 Arizona State Supreme Court ruled that a near total abortion ban, literally from the Civil War era, can take effect, albeit in 14 days. Now as a result, the state's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, Kerry Lake, is in full blown panic mode because she's trying to feign outrage about this ruling while simultaneously purporting to be against abortion. It's bizarre, but we'll talk about her disingenuous tap dance in a moment. First, I do want to get to this decision from the state Supreme Court because it is incredibly draconian. NBC News reports the ruling allows an 1864 law in Arizona to stand that made abortion a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs one or helps a woman obtain one. The law, which was codified in 1901 and again in 1913, outlaws abortion from the moment of conception but includes an exception to save the woman's life. That Civil War era law enacted a half century before Arizona even gained statehood was never repealed and an appellate court ruled last year that it could remain on the books as long as it was harmonized with the 2022 law, leading to substantial confusion in Arizona regarding exactly when during a pregnancy abortion was outlawed. The decision, which could shutter abortion clinics in the state, effectively undoes a lower court's ruling that stated that a more recent 15-week ban from March of 2022 superseded the 1864 law. As I stated, it wouldn't take effect for 14 days because this is going to be shot back to a lower court where they can iron out any other constitutional issues. But the silver lining is that the state's Democratic Attorney General, Chris Mays, has said pretty clearly she is not going to enforce this law. Writing on Twitter, quote, As long as I am Attorney General, no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state. Now she also pointed out that this law wasn't just imposed before Arizona's statehood during the Civil War, but at a time when women weren't even allowed to vote. And this really says a lot about the state's Republican-dominated Supreme Court, because they long for the days when women were property and couldn't vote, and they really want to bring back the days when men had total control over the bodies of women. Now if you vote for Republicans, you are effectively endorsing that draconian ideology. Many of them won't say that explicitly, but their actions indicate that this is what they long for. Now people also pointed out that this decision highlights how important elections are, including Attorney General races that people usually don't pay much attention to, because Chris Mays won her last election by just 280 votes. Had those 280 people stood home and not voted, her Republican opponent would have won, and likely would have enforced this law. So the people of Arizona really dodged a bullet there. Now we're going to get to Carrie Lake in a moment, but first I want to talk about her former opponent, Katie Hobbs, who's now the governor of Arizona, who came out swinging against this decision, saying the following at a press conference. It is a dark day in Arizona. Just now the Arizona Supreme Court issued its opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Mays, upholding one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country. And while it is currently stayed, we continue to live under an unacceptable ban, a law that still strips Arizonans of their personal autonomy and has no exceptions for women who are the victims of rape or incest or any regard for pregnancy complications. Let me be clear, Arizona's 2022 abortion ban is extreme and hurts women. And the near total civil war Arab ban that continues to hang over our heads only serves to create more chaos for women and doctors in our state. Yeah, everything she said was spot on. And I feel like the lack of exceptions for victims of rape and incest is really the cherry on top of this shit Sunday because the 16 or so states with abortion bans typically do include exceptions for victims of rape and incest, but as we're learning, these exceptions are insufficient, they're overly vague, and they don't give doctors the confidence that they need to perform these procedures without the fear of prosecution. So they're not good, even with exceptions. So with that being said, though, Arizona Supreme Court just said they don't even want to pay lip service to the idea of exceptions, right, even though they really don't make that big of a difference in states that have them, they're not even going to pretend. They're saying the goal here is to control women and they're going to do that by any means necessary, even if it means reviving a literal civil war era policy to make that happen. It is just so outrageous, but not surprising at this point. Now had Arizonans elected Kerry Lake over Katie Hobbes, they'd be in a much worse predicament given the Supreme Court's ruling, right? And on top of that, they wouldn't have had billions in medical debt wiped out, which is exactly what Katie Hobbes did. But when it comes to Kerry Lake, she still poses a looming threat to the state because she is like a turd that won't go away. She is now the Republican Party's nominee for the United States Senate. And even though she's still denying the results for election in 2022, because of course, she is ostensibly now more moderate when it comes to the issue of abortion. I wonder why she's changing her position, because like many Republicans, she knows that this is a losing issue and she desperately wants to win. So that's why she's trying to downplay her previous opposition to abortion. And the result here, like specifically her response to this ruling by the State Supreme Court is downright hilarious, because she put out this statement shared by Sahil Kapoor of NBC News, where she denounces the pre-Statehood law saying it's quote, out of step with Arizonans, but then basically contradicts herself by endorsing state's rights on the issue, because if there's no federal standards, things like this and her state are allowed to happen. She then calls on the Democratic governor to remedy the situation. Then she says that she deposed federal funding for abortion as a senator, yet she would be against a federal ban on abortion. So if you're struggling to follow along, allow me to clarify. She is against a federal abortion ban, because she thinks that this issue should be left up to the states, but she doesn't support a state's right to do what Arizona did, because that goes a little bit too far. But she also wouldn't support federal standards akin to Roe again, to prevent states from going that far. And she also opposes federal funding for abortion to assist people in states with draconian laws like hers, because this is a state's rights issue, and the federal government shouldn't get involved. Makes so much sense. Thank you for clarifying, Carrie. So she is trying to do what Trump did, right? We just did a video about him. He is trying to appease anti-abortion extremists while simultaneously not trying to piss off pro-choice voters. The problem is that she didn't learn from him, because sometimes when you try to appease everyone, you end up appeasing no one. And that's what we're going to see again here. Now furthermore, this all rings hollow because of her own past statements. So her Democratic opponent, Ruben Gallego, reminded everyone of her previous comments on the issue and shared this compilation to Twitter. I'm incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that's already on the books, so it will prohibit abortion in Arizona. I believe that abortion is the ultimate sin. I hope that Roe v. Wade gets overturned. We have existing laws on the books that would make it very difficult to get an abortion here, and I think it should be difficult. The execution of babies in the mother's womb is what it is. You have been quoted as saying Arizona will be a state where we will not be taking the lives of our unborn anymore. I noticed that there is a slight change in your view today. I haven't changed actually, no. Sometimes the attack adds just right themselves. See, it was really easy for anti-abortion Republicans to be anti-abortion in 2022 before they realized how much of an election loser this issue was for them. So now they're forced to do this weird tap dance and present themselves as moderates on the issue, but I mean, it's too late for that. The cat's out of the bag. The moderate position was Roe v. Wade. And after 50 years of fighting to overturn it, they got what they wanted. Why run away from it now? Embrace it. After all, you say abortion is murder and nothing else matters if that's the case, including elections, right? So stopping murder should be priority number one if you really believe it's murder. See what I'm getting at here? They don't actually believe that abortion is murder. No serious person believes that abortion is murder, and to the extent that Republicans are anti-abortion, it's because they either want to control women or they're just pandering to evangelicals, or both. But here's the thing. It's become this election issue that they wanted to make it for decades, right? Like this is the issue. They wanted this to be a wedge issue, and now it is. And now they're having to reap what they sow. So on that note, Julia Conley of Common Dreams explains, last week, organizers with Arizona for Abortion Access announced that they had collected more than the number of signatures needed to support placing a referendum on a constitutional amendment and shrining the right to abortion care on state ballots in November. And that right there is more bad news for Kerry Lake and other anti-abortion Republicans in the state, because that referendum is going to galvanize voters. And people coming out to vote for that might also vote against Republicans as well. And so far, every single abortion ballot initiative has passed, including in deep red states like Kansas. And even the referendum in Florida, which needs 60% of voters to approve to pass, is also expected to pass, because people are fucking pissed off about this issue. And rightfully so. And guess what? That anger is not going to die down until the Roe status quo is returned. So Republicans, they're not going to appease moderate voters by pretending to be like kind of anti-abortion. Either you support Roe v. Wade and federal standards, or you will continue to get obliterated in these elections. So they really don't want to do that because they look like hypocrites, but they already kind of look like hypocrites as it is, because now they're coming out against a federal abortion ban. I mean, their options are limited here, but this is a problem that they made for themselves, and they've got to lie in the bed that they made.