The Dictatorship
Why it matters that conservatives are claiming victory over Costco
On Thursday, Costco said it would not begin stocking the abortion medication mifepristone at its more than 500 pharmacies, and conservative groups declared victory following a yearlong pressure campaign. Whether the groups are actually responsible for the wholesale chain’s decision is unclear, but they are framing it as a success and pledging to target retailers that already dispense the drug, which would be a blow to abortion access.
In August 2024, a coalition including far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Inspire Investing — which bills itself as “empowering Christian investors through biblically responsible investing” — sent letters to Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and McKesson urging them not to start dispensing mifepristone. The letter to Costco in particular claimed that 6,000 members signed a petition for it not to stock the drug, implying that they might take their business elsewhere.
A coalition including far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom and Inspire Investing — which bills itself as “empowering Christian investors through biblically responsible investing” — sent letters to Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and McKesson urging them not to start dispensing mifepristone.
In a statement shared with BLN, Costco said, “Our position at this time not to sell mifepristone, which has not changed, is based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients, who we understand generally have the drug dispensed by their medical providers.”
The company did not respond to a follow-up question about how it assessed demand for a medication it doesn’t dispense. The potential interest wouldn’t be limited to the chain’s paid members, as nonmembers can fill prescriptions at its pharmacies. It also wouldn’t be cabined to abortions, since mifepristone is used off label to manage miscarriages.
The Washington Post reports that Costco had deliberated for more than a year about whether to offer mifepristone and decided this month not to do so; the paper cites anonymous sources familiar with the conversations.
Still, ADF is taking credit for Costco maintaining the status quo. As the organization’s corporate engagement legal counsel Michael Ross told Bloomberg News“It’s a very significant win and it’s one we hope to build on this coming year.” Ross added that ADF will turn its focus to CVS and Walgreens, which have been dispensing the drug in states where abortion is legal since early 2024.
It’s a relatively recent development that pharmacies could even stock this drug, which is typically used alongside misoprostol to end an early pregnancy, and conservatives are trying everything they can to shove the genie back in the bottle.
Mifepristone has long been overregulated in the U.S., and for two decades after its approval, the medication had to be dispensed in person by the health care provider who prescribed it. The Covid pandemic led to prescriptions via telemedicine that could be fulfilled by mail-order pharmacies, a change made permanent in late 2021. Then, in January 2023, the Food and Drug Administration said for the first time that brick-and-mortar pharmacies could dispense the drug. CVS and Walgreens swiftly announced plans to stock the medication in states where it was legal.
A month later, 20 Republican attorneys general wrote to CVS and Walgreens and claimed that they might be in violation of a federal law known as the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity statute passed in 1873. Conservatives have argued that the long-dormant law prohibits sending abortion-causing drugs and devices through the mail or carriers like UPS and FedEx. But the same day as the pharmacy change, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice released legal guidance saying that the Comstock Act can’t be enforced against the shipment of abortion drugs as long as the sender doesn’t know the pills will be used illegally.
ADF’s letters to Costco and others cited the AGs’ claims on Comstock, and lobbed a threat that a change in administration could result in federal prosecutions should the retailers begin stocking mifepristone. “Last year, 20 attorneys general wrote letters advising pharmacies that receiving and dispensing the drug by mail is expressly prohibited by the Comstock Act and many state laws. Violating the Comstock Act alone carries a prison sentence of up to ten years,” the letters read. “The statute of limitations is five years, so the current political leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice cannot provide you cover if the administration changes parties.”
The bigger picture here is that groups like ADF are not satisfied with only conservative-led states passing abortion bans. Their long-term goal is to ban nearly all abortions nationwide under the 14th Amendmentand they’re hoping that courts will aid them along the way to realizing that project by ruling that the Comstock Act is enforceable, or that the FDA was wrong to allow telemedicine prescriptions, or both.
ADF took a case to the Supreme Court in 2024 from physicians seeking to end telemedicine prescriptions, and while the justices said those plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue, that litigation continues thanks to three state AGs who joined the case. Missouri AG Andrew Bailey, who organized the letter to CVS and Walgreens, is leading that case. Most of the other AGs who signed the pharmacy letter have also signed an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit.
Abortion pills were used in nearly two-thirds of all documented terminations in the U.S. in 2023, and by the end of 2024, about 1 in 4 abortions were provided via telemedicine. Pharmacies stocking abortion pills would make them more accessible than they already are, which is a threat to conservatives’ current ban-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy.
Abortion pills were used in nearly two-thirds of all documented terminations in the U.S. in 2023.
The Costco pressure campaign underscores that GOP lawmakers and groups like ADF know an abortion ban cannot pass Congress, so they are trying to limit access in other ways, namely by targeting pills and working to shutter clinics. Their goal is to make it so people can only get abortion medication by physically traveling to a shrinking number of clinics, with more set to shutter amid fallout from the GOP budget bill that “defunds” large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood has said that as many as 200 of its clinics could close as a result of the bill, including 75% of its abortion-providing clinics across 12 states. That’s why the organization calls the law a backdoor abortion ban. Making abortion less accessible functions as an effective ban for some women — all before a possible nationwide ban is in place.
This context is why it’s so disappointing that Costco will not dispense mifepristone, a necessary medication for people who need abortions and people experiencing miscarriages — and one that is set to become increasingly difficult to access. ADF added in a press release after the Bloomberg story that it “applaud[s] Costco for doing the right thing by its shareholders and resisting activist calls to sell abortion drugs.” This isn’t about “selling” abortion pills. It’s about pharmacies being willing to dispense medications that people’s doctors have prescribed them.
The Costco statement said it believed that people “generally” have mifepristone dispensed by their medical providers, not pharmacies. While many people do still receive the pill directly from their doctor either in person or by mailtelemedicine prescriptions are increasingly filled by mail-order pharmacies like Honeybee Healthand of course other pharmacies do dispense the drug. Just not Costco.
Later in the ADF release, the group claimed that dispensing abortion pills is a bad business decision. “Retailers like Costco keep their doors open by selling a lifetime of purchases to families, both large and small,” Ross said. “They have nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming abortion dispensaries. Retail pharmacies exist to serve the health and wellness of their customers, but abortion drugs like mifepristone undermine that mission by putting women’s health at risk.”
Data shows that abortion restrictions are not only bad for people’s healthbut also bad for the economy. The landmark Turnaway Study found that women denied abortions are four times as likely to live below the federal poverty level than women who got care. And in June, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) estimated that the Dobbs decision has led to $64 billion in economic losses each year in the 16 states that ban or heavily restrict abortion. Nationwide, IWPR estimates that bans and other restrictions keep about 550,000 women out of the labor force annually, which is enough to impact GDP, they say.
Corporations may not care about trying to prevent a nationwide abortion access crisis, but they should care about protecting their profits and shareholder value.
SUSPAN goals
Susan Rinkunas is an independent journalist and co-founder of Autonomy News. Her work has appeared in Jezebel, The New Republic, The Guardian, Slate, The Nation and more.
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.
Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuitsboth filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, saying in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order seeking to create a federal list of eligible voters and using the U.S. Postal Service to determine who can receive a mail ballot are “legally void” because they “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation’s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.
Order targeted mail voting, administration likely to appeal
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose state was among the plaintiffs, celebrated the court’s decision.
“Millions of independents, Republicans and Democrats across Arizona have voted by mail for decades,” she said in a statement, noting that nearly 80% of ballots in the state are cast by that method.
Mayes, a Democrat, singled out military families, voters in the state’s rural expanses and Native Americans who cast ballots from tribal lands.
“Donald Trump’s executive order targeted all of these voters,” she said. “But today, the courts affirmed what the Constitution makes clear: States run their elections, not the President.”
AP AUDIO: Federal judge halts Trump’s election executive order seeking to create a federal voter list
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports President Trump has suffered a legal setback for a second straight day in his bid to get oversight of the nation’s elections.
The White House stood by Trump’s executive order and indicated the administration would appeal the ruling. The order, said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, “lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation.”
The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order, argued that the motions were premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
But in an interim order before Thursday’s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year’s election cycle were relevant: “In light of the EO’s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,” she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the challenges.
Executive order sought to give Postal Service a central role in elections
Trump’s executive order, the second one aimed at elections during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. It also is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.
Trump issued his second order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government — through the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration — create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters. It then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list.
Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.
The Postal Service has published a proposed rule required by Trump’s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.
Postal Service workers have pushed back against the order, saying they are not equipped to determine who is eligible to vote in each state. After Trump issued his order last spring, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association said forcing its members into such a role “risks politicizing one of the nation’s most trusted public institutions.”
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat whose state was among the plaintiffs, said the executive order illustrated how Trump was attempting to “abuse power in previously unthinkable ways” to interfere in elections.
She said it “strains credulity” to think the U.S. Postal Service could set up a workable system for pre-screening individual voters to determine whether they would be allowed to vote by mail, adding that it would be “a shocking violation of American constitutional rights.”
The Postal Service did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.
Trump’s second election executive order faces multiple legal challenges
The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was filed by Democratic attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia. Also signing on were attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which has a Republican attorney general.
The states also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, had argued that no one would be prosecuted for violating the order.
The other lawsuit filed in Talwani’s court was by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, which have sought a preliminary injunction against the executive order.
In yet another lawsuit filed against the executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in May agreed with the Trump administration that it was too early to block the order because it had yet to be implemented. That lawsuit was brought by Democratic and civil rights groups, which have appealed.
Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe BidenTrump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigationsincluding ones run by Republicansfound it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.
___
Barrow reported from Atlanta and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas.
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
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