Nikki Haley Hires Chief of Heritage Foundation's Lobbying Arm

Here is more from Philip Wegmann at Real Clear Politics:

If personnel is indeed policy, as the Heritage Foundation likes to argue, an imminent staffing change at the think tank could have significant repercussions for the conservative movement and the future of Republican presidential politics.

As RealClearPolitics first reported, Tim Chapman, the executive director of Heritage Action, will soon join the team of Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a possible contender for the presidency post-Trump.

Chapman will serve as executive director of Stand for America, Haley’s conservative policy group. Details remain unknown, as Heritage, Heritage Action, and Stand for America did not return requests for comment.

Since its founding in 2010, Heritage Action has served as the lobbying arm of Heritage, pushing lawmakers to embrace their vision of conservative policy. Chapman was there since the beginning, marshalling a grassroots army from across the country to lobby Congress.

Here is more from Heritage's Daily Signal.

Google Employees Demanded Removal of Heritage President From New AI Council

Here is more from CNN:

Google has shuttered its new artificial intelligence ethics council, a little more than a week after announcing it and days after a swarm of employees demanded the removal of the president of a conservative think tank from the group.

In a statement Thursday, Google told CNN Business that it has "become clear that in the current environment" the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council "can't function" as the company wanted.

"So we're ending the council and going back to the drawing board. We'll continue to be responsible in our work on the important issues that AI raises, and will find different ways of getting outside opinions on these topics," Google said.

The decision, which was first reported by Vox Media, came in the wake of nearly 2,400 Google employees signing a post on the website Medium demanding the company remove Kay Coles James — president of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation — from the council. Published Monday by a group of employees calling itself Googlers Against Transphobia, the post said that by adding James to the group, Google was "making clear that its version of 'ethics' values proximity to power over the wellbeing of trans people, other LGBTQ people, and immigrants."

Heritage has openly opposed LGBT rights. And the group of Google employees pointed out several recent Twitter posts in which James criticized proposed federal legislation such as the Equality Act, which aims to halt discrimination based on gender identity, sex and sexual orientation. On Twitter, James called the bill "anything but equality" and said it would "open every female bathroom and sports team to biological males."

In response, Kay Coles James penned an opinion piece saying that she had been treated with "hostility."

Dems Seek Answers on Heritage Foundation Law Clerk Training

Here is more from Bloomberg Law:

Six Democratic senators want to know if law clerks participating in a conservative organization’s training program violated the judicial codes of conduct.

The Heritage Foundation, which held the training program in February, has advocated for “repealing reproductive rights; dismantling affirmative action policies; limiting voting rights; and restrictive immigration policies,” the Judiciary Committee members said in a letter to James Duff, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The organization has touted its role in helping President Donald Trump select nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The anonymously-funded program originally made participants pledge their secrecy and promise not to use their training for purposes contrary to the interests of the Heritage Foundation, the senators said.

It also held a session about immigration law on the same day that the foundation released a report concerning its immigration agenda, the letter said.

The senators asked whether any current or future judge or judicial employee asked the office for advice about attending that program, and what conclusion the office reached if they did. 

The letter cited guidance that the office issued after the program, which listed situations in which attending certain events could violate judicial codes of conduct.

Concerns are raised when the event sponsor engages in contentious debates over public policy and the program is funded by unknown sources, according to that guidance.

In response to the letter from the US senators, Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm issued this response, which denies any wrong-doing.

Here is more about the think tank's Federal Clerkship Training Academy.  And here is what the New York Times had to say about it.

How Heritage Stocked Trump's Government

Here are our favorite excerpts from a New York Times Magazine piece by Jonathan Mahler about how the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has staffed the Trump Administration:


On staffing the Trump Administration:

The Trump team may not have been prepared to staff the government, but the Heritage Foundation was. In the summer of 2014, a year before Trump even declared his candidacy, the right-wing think tank had started assembling a 3,000-name searchable database of trusted movement conservatives from around the country who were eager to serve in a post-Obama government. The initiative was called the Project to Restore America, a dog-whistle appeal to the so-called silent majority that foreshadowed Trump’s own campaign slogan.

On Trump and Heritage being an unlikely match:

In some ways, Trump and Heritage were an unlikely match. Trump had no personal connection to the think tank and had fared poorly on a “Presidential Platform Review” from its sister lobbying shop, Heritage Action for America, which essentially concluded that he wasn’t even a conservative.

On helping each other:

And yet Heritage and Trump were uniquely positioned to help each other. Much like Trump’s, Heritage’s constituency is equal parts donor class and populist base. Its $80 million annual budget depends on six-figure donations from rich Republicans like Rebekah Mercer, whose family foundation has reportedly given Heritage $500,000 a year since 2013. But it also relies on a network of 500,000 small donors, Heritage “members” whom it bombards with millions of pieces of direct mail every year. The Heritage Foundation is a marketing company, a branding agency — it sells its own Heritage neckties, embroidered with miniature versions of its Liberty Bell logo — and a policy shop rolled into one. But above all, Heritage is a networking group.

On victory for Heritage:

Today it is clear that for all the chaos and churn of the current administration, Heritage has achieved a huge strategic victory. Those who worked on the project estimate that hundreds of the people the think tank put forward landed jobs, in just about every government agency. Heritage’s recommendations included some of the most prominent members of Trump’s cabinet: Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos (whose in-laws endowed Heritage’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society), Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions and many more. Dozens of Heritage employees and alumni also joined the Trump administration — at last count 66 of them, according to Heritage, with two more still awaiting Senate confirmation. It is a kind of critical mass that Heritage had been working toward for nearly a half-century.

On the five ideologies of Heritage:

[Heritage co-founded Ed] Feulner packaged his fledgling think tank’s ideology into five basic principles: free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values and a strong national defense. 

Heritage avoids never-Trump:

In March 2016, the Republican establishment stepped up its effort to stop Trump. More than 100 Republican national-security experts signed an open letter publicly committing to fight his election, calling him a “racketeer” and denouncing his dishonesty and “admiration for foreign dictators.” A number of the signatories were fellows of conservative think tanks; none were affiliated with Heritage at the time. Heritage treated Trump as it would any other candidate, giving his campaign staff more than a dozen briefings and sending them off with decks of cards bearing Heritage policy proposals and market-tested “power phrases.”

On what Heritage staffers ate during election night:

On election night, Heritage turned its first floor over to a viewing party with an open bar, chicken wings and red, white and blue cupcakes.

On Heritage staffing the Trump Administration:

Heritage helped place countless others, from staff assistants to cabinet secretaries. In some cases, DeMint intervened directly, calling Pence to argue for Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman whose political career DeMint helped start years earlier in South Carolina. Mulvaney is now the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and as this article went to press, he was serving out the remaining time in a stint as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...

On current Heritage-Trump relations:

The president and his favorite think tank continue to draw closer. Administration officials speak regularly at Heritage and give frequent interviews to The Daily Signal. In April, Pruitt and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were both scheduled to speak at a Heritage donor conference in Palm Beach, Fla. (Sessions, under fire from the president because of the Russia investigation, dropped out.)

On the Trump-Heritage revolving door:

Churn is a central feature of this administration, even for its unofficial staffing agency. Paul Winfree, a Heritage economist who helped draft Trump’s first budget, is back at the think tank. So are Stephen Moore, who worked on the Trump tax cuts; David Kreutzer, who played a key role in dissolving a White House working group that was studying the monetary costs associated with climate-warming carbon dioxide; and Hans von Spakovsky, who helped run the now-defunct voter-fraud commission...

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece about big changes that have taken place recently at the Heritage Foundation.

Sen. Sasse Declines Top Job at Heritage Foundation

Although the salary would likely be more than six times as much as his current salary as a US senator, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) has declined an offer to lead the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.  Here is more from Politico:

The Heritage Foundation has approached one of the Senate’s leading anti-Trump Republicans, Ben Sasse, to gauge his interest in serving as president — an indication the influential conservative think tank may turn away from its supportive posture toward the president.

Sasse, who was elected to his first term in the Senate in 2014, has swatted down the overtures from Heritage’s board of trustees, according to two sources familiar with the recruitment effort. The Nebraska senator rose to national prominence when he announced early in the primary calendar that he would support neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton, and he has been a persistent critic of Trump ever since.

The entreaties are one sign that Heritage may be looking to change course after the May ouster of its former president, Jim DeMint. In the Senate, DeMint was a leading antagonist of establishment Republicans, and at Heritage he suffered from the perception that the organization was becoming too political — and too reflexively pro-Trump — as its focus on scholarship fell by the wayside.

Kay Coles James, a member of the Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees' Presidential Search Committee, said in a statement that the group is considering more than 200 people for the job, "many of them nationally renowned. We have engaged a professional search firm and we look forward to reviewing the candidates they suggest.”

The organization’s interest in Sasse — sources say board members have been persistent to the point of irritating the senator — indicates that it is looking for a reset. Other conservative think tanks have been less explicitly pro-Trump than Heritage was under DeMint. While American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks, for example, has sought to explain the source of Trump’s support, he has stopped short of expressing support for him.

Jim DeMint earned $1.1 million from Heritage in 2015, and US senators make $174,000 per year.  If Sen. Sasse took the job, his likely salary for one year (before taxes) would be approaching his entire net worth, which is estimated to be around $1.48 million.

In related news, here is what former Mr. DeMint is up to these days.

Feds Turning to Heritage Report to See if Job Will Survive Cuts

Just as Greeks used to go to the Oracle of Delphi to have their questions answered, federal employees are turning to a modern-day Pythia in a think tank report to have their most pressing question answered: "Will I have a job tomorrow?"

Due to promised cuts in the federal government by the Trump Administration, many people who work in the executive branch are nervously wondering whether or not they will have a job when they wake up.  To divine insights, they are reading a wonky report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with close ties to the Trump Administration, that may provide some answers.

Here is more from The Washington Post:

Some people are tweaking their résumés or thinking about retirement. But most are waiting to see whether the news from the White House really is as bad as they fear and if so, whether Congress will come to the rescue. For now, they are reading the tea leaves on cable television. And they are poring over the recommendations of the conservative Heritage Foundation, which the administration is leaning on for guidance.

Heritage’s list contains several agencies targeted not just for downsizing but elimination, including one that provides financial assistance to rural businesses, the International Trade Administration, and the Legal Services Corporation.

To the president and his supporters who see a bloated bureaucracy with lots of duplication and rules that choke jobs, the budget cuts are a necessary first step to make government run more efficiently.

The above-mentioned Heritage report that everyone is poring over, "Blueprint for Reform: A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017," can be found here.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on that report, which may be 2017's most influential think tank document, along with this one, also from Heritage.

Lobbyist Purge Allows Think Tanks to Dominate Trump Transition

The recent purge of registered lobbyist from Donald Trump's presidential transition team has created more work (and more influence) for think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.  Here is more from Daily Mail:

The Trump transition team has lost nearly half its staff and volunteers in a matter of days since instituting a ban on registered lobbyists at the end of last week, the Daily Mail has learned.

...The sources estimated that the number of staffers and volunteers working on the transition plummeted from around 250 late last week to less than 125 on Tuesday.  The sudden purge of lobbyists has allowed conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to take a stronger role in the transition.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece on how the Heritage Foundation is vetting resumes for the Trump team.  Here is a piece on the fact that many think tankers are worried about the new Trump era.  And here is a piece about the new think tank landscape in Washington, DC.

Heritage Vetting Resumes for Trump Team

Politico has just published a story on the Heritage Foundation's close connection to the Donald Trump team.  Here are some excerpts:

Three sources from different conservative groups said that Heritage employees have been soliciting, stockpiling and vetting résumés for months with an eye on stacking Trump’s administration with conservative appointees across the government. One source described the efforts as a “shadow transition team” and “an effort to have the right kind of people in there.”

...There’s no question that the organization is recognized, among other conservative movement leaders, as the entry point into the Trump transition team.

After Heritage Action, the foundation's political arm, offered a bruising assessment of Trump last November, Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint went on to meet with Trump during the campaign. Although there were certainly many tied to Heritage who preferred other candidates in the primary, the main organization largely steered clear of anti-Trump rhetoric throughout the rest of the election, instead assisting the candidate and his team with matters like determining potential Supreme Court justice nominees. That dynamic has helped pave the way for a relationship with an incoming administration that so heavily prizes loyalty.

Heritage, as a think tank, cannot engage in partisan campaign activity — it makes its research available to everyone, staffers stress — but that doesn’t mean its members can’t advise candidates on both political and policy matters.

It’s also unclear how much Trump, who maintains a very tight circle of trusted advisers — his family makes up a significant portion of that circle — can actually be influenced by outside forces. The Trump administration’s ultimate commitment to conservative approaches on a host of issues, including spending, is very much an open question.

Here is a new Think Tank Watch piece on the new think tank landscape in a Trump Administration.

Heritage Demanding Supreme Court Blockade Under Clinton

Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the think tank Heritage Foundation, has weighed in on the Supreme Court a number of times this year and continues to do so as Election Day nears.

Here is more from The Hill:

The conservative group Heritage Action is pushing Republican senators to keep the Supreme Court at eight justices if Democrat Hillary Clinton is elected president.

In a Thursday morning briefing at the Heritage Foundation’s Washington headquarters on Capitol Hill, the group said Republicans should embrace the idea of leaving the Supreme Court without its ninth justice, perhaps for as long as five years.

Dan Holler, Heritage Action’s vice president of communications and government relations, signaled that this year’s Republican blockade of President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, is just the beginning of a fight that could last the entire first term of a Clinton presidency.

A number of people from the Heritage Foundation are advisors to Trump and some work on his transition team.  Scholars from the think tank also helped shape Mr. Trump's Supreme Court nominee list.

Republican Think Tanks Mourning Their Party

The Republican establishment, many of whom are housed within think tanks across the United States, is feeling a bit uneasy about Donald Trump with less than a week to go before Election Day.

Here is an excerpt from Politico Magazine:

As the country geared up for the third and final presidential debate last week, the fellows of the storied conservative Hoover Institution gathered in Palo Alto to present their research to the think tank's wealthy patrons. Elsewhere in America, in the homestretch of perhaps the weirdest election the nation has ever experienced, things were getting tense, excited, even feverish. But the rooms at the Hoover retreat at Stanford University could have doubled as a funeral parlor, and the lectures as eulogies for a bygone era. Larry Diamond, a prominent political sociologist known to fellow scholars as “Mr. Democracy,” talked about the breakdown of the party system. Kori Schake, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration and adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign, spoke about how the U.S. was endangering the international order it had itself created. Peter Berkowitz, a conservative political scientist and commentator, gave a talk about “the unraveling of civil society” in America.

Of course, not all think tanks and think tankers are sad.  After all, many of the 100-plus people on Donald Trump's transition team come from conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.

Ed Feulner, former President of the Heritage Foundation (and a policy adviser on Trump's transition team), is reportedly trying to raise $100,000 at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's request, for the Trump transition to cover costs that aren't covered by federal funding.  This week, Feulner is hosting a $5,000-a-person breakfast with Christie at the swanky Metropolitan Club.

Among the key players on Trump's transition team are Myron Ebell, Director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Paul Winfree, Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and Ed Meese, a Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at Heritage.

Lawyer Pens Heritage Doc Calling for End to Obama's Lobbying Ban

Gregory Walden, a non-staff member of The Heritage Foundation, and a Senior Counsel with law/lobby powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, has just written a piece for the think tank arguing that restrictions on lobbyists in the administration discourages good candidates from serving and proposing reversing President Obama's lobbying ban.

The full paper, which was presented at a September 26 event at Heritage, can be read here.  Mr. Walden is a former Associate Counsel to President George H.W. Bush.

Has Heritage Just Released Donald Trump's Bible?

The Heritage Foundations has just released its Blueprint for Reform: A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017, a document meant to guide what they hope is Donald Trump's policy agenda.

The think tank has released such policy agendas in every presidential election year since 1980.  At that time, Heritage released the well-known Mandate for Leadership, a series of books spanning some 3,000 pages.  That blueprint was titled Mandate for Leadership in subsequent years, and was last published under that name in 2005.

Nevertheless, the decades-old document is alive and well, albeit under a different name.  In fact, Heritage chief Ed Feulner penned a piece in The Washington Times saying that the new Blueprint is the "latest" in the think tank's "Mandate for Leadership" series.

Mandate for Leadership was dubbed "the bible" of the Reagan White House by the Washington Post, and "provided a step-by-step guide to how to transform conservative principles into government policy."

Heritage's new report says that the next president and US Congress should pursue a number or proposals, including:

• Pro-growth tax reform
• Balancing the budget
• Reducing regulatory burden
• Repealing "harmful" laws such as Obamacare and Dodd-Frank
• Rebuilding the military capabilities of the US
• Welfare reform

The Blueprint calls for reducing total US spending by $10 trillion over 10 years and balancing the federal budget by 2024.  Among other things, it also calls for closing most of the Department of Energy.

The full Blueprint for Reform report, which spans more than 130 pages, can be found here.

The Washington Times notes that the Blueprint offers "scores" of policy recommendations for the next administration.  A Heritage analysis of the Republican Party's platform notes that the 2016 platform has many of the same ideas as Heritage's Blueprint; others note that the Blueprint has a "competing" anti-poverty plan than House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).

A number of advisers to Donald Trump are housed within the Heritage Foundation, including Stephen Moore (who is helping write Mr. Trump's tax plan).  Heritage was also tapped to select a list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court should he become president.

Morning Consult says that Heritage hopes their plan will be embraced by the Trump transition team if Mr. Trump wins the presidency.  Heritage has said that it has been in contact with Trump's campaign policy team and that the campaign was "very interested" in Heritage's views.  However, Morning consult notes that there is distance on some issues between the Heritage approach and Trump's campaign rhetoric.

Think Tank Watch should note that Heritage says it does not endorse any political candidate or party.  And James Jay Carafano of Heritage reminds us that anyone can use the Blueprint.

WPost on Heritage Foundation's Daily Signal

The Washington Post has a new story on the Daily Signal, a news website founded in 2014 and published by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.  Here is more:

Last summer, shortly after the first Republican presidential debate, the editors of the Daily Signal made a decision. Although its digital-only staff of 25 reporters and editors works less than two miles from the White House, they wouldn’t write about the presidential campaign — not at all.

An odd call, perhaps, but then again, the Daily Signal is not your run-of-the-mill news operation.

First off, it is funded by, and housed within, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank whose president is former Republican senator (and tea party leader) Jim DeMint.

[Editor in Chief Robert] Bluey’s office boasts a large soft-focus poster of Ronald Reagan, and the newsroom lacks the clutter and clatter — and fast-food wrappers — of most places where journalists toil. Clean, quiet and well-appointed, it feels more like a law office or, well, a foundation — except for an impressive new video studio due to debut this summer.

Is it indeed a news operation, or a way for Heritage to do strategic communication in a new and effective way? The editorial insiders insist that it is very much the former.

Former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson is a regular contributor. And when Facebook executives met with conservative news organizations to soothe fears about charges of anti-conservative bias, Bluey was among them. A few weeks later, Bluey was first to report a story about Facebook’s plans for anti-bias training.

So far, though, the two-year-old site has no credentials to cover Congress, which are granted by the Standing Committee of Correspondents. Bluey thinks the prerequisites for getting them may be pretty challenging for the Signal, at least right now. What’s required includes diverse funding sources and no affiliation with (or location within) an advocacy organization.

The article goes on to note that the Signal is trying to diversify its funding by asking readers to subscribe, noting that with an annual budget of $1.3 million, the site gets about 2 million unique visitors a month.

The Editor in Chief, Robert Bluey, noted that sometimes people at the Heritage Foundation, including President Jim DeMint, offer ideas for Daily Signal.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the Daily Signal.

Congressman: "Think Tanks Exist in a Fake World"

A lawmaker who has endorsed Donald Trump for president is advising Mr. Trump to avoid think tanks as he seeks to gather policy proposals from various people and groups.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who co-chairs Mr. Trump's US House Leadership Committee, is steering Trump toward lawmaker proposals because proposals coming out of think tanks "exist in a fake world."  Here is more from Hunter:

Hunter said the advice from lawmakers is more valuable than those coming out of a standard think tank because members know the political realities of their policies, and what it’s like to run for office on an actual legislative agenda.

“Think tanks exist in a fake world; they don’t have to run for reelection,” Hunter said. “Members of Congress not only have to get reelected every two years, but they get in the weeds on many policy issues like any think tank does. … I think that’s more valuable than anyone else’s input.”

But Mr. Trump has already been embracing think tanks and various think tankers.  The most recent example is the fact that he has asked Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation to help him revise his tax plan.

Over the past few weeks, Mr. Trump and his team have been cozying up more to think tanks, holding secret meetings with some of them.  Last month, Trump was hosted by a conservative think tank in Washington, DC to present his foreign policy address.

Heritage Engaging in Supreme Court Nomination Fight

Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the think tank Heritage Foundation, is weighing in on the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia.  Here is more from The Washington Post:

The conservative activist group [Heritage Action] is engaging in a high court nomination fight for the first time, as Obama’s two previous Supreme Court nominees, Sotomayor and Kagan, had already been confirmed by the time Heritage really got off the ground in 2010.

At the beginning of this year, though, the group began laying the groundwork for the current battle. Its leaders met with a number of senators — they declined to name specific offices — urging them to block the confirmation of several Obama appointees to the federal courts who were later confirmed.

“Part of the reason we were so active early on was the thought of, something could happen on the Supreme Court and it would be a defining moment for the Republican Party in how it responded,” said Dan Holler, head of communications for Heritage Action. “It was time to begin framing the debate on judicial nominees.”

Here are some talking points from Heritage Action on the Supreme Court battle.  Among other things, they are calling for the US Senate to refuse to consider any Supreme Court nominee that President Barack Obama puts forward.

Heritage Foundation Honors Ryan's Top Staffer, But Disses Budget

Here is more from Jake Sherman of Politico:

The conservative Heritage Foundation is throwing a "reception" to honor Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff David Hoppe, even as its lobbying arm tries to derail the House Republican leadership's 2017 budget.

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and former president Ed Feulner are listed as the hosts of the Thursday evening event, which is scheduled to be held at the Heritage Foundation's Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, according to a source familiar with the event.

Hoppe, who joined Ryan's (R-Wis.) staff when he became speaker, is a longtime Capitol Hill hand. He worked for former Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) — Ryan's political mentor — former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). He also worked as a lobbyist for many years and he was a staffer at the Heritage Foundation.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on Speaker Ryan's deep ties to think tank land.  Here is a Politico piece entitled "Heritage Complicates House GOP's Plans to Break Budget Impasse."

Think Tank Quickies (#198)

• CEIP: Could 3-D printing make it easier for states to build nuclear weapons?
• Former CAP staffer Zaid Jilani: We had a ban on writing about Jamie Dimon because JPMorgan Chase gave around a quarter of a million dollars to the think tank.
• Brookings President Strobe Talbott: "We are all French now."
• Prime Minister of Georgia hosts dinner for Atlantic Council delegation.
• Bruce Katz of Brookings named first-ever Centennial Scholar; Amy Liu appointed VP and Director of Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings.
• Subir Gokarn of Brookings India appointed as Executive Director at IMF.
• Nonprofit Quarterly (NPQ) on the Netanyahu fiasco at CAP (includes staff rebuttal).
• CBPP staffers ("Center on Buckets") playing some hoops (a new think tank basketball league?).
• 30 think tanks attended the 2015 Latin America Think Tank Summit.
• How the Heritage Foundation uses Medium to replace PDF reports.
• New York Times bestselling author Max Brooks joins Atlantic Council.

Speaker Ryan and His Deep Think Tank Connections

For years Think Tank Watch has written about how Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been the darling of conservative think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and to the Heritage Foundation.  In fact, AEI's annual dinner in 2013 was solely meant to honor Rep. Ryan.

He is also close to scholars at the Hudson Institute and has had dinner with the head of American Action Forum.  He has also spoken at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) as well as the center-left think tank Brookings Institution.

Ryan has also spoken at state-level think tanks, including the Center of the American Experiment (in Minnesota).  And he has embraced other think tanks outside of the beltway, such as the Manhattan Institute, which was reportedly advising some of his staff.

His think tanking is so prolific that during the 2012 vice presidential debates, Ryan was described as "Think Tank Ryan."  Even David Hoppe, Ryan's new chief of staff, reportedly has connections with think tanks.

But Ryan's deep relationship with think tanks has not been all friendly.  And his relationship with the Heritage Foundation is actually quite nuanced.  For example, in 2013, Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of Heritage Foundation, came out against Ryan's budget plan.

As you may remember, former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was often attacked by Heritage, and the think tank may have even helped destroy his career in Congress.

So the big question going forward is will Heritage play naughty or nice with Ryan.  Heritage Action has recently said that it is time for "moving away from the US Chamber of Commerce's preferred agenda," and it will surely be watching Ryan closely.

Does the Heritage Foundation Control the Republican Party?

The Heritage Foundation helped force House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to step down from his post, and now it appears that they are providing a platform for ultra-conservative groups like the Tea Party Caucus and Freedom Caucus to plan their next moves.  Here is more from The Washington Post:

Defaulting on the federal debt?  Not a problem.  Shutting the government to defund Planned Parenthood.  So be it.

These were a couple of the take-aways from Wednesday's installment of "Conversations with Conservatives," a monthly luncheon sponsored by the Heritage Foundation (parent company of the House GOP caucus) and catered by Chick-Fil-A, the fast-food chain owned by religious conservatives.  The 10 men on this dais, members of the Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the Tea Party Caucus and other conservative factions, might be considered the politburo of the new conservative order in the House.

And while on the topic of the Heritage Foundation, Think Tank Watch should note that Dickinson State's new Heritage Foundation has no relation to the Washington, DC think tank.

Think Tanks Aren't Going Extint!

Don't worry all you think tankers who have been fretting about the recent doom and gloom predictions about think tanks becoming obsolete.  It still looks like you'll have a job for at least a few more years, well, as long as you evolve.  Here is more from James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation:

“The Think Tank is Dead.” So predicted Michael Tanji a half-decade ago.

Tanji argued that “virtual think tanks,” groups of experts tethered only by common interests and cyber-communications, offered advantages (as well as some disadvantages) over traditional think tanks moored in brick-and-mortar buildings. The next iteration of think tanks—dubbed, inevitably, Think Tank 2.0—would be a mash-up of both cyber and cubicled assemblies of brains.

That, at least, was Tanji’s vision of the future. Yet his virtual tank, the Center for Threat Awareness, stopped publishing less than a year later. As for the brick-and-mortar dinosaurs, they’re still going strong.

That’s not to say that traditional think tanks won’t change. They will. Increasingly, these institutes of research and education will develop sister organizations to apply the legislative expertise and political pressure needed to transform their policy recommendations into enacted law.

Put plainly, the future is bright for brick-and-mortar think tanks—particularly those working on foreign and national security policy. When done right, the independent, nonpartisan think tank can have a strong competitive advantage in the war of ideas.

Much more can be read here.  Mr. Carafano is Vice President at the Heritage Foundation, where he directs research at the think tank's Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.