Thursday night, because Washington is no longer serious about rudimentary governance, the House of Representatives took what will likely be the decisive legislative step of expanding mandatory age-18 Selective Service registration to include women.

The House voted 316–113 on the "must-pass" annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which at $778 billion this year gave President Joe Biden $24 billion more than he asked for. The up-or-down passage came after consideration of a series of amendments, from requiring congressional approval for troop deployment in Syria (which failed, 141–286), to allowing cannabis-related companies in legal-marijuana states to obtain banking services (which passed by voice vote).

Amazingly if not quite surprisingly, the effective doubling of the federal government's claim on the lives of American 18-year-olds was never submitted to a standalone vote on the House floor, because Democratic leadership refused to allow it.