Idaho Bak
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When the late white supremacist Richard Butler founded the Aryan Nations back in the early 1970s, he chose Idaho for the group's headquarters. The Aryan Nations opened a compound in Hayden Lake, a suburb of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho — and starting in 1981, Butler held the annual Aryan Nations World Congress gathering on the compound. Members of other white supremacist, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups were invited, including the Ku Klux Klan, The Order, and former KKK Grand Dragon Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR).
In a lengthy article for Mother Jones' March/April 2026 issue, reporter Michael Edison Hayden (known for his work with the Southern Poverty Law Center in the past) examines Idaho's long history of far-right extremism — from the Aryan Nations to MAGA Christian nationalists — and describes the deep red state as a "bellwether for radicalization."
"North Idaho came up a lot during my time at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the storied civil rights watchdog where I worked from 2018 through 2023," Hayden explains. "The region seemed to have an uncanny ability to attract bigots from elsewhere in the country…. By the 1970s…. neo-Nazis were arriving…. Then in 1991, an Aryan Nations associate named Randy Weaver failed to appear in court on a firearms charge. U.S. marshals began surveilling his property the following year, and when they approached his residence in the Ruby Ridge area of North Idaho, they came into conflict with the Weaver family, ultimately killing Weaver's teenage son and Weaver's wife, who was carrying the couple's baby in her arms when she was shot."
More recently, Hayden notes, "new extremists" in Idaho have been "making inroads in the local GOP power structure."
"A Republican group called the North Idaho Pachyderm Club, which is promoted on the official Kootenai County GOP website, has invited far-right activists Vincent James Foxx and Dave Reilly to speak in recent years," Hayden reports. "Reilly, who has a history of antisemitic commentary, even secured a KCRCC endorsement for his failed 2021 school board campaign. More moderate Republicans became targets….. In June 2020, armed individuals patrolled (Coeur d'Alene's) streets in an event called 'Gun d’Alene' —part of the backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement. Two years after that, dozens of masked members of Patriot Front, a neofascist collective, were caught packed in a U-Haul, preparing to storm a Pride parade."
Hayden emphasizes that extremism in Idaho can encourage extremism in other parts of the U.S.
"One theme I heard repeatedly about Coeur d’Alene was that it is a bellwether for radicalization," Hayden warns. "Meaning that if you see something like authoritarians shutting down speech at a town hall there — or maybe even a maniac ambushing firefighters — you should take it seriously, because it could be coming to your city next…. As Kate Bitz of the Western States Center said, 'If it happens in North Idaho now, no one should be surprised when it happens nationally a few years later.'"
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KFF AN 10 25
In the 1970s, persistent measles outbreaks provoked officials to strengthen child protection with enforced school mandates in every state. Today the partisan split on vaccine policy in the wake of the covid outbreak has changed the equation. This is nowhere more the case than in Florida, although legislators in Texas and Louisiana are also considering ending mandatory vaccination, and Idaho enables parents to get an exemption just by asking for it.
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thom an 10 24
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— Republican attorneys general go to court to demand more pregnant 15-year-olds. This story sounds too bizarre to be true, but Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Idaho Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador have filed a lawsuit in federal court — presumably aiming for an eventual hearing before the Supreme Court — claiming that their states are being harmed, population-wise, by the availability of abortion drugs that can be shipped into their states by mail.
They want shipping Mifepristone outlawed nationwide. The proof of the harm, they say, is that they are not seeing enough pregnant teenagers. The lawsuit is explicit (page 190): “Defendants’ efforts enabling the remote dispensing of abortion drugs has caused abortions for women in Plaintiff States and decreased births in Plaintiff States. This is a sovereign injury to the State in itself. … When data is examined in a way that reflects sensitivity to expected birth rates, these estimates strikingly ‘do not show evidence of an increase in births to teenagers aged 15-19,’ even in states with long driving distances despite the fact that ‘women aged 15-19 … are more responsive to driving distances to abortion facilities than older women.’”
They then claim that this “proof” that availability of mailed abortion pills are causing the drop in pregnancies among girls 15-19 years old is an “injury” to their states because it lowers their potential population. This is getting wild, but wait until the Supreme Court authorizes Red states to begin monitoring the menstrual periods of fertile girls and women; Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt has already introduced federal legislation requiring companies selling devices that track ovulation to report their results to state agencies or a federal database, including police agencies nationwide, so pregnancies can be caught and tracked. Republicans won’t be happy until every girl in America grows up the way Amy Coney Barrett did in her People of Praise Catholic cult where she was referred to as a “Handmaiden.”
— And now, to the delight of Republican lawmakers and police the US government has bought a tool that can track you by your cellphone to abortion clinics anywhere in the country. Locate X is a product from Babel Street which our government has been using since the Trump administration; it’s capable of tracking every cellphone in the country with remarkable location accuracy. The folks at 404 Media did a trial run of it focused on tracking people to and from abortion clinics, and the process was startlingly easy. When Ted Cruz, JD Vance, and the rest of the GOP forced-birth crowd again gain control of the federal government, get ready. They’re chomping at the bit…
an 6 24
One of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions expected this term was momentarily posted to the Court's website before it was promptly taken down.
Bloomberg first reported (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/us-supreme-court-poised-to-allow-emergency-abortions-in-idaho) that the decision in a major abortion-related case briefly appeared on SCOTUS' website, in which it appeared as if the Court would allow for emergency abortions to be performed in Idaho despite the Gem State's ban on abortions. The author of the opinion and a breakdown of how individual justices voted on the decision remains unknown.
In the cases, Moyle v. United States (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2023/23-726) and State of Idaho v. United States (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A470/290151/20231120154722276_2023-11-20%20Motion%20with%20Appendix.pdf), justices are expected to dismiss the case brought by the plaintiff as "improvidently granted." This means that Idaho's challenging the application of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) against its own abortion ban would mean that the existing federal law supersedes state law.
READ MORE:'Want these people gone': Pregnant women seen as 'radioactive' in red state emergency rooms (https://www.alternet.org/pregnant-patients-red-states/)
Idaho was one of the first states to officially ban all abortions after SCOTUS overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in June of 2022. That summer, Idaho's GOP-controlled legislature passed the Defense of Life Act (https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title18/t18ch6/sect18-622/), which makes it a felony crime punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs an abortion within the state. Additionally, any abortion provider who performs the procedure would have their license suspended for six months pending review, and their license would be permanently revoked on the second offense.
While the law provides exceptions for cases in which the life of the mother would be at risk, many emergency rooms in Republican-controlled states frequently turned away pregnant patients due to not wanting to run afoul of the law. This is a violation of EMTALA, which states that any hospital that receives federal funding from Medicaid and Medicare has to provide emergency treatment (https://www.alternet.org/pregnant-patients-red-states/) to any emergency room patient.
"They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look," George Washington University professor Sara Rosenbaum told the Associated Press in April. "They just want these people gone."
While the brief posting of the Idaho abortion decision may not have been the final opinion, justices may have sided with the U.S. government based on the Supremacy Clause (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause). Article VI, paragraph 2 of the Constitution explicitly instructs states that their laws may not interfere with federal law, and that when the two clash, federal law will be prioritized.
READ MORE:'Don't breathe easy yet': Abortion pill safe only 'for now' experts say after SCOTUS ruling (https://www.alternet.org/abortion-pill-scotus/)
Since Idaho passed its abortion ban, the state has seen an exodus of obstetricians and gynecologists. Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that the Gem State has lost roughly one in five OB-GYN professionals (https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/22/report-shows-fewer-idaho-obgyns-since-repeal-of-roe-v-wade/#::text=A%20new%20report%20shows%20Idaho,more%20than%201%20in%205.) since its abortion ban became law.
“What we’re seeing in this report and with this exodus of providers is that now Idaho is a state that criminalizes physicians, and the chilling effect is real," Valley County Family care obstetrician and Coalition board president Caitlin Gustafson told OPB in February.
Click here (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/us-supreme-court-poised-to-allow-emergency-abortions-in-idaho) to read Bloomberg's report (subscription required).