The Self-Immolation of the AZ GOP

Republicans controlled every branch of state government—and created chaos.

Inflation is still running a little hot, according to the Department of Labor. Overall inflation was at 3.5 percent year-over-year, with more stable “core” inflation at 3.8 percent. While it’s moving in the right direction, it’s not returning to the pre-pandemic normal as fast as everyone—probably including Fed Chair Jerome Powell and President Biden—would want. Happy Thursday.

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(Composite / Photos: Shutterstock)

Arizona Is the Model of Modern Republican Governance

The Associated Press reported early this morning:

The Arizona Legislature devolved into shouts of “Shame! Shame!” on Wednesday as Republican lawmakers quickly shut down discussion on a proposed repeal of the state’s newly revived 1864 law that criminalizes abortion throughout pregnancy unless a woman’s life is at risk.

The state Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for enforcement of the pre-statehood law . . .

House Democrats and at least one Republican tried to open discussion on a repeal of the 1864 abortion ban, which holds no exceptions for rape or incest. GOP leaders, who command the majority, cut it off twice and quickly adjourned for the week. Outraged Democrats erupted in finger-waving chants of “Shame! Shame!”

This is your 2024 Republican party in power.

A Republican executive appoints Republican Supreme Court justices.

Those justices insist on reviving an 1864 law to ban abortions, contrary to the apparent intention of the Arizona legislature, which in 2022 passed a law legalizing abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Republican leadership of the Republican-controlled legislature won’t permit debate on a new law.

So there you have it: Republicans controlled all three branches of government and the result was that they limited Americans’ freedom and thwarted the public will.

But Republican extremism and authoritarianism comes with a side dish of Republican chaos and disarray.

Some GOP elected officials in Arizona reveled in their moment of partisan triumph:

The Arizona Freedom Caucus was thrilled: “Murdering children is not a policy disagreement. Democrat politicians’ infatuation with murdering children is evil.” One of the caucus stalwarts, state senator Anthony Kern, now running in a Republican primary for an open congressional seat, not only supported the court decision but ended his statement with the exhortation: “Make America Pray Again!”

Other Republicans headed for the tall grass. Kari Lake, Republican candidate for the U.S. senate, said two years ago that she was “incredibly thrilled” by the prospect of the 1864 abortion ban once again becoming law. Now she’s begging the (Democratic) governor and the state legislature to “come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.”

So we have a Republican party in Arizona oscillating between fanaticism and flip-flopping.

Meanwhile, pro-choice advocates have collected enough signatures to put on the November ballot a constitutional amendment that would guarantee Arizonans the right to choose.

So this issue isn’t going away in Arizona.

The task of the national Democratic party is to ensure that this issue doesn’t go away elsewhere either.

Democrats and affiliated groups can make clear that Arizona is the model of Republican governance in the post-Dobbs age: Elect a Republican chief executive and a Republican legislature, throw in a Republican court—and you get an 1864 law limiting your freedom and endangering your health and well-being back on the books.

But Democrats and affiliated groups can also publicize the spectacle of chaos and mayhem in Arizona. They can explain that today’s Republican party has pulled off the impressive trick of managing to be both dangerous and dysfunctional, cruel and chaotic.

This would be a good lesson to teach all Americans by November 5, 2024.

—William Kristol

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Catching up. . .

• North Carolina is a swing state now: Washington Post

• What do Barbra Streisand, Rosario Dawson, Francis Fukuyama, and Mona Charen have in common? Read the letter they all signed: CNN

• RFK Jr. doesn’t care if he’s a spoiler (just don’t ask him about it): Economist

• Trump is destroying one of America’s most valuable intelligence tools: New York Times

• Former Trump consigliere sentenced to 5 months for perjury: Axios

• Hamas claims to lack living hostages for ceasefire deal: CNN

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Quick Hits

1. Biden plans to curb asylum claims.

It’s no secret that voters are concerned about the state of the southern border. Even people who are pro-immigration can see that the system isn’t working as designed (or at least, not as intended) and chaos is a bad look for any president. Apparently the White House has gotten the message. Axios reports:

President Biden used an interview with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision that aired Tuesday to send a massive signal that he plans to issue an executive order to dramatically limit the number of asylum-seekers who can cross the southern border.

. . .

Biden, briefed on polls of rising voter anger, wants a dramatic step.

. . .

Biden would use authority in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants if it would be “detrimental” to U.S. national interests.

Because Congress yet again refused to pass a law changing the immigration system, this declaration—if Biden actually makes it—will be just another in a long line of executive actions to slap a bandaid on a problem that really requires reconstructive surgery. But it’s better than nothing.

2. Bibi’s time may be running out.

The conventional wisdom after October 7 was that Israelis, who already wanted Netanyahu out as prime minister, would tolerate him temporarily as Israel responded to the attack and tried to free its hostages. But that was six months ago, and yet Netanyahu remains. Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic:

During protests in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this weekend, the global condemnation of Israel’s tactics in Gaza didn’t seem to matter to anyone I spoke with. But Israelis’ rage against their own country’s government, so hapless and adrift, had reached new levels of incandescence.

. . .

[Before the war], the crowds chanted against Netanyahu because they thought he was dragging Israel toward authoritarianism. Now he and his supporters are jeered, hissed at, and reviled not for what they might do tomorrow but for their catastrophic incompetence right now, and for allegedly preserving their own power at the expense of Israeli life. Many Israelis have been horrified by the deaths of Palestinian civilians, but in the protests, I heard relatively few voices expressing that concern (and none who mourned the dead Hamas combatants).

There’s no mechanism in the Israeli system for forcing a new election unless the governing coalition falls apart. Who knows when that will happen.

3. Neo-colonialism isn’t where you think it is.

Funny how so many young, progressive protester types are so focused on Israel because it’s supposedly a white settler colonialist state, so surely every one of them is equally outraged about this:

Promising signing bonuses, plump salaries, and living expenses, the Russian state is encouraging Russian doctors, judges, police officers, social workers, engineers, and others to work in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine in what critics call a systematic attempt to Russify regions from which many residents have fled or been forcibly transferred.

Under Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Convention, of which Russia is a signatory, transferring “parts” of an occupying country’s population to occupied territory constitutes a war crime. Moscow, however, frames these transfers as essential for the social welfare and “reconstruction” of Russian-held parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhya regions, which the Kremlin baselessly calls Russia’s “new regions.”

Read the whole thing from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

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Cheap shots