The Weekly Sift

Some weeks history seems to be moving faster than usual. A week ago, all anyone could talk about was the Trump indictment, which existed but was still under seal. The drama of his arraignment was still in the future, and it was all the news networks could talk about. In the Sift, I reiterated my usual warning against speculation: We’ll know soon enough what the indictment says; wait for it.

Well, the arraignment and the unsealing of the indictment happened on Tuesday, which seems like a very long time ago. In the meantime,

• An injunction banning one of the two drugs used in medication abortions is set to take effect Friday, unless appellate courts intervene, or a contradictory injunction from a different judge holds in most of the blue states.
• The Tennessee legislature responded to popular protests against its inaction on gun violence by ejecting two young Black legislators who took that protest to the floor of the General Assembly — essentially telling the Black voters of Nashville and Memphis that they don’t get their choice of representative. They need to pick again until they settle on someone acceptable to the White Republican supermajority.
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, it turns out, has been taking high-luxury gift vacations from a major Republican donor for decades, and not reporting them as the law demands.
• And (I almost forgot; it was Tuesday), Wisconsin voters tipped its Supreme Court liberal in a stunning landslide for the usually-closely divided state.

Plus, there’s been some kind of intelligence breach I haven’t even thought about yet, DeSantis is escalating his war against Disney, and Texas Governor Abbott is offering to pardon a guy just convicted of murdering a protester during the George Floyd demonstrations. (I mean, murdering somebody Abbott doesn’t like can’t really be a crime, can it?)

Wait, wasn’t I supposed to talk about Trump? It was just Tuesday.

Anyway, the Trump indictment does get a featured post, which should come out by 9 or 10 EDT (which is 7 or 8 to me, on vacation in Santa Fe). The weekly summary (with lengthy sections on Tennessee and abortion that maybe should have been split off into their own posts) should have everything else, and come out around noon EDT, 10 MDT.