In the wake of Idaho’s passage of a new, first-of-its-kind law that bans some interstate travel to receive abortion care, new data sheds light on just how crucial out-of-state travel has been and will continue to be in this post-Roe America.

Democrats are rightly hitting Republicans for voting to “defund” the police in the form of federal law enforcement, and scheduling test votes like the one Majority Leader Chuck Schumer just announced. (This follows Trump’s demand that Republicans vote to cut off funding for the DOJ and FBI to force the end of the various prosecutions that await him.) This comes after Democrats have voted several times since the beginning of the pandemic to increase funding for law enforcement and Republicans have voted no. But there’s a broader and more sinister process unfolding that needs to be at the center of national conversation.

We’ve got two important looks at the travesty of the Kacsmaryk decision both as a matter of legal reasoning and for its potential impact far beyond pharmaceutical abortions. But I wanted to focus briefly on a dimension of the political and electoral impact for the GOP. As we know from years of polling and a year of elections, abortion bans are really unpopular. But Republicans now have to deal with something beyond simple unpopularity. They have a corrupted branch of government — the federal judiciary — which they created but do not directly control, and which keeps upping the ante.

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Here’s a thread from Managing Editor John Light, at his modest, painstaking best:

I’ve alluded a few times to the fact that TPM Publisher Joe Ragazzo and I went into this year’s Annual TPM Membership drive with no little trepidation. But the response has been pleasantly surprising and gratifying. We’re more than half way toward our goal for the drive after one week. If you’d considered joining please take a moment to do so today. Like, if you’re considering it, literally take a moment right now, take out your wallet and click here. It’s easy, will take you a couple minutes tops and you’ll be glad you did.

Today is the anniversary of a raid you may not know about. If you do, the date likely doesn’t ring a bell. What you almost certainly do know is that members of the Black September faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization took members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and eventually killed all of them. This led to a massive and wide-ranging campaign of retaliation by Israel (Operation Wrath of God) targeting everyone directly involved in the attack as well as those who had ordered it. The initial Munich attack and the campaign of retaliation have subsequently been chronicled in various books and even big-budget Hollywood movies.

One of those attacks came on April 10, 1973, when members of Israel’s elite commando unit — known by an acronym, Sayeret Matkal — led a raid into Beirut. Some details of the raid are set forth in an AP article published today. The head of the unit and head of the raid was Ehud Barak, who would later become the head of the IDF, the first prime minister to drive Benjamin Netanyahu from office in 1999 and finally erstwhile defense minister in later Netanyahu governments.

There are few better examples of the right-wing corruption of the federal judiciary than what happened yesterday down in Amarillo, Texas, when federal trial court “stayed” FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The ruling applies nationwide and on its face will ban the drug when it goes into effect in seven days.

I put “stayed” in scare quotes because the ordinary meaning of a stay is to put an action on hold, to prevent it while its validity or legality is evaluated. It’s to prevent some irreversible harm. But mifepristone was approved for use in the U.S. 20 years ago. There’s no serious or substantial question whether mifepristone is safe and effective for the purpose of inducing an abortion. And that is what the FDA evaluates. It’s something federal judges don’t normally evaluate and really aren’t in any position to.

This is simply yet another backdoor way to ban another legal method to abort a pregnancy in red states and blue.

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You have certainly seen lots of coverage of the expulsion of Tennessee lawmakers Justin Jones (D) and Justin Pearson (D) yesterday from the Tennessee state house. One particular encounter caught my attention from the debate prior to the votes. It’s the moment when Rep. Andrew Farmer (R), a sponsor of the expulsion resolution, lectured Pearson about his behavior, saying that Pearson just wants attention and doesn’t know how to behave. It’s worth watching it to get the flavor of the comments and Pearson’s response. Someone else said Farmer seemed to be like the caricature of the racist white lawyer from a 1990s-era movie. And that captures it. It’s demeaning. He’s talking to Pearson like a child who simply doesn’t belong in the state capitol and doesn’t understand the work being done there. You can see the interchange here.

Like John, I’ve also frequently found it hard to make sense of what is happening in Ukraine, especially in recent months when the conflict has shown relatively little movement in lines of control. From my understanding, the real question is what will happen in the offensive the Ukrainian army has long telegraphed starting sometime in the spring or early summer. The brutal fight over Bakhmut, from what I’ve been able to understand, has to be seen in that context.