DEAR EDITOR:

During his recent “telephone town hall,” U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, ranted, engaged in his customary fearmongering and spewed a lot of misleading information.

Johnson tried to blame President Biden for the entire Afghanistan fiasco, apparently forgetting his own party’s responsibility for immersing us in that quagmire in the first place. While Johnson was eager to talk about Afghanistan, most Americans are more concerned about the real threat of right-wing domestic terrorists operating within our borders. According to the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and other law enforcement agencies, right-wing domestic extremism poses greater danger to the U.S. than Islamist terrorists. But Johnson doesn’t want to talk about that, because he knows reasonable analysis of the facts will find he and his party are complicit in the rise of right-wing violence, including the Jan. 6 terrorist attack aimed at overthrowing democracy.

Johnson praised Texas’ draconian new abortion “law” that essentially creates lawlessness and vigilantism. He failed to mention the majority of Americans favor legal abortion and want Roe v. Wade to remain intact. Apparently, Johnson doesn’t believe in democracy. Instead of listening to the will of the people, he wants to overrule them with his own repressive authoritarian views.

Johnson tried to scare everyone with threats about how the Green New Deal will eliminate fossil fuel jobs. But in fact, it will revitalize our economy by creating good-paying jobs in infrastructure and clean energy. Don’t let Johnson scare you. The Green New Deal is better for the planet and the economy. It creates jobs of the future, while Johnson wants to keep everyone stuck in jobs of the past.

Johnson praised school vouchers, despite evidence that voucher schemes are bad for students. For example, a study of Ohio’s voucher program by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (a conservative pro-voucher organization, so you can’t claim bias) found students who use vouchers to attend private schools performed worse academically than students who attend public schools. Other studies across the country have reached similar conclusions.

It’s easy to see Johnson is wrong on all these issues. He consistently exhibits flawed judgment. Bill Johnson is a bad choice to be our representative in Congress. If District 6 wasn’t so gerrymandered, he’d be looking for a new job.

SHAWN L. KOSIOR

Canfield