Think Tank Quickies (#479)

• Fitch Ratings has been talking to think tanks to help decide if the US needs a credit downgrade. 
• House Democrats presented with messaging data from the Center for American Progress during a whip meeting.
  
• Heritage Action's executive director Jessica Anderson is taking a leave of absence to lead the Sentinel Action Fund.  Ryan Walker will move up to be acting ED at Heritage Action.
• Publisher/CEO Fred Ryan is leaving the Washington Post to head the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation's Center on Public Civility. 
• New report from Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) finds that sanctions are often deadly and harm people's living standards in target countries.
  
• Leo chef Matthew Lego last worked at the Cato Institute.
• Michael Turner, most recently head of communications and spokesperson for the US Embassy in Beijing, has founded Turner Global Solutions and joined the Atlantic Council as a senior fellow.
  
• Sean McElwee was founding executive director of Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm he co-founded in 2018.  He resigned in Dec. 2022 amidst allegations of artificially manipulating the results of polls and his close ties to accused fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
• Tara DiJulio, VP and chief comms officer at GE and chief comms officer at GE Aerospace, has joined the Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) board of directors.
  
• "I visited the most vilified think tank in Israel; what I discovered will surprise you."
  

Think Tank IPS Settles False PPP Loan Allegations

Here is more from Politico:

The Institute for Policy Studies has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars to settle charges that the progressive think tank misrepresented its eligibility for a second draw of the Paycheck Protection Program created to help keep small businesses afloat during the Covid pandemic, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

— In February 2021, according to the settlement agreement, IPS applied for — and later received — a second PPP loan in the amount of $481,000, despite new restrictions on applicants for a second loan through the $953 billion program, including a prohibition organizations “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities, including any entity that is organized for research or for engaging in advocacy in areas such as public policy or political strategy or otherwise describes itself as a think tank in any public documents.”

— Doing so required IPS to certify its eligibility under the program, despite describing itself online and in its corporate bylaws as an entity aiming to advance progressive policy in Washington. The Small Business Administration ultimately forgave both of the PPP loans IPS received through, along with interest accrued and lenders’ fees, according to the settlement agreement and ProPublica’s PPP loan tracker.

— In a statement, the think tank argued that as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, IPS by law isn’t allowed to spend more than 15 percent of its time lobbying or otherwise primarily engaged in political activities. “In our case,” IPS said of its time spent lobbying, “it’s less than 1 percent. We interpreted our status as consistent with the restriction and applied in good faith based on that interpretation.” Per the settlement agreement, IPS will repay the second loan, including interest.

 

In 2020, Think Tank Watch reported that think tanks received millions in PPP loans.

Cecilia Rouse named as 9th President of the Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution has just announced that Dr. Cecilia Rouse, who has served under three Democratic presidents, has been named as the 9th president at the think tank.

Here is more from a press release:

The Brookings Institution announced that Cecilia Rouse has been named its next president, following approval by its Board of Trustees. Rouse’s appointment will be effective in January 2024, when she will succeed Amy Liu, who has served as interim president since July 2022 and will remain in this role until January.

 

Rouse is currently the Katzman-Ernst Professor in Economics and Education at Princeton University.  Before that she was Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in the first couple years of the Biden Administration.  She has also served in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

She is married to Ford Morrison, the son of author Toni Morrison.

More coming soon...

Heritage Report Forces Publishing Giant to Fear Bud Light-style Disaster

Here is more from the New York Post:

The world’s largest education publisher, Pearson, started a clumsy purge of its digital footprint after a Heritage Foundation report exposed its obeisance to the ideas animating critical race theory. 

Pearson, like so many other corporate behemoths, rushed all-in on “equity” in 2021, with new editorial guidelines vowing to make woke concepts like “intersectionality” and “colonial discourse” part of everything it does.

Thursday, Heritage researcher Jonathan Butcher let the larger world know about it. His report drew some media scrutiny — and poof! 

The guidelines vanished from the web along with videos promoting the same ideas, and the company’s chief flack went into full-bore denial, insisting, “Critical race theory is not included in Pearson K-12 materials for public schools or in any materials for government contracts.”

 

Here is more from The Daily Signal.

Brookings Scholar Starting His Own Think Tank

Dr. Richard Reeves, who is currently the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair and Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, will be leaving the think tank to start his own think tank, the American Institute for Boys and Men.

Reeves says the mission of the new think tank "is to research and raise awareness of the problems of boys and men, and advocate for effective solutions."

Last year, the Brookings Institution Press published Reeves' book "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It."

Reeves says that he expects a "soft launch" of his new think tank in September as he works to raise funds, recruit a board, and hire staff.

He also notes that he has "loved" his time at Brookings and will remain as a nonresident senior fellow.

Reeves, among other things, was previously the director of London-based think tank Demos.

Think Tank Quickies (#478)

• David Dewhirst, senior advisor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, joins Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation.
• CSIS launches bipartisan Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention.
• CSIS launches Hess Center for New Frontiers to work on macrotrends and forces shaping the global landscape over the next century; and launches Wadhani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies (it launched an AI Council in 2022).
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace opens new Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
• Carnegie Endowment and Princeton launched initiative to counter threats to the information environment.
• Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison joins CNAS Board of Advisors.
• Wilson Center's Mexico Institute receives grant for work to strengthen protections for migrant workers in North American agriculture.
• Wilson Center launches Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition to shape conversations and reforms in era of great power competition.
• Wilson Center launches Latin America marine protection partnership with the US State Department.
• Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI): "Unlike establishment think tanks, we rely exclusively on small donations."
  

Dems Meet at Think Tank to Fight No Labels 2024 Bid

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Top Democratic strategists, including current advisers to President Biden and former U.S. senators, met last week with former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump at the offices of a downtown D.C. think tank.

Their mission: to figure out how to best subvert a potential third-party presidential bid by the group No Labels, an effort they all agreed risked undermining Biden’s reelection campaign and reelecting former president Donald Trump to the White House.

Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for Third Way, which hosted the event, declined to comment, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings. 

 

Among those in attendance were former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a former Third Way board member.

India Targets Think Tank Critical of Coal

Here is more from the Washington Post:

An independent think tank. A law firm. An environmental group.

On Sept. 7, Indian tax authorities simultaneously raided three seemingly unrelated nonprofit organizations without issuing a public statement, confounding many in Indian academia and politics. But one little-known thread connected the three groups: Each was seen by the government to be a critic of Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest men and a political ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

At the Center for Policy Research (CPR), widely considered India's top independent think tank, more than a dozen officials and armed police officers confiscated computers and phones and sealed the building, locking some employees inside their rooms, according to three people who were present.

In the ensuing months, documents showed, investigators pored through the nonprofits’ emails and phone records and laid out a lengthy array of allegations. The government cited the allegations as the basis for administrative actions that seemed designed to cripple the nonprofits, Indian and international activists and scholars say.

CPR was accused of improperly obstructing Adani’s Hasdeo mine by “giving directions” to protest leaders, the think tank’s correspondence with investigators shows. Authorities alleged that researchers affiliated with the think tank were using U.S. funding for litigation — something that is outlawed in India.

 

The Washington Post notes that earlier this year Indian authorities froze the foreign-currency bank accounts of CPR.  Citing seven current and former CPR employees, the Post notes that the think tank, starved of funding, is likely to sharply downsize or shut down completely.  CPR had 200 employees at its peak.

Here is a letter from concerned international faculty and researchers about what has been happening at CPR.

Republicans Target Think Tanks Who Study Disinformation

Here is more from the New York Times:

On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online.

Targets include Stanford, Clemson and New York Universities and the University of Washington; the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund and the National Conference on Citizenship, all nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations in Washington; the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco; and Graphika, a company that researches disinformation online.

The group behind the class action, America First Legal, named as defendants two researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta; a professor at the University of Washington, Kate Starbird; an executive of Graphika, Camille François; and the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, Graham Brookie.

 

Here is the biography of Graham Brookie.

Think Tank Quickies (#477)

• New study from the Quincy Institute: 85% of think tanks cited in articles about US military support in Ukraine have received funding from Pentagon contractors. 
• Brookings and John Legend's HUMANLEVEL announce new partnership to improve well-being, equity, and upward mobility.
• New Brookings task force will create the blueprint for a federal Office of Carbon Scoring.
  
• Hal Wyler in The Diplomat spoke at Chatham House.
• Billionaire David Rubenstein donated $10 million to Foreign Affairs magazine.
  
• Rogue States Project: A "bipartisan national security think tank based in Washington, DC."
• Sunwater Institute: A "non-partisan think tank with a mission to improve the legislative process."
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: "The defense industry manipulates the media, government, and public opinion through its massive funding of think tanks."
• Progressive stars Jamie Raskin and Rachel Maddow headline a conference organized by Truman Center - with Palantir and Lockheed Martin as key sponsors.
  
• Nishi Toshio, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, has been talking about the power of the "Jewish zaibatsu" and says that Catherine, Princess of Wales, is a Rothschild.
  

Mike Needham Leaving Capitol Hill to Launch a New Think Tank

Mr. Mike Needham, Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) chief of staff, is leaving Capitol Hill to launch a new think tank called America 2100.

The think tank's aim is to "begin the work of codifying and institutionalizing the ideas Rubio helped pioneer, from China to industrial policy," reported Politico.  The new think tank reportedly has Rubio's blessing.

Before joining Rubio's office in 2018, Needham was CEO of Heritage Action for America, the sister lobbying arm of the think tank Heritage Foundation.

Needham formerly worked on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign in 2008, and spent three years as the chief of staff and director at the Heritage Foundation.

Mr. Elbridge Colby, Co-founder and Principal of the think tank The Marathon Initiative, said that America 2100 is "is sure to be a critical and desperately needed voice in confronting the *actual* problems the country faces with credible solutions...not those of 15 years ago."

Dozens With Nuclear Weapons Interests Funding Think Tanks

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has just published a new report entitled "Wasted: 2022 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending," which notes that nuclear weapon-producing companies, nuclear-armed governments, and those in nuclear alliances spent $21-36 million in 2022 funding ten of the most prominent think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons in nuclear-armed states.

Here is the ICAN list showing think tank funding from companies, governments, and alliances that produce and support nuclear weapons:

• Atlantic Council: $4,180,000 - $7,419,974
  
• Brookings Institution: $2,460,000 - $4,794,984
  
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: $2,020,000 - $4,499,986
• Chatham House: No amount publicly available
  
• Center for a New American Security (CNAS): $2,710,001 - $4,729,975
• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): $2,590,000 - $3,829,987
  
• Hudson Institute: $375,000 - $469,999
  
• Observer Research Foundation: $888,106
  
• Royal United Services Institute (RUSI): $2,488,409 - $5,431,512
  
• Stimson Center: $3,296,369
   

Of those amounts, $5 million - $9 million is from companies, and $16 - $27 million is from governments.  The report outlines the numerous governments and firms that give to these think tanks.

ICAS says that throughout 2022, nuclear weapon-producing companies and countries in nuclear alliances did their best to sell deterrence by funding think tanks and lobbyists.  

"Board members at nuclear weapons producing companies played an integral role in keeping the money flowing to weapons of mass destruction - sitting on boards of banks that lend to them and major think tanks researching and writing about nuclear weapons," says ICAS.

In related news, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its annual assessment of of the state of armaments, disarmament, and international security.

FBI & NSA Warn Think Tanks About North Korean Cyber Group Kimsuky

Here is more from the US State Department:

Today the U.S. Department of State, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency together with partners from the Republic of Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Police Agency, and National Intelligence Service are releasing a Cybersecurity Advisory  on social engineering and hacking threats posed by the DPRK cyber group known as Kimsuky. This Advisory is collaborative effort between our two governments and a concrete outcome of the U.S.-ROK Working Group on DPRK Cyber Threats.

Kimsuky, a set of DPRK cyber actors, conducts large-scale social engineering campaigns in which victims at think tanks, academic institutions, and news outlets are manipulated and compromised for the purpose of intelligence gathering.

 

Kimsuky has been targeting experts and think tanks for years, including those in the US, Japan, and South Korea working on nuclear issues and sanctions.

Update: SentinelLabs said that North Korean hackers had been impersonating journalists to gather intelligence from academics and think tanks.

Bush Alum Margaret Spellings Named CEO of Bipartisan Policy Center

Here is more from a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) press release:

Today, the Bipartisan Policy Center announced former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will join the organization as its new CEO. As a veteran leader who has forged strong relationships on both sides of the aisle, she has decades of experience finding common-sense solutions to improve the lives of American families.

As CEO, she will guide the organization’s strategic direction and priorities, promote BPC’s policy recommendations, and be the chief steward of BPC’s bipartisan ethos and mission to help policymakers work across party lines to craft bipartisan solutions. “In a unanimous vote, the BPC Board of Directors approved the appointment of Margaret Spellings as our next CEO,” said Kelly Darnell, interim CEO of BPC.

 

Spellings most recently served as President and CEO of Texas 2036, a Dallas, Texas-based think tank founded in 2018 by Dallas attorney Tom Luce.  That think tanks' name is based on the year of Texas's bicentennial.

Think Tank Quickies (#476)

• Numerous think tankers on Russia's new list of 500 Americans banned from entering the country. 
• Japan's minister of digital transformation, Kono Taro, named as honorary Kissinger fellow by the McCain Institute. He'll hold that title for one year.
• A number of think tankers attending the 2023 Bilderberg meeting.
• New RAND report examining 3 national security threats that had uncertain origins; and another RAND report on where and how the US, Russia, and China will be competing for influence.
  
• Administration officials, including Paul Rosen, the assistant secretary of investment security at Treasury, have been soliciting feedback from think tanks about an outbound investment screening mechanism. 
• Former AEI president Arthur Brooks joins forces with Oprah.
  
• For its new "Spotlight on Think Tanks" blog series, Overton will be exploring how think tanks are influencing policy, one country at a time.
  
• Jason Israel, most recently a trans-Atlantic fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, is now special assistant to the president and senior director for defense at the NSC.
• Natalie Boyse, and Trump alum, has started as program manager at ORF America, the US affiliate of India's Observer Reserch Foundation.
• Semafor's Steve Clemons does Strategic Ark national security conference hosted by Warsaw-based Polish Institute of International Affairs.

China Mining US Think Tanks for Military Intelligence

Here is more from the New York Times:

China’s intelligence agencies are investing deeply in open-source intelligence to learn more about the capabilities of the American military in the Pacific and beyond, according to a new report.

The analysis, by the threat intelligence company Recorded Future, details efforts by China’s government and companies to collect publicly available data from the Pentagon, think tanks and private firms — information Beijing’s military can use to help plan for a potential conflict with the United States.

The report details some of the work one prominent Chinese open-source intelligence company has done to analyze publicly available insights from the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s in-house think tank. 

 

The Recorded Future report includes a table from a 2019 study by China's Army Service Academy showing likely People's Liberation Army (PLA) open-source intelligence (OSINT) collection targets.  The list includes the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Carnegie Europe Center, and Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). 

The report also notes that China is using its own "think tanks" to collect OSINT.  For example, it says that the Beijing Lanhai Changqing Information Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is a new self-described think tank that provides research support to military clients.  The entity claims to be "committed to becoming China's most influential military-civil fusion innovation think tank."

A similar entity is the Beijing Yuanwang Think Tank Science and Technology Consulting Co., Ltd., a privately owned PLA OSINT research services provider.

In related think tank news, China's new ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, has been having meetings with influential US think tanks.  He met, for example, with Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Richard Haass.  

Meanwhile, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that think tanks play a "unique role" in US-China understanding.