reopen schools this year.

• More than $40 billion to expand Obamacare, subsidize it for wealthier Americans and begin the government takeover of health care in America.

• About $5 billion to pay “reparations” to farmers and ranchers that fall into certain minority categories.

• A federal mandate preventing state governments from cutting taxes until 2024.

None of these billions of dollars is going towards COVID relief. Instead, these taxpayer dollars are helping to fund the liberal agenda or to pay out political favors for the Democrats. Unfortunately, Montana taxpayers will be footing this bill.

What’s more, Democrats forced through this costly law even though we still have $1 trillion in unspent relief funds from the previous bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages, including $450 billion from the bipartisan law Congress passed last December.

In short, shoveling almost 2 trillion more dollars into an economy that is poised to rebound as businesses reopen is deeply irresponsible, will needlessly cause our debt to soar to new heights, and could harm our economic recovery by sparking massive inflation.

Thanks, in part, to the previous bipartisan COVID relief packages, the American comeback is already underway. Unemployment has been steadily decreasing and the GDP is expected to grow by as much as 10% in the first three months of the year. Personal savings rates have more than doubled from pre-pandemic levels and manufacturing is at its highest growth level since August 2018.

We are turning the corner in the health care battle with this pandemic as vaccines are distributed and hospitalization rates decrease. In Montana, we have seen hospitalizations drop every month since December, have fully vaccinated more than 140,000 Montanans, and were recently ranked No. 1 in the nation for vaccine administration.

Getting shots in arms is what we should be focusing on. Efficient vaccine distribution is what will end this pandemic and get life back to normal. Yet sadly, only 1% of Biden and Pelosi’s “COVID-19 relief package” goes to vaccines. That is unacceptable.

This $1.9 trillion package is not about ending the pandemic. It is about ushering in Nancy Pelosi’s liberal vision for the country. I voted against this because I could not ask Montana taxpayers to cover the cost of their liberal wish list.

https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-montana-taxpayers-should-not-foot-bill-for-liberal-agenda-disguised-as-covid-relief/article_463a2b29-9aa3-536d-adc0-170be863b38e.html

[BobTheSubgenius]

10. Funny how much less fun it is when the shoe is on the other foot, isn't it?

[smb]

11. Somebody With Photo Manip Skillz Needs To Produce The Truth-In-Advertising Version....

...of RoJoVich in front of a bunch of Russian flags.