Heritage Events Podcast

The UK/US defence relationship is the broadest, deepest and most advanced of any two countries. The UK’s Minister for Defence Procurement will talk about what the UK and US are doing jointly to build on their long-standing relationship to develop a capable future force that deters our adversaries, whilst ensuring a secure and resilient industrial base.

After withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement in May, the Trump Administration restored nuclear-related sanctions, which become fully effective after November 4th. What will be the impact of these sanctions? What additional U.S. policies are needed to respond to Iran’s nuclear and other challenges? Will the administration be able to achieve its goal of negotiating an improved nuclear agreement? A panel of experts will examine these and other issues.

Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary would be the “weakest” and “least dangerous” branch. Thomas Jefferson warned that if the judiciary had the authority of “exclusively explaining the Constitution,” it would be a “mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, that they may twist and shape into any form they please.” The power properly exercised by unelected federal judges appointed for unlimited terms was debated at and since America’s founding. That debate has intensified as judicial power expanded in the 20th century and the broader question of the proper scope of federal government power is engaged today. This debate will address a specific question about the judiciary’s place in our system of separated power and its relationship to the other branches.

In Puerto Rico, children struggle in an underperforming education system that has poorer educational outcomes than any of the 50 states on the U.S. mainland. Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló and Secretary of Education Julia Keleher have proposed considerable and long-overdue reforms to Puerto Rico’s education system. Their plans seek to make Puerto Rican schools more accountable to parents by providing greater education choice to the island’s residents. The proposed education reforms are not simply due to a failing education system but are modifications that account for migration trends and economic stagnation. These changes are imperative as the tragic effects of Hurricane Maria have only expedited a regional exodus after the storm devastated many homes and schools. Please join us for a discussion about the impact of school choice on children and the future of education in Puerto Rico.

In a landmark book from national drug policy leader Robert L. DuPont, MD, Chemical Slavery covers two crucial topics: First, the national drug epidemic including an understanding of its evolution to become a national emergency, and the science of addiction and recovery. Second, Dr. DuPont presents his experience-based guide to the intimate, day-to-day struggle with the disease of addiction from prevention to lasting recovery. This book shows the ways in which these two domains of addiction, the national and the personal, are intertwined and can be both understood and managed.

Liberty and character are two sides of the same coin. Together, they make possible miraculous achievements in human progress. Subtract either one and disaster inevitably follows. Drawing from his book, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction and other writings, Mr. Reed will tell the stories of some remarkable people whose principles, integrity, and entrepreneurship left the world a better and freer place. For a complete list of speakers, topics, and dates of the Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice speaker series visit heritage.org/free-markets.

Prior to the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the international community underscored the need to raise human rights concerns in negotiations with North Korea. Despite President Trump’s focus on North Korea’s human rights challenges at the State of the Union and notable meetings with North Korean refugees, human rights were seemingly left out of the conversation in Singapore. Since that time, the U.S. government has said little on human rights issues and reports from South Korea indicate that human rights are not a priority there either. The prospect of a second summit between Trump and Kim is an opportunity where the administration can and should express concerns over Kim Jong-un’s egregious human rights track record. Join us for a conversation on how and why raising human rights issues advances U.S. national security objectives.

The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies is honored to announce that Senator Orrin G. Hatch will deliver our tenth Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture. The namesake of the lecture – the eminent jurist Joseph Story – became the youngest Associate Justice ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court when he was appointed by President Madison in 1812. Story made a significant mark on American law in his thirty-three years on the bench, but his greatest contribution to jurisprudence is his renowned Commentaries on the Constitution, in which he set forth a philosophy of judicial restraint. This lecture series celebrates his legacy. Previous Joseph Story Lectures have been delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Judge Robert H. Bork, Professor John Harrison, Judge A. Raymond Randolph, Judge Alice M. Batchelder, Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, Judge Carlos T. Bea, and Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

J.J. Hanson was a son, husband, father, and Marine Corps combat veteran. At 33, he was diagnosed with brain cancer and given only a few months to live. He went on to live for over three years and became the President of the Patients Rights Action Fund to fight against the legalization physician-assisted suicide. He and his wife had second son, Lucas. They became a living witness to the difference loving care and hope can make in the face of a terminal illness. His widow, Kristen, continues to tell their story to support people with hope who find themselves in similar circumstances and to challenge policymakers and medicine to reject such a dangerous public policy. Our panelists will provide true examples of compassionate care and inspiration for better answers to end-of-life questions than the current push for assisted-suicide.

The 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the JOBS Act) was designed to reduce the regulatory burden on entrepreneurs seeking to raise capital to launch or grow their business. It improved the regulatory environment for private offerings and Regulation A offerings, reduced the burden on newly public “Emerging Growth Companies” and permitted crowdfunding. But the law contained serious flaws that seriously reduce its effectiveness. Please join us for a discussion of the impact of the JOBS Act, its flaws, and how to fix those flaws.

From large automakers to small town suppliers, free trade is crucial to the success of the American automotive industry. Imports of intermediate goods help these manufacturers produce more efficiently and free trade agreements facilitate their ability to sell cars around the world. Today, opposing forces are impacting the freedom of automakers and their suppliers to do business in America. Tax reform and deregulation have been a huge boon for the industry, but growing restrictions on trade risk counteracting those benefits. The American automotive industry is impacted by tariffs on steel and aluminum, a primary intermediate good in their production process, potential tariffs on automobiles and parts, as well as the proposed changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Join us for a discussion on the importance of trade for the American automotive industry and the impact current trade policies have on their ability to do business.

America today remains among the few Western nations, which does not outlaw so-called “hate speech.” The calls to do so, however, are mounting. What has so far been restricted to college campuses may yet become a part of mainstream politics. While many oppose efforts to restrict speech, the arguments in favor of outlawing it are not well understood by the American public, nor is there a clear understanding of what the new America could look like should this occur. Please join us as our panel discusses the future of the freedom of speech and thought in America.

Nationalism is the issue of our age. From Donald Trump's "America First" politics to Brexit to the rise of the right in Europe, events have forced a crucial debate: Should we fight for international government? Or should the world's nations keep their independence and self-determination? In The Virtue of Nationalism, Yoram Hazony contends that a world of sovereign nations is the only option for those who care about personal and collective freedom. He recounts how, beginning in the sixteenth century, English, Dutch, and American Protestants revived the Old Testament's love of national independence, and shows how their vision eventually brought freedom to peoples from Poland to India, Israel to Ethiopia. It is this tradition we must restore, he argues, if we want to limit conflict and hate--and allow human difference and innovation to flourish.

In 2015, Russian hackers tunneled deep into the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee, and the subsequent leaks of the emails they stole may have changed the course of American democracy. But to see the DNC hacks as Trump-centric is to miss the bigger, more important story: Within that same year, the Russians not only had broken into networks at the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but had placed implants in American electrical and nuclear plants that could give them the power to switch off vast swaths of the country. This was the culmination of a decade of escalating digital sabotage among the world’s powers, in which Americans became the collateral damage as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia battled in cyberspace to undercut one another in daily just-short-of-war conflict. The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes—from crippling infrastructure to sowing discord and doubt—cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the US and its allies. The government was often paralyzed, unable to threaten the use of cyberweapons because America was so vulnerable to crippling attacks on its own networks of banks, utilities, and government agencies. Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger—who broke the story of Olympic Games in his previous book—reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution. The Perfect Weapon is the dramatic story of how great and small powers alike slipped into a new era of constant sabotage, misinformation, and fear, in which everyone is a target.

Roger Scruton is the most prominent British conservative philosopher writing today. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the foundations of conservatism, the role of private property and markets in a free society, the proper role of government in the economic sphere, inequality, justice, the problems inherent in socialism, environmental conservatism, and why he is a reluctant capitalist. He is the author of over 40 books, most recently Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition. For a complete list of speakers, topics, and dates of the Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice speaker series visit heritage.org/free-markets.