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

 
 


 
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Here are 3 takeaways from my trip to Biden’s open southern border <[link removed]> - I recently returned from a trip to the southern border. In Eagle Pass, Del Rio, and San Antonio, Texas, we spoke to sheriffs, local officials, ranchers and people who had illegally entered the United States through what is effectively an open border. I left with the distinct impression that things will get worse before they get better. Here are three key takeaways: First, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has done an impressive job of dismantling enforcement at the border. Second, immigrants don’t stay near the border. Third, the consequences of this mass migration will be felt all over the country, gradually but inexorably. One of the consequences of near-nonexistent border security is the mounting death toll due to preventable drug smuggling and unsafe crossings. Heritage Expert: Simon
Hankinson <[link removed]> 
 
New California Law Forces Taxpayers to Pay for Union Members’ Dues <[link removed]> – California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill <[link removed]> last week forcing California taxpayers to pay up to $400 million of public and private employees’ union dues. This legally questionable, ethically adulterated move is yet another blow against beleaguered Californians. On its surface, the law, Assembly Bill 185, provides $400 million of taxpayers’ money to a select group of people who purchase a private, optional service. (The so-called tax credit is refundable, or available to people who do not pay state income taxes, which makes it a payment instead of tax credit.) The stated intent “is to help individuals with the cost of being a member of a union.” But California lawmakers haven’t passed or proposed bills providing hundreds of millions of dollars to help individuals with the cost of
becoming members of AAA or their local gym or farm bureau. So, why the special handouts for labor unions alone? Heritage Expert: Rachel Greszler <[link removed]>  
 
Biden Administration Desperately Cozies Up To Venezuela <[link removed]> – America could preserve energy independence by ramping up its own production. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has taken the opposite approach. With an about-face on energy policy—one that focused on increasing rather than decreasing reliable domestic energy production—the Administration could change expectations about the direction of U.S. energy production, resulting in an immediate decline in the price of oil and natural gas. Prices are set on expectations of future production, not on present production. That’s why oil prices rise when hurricanes are forecast, before rigs have been damaged. Two years of oil and gas restrictions, reduced refinery capacity, and political and social pressure on companies across the value chain of oil and gas have affected America’s ability to raise output quickly in the face of rising oil prices. It’s not too late to lower oil prices, but it will have to start at home. Heritage Expert: Diana Furchtgott-Roth <[link removed]> 
 
Kanye West dares to defy Black Lives Matter <[link removed]> – "Black Lives Matter means fighting to dismantle this system that causes institutional harm," said BLMGNF. "Our mission will never become a White Supremacist capitalistic commodity — a dangerous machine that consumes its own for profit." The Times, Vogue, and others either agree with these destructive goals or just glom on out of the "group mob" mentality that West correctly identifies. However, we have to remind ourselves that BLMGNF is no mere outside bystander any longer. Indeed, it has burrowed deep inside the Biden administration. Earlier in the year, the White House issued 25 key action plans to implement concealed race-conscious policies throughout the federal bureaucracy, and BLMGNF announced <[link removed]> the next day it had co-written the plans with the White House. Also, as a result of a recent FOIA request by my colleagues at Heritage’s Oversight Project, the Commerce Department revealed to us that BLM founders Garza and Cullors were among the top receivers of department emails with such words as "off the record," "embargo," and "hold." That’s why, now that BLM has gotten so close to actual political power, anyone challenging BLM on the
cultural front must be canceled. Heritage Expert: Mike Gonzalez <[link removed]>  
 
Feds weigh charges against Hunter Biden <[link removed]> – Lying on a “Firearms Transaction Record,” which every purchaser of a gun like Hunter Biden has to fill out, is a very serious felony, punishable by
up to 10 years in prison. Criminal tax evasion, which is another possible charge that Hunter Biden faces, is also a serious felony and a conviction could lead to up to 5 years in prison, a $100,000 fine, as well as a requirement to pay back the evaded tax with a 75% penalty. In the same year that Hunter Biden purchased a gun, the Justice Department prosecuted 60% of the criminal referrals it received for lying on a gun purchase form. There should never have been a two-year delay in this investigation. That delay, according to FBI whistleblowers, was the result of partisan interference by FBI insiders. Heritage Experts: Hans von Spakovsky <[link removed]> and Zack Smith <[link removed]> 
 
Government Micromanagement Running Economy Into Ground <[link removed]> –
Businesses will lose the ability to deduct research and development and capital expenses in the year they bear those costs. Businesses are losing expensing for research and development <[link removed]> in
2022, and they are set to gradually lose capital expensing <[link removed]> between 2023 and 2027. That adds insult to injury for businesses that aren’t in favored industries, as the cost of investing is already skyrocketing amid soaring interest rates. The federal government took a socialist turn in the summer of 2022. Federal lawmakers chose a handful of industries that they deemed worthy of investment (and some that they deemed unworthy), and they used the tax code and other policies to effectively change the prices of those investments. In a free economy, many thousands of interactions between ordinary buyers and sellers of goods and services determine prices. Prices reflect the reality of production costs and tradeoffs, and they reflect the accumulated knowledge and preferences of everyone in the market. Heritage Expert: Preston Brashers <[link removed]> 
 
Woke Ideology Has Metastasized in US Military. It Will Take Time to Remove Its Divisive Influence <[link removed]> – Efforts
to uncover the prevalence of woke, divisive critical race theory-based equity training and policies in the military are bringing to light an extensive problem. The latest revelation is the Air Force Academy promoting gender-based “inclusivity” indoctrination <[link removed]> while advertising for a fellowship that excludes <[link removed]> cadets based on sexual
orientation. Those are only the latest tips of the critical race theory and gender ideology icebergs.The divisiveness of critical race theory’s and gender ideology’s influence on the military is pervasive, infecting military academies, operational units, and—incredibly—even military medical care. Heritage Expert: Brent
Sadler <[link removed]>

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