Reopen America - April 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has held the United States in a public health and economic headlock since the start of quarantine periods about two months ago. Each week shows increased job loss, victims of the virus, and emotional health problems. FreedomWorks activists are, sadly, not immune to the devastation inflicted by Coronavirus.

Famed investor and liberal political activist Bradley Tusk raised eyebrows with what he and many on the left dubbed provocative: a defense of “Big Pharma” in the U.S. The premise is straightforward: for the medical community to conduct the type of R&D required to combat challenges like coronavirus, they cannot be subject to strict price control regimes so popular among progressives.

Although the United Nations (UN) and their subsidiary, the World Health Organization (WHO), were created to be conduits of best practices and policies internationally, their approach to the tobacco industry is counterproductive. Rather than pursue a path of harm reduction, that acknowledges the existing risk of tobacco use and tries to mitigate them within existing realities, both the UN and WHO have prevented any engagement with the tobacco industry. The UN should take a page from the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) successful tobacco playbook and engage with tobacco industry participants.

The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing recently, led by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to further investigate the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granting Ligado Networks’ application to use spectrum. This was not the first attempt by Inhofe to sow misinformation on this issue, nor was it the last. Inhofe released a letter, co-signed by a number of other Senate colleagues, repeating some of the falsehoods echoed during the hearing and that the defense industry has been pushing.

FreedomWorks recently announced the launch of the American Freedom Initiative (AFI), a collaboration headed by former acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker. This project aims to help relieve injustices committed against Americans under the criminal justice system and the regulatory state. As part of this project, we will shine a spotlight on some of the individuals the AFI has identified under its National Pardon Project as being particularly hard hit by unjustly harsh criminal sentences for non-violent crimes.

The Senate is in session this week. The House is in recess.