We Should All Be Outraged By How Arizona GOP Blocked Abortion Bill

The Arizona legislature devolved into a state of chaos after Republicans abruptly shut down a discussion to repeal the state’s recently reinstituted draconian abortion ban, with Democrats chanting “Shame” at their colleagues across the aisle.

On Wednesday, Republican state Representative Matt Gress motioned to bring House Bill 2677—a formal effort to repeal the abortion law—up for a vote. But that effort was cut short when another GOP lawmaker motioned to go into recess, throwing the legislature into disarray.

“He does not care about the women who will die because of this horrific ban,” shouted one Democratic lawmaker, pointing at Gress.

“I absolutely—” started Gress, before getting cut off by other lawmakers, who shouted “absolutely not!”

Another effort to make a motion to repeal the law also failed after the recess. House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, a Republican, motioned to adjourn, gaveling the session out before the “nay” votes could even be heard. Meanwhile, in the Senate, a similar move by Democratic lawmakers to strip the law was also suddenly adjourned.

Following the bedlam, Republican House Speaker Ben Toma seemed more focused on scolding House Democrats than finding an immediate solution to the dangerous law.

“These are difficult conversations we all need to have, and we absolutely cannot have them when Democrat legislators act as uncivilly, and engage in appallingly childish behavior, as we saw on the House Floor today,” Toma wrote in a statement. “That’s not how we debate important issues down here and I find it completely unacceptable and disappointing.”

But Toma’s plea for more time falls flat considering that the legislature will only be meeting once per week now that state budget negotiations have begun, reported The Center Square.

The state’s Supreme Court decided Tuesday to revive a near-total abortion ban from 1864, before Arizona was even a state, that offers no exceptions for instances of rape or incest. But some Republicans in the state—especially the ones currently on the campaign trail—immediately came out against it, including Senate candidate Kari Lake, Representative David Schweikert, and Representative Juan Ciscomani.

Former Republican Governor Doug Doucey also lamented the decision, even though he appointed four of the justices who contributed to the court’s majority opinion.

The flip-flopping is no coincidence, especially as abortion has become a losing issue for Republicans nationwide. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nationwide abortion access proved disastrous for Republicans last November, resulting in major losses in districts where abortion was a key talking point. Postelection, those raw numbers turned into some stunning platform reversals for the conservative party, with GOP consultants referring to the turning tide on the issue as a “major wake-up call.”

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem can no longer enter about 10 percent of the state she governs. And she has no one but herself to blame.

Noem has repeatedly accused Native American tribes in South Dakota of working with Mexican drug cartels, and accused Native parents in tribal areas of not being involved in their children’s lives, blaming them for poor academic performance. So three major tribes have voted to ban her from their land.

The Standing Rock Tribal Council voted Tuesday to formally banish Noem from its reservation. The move comes just a week after the Cheyenne River Sioux banished Noem from their lands. And on March 18, the Oglala Sioux did the same. There isn’t much she can do about it, either: South Dakota does not have criminal jurisdiction on any of its nine Native American reservations.

“It’s not acceptable for Kristi Noem to lie repeatedly, stoke further division, and endanger the people of the sovereign nations which pre-exist the United States and South Dakota, which have illegally annexed and occupied sovereign territory of the Oceti Sakowin,” said Chase Iron Eyes, the director of the Lakota People’s Law Center, in a statement.

But Noem is unrepentant. In an email to The Daily Beast, spokesman Ian Fury said, “Banishing Governor Noem does nothing to solve the problem. She calls on all our tribal leaders to banish the cartels from tribal lands.”

Noem already had a fractious relationship with the tribes in her state. Her cavalier handling of the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a high number of cases in Native communities, and she tried to prevent the tribes from implementing their own pandemic safety measures.

Noem is reportedly on the shortlist for Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, and her record among Natives could affect her standing. But considering Trump’s own crazy record with Native Americans before and during his presidency, he may not care.

Newsmax went light on the research on Thursday, airing a segment accusing President Joe Biden of forgetting that Africa was a country while apparently believing that Africa is a country.

“He said that Biden didn’t know that Africa was a country, he couldn’t remember the year his son died, he didn’t know the last names of staff members, he forgot when he was vice president, all very embarrassing stuff,” said Newsmax host Rob Finnerty, throwing a question to Representative James Comer about special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the president’s mental acuity.

But no mention of Africa was made in the 388-page report. So where did Finnerty get the idea that Biden had mixed up the continent’s geographical status?

Well, the rumor may stem from a speech Biden gave as a vice president at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2014. While addressing leaders of the continent, the text of Biden’s speech said that there was “no reason the nations of Africa cannot and should not join the ranks of the world’s most prosperous nations in the near term, in the decades ahead.” Except Biden stumbled on “nations,” dropping the -s and saying, instead, “nation of Africa.”

Donald Trump’s social media venture, Trump Media & Technology Group, debuted on the stock market in late March with a strong initial public offering of nearly $80 a share. Today? It’s less than half that, trading at just under $33.  

The company’s slide began shortly after it debuted, when its 2023 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission were released. They showed only $4.1 million in revenue, coupled with a loss of a whopping $58 million. Days later, two of TMTG’s investors pleaded guilty to insider trading in connection to one of the major sources of the company’s value: its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corporation.

Since then, Trump Media’s stock has continuously plummeted, losing close to $2.7 billion. Not coincidentally, Donald Trump fell off the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the 500 richest people in the world every day. His bragging about the stock last week didn’t help at all and may have even violated SEC rules. 

In the past, Trump has hardly ever dealt with the SEC, since his businesses are usually privately held, and it’s showing. As Timothy Noah wrote for The New Republic last week, “It’s much harder to lie to the SEC than it is to lie to a bank or insurance company about a privately held business.”

Trump has a number of legal debts that he can’t begin to pay without the help of surety firms with questionable reputations. He also can’t dump or borrow against his Trump Media stock without the permission of his board for six months. And with the stock sliding further every day, he may not see much of a windfall by then, anyway. 

Donald Trump may have just issued one of the weirdest calls for a debate ever.

In a series of videotaped rants posted to his Truth Social account on Wednesday night, Trump attempted to turn all of the blame for his own legal problems onto Joe Biden, espousing debunked claims that the president is covertly behind Trump’s mountain of legal woes.

“He’s the worst president in the history of our country, and the only way he thinks he can get elected is to take me to trials, take me to courts, city, state and federal. They control them all,” Trump said. “All of these cases that you’re reading about are Crooked Joe Biden’s case because he can’t put two sentences together. He can’t do anything. So they weaponize government and they take me to court on bullshit.”

According to Trump, his legal comeuppance for committing bank fraud and sexual abuse are all the more reason to prosecute Biden—and not him.

“At what point are the actions of a sitting president using lawfare and weaponization against his opponent for purposes of election interference considered illegal?” Trump demanded. “I believe, as do various highly respected legal scholars, that Crooked Joe Biden has long since crossed over that very sacred threshold. He is a criminal. He is a horrible president.”

After spending several videos harping on Biden and his alleged political antics—and criticizing Democrats for “killing social security and medicare” even though it’s the Republican Party that is attempting to raise the Social Security retirement age—Trump issued a brief invitation to debate the president “anytime, anywhere, any place.”

“It’s time for Crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of the United States, and I to debate,” Trump said. “We have to talk about what he’s doing and where we’re going. We owe it to our country. We owe it to all Americans.”

Despite refusing to participate in any Republican primary debates, Trump and his team have increasingly started to demand the opportunity to debate Biden. Last week, Trump’s daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump insisted that Biden “has a lot of answers to give the American people.”

“I can only assume he doesn’t have the answers to the questions that he will be asked,” she then snidely and nonsensically quipped.