Arkansas Has a New Abortion Ballot Proposal–and It’s Not as Great as It Seems

A group in Arkansas is working to get abortion protections on the state’s 2024 ballot. But experts warn that the measure would actually open the door to more government intervention in reproductive access.

The fight for abortion access is increasingly playing out through ballot measures, which have led to multiple wins even in otherwise deep-red states. But should the Arkansas ballot succeed, it would actually provide fewer protections than Roe v. Wade did, according to a Wednesday report by Slate.

The proposal—which is still awaiting a decision from the state’s attorney general—comes from a ballot committee called Arkansans for Limited Government, or AFLG, which was founded by the democracy nonprofit For AR People. The measure would only codify abortion through 18 weeks of pregnancy, far short of the generally accepted 24-week mark for viability (when a fetus can survive outside the uterus). Roe had allowed abortion up to 24 weeks.

Arkansas currently bans all abortion, with only narrow exceptions to save the life of the pregnant person. Democratic attempts to pass laws expanding abortion access have failed. AR People’s executive director, Gennie Diaz, told Slate her group created a ballot measure they believe both sides can ultimately accept as a more moderate approach.

Even though the measure clearly allows the state to continue banning abortion, just at a later point, Diaz argued the measure is “threading the needle with Arkansas voters on what they view as limited government.”

“It’s not meant to be a parlor trick,” she said, arguing that adding some restrictions would appeal to people who consider themselves “pro-life.” “Honestly, it’s not palatable to either end of the spectrum, and that’s intentional.”

But if the ballot measure was drafted with anti-abortion voters in mind, it doesn’t seem to have worked. The group Arkansas Right to Life is already slamming the measure as allowing “abortions up to the moment of birth.” Of course, that’s completely inaccurate on two counts. First, abortions do not occur up to the moment of birth. Second, a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, whereas the measure bans abortion after only 18. Still, it’s a sign of what anti-abortion Arkansans really think of the measure.

AFLG, meanwhile, is not affiliated with Planned Parenthood, nor is it publicly supported by any abortion providers or ob-gyns. Diaz said they consulted reproductive health experts on the ballot measure, but abortion rights experts say the initiative could do more harm than good.

Erika Christensen of the group Patient Forward, which supports broad abortion protections, said limiting abortion to a specific point is “willfully ignorant.” She pointed out that a pregnancy can turn fatal for either the fetus or the patient at any point. What’s more, abortion restrictions of any kind stigmatize the procedure and allow the state to monitor and even criminalize pregnancy outcomes. And as with all abortion limitations, the “most under-resourced and over-policed” people, such as women of color, will be hit hardest.

There is also rapidly growing evidence that complete abortion access might actually stand a chance on the Arkansas ballot. Since Roe was overturned, multiple Republican-led states have put the question of abortion on the ballot—and every single time, voters choose to dramatically increase protections. Trying to roll back the 24-week abortion standard could set a dangerous precedent for other red states.

Tresa Undem, who co-founded the nonpartisan polling firm PerryUndem, has followed abortion opinions for two decades. She warned that even though AFLG said its ballot measure language had polling support, it’s possible the questions asked didn’t capture the whole picture.

What’s more, Undem conducted a national poll over the summer to see if voters were more likely to support a ballot initiative proposal that mentioned viability versus one that didn’t. She found voters preferred complete, expansive access by 15 points.

“I was kind of blown away, frankly,” she told Slate. “That’s a pretty new sentiment.”

And that’s why, “in the post-Dobbs world, I just think anyone who’s working on this issue needs to really be careful about assumptions,” Undem said. “People can die.”

If you still had any doubts as to whether Donald Trump had self-serving motivations as the nation’s forty-fifth president, then a new report detailing the millions of dollars he received from foreign governments should make it clear it definitely wasn’t America he was putting first.

Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from nearly two dozen foreign governments during his presidency, according to documents released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. The pocket-lining funds include money Trump received from some of the “world’s most unsavory regimes,” without ever asking for congressional approval as mandated by the U.S. Constitution.

The report, titled “White House for Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” notes that it is likely an inconclusive analysis. It details just two years of Trump’s presidency and transactions between just four of his businesses, of which he owns more than 500, with 20 countries.

The biggest spenders included China, which gave Trump the largest sum out of all the nations—$5.5 million from entities including China’s Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the Hainan Airlines Holding Company—as well as Saudi Arabia, which gave Trump $615,000. Other nations on the list include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malaysia, Albania, Kosovo, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, India, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Thailand, the Self-Declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Mongolia, Lebanon, Latvia, Turkey, Hungary, and Cyprus.

“These payments were made while these governments were promoting specific foreign policy goals with the Trump Administration and even, at times, with President Trump himself, and as they were requesting specific actions from the United States to advance their own national policy objectives,” the report notes.

“That narrative is insane,” Eric Trump told The New York Times, adding that “there is no president in United States history who was tougher on China than Donald Trump.”

The junior Trump brother also explained to the Times that the Trump Organization did “not have the ability or viability to stop someone from booking through third parties” at the hotel.

Republicans have tried to wipe away the report, amplifying their own double standard by claiming that the money stemmed from legitimate business interests, all while pushing an impeachment case against President Joe Biden on the basis of the Biden family’s own business dealings, which even some Republicans have admitted is a meritless cause.

In December, Senator Chuck Grassley told reporters that he felt the caucus had failed to provide any evidence pointing to wrongdoing on the sitting president’s part.

If only they looked inward.

People on the far right are aggressively pushing a bonkers new conspiracy theory: that comedian Jimmy Kimmel was on the list of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. And the biggest question seems to be … why?

A federal court began releasing documents related to Epstein late Wednesday. The disgraced financier was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking minors, but he killed himself in prison before he could stand trial. The more than 900 pages of documents list names of people associated with Epstein and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell.

Although the documents name a wide range of politicians, academics, and celebrities, Kimmel is not among them.

But that hasn’t stopped multiple fake versions of the list that include Kimmel’s name from circulating on X (formerly Twitter).

The conspiracy to include Kimmel started earlier this week when New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers appeared on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday. When McAfee’s co-host brought up the Epstein list, Rodgers said, “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are really hoping that doesn’t come out.”

Kimmel threatened to sue Rodgers over the heinous joke, posting on X, “For the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality. Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”

Rodgers has not apologized for the comments, which appear to stem from bad blood between the two men. Kimmel made fun of Rodgers’s anti-vax opinions and called him a “tinfoil-hatter” when the quarterback previously brought up the Epstein list in February.

When Rodgers mentioned Kimmel on Tuesday, McAfee said, “Jimmy mocked him for it, and Aaron has not forgotten about it.”

There has been no indication whatsoever that Kimmel would be mentioned on the list. But despite that fact—and the clear animosity behind Rodgers’s terrible quip—conservatives have pushed the Kimmel conspiracy with mind-boggling enthusiasm.

If people want to use the Epstein list to back up their QAnon theory that liberal elites run a global child sex trafficking ring, it’s unclear why they have decided to make Kimmel the poster boy. There are plenty of other names that appear on the list (which, to be clear, is not proof of any legal wrongdoing) that would prove their case much better than a mid-tier late-night comedian.

The first series of Jeffrey Epstein documents have been released, and as expected they name Donald Trump. And how is the country’s social media–obsessed former president responding? Well he’s gone surprisingly mute.

Donald Trump’s last slew of posts on his Twitter-dupe social media platform TruthSocial seemed like an effort to flood his MAGA followers’ timelines with unrelated content. In a series of rapid-fire posts Thursday morning, Trump shared endorsements for his presidential campaign as well as a slew of videos from news outlets validating his legal strategy in his upcoming criminal trials. He also made more than two dozen posts attacking E. Jean Carroll, all within the span of half an hour.

Despite the flurry of activity, there are absolutely zero mentions of the revelatory unsealing of nearly 900 pages of a lawsuit launched by one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, nearly a decade ago, even though she’s one of Trump’s former employees, meeting Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell roughly two weeks into her employment at Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, according to court documents.

Along with Trump’s, some of the major names that jump off the pages range from some of the world’s biggest politicos to show-stopping entertainers. They include former President Bill Clinton, British Prince Andrew, Epstein, and Trump legal ally Alan Dershowitz, Michael Jackson, David Copperfield, and Stephen Hawking.

Their presence in the documents is not proof of any legal wrongdoing.

A Clinton spokesperson has redirected attention to a 2019 statement put out on behalf of the forty-second president denying any knowledge of Epstein’s pedophilic, sex-trafficking empire.

“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation,” read the statement.

The list of Jane and John Does, which was formed nine years ago, after Giuffre filed a defamation claim against Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, was partially released on Wednesday. More of the documents could be unsealed sometime today.

Many of the names are expected to be publicly known Epstein associates, including employees of the financier. Other possible names to be unveiled could include Epstein’s clients and perpetrators, though the judge has specified that the identities of minors or sexual assault victims will not be released.

A senior Education Department official and the department’s only Palestinian American political appointee has resigned over Joe Biden’s response to the war in Gaza.

Tariq Habash, who sent his resignation letter on Wednesday, is at least the second high-ranking Biden administration official to resign in protest over the Israel-Palestine war.

“The actions of the Biden-Harris Administration have put millions of innocent lives in danger, most immediately for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians living in Gaza who remain under continuous assault and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli government. Therefore, I must resign,” Habash said in his letter.

“I mourn each and every loss, Israeli and Palestinian. But I cannot represent an administration that does not value all human life equally.”

Nearly all of the 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip have been displaced due to Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of the region. Palestinians were forced to flee to designated “safe zones,” only for Israel to bomb those areas as well. Almost 22,500 Palestinians have been killed, the majority women and children. Some organizations, such as the nonprofit Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, put the death toll at nearly 30,000.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice in late December for an urgent order declaring that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in its nearly three-month assault on the Gaza Strip. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby criticized South Africa’s lawsuit on Wednesday as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.”

“I cannot be quietly complicit as this administration fails to leverage its influence as Israel’s strongest ally to halt the abusive and ongoing collective punishment tactics that have cut off Palestinians in Gaza from food, water, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies, leading to widespread disease and starvation,” Habash said in his letter.

Over the last three months, our government has aided in the indiscriminate violence against Palestinians in Gaza—over 22,000 civilians killed, thousands more buried under rubble, and the vast majority displaced from their homes. Despite claims that Israel’s focus is on Hamas, its military actions simultaneously persist across the West Bank where there is no Hamas governing presence, with hundreds of Palestinians killed in the West Bank before October and hundreds more killed since. Additionally, thousands of Palestinians have been detained, arrested, and held without charge or trial—a violation of international humanitarian law. Meanwhile, the President has publicly questioned the integrity of Palestinian death counts frequently used by our own State Department, the United Nations, and numerous humanitarian non-governmental organizations. Our representatives at the United Nations have repeatedly voted against the vast majority of the international community, including vetoing resolutions calling for a ceasefire. And administration leaders have even repeated unverified claims that systematically dehumanize Palestinians.

Habash is now the second Biden official known to have resigned in protest over the administration’s response to the situation in Gaza. Josh Paul, who had worked at the State Department for 11 years, resigned in October, slamming the government for its “one-sided” policy that prioritized Israel at the expense of Palestinian civilians.

“I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be short-sighted, destructive, unjust and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse,” Paul said in a statement.

Also in October, a director of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights resigned, condemning the organization, the U.S., and Western media for their stance on the war. Craig Mokhiber, who had worked with the U.N. for more than three decades, called the situation in Gaza a “text-book case of genocide.”

“Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it,” he said.

Read Tariq Habash’s full letter here.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is apparently willing to sacrifice just about anything for her political career—even her husband’s name.

In a true Selina Meyer move, the former South Carolina governor apparently decided that her then boyfriend’s name wasn’t fashionable enough for her political motivations.

“You may be wondering how ‘Bill’ became South Carolina First Gentleman Michael Haley,” Haley wrote in her autobiographical 2012 book, Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story.

She then outlines how she suddenly decided he no longer looked like a Bill, opting instead to call him by his second name, Michael, which her friends quickly adopted.

“From that point on, I started calling him Michael, and all my friends did the same. When he transferred to Clemson his sophomore year, my friends became his friends, and before we knew it, he was universally known as Michael,” Haley wrote.

“He looks like a Michael,” she added.

U.S. House candidate Mayra Flores got caught up in a sticky situation on Wednesday when it became apparent that the Mexican-born politician has been ripping and reposting photos of Mexican food from other online accounts, all while claiming it as her own cooking.

The Texas Republican, who is running again for the seat she previously held from 2022 to 2023 representing Texas’s 34th congressional district, was called out in several posts on Twitter that tied photos of self-proclaimed, self-made grub from her Instagram account to other sources online.

“The ranch life with family is the best,” Flores captioned one photo of corn flour gorditas cooking over a wood-burning fire pit, although the photo was posted more than a year earlier to a Guyana tourism Facebook page.

In another post sharing a photo of eggs and tortillas, Flores claimed she was a “proud Latina who knows how to cook,” adding that “homemade Mexican food tastes better from a gas stove.”

Except that photo too was ripped from another source and was originally posted on Facebook in 2021 by Izabal magazine.

Flores has deleted at least one of the stolen photos since online sleuths began taking note.

In a text messaged statement, Flores told the The Texas Tribune it wasn’t her “intention to mislead.”

“The photo simply reminded me of my upbringing in Mexico and childhood,” she added. “I deleted the tweet to clear up any confusion. I actually spend my Christmas at ranch with my In-Laws. Happy New Year!”

When asked to specify which photos she was referring to, Flores told the Tribune to turn its attention toward the border.

It’s a strange twist for a politician who previously accused first lady Jill Biden of allegedly believing you can win over Latinos with food.

“[Democrats] think that by giving us tacos, playing Latin music, that’s all it’s going to take for us to vote for them. It’s not,” Flores told Fox Business in August 2022.

Ron DeSantis wants to bring back an extreme 1950s-era immigration policy that saw the mass deportation of up to 1.3 million migrants.

During a Wednesday night town hall, DeSantis floated the idea of resurrecting President Dwight Eisenhower’s racist-named “Operation Wetback.” That program sparked the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, as authorities employed military-style tactics to deport Mexican immigrants, some of whom had been naturalized.

When asked if every undocumented migrant would be deported, DeSantis said, “Everybody is subject to that.”

“We’re gonna do the Biden eight million, that’s a big task,” he continued, referring to the Republican estimate that eight million migrants have supposedly entered the country during Joe Biden’s time in office. “Eisenhower had a program in the ’50s, so we’re gonna do that.”

Anywhere from 300,000 to 1.3 million people were deported under Operation Wetback, which lasted for three months in 1954. Historians say it is impossible to know exactly how many people were forcibly removed, because some people reentered the U.S. and were deported again.

The policy disrupted families, communities, and U.S. business operations that relied on migrant labor. Tens of thousands of people were sent to random parts of Mexico, where they struggled to find their footing. The conditions in which they were detained and transported were brutal, and thousands of people died from sunstroke and disease.

DeSantis has promised repeatedly to crack down on immigration, often in cruel and inhumane ways. This is the second time he is raising the idea of bringing back Eisenhower’s policy. He also suggested in September that the United States shoot alleged cartel members on sight at the border. DeSantis offered no details on how to actually identify a cartel member by sight alone.

The Florida governor doubled down Wednesday on his terrible immigration policy ideas in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register. He promised to declare a national emergency over immigration, crack down on asylum requests, and to finish building the border wall and make Mexico pay for it. DeSantis also threatened consequences for Mexico and other Central American countries for letting so many migrants reach the U.S. border.

“Florida under my leadership has been a bulwark of immigration enforcement,” DeSantis bragged. “I sent illegal aliens out of Florida’s communities and to so-called ‘sanctuary cities,’ such as Martha’s Vineyard. And I signed the strongest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country.”

He failed to mention that he has been accused of human trafficking by sending migrants to other states. Massachusetts officials are urging the Justice Department to look into Desantis’s actions.

Many of Florida’s new immigration laws have disrupted businesses, with farmers saying that migrant workers are avoiding the Sunshine State altogether. Backlash has been so bad that even Republican lawmakers have had to admit they messed up.

Six states received bomb threats to their state capitols on Wednesday morning, forcing them to stall their newly opened legislative sessions and evacuate their capitol complexes.

Those states included Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Connecticut, and Montana. No evidence of dangerous items were immediately found, officials said.

“There have been multiple bomb threats to state capitols around the nation. So far Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan & Montana,” said Georgia’s Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling in a statement on X. “Do not jump to conclusions as to who is responsible. There will be chaos agents sowing discord for 2024. They want to increase tensions. Don’t let them.”

While the mass threat against elected officials is certainly a shocking way to begin the year, it’s actually a part of a growing trend. Data reported by the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education, or NCITE, Center indicates that violent threats against public officials have been on the rise since they began collecting data in 2013.

In the last decade, 501 threats against public officials have resulted in federal charges, with 80 percent of those ending in convictions, according to NCITE.

“We have had an astounding number of threats against public servants for the last several years,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told a Republican-controlled congressional committee in September.

“When they are singled out, this can lead to threats of violence and actual violence,” Garland said, referring to the armed attacker who attempted to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati office shortly after the federal law enforcement agency seized documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property.

“We must not allow that to happen in this country,” he added.

Several of Donald Trump’s biggest fans seem increasingly frantic about a forthcoming list divulging the names of those who traveled on Epstein’s plane and visited his various international estates.

In social media posts and public appearances, several MAGA talking heads have made it clear that Trump’s highly anticipated presence on such a list, which is expected to contain nearly 200 names, is at the front of their minds.

On Tuesday, the former president’s son turned fingers toward Bill Clinton, who has also been photographed alongside the serial rapist.

“Everyone knows Bill Clinton was on Jeffrey Epstein’s [planes] and island a lot. Literally no one is at all surprised that he’s all over the release,” Don Jr. posted on X. “What we want to know is ALL THE OTHER NAMES that the government has been hiding & running cover for. That will actually be revealing!”

InfoWars host and Trump sycophant Alex Jones also made some noise on the issue, apparently having a hard time rationalizing how the known womanizer could have been associated with Epstein.

“I will say this, if it turns out Trump ever went to Epstein Island, I will remove any support from him,” Jones said. “But I know Roger Stone very well, and I know people that know Trump well, a lot of people, I’ll leave it at that. I know women that have dated Trump, prominent women.”

“He gets devoted to one woman at a time, gets totally obsessed with them, totally nice to them,” Jones continued, apparently ignoring the fact that Trump is due for a criminal trial this year on the basis of paying hush money to a porn star with whom he reportedly had an affair.

Other conservatives seemed equally flabbergasted at the anticipated unveiling, attempting to frame a new conspiracy to avoid confronting the reality of Trump’s behavior.

“High chance that the Epstein filings will include Donald Trump’s name. Out of context, the legacy media and TDS sufferers will pretend this isn’t because he gave willing testimony against Epstein when queried and will make believe that it makes him a pervert,” posted X user @Styx666Official to much conspiratorial head-nodding.

That’s compared to the dozens of instances in which Trump was captured in photos and vidos partying alongside Epstein and Maxwell. In one video from 1992, he is seen laughing with Epstein and pointing to young women dancing at a party.* Trump also once described the pedophile peddler as a “terrific guy.”

Other MAGA headliners were so upset by the list that they ceased making any sense at all, including Tomi Lahren, who insinuated that the list includes Trump only as a diversionary tactic.

“So, what do you think they’re going to go after Trump for next to bury the Epstein document dump and all the pedophiles on it?” Lahren posted on X. “Every time they want to cover their tracks, they go after Trump.”

The list of Jane and John Does, which was formed nearly nine years ago after Virginia Giuffre filed a defamation claim against Epstein’s girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, was originally set to be published on Tuesday but has since been postponed until after January 22, according to NewsNation.

Many of the names are expected to be publicly known Epstein associates, including employees of the financier. Other possible names to be unveiled could include Epstein’s victims as well as his clients and perpetrators. The latter will likely include some public figures who have already been explicitly tied to the sex trafficker, including British Prince Andrew and, of course, Donald Trump.

* This piece has been updated with a concrete example of Trump and Epstein being captured on camera together.