Heritage Events Podcast

The Trump Administration is developing an “outside-in” strategy, enlisting Arab governments to take positive steps toward Israel. Will this do the trick and break decades of Palestinian-Israeli impasse? Or are there alternate approaches with a better chance to end the conflict?

Several pieces of legislation in Congress would require millions of small businesses in America to comply with complex and ambiguous “beneficial ownership” reporting requirements.  Recently, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on a discussion draft of the “Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act.” Section 9 of this bill, titled “Transparent Incorporation Practices,” is directed squarely at the smallest businesses in America – specifically, only firms with 20 or fewer employees would be subject to the rules. Ownership changes would have to be reported within 60 days and failure to comply could result in fines up to $10,000 and prison sentences of up to three years. Any true money launderer could easily and lawfully avoid this requirement by forming a partnership or business trust, using a larger firm or taking advantage of one of the exempt categories. In the final analysis, all this bill would do is impose a massive paperwork burden on America’s smallest companies. The bill will do nothing to hinder terrorism or money laundering. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate but so far has received little support.

Despite the collapse of the ‘Caliphate’ in Iraq and Syria, Islamist movements are continuing to gain momentum. ISIS remains formidable. The group retains a significant physical presence in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia and continues to direct or inspire acts of terrorism in the West, including the Halloween attack in New York and a string of atrocities across Europe. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda has taken advantage of the international community’s focus on ISIS to strengthen its own hand. Ongoing turmoil in the Middle East has allowed al-Qaeda to embed itself among Sunni opposition forces in Syria and Yemen and, 16 years on from 9/11, al-Qaeda remains active in Afghanistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri continues to elude capture and Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza, now features increasingly prominently in its propaganda material. IsIamist ideology continues to attract new followers. Governments are facing an unrelenting flow of recruits to extremism and struggling to create an effective policy response. In the West, ongoing debates over pathways to radicalization, the effectiveness of de-radicalization and the efficacy of “countering violent extremism” programs epitomizes this struggle. Despite President Trump’s stated intent to “eradicate” radical Islamic terrorism, the threat posed by this ideology remains alarming and will continue to pose a significant challenge for years to come.

Psychologists developed a test that purports to uncover unconscious racism. Supposedly tapping into the subconscious, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures disparities in millisecond response times on a computer. While it has been hailed as “proof” of deeply seeded racism in American society, policymakers should consider the growing body of research suggesting the test cannot predict real-world behavior before enacting policies to counterbalance so-called unconscious bias. Academia, police departments, and corporate America are seeking to root out unconscious racism, and the IAT has started popping up in employment discrimination lawsuits. Join us for a discussion with three distinguished scholars looking at problems with the IAT and why policymakers and employers should think twice before embracing these dubious claims of racism.

President Donald Trump knows about living the good life and achieving success. With his election to the presidency, he added to a life that already includes billions of dollars, worldwide celebrity, and a beautiful family, despite legions of haters. In The Art of the Donald, Daily Caller News Foundation editor-in-chief Christopher Bedford takes you inside the new president’s unorthodox mind, unlocking the genius of his approach to everything in life and offering insights into navigating life the Trump way. Featuring personal campaign-trail anecdotes and lessons from Trump’s long career as a businessman and politician, The Art of the Donald offers numerous pieces of advice, including Keeping your message simple and delivering it effectively; Using competition to govern yourself and chaos to confuse your opponents; Cutting out the middlemen and getting directly to the deal-makers; Redefining conflicts and transactions on your own terms; Solving problems with ingenuity instead of money; and Believing in yourself, no matter what your opponents try to say.

The NAFTA renegotiations are well under way, with Canada, Mexico, and the United States having recently finished the fifth round of talks. These renegotiations are particularly important for farmers and ranchers: Canada and Mexico are the largest and third largest agricultural export markets for the U.S, respectively. For families, trade with Canada and Mexico means much better access to affordable agricultural products, particularly fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, U.S. trade negotiators have made proposals that would be harmful to agricultural producers and to consumers. For example, one proposal referred to as the “seasonal” provision would allow a subset of the produce industry to bring trade challenges even at the expense of the produce industry as a whole. This panel and discussion will explore the importance of agricultural trade with Canada and Mexico and address some of the agriculture-related concerns connected to the NAFTA renegotiations.

Terrorism is not only political violence, but also a twisted form of public communication. It is propaganda and advocacy in bloody forms. Armed groups and terrorists have honed their messages for maximum impact on multiple audiences: their followers, those they hope to recruit or persuade, and those they seek to terrorize. Sometimes their messages and communication techniques are crude. Others are highly refined, carefully crafted appeals to intellect or emotion, embracing the most sophisticated forms of communications technology. All are intended to use the power of ideas, along with violence, to project an image and to communicate – not merely intimidate.

In Realism and Democracy former Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams argues in favor of an American foreign policy that combines practical politics, idealism, and support for democracy and human rights in the Arab world. America, he contends, is weary and turning away from support for struggling democracies in the Middle East as the promise of the Arab Spring turned to disillusionment and fear of Islamist political advances. The temptation to make deals with repressive regimes, however, must be resisted, Abrams argues, as repression only breeds more Islamist fundamentalism and violence. Democracy, on the other hand, still offers the best competing idea and will ultimately flourish if given consistent U.S. support. Providing a view from the frontlines of Middle East policy under the 43rd President, Abrams gives a compelling account of how the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 changed the Bush Administration's priorities and Middle East foreign policy direction. Elliot Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the Reagan Administration and as Deputy National Security Advisor in the George W. Bush Administration.

Jack Phillips, a baker in Colorado, declined to design a custom cake for a same-sex wedding. The couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and an administrative law judge found he had engaged in sexual-orientation discrimination for seeking to run his business in accordance with his religious beliefs. This lengthy legal battle culminated in the Supreme Court taking up the case. Jack maintains that forcing him to design custom cakes for same-sex weddings violates his free speech and free exercise rights under the First Amendment. Now, the justices will decide whether states can compel business owners – like Jack – to create speech that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs. The day after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments, join us for a discussion with the lawyer who argued the case on behalf of Jack Phillips, and two lawyers who filed amicus briefs supporting his position.

Dramatic advances in technology have transformed key aspects of our military and its capabilities. Yet, challenges imposed by each operating domain – land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace – still shape the forces and operations used to defend our national security interests. Join us for a lively panel discussion featuring nationally recognized experts in these fields who will address the challenges of current and future war for the U.S. military.

Lone wolves, recruitment and radicalization. How is ISIS using social media and digital outreach to infect our society and push would be extremists to the edge? Is there a solution to detect this kind of content and kill it before it kills us? Social media has dominated the discourse of recent events in the Muslim world – from the Arab Spring to ISIS’s online recruitment and the recent deadly attack in Manhattan. Yet the roles of social media in these events and the use of the dark web, hacking, and digital attacks are still largely misunderstood. Identifying key trends across the Muslim world, Dr. Haroon Ullah posits what a proper understanding of social media can teach us about regional and international politics and diplomacy.

In a rush to get a rule through before winter, the Department of Energy directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to write and finalize a rule aimed at improving grid resilience. The DOE recommends that power plants stockpiling an arbitrarily defined 90 days’ worth of fuel on-site be compensated for certain costs – a measure that essentially creates a new subsidy in otherwise competitive electricity markets. The proposal would likely benefit coal, nuclear, and hydro power plants that have the ability to hold such inventory. Is DOE’s proposal a bad solution in search of a problem? What impact would a subsidy for nuclear, hydro, and coal-fired power plants mean for consumers and competition in the energy markets? What can legislators and FERC do to reduce the regulatory barriers to properly price and enhance grid resilience and reliability? As the December 11th deadline for FERC to act approaches, join us as we hear from a distinguished panel of experts to answer these questions and more.

Climate change was political long before Al Gore first started talking about it. In Green Tyranny, Rupert Darwall traces the alarming origins of the green agenda, revealing how environmental scares have been deployed by our global rivals as a political instrument to contest American power around the world. Drawing on extensive historical and policy analysis, Darwall examines the environmental propaganda scares of the last century, Sweden’s use of environmental alarmism to secretly aid Soviet Russia, and Germany’s alternative energy obsession that descended directly from the National Socialist regime. Green Tyranny provides a clear history of environmental alarmism and failed policies that explains how “scientific consensus” is manufactured and abused by politicians with duplicitous motives and totalitarian tendencies. Radical environmentalism demands not only the rejection of abundant hydrocarbon energy resources, but also the total suppression of dissent.

Lee Edwards is the preeminent historian of the conservative movement. As his newly released memoir makes clear, however, he has not simply observed conservatism as a detached scholar, he has been active on the national stage longer than any other conservative in America. Since committing his life to pro-freedom and anticommunist efforts as a young man in 1956, he has been present at nearly every major event of the modern conservative movement. In his tireless pursuit of liberty, Dr. Edwards has combined politics, policy, and philosophy. His memoir is full of colorful stories from a man who has done it all in a remarkable, multifaceted career. And, in a final chapter aimed at the rising generation, he posits how conservatives can remain a major political and philosophical force in America. Lee Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and the author or editor of 25 books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Edwin Meese III as well as histories of The Heritage Foundation and the American conservative movement. He was Founding Director of the Institute of Political Journalism at Georgetown University and is a past President of the Philadelphia Society. Currently he serves as Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Join us for the 2017 Antipoverty Forum on Thursday, November 16 at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. as we focus on putting the progress of people—not the growth of programs—back at  the center of the fight against poverty.    That’s the message behind this year’s theme, Refocusing Policy for the Good of People.  Antipoverty policy should be measured by how well it empowers people to overcome dependence on welfare and whether it provides them the opportunity make their own choices about quality educational or health care options.  At the Antipoverty Forum, you’ll hear from leading policy experts on conservative solutions for welfare, education, and health care that will do just that. And you’ll witness frontline stories of why relational efforts at the community level are so powerful for bringing real change to the lives of those in need.