May 18, 2020

Good morning. Heritage and many generous individuals have partnered with Feed the Heroes DMV to deliver thousands of meals to medical professionals. Watch our powerful video to see how many people Feed the Heroes DMV is helping. Also, the House of Representatives last week passed a CARES Act 2.0 package. Instead of proposing narrowly targeted relief and focusing on safely reopening the country, it is packed with a laundry list of liberal priorities. See how our experts are reacting to this bill. Meanwhile, Heritage has launched an interactive map to track changes in coronavirus cases county by country. This tool was developed to aid policymakers in reopening America. On Capitol Hill, there is a growing appetite for holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its role in allowing the global spread of coronavirus. Senior Policy Analyst Olivia Enos explains how this should be done the right way. Lastly, Heritage headquarters is still closed, but social distancing isn’t stopping us from hosting great events that you can “attend” online! Check out our list of upcoming webinars to find an event that interests you.

Heritage Is Helping Feed COVID-19 Frontline Heroes
Washington, D.C., emergency room nurse Anaelise Martinez and her roommate, Azure McFarlane, posted on Facebook on March 30, asking their friends to help them send food from the restaurant Buffalo & Bergen to the medical personnel at Prince George’s Hospital Center emergency room in Cheverly, Maryland, just outside of Washington. Within 24 hours, they had exceeded their $700 goal and launched a formal fundraising campaign called Feed the Heroes DMV. The “DMV” is shorthand for the District of Columbia and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. In the weeks that followed, Heritage Foundation employees stepped in to help, donating more than 800 hot meals to emergency room workers and first responders. Read more from The Daily Signal and watch the video.

Pelosi’s COVID-19 Bill Is Full of Partisan Priorities, Not Helpful Relief
House Democrats on Friday passed an unserious proposal to respond to the public health and economic crisis the nation is confronting as a result of COVID-19. The bill is a partisan laundry list of mostly bad policies, including unrestricted bailouts to state and local governments to cover expenses unrelated to the COVID-19 crisis. “Removing barriers to economic activity—not stimulating new spending or bailing out student loan borrowers, the Postal Service, or states and localities, while containing the coronavirus’ health threat—is key to getting America back to economic and public health,” write Heritage policy experts in a recent article. Read the full article to find out what other ways the policies in the bill could harm our nation and learn more about state bailouts from our collection of Heritage Foundation research.

Heritage Creates Map Tracking COVID-19 Cases in Every U.S. County
The Heritage Foundation has built an interactive map tracking the increase or decrease of coronavirus cases over the past 14 days in every U.S. county. This map can help state and local leaders work together, per recommendations from the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, in their efforts to reopen America on a county-level or zip code-level basis. “Our approach to reopening America must protect both lives and livelihoods. These aren’t competing priorities,” said Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James, who is serving as chairman of the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. “This requires locally informed, data-driven decisions. We’ve built an interactive map to give policymakers, businesses, members of civil society, and Americans a tool to track coronavirus cases in counties all across the nation.” Take a look at the map to see how your region is fairing.

The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission will hold its next meeting Tuesday, and will release recommendations on how to reduce future risks of pandemics. Last week, Heritage’s Paul Winfree and Charmaine Yoest, who are serving as the commission’s executive directors, published a list of the 12 urgent actions needed now to prevent an economic depression. Read more.

Heritage announced the creation of its new Center for Technology Policy. Leading this new center will be Klon Kitchen, who has served as senior research fellow for technology at Heritage since 2018. The center’s mission will be simple: to provide the best insight and advice to policymakers and the American public on the most important technology policy issues of our day. Learn more.

Thanks to the unwavering support of our members, The Heritage Foundation made major progress in the defense of individual liberties earlier in May, when tech giants Google and Apple included several Heritage recommendations in their rules for digital contact tracing apps. Learn more about our impact.

Dozens of magazines have highlighted Heritage’s Defensive Gun Use Database, a first-of-its-kind interactive map that highlights confirmed instances where gun owners across the United States used firearms for defensive purposes. Read this feature story about the database in “Guns Magazine.”

Tonight at 9 p.m., PBS will air “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” a new documentary on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. In this film, Thomas tells his life’s story chronologically and in great detail. Unscripted and without narration, the documentary takes the viewer through this complex and often painful life, dealing with race, faith, power, jurisprudence, and personal resilience. Check your local listings and watch the trailer.

Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., Heritage will host a webinar discussion with frontline and clinical experts in the field battling COVID-19. Featured speakers include Thomas Yadegar, ICU Medical at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in California, and Brenda Fitzgerald, former CDC director and former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health. Register for the webinar.

Wednesday at 11 a.m., Heritage will host a virtual discussion on the rise of China and the consequential challenge that will confront the United States for the next several decades. Featured speakers include Walter Lohman, director of Heritage’s Asian Studies Center; Dean Cheng, senior research fellow in Heritage’s Asian Studies Center; and Riley Walters, senior policy analyst in Heritage’s Asian Studies Center. Register for the webinar.

Here are highlights from Heritage experts on TV. This week they talked about Heritage’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, holding China accountable, Michael Flynn, unemployment and more. Watch the clips.