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Supreme Court Freezes Lower Court Rulings While Mifepristone Case Plays Out

The Supreme Court ruled Friday to pause lower court rulings that would have imposed restrictions on mifepristone, keeping the drug accessible while the case proceeds.

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Treasurer At Center Of Santos Scandals Touted Herself As Defender Of Accountability And ‘Careful Stewardship’

As the treasurer for George Santos’ campaign and two of his political committees, Nancy Marks is a central figure in the various investigations into his wildly irregular campaign finances. And according to a new report from the New York Times, Marks attracted the attention of federal investigators at least twice before she teamed up with Santos. 

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Judge Savages Kacsmaryk Ruling While Siding With Maker Of Generic Mifepristone 

A federal judge has denied an attempt by Republican officials in West Virginia to pause a maker of mifepristone’s lawsuit against them Friday, taking the opportunity to thoroughly rinse his colleague in Texas, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. 

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The Fall of Meatball Ron: Egghead Analysis Edition

It is incredibly entertaining watching the dreams of Ron DeSantis and his billionaire power-broker backers crumble before our eyes. I mean, super entertaining. But beyond the hilarity there are some more serious points to note about what we’re seeing.

First a bit of stage setting.

We’re seeing lots of commentary now about all the mistakes DeSantis is making or has made. Be skeptical of that. The issue is more that his whole Trump-slaying candidacy was basically a mirage. If DeSantis didn’t exist his supporters would have had to invent him. And they did invent him, because he doesn’t exist. After 2020 and especially after the 2022 misfire there were lots of Republicans, especially the big donors and operatives, who wanted to put an end to the Trump Era. The question was who could pull that off. DeSantis was succeeding politically in Florida with a pretty Trumpian agenda. So he made a lot of sense as the guy. Ron was definitely up for it. But all the eye-popping poll results and all the big money men lining up behind him had virtually nothing to do with the actual person Ron DeSantis, who is at best not a people person or a terribly dynamic campaigner.

He was the way station for the support of people who — all things being equal — wanted to move on from Trump. The second his Trump-Slayer bonafides took a hit he was always going to drop like a stone. Which is what’s happening right now. The support was a mirage. So don’t be too hard on the guy for squandering his big chance since it was always an illusion in the first place.

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In Secret Recording, A Top City Library Official Calls Alaska Natives ‘Woke’ And ‘Racists’

This article was originally published at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.

Alaska governors and mayors have at various times appointed Judy Eledge to the state Board of Education, the Anchorage Health and Human Services Commission and the Alaska Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. She stood at the side of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a personal friend, on the night of his 2018 Republican primary victory.

When it was time for the state to cast its Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election, Eledge was one of the three people representing Alaska. And in his annual State of the State speech earlier that year, Dunleavy asked her to stand for an ovation because she exemplified “the heart of Alaska.”

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GOP Lawmaker Voted To Expel Tennessee Three Days After Panel Found He Sexually Harassed Interns

Tennessee Republican Scotty Campbell — one of the legislators who voted to expel the Tennessee Three — resigned from his House seat on Thursday after it became public that he sexually harassed a legislative intern.

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Florida GOPers Flex Dinner With Trump After Snubbing DeSantis

Florida House Republicans have been lining up to endorse Donald Trump’s next presidential bid, even though Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has requested some of their support for his developing campaign. Now, they’re flexing their allegiance to the former president.

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TN GOP Rep Harassed Teen Interns Before Voting to Expel Members

Back when we were writing about the three members expelled from the Tennessee state House I mentioned that it seemed like half the GOP members I looked into (either leadership or members who had run-ins with Pearson and Jones) seemed to have one scandal or another in their background. It seemed like a predictable consequence of the unbreakable hold Republicans have over the chamber: no accountability.

Well, there’s more.

Yesterday news broke that the now former vice chair of the House Republican Caucus, Rep. Scotty Campbell, had serially harassed two teen interns working for the state House. The harassment included repeated and unwanted overtures in which Campbell told one 19-year-old intern who apparently lived in the same apartment complex that he fantasized about her imagined sexual encounters with other men and women, including his fantasies or claims that she was having sex with another 19-year-old female intern. In other words, totally over the top, over the line and basically insane. Here’s part of the local reporter’s account.

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