Hillary's Top Aide Has a Family Think Tank

A new Vanity Fair piece entitled "Hillary's Other Daughter," which is about top Hillary aide Huma Abedin, notes that Ms. Abedin has deep family ties to a think tank.  Here is more:

Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Her mother, Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is Pakistani; her late father, Syed Zainul Abedin, was Indian.  Both were intellectuals.  When Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank, and became the first editor of its Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which states its mission as "shedding lights" on minority Muslim communities around the world in the ope of "securing the legitimate rights of those communities."  After Syed died, in 1993, his wife succeeded him as director of the institute and editor of the Journal, positions she still holds.

It turns out the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs is an Abedin family business.  Human was an assistant editor there between 1996 and 2008.  Her brother, Hassan, 45, is a book review editor at the Journal and was a fellow at the Oxtord Center for Islamic Studies, where Nasseef is chairman of the board of trustees.  Huma's sister, Heba, 26, is an assitant editor at the Journal.

The Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA) is based in London, England.

CAP President Passed Secrets to Clinton

Here is more from Politico:

As President Barack Obama's signature health-care reform proposal bogged down in Congress in 2009, Clinton paid close attention.

In a May 26, 2009 email, longtime Clinton adviser Neera Tanden passed on "hush hush" information that the Senate Finance Committee was considering a variant of the so-called "public option" — one or more government-run health-care plans that could exist alongside private ones. Tanden said she was pushing for a "cost trigger" that would allow a public plan if costs went too high.

"All of this is super secret," wrote Tanden, then part of the health care legislative team at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ultimately, no public option was part of the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress in 2010.

Tanden also indicated in the same email exchange that she was ready to make sure Clinton got credit if some of her policy ideas emerged in the final bill.

"Lots of things could fall in the direction of your campaign proposal — a mandate with a smallish version of the exclusion along with a premium cap. That's by no means assured, but if it does break that way, I will try to ensure I'm not the only one who notices (between us, of course)," Tanden wrote.

Neera Tanden, who had very close ties to the Clintons and the Obama Administration, is now the head of the Center for American Progress (CAP).  She recently said that she wants to see a half-female for the next US president.

CAP is said to be the go-to policy shop for Hillary Clinton, and the liberal think tank would likely play a huge role in a Clinton presidency.

Think Tank Third Way Hates Sanders, Loves Clinton

The center-left think tank Third Way and its scholars do not have nice things to say to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Just check out some of the recent tweets:

To be clear, Senator, you are saying that Barack Obama wants to devastate American cities and towns. https://t.co/uIduX7eJJp

— Third Way (@ThirdWayTweet) February 3, 2016

Sen. Sanders: Gallup says that 32% of progressives call themselves "moderate". Are they wrong about something? pic.twitter.com/hlsbCEgvr7

— Third Way (@ThirdWayTweet) February 3, 2016

Was it progressive or moderate to vote against comp immigration reform in 2007, Senator? Both? Neither? https://t.co/iRz0PEU2fD

— Third Way (@ThirdWayTweet) February 3, 2016

This sounds a lot like the Tea Party to us, Senator. Leave the purity tests to them - we need a big tent party. https://t.co/iRz0PEU2fD

— Third Way (@ThirdWayTweet) February 3, 2016

Can't enact a progressive agenda w/o moderates. Democracy requires 51%. @BernieSanders doesn't know how to govern. https://t.co/SPf7uprRhQ

— mieke eoyang (@MiekeEoyang) February 3, 2016

And in an apparent nod to Hillary Clinton, Third Way retweeted this:

1) This shouldn't be a debate about who gets to define "progressive"—it should be about who will get real results for American families.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2016

Can you guess which side Third Way is on?

But that should be no surprise.  Third Way has a number of Clinton connections.  For example, Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett worked on both of the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton.

Even though Third Way is careful to label itself simply as a "centrist" think tank, it is widely known that Third Way is first and foremost a Democratic think tank.  Some have labeled it the "Wall Street Wing of the Democratic Party."

In 2013, Third Way sparked at war in the Democratic Party when President Jon Cowan and Senior Vice President for Policy Jim Kessler wrote an op-ed arguing that the Democratic Party should not embrace the economic populism of people such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).


Update: The Union for Non-Profit Workers, the DC-based local union of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.  The Clinton-backed think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) has just unionized with IFPTE, probably making for some awkward political battles within the think tank.

President of CAP Wants Half-Female Cabinet for Hillary

Neera Tanden, the President of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) who has close ties to Hillary Clinton, is calling for a large percentage of females to hold Cabinet positions when the new US president takes office in 2017.  Here is more:

If half of the members of Canada’s Cabinet can be female, why couldn’t we get to 50 percent­, too? We’re talking about finding, at minimum, 11 women out of the almost 160 million in this country who could serve in the Cabinet at once...

What would that Cabinet look like? It’s not hard to imagine that, in 2017, a Michèle Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy, could become the first female defense secretary, or a Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, could become the first woman as Treasury secretary. For a Republican Cabinet, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez would be more than qualified to lead the Justice Department, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley would be a highly capable choice to head the Department of Homeland Security.

CAP is known to have greatly influenced a number of policies in the Obama Administration, and will likely have a massive influence on a Hillary administration should she become president.

Glenn Greenwald Has Some Harsh Words for Brookings

In one of his recent pieces, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who became widely known for his reporting on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, attacked Hillary Clinton and her choice of venue (the Brookings Institution) for her recent speech on Iran.  Here is more:

Leading Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this morning delivered a foreign policy speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. By itself, the choice of the venue was revealing.

Brookings served as Ground Zero for centrist think tank advocacy of the Iraq War, which Clinton (along with potential rival Joe Biden) notoriously and vehemently advocated. Brookings’ two leading “scholar”-stars — Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon — spent all of 2002 and 2003 insisting that invading Iraq was wise and just, and spent the years after that assuring Americans that the “victorious” war and subsequent occupation were going really well... 

Since then, O’Hanlon in particular has advocated for increased military force in more countries than one can count. That’s not surprising: Brookings is funded in part by one of the Democratic Party’s favorite billionaires, Haim Saban, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel and once said of himself: “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” Pollack advocated for the attack on Iraq while he was “Director of Research of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.” Saban became the Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser — even paying $7 million for the new DNC building — and is now a very substantial funder of Hillary Clinton’s campaign...

So the hawkish Brookings is the prism through which Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy worldview can be best understood. The think tank is filled with former advisers to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, and would certainly provide numerous top-level foreign policy officials in any Hillary Clinton administration. As she put it today at the start: “There are a lot of long-time friends and colleagues who perch here at Brookings.”

In the piece, Greenwald links to a Think Tank Watch story about the Saban Center at Brookings.  Here is a 2007 from Mother Jones entitled "Glenn Greenwald Will Not Be Hired by Brookings Anytime Soon."

This is not the first time that Mr. Greenwald has had harsh words for Brookings.  Awhile back he said that the think tank "demands servile journalism."  More generally, as Think Tank Watch recently noted, he said that some of the planet's worst people are housed at think tanks (without singling out any one think tank).

That leaves us wondering if Glenn Greenwald likes any think tanks.

In related think tank/Iran news, a variety of other Iran-related speeches/talks were given at think tanks, including former Vice President Dick Cheney's talk at the American Enterprise Institute (which faced several protest incidents), and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) who spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP).

Prostestors Interfere With Cheney Speech at AEI

Typically, at ones home think tank, a speaker can find a sympathetic crowd.  But that is often not the case with controversial figures such as former Vice President Dick Cheney.  Mr. Cheney, who is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), faced a rather hostile protester as he was giving an Iran speech there.  Here is more:

Protesters briefly interrupted former Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday asking, “Why should we be listening to you?” They also told Cheney that he’s a “war criminal.”

Cheney was giving an anti-Iran nuclear deal speech, where he said the deal will have “catastrophic” consequences and put the U.S. at the direct risk of nuclear devastation.

“My generation wants peace, not war,” one protester yelled at Cheney.

While the protesters were escorted out, Cheney stood on stage, smirked, and said “thank you very much” before continuing on.

Although the article above uses the plural "protesters," only one protester can be seen on videos shot during the outburst at the conservative think tank.  A short video of the protester can be found here.  A longer video can be found here.

The Hill newspaper notes that the woman protester was escorted out of the room after a brief scuffle in which a security guard "seemed to try to wrench away" a banner she was holding.  The Hill also notes that the protester appeared to be aligned with the activist group CodePink, which was protesting Cheney outside of the think tank earlier in the morning.

The protests certainly added some excitement to usually-calm think tank land, in which the most exciting thing to usually happen is a moderator berating an audience member for being too long-winded.

Think Tank Watch wonders if there will be any protesters at Brookings, which is hosting both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Hillary Clinton this week at separate events for a discussion on Iran.

Think Tank Quickies (#189)

• Miley Cyrus opened up VMA's with an "Instagram Think Tank" that helps her decide what to post.
• Hillary Clinton inquired about think tanker Steve Clemons of NAF.
• Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visits CAP to address strengthening of child nutrition programs.
• The New Republic and CAP host policy forum on future of climate change with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
• Bharath Gopalaswamy named Director of Atlantic Council's South Asia Center.
• Wilson Center on the future of 3D printing.
• CNAS Senior Fellow Ely Ratner named Deputy National Security Advisor to VP Joe Biden. 
• Loren DeJonge Schulman, former Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor, named CNAS Leon E. Panetta Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Studies.
• Amb. William Taylor named EVP at USIP.
• Libertarian think tank R Street study: US gov't agencies missed 1,400 of 2,684 regulatory deadlines.

Are Any Presidential Candidates Running to Start a Think Tank?

Between Democrats and Republicans there are now 22 candidates running for president in 2016, and some think that future career moves - including the desire to start a think tank in the future - may be part of the reason that so many candidates are running now.  Here is more from Ron Faucheux The Hill:

Post-election career prospects may also play a role. Which of today's candidates are angling to be vice president, a Cabinet member or an ambassador? Which ones want to start advocacy groups, think tanks or host TV shows? Which ones intend to cash in on newfound fame by fattening up speaking fees and book royalties? These considerations, sometimes as much or more than actually getting elected, can shape presidential candidate behavior.

So, which presidential candidate is most likely to get involved with think tank land after he/she drops out of the race?  Is it Donald Trump, who has been talking and consulting more with think tankers?  Is it Rick Perry who has been hiring lots of think tankers?  Is it Jeb Bush, who has a virtual army of think tankers working to help defeat Hillary Clinton?  Or could it be Hillary Clinton herself, someone who has been hogging all the Democratic think tank talent?

Brookings Head Has "Direct Line" to Hillary Clinton

New reporting about the ongoing saga of Hillary Clinton's emails while at the State Department has uncovered some interesting nuggets about Clinton's close ties to think tankers.  One of her closest ties is with Strobe Talbott, the current head of the Brookings Institution.  Here is an excerpt:

The emails underscored the privileged status of having Mrs. Clinton’s direct address. Strobe Talbott, the former deputy secretary of state who now heads the Brookings Institution, wrote to her directly, expressing concerns that “time-sensitive messages” were not getting through Ms. [Cheryl] Mills’s State Department email.

Mr. Talbott became friends with Bill Clinton when both were Rhodes Scholars at the University of Oxford. Talbott went on to become Deputy Secretary of State under Mr. Clinton.

Interestingly, Strobe Talbott's wife, Brooke Shearer, also had access to Hillary Clinton's email address.  Shearer was a former aide to Hillary Clinton.

Moreover, Center for American Progress (CAP) President Neera Tanden also had access to Hillary's email address.

Is Hillary Hogging All the Think Tankers?

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may be so good at building support that she may be taking away all the think tank talent from other Democrats who are running or want to run for president.

Here is more from Vox:

Clinton's been a boss at building institutional support. Here's her secret: Invite potential adversaries to the table, include some of their ideas in policy, and then send their laudatory remarks out to reporters. This signals to them that she'll be inclusive if she's elected president, and makes it hard for them to criticize her later on.

The MO has been most evident on the economic agenda Clinton's in the midst of rolling out. She consulted more than 200 economists, according to her campaign. Her aides worked closely with officials at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, in advance of her official campaign launch rally on Roosevelt Island in New York and before her first big economic speech.

More important, she's taking input from liberal economists who emphasize "fairness" in the economic system and have warred with more Wall Street–oriented Democratic economists such as Bob Rubin and Larry Summers. Rather than choose between their "growth" wing of the Democratic economic establishment and the "fairness" wing, represented by the likes of Joe Stiglitz and Alan Blinder, Clinton has opted for both — and managed to co-opt both.

"Today Hillary Clinton began to offer the kind of comprehensive approach we need to tackle the enormous economic challenges we face, one that is squarely in line with what we have called for at the Roosevelt Institute," Stiglitz said in a statement.

That leaves her rivals with few respected economists left to vouch for their ideas, and it speaks to her mastery of coalition politics.

Think Tank Watch recently noted that think tankers played an integral role in drafting Hillary Clinton's recent economic speech.

Think Tankers Help Draft Hillary's Big Economic Speech

Hillary Clinton, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, is giving a major economic speech today, much of which appears to have been shaped by prominent think tankers.

Here is more from Bloomberg Politics:

In developing the speech and its underlying policy positions, Clinton and her aides consulted with more than 200 domestic policy experts over several months, the campaign official said. The process—which included hours-long meetings with the candidate herself—was led by senior policy advisers Jake Sullivan, Maya Harris, and Ann O’Leary. Also taking part was Gary Gensler, the campaign’s chief financial officer and a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who has advocated for stricter rules for Wall Street.

Aware that the names of those advising the campaign on the economy will be interpreted as an indication of the deeper direction of its policy, the official offered a list of 10 people who are center-left and have few ties to the financial services industry. The group includes longtime Clinton advisers including Tanden, former Clinton and Obama National Economic director Gene Sperling, former Clinton Council of Economic Advisers chair Joseph Stiglitz, and Alan Blinder, who worked in the Clinton White House and served as Federal Reserve vice chairman from 1994 to 1996.

Two of Obama's former CEA chairs—Krueger and Berkeley professor Christina Romer—have both advised the campaign, as have New York University law professor David Kamin, Duke business professor Ronnie Chatterji, Yale political science professor Jacob Hacker and Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think-tank that studies the impact of income inequality. 

One person omitted from the official’s list, but who has been among the many economic experts consulted by the campaign, was Larry Summers, treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and National Economic Council director under Obama. While Summers once opposed tighter regulation of the financial markets, he now embraces "inclusive prosperity," allowing the many—and not just the few—to benefit from capitalism.

Maya Harris, mentioned above, formerly worked at Center for American Progress (CAP),  and Neera Tanden is the president of that think tank.  Heather Boushey is a Senior Fellow at CAP, and also the Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth - a think tank within CAP.  Larry Summers is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at CAP.

As Think Tank Watch has noted in the past, Hillary Clinton will likely rely on a variety of Democratic and Progressive think tanks for her campaign ideas, most notably CAP.

And in an apparent hat-tip to think tanks, Hillary Clinton is selling "Think Tank" tank tops on her official 2016 campaign website (Hillary for America) for $30.