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Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today. Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.
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- The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation on the Chinese-owed app TikTok.
- The House sent a message today that adversarial foreign regimes do not have the right to surveil and steal from Americans while using the popularity of social media as a shield from scrutiny.
- This bill does not ban TikTok or any app—it ends limitless influence and control given to foreign governments with proven contempt for the United States.
- The legislation gives ByteDance and TikTok a clear choice: cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party and continue to operate in the United States or immediately cease all business in our country.
- The Senate has a duty to quickly take up this important national security bill that the House is sending over with overwhelming support.
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- Tuesday, Sen. James Lankford refused to allow lawmakers to pass a unanimous consent agreement on the Veteran Families Health Services Act. In doing so, Lankford required that the bill, which, if passed, would result in a dramatic expansion of the largely unregulated in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry, go through a standard legislative process.
- Contrary to the media’s hysteria, IVF is not under attack in the United States. Veterans and active servicemembers can already receive IVF treatments through federally funded programs. The Left is using this disingenuous narrative to further a political agenda during a campaign year.
- For a long time, the military has covered certain IVF and egg and sperm preservation services for active duty service members who suffered or may suffer an injury that leads to infertility. Military benefits have typically been restricted to the service member, his or her married spouse, and in some cases, their dependents. This radical act, however, would expand IVF access to nonmarried partners and women who serve as gestational surrogates, too.
- Instead of encouraging family formation, the Veteran Families Health Services Act explicitly promotes the artificial creation of children outside of marriage. Worst of all, federal taxpayer dollars will foot the bill.
- This violates the core tenet of the pro-family ethic. We should honor the sacrifice and work of our service members and their families by standing up for the health and flourishing of married families.
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- The Justice Department sued to stop Spirit Airlines and JetBlue Airways from merging, and a judge recently sided with the Biden administration. The airlines have given up in the face of this opposition. That means airfares will rise even more.
- Spirit and JetBlue are known for offering no-frills options to get from point A to point B. They often serve areas abandoned by the larger carriers, airports that don’t have the volume to create the economies of scale on which the big airlines thrive.
- But faced with mounting cost increases, especially from inflation, Spirit and JetBlue have seen profitability evaporate. Instead of each company flying half-full planes at about the same time on the same routes, the merger would have allowed a new company to fly one plane and cut costs almost in half.
- The Biden administration’s Justice Department, however, claimed that this would cost consumers $1 billion annually, under the assumption that the new company would immediately raise its fares.
- This unwarranted obstruction by the Biden administration is just its latest attempt to strangle the dynamic engines of innovation, and with it, the path to future prosperity.
- In the crusade against so-called big business, the Justice Department has probably doomed at least one American company, which will leave customers with higher airfares.
- Americans do not need bureaucrats in Washington to dictate what air travel options should be available. If people want to fly with an economy airline, they should be free to do so. Likewise, if industry innovators want to compete with a unique business model, the Department of Justice has no business intervening.
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