-LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, on taking maskless photos with Magic Johnson

Three new coup-planning memos came to light on Thursday, revealing more wild details about the vats of spaghetti that Trump allies threw at the wall in their efforts to steal the 2020 election.
 

• The most batshit memo was circulated among Trump allies in mid-December 2020, and advocated for then-President Donald Trump to seize classified data from the National Security Agency in order to stay in power. Under that plan, Trump would ask Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to tap three officials to sift through raw electronic communications in an effort to “find evidence” (read: fabricate evidence) of foreign interference in the election. (Like Italian military satellites tampering with voting machines, and what have you.)
   
• The proposed trio of data thieves included former National Security Council official Richard Higgins, who was fired after circulating a berserk memo that accused “globalists” and “Islamists” of sabotaging Trump from within the government. “That period in time was amateur hour,” during which conspiracy theorists of all stripes were trying to get into the Oval Office to pitch their investigations, an informal advisor to Trump told the Post.
   
• Many of them got pretty fucking close, if not all the way in the door! It’s unclear who authored the NSA memo, but Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) each received a copy. Cramer, along with Sen. Cyntha Loomis (R-WY), also attended a January 4 meeting hosted by MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell where they were presented with a range of insane conspiracy theories and solutions. “They wanted to get the [voting] machines,” Cramer said.

The other two newly-revealed memos concerned the more staid, restrained effort to blow up democracy by subverting the Electoral College.
 

• Just fifteen days after the election, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin received a memo (from another pro-Trump lawyer) outlining what became Trump’s eventual strategy of trying to install bogus electors in swing states where he lost, and identified January 6 as the “hard deadline” for overturning the election resuls. A second December memo expanded on that plan with an analysis of how hard it would be to authorize pro-Trump electors in six key swing states, based on how much control GOP officials held over the process.
   
• Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said the January 6 committee was investigating the origins of the alternate electors scheme, and last week it subpoenaed 14 of the fake electors who signed forged certificates of ascertainment. The committee has also subpoenaed the phone records of at least two other fake electors, Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward. The Wards, who are both doctors, have sued to block T-Mobile from sharing their records, arguing the subpoenas violate doctor-patient privilege.

The scheme to use NSA data as a political weapon underscores that Trump and his allies were willing to go to any lengths to overturn the election.The most extreme conspiracy-based proposals thankfully fell by the wayside, but they were entertained by people with the ear of the president, and went hand-in-hand with the strategies that Trump ultimately pursued. 

This week on Hysteria, Erin and Alyssa discuss the Republican-led state attack on abortion rights and the “debate” about President Biden’s soon to-be-named SCOTUS pick. Plus, senior critic-at-large and fashion critic at the Washington Post Robin Givan joins to discuss the intersection of fashion and politics, how Michelle Obama changed the first lady style game, and curious case of the president’s pocket squares. New episodes of Hysteria drop every Thursday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

President Biden announced on Thursday that the leader of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was killed in a U.S. Special Operations raid overnight in northwest Syria. At least 13 people, including women children, died during the operation; al-Qurayshi detonated a bomb that killed him and members of his family, according to the Biden administration. U.S. officials said that al-Qurayshi’s death dealt a “significant blow” to ISIS, and Biden called it a warning to terrorist groups: “This operation is testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world.” Not much is known about al-Qurayshi; he was central to the mass killings and enslavement of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq in 2014, and Biden said Thursday that he was directly responsible for the prison strike in northeast Syria last month.

• The U.S. alleged that Russia plans to “fabricate a pretext for an invasion” of Ukraine with a fake, graphic video showing an attack by Ukrainians, in the hopes of deterring Russia from following through with it. 
   
• President Biden met with New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday to discuss combating gun violence, and announced the launch of new Justice Department initiatives targeting ghost guns and firearms trafficking.
   
• Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) will return to the Senate in four to six weeks, barring any complications from his recent stroke. 
   
• Former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was released from prison Thursday after serving less than half of his nearly seven-year sentence for murdering 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.
   
• A major winter storm knocked out power to nearly 70,000 homes in Texas, before moving towards the midwest and southern states. “No one can guarantee there won’t be [power outages],” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said on Tuesday, two months after guaranteeing that there wouldn’t be power outages.
   
• The FBI said it’s investigating this week’s bomb threats against historically Black colleges and universities as hate crimes, and has identified six juveniles as persons of interest.
   
• Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) has signed a bill banning trans athletes from playing on girls' and womens' sports teams, the first anti-trans bill to become law in 2022.
   
• Iowa Republicans have introduced a bill that would place cameras in every public school classroom for live monitoring, with fines for teachers and administrators who fail to comply. Democrats 2022: The Other Guys Want To Spy On Your Children.™
   
• Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) repeatedly promoted a baseless conspiracy theory that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had fled to the United States because of antivax truckers protesting in Ottowa, and furiously demanded that the U.S. deport him.
   
• The NRA has lost half of its revenue since 2018, according to leaked financial records.
   
• NASA will retire the International Space Station in 2030 and then crash it into the Space Trash section of the Pacific Ocean.

Postmaster General and Unrepentant Mail Villain Louis DeJoy is at it again, this time placing a huge order for gas-powered trucks in defiance of President Biden’s call to electrify the federal fleet. Both the EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the USPS this week asking it to reconsider plans to purchase up to 165,000 trucks, of which just 10 percent would be electric. The EPA criticized the agency for deciding to buy gas-powered trucks based on a flawed environmental analysis that contains “biased cost and emission estimates.” Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) called for DeJoy’s resignation on Wednesday, and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) is still waiting for answers on a shady $54 million purchase of Oshkosh stock made a day before DeJoy announced it was ordering new trucks from the company. Anyway, until the Senate gets around to confirming Biden’s two nominees to the USPS Board of Governors, DeJoy remains unfireable.

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Democrats are on track to gain 2-3 seats in the House through retaliatory gerrymandering. (If Republicans are real mad instead of fake mad about this, they can join congressional Democrats who have all voted to ban partisan gerrymandering outright.)

Mississippi has become the 37th state to legalize medical marijuana. 

Nasal vaccines may be the more-effective COVID boosters of the future. 

Crosby, Stills & Nash have joined Young in pulling their music off of Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan’s vaccine misinformation, while India Arie has pulled out in protest of his comments on race.