Morning Note

Thanks to DOGE, Americans spent the beginning of this year learning the obscene ways the government wastes their tax dollars. Many of the examples were jaw-dropping. More emerged last week.

John Kennedy highlighted a series of Democrats’ proposed foreign aid initiatives during a speech on the Senate floor on Friday, including using millions of dollars for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia, transgender programs in Nepal, LGBTQ activities in the Western Balkans and Uganda, cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti, electric buses in Rwanda, and a pride parade in Lesotho. We promise each of those is real. 

Republicans cut funding for the above programs after Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency. Democrats’ current proposal to end the government shutdown would bring it back. We think we speak for this newsletter’s readers when we say the GOP should not let that happen. If coastal liberals want to cut checks for Zambian foreskin removal, then good for them. They shouldn’t force the rest of the country to do the same.

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