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The Jan. 6 insurrection defendants are beginning to confront the legal system and formulate defenses for their conduct, and many of them are repenting, in a fashion.
Not so in the broader political setting of the Republican Party, where the big lie that President Biden stole the election still reigns.
Last week, Anthony Antonio, charged with five counts including violent entry, disorderly conduct and impeding law enforcement during civil disorder, advanced a newfangled defense in a preliminary hearing: “Foxitis.”
Antonio’s lawyer told the judge that his client lost his job and fell into a steady diet of Fox News TV, eventually succumbing to the network’s persistent lies about a stolen election: “He became hooked with what I call ‘Foxitis’ or ‘Foxmania,’ and … started believing what was being fed to him.”
GOP lies about Jan. 6 are getting bolder and more dangerous
The Capitol rioters weren t tourists. And they weren t peaceful protestors.
Anjali Nair / MSNBC; Getty Images
May 13, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC
Four months ago, the U.S. Capitol was overrun. Lawmakers fled their chambers as the mob surged past police lines. Many feared for their lives as former President Donald Trump did nothing to halt the rioters’ march through the building in his name.
Since then, we’ve seen a shift in tone from Republicans who were there that day. I’ve argued that the GOP is taking advantage of Trump’s social media silencing to work undistracted on making the next election easier to overturn.
Drew AngererGetty Images
The fact that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy doesn’t walk around the Capitol with a whip and a chair is yet another demonstration of his ineptitude as a circus trainer. From the
Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted “Hey Alexandria” twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them “terrorist” groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her “radical socialist” beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia. “You don’t care about the American people,” Greene shouted. “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?”