Heritage Events Podcast

The House of Commons has rejected the Withdrawal Agreement between Britain and the European Union proposed by Prime Minister Theresa May no fewer than three times. Public debate on this Agreement has focused on its inability to deliver the Brexit that Britain voted for in the landmark 2016 referendum because of the Agreement’s effects on trade, regulations, and the relationship between Ireland and Northern Ireland. However, the Agreement also has important intelligence, defense, and security dimensions. In his presentation, Professor Gwythian Prins, a member of the Chief of the UK Defense Staff’s Strategy Advisory Panel and emeritus research professor at the London School of Economics, will review the Agreement’s shortcomings in these dimensions and set out the risks it poses to the Anglo-American Special Relationship.

Join the Washington Examiner’s Kimberly Leonard for a bipartisan and wide-ranging discussion about the future of American health policy. "Examining Healthcare" will feature keynote interviews with Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Senator Doug Jones (D-AL), both of whom are members on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. There will also be two panel discussions with experts and industry leaders, one discussing the efficacy of harm reduction and another on drug pricing.

North Korea remains in the international spotlight as Pyongyang and Washington continue to differ over the diplomatic path to denuclearization. Despite the continued focus on the security threat, North Korean human rights are largely absent from policy discussions. To get a better sense of how human rights fits into the Kim regime’s broader strategic calculus, three former members of the North Korean regime will discuss Kim Jong-un's strategy for maintaining power, his nuclear weapons programs, and insights on the current situation within North Korea. Then, a panel of distinguished U.S. experts on North Korea will focus on ways that the U.S. government can better integrate human rights into ongoing negotiations and explore the mechanisms available to hold the North Korean regime accountable for their poor human rights record. This program is part of North Korea Freedom Week, devoted to promoting the freedom, human rights and dignity of the people of North Korea, which first began in 2004.

The U.S. military is pursuing innovative market-based strategies to combat declining recruitment and retention rates. Military personnel cite inadequate education options for their children as a major source of discontent. All too often, military personnel are placed in the impossible situation of choosing between their children’s future and their duty to their country. However, a recent proposal in the House and Senate seeks to alleviate this tension by offering education savings accounts to military-connected children. The new policy would allow parents to tailor their children’s education to their unique needs. These changes are imperative to ensure that the U.S. military remains an effective and ready fighting force. Please join us for a discussion about the effect of education savings accounts and the future of the U.S. military.

Does the United States need an American Foreign Legion, recruited globally, to fight wars that have “moved beyond lethality” and that are now firmly entrenched in what many call “gray zone conflict,” that area between conventional war and idealized peace? “Cunning adversaries like China exploit the space between war and peace for victory,” while the U.S. remains stuck in a perception of war that favors conventional military operations increasingly irrelevant to the modern age. Please join us for a conversation with Dr. Sean McFate who, in his new book, proposes the new rules of war for an “age of entropy [in which] corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and nation-states have less.”

An eye-opening report that reveals the link between extensive marijuana use and mental illness, as well as a hidden risk of violence linked to such use of the drug. With marijuana use soaring, and states from coast to coast legalizing the drug, award-winning author and former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson warns that cannabis legalization advocates have misled Americans about the drug’s safety. For decades, advocacy groups have pushed dangerous myths about cannabis: it can treat many different diseases, it can solve the American opioid epidemic, and so forth. Americans have listened. Since 2006, and especially in the last few years, marijuana use has spiked. The United States now has higher rates of use than any other major country, and cannabis is far more potent than it was even 20 years ago. Unfortunately, that growth has happened in the face of powerful new evidence that marijuana can be deeply harmful to mental health. Scientists agree that, for some people whom we cannot identify in advance, cannabis use can lead to psychosis, a mental break with reality that sometimes produces terrifying violence. Berenson has interviewed some of the world’s foremost experts on marijuana and mental illness and illustrated their views with stories of the real-world harm that marijuana can cause. Berenson elegantly builds his case. Deeply researched and elegantly written, Tell Your Children makes you question whether legalization is worth the risk.

The U.S. Navy’s recently released 2020 Budget Request and new Long-Range Shipbuilding Plan have created controversy and numerous questions from Congress and defense analysts. Most significant is the decision to retire several ships early while delaying other shipbuilding programs to prioritize the funding of platforms and technologies that are presumably more distributed, lethal and survivable; such as attack submarines, unmanned systems, directed energy weapons, artificial intelligence, and hypersonic missiles. While having the potential to revolutionize warfare and the future fleet, most of these systems are still in their infancy, and the Navy is only now experimenting to assess their potential. While the decision to cancel the refueling of carrier USS Truman has garnered the most attention, the delay in two amphibious ship programs, the retirement of six guided missile cruisers and other decisions will have lasting effects on fleet size and the shipbuilding industry. Although these and several other budget choices are portrayed as “investment decisions” not “warfighting decisions”, they will likely prevent the Navy from achieving the required number of aircraft carriers and amphibious warships over the next 30 years. This causes some to argue that cuts in funding for these ship programs prior to the completion of the Navy’s new force structure assessment are premature and sends mixed signals on some of the Navy’s largest shipbuilding programs. Join our group of expert panelists as we decipher the Navy’s 2020 Budget Request and its implications for the fleet.

A Conservative Women's Network event co-hosted by The Heritage Foundation.

The job of a prosecutor is not just to seek convictions but to seek justice. So when reports emerge of prosecutors abusing their power, it can shake public confidence in the entire justice system. Reformers argue that prosecutors exercise too much power with little or no oversight. Defenders of the current system argue that prosecutors work tirelessly to keep people safe from criminals and that abuses are extremely rare. Join us for a special screening of a short documentary, by FedSoc Films, that explores the powerful role of prosecutors in our criminal justice system. Immediately following the film will be panel discussion with several criminal law experts featured in the film.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in travels to Washington to coordinate with President Trump on policy toward North Korea after the unsuccessful Hanoi Summit. Seoul had hoped a U.S.-North Korean agreement would lead to relaxation of some sanctions and enable inter-Korean economic projects. There was no agreement in Hanoi and U.S. policy on sanctions since has been, at best, inconsistent. Meanwhile, neither the U.S. nor South Korea have been willing to confront Pyongyang over its atrocious human rights record. Join us as a distinguished panel of experts discusses the U.S.-South Korean relationship and recommendations for coordinating policy on North Korea.

Title IX was created in order to ensure that women had access to equal opportunities as men, including in sports. Now that legacy is threatened. New gender identity policies, which allow biological males who self-identify as women to compete against biological females, put women at a disadvantage. These policies can cost female athletes the titles, records, and scholarships that are rightfully theirs and even lead to serious sports-related injuries. Now, these policies could be imposed nationwide should lawmakers pass the Equality Act, a bill that would elevate “gender identity” as a protected class under federal anti-discrimination law. A fair playing field must acknowledge the enduring biological differences between males and females. Gender identity policies ignore this fact and so erase the unique talents and achievements of girls and women. Please join us for a conversation on this important topic.

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has given lectures all over the world—drawing massive audiences with a message that empowers and challenges them to find meaning in their lives through personal responsibility. He shared his wisdom with hundreds of Heritage Foundation supporters in New York City in this captivating conversation with Genevieve Wood.

Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a “culture of contempt” — the habit of seeing those who disagree with you as not merely incorrect but also worthless as people. Brooks reminds us that today, one in six Americans have stopped talking to close friends and family members over politics, millions are organizing their social lives and curating their news to avoid hearing different viewpoints. Ideological polarization is at its worst since the Civil War. At the same time, 93 percent of Americans are tired of the country’s disunity. So, instead of retreating and hunkering down in ideological bubbles, Brooks proposes new, practical steps for healthy engagement with our opponents. Blending the latest behavioral research and ancient wisdom, Brooks offers a better way to lead by bridging divides and mending relationships.

Socialists fall prey to a common mistake. When defending the superiority of socialism over capitalism, they compare an idealized description of socialism, where people are imagined to behave and institutions to function as the socialist desires, to what they take to be a realistic depiction of capitalism. They compare an ideal to the real; big surprise; the ideal wins. But if we compare apples to apples, ideal capitalism to ideal socialism, and realistic capitalism to realistic socialism, capitalism “wins” hands down. For a complete list of speakers, topics, and dates of the Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice speaker series visit heritage.org/free-markets.

Is America in a cold civil war? Many prominent commentators think so. And not without reason. As the culture wars of the past several decades have intensified, the country now finds itself deeply divided. Americans disagree not just about politics, but also about foundational questions regarding the meaning of equality and very the purpose of our nation. As Americans grow apart in our understanding on these fundamentals, we seem to be becoming two distinct nations living in the same country. What remains unclear is where these growing differences will lead, if they can be resolved, and what principle will unify us in the future. Please join us as our panelists share their analysis of America’s divisions.