The Spectator

An Arizona Supreme Court ruling upheld a 160-year-old law that criminalizes all abortions with the exception of those where a woman’s life is at stake this Tuesday. The “brutal, backwards and barbaric” ruling, as Democratic representative Shontel Brown colorfully puts it, relied on a law passed before Arizona was a state and women had the right to vote.Just a day before the ruling was made, presidential candidate Donald Trump made his “leave abortion policy to the states” announcement. The move, which was seen as morally bankrupt by some pro-life organizations, was hailed by others as strategically savvy. Making the election less about abortion and more about immigration and the economy, to put it simply, helps Trump.

Former president Donald Trump announced on Monday that he believes abortion policy should be left to the states to decide and reaffirmed support for exceptions for rape and incest, declining to endorse much-discussed national limits on the procedure.The statement, which was shared on Truth Social, is set to disappoint pro-life organizations throughout the country. Many feared the Trump campaign would continue to move further away from traditional pro-life positions, including refusing to back policies such as a fifteen-week ban. Susan B.

The Biden administration is bracing for a second Trump term by rolling out a rule that would complicate Donald Trump’s pledge to fire tens of thousands of federal workers if he wins in November. The new rule is also a huge gift to the public-sector unions that Joe Biden needs firmly in his corner.The latest edict, issued by the US Office of Personnel Management, is an almost direct response to Trump’s stated plans to purge the bureaucracy. That’s not how the OPM is framing it, of course; instead, OPM deputy director Rob Shriver said it “is about making sure the American public can continue to count on federal workers to apply their skills and expertise in carrying out their jobs, no matter their personal political beliefs.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seemed to shock a CNN reporter when he said in a recent interview that he could make the argument that President Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than former president Donald Trump. “Him trying to overthrow the election clearly is a threat to democracy,” Kennedy said about Trump. “But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy and what I would say is... I’m not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is.”Kennedy pointed out that he recently won a court case in which he accused the Biden administration of weaponizing federal agencies to censor the political speech of Americans.

As believers around the world observed the holiest day of the Christian calendar yesterday with traditional Easter celebrations, the administration of the self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” president of the United States issued a proclamation acknowledging Sunday as “Transgender Day of Visibility” and banned religious-themed art from the White House Easter egg decorating contest.President Biden is evidently proud of his Catholic heritage, as he frequently touts his faith and attends Mass. Yet many of his policies, on abortion and LGBQTIA-related issues, for instance, directly contradict Catholic doctrine.Biden is receiving all kinds of flack in response to the White House proclamation.

Speaker Mike Johnson is extending a high-profile olive branch to one of his biggest intra-party foes of the day: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Johnson made her one of the impeachment managers as the House hands the reins of the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas to a less-than-excited Senate. Just days ago, Greene was performatively threatening to oust Johnson hours before Congress headed into a multi-week recess. Now, she’s joining with a group of Republicans in asking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to expeditiously schedule an impeachment hearing for Mayorkas. It’s not just Greene who is obviously being helped out by Johnson with this announcement.

A studio apartment at the upscale Illume apartments in DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood currently rents for $1,747 a month. The complex boasts rooftop pools, “luxe quartz countertops with modern tile backsplashes” and the chance to “pamper your pup at Luna’s pet spa.” Not mentioned on its sleekly designed website: “escaping gunmen running through the courtyard.”“We have been informed by the police that there is an armed suspect in the area,” the building emailed residents Tuesday afternoon. “We strongly advise all residents to stay inside their home with the door locked until further notice.”A statement from the Capitol Police said, “Our patrol officers spotted a vehicle that was connected to a previous shooting that occurred in MPD’s 2nd District.

During Easter weekend four years ago, the country felt on the verge of catastrophe. The prime minister was in hospital having just come out of intensive care, the Covid-19 death toll was at more than 1,000 deaths a day, and hospitals were trying to cope with a flood of patients. It had been estimated that 90,000 ventilator beds would be needed; we had only 10,000. That weekend, no one went to church and no one visited family: instead we sat inside, preparing ourselves for the horror to come. Science is always evolving, never settled. Our understanding changes as we gain new information No one knew, then, that the virus was already in reverse. No one knew that 10,000 ventilators would prove enough or that the emergency Nightingale hospitals that had been set up would not be needed.

NBC’s decision to hire former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor has made lots of folks angry. The backlash was so strong, in fact, that days after its parent company brought in McDaniel as a political analyst, MSNBC’s president, Rashida Jones, announced that the former chairwoman won’t be contributing on air to the cable network. McDaniel appeared for her first hit as a contributor on NBC’s long-running Sunday show Meet the Press and was interviewed by anchor Kristen Welker.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene finally followed through on repeated threats to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over the passage of a $1.2 trillion spending bill. Congress now will vote on her measure, likely following a two-week recess, giving her colleagues no shortage of headaches as they head into November’s elections. MTG had been a close ally of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy as Republican rebels led by Matt Gaetz ousted him, but her relationship with Johnson has been far more tenuous.