Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.

Dem Voting Bill Is No Compromise, Includes Worst Provisions of HR 1 <[link removed]> – This is not a “compromise;” it includes the worst and most dangerous provisions of HR 1 such as the gutting of voter ID laws and then adds even more provisions to make it easy to cheat and to manipulate election results. The newest sections are clearly intended to make fraud impossible to detect by restricting election audits; preventing poll observers from being able to effectively monitor the election process; and criminalizing the ability of citizens to investigate the administration of their elections and question election officials about their conduct and potential misbehavior. Heritage experts: Hans von Spakovsky <[link removed]> and Zack Smith <[link removed]>
Democrats make case to Senate parliamentarian for 8 million green cards <[link removed]> – Senate Democrats are pushing amnesty via reconciliation at the same time that more illegal aliens from outside Mexico and the Northern Triangle are pouring across the border. In January, when Pres. Biden undid Pres. Trump’s immigration policies, the number of individuals from outside those countries apprehended at the border was 9,671. In July, it was 59,006. The global scope of this problem will only make it easier for known or suspected terrorists to hide in plain sight, or take advantage of our increasingly open borders and enter the country. Heritage experts: Lora Ries <[link removed]> and Mike Howell <[link removed]>
Hail, Biden!: The President’s Toothless Caesarism <[link removed]> – If the president is so concerned about waves of unvaccinated Americans driving up the number of COVID-19 cases, why not do something about the now outrageously porous border that is well within federal authority to control? So much for unity, moderation, or competence. The
president’s caustic speech on COVID-19 vaccinations is an interesting contrast to the flimsy and excuse-filled speeches he gave in the wake of his Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. As usual, Biden has harsher words for domestic opponents than our enemies abroad. It’s hardly a combination that will bring the country together or project strength to the world. At least with the original Caesarism, Rome achieved glorious victory over the Gauls. What we currently are being subjected to with this administration is a curious mix of brutish, overbearing
nannyism on one hand and helpless feebleness on the other. Heritage expert: Jarrett Stepman <[link removed]>
There are critical lessons to learn from the 20-year Afghanistan War <[link removed]> – There are critical lessons to be learned from the Afghanistan War. One, we should only go to war with clearly defined realistic objectives and an exit strategy. Heritage’s longstanding foreign policy expert Kim Holmes has outlined our vital interests that would justify war: “Protecting American territory, sea lanes, and air space. Preventing a major power from controlling Europe, East Asia or the Persian Gulf. Ensuring U.S. access to world resources. Expanding free trade throughout the world. Protecting Americans against threats to their lives and well-being.” It is the last condition that justified the Afghanistan War — which, in fact, we won in a matter of months and with the loss of a handful of soldiers. (The Taliban lost control of Afghanistan by early December.) Not on the above list: nation-building. Two, we must accept that we live in a dangerous violent world that requires us to maintain a strong national defense to defend our vital interests. Three, we should remember that we won the initial stage of the Afghanistan War but lost the peace because of the withdrawal of just a
small U.S. force and air support. This force was enough to keep the Taliban from seizing and holding a single provincial capital in almost 20 years. Four, we should look back and reflect how Americans came together after 9/11 as an example for us today. Heritage expert: Lee Edwards <[link removed]>
Biden’s Divisive COVID-19 Vaccination Plan Favors Coercion Over Persuasion <[link removed]> – The mandate wrongly turns employers into the government’s “police” over this policy. Judges and lawyers will sort out whether the Labor Department has the legal authority to enforce these mandates, just as they had to recently when Biden overstepped his authority to extend eviction moratoriums through the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. But, combined with the president’s toxic rhetoric, the mandates are more likely to harden opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine than change the minds of the unvaccinated. And while the president casts the unvaccinated in political terms, accusing those who oppose mandates of playing “pandemic politics,” the reality is more
complicated. Young adults, who backed Biden by larger majorities than any other age group, haven’t heeded his call to be vaccinated. Fewer than half of 18- to 24-year-olds are fully immunized; for those ages 25 to 39, that figure is just 52%. The rate of new infections among young adults is more than twice that of those over 65, more than 80% of whom are fully immunized. Young adults—including those who are unvaccinated—helped put Biden in the White House. But instead of seeking to persuade them, the president demeans them. He insists on casting pandemic response in starkly political terms, enlarging divisions, hardening attitudes, and igniting a counterproductive debate over the use of “emergency” regulations to threaten the jobs of the unvaccinated. The president needs a new plan with clearly articulated goals, one that isn’t dismissive of freedom. Heritage expert: Doug Badger <[link removed]>

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