60+ Have Quit the Heritage Foundation Amid Antisemitism Controversy

Here is more from Newsmax:

More than 60 senior staff members, fellows, and trustees have departed the Heritage Foundation in the wake of the crisis ignited by President Kevin Roberts' support for Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson, Newsmax has learned.

The departures signal deepening turmoil at one of Washington's most influential conservative think tanks.

In the past week, Andrew Hale, a senior Heritage policy analyst, exited the foundation.

The departures of senior people from Heritage span multiple departments and include longtime policy experts, senior leadership figures, and prominent fellows, according to people familiar with the organization's internal operations. 

As donor support has thinned, the organization has increasingly relied on its endowment, said to be worth more than $300 million, to cover operating expenses, a shift that insiders describe as unsustainable over the long term. 

Roberts has said he is Carlson's close friend, and it was later disclosed that Heritage had sponsored the host's podcasts for nearly $1 million. 

 

Newsmax notes that the biggest beneficiary of the Heritage departures is likely Mike Pence's think tank Advancing American Freedom (AAF).  "AAF has already hired more than 20 former Heritage employees in recent months, and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III has backed a new legal center at AAF, directly competing with one at Heritage that bears his name," said Newsmax.

New Think Tank Focusing on US-Canada Relations

Here is more from Politico:

On Jan. 1, Goran Samuel Pesic launched the United States Canada Institute, a Washington-based think tank. 

“At a time of accelerating geopolitical competition and economic realignment, the United States and Canada face shared strategic challenges that demand closer coordination,” Pesic wrote on LinkedIn. 

— ISO Americans: Pesic’s outfit is located in the Ronald Reagan Building, the former home of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute. Chris Sands, that institute’s final director before its shuttering last year, laid out the cross-border think tank state of play via Substack.
Sands identified a “critical missing ingredient” in the landscape: American interest. “Too many Americans have been silent or complacent during the recent strain in the relationship with Canada,” he wrote.

 

Mr. Pesic is the President and CEO of the Samuel Group of Companies. 

New Think Tank Focused on US-Ukraine Defense Relations

Here is more from the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA):

It was near the end of 2023 when the deputy commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, Lt. Col. Vladyslav Sobolevskyi, retired from active duty after fighting in two separate wars with Russia.

Looking to still make a contribution to the cause, he decided in January 2024 to establish a U.S.-style think tank, the Snake Island Institute, which would have a primary mission to serve as a facilitator between Ukraine’s armed forces and the U.S. government, its military, defense industry and the media.

The institute is named after one of Ukraine’s early and most famous victories on Snake Island located in the Black Sea, Sobolevskyi told National Defense during an interview in a downtown Washington hotel.

The institute’s leader was part of a delegation making the rounds in September to government, military representatives and U.S. think tanks to raise awareness about its work and create bridges between the two nations.

 

Here is a link to the think tank. 

North Korean Hackers Using QR Codes to Attack Think Tanks

Here is more from NK News:

The FBI has warned that a North Korean cybercrime group known for its prolific espionage operations is using QR codes to launch spear-phishing attacks against U.S. and foreign government entities and other institutions.

The Pyongyang-backed actor Kimsuky targeted nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, academia and foreign policy experts by embedding malicious QR codes in phishing emails in May and June, the bureau said in an alert on Thursday.

Using this technique known as quishing (QR code phishing), Kimsuky emailed a think tank head in May and pretended to be a foreign advisor seeking insight on recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, according to the advisory. The phishing email provided a malicious QR code to scan for access to a questionnaire.

The same month, the North Korean cybercrime group impersonated an embassy employee and sent a senior fellow at a DPRK human rights-focused think tank an email containing a QR code, which allegedly provided access to a secure drive.

In another attack in May, Kimsuky spoofed a think tank employee in an email with a QR code that redirected users to Kimsuky-controlled cyberattack infrastructure.

 

For years North Korea has targeted think tanks in the US and elsewhere. 

Heritage Foundation Calls for More Babies, Marriage Bootcamps

Here is more from the Washington Post:

A conservative think tank tied to the architects of Project 2025 is rolling out a sweeping set of policy proposals aimed at reshaping American families and promoting marriage and childbearing between heterosexual couples, according to a report obtained by The Washington Post.

A report from the Heritage Foundation, titled “Saving America by Saving the Family,” urges President Donald Trump and lawmakers “to save and restore the American family” through massive tax credits for families with more children while capping alimony payments, enacting strict work requirements on social benefit programs, discouraging online dating, creating marriage “bootcamp” classes and more.

The report suggests public-private partnerships to honor and provide monetary awards for every decade a couple remains married. It calls for a 16-year-old age limit on social media and certain AI chatbots, and further age restrictions on access to pornography, and it argues that “climate change alarmism” demoralizes young people and dissuades them from having children. 

 

The newspaper notes that Heritage's plan represents a "sharp pivot for the organization away from its tradition of promoting small government and free-market conservatism toward an ideology that embraces government intervention in affairs as private as procreation."