It’s been a little more than a week since the 2022 midterm elections.
The Republican Party is projected to win a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, while the final partisan split of the U.S. Senate remains up in the air after the Georgia Senate race advanced to a runoff election, to be held on Dec. 6.
The 118th Congress is set to convene on Jan. 3, and a trio of incoming freshmen—Reps.-elect Laurel Lee, R-Fla.; Josh Brecheen, R-Okla.; and Erin Houchin, R-Ind.—shared with The Daily Signal what they are most hopeful for as they prepare to head to Washington, D.C.
China is vying to become the world's No. 1 superpower, a distinction long held by the U.S. The communist country "is threatening American innovation and national security by exploiting weaknesses in U.S. patent protection, and Big Tech is letting them get away with it," according to a synopsis for a new documentary film, "Innovation Race," which opens in theaters Wednesday.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, author of "Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elites Slept," says that "the movie itself really talks about the importance of the patent system to innovation in the United States, how that's kept our country secure throughout the almost 240-plus years of existence, and how that security was negated by the America Invents Act.
"And how in this competition that we face today, with China in particular, that it's creating a challenge for America in terms of innovation and keeping its rightful place at the top of science, technology, and research and development," Spalding says.
The America Invents Act was passed and signed into law in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama, who at the time said the "much-needed reform will speed up the patent process so that innovators and entrepreneurs can turn a new invention into a business as quickly as possible."
Spalding also discusses what he found to be the most surprising takeaway from the "Innovation Race" documentary.
"Well, I in particular like the stories of the inventors. And I think understanding the personal calculations that they went through in terms of trying to protect their intellectual property and then realizing that they're not able to, to me was ... I think, the most important part of the film," he says.
Spalding added:
One of the things about America is, innovation relies on individual initiative, and if you're not certain about the ability to protect your intellectual property, then you're going to be less likely to go out there and take all the financial risks and personal risks that are associated with being an entrepreneur and or inventor.And so, hearing those stories, understanding the implications across our economy as you multiply those by 330 million, really just gives you a sense of the gravity of the challenge that this American Invents Act created for our country.
Spalding joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the "Innovation Race" movie, what's at stake for U.S. national security, and the so-called Made in China 2025 plan. ("'Made in China 2025' is an initiative to comprehensively upgrade Chinese industry," Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explains.)
Americans have been losing trust in key institutions for nearly two generations. The reality is that those institutions—government, media, corporations, and education—have been in a state of decay for decades, the real-world effects of which are beginning to manifest on increasingly large scales.
Yuval Levin joins Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to detail the origins of the current state of our institutions, why Americans have lost trust in them, and the standards we ought to hold them to.
Yuval shares how his experience becoming a U.S. citizen has informed his worldview and helped to forge his career path defending the constitutional principles we hold dear.
Yuval Levin, Ph.D., is the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is the founder and editor of National Affairs and is an opinion writer at the New York Times. Under George W. Bush, Dr. Levin was a member of the White House domestic policy staff and the executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics.
Bridget Ziegler was among the 30 school board candidates to earn the endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this year.
It was a novel approach for a governor to endorse school board candidates, but one that paid off big time for conservatives who support education freedom and parental empowerment. Nationwide, many first-time candidates won election to school boards. And in Florida, all six DeSantis-endorsed candidates on the November ballot won their school board elections. For the year, 24 of the DeSantis-backed candidates were victorious.
Even though Ziegler's election took place in August, she's continued to play an active role in school board elections nationwide as the Leadership Institute's director of school board programs.
She joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about her experiences on the Sarasota County School Board and how she’s leveraging what she’s learned to help others through training programs at the Leadership Institute.
Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/
Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription
Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts
Sign up for The Agenda newsletter—the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda
An Air Force veteran is giving back to and assisting the veteran community, one tweet at a time.
"We are a unique, one-of-a-kind, social media-driven, veteran nonprofit," Gretchen Smith, founder of Code of Vets, says. "We operate purely on Twitter and a few other platforms, but primarily we are Twitter-driven."
"We have assisted roughly 5,000 veterans and I have raised $6.5 million in the past four years, so it's something that has become very effective," Smith says.
Smith joins this Veterans Day episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss her organization, what veterans face daily, and how you can help.
Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/
Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription
Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts
Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda
As results from Election Day continue to trickle in, it's still not clear whether Republicans or Democrats will control the next House and Senate, and by how much. However, it's clear that Republicans suffered both major wins and major losses in midterm elections across the nation.
"Some of the big wins we saw in Florida. [Gov. Ron] DeSantis got about 19 [percentage points] over [Democrat Charlie] Crist, which is a massive margin. This is a state that Donald Trump carried in 2020 by 3 points," says Noah Weinrich, communications director for Heritage Action for America, the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation. (The Daily Signal is Heritage's multimedia news organization.)
"Historically before that, it's been seen as a swing state," Weinrich says of Florida. "It's the bellwether."
On the flip side, however, Republicans suffered a loss in Pennsylvania's Senate race, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, defeated Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican.
"So some of the losses we saw ... were in really tight races like Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz lost against John Fetterman. I haven't checked the final margin, but it was only by, I believe, 2 points or something like that," Weinrich says.
"Now, that was a state that President Trump won very narrowly in 2016 [and] lost very narrowly in 2020," he says.
Weinrich joins this episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the wins and losses of Election Day, the races still up in the air as of the podcast's recording, and key issues that drove voters to the polls.
