THE RIGHT'S ZOMBIE LIE ABOUT THE GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS

The Guardian reports that Kevin McCarthy still intends to play stall ball on the release of the January 6 security videos:

The Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, said on Sunday he would “slowly roll out” to networks other than Fox News more than 40,000 hours of security footage from the January 6 attack on Congress.

“We will slowly roll out to every individual news agency,” McCarthy told Sunday Morning Futures, a show broadcast by Fox News. “They can come see the tapes as well. Let everyone see them to bring their own judgment.”

McCarthy has only let Fox News see the tapes so far, giving access to the primetime host Tucker Carlson.

It's disgraceful that our supine mainstream media hasn't been angrily demanding access to these tapes since the day we learned Carlson was getting exclusive access. McCarthy is normalizing the idea of selective access to information generated by public agencies, just in time for a possible second Donald Trump term or a first Ron DeSantis term.

McCarthy compounded the offense to democracy by trotting out a whataboutist lie about January 6 that just won't die:

McCarthy also wielded a common rightwing talking point, likening January 6 – a violent assault linked to nine deaths including law enforcement suicides – to protests for racial justice after the police murder of George Floyd in summer 2020 which sometimes turned violent.

McCarthy said: “Why did I watch federal courts, why did I watch cities burn, federal agencies or something, and nobody arrested there? I think we should have equal justice across this country.”

He was joined in this by a congresswoman who's becoming the next-gen Lindsey Graham -- Nancy Mace, a Republican who presents herself as a reasonable moderate rather a Marjorie Taylor Greene-style frother, which means she's endlessly invited on Sunday talk shows, where, like Senator Graham, she trots out lite version of dishonest right-wing talking points:

Nancy Mace, a relatively moderate Republican from South Carolina, tried to make the same point on CNN’s State of the Union.

... Mace [said]: “We saw very few arrests when there were attacks by ... members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter...."

McCarthy said there was "nobody arrested." Mace said there were "very few arrests." In fact:

A June 22, 2020, article from The Washington Post tallied over 14,000 arrests made since May 27. The Hill reported over 17,000 arrests had been made in the first two weeks of protests.

Most of the arrests were for minor offenses. However:

An Associated Press review of court documents in more than 300 federal cases stemming from the protests ... shows that dozens of people charged have been convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison.

The AP found that more than 120 defendants across the United States have pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial of federal crimes including rioting, arson and conspiracy. More than 70 defendants who’ve been sentenced so far have gotten an average of about 27 months behind bars. At least 10 received prison terms of five years or more.

McCarthy and Mace's voters don't know this because the right-wing media sources they rely on for news don't want them to know it.

By comparison:

At least 1,000 people so far have been arrested on charges related ot the Jan. 6, 2021, riot ...

About 518 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes so far, the DOJ said....

Around one third of Capitol riot defendants have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding police during the attack, the DOJ said. About 420 defendants have already been adjudicated and sentenced for their criminal activity. Another 53 people were found guilty at trials, DOJ said.

It's true that most of the people arrested in the George Floyd protests faced minor charges:

... The Hill reported most of those protesters were booked not for violent crimes, but for low-level offenses such as violating curfews. Obstructing roadways and carrying open containers were other reasons for the arrests, as well as “failure to disperse.”

Right-wingers talk as if entire cities were burned to the ground in those protests. That's not true. However, there was quite a bit of damage as a result of those protests -- $2 billion worth, versus $2.88 million in financial losses in the Capitol riot.

But none of the George Floyd protests threatened our system of government. The Capitol rioters threatened to overturn a democratic election. Window-smashing knuckleheads in Portland might have done a lot of property damage, which is very bad, but the Capitol riot was far more of a threat to our nation.

Of course no one corrected McCarthy on Fox, but someone should have corrected Mace on CNN. And The Guardian should have pointed out that the two of them were wrong. This zombie lie needs to be challenged whenever it's told.