Quarter of Americans falsely believe FBI orchestrated January 6. A few even want the rioters freed from jail.

About that.....

How the Trump fake electors scheme became a 'corrupt plan,' according to the indictment | AP News

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Electoral College is part of this Representative Republic right?

There literally is.

Jan. 6 investigations update : NPR

You conservatives in this thread make Flat Earthers look smart.

I think that's honestly how a lot of these things started off as, but Poe's Law has gone into overdrive and people are making too much money off of their Youtube videos and stupid shirts and hats and becoming "experts" that we have to take these things serious.

It's one thing for some asshole to say "Democrats are kidnapping children and we need to stage a coup!" but when the far-right take it serious, it escalates, their beliefs are reinforced by "authority figures" like Tucker and Alex Jones and others...we have no choice but to take them serious as well.

It's sad because I feel like as little as a few years ago we would have just had a good laugh at these people and moved on but now it is deadly serious.

It's all just terrible because their whole raison d'etre is a literal fiction--the culture war, the threats to their freedoms, etc--and they have so thoroughly bought into it, that it is now everyone's problem.

I would love to argue with these people for fun, but sadly we have to take them serious because despite them being a minority, they have control of some very critical parts of our government (specifically the courts).

@robertos: You will never get anything from Jim that back up his claims. If anything he will post sources that counter his stance and proves him wrong.

Yes Jim, it's all a conspiracy from those nefarious shadow actors, and everything is "political" (i.e., anything that isn't a full absolvement of Trump's criminality) when it doesn't align with your partisan wishes.

Funny how it's only justice and fair when Trump and republicans are no longer held responsible for their own actions. Much easier to hide behind tribalism than to actually be the party of personal responsibility and actually take responsibility.

Great example of what I posted. We are also a democracy. Only people that deny that are those that want an authoritarian to lead them.

@mrbojangles25: Someone recently told me that too many people believe they can convince people of something because they are right, have evidence, and the logic is clean, but all you really have to do is repeat your stance more than the other guy. Repetition gives it an air of validity because it creates the impression of a lot of support even if it's just a few guys saying it often or with big microphones.

To laugh it off unchallenged is to concede.

It's rather silly to loop in "probably" and "definitely" into the same pool when answering a question.

Although my favorite quote from an assistant US attorney when asked if he would indict on one of our cases, he replied with a "definite maybe."

lol that's hilarious.

I love legal semantics or technicalities or whatever. And by "love" i mean "fascinated with in the same way someone can be fascinated by a train wreck".

I think another one I enjoyed was concerning supreme court justices and the phrasing of "should not" vs "will not" and how "should not" basically means nothing because it's more of a suggestion, whereas "will not" is a legal thing meaning you definitely cannot do the thing without consequence.

It's wild, but always a good indicator to me when the goal of the defense attorney for example is to nitpick on a spelling or grammatical error, it shows me the case is rock solid on its merits. I'm one of the few folks which loves going to court and testifying; it's fun to me and equally fun to debate defense attorneys.

Haven't had the pleasure to testify in federal court yet. Still in the background process to get my Task Force Officer status with Homeland Security Investigations so I can be dually sworn as a federal agent and a state agent.