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Congress Must Hold Biden Admin Accountable for
Weaponization of DOJ Against Concerned Parents <[link removed]> – This shameful politicization of the Department of Justice to harass and threaten parents who are simply speaking out on behalf of their children is unacceptable and casts a dark cloud over the entire department. Attorney General Garland refuses to stop his flagrant misuse of the law enforcement and prosecutorial power of the federal government, even after the National School Board Association apologized for the letter that supposedly precipitated Garland’s action. Congress has a solemn obligation to use every constitutional tool available, including funding mechanisms and pending nominations, to force the Department of Justice to stop this unprecedented, dangerous abuse. Any potential collusion between the administration and the NSBA cannot be ignored. Today, The Heritage Foundation is calling on Congress to assert its full authority and use every conceivable tool, including the withholding of departmental or programmatic funding and a halt to pending nominations, to hold the Biden administration accountable for this attack on parents. Heritage experts: Mike Gonzalez <[link removed]> and Hans von Spakovsky <[link removed]>
Anarchy Reigns in Portland <[link removed]> – Maybe if Portland and Oregon’s leaders had backed the blue, the city’s streets wouldn’t be running red. But now that the city is slowly reversing itself by restoring some police funding, and recreating the violence prevention unit that was abolished in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the bleeding is hard
to stop. Ordered liberty once lost is difficult to restore. It isn’t just the Portland mayor and Oregon politicians that have made a mess of the situation. Portland’s George Soros-backed district attorney consistently drops charges against protesters and people who interfere with police duties. So even if the police are given the green light to act more aggressively in stopping crime, their efforts will often come to nothing if lawbreakers are immediately released. No wonder the city was besieged with protests and riots for nearly 200 straight days following the death of George Floyd. Heritage
expert: Jarrett
Stepman <[link removed]>
As Taiwan goes, so goes the world <[link removed]> – The strengthening of Taiwan must be a U.S. priority. The U.S. must make the cost of invading across 110 miles of ocean so steep that a Chinese military failure may bring the shaky edifice of the Communist Party crashing down. Or, at the very least, bring an end to the Xi dictatorship. Conceptually, this is not difficult. It means shoring up the island with layers of redundant denial systems such as mines and anti-ship and anti-air missiles. We can aid the Taiwanese in the development of artificial intelligence programs that can both disrupt Chinese systems and make the indications and warnings of an imminent Chinese threat easier to detect. The Taiwanese can fortify their own island by hardening their infrastructure for storing food, ammunition, and fuel to hedge against the possibility of a U.S. Task Force not getting to them on time. They have to be able to mobilize their people and increase defense spending. Heritage expert: Sec. Robert
Wilkie <[link removed]>
Congress Shouldn’t Exempt Medicare From Mandatory Budget Cuts <[link removed]> –
The Medicare trustees warn that relentless future spending increases in the entitlement program will impose enormous financial burdens on Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers alike, while contributing to big budget deficits and dangerous debt. So, given the prospect of a 2% cut in Medicare spending on Jan. 1, 2022, Congress should stand strong in the face of anticipated, intense hospital lobbying and resist any attempt to delay or cancel the sequestration order. Make no mistake. One-off budget cuts as part of sequestration won’t solve Medicare’s endemic spending problem. Only major reforms would slow Medicare’s spending growth while improving the program for beneficiaries and providers alike. Heritage expert: Bob
Moffit <[link removed]>
Biden’s
Irresponsible ‘Build Back Better’ Tax-and-Spend Scheme Risks Higher Inflation <[link removed]> – By recklessly adding to the deficit, Build Back Better would push America closer to a reckoning with our large and growing national debt. When
debts and deficits get out of hand, creditors worry and ultimately demand a higher return for the risk they bear. That means interest rates will tend to rise unless the Federal Reserve doubles down on measures that risk future inflation, like buying back its own securities. With almost $29 trillion of debt, even a 1 percentage point increase in interest rates means trillions of dollars more in interest owed each decade. Unless lawmakers and the Federal Reserve learn restraint, they risk putting the nation through a vicious cycle of more debt, higher interest rates, and soaring inflation. The United States cannot afford to let deficit spending go unchecked, and it cannot afford the higher prices hiding in liberals’ massive tax-and-spending
plan. Heritage expert: Joel Griffith <[link removed]>
Congress Didn’t Give OSHA Authority to Impose Vaccine Mandates <[link removed]> – Defenders of the mandate will note that OSHA has established standards regulating bloodborne pathogens like HIV and various forms of hepatitis. Nurses, medical technicians, and others must follow those standards when they draw blood or start IVs, for example. Those are distinguishable from the proposed vaccine mandates in at least two ways. First, OSHA followed a notice-and-comment rulemaking process and did not resort to an emergency temporary standard. Second, Congress took the extraordinary step of rewriting the regulation in 2001, leaving no doubt that it intended for the agency to exercise that authority. The bloodborne pathogen standard requires health care facilities to offer free hepatitis B vaccines to employees at risk of contracting that illness from needle sticks. Health care workers can decline those hepatitis B vaccines. Thus, even where Congress has given OSHA authority to issue narrowly targeted standards dealing with bloodborne pathogens, the agency did not mandate that workers be immunized. In short, Congress has not given OSHA license to mandate COVID-19 vaccines. Lawmakers needn’t prohibit OSHA from imposing a
mandate that they never authorized the agency to issue in the first place. Heritage expert: Doug Badger <[link removed]>
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