Politics

A strange abortion story is unfolding in the nation’s capital. In March, several outlets began reporting that DC police had found “five fetuses” in the home of “anti-abortion activist” Lauren Handy, who is a member of the “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising group.” The PAAU is not exactly what one thinks of when it comes to pro-life activism. According to its website, the organization is “committed to radical inclusivity while magnifying secular, feminist, liberal, and LGBTQIA+ identifying pro-life voices, especially those belonging to people of color.” Amazingly, it also claims to have collected 115 fetuses from a Washington, DC clinic's medical waste. It has to be one of the more bizarre news stories of 2022.

When Covid comes to town There’s a hot, must-have new accessory among Washington’s political elite this spring: a positive coronavirus test. Several recent swish DC get-togethers appear to have been super-spreader events and anyone who’s anyone is getting two red stripes on their antigen tests these days. The Gridiron dinner, one of the top tickets in town, is, some think, the source of the outbreak. Its attendees are dropping like flies. Among the contagious A-listers: commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Other big names who have tested positive include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. That’s the bad news. But the good news is two-fold. First, everyone seems to be just fine.

Conservatives, for practically the first time ever, have gone on offense in the debate over Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill. They've responded to the left's "Don't Say Gay" moniker by accusing them of wanting to groom children. Some right-wing commentators have expressed discomfort at this discourse. I am curious as to why conservatives would back off an aggressive but largely accurate allegation against people who regularly smear them as bigots over the most minor of political differences. In fact, I was fired last month after left-wing activists falsely accused me of racism over criticizing the vice president's outfit. It's awfully satisfying to see them get a taste of their own medicine.

Barack Obama returned to the White House this week, and his presence was a straight up blast from the past. The 2010s might not be our most culturally defined decade, but surely the Age of Barry still has a few touchstones worth recalling. That was back when it was cool to say “there’s an app for that,” all the way back when the Speaker of the House was...actually it was still Nancy Pelosi. And it was back when everyone, and I do mean everyone, could not shut up about Obamacare. Sure enough, Obama was back in Washington to once again revel in the passage of his signature health law, even if it had just undergone yet another round of tweaks to make it work this time for real.

The loneliness of Merrick Garland Merrick Garland is not a popular man. The attorney general has been disliked on the right ever since he issued a memo last year villainizing parents protesting school board meetings. But he now faces growing criticism from the left for what many Democrats consider an overly ponderous approach to January 6 prosecutions. Having spent the Trump years lamenting a loss of norms and claiming to want positions of power to be filled with sober, responsible characters, Democrats are growing impatient with an attorney general who follows exactly that approach. Why, they ask, hasn’t there been more butt-kicking and name-taking with regard to the riot at the Capitol? And, in particular, why isn’t Trump feeling the heat? Among the “lock him up” crowd?

Russian atrocities shock Washington Washington was, once again, focused on events in Ukraine this weekend. And for good reason. Horrifying evidence of possible war crimes emerged in Bucha and other towns near Kyiv that had been under Russian occupation. The images of mass graves, evidence of torture and the bodies of civilians, shot with their hands tied behind their back, sparked fresh outrage more than a month into the war. “Concentrated evil has come to our land,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in a televised address this weekend. “Murderers. Torturers. Rapists. Looters. Who call themselves the army. And who deserve only death after what they did.

Last week, conservative media company the Daily Wire announced it would begin selling shaving supplies under the brand name Jeremy’s Razors. Why is a media company selling razors? Because Harry’s Razors, a longtime Daily Wire sponsor, recently dropped the partnership due to “misaligned values.” In the launch video for Jeremy’s Razors, Daily Wire co-CEO Jeremy Boreing mocked the woke razor companies with which he plans to compete. “[Michael Knowles] went and said that boys are boys and girls are girls, and that was just too much for Harry's,” Boreing said. “And it's not just Harry's, either. Gillette razors used to be the best a man could get. Then they decided that men are too toxic, unless you're the kind of man who teaches his daughter to shave her beard.

In one of its most desperate moves yet, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is considering subpoenaing Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas. The Committee wants to review a handful of texts Ginni sent about the Capitol riot, which they feel may influence her husband’s decisions from the bench. The connection is weak, along the lines of Trump being the one who actually slapped Chris Rock. But the need to come up with a new crisis to return attention to the events of January 6 post-Ukraine is real. The genesis of this "crisis" begins with the Hail Mary plans to use the January 6 Committee to rescue Democrats from near-certain midterm electoral defeat.

That the federal budget process is broken is the worst kept "secret" in Washington. The White House and Congress know it. The think tanks know it. A 2010 study from the progressive Center for American Progress called the budget process “not a pretty picture.” The conservative Heritage Foundation said in 2005 that the process “stifles debate, prevents cooperation, and frequently breaks down.” Proposals come along every few years to fix the problem, but nothing ever gets done. “The fundamental reason why the federal process is broken is because Congress doesn’t have a budget,” says Kurt Couchman, a senior fellow at Americans for Prosperity. “Congress doesn’t do a budget. Congress does appropriation bills, there are 12 of them.