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

 
 


 
A Venezuelan Man of Mystery Helps Tell Story of America’s Open Border <[link removed]> – For now, legal, front-door, orderly immigration to the U.S.—including the refugee program—has been eclipsed by a massed rushing of the back gates <[link removed]> encouraged and abetted by Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, and his Mayorkas Migration
Machine <[link removed]>. All available Department of Homeland Security resources are going to the giant inward-sucking sound in the south. Deciding who enters the U.S. and gets to stay based on mere physical proximity—and not by due, legal process—allows foreigners to steam-roll over the laws that Americans, through Congress, have enacted. Only a second-rate intelligence could imagine that we will be able to process the millions of migrants who have arrived illegally already since Biden took office, plus millions more on the way, while simultaneously handling over 10 million cases pending action in immigration courts or with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells us <[link removed]>: “We have had
a process in place. There’s a legal way of doing this and—for managing migrants.” But what we’re experiencing isn’t legal, and it’s not a process. It is chaos <[link removed]>. Heritage Expert: Simon Hankinson <[link removed]> 
 
Conservative PACs inject millions into local school races <[link removed]> —As Republicans and Democrats fight for control of Congress this fall, a growing collection of conservative
political action groups is targeting its efforts closer to home: at local school boards. Their aim is to gain control of more school systems and push back against what they see as a liberal tide in public education classrooms, libraries, sports fields, even building plans. Once seen as sleepy affairs with little interest outside their communities, school board elections started to heat up <[link removed]> last year as parents aired frustrations with pandemic policies. As those issues fade, right-leaning groups are spending millions on candidates who promise to scale back teachings on race and sexuality, remove offending books from libraries and nix plans for gender-neutral bathrooms or transgender-inclusive sports teams. “There is a very stiff resistance to the concerted and intentional effort to make radical ideas about race and gender part of the school day. Parents don’t like it,” said Jonathan Butcher, an education fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. The foundation and its political wing have been hosting training sessions encouraging parents to run for school boards, teaching them the basics about budgeting but also about the perceived dangers of what the group deems critical race theory. Heritage Expert: Jonathan
Butcher <[link removed]> 
 
IRS Moves to Expand Obamacare Subsidies to Families <[link removed]> —The IRS
regulation to expand Obamacare is plainly unlawful. As with the CDC's eviction moratorium and OSHA's vaccine mandate, the federal government's tax collector is attempting to amend the tax code, which is something only Congress can do. The existing regulation, finalized by the Obama administration in 2013 after three years of deliberation, faithfully interprets the statute. Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to amend that statute even when it has—as it did just last August—expanded Obamacare in other ways. The fact that the White House Office of Management and Budget canceled a meeting it had scheduled to hear public comments and then approved the regulation can mean only one thing: the Biden administration has politicized the IRS. Heritage Expert: Doug Badger <[link removed]> 
 
Restoring the Constrained Judicial Vision <[link removed]> — The Constitution was born of political philosophy
that recognized and accounted for fundamental truths about human nature and power: that all majorities face the same temptation to wield power against minorities that every tyrant faces and are no better than individuals at resisting that temptation. The way to protect both interests—majority rule and minority rights—is therefore to divide power and set it against itself. The Constitution thus “reconciles the irreconcilable” by “accommodat[ing] power to freedom and vice versa.” The rise of a too-powerful judiciary, the rise of an omnipresent administrative state, and the diminishment of Congress to a glorified cash register represent where we have deviated from the Constitution, not where it has failed us. Heritage Expert: GianCarlo
Canaparo <[link removed]> 
 
North Korean provocations highlight continuing need for homeland missile defense <[link removed]> - Planning for future homeland missile defense improvements should begin now to ensure we stay well ahead of the North Koreans. A RAND Corporation
report <[link removed]> from 2021, for example, estimated that North Korea could have several dozen long-range missiles and 200 warheads by 2027. We don’t want to get caught flat footed if that happens. Multiple administrations have worked for years to achieve denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, with little to show for it. Until North Korea finally ends its nuclear program, the United States must continue to make the investments necessary to negate Pyongyang’s Korean nuclear coercion and protect the American people should deterrence ever fail. Heritage Expert: Patty-Jane Geller <[link removed]> 
 
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]>

-