Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.
Biden’s Meeting With Mayor Adams Won’t Curb Crime, Gun Violence <[link removed]>- The President’s trip to NYC and meeting with Mayor Eric Adams is a sign that the administration, and Democrats in general, realize that exploding crime rates are a political liability. While the President is to be commended for saying that defunding the police is not the answer, his words ring hollow as he has not denounced influential members of his party for repeated calls for defunding the police over the last several years. Biden missed a golden opportunity to use his bully pulpit that (1) supports law enforcement (2) calls on local prosecutors to enforce the laws on the books (3) and excoriates those who call for defunding the police or enact policies that demoralize the police, such as refusing to prosecute those who resist arrest. Ostensibly, the meeting was about “combating gun violence,” and the need to take guns “off the streets.” But meeting with the mayor will do nothing to lower crime rates or take guns off the streets. The person responsible for enforcing the law and convicting the guilty is the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has enacted sweeping pro-criminal, anti-victim policies, including not arresting criminals for resisting arrest, not prosecuting most misdemeanors, watering down violent felonies to misdemeanors, and capping prison time for the worst convicted felons. Heritage Experts: Cully Stimson <[link removed]> and Zack Smith <[link removed]>
In Meeting, Biden Pushes Gun Control Agenda <[link removed]> - President Biden once again chose to place significant blame for gun violence on so-called “assault weapons,” which are neither
functionally difference from “non-assault weapons” nor commonly used to perpetrate gun violence. Ironically, these firearms are already prohibited in New York. The president justified his call for banning these firearms by repeating his long-debunked claim that certain semi-automatic firearms are the modern equivalent of cannons, which he says private citizens could not own when the Second Amendment was ratified. The analogy is not only laughably flawed—cannons are not analogous to small arms—but private cannon ownership was quite prevalent during the Founding Era. The president also asserted that gun manufacturers and sellers can’t be sued for any reason, another false claim he has repeated numerous times. They are only immune from lawsuits seeking to hold them liable for the criminal actions of people who bought their firearms—a tactic gun control groups routinely used to kneecap the lawful gun industry by keeping lawful businesses perpetually slogged in baseless lawsuits. Heritage Expert: Cully
Stimson <[link removed]>
Proposals Rejecting Critical Race Theory See Through Radical Talking Points <[link removed]>- A recent survey found that 81% of voters said public schools should teach the idea that “America was founded on the ideals of freedom, equality, and self-governance,” the opposite of CRT’s principle that American institutions will always be
racist. State lawmakers must protect teachers and students from the bigotry caused by CRT’s application in schools. These new proposals countering the theory’s dogma by blocking compelled speech recognize the theorists’ intent to not only describe a philosophy but to convince Americans, including children, to apply prejudicial ideas. The truth about CRT is becoming more widely understood. State officials’ new proposed protections against the worldview see the theory’s application for what it is: racial discrimination. Heritage Expert: Jonathan Butcher <[link removed]>
Beware the Siren Song of Socialism <[link removed]> - For more than a century, socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. Yet zealous progressives are trying to convince Americans, especially young Americans, that “democratic socialism” is the solution to socio-economic problems. They are banking on millennial ignorance of socialism’s repeated failures and free enterprise’s proven ability to eliminate poverty and produce prosperity. Americans have a choice—the tight grip of socialism under which individual freedom and responsibility are set aside or the freedom of democratic capitalism under which individual rights, especially the right to choose, are assured. The choice is clear: The road to liberty rather than serfdom has enabled America to become the freest and most prosperous nation in human history. Heritage Expert: Lee Edwards <[link removed]>
America COMPETES China Proposal a ‘Trojan Horse to Pass Biden’s Liberal Legislative Agenda’ <[link removed]> - Legislation supposedly aimed at confronting the China threat should actually deal with the China threat. Unfortunately, the America COMPETES Act largely fails to pass this simple test. Barring a handful of provisions, the bill’s nearly 3,000 pages have nothing to do with countering China. At a time when we need to focus on the myriad of threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party across the board, the left is using that same threat as a Trojan horse to essentially pass President Biden’s unpopular ‘Build Back Better’ agenda and dole out gifts to its constituencies. Instead of these unserious proposals, Congress needs to pass legislation that ends China’s intellectual property theft, holds them accountable for their covering up of COVID-19 and ongoing genocide of religious minorities, exposes their use of state-owned enterprises in America, and address the CCP’s aggressive behavior toward the international community.Heritage Experts: Dean Cheng <[link removed]>, Olivia Enos <[link removed]>, and Walter Lohman <[link removed]>
China should never have been allowed to host the 2022 Olympics <[link removed]> - This is a global failure to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.Moving or postponing the Olympics would have sent the message that there are major consequences for
committing genocide and crimes against humanity. The Biden administration failed to lead a global effort to shed light on the CCP’s grave human rights abuses, genocide against the Uyghurs, and coronavirus cover-up. The 2022 Olympics represented a major opportunity to shame the CCP and put global pressure on the regime. Both during and following the games, the U.S. must capitalize on growing domestic and international political will to hold China accountable for its many human rights abuses. Heritage Experts: Dean Cheng <[link removed]> and Olivia Enos <[link removed]>
The OECD crusaid to raise taxes <[link removed]> - The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is wrong. The last thing the world needs is more taxes and bigger governments. The OECD <[link removed]> is an
intergovernmental organization with a mandate to “improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.” Increasingly, though, the OECD <[link removed]> has twisted that into a mandate to push its top-down big government agenda on countries around the world.The organization is spearheading a global tax agreement that it boasts will cause governments in rich and poor countries alike to collect more
taxes. And while taxpayers most everywhere would suffer from this, it will hit American taxpayers the hardest. Heritage Expert: Preston Brashers <[link removed]>
-
