Dec.29

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The Biggest Lies of 2022

Glenn Kessler is an expert on lying. No, he is not a politician, like, say, Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY). He is a reporter for The Washington Post who specializes in collecting and rating lies from politicians. He has now published a list of the biggest whoppers of 2022. Here is the list in chronological order (because Kessler didn't want to get into the business of ranking them)

• Sonia Sotomayor, Jan. 7: During a Supreme Court hearing about whether the Biden administration could mandate that big employers require employees to be vaccinated or test frequently, Sotomayor said there were 100,000 children hospitalized with COVID-19. Actually, there were about 5,000, so she was off by 20x.
  
  
• Joe Biden, Jan. 11: He said "It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested." He claims that as a teenager he was arrested for standing on a porch in solidarity with a Black couple that had bought a house in a white neighborhood and who were the subject of demonstrations. There is no proof of such an arrest and he lived far from the house in question. There is no evidence that Biden has ever been arrested, yet he keeps repeating this story.
  
  
• Donald Trump, Jan. 15: On Jan. 15, Trump claimed that Ray Epps, a Trump supporter from Arizona who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was actually an FBI informant who egged the crowd on and caused them to invade the Capitol. There is no evidence that Epps was ever a federal agent or informant. Testimony showed that he tried to calm the crowd, not incite it.
  
  
• Ron Johnson, Jan. 27: On Jan. 27, Johnson said: "We've heard story after story. I mean, all these athletes dropping dead on the field from the coronavirus vaccine." Johnson may have heard the story from some idiot, but it is still totally false. The story originated with a mysterious right-wing website in Austria aligned with a far-right political party there. Research shows that the chance of getting myocarditis from the coronavirus is 100x greater than getting it from the vaccine.
  
  
• Vladimir Putin, Feb 21: On Feb 31, Putin said: "Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia." Nope. Ukrainian culture and language have existed for centuries. Kievan Rus, which covers most of modern Ukraine and bits of Belarus and western Russia, was the most powerful country in Europe in the 10th century. The boundaries changed many times over the centuries. A Ukrainian nationalist movement in the nineteenth century was widespread enough that it angered the czars. In 1945, Ukraine was admitted to the United Nations although it was part of Russia at the time. It finally broke free of Russia in 1990, much against Russia's will.
  
  
• Tucker Carlson, Mar. 24: This is just so far off the wall. On Mar. 24 Carlson said: "A private equity firm run by Hunter Biden funded some of the research into pathogens in these bio labs." Carlson was referring to labs in China, but these are research labs, not bioweapons labs. Also, Biden never ran a private equity firm. He was associated with a company that may have had a small investment in the Chinese labs, but he was kicked out of the company due to allegations of cocaine use and the company never made any money from its investment.
  
  
• Kevin McCarthy, Apr. 17: On Apr. 17, McCarthy claimed that AG Merrick Garland called parents "terrorists" because they wanted to attend school board meetings. McCarthy was referring to a letter received, not written, by Garland, that said threats of violence against school officials could be seen as terrorism. Garland never equated parents to terrorists.
  
  
• J.D. Vance, Apr 29: During his Senate campaign, Vance said: "If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than [for Biden] to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl?" The whole thing is made up. Not only has Biden not encouraged the use of fentanyl, under his administration, seizures of the drug have increased. Overdose deaths surged during the Trump administration. Also, people of color die at a higher rate from the drug than white people. So false on all counts.
  
  
• Joe Biden, May 30: Biden said: "My plan would reduce the average family's annual utility bills by $500." He claimed he got this from utility company executives. It turns out no executives told him that. There was a research study that mentioned $500 for 2030, not now. For this year, his plan might save people $5, so he was off by 100x.
  
  
• Joe Biden, Aug. 11: On Aug. 11, Biden said: "The CHIPS Act will create more than 1 million construction jobs." No way. An industry report said that the number of jobs in construction it would create is about 6,200, not a million.
  
  
• Tucker Carlson, Aug. 29: On his show, Carlson said: Biden is urging children to report their parents to federal authorities if their parents post something called "COVID disinformation." The origin of this story was a benign 2021 video explaining to adults how to evaluate claims about the coronavirus on social media. It got taken over and transformed by right-wing media.
  

Kessler also is giving Mark Meadows a special hypocrisy award for his statement: "Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are, with people moving around?" It's true. And Meadows should have known since he was registered to vote in three states (Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) at the same time. He lost his North Carolina registration after a news report noted that he was registered at an address where he didn't live. The state attorney general has not yet decided if he will bring criminal charges. (V)