Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.
Joe Biden Should Be Embarrassed By That Chinese Spy Balloon <[link removed]> - The president looks as serious about the protecting the sanctity of American airspace as he is about securing the border. For the Administration, this is
as much a political issue as it is a security issue. The initial response downplayed the incident. Apparently, Biden said just shoot the thing down—and the Pentagon said hold on, maybe not. By mid-morning, however, when the administration figured out that the incursion was unsettling to Americans, they decided this was a big deal after all. Things then shifted, with Secretary Blinken cancelling or postponing a planned trip to Beijing. China’s response to the incident is equally troubling. Beijing appears to assume that Americans are just stupid. They assert the balloon is a civilian weather-tracking aircraft—a claim that is clearly nonsense <[link removed]>. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is playing our leaders for fools. Heritage Expert: Jim Carafano <[link removed]>
What’s Behind the Recent Surge in School-Choice Victories <[link removed]> – After making
incremental progress for three decades, the school-choice <[link removed]> movement is now rapidly achieving massive victories across the country. A key factor in this sudden success is the adoption of a new strategy <[link removed]> to highlight the gap between the values that parents espouse and what’s going on in public schools. Programs spread around the country through the 2000s and 2010s but, with a few notable exceptions, mostly in dribs and drabs. It wasn’t until 2021 that West Virginia adopted the first universal, publicly funded education-choice policy, followed quickly by Arizona in 2022. Now, just a few weeks into this year’s legislative session, we’ve already seen Iowa and Utah pass universal education-choice programs. Passage of similar universal programs this year seems likely in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas. Heritage Experts: Jason Bedrick <[link removed]> and Jay Greene <[link removed]>
Clean Energy’s Dirty Little China Secret - <[link removed]> If companies like Microvast wish to receive U.S. government contracts and subsidies, they should divest Chinese entanglements and submit a clean bill of health to the Energy Department before they receive the funding. The Biden administration should not be in the business of trying to tempt the company away from China with handouts, no matter how desperately it desires cheap lithium batteries. If the Department of Energy cannot do this on its own initiative, as appears to be the case, Congress should require it to certify that no recipients of grants or subsidies have any ties to the PRC. Heritage Expert: Victoria Coates <[link removed]>
An Effective Maritime Campaign Against China Requires a New Fleet-Centered Approach <[link removed]> - Today at sea, China is competing to overturn the norms governing commerce and naval operations to its benefit—a rules-based reordering—with far-reaching implications for the
United States’ security and prosperity. To counter this, the Navy should better organize its forces and headquarters. Centering the global maritime competitive arm of the National Defense Strategy on the numbered fleets makes sense from an operational standpoint: Numbered fleets are organized for sustained maritime operations. However, achieving the full benefit of this strategy requires reorganizing the numbered fleets according to narrow strategic objectives bounded by common sense and maritime geography. Heritage Expert: Brent Sadler <[link removed]>
Is US monthly jobs report still reliable or the last domino to fall? - <[link removed]> The normal lag in the labor market is likely being exaggerated with some
businesses still trying to catch up to the changes from the last major economic disruption. The ultimate question now in determining the economy’s present state and divining its future is which information do you trust more during these periods of anomalous data: the monthly jobs report showing robust growth, or almost everything else showing a
slight decline? Heritage Expert: E.J. Antoni <[link removed]>
'1619 Project' is back and as slanderous as ever! <[link removed]> - Hardcore woke leftists think that if they can alter America's perception of the past, they can control the present, own the future… and make a whole lot of money in the process. Just pay close attention to Nikole Hannah-Jones. It is pretty hard not to, in fact. Her 1619 Project is now on Hulu, <[link removed]>so you can't avoid seeing advertisements for it when you are looking for reruns of Frasier after a long day. Or, the ubiquitous Hannah-Jones may be coming to a library near you, one you pay for with your taxes. Heritage Expert: Mike Gonzalez <[link removed]>
Congress Must Get Clarity From Pfizer Execs on COVID-19 Viral ‘Mutation’ Experiments <[link removed]>—Dr. Jordon Trishton Walker, a director of research and development for the Pfizer Corp., recently became an overnight internet sensation. The reason: In a set of rambling remarks <[link removed]> to an undercover Project Veritas reporter, Walker outlined how the company
could mutate viruses in a lab and do so to create new vaccines, while speculating on the potential of such a process to be a “cash cow” for the pharmaceutical giant, and presumably others in the industry. Then, realizing he had been recorded, Walker had a meltdown. It’s not hard to see why. Said <[link removed]> Walker: “One of the things we [Pfizer] are exploring is like, ‘Why
don’t we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create—preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we’re going to do that, though, there’s a risk of like, as you could imagine, no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f—ing viruses.” To lay persons, research to “mutate viruses” does sound inherently dangerous—suspiciously like viral “gain of function” research, the kind of research designed to genetically enhance the
transmissibility and lethality of the virus and the kind of notorious lab work in Wuhan, China, that may have been the source of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Heritage Expert: Bob Moffit <[link removed]>
Little Evidence’ Biden Is Requiring Colleges to Report Foreign Cash, Betsy DeVos Says <[link removed]>—Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos <[link removed]> says “there’s little evidence to suggest” the Biden administration and the Education Department are enforcing the law on foreign funding for colleges and universities. “The colleges complained vociferously when we asked them to simply do what they were supposed to do under the law and report their funding,” DeVos told The Daily Signal <[link removed]> in a phone interview. “But I think the Biden administration has, it appears, they just acquiesced to their requests to keep the money hidden.” Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 requires colleges and universities to report “contracts with and gifts from a foreign source that, alone or combined, are valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year,” according to the Education Department website <[link removed]>. Daily Signal Reporter: Samantha Aschieris <[link removed]>
Anglican Bishop Reports Elected Church Leader to Police for ‘Hate Crime’ of Speaking Against Queer Theory, Sexualization of Children <[link removed]> - A Church of England bishop reported an elected church leader to the police <[link removed]> over his tweets condemning so-called queer theory and the sexualization of children. Last week, the head of the entire church also sent a letter seemingly threatening to remove the man from leadership over his remarks. “There’s a vocal minority that control the church and are using its resources to bully me into silence,” Sam Margrave, an elected member of the Church of England’s General Synod, told The Daily Signal <[link removed]> in an interview last week.” Heritage Expert: Tyler O’Neil <[link removed]>
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