Mary Papenfuss·Trends Reporter, HuffPost
Tue, April 6, 2021, 2:34 AM

Just over half of Republicans believe those who stormed the Capitol on J*** 6 were peaceful, law-abiding citizens or were left-wing activists who were trying to make former President Donald Trump look bad, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Six out of 10 polled Republicans also believe the false claim made by Trump and his supporters that November’s p**********l e******n was “stolen” from him due to widespread v***r f***d. The same percentage believed Trump should run again next e******n.

The false r**t perspectives have been pushed by many Republican leaders. Late last month, Trump said there was “zero threat” during the deadly siege and that r****rs were “kissing and hugging” police guarding the Capitol that day. Yet millions of Americans watched r****rs live on TV grappling with police, beating them with f**gpoles and fire extinguishers and blasting them in the face with bear spray.

Five people, including a police officer, lost their lives.

Although a number of Republicans who said that A****a was responsible for the violence in the Capitol that day have since backed off the claim, their polled followers are apparently standing firm.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for example, initially claimed A****a members posing as Trump supporters were responsible for the siege. But he later conceded they were actually Trump backers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that there was no evidence “anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to A****a” were connected to the Capitol violence. The r****rs, many of whom wore Trump campaign gear, did include known w***e s*********t groups such as the P***d B**s.

While 58% of all Americans (and 86% of Democrats) believe Trump bears some responsibility for the attack, only about 3 out of 10 Republicans feel the same way, per the Reuters poll. Eight out of 10 Democrats and 6 in 10 independents reject the lies that the Capitol siege was “mostly peaceful” or that it was staged by l*****t protesters.

“Republicans have their own version of reality,” John Geer, an expert on public opinion at Vanderbilt University, told Reuters. “It is a huge problem. Democracy requires accountability and accountability requires evidence.”

Most Americans — close to 60% — and more than 80% of Democrats believe Joe Biden won the 2020 p**********l e******n in a fair v**e and that Trump should not run again, Reuters reported.

At the time of this writing, more than 400 people have been arrested for their alleged actions in the Capitol r**t and have been charged with a number of crimes, including trespassing, disorderly conduct, assault and conspiracy. Investigations are continuing and more arrests are expected.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the U.S., and collected responses from 1,005 adults. The poll has a credibility interval of about 4 percentage points.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/reuters-ipsos-poll-half-republicans-peaceful-capitol-r**t-083437706.html

Cause the blue states still don't have it!

When Donald Trump and his allies pushed the “big lie” of v***r f***d and a s****n e******n, it seemed nothing could stop them spreading disinformation with impunity.
But now a little-known tech company, founded 18 years ago in Canada, has the conspiracy theorists running scared. The key: suing them for defamation, potentially for billions of dollars.
“Libel laws may prove to be a very old mechanism to deal with a very new phenomenon of massive disinformation,” said Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist. “We have all these fact checkers but lots of people don’t care. Nothing else seems to work, so maybe this will.”

The David in this David and Goliath story is D******n V****g Systems, an e******n machine company named after Canada’s D******n E******ns Act of 1920. Its main offices are in Toronto and Denver and it describes itself as the leading supplier of US e******n technology. It says it serves more than 40% of American v**ers, with customers in 28 states.

But the 2020 e******n put a target on its back. As the White House slipped away and Trump desperately pushed groundless claims of v***r f***d, his lawyers and cheerleaders falsely alleged D******n had r****d the polls in favour of Joe Biden.

Among the more baroque conspiracy theories was that D******n changed v**es through algorithms in its v****g machines that were created in Venezuela to rig e******ns for the late dictator Hugo Chávez.

The t***h matters. Lies have consequences
D******n V****g Systems
It was laughable but also potentially devastating to D******n’s reputation and ruinous to its business. It also fed a cocktail of conspiracy theories that fuelled Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January, as Congress moved to certify the e******n results. Five people died, including an officer of the C*****l p****e.

The company is fighting back. It filed $1.3bn defamation lawsuits against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, for pushing the allegations without evidence.
Separately, D******n’s security director, Eric Coomer, launched a suit against the Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell and some conservative media figures and outlets, saying he had been forced into hiding by death threats.

Then came the big one. Last month D******n filed a $1.6bn defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, accusing it of trying to boost ratings by amplifying the bogus claims.

“The t***h matters,” D******n’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Lies have consequences. Fox sold a false story of e******n f***d in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring D******n in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.”

The suit argues that Fox hosts and guests “took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire” by broadcasting wild assertions that D******n systems changed v**es and ignoring repeated efforts by the company to set the record straight.

“Radioactive falsehoods” spread by Fox News will cost D******n $600m over the next eight years, according to the lawsuit, and have resulted in D******n employees being harassed and the company losing major contracts in Georgia and Louisiana.

This is from an article in today’s guardian