One of the most bracing, bizarre aspects of Mark Meadows texts with members of Congress is the fact that many truly seemed to believe the most absurd claims and conspiracy theories. This wasn’t just red meat they were tossing out on Fox and Newsmax. They were saying this stuff, in earnest, in the privacy of text messages with longtime colleagues. But even this, I would say, isn’t the heart of the matter. There’s something else we see in the very first texts, before the TV networks called the race but when the writing was clearly on the wall. It can most easily be summarized as: Trump can’t be allowed to lose. On Nov. 6, 2020, Rep. Brian Babin tells Meadows that they “refuse to live under a corrupt Marxist dictatorship.”

There are a lot of other exciting things happening at Talking Points Memo dot com this week.

But just because we’re launching a massive exclusive series after months of work that reveals some of the most dramatic details yet about the scope of Republican members of Congress‘ involvement in trying to overturn the election does NOT mean we’ve forgotten that it’s Golden Dukes season.

Gotta give the people (you) what they want (opportunities to celebrate those weirdos who did the worst best).

We’re giving over most of the front page to the Meadows Texts, but don’t miss Morning Memo: The Meadows Texts Jump From Politics To Pop Culture.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R) of South Carolina tells local press that his January 17th, 2021 call to place the United States under martial law to keep Trump in office — first reported yesterday by TPM — came from “frustration.”

Get your Morning Memo fix here.

As my colleague David Kurtz hinted in Morning Memo today, we’re about to drop the first of a series of exclusive stories we’re planning to publish over the course of this week about the 2020 election-overturning effort.

It’s based on a pretty massive log of unreported material. I won’t give away much more than that here, but make sure you stick around at TPM this afternoon.

One of the most consistent findings of years of audience research at TPM is that people in education and especially higher education (college and graduate) are our largest single audience. That’s certainly true of representation vs the population at large but it’s also true (though definitions became more complicated here) in absolute terms. Perhaps this isn’t surprising given that the site was founded by a lapsed academic. But among many other things it means that there are quite a lot of physicists among you. And you’ve been helping me with lots of feedback about this fusion announcement apparently coming shortly from the Livermore Laboratory.

For the non-physicists and innumerate among you, everything I’ve heard confirms the gist of my second post on this from this morning: this is, unfortunately, not a game changer for the possible future of fusion as a source of population-level power generation. The key is to distinguish between two questions: a breakthrough achievement in scientific and engineering terms? Yes. A breakthrough in terms of fusion produced energy being any more part of your future than it was a week ago? No. Sadly, no. But still no.

Now all the rest of the American media is reporting on this apparent breakthrough in fusion research at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California. Courtesy of TPM Readers and a bit of reading on my own I’ve had a bit of a crash course on what this news means. Unfortunately, I think it means less than it may seem. I’m not going to try to explain or discuss the science. But from what I can tell the following is true: This is an important breakthrough in fusion science. But for most of us the question is whether this is a breakthrough on the road to fusion as a viable source of clean and abundant energy. From the conversations I’ve had, the answer to the latter question is no.

I’m not sure what to make of this but The Financial Times is reporting that scientists at the Livermore laboratory in California believe, according to preliminary results, that they have achieved a net energy gain with a fusion reaction. Though the practical immediate impact would be very limited, the historic impact of such an achievement is great. In theory a controlled fusion reaction holds the promise of essentially limitless clean energy. The fuel is simple hydrogen. This, if true, is simply getting slightly more out of a fusion reaction than that used to create it. But this is certainly a key milestone on the path to that. The article claims that Energy Secretary Granholm will make some announcement on Tuesday. There was a fusion announcement a couple decades ago that turned out to be bunk. So I can’t help but be skeptical about this — honestly, very skeptical. I also have some question why the news is appearing first (and only, so far as I can tell) in The Financial Times. Still, if it were true the future would change dramatically.

Late Update: Having seen so little press pick-up besides The Financial Times and getting some more reader feedback I’m inclined to think this is a more incremental step in the process than is presented in the article. So I think my skepticism was merited but more on the significance than the accuracy. Do you know the science of fusion? Let me know what you think.

We’ve discussed at some length in the past how there’s a far-right alternative universe in which pedophilia and child sexual exploitation are not those actual things but cudgels to be used against political enemies, “globalists” and anyone even proximate to supporting the rights of the LBGT community. This is the wellspring of things like the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory and much of what is now labeled QAnon.

For years on the far right of anti-Twitter “free speech” activism there have been hate campaigns targeting Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former General Counsel, and Yoel Roth, head of Trust and Safety. Since Roth is gay and Jewish he’s been a particular target for the far-right spaces which have been the foot soldiers of this variety of “free speech” activism.