Think Tank Quickies (#291)

• Is there bias against female think tankers?
• Professors (and think tankers?) behaving badly.
• Quote of the week: Think tanks go to Washington to die.
• Turkish influence at think tanks.
• President Trump had dinner with acting president of Heritage Foundation.
• South Korean President Moon Jae-in receives Atlantic Council's 2017 Global Citizen Award.
• Fred Burton's think tank problems: The plastic badges scrape my Brooks Brothers ties.
• CSIS map tracks Iran's missile launches since 1998.
• Richard Rubin of WSJ: I seem to be accidentally moonlighting as a think tank assignment editor.
• R Street Institute launching a "think tank drink tank."
• Simple investing for think tanks. 

Think Tank Quickies (#283)

• Breitbart attacks: "H.R. McMaster served 11 years on think tank (IISS) financed by Boeing, which inked billions in Iran deal." (IISS to Trump: Stop "adversarial atmosphere" with Iran).
• Boston Globe: Think tank of Trump era?  Message boards.
• BRICS think tanks agree to enhance exchanges.
• OpenCanada: Africa boasts many credible/quality think tanks but not often acknowledged.
• The Intercept: US-backed think tanks target Latin America.
• RAND: American workplace is physical/emotionally taxing.
• Libro Vaquero, Mexico's best-selling magazine, teams up with think tank to fight corruption.
• Rep. Keith Ellison: We need more progressive think tanks.
• Think tank CEI accepting Bitcoin donations.
• RAND's summer reading list for Congress.
• Cato: 40 ways the world is getting better every day.
• WINEP hires ex-WSJ reporter Jay Solomon for North Korea project.

Think Tank Quickies (#282)

• Game of Thrones think tank talk draws largest crowd ever at Cato.
• How a little-known US libertarian think tank is remaking Latin American politics.
• Ghanaian think tanks accused of pursuing personal interests.
• Think tanks gather in Morocco to tap Arab economic growth.
• US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at AEI. 
• Pic: "Think tanks" section at Waterstones.
• Are think tank news sites just creating more content for elites who already read lots of news?
• Third Way's VP in a punk band.
• Politico 50 (2017) has a number of think tankers.
• Govs. Kasich and Hickenlooper discuss healthcare markets at Center for American Progress.
• Mother Jones: Don't blame liberal foreign policy on think tanks (and accompanying Vox piece).

Think Tank Quickies (#281)

• Inside RAND Corp's impressive art collection.
• Meet the artist whose job is to creatively synthesize think tank conversations.
• New Saudi think tank (Center for Strategic Development) is hiring.
• Andrew Schwartz of CSIS featured in Politico's "Birthday of the Day."
• CSIS conducted year-long study to lay out a comprehensive strategy toward Russia.
• Japan expert Michael Auslin leaves AEI and joins Hoover.
• Trump's EPA enlists controversial think tank (Heartland Inst.) to find climate experts to argue with mainstream scientists; obscure right-wing think tank fueling Trump's war on renewables.
• CNAS launches Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Initiative.
• Acton Institute lecture series: "Think tanks, Politics, and the Casualties in the War of Ideas," with James McGann. 
• Olin Wethington, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, is the leading contender for the nomination of assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. 
• Jon Huntsman, Chairman of Atlantic Council, gets nod for ambassador to Russia; will Victor Cha of CSIS become ambassador to South Korea?
• New book by Christopher James Rastrick: Think Tanks in the US and EU - The Role of Policy Institutes in Washington and Brussels.

Think Tank Quickies (#280)

• RAND Corp. expands into Silicon Valley. 
• Think tank in France (Fine Minds 4 Fine Wines, or FM4FW) discusses the future of "fine" wines.
• CFR President Richard Haass gets birthday shout-out from Politico; reveals he went to Woodstrock, is addicted to golf, listens to country music, likes dry martinis, and walks to work.
• Polls find faltering trust in American universities (and think tanks)? 
• Laurel Miller, an analyst from the RAND Corp. who had been serving as Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at DOS, has departed. 
• Why Myanmar needs foreign policy think tanks. 
• As interest in Hong Kong affairs grows, time is ripe for local think tanks to shine.
• Cato scholar Daniel Ikenson: US and China engaged in a low-profile, high-technology trade war. 
• Alliance for Securing Democracy, housed within the German Marshall Fund (GMF), has new dashboard tracking Russian propaganda on Twitter.
• Searchable map of 100 UK think tank locations.

Think Tank Quickies (#279)

• Obama's Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz starting low-carbon energy think tank.
• Project 2049 Institute: China carries out think tank propaganda tour in US.
• New think tank idea: Center for American ProgRock (via Timothy Noah).
• New report on Armenian think tank industry.
• Pic: Zbigniew Pisarski takes "beast" to DC for think tank visits.
• First-ever think tank dedicated to college athletics.
• New CSIS report on US-Carribean relations. 
• CNAS launches future of sanctions task force.
• Daniel Feehan, former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness joins CNAS.
• South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks at CSIS.
• Third Way holds annual summer party at Long View Gallery with lots of lawmakers.

Think Tank Quickies (#278)

• Think tank RethinkX says $25 oil is coming.
• Exxon gave $1.6 million to think tanks and advocacy groups opposing climate change in 2016.
• Ben Norton to AEI: Delete your think tank.
• China criticizes Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) scholar Ely Ratner.
• Center for American Progress (CAP) releases its own proposal to fix Obamacare.
• Reactor Room: Very first think tank for adults with autism.
• Chafuen: Cato and Heritage receive less than 3% of funding from corporations; average free-market think tank is 10%.
• Balkan Think Tank Convention II, led by Turkish think tank SETA.
• CNAS partners with The Washington Post.
• Pic: A refurbished RAND Europe.

Think Tank Quickies (#277)

• Think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) moving operations from London over Brexit.
• Prestigious Chinese think tank (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, or SASS) implicated in a scheme to entice US spies to leak classified information.
• Western think tank funding cheat sheet for the Qatar-GCC conflict.
• Chart: Should you ask a question during a think tank seminar?
• New book: The Power of Ideas - The Rising of Thinkers and Think Tanks in China.
• Video: What happens when you invite 100 local high school students to Brookings.
• RAND Corp.: Strategic stability between the US and Russia is eroding.
• Watch the 2017 Prospect Magazine think tank awards on Periscope.
• Tevi Troy: Can conservatives and their think tanks find their way?
• CSIS launches "Joint US-China Think Tank Project on the Future of US-China Relations."
• Leadership Institute holds first Think Tank Opportunity Workshop.

Think Tank Quickies (#276)

• AEI President Arthur Brooks weighs in on whether or not think tanks matter.
• Chart: Elite confidence in various think tanks, via Dan Drezner.
• William Burns (president of Carnegie Endowment), Jessica Mathews (also Carnegie), Leon Wieseltier (Brookings), Marie-Josee Kravis (Hudson), and Niall Ferguson (Hoover) attend Bilderberg  2017.
• Patrick Crowley (of Dayblink Consulting) to marry AEI senior media associate Meg Cahill.
• Hudson Institute hosted spring reception in New York at home of Joe and Marlene Ricketts; UN Amb. Nikki Halley sat down with Hudson CEO Ken Weinstein for an off-the-record talk.
• New America's Bretton Woods II at Sea event took place aboard super yacht of philanthropists John Evans and Steve Wozencraft.
• CSIS President John Hamre among those who attended Brzezinski funeral.
• Fred Kempe, Jim Jones, and Jon Huntsman of Atlantic Council dined at Cafe Milano ahead of their Distinguished Leadership Awards ceremony.
• Drezner: By moving from Harvard to the Hoover Institution, Niall Ferguson was able to relinquish all of his teaching responsibilities, which had become a distraction for him.
• Heritage Foundation was the only think tank that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited during his trip to Washington.

Think Tank Quickies (#275)

• Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) Co-Chair CSIS Congressional Task Force on Reform and Reorganization of US Development Assistance.
• Karen Dynan, formerly at the Treasury Department and the Brookings Institution, joins PIIE as Nonresident Senior Fellow.
• Amb. Robert King joins CSIS Korea Chair as Senior Adviser.
• CSIS and Indonesia's PT Pertamina (Persero) launch partnership on Southeast Asia Energy Security and the Banyan Tree Leadership Forum.
• Cato Institute announces new R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics.
• Atlantic Council names former top Pentagon official Christine Wormuth as first Director of new Adrienne Arsht Center for Resilience.
• Ambassador Daniel Fried joins Atlantic Council as Distinguished Fellow.
• Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir joins Atlantic Council Global Energy Center as Senior Fellow.
• Former Obama official John Morton joins Atlantic Council Global Energy Center as Senior Fellow. 
• Wilson Center appoints Amb. Nirupama Rao as a Public Policy Fellow.
  
  Ambassador Nirupama Rao as a Public Policy Fellow
  Ambassador Nirupama Rao as a Public Policy Fellow
  Ambassador Nirupama Rao as a Public Policy Fellow

Think Tank Quickies (#274)

• US-Colombia Business Partnership and Atlantic Council hold reception and dinner at Library of Congress for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
• David Horowitz Freedom Center not a think tank, it's a "battle tank."
• UAE and its ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, have close ties to small, pro-Israel DC think tank FDD. 
• David Reaboi: Over the next few weeks, you will be slammed by op-eds and propaganda from Qatari-funded think tanks like Brookings.
• A trial lawyers think tank. 
• Former Bush official John Bailey joins AEI as Visiting Fellow. 
• Former top Obama official Denis McDonough joins Carnegie's Technology and International Affairs Program as a Senior Fellow. 
• Jake Sullivan, former advisor to Biden and Clinton, joins Carnegie's Geoeconomics and Strategy Program as a Senior Fellow.
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace establishes Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs.
• Carnegie Europe announces that Tomáš Valášek is its new director.

Think Tank Quickies (#273)

• Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee at CSIS and co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, passes away. 
• AEI head Arthur Brooks proposes a new think tank: James Bond Institute. 
• Should we be able to sue think tanks for malicious misrepresentation?
• Camille Busette joins Brookings to lead Race, Place, and Economic Mobility Initiative.
• Third Way think tank obtained leaked copy of Trump's budget.
• Andrew Bacevich destroys new Brookings report on national security strategy of the US: "The document is at once pretentious, proudly nonpartisan, and utterly vacuous."
• Gary Bourgeault: Think tank (RethinkX) misses it concerning oil and self-driving cars.
• 20 most influential think tankers on Twitter (methodology appears deeply flawed...).
• Corporate taxes get the think tank treatment.
• Think tank or fake tank, via Till Bruckner.
• Pic: What a former leading think tank president (Jim DeMint) does with his free time.

Think Tank Quickies (#272)

• USIP chief Nancy Lindborg featured in Washington Life Magazine.
• CNAS has launched a new Transatlantic Security Program and a new project on Evolving the Future Force.
• Matt Bruening building left-wing think tank not reliant on corporate donors.
• How women should respond to all-male think tank panels, via Kara Alaimo.
• Eddie Williams, who ran leading black think tank for decades (Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies), dies.
• AEI's Charles Murray gives introduction to The Bell Curve.
• RAND Corp. on how information is being weaponized.
• CAP's chief Neera Tanden protesting outside of the White House.
• Bishop Jakes has global think tank?
• Peter Navarro called the Peterson Institute the "pimps of globalization."

Think Tank Quickies (#271)

• Reproducibility crisis in research studies.
• Former director of research at the Heritage Foundation, James Wallner (now an adjunct professor at Catholic University), on think tanks and the future of politics.
• China tightens rules on Chinese think tanks.
• What kind of think tanks does China want to establish, via The Diplomat. 
• China's quest for its own Brookings Institution or Chatham House in vain?
• Kate O'Beirne, former Heritage Foundation VP of government relations, passes away.
• Amy Moritz Ridenour, a veteran leader in the conservative movement who testified in Congress about the illegal lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff, who had used her think tank (National Center for Public Policy Research) as a conduit in his influence-peddling scheme, passes away.
• Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has 18 think tanks.
• Jeet Heer: "Best part of my latest article in the New Republic is it destroys any chance I'll ever get a job in an American think tank." 
• Steve Pieczenik: Think tanks in Washington are nursing homes for people who can't get a job elsewhere.

Think Tank Quickies (#270)

• Pete Peterson: Journalists have to question expertise of think tanks.
• Reporter Alex Emmons removed from AIPAC talk featuring Stephen Seche, VP at a Saudi-funded think tank.
• Which think tanks run South Africa?
• Jen Buckner of CyberCom: DoD listening to ideas coming out of think tanks.
• Pic of Donald Trump's think tank.
• Pic: How think tank presidents should dress.
• The funders of CEPA.
• Former US envoy to Israel, Dan Shapiro, joins Tel Aviv-based think tank.
• Right-wing think tanks accuse TED talks of blatant bias toward liberalism.
• The Volkswagen Group's think tanks.

Think Tank Quickies (#269)

• Heritage Foundation pushing US into war with North Korea?
• Hungary does US think tank scene.
• Small tornado almost hits World Resources Institute.
• AEI has an information session at Tufts.
• I'm establishing my own think tank, kind of.
• Think tank reps attend Schuman Challenge.
• PwC looking for someone to work with think tanks.
• Chart: Mercer Family Foundation donations to think tanks.
• Hudson Institute co-convenes 7th Transatlantic Think Tank Conference.
• Cato turns 40.
• Nikki Haley gives speech at CFR.
• AEI scholar Charles Murray named "White Nationalist."

Think Tank Quickies (#268)

• Think tank land is alive and well.
• The serious role of gaming at RAND Corp.
• Impact of institutions on foreign policy think tanks in France and Denmark.
• A little-known think tank churns out doctored studies that portray an America under siege by immigrants, says New Republic.
• This think tank studied Russian humor and Russia thought it was hilarious.
• 6 ways think tanks can overcome angst about impact, via Sarah Lucas .
• Daniel Kahneman talks at Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
• H.R. McMaster's time at IISS creates clear conflict of interest?
• Top Democrats urged libertarian think tank to stop mailing climate change skeptical materials to teachers.
• Map of AEI scholars now at Trump White House.
• Chinese think tank: Dalai Lama's successor must have China's endorsement.

Think Tank Quickies (#267)

• Will Jared Kushner get eaten by the think tank "Blob."
• Foundations, which pay out at least 5% of their total assets each year to maintain their tax-exempt status, to drop think tank funding over "mission-related investments" (MRIs)?
• Libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) urges Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
• University of Maryland professor prohibiting students from citing Heritage and Cato?
• Todd Park, former US Chief Technology Officer, joins Board of Directors at New America.
• A metaphor for beautifully-researched think tank policy papers in the Trump era.
• The billion-dollar game designer who joined a DC think tank.
• New report: Innovation in think tanks.
• Third Way and Cato Institute scholars talk marijuana.
• Andrew Selee of Wilson Center selected as President of Migration Policy Institute (MPI).
• Tony Abbott appointed as director of new think tank to promote western civilization.

Think Tank Quickies (#266)

• Former AEI President Christopher DeMuth (now a Distinguished Fellow at Hudson Institute) in defense of think tanks. 
• CIA Director Mike Pompeo speaks at CSIS.
• In 2016 Steve Bannon made $500,000+ from companies and think tanks linked to Republican donor Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. 
• Waterloo (Canada) think tanks pay the most for top scholars.
• Hillary's billionaire friend (Haim Saban) a lover of think tanks.
• Smith Richardson Foundation's annual Strategy and Policy Fellows grant helps support the think tank community by supporting a rising generation of policy thinkers. 
• Education Secretary Betsy DeVos does Brookings. 
• Think tanker (Alison Percich of WINEP) goes on Washington Post's Date Lab and scores.
• Scholarly sting operation shines spotlight on "predatory" scientific journals; is bad science plaguing think tank research?
• Third Way adding a dozen Democratic lawmakers as honorary co-chairs.

Think Tank Quickies (#265)

• Trump Administration alienating Asia-related think tanks and Asia experts at those think tanks, says David Steinberg.
• RIP David Rockefeller (1915-2017), who served on the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as chairman of the board at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a think tank where he was the longest-serving member (joined in 1941).
• Fat cats using think tanks to buy credibility?
• House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has dozens of friends in the think tank world, says Politico. 
• Half a dozen Trump transition officials and administration advisers attended Heartland Institute's climate change conference. 
• Brian Katulis, a Senior Fellow at CAP, met with the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia in February.
• New RAND Corp. study on "zero-day" exploits says two dozen companies selling or renting exploits to the US and its allies.
• Kesher Israel in DC is "filled" with political operatives and think tank employees who value thought-provoking sermons and classes.
• Ben Nimmo studies RT for the Atlantic Council. 
• Oath Keepers suggests Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) exploiting refugee crisis for its own gain.