Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon order ‘flies in the face of the facts’ of violent insurrection, retired federal judge explains

  In the first hours of his second term, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly everyone convicted of crimes associated with the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol – including former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio – and commuted the sentences of 14 more, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.

  CNN reported that nearly 1,600 people have been charged and about 1,300 have been convicted of crimes committed on that day. There are about 300 cases “still active and unresolved,” CNN reported.

How to tell if a conspiracy theory is probably false

  Conspiracy theories are everywhere, and they can involve just about anything.

  People believe false conspiracy theories for a wide range of reasons – including the fact that there are real conspiracies, like efforts by the Sackler family to profit by concealing the addictiveness of oxycontin at the cost of countless American lives.

We are all propagandists now

  The U.S. is in an information war with itself. The public sphere, where Americans discuss public issues, is broken. There’s little discussion – and lots of fighting.

  One reason why: Persuasion is difficult, slow, and time-consuming – it doesn’t make good television or social media content – and so there aren’t a lot of good examples of it in our public discourse.

  What’s worse, a new form of propaganda has emerged – and it’s enlisted us all as propagandists.