Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Arizona embraces the culture wars on the losing side


New York Times:

Abortion Jumps to the Center of Arizona’s Key 2024 Races

Democrats quickly aimed to capitalize on a ruling by the state’s highest court upholding an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions.

Democrats seized on a ruling on Tuesday by Arizona’s highest court upholding an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, setting up a fierce political fight over the issue that is likely to dominate the presidential election and a pivotal Senate race in a crucial battleground state.

Even though the court put its ruling on hold for now, President Biden and his campaign moved quickly to blame former President Donald J. Trump for the loss of abortion rights, noting that he has taken credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned a constitutional right to abortion. Just a day earlier, Mr. Trump had sought to defang what has become a toxic issue for Republicans by saying that abortion restrictions should be decided by the states and their voters.

Remember, abortion is fading in saliency as an issue, say umpteen anonymous male Republican consultants.

Abortion opponents still expect federal action from Trump. Here’s what it could look like. https://t.co/qRSWDVhK1T

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) April 10, 2024

Dan Balz/Washington Post:

The Arizona Supreme Court just upended Trump’s gambit on abortion

On Monday, Trump declined to support a national abortion ban, seeking to neutralize the political issue. A day later, Arizona’s ban gave it new life.

On Monday, the former president declined to support any new national law setting limits on abortions. Going against the views of many abortion opponents in his Republican Party, Trump was looking for a way to neutralize or at least muddy a galvanizing issue that has fueled Democratic victories for nearly two years. He hoped to keep it mostly out of the conversation ahead of the November elections.

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court showed just how difficult it will be to do that. The court resurrected an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions, except to save the life of the mother. The law also imposes penalties on abortion providers.

Trump had said let the states handle the issue. The Arizona court showed the full implications of that states’ rights strategy.

Or, if you will, Arizona Supreme Court destroys news organization plans to declare the abortion issue neutralized (it wasn’t).

Get this measure on the Arizona ballot. Run in every district. Then flip Arizona blue at every level (only one seat shy of a Dem majority in the AZ statehouse) https://t.co/MWH1zmwJMv

— David Pepper (@DavidPepper) April 10, 2024

Marc A Caputo/ The Bulwark:

MAGA Takes Aim at RFK Jr.: ‘Radical F—ing Kennedy’

They turned on him overnight once they realized he’d be a threat to Trump and not only to Biden.

TRUMP ADVISERS QUIETLY acknowledge they and the right helped build up RFK Jr., especially after the pandemic when Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism gained broader attention and support among conservatives.

“For more than two years, Kennedy was on more conservative media than any of the Republicans who ran for president, so he’s partly a monster of our own making,” said one adviser in Trump’s orbit. “But the same conservative media apparatus that built him up is starting to tear him down. It’s easy. He’s a liberal.”

That cocksure sentiment pervades Trump’s campaign, where they view Kennedy more as an opportunity than a danger.

Matt Bennett, executive vice president of Third Way, said Kennedy has benefited from his famous last name, his savvy social media use, and his lack of a political record. Bennett doesn’t think the candidate will be able to withstand the scrutiny that’s coming now that the threat he represents has become clearer.

“Kennedy is in for a rough ride. We need to make sure lower-information voters don’t somehow think, ‘Oh, it’s his dad.’ Or that he’s a safe pair of hands,” Bennett said. “He’s a lunatic. He lies. He’s a bad person.”

If you constructed a Venn diagram of states important to the presidential race, the Senate, or abortion access this November, Arizona would be smack in the overlapping middle. https://t.co/Ts784gkO60

— Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) April 9, 2024

Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:

Is Team Trump meddling in the Middle East?

This weekend, the endless gusher of petrodollars from Riyadh left their oily mark on the dim jewel of Trump’s fast-fading empire, the Trump National Doral course outside of Miami. There, the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour brought yet another televised and star-studded tournament to a resort owned by the 45th president’s business arm.

We don’t how much the LIV tour — largely a creation of the massive sovereign wealth fund controlled by the Saudi dictator Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — paid the Trump Organization for the three-day event. The LIV people insist the money is nominal, but no one would argue that the widely seen tournaments are propping up Trump’s coffers at a time when his hotel brand is in the loo, and the established PGA golf tour is avoiding the ex-POTUS and his 88 felony charges.

What every anti-abortion politician in America is reading this morning as they call their pollster and ask them how to pretend this is not their position: pic.twitter.com/5xCANDelcz

— Cole Leiter (@coleleiter) April 10, 2024

David Gilbert/Wired:

Inside the Election Denial Groups Planning to Disrupt November

Groups like True the Vote and Michael Flynn’s America Project want to mobilize thousands of Trump supporters by pushing baseless claims about election fraud—and are rolling out new technology to fast-track their efforts.

As the most consequential presidential election in a generation looms in the United States, get-out-the-vote efforts across the country are more important than ever. But multiple far-right activist groups with ties to former president Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are mobilizing their supporters in earnest, drawing on one baseline belief: Elections in the US are rigged, and citizens need to do something about it.

All the evidence states otherwise. But in recent weeks, these groups have held training sessions about how to organize on a hyperlocal level to monitor polling places and drop boxes, challenge voter registrations en masse, and intimidate and harass voters and election officials. And some are preparing to roll out new technology to fast-track all of these efforts: One of the groups claims they’re launching a new platform for checking voter rolls that contains billions of “data elements” on every single US citizen.

Yet another W for patience and uncertainty. It’s never a hot take, but it’s always where the smart money is this early in the campaign. FWIW, if Biden jumps out to a non-negligible lead in the next few months, I wouldn’t be so fast to pop the champagne just yet either. https://t.co/QhyD17GAoj

— Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) April 9, 2024

Jennifer Rubin/Washington Post:

Don’t overlook these five aspects of Trump’s N.Y. trial

Trump’s first impeachment seems like ancient history. But House impeachment investigators interviewed Hope Hicks and Michael Cohen, and delved into the facts concerning payment to women to silence them before the 2016 election. The hush money scheme was grist for impeachment because procuring office by corrupt means can be a sufficient basis for impeachment.

Philip Bump/Washington Post:

How much time and money will the GOP waste chasing imaginary election fraud?

Fox host Maria Bartiromo has proved to be one of the most credulous members of the right-wing media universe. This was understood by her own employers in 2020 when one executive warned another that she had “GOP conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes.” In the wake of the 2020 election, she flirted with the most ridiculous fraud theories then circulating; more recently, she was a constant promoter of the discredited idea that Joe Biden had been bribed by a Ukrainian businessman.

Yet she also remains one of the most prominent voices on Fox News and Fox Business. One need not engage in conspiracy-theorizing to guess some reasons for that.

And finally, the exclamation point on this amazing college hoops season.

Iowa/SC women’s final outdrew the following:•Every World Series game since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series •Every NBA Finals game since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals •Every Daytona 500 since 2006 •Every Masters final round viewership since 2001!!!!!!!

— Eric Segall (@espinsegall) April 9, 2024

Candace Buckner/Washington Post:

Connecticut unlocked the overwhelming beauty of a team game

More than other team sports, basketball thrives on individual talent. Singular stars fuel intrigue. They make us sit up and pay attention. And the superstars make us believe that one vs. five maintains pretty good odds. Then a night such as Monday comes along and wrecks the belief that you need a superstar to win.

Somewhere in the Purdue locker room sat [Perdue’s center Zach] Edey, his season having ended in disappointment, with a lonely shower awaiting. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Huskies were busy changing clothes on the court. Their new shirts read: “2024 Men’s Basketball National CHAMPS” — that word more prominent than the others.

Cliff Schecter covers General Mark Milley’s opinion of Donald Trump:



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