Sadly, it’s not a new or unusual event when a politician lies to the public or neglects to tell the whole truth. But this past week there were two whoppers delivered that took it to another level. The first came from the US House of Representatives when they released the text of the “Presidential Election Reform Act” (H.R.8873). The second came from Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
The Presidential Reform Act is one of the outgrowths of the January 6th Committee. This Committee has been investigating the protest event that took place at the Capitol two weeks before the inauguration of President Biden. From the start, the Committee’s work has not only been hopelessly biased (e.g., all of the proposed Republican committee members were rejected by Speaker Pelosi), but it has also been obsessed with wildly exaggerating the historical import of that day.
That obsession comes through loud and clear in the text of H.R.8873. Not satisfied with simply stating several proposed modifications to the Electoral Count Act1 of 1887, the new House bill begins by telling several outright historical lies. The first comes in the 2nd paragraph of the bill where the following statement is made in reference to the protest event on January 6th, 2021 – “This constituted the single most deadly attack on the Capitol by domestic forces in the history of the United States”. This is patently untrue.
There were seven other attacks on the Capitol that were far more dangerous. They occurred in 1915(bomb), 1932(mob), 1954(shooting), 1971(bomb), 1983(bomb), 1998(shooting), 2001(anthrax). And while any loss of life is a tragedy, the fact is that there was only one person killed during the protest at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 – Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol police while trying to enter through an open window. In 1998, a gunman stormed past a security checkpoint at the Capitol. Once inside, he then shot and killed two Capitol Police officers, Officer Jacob J. Chestnut, Jr., and Detective John M. Gibson. Isn’t that more deadly2 than what occurred on January 6th, 2021?
That same paragraph in H.R.8873 then ends with this statement – “The events of January 6, 2021 marked the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812”. This is also clearly untrue given the seven other events noted above. In the attack on the Capitol in 1954, five Congressmen were shot on the House floor (all survived). On three different occasions, a bomb exploded in the Capitol. Are the authors of this latest House bill that ignorant of these historical facts? Probably not. But they sure do think the rest of us are.
It seems a little silly to even dignify what Stacey Abrams said this week, but her lie is so outrageous that we have to include it. Abrams was attempting to edify Georgians during a panel discussion on abortion in Atlanta this past Thursday. Here are her exact words: “there is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” then adding, “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”
Much like Donald Trump, Abrams still claims quite loudly that the last election she was in (4 years ago) was fraudulently stolen from her. Famously, she still has not conceded that election. However, very much unlike Donald Trump, she has not had to endure any media criticism or pushback from her own party as a result. But with her recent false statement about the fetal heartbeat, she has now placed herself on the same level as those who believe the earth is flat.
While Abrams is significantly behind in polling for the Georgia Governor’s race (6.6 percentage points as of this week), she’s not so far behind yet to justify committing political suicide. So why did she voice such an easily provable lie about fetal heartbeat detection? She knows she is in desperate need of more people willing to vote for her and time is of the essence as mail-in ballots are already out and early voting starts soon. She must believe there are enough people left in the state of Georgia who are so uninformed (to put it kindly) that provocative falsehoods such as she made about the fetal heartbeat can capture their vote.
What is really distasteful about these lies is how most of the liberal media just ignore them, especially when it comes to Democrat politicians. In Abrams’ case, several media outlets have even tried to back up her wild claim. There is a tacit acceptance that if lesser educated people believe these lies, they have a high probability of acting in the best interests of the Democrat party. Thus, exposing the lies would be detrimental to the media’s ideology. Besides, these outlandish statements capture more eyeballs for the media corporations and result in more revenue.
We knew it would get bad the closer we got to the election. What’s next, the news that we are all living in a Matrix and none of this is real?
1 A federal law providing more specific detail to the procedures stated in the Constitution for counting electoral votes following a presidential election.
2The January 6th Committee has attempted to exaggerate the death count from that day by counting people who died of other causes (heart attack, stroke, suicide, etc.) in the days following the protest. The fact remains that Ashli Babbitt was the only person killed at the Capitol that day.