Editors’ Blog

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made a predictable move today. He filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s recent executive order asking the Department of Health and Human Services to take action to protect abortion access in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s overturning.

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the dynamics of the new abortion politics.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

From TPM Reader DS …

Just read your latest piece. I still think you are correct on the Codify Roe promise. But every single day that goes by without explicit promises, in living rooms and cars, the energy wanes. The right to abortion (and the right to privacy in general), affects many, many people. The actuality of it, on a day to day or week to week basis, doesn’t. 

I mean, think about it. The whole anti-choice movement was built on the idea that hundreds of thousands of women were just running around getting abortions every other week. It is kind of a classic Overton-window situation, right? A million abortions a day! Roe is overturned, now, it’s only a few thousand a day!! We have saved lives, and those who really need it still have some access!!

Over the last couple months I’ve been beating the drum over the critical importance of putting Roe v. Wade at the center of the midterm election and doing so with a unified pledge to pass a Roe law in January 2023 if Democrats hold the House and add two Senate seats. There’s been some but still not nearly enough progress on getting Democrats to make this pledge or at least to say they’d support such a bill if it comes to a vote. So I wanted to check in to see if polls suggest any of this is having an impact.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin resigned from the White House after Trump lost the election. But when she informed then-chief of staff Mark Meadows of her impending departure, he told her to stick around.

I wanted to refer back to the email from TPM Reader SR which I published last night. SR referred to yesterday’s email from TPM Reader TL about government lawyers and the challenge they face taking stock of the fundamental changes in today’s judiciary. SR interpreted this as a matter of toughness or willingness to take extreme steps to advance policy outcomes. As he put it, these roadblocks stymie Democrats but they didn’t create an obstacle for Republicans or Trumpers because they just ignored the legal advice. “The difference is integrity. Dems have it. Reps don’t. You knew that already.”

This is not at all what we’re talking about. Certainly not what I’m talking about and I’m quite confident not what TL was talking about either. Toughness or willingness to break things is another metric that can be very important. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

I disagree with TPM Reader SR on this. But I post it here to add to and advance our broader discussion of the issue.

Those same gutless government lawyers mentioned in the edblog email today also put an end to a LOT of stupid shit long before the public gets a whiff of it. “Big shouldered” tough-guy dummies in the last admin were stopped dead in their tracks more often than not. They were literally too stupid for their own good. Which, was good for the rest of us.

The same starting point of what is the statutory/const authority for doing this action is an equal opportunity roadblock. The difference is that the republicans say thanks and do it anyway by finding some political lawyer hack to overrule. The dems piss and moan about the laudable goals(often true) and ask to rethink it 5 times and then gnash and wail forever. But don’t do it.

House Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) made it clear that she and her committee will not be steamrolled by Trump or any of his allies’ efforts to try to interfere with the panel’s investigation or to try to intimidate witnesses. Today was the second time she’s publicly revealed that Trump and people close to him are clearly watching the hearings — and might be getting spooked.

One of the highlights of today’s Jan. 6 Committee hearing was a text exchange between Kylie Jane Kremer, an Ellipse rally organizer, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. In the text Kremer said to Lindell, “we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse.”

You may remember Josh Kovensky had the scoop on the story of a second planned rally outside SCOTUS back in December. You can read that TPM exclusive here.

Learn about this confirmation and more in a new Twitter Space conversation between Josh Kovensky and Matt Shuham, where they make sense of today’s hearing. Listen below and follow us on Twitter @TPM to tune in to the next live chat:

www.twitter.com/i/spaces/1gqxvllEyQwGB?s=20

I want you to read this TPM Reader email. If you care about Roe, Dobbs or what seems like a White House response that’s just not up to the challenge of the moment, you should really read this. It’s not exculpatory. But it explains the nature of the breakdown, the outdated model they appear to be stuck in. I won’t be identifying the TPM Reader, even by initials. Suffice it to say TPM Reader TL, as I’ll call them, has longtime professional experience that allows them to give this perspective and render these judgments.

Yesterday afternoon, you retweeted the Politico story on the White House lawyers’ conservative approach to post-Dobbs fixes saying “If this is true it shows a total misunderstanding of the current political moment.”

That is exactly the problem.

For decades, lawyers for the Executive Branch, in both DoJ and the White House, have urged their “clients”—agencies and the President—not to be overly aggressive in exercising their authority for fear that agency action would be invalidated in court.