Heritage Events Podcast

Please join our distinguished panelists for a discussion of how the private sector is preparing workers to meet the ever-evolving needs of a free and prosperous economy. We will examine how private companies across very different sectors of the American economy—manufacturing, software, and wireless infrastructure—are assessing their current and future workforce needs, and in turn, recruiting and training workers from both outside and within their companies to meet their sectors’ labor demands. While companies are doing a lot to develop a capable workforce to meet the demands of the current and future economy, the private sector faces some impediments to training up workers and creating opportunities for them to learn new skills and begin careers in high-demand fields. We will discuss what the Administration and Congress have recently done and can do to help open pathways for workers to obtain better careers and for all Americans to benefit from better alignment of workers skills with the economy’s needs.

The demand to outlaw so-called “hate speech” continues to grow in America. Too few citizens, however, understand the radical theory behind “hate speech” criminalization, how our nation will change should it be banned, and the tech world’s involvement in ushering in this future. By turning to Europe, which actively criminalizes “hate speech,” we see that politicians, priests, political commentators, and private citizens have been censored, fined, arrested, investigated, and prosecuted for violating speech laws, which have had a devastating effect on the capacity of citizens to rule themselves. In America, the tech world is working hard to ensure our nation looks more like Europe. Should “hate speech” be banned in America, the tech world will help bring forth this revolution. Please join us to discuss the different dimensions of this important debate.

The rise of Wahhabism has had a significant impact on the Middle East and beyond. This strict interpretation of Islam, which originated with an 18th century preacher based in the Arabian Peninsula named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, argued that Islam had strayed from its pure path and a purge of more modern elements was required. Al-Wahhab also considered the Ottoman Caliphate governing Arabia at the time to be corrupt and the creation of an Islamic state which would implement ‘pure’ sharia law a necessity. Al-Wahhab’s ideas gained traction and were eventually adopted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In turn, Saudi Arabia pumped Wahhabi Islam not only around the Middle East but also into the West via its lavish funding of mosques and schools preaching al-Wahhab’s vision. The Wahhabist belief in a sole, pure version of Islam meant that other strains of Islam - such as the liberal humanist Islam that has at times been associated with Sufism - were opposed. This mindset endures, with Sufi graves destroyed and Sufi traditions sought to be wiped out by extremists to this day. This event will assess the impact of Wahhabism on the Middle East and South Asia. It will focus on the role of Sufism in potentially undermining Wahhabism, the tradition of inter-faith harmony in South Asian countries and the role of inter-faith dialogue in challenging extremist ideology.

While the Constitution is silent on the President’s removal power, the First Congress concluded that Article II’s vesting of executive power necessarily meant that the President must have plenary authority to remove executive branch officers. As James Madison asserted, “If the Constitution has invested all executive power in the President… the Legislature has no right to diminish or modify his executive authority.” Unfortunately, the modern administrative state has continued to give rise to a “headless” fourth branch of government that exerts immense control over vast swaths of American life. The power to remove subordinates is the key means by which the President can direct how executive authority is exercised. Without it, he is in many instances powerless to ensure faithful execution of the laws. A new bill, The Take Care Act, introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), aims to address this problem. It will eliminate all existing restrictions on the President’s power to remove upper-level executive branch officers, and fully restore the original understanding of the President’s power to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. Join us for an address by the Senator, as he unveils this important new legislation.

While there have been many biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower that focus on his military career or the time of his presidency, none clearly explores the important role faith played both in his personal life and in his public policy. This despite the fact that he is the only US president to be baptized as a Christian while in office. Alan Sears and Craig Osten invite you on a journey that is unique in American history and is essential to understanding one of the most consequential, admired, and complex Americans of the 20th Century. The story begins in abject poverty in rural Texas, then travels through Kansas, West Point, two World Wars, and down Pennsylvania Avenue. This is the untold story of a man whose growing faith sustained him through the loss of a young son, marital difficulties, depression, career disappointments, and being witness to some of the worst atrocities humankind has devised. A man whose faith was based in his own sincere personal conviction, not out of a sense of political expediency or social obligation. You've met Dwight Eisenhower the soldier and Dwight Eisenhower the president. Now meet Dwight Eisenhower the man of faith.

Congress passed the Congressional Review Act in 1996 to prevent agency rules from going into effect before Congress had the opportunity to expeditiously review and nullify ones that it deemed unwise. None of the three Presidents since then—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—used the CRA to rein in the administrative state. President Donald Trump has. In April 2019, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum reading the CRA broadly for executive and independent agencies alike. This panel will discuss the potential effect that the OMB Memorandum might have on the regulatory state.

In this, the 40th year of the Taiwan Relations Act, it bears evaluating the state of the Taiwan-US relationship. There are many positive signs, arms sales, significant unofficial diplomatic contact, and a peak in Congressional activity. There are also signs of reserve on the part of the US administration, including uncertainty over the sale of F-16 fighter jets that have been under consideration for more than 10 years, a failure to pick up on the idea of a US-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement, and a low key opening of the new American Institute in Taiwan. On the other side of the relationship, Taipei is election season, with a range of possible outcomes. So where are US-Taiwan relations to day and where are they headed in the short to medium term. Please join us for an assessment, led by Deputy Foreign Minster Szu-chien Hsu and a discussion with leading experts on the relationship from both sides of the relationship.

Multiple, worsening deadly conflicts grip Nigeria. Given the protracted nature of the insecurity, the international community risks becoming complacent about the profound dangers associated with the conflicts that are driven by a toxic mix of ideologies and grievances. It risks too losing sight of the terrible human toll the violence is taking. Please join The Heritage Foundation, the International Committee on Nigeria, and Save the Persecuted Christians to hear a message from Nigerians directly affected by Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, and Fulani militia violence: Rebecca Sharibu, mother of Leah Sharibu, a kidnapped schoolgirl held as a slave for life by the Islamic State West Africa Province for refusing to renounce Christianity; Alheri Bawa Magaji and Mercy Maisamari, daughters of the Adara Chiefdom that Fulani radicals brutally attacked earlier this year; and Paul and Folsade Sule, Deborah Jacob, and Napoleon Adamu from Benue State, victims of violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. These witnesses will shed light on the terrorist violence in the northeast and the conflict in the Middle Belt region that Nigerian leaders—a former Nigerian President, a Nobel laureate, and a national Christian group—say has devolved into a well-armed, well-funded, ethno-religious war that is destabilizing one of Africa’s most important countries.

In this riveting book, bestselling author Paul Kengor and writer-director Robert Orlando show what it took to end the Cold War: leaders who refused to accept that hundreds of millions must suffer under totalitarian Communism. And no leaders proved more important than the pope and the president. Two men who seemed to have little in common developed an extraordinary bond—including a spiritual bond between the Catholic pope and Protestant president. And their shared core convictions drove them to confront Communism. To tell the full story of the dramatic closing act of the Cold War, Kengor and Orlando draw on their exhaustive research and exclusive interviews with more than a dozen experts, including well-known historians Douglas Brinkley, H. W. Brands, Anne Applebaum, Stephen Kotkin, John O’Sullivan, and Craig Shirley; the leading biographer of John Paul II, George Weigel; close Reagan advisers Richard V. Allen and James Rosebush; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron. You can’t understand Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan—or how the Cold War came to such a swift and peaceful end—without understanding how much faith they put in the Divine Plan.

Thirty years after Tiananmen Square, human rights abuses continue to proliferate in China. Hundreds of thousands, possibly as many as 3 million, Muslim Uighurs are currently held by the Chinese government in political reeducation facilities. Individuals inside these facilities are subject to indoctrination, forced labor, torture, and in some cases, even death. Collectivization of this population was achieved through the Chinese government’s rapid deployment of large-scale surveillance technology – technology that poses a severe threat to people inside and outside of China. The crisis in Xinjiang is both a human rights and national security threat that merits a strong response from the U.S. government. While the U.S. and the international community has been quick to condemn the Chinese government’s actions, it has been slow to craft a strategy that holds accountable those in China responsible for the abuses. Please join us for a discussion on next steps to respond to the crisis in Xinjiang.

A Conservative Women's Network event co-hosted by Clare Booth Luce Center for Conservative Women.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Robert Kagan wrote, “Only with the advent of Enlightenment liberalism did people begin to believe that the individual conscience, as well as the individual’s body, should be inviolate and protected from the intrusions of state and church.” It is widely thought, as Kagan assumes, that religious freedom is the work of the Enlightenment. Only with the decline of religious faith and the end of the religious wars engendered by the Reformation did liberty of conscience gain a foothold in the emerging secular states of Europe. Or so the story goes. Liberty in the Things of God tells a different story. The origins of modern notions of liberty of conscience and religious freedom are to be found in Christian writers from the early centuries (e.g. Tertullian of Carthage and Lactantius), medieval churchmen and theologians, and Christian thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries. Three features of this tradition of thinking are distinctive: religious faith cannot be coerced; conscience is a form of spiritual knowledge that mandates action; the realm of statecraft and the realm of religion are distinct and must be kept separate. Please join us for a conversation with Robert Louis Wilken about the Christian origins of religious freedom.

America’s fiscal future is in peril. At $67,000 for every American, the $22 trillion national debt is larger than what the typical American household earns in a year. At the same time that federal debt is growing rapidly, politicians on both sides of the political aisle are making grand promises for new spending. It’s as if Washington’s elite think that the debt does not matter. A high and rising national debt exposes America to significant dangers and imposes steep costs on families, workers, and businesses. The sooner we act to correct course, the more sensible reform options we have available to avoid severe austerity measures. Join the Heritage Foundation for an enlightening panel discussion on why you should care about the national debt by discovering how debt impacts America’s economy and our financial future. The Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2020 is The Heritage Foundation’s budget proposal to guide Congress in its constitutional exercise of the power of the purse. It presents Heritage’s extensive research that, when implemented, can lead to a freer, more prosperous America with opportunity for all. With this Blueprint we demonstrate to the American people and our elected officials an approach to the federal budget that reins in out-of-control spending and debt, ensures that the government is funding its constitutionally mandated duties, and provides an environment where our prosperity as individuals and as a country grows.

Many in Washington continue to be fixated on the immediate ebbs and flows of the U.S.-China trade, investment, and technology dispute. What is the state of China’s economy and where is it trending? Rising labor costs and reduced consumption have put downward pressure on corporate profits. However, efforts by the People’s Bank of China may have staved off current risks of a bearish market in exchange for future defaults as debt in China continues to rise. How are businesses fairing in the ever-changing domestic and international operating environment? Is China’s economy a risky investment these days? And will a U.S.-China agreement make things better or worse? Join us we explore these questions and more with experts from across Washington.

Few scholars have articulated such profound insights into the nature and destiny of America as the nineteenth century French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville and the twentieth century American theologian Michael Novak. Each man also had much to say about the rise and popularity of an idea that has regained great traction in America today, especially among young Americans - Socialism. The reflections of Tocqueville and Novak about the character of Socialism are deeply relevant for understanding why people, both in their time and in ours, are attracted to an economic system - whether of the command economy or social democratic variety - that has inflicted enormous political and economic damage on entire societies.