Heritage Events Podcast

On August 25, 2017 violence broke out in Rakhine State that led to the mass exodus of more than 700,000 Muslim Rohingya from Burma. Thousands of fleeing Rohingya men and boys were brutally murdered, women and girls were raped and sexually abused, and babies were killed before their family’s eyes at the hands of the notorious Burmese military. The United Nations calls the situation ethnic cleansing. And according to The Economist the refugee flow from Burma was faster than the exodus from Rwanda in the midst of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The United States has responded by providing substantial humanitarian assistance to alleviate suffering. As the protracted crisis continues, it will be critical for the U.S. to implement a comprehensive long-term strategy to address the Rohingya crisis. That may require a larger-scale shift in broader U.S. strategy toward Burma. Please join us for a conversation nearly a year after the crisis began to discuss solutions to the long-term challenges facing Rohingya.

Dr. Aaron Rhodes’ new book, The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom, identifies a dangerous trend in the international human rights movement. Increasingly, the natural rights of individuals, like religious freedom, are being conflated with manufactured rights which are the social and economic policy priorities of particular groups and governments. Natural rights protect the fairness of the political process by ensuring that individuals are free to think, speak, and act according to their convictions, including their religious beliefs. However, when governments and social groups can transform their economic and social policy goals into “human rights,” this undercuts the moral legitimacy and persuasive power of natural rights like religious freedom. Our panelists will discuss how robust protection of religious freedom will ultimately lead to economic prosperity and why natural rights are best protected when they are protected for all, not for members of particular identity groups. Join us for this discussion on the future of international religious freedom and the human rights movement. Light refreshments will be served.

Join us for a major policy address by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. As a leading voice for conservative healthcare solutions, we are honored to have Secretary Azar deliver this special address at The Heritage Foundation.

On July 9, President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to succeed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Confirmation will not come without a fight. Progressives and other advocates of the "living Constitution" are already engaged in that battle. Judge Kavanaugh will be confronted with ideological challenges regarding his views on legal issues ranging from the powers of the administrative state to abortion rights. More broadly, critics of Judge Kavanaugh will no doubt take aim at his evident commitment to textualism and upholding the original meaning of the Constitution. How can supporters of Judge Kavanaugh best defend his nomination, answer these attacks, and use the confirmation process to advance the public's understanding of American constitutionalism? Our distinguished panel of legal scholars and Supreme Court experts will discuss the best strategies as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for its hearing.

Please join us for the 10th Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture featuring a keynote address by The Right Honourable Liam Fox MP. In his remarks, Secretary Fox will discuss the economic, moral, and political case for free trade in the context of changing patterns of global trade. A particular focus of the lecture will be exploring the opportunities that Brexit creates for the trading relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. Secretary Fox was appointed Secretary of State for International Trade in July 2016 by Prime Minister Theresa May. A member of the Conservative Party, he was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 1992 representing the constituency of North Somerset. Secretary Fox has held several ministerial roles including Constitutional Affairs Spokesman (1998-1999), Shadow Health Secretary (1999-2003), Conservative Party Chairman (2003-05), Shadow Foreign Secretary (2005), Shadow Defense Secretary (2005-10), and Secretary of State for Defense (2010-2011). Before being elected to Parliament, Liam Fox worked as a General Practitioner and is a former Civilian Army Medical Officer and Divisional Surgeon with St John Ambulance. Secretary Fox attended school at St Bride’s High School before studying medicine at the University of Glasgow Medical School, graduating with MB ChB degrees in 1983. The Freedom Lecture honors the principles, ideals, vision, and legacy of Lady Thatcher. Previous Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecturers have included Ambassador John Bolton, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Charles Krauthammer, Charles Moore, Natan Sharansky, and the Hon. John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia.

In March, as President Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, he said that “trade wars are good and easy to win.” Following the president’s tariffs, Canada, Mexico, the EU, and other allies retaliated against the U.S., primarily targeting agricultural exports. The trade war is already threatening the livelihoods of thousands of factory workers, farmers, and ranchers. And that threat is growing and spreading daily. Join us for a discussion on the real impacts of the tariffs, and what the retaliation means for Americans.

Harmful lies are nothing new. But the ability to distort reality has taken an exponential leap forward with “deep fake” technology. This capability manufactures audio and video of real people saying or doing things they never said or did. Machine learning techniques are escalating the technology’s sophistication, making deep fakes ever more realistic and increasingly resistant to detection. Deep fake technology brings with it certain benefits, but also many harms. The marketplace of ideas already suffers from truth decay as our networked information environment interacts in toxic ways with our cognitive biases. Deep fakes will exacerbate this problem significantly. Individuals and businesses will face novel forms of exploitation, intimidation, and personal sabotage. The risks to our democracy and to national security are profound as well. Join us as we discuss this emerging challenge.

Feminism wrought great changes for women: it secured the right to vote, equal pay, and civil and political rights. But studies show that as the years have gone by since the early feminist movement, women have reported lower and lower levels of happiness. This has led to the question: Has feminism always protected women’s interests, or has it gotten off track in striving for change? Mona Charen sets out to answer this question by taking a look not only at contemporary feminism, but also feminist history. She explores whether demanding equality is the same as demanding sameness, or whether equality requires respecting and celebrating the differences between people. What are women’s interests, and what makes women happy and fulfilled? In answering these questions, she examines the ideas of such authors as Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill, Germaine Greer, and Betty Friedan. Charen looks at their conclusions in light of contemporary studies and statistics to show where these thinkers were right – and where they went wrong.

On June 19, the United States announced that it was officially withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council. Prior to the announcement, the U.S. had engaged in extensive diplomatic efforts for more than a year to address the critical flaws of the Council, including persistent bias against Israel and the ability of human rights violators to win elections to the Council and undermine its effectiveness. Only after these efforts failed, did the U.S. withdraw. However, the U.S. also stated that was open to rejoining the Council if it were reformed. What reforms are necessary for the U.S. to return to the Council? Does U.S. withdrawal affect its financial support of and engagement with the Council, UN human rights experts, or the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights? How will the U.S. continue to advance its human rights agenda outside of the Human Rights Council?

When then-Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott spoke to a Heritage audience in 2012, he summed the relationship up as “more than allies.” “We’re family,” he said. Family understand one another like no one else can. Indeed, that day, Mr. Abbott proved a keen observer of American politics and history. So, more than a year and a half into the Trump Administration, how does he see President Trump’s foreign, defense and trade policies? How do they align with Australia’s and how does he see the future of the U.S.-Australia alliance? These are among the many questions we hope to answer when the former Prime Minister addresses Heritage on the topic, Taking Trump Seriously. Tony Abbott served as the 28th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from September 2013 to September 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Party from 2009 to 2015. Between 1996 and 2007, he was successively Parliamentary Secretary, Minister, Cabinet Minister and Leader of the House of Representatives in the Howard government. Abbott has been a Member of Parliament since 1994, representing Warringah in New South Wales. Prior to entering Parliament, he was a journalist with The Australian, a senior adviser to Opposition Leader John Hewson, and Director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. He earned degrees in economics and law from Sydney University and a Master of Arts in politics and philosophy from Oxford which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

The Supreme Court’s 2017-2018 term will soon be over, but the need for serious analysis has just begun. Did the High Court get the big cases right? What will the Court’s ruling in Trump v. Hawaii mean for immigration and executive power? Is the future for religious freedom secure in the wake of Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. V. Colorado Civil Rights Commission? How will Gill v. Whitford and Benisek v. Lamone, the partisan gerrymandering cases, impact the upcoming mid-term elections? Will Janus v. AFSCME sound the death knell for public employee unions across the country? How will the Court’s arbitration agreements in Epic Systems affect employers and employees? What response, if any, is necessary from Congress following South Dakota v. Wayfair, the internet sales tax case? Did any broader themes of the Roberts Court emerge this term, and has Justice Gorsuch changed the balance of the Court? Please join us as our distinguished panels of practitioners and correspondents debate these and more from the 2017-2018 term.

Americans love to trash their politicians as corrupt and self-interested, but they don’t agree on a solution. How can America attract good leaders to the thousands of elective offices in the land? In Politicians: The Worst Kind of People to Run the Government, Except for All the Others, Bruce Chapman lays out a bold plan for the changes we need to make in our public life if we are serious about enable worthy leaders to emerge to and to succeed. Drawing on history as well as his own extensive experience in politics and public policy, Chapman challenges the conventional wisdom about politicians, arguing that their chief rivals – the media, bureaucrats, college professors, and even political “reform” groups – are often sources of further political demoralization rather than renewal. Bruce K. Chapman worked on national and local campaigns throughout his life, started a magazine (Advance: A Journal of Political Thought), was an editorial writer for The New York Herald-Tribune, co-authored (with George Gilder)The Party That Lost its Head, and wrote The Wrong Man in Uniform, an early argument for an all-volunteer military. He served on the Seattle City Council in the 1970s, was elected Secretary of State of Washington twice, was chosen Director of the U.S. Census Bureau under President Reagan, and then served as a Deputy Assistant to the President in the White House. In the late 1980s he served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. In 1991, he founded Discovery Institute, a public policy think tank that supports research on science, culture, economics, technology, transportation, national defense, and civic leadership.

As Heritage Foundation analysts noted in a recent research report, there is bipartisan dissatisfaction with the U.S. foreign assistance programs and calls for them to be overhauled. Unfortunately, these efforts often fall victim to politics wherein various interests stall reforms to protect their preferred priorities, programs, or allocations. For example, recent efforts to eliminate or reduce shipping and purchase requirements on food assistance that would allow the same funds to feed millions more hungry people around the world ran into Congressional resistance. Meanwhile, as the number of countries measuring up to its demanding good governance criteria dwindles, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation has begun to emphasize regional programming. Join us for a robust discussion with our panelists as they share their perspectives on what is wrong with U.S. assistance programs, what should be done to improve them, and where the most promising opportunities are to achieve that objective.

Congressional oversight, derived from the implied powers in the U.S. Constitution and conducted since the earliest days of our Republic, is an essential tool in maintaining the separation of powers. In the decades since the New Deal, oversight has taken on additional importance as a needed restraint on the ever-expanding administrative state. During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason referred to this authority when he said that Members of Congress “are not only Legislators but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of the public offices.” This important investigatory role includes the review, monitoring, and close scrutiny of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation, as well as anywhere that federal tax dollars flow, to ensure faithful compliance with congressional intent. Senator Grassley has been a leading advocate and trailblazer on bipartisan congressional oversight for decades. From his position in the Legislative Branch, he has kept a watchful eye on the other two branches to make sure the federal government works for, by and of the people. Join us for a timely speech by Senator Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the critical importance and responsibility of congressional oversight.

Please join us as Congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón, labor policy experts, and representatives from the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico discuss reforms to help Puerto Rico reach its economic potential by attracting jobs for the 3 million American citizens living on the island. Puerto Rico suffers from one of the lowest labor force participation rates in the world, in part due to heavy-handed labor laws that reduce job opportunities and welfare rules that penalize participation in the formal labor market. Hurricanes Irma and Maria exacerbated Puerto Rico’s labor challenges as workers have flocked to the mainland in search of steady employment and improved living conditions. The panel will analyze how to improve access to good and plentiful jobs in Puerto Rico, in turn helping the economy of Puerto Rico grow and flourish.