Yes, Ron Johnson, There Really Was An Armed Insurrection
Credit: Screencap from Don Lemon clip
February 17, 2021

Last Saturday, QAnon's dumb senator, Ron Johnson, painted himself as a traitor by voting to acquit Trump of inciting the MAGA Sedition Riot of January 6, despite overwhelming evidence. Two days later, RoJo further beclowned himself when he did the Wisconsin squawk radio circuit and tried to cast doubt on whether there really was an armed insurrection on January 6:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson toured the state's airwaves on Monday making the claim, despite video footage and photos of the attack showing participants erecting gallows, deploying pepper spray strong enough to repel bears, carrying zip ties, hurling a fire extinguisher, using baseball bats to smash windows, and throwing flags like spears at police officers.

"This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me," the Oshkosh Republican said in an interview on WISN-AM with conservative talk radio show host Jay Weber, after condemning the events at the U.S. Capitol that day.

"I mean 'armed,' when you hear 'armed,' don’t you think of firearms? Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask. How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I’m only aware of one and I’ll defend that law enforcement officer for taking that shot. It was a tragedy, OK? But I think there was only one."

New flash for RoJo, armed is the use of any weapon, whether it's a gun, mace or even a flagpole, for crying out loud.

But even using RoJo's narrowed definition of armed, there were plenty of examples with dozens of people arrested and a munitions dump worth of weapons seized. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went so far as to name some names of these domestic terrorists:

Among those arrested after the riot was Lonnie Coffman, an Alabama man accused of bringing with him to Washington multiple firearms, 11 Molotov cocktails, a crossbow, smoke bombs and a stun gun — all found in his truck near the Capitol. He brought two firearms to the Capitol area, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

"The amount of weapons suggests an intent to provide them to others, as no one person could reasonably use so many at once," federal prosecutors said.

Samuel Fisher, a New York man who is facing federal charges, is accused of traveling to Washington with multiple firearms and a bulletproof vest. On Jan. 6, he allegedly posted an image of two guns, saying he would take the pistol inside with him and leave the rifle and vest in his vehicle, "and if it kicks off I got a Vest and My Rifle," according to the FBI.

Christopher Alberts of Maryland faces gun charges after police found on him two firearms, both with fully loaded 12-round magazines.

But wait! There's more. There's always more.

Apparently, RoJo wanted to make it evidently clear that his loyalty is not to the United States but to the QAnon/Trump Republic when he claimed that it was a Democratic hoax. From Raw Story:

Johnson went on to claim that Pelosi and Leader Chuck Schumer are "attempting to turn 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump into terrorists." He then claimed that most of the attackers at the Capitol were "helping police," and claimed that Democrats edited the video to make it look bad.

RoJo's lies were egregious enough that even PolitiFact said that RoJo's pantaloons were in flames.

If the gentle reader is a glutton for punishment, Raw Story provided a copy of the interview:

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