webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Ctr for Am Progress CAP

---

no merri

TRUMP SUED THEM

see MONTANA PLAN 10 25 thom PARKROSE

protects the commons, moderation?

 ===

-=-=

-=-=

mma

Checking in on Trump’s war on the press since his White House Correspondents’ dinner speech

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 08/25/26

One month ago, the White House Correspondents Association gathered for its annual “dinner that celebrates the First Amendment” with President Donald Trump.

Journalists assembled in Washington, D.C., sat impotently as the president delivered remarks that mixed empty platitudes about his “respect for your profession” with withering insults directed at individual reporters. The evening “was a public humiliation for the White House Correspondents’ Association” that “left the association looking naïve about its decision to invite the man who has spent years using both his personal and government means to wage war against the free press and its ability to report on his actions,” Status’ Jon Passantino wrote.

Trump’s behavior was extremely predictable given his long record of vitriolic attacks on journalists and news outlets — not to mention his administration’s frequent use of state power to try to cudgel them into line. And the president’s long war on free speech and the free press has continued without pause since he broke bread with reporters at the Waldorf Astoria on July 24.

Since then:

Trump’s personal lawyers threatened a $5 billion lawsuit against the Center for American Progress if the progressive think tank did not withdraw its report which found “no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime.”

None of this seems likely to convince the WHCA to change course, and it’s unclear what if anything Trump could do to the press that would result in the rescission of his invitation for next year’s dinner.

The organization’s leadership has moved from an employee of one pro-Trump media oligarch to another, with Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for David Ellison’s CBS News, succeeded by Jacqui Heinrich, White House correspondent for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. And Heinrich told New York magazine earlier this month: “This dinner precedes President Trump. It will continue after President Trump. And we will invite the president no matter who the president is every year.”

“I thought it was valuable to have him taking part in a tradition that recognizes the importance of the free press,” Heinrich later added, without addressing who it might benefit or how. “And he’s already said he’s going to come next year. It’s going to be at the Hilton. If they want to complain about it, that’s fine, but it’s happening.”

26

-=-=

5 25

Hawaii is poised to become the first state to use its long-dormant legal authority to drain corporate money from its elections.

14 states looking to CAP

Can Hawaii Break the Corporate Stranglehold on American Democracy? - YouTube

AN 1 25

Not the least, we must get big money out of politics — to end the bribes and corruption that have distorted capitalism for the benefit of a handful of people at the top. (Here’s a way to do it.)

*Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.*

REF NOV

Several of you responded to my “Sunday thought” yesterday by saying that the first step out of the mess we’re in is to get rid of the Supreme Court’s bonkers Citizens United v. Federal Election Commissiondecision of 2010, which held that corporations are people — entitled to the same First Amendment protection as the rest of us.

Corporate political spending was growing before Citizens United, but the decision opened the floodgates to the unlimited super PAC spending and undisclosed dark money we suffer from today.

Between 2008 and 2024, reported “independent” expenditures by outside groups exploded by more than 28-fold — from $144 million to $4.21 billion. Unreported money also skyrocketed, with dark money groups spending millions influencing the 2024 election.

Most people I talk with assume that the only way to stop corporate and dark money in American politics is either to wait for the Supreme Court to undo Citizens United(we could wait a very long time) or amend the U.S. Constitution (this is extraordinarily difficult).

But there’s another way! I want to tell you about it because there’s a good chance it will work.

It will be on the ballot next November in Montana. Maybe you can get it on the ballot in your state, too.

Here’s the thing: Individual states — either through their legislators or their citizens wielding ballot initiatives — have the authority to limit corporate political activity and dark money spending, because they determine what powers corporations have.

[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!GaC4!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F234b7ec1-65cb-470e-822f-132996d71577_3500x2567.jpeg)

In American law, corporations are creatures of state laws. For more than two centuries, the power to define their form, limits, and privilege has belonged only to the states.

In fact, corporations have no powers at all until a state government grants them some. In the 1819 Supreme Court case Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward,Chief Justice John Marshall established that:

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly, or as incidental to its very existence….The objects for which a corporation is created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country; and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant.”

States don’thaveto grant corporations the power to spend in politics. In fact, they could decidenotto give corporations that power.

This isn’t about corporate rights, as the Supreme Court determined in Citizens United. It’s about corporate powers.

When a state exercises its authority to define corporations as entities without the power to spend in politics, it will no longer be relevant whether corporations have a right to spend in politics — because without the power to do so, the right to do so has no meaning.

Delaware’s corporation code already declines to grant private foundations the power to spend in elections.

Importantly, a state that no longer grants its corporations the power to spend in elections also denies that power to corporations chartered in the other 49 states, if they wish to do business in that state.

All a state would need to do is enact a law with a provision something like this:

“Every corporation operating under the laws of this state has all the corporate powers it held previously,exceptthat nothing in this statute grants or recognizes any power to engage in election activity or ballot-issue activity.”

Sound farfetched? Not at all.

In Montana, local organizers have drafted and submitted a constitutional initiative for voters to consider in 2026 — the first step in a movement built to spread nationwide. It would decline to grant to all corporations the power to spend in elections.

Called the Transparent Election Initiative, it wouldn’t overturn Citizens United — it would negate the consequences of Citizens United. (Click on the link and you’ll get the details.)

The argument is laid out in a paper that the Center for American Progress published several weeks ago. (Kudos to CAP and the paper’s author, Tom Moore, a senior fellow at CAP who previously served as counsel and chief of staff to a longtime member of the Federal Election Commission.)

Note to governors and state legislators: The Citizens United decision is enormously unpopular. Some 75 percent of Americans disapprove of it. But most of your governors and state legislators haven’t realized that you have the authority to make Citizens United irrelevant. My recommendation to you: Use that authority to rid the nation of Citizens United.

Hopefully, Montanans will lead the way.

---

JF SENT 10 25 ~ CU

introducing-caps-plan-to-beat-citizens-united

oct event tester

undoing-citizens-united-and-reining-in-super-pacs

panel

Panel Discussion

CAP Senior Vice President for Structural Reform and Governance Ben Olinsky will moderate a conversation with Jeff Mangan, Sarah Haan, and Tom Moore about the national debut of a bold new approach that rewrites the rules of money in politics. The panelists will take questions at the end of the discussion.

Panelists

Founder

Transparent Election Initiative](https://transparentelection.org/about "Jeff Mangan")

Sheridan Albert ’48 Professor of Law

Brooklyn Law School](https://www.brooklaw.edu/contact-us/haan-sarah/ "Sarah Haan")

Senior Fellow, Democracy

Center For American Progress](https://www.americanprogress.org/people/tom-moore/ "Tom Moore")

Moderator

Senior Vice President, Structural Reform and Governance; Senior Fellow

Center For American Progress](https://www.americanprogress.org/people/olinsky-ben/ "Ben Olinsky")

---

2010 tp wave origin? mirror?! this was ctr to BO win 2008?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36841_Page3.html*Rove, GOP secretly plot vast network to reclaim power

 By: Mike Allen and Kenneth P. VogelMay 6, 2010 

  The Republican Party’s best-connected political operatives have quietly built a massive fundraising, organizing and advertising machine based on the model assembled by Democrats early in the decade, and with the same ambitious goal — to recapture Congress and the White House.:{:{The new :{groups could give Republicans and their allies a powerful campaign apparatus separate from the Republican National Committee. Karl Rove, political architect of the Bush presidency, and Ed Gillespie, former Republican Party chairman, are the most prominent forces behind what is, in effect, a network of five overlapping groups, three of which were started in the past few months.The operating assumption of Rove, Gillespie and the other organizers is that despite the historical dominance of Republican fundraising and organizing, the GOP has been outmaneuvered by Democrats and their allies in recent years, and it is time to strike back.}::{“Where they have a chess piece on the board, we need a chess piece on the board,” said Gillespie, who is involved in all five groups in roles ranging from chairman to informal adviser. “Where they have a queen, we shouldn’t have three pawns.”}::{The network, which doesn’t have a name, attempts to replicate the Democracy Alliance, an umbrella group}: :{— founded in 2005 and funded by George Soros and other billionaires — and to borrow tactics from liberal groups established to help Democrats regain power after eight years of the Bush administration.}:

Two organizers of the Republican groups even made pilgrimages earlier this year to pick the brain of John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff who, in 2003, founded the Center for American Progress and was a major proponent of Democrats developing the kind of infrastructure pioneered by Republicans.Rove, currently on a book tour, has provided “a laying-on of hands” for the groups — as one organizer put it — by encouraging major Republican donors to support them as part of the GOP’s path to revival. “Karl has always said: People call us a vast right-wing conspiracy, but we’re really a half-assed right-wing conspiracy,” he said. “Now, he wants to get more serious.”While separate, the five entities are so closely related that three share an 11th-floor office near the White House. The groups are: *American Crossroads *American Crossroads — designed to counter spending by labor and progressive groups, including the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Unit and MoveOn.org — will focus on voter contact with the potential to move into ground game and turnout efforts. Organized under the tax code as a Section 527 organization, meaning it can spend directly on political activity, it’s set an ambitious budget of $52 million and says it’s already received commitments for $30 million of that.Its president and CEO is former top U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive Steven Law; its political director is veteran GOP operative Carl Forti. The chairman is Mike Duncan, former RNC chairman; the treasurer is Jo Ann Davidson, former RNC co-chairwoman; and the secretary is Jim Dyke, former RNC communications director.To try to avoid undercutting RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who has alienated some givers, Duncan tells prospective donors that the party structure is “an important part of winning” and that he is looking for people who “want to go above and beyond.”*American Action Network*American Action Network, modeled on the Center for American Progress, will conduct polling in key races, and plans to put up TV advertising since it is allowed to engage in explicit political activity as a group organized under Section 501c(4) of the tax code. Former Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota is the CEO; Fred Malek, a longtime top GOP financier, is chairman; andRob Collins, a former top aide to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, is president. Board members include former U.S. Sens. George Allen and Mel Martinez and former House Reps. Tom Reynolds, Jim Nussle and Vin Weber. *American Action Forum *American Action Forum, a policy institute linked to the American Action Network, also will mirror CAP. Coleman is also chairman of this group, which as a501c(3) organization, is prohibited from directly endorsing or opposing candidates. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and campaign adviser to Sen. John McCain, is the president. Board members includeformer Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.*Resurgent Republic * Resurgent Republic co-founded a year ago by Gillespie and Republican pollster Whit Ayres, says in its official description that it is “modeled on Democracy Corps, which has made important contributions to the public debate from the left and has proven to be a valuable resource for labor unions, environmentalists and liberal congressional leaders.” The group has released a series of polls and offers itself as a message-testing laboratory to help GOP lawmakers develop policies. *The Republican State Leadership Committee * The Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on down-ballot races for statewide and legislative offices, raised $22 million in the last campaign cycle. Gillespie took over as chairman earlier this year. Its goal is to raise at least $50 million to $70 million to influence congressional elections this fall and to road-test an agenda for a future Republican House and, ultimately, a Republican president.Colemanrecalled in an interview that he admired the left’s financial prowess so much that until recently, he gave potential donors copies of “The Argument,” a book by Matt Bai that chronicles progressives’ rising financial power.“This is what the left does — we need to do it on the right,” Coleman said he told people. Democrats say the new GOP network has the potential to tip Republicans back into the House majority, since the formal party structures will burn through money as they struggle to compete in a record number of House seats. Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he is worried about the groups as a potential “conduit for a lot of special-interest money to flow into campaigns.”The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened possibilities for groups like American Crossroads, American Action Network and others backed by corporations, unions or huge donors to be more aggressive in supporting or opposing candidates. Democrats in Congress are pushing legislation that would curtail its effects, but right now the decision is emboldening donors - particularly on the right - who had grown reluctant to open their wallets to outside groups, said Charlie Spies, a GOP campaign finance attorney on Resurgent Republic’s legal advisory board.“It sent out a message to donors that it’s OK to engage again,” said Spies. Organizers say another reason the GOP’s “donor community” and “political investors” are ready to step up their giving: Republicans had opposed the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law and therefore were slow to adapt their structures to what it permitted. But Democrats weren’t shy and got a huge head start. “It’s time for us to accept and embrace it and stop getting outspent,” Gillespie said. “It’s the law of the land, and it’s not going away.” Because the groups are registered only with the Internal Revenue Service and not the Federal Election Commission, they can accept so-called soft money — that is, contributions not subject to FEC donation limits or source restrictions forbidding cash from corporations or unions. “There are a lot of people who were very active in the Bush years who are going to get active with these groups, just because of the leadership of the groups,” said one major GOP fundraiser, or “bundler.” According to its first report to the IRS, American Crossroads’ first gift was a check for $250,000 fromB. Wayne Hughes of Lexington, Ky., the chairman of Public Storage. The American Action groups and Resurgent Republic are not required to disclose individual donors. Tom Matzzie, a Democratic operative specializing in independent group activity, said MoveOn, which he effectively ran during the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress, has been successful because big contributions and high-priced consultants have taken a backseat to small donors and grassroots activists.By contrast, conservatives’ repeated attempts to copy MoveOn have been “huge donor-driven TV ad operations run by consultants,” Matzzie said, asserting Republicans “tend to keep the creativity all isolated to a few elites whereas the MoveOn model allowed a good idea to come from anywhere including the membership.” The idea for a federally focused “527” started over breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel last year. Gillespie was looking to stay involved in politics after his White House years. Law, then the U.S. Chamber’s chief legal officer, mused as he complained about Republicans’ inability to match the spending of Democratic-friendly political groups: “I really think we’ve got to do something to offset this.” Law said that he had studied MoveOn and America Coming Together, which relied on a combination of union funding and huge contributions from Soros and other activists. “Democrats have had tremendous success in building enduring and fairly large and sophisticated third-party organizations that have a major impact on politics,” Law said. “On the Republican side, it’s mostly been small, ad hoc efforts that tend to pop up and then disappear from cycle to cycle.” Democratic strategist James Carville said the GOP’s extra-party machine is emerging now largely for the same reason the Democrats’ did. “There’s nothing that makes people hungry like being out of power and out of government,” Carville said. “When you’re in government, all of the big operatives have good jobs or they’re working for some lobbying firm and making $3 million a year, while the other guys don’t have anything to d Podesta didn’t return an email seeking comment about conservative efforts to mimic his group, but Malek said that after American Action Network formed, “Podesta being the class act that he is, called Norm Coleman and congratulated him and welcomed him to the battle.”  }:}:

===

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/the-plutocrats-most-effective-secret-weapon-is-the-u-s-tax-code/

no lnx

The plutocrats’ most effective secret weapon is the U.S. tax code

Written by Jim Hightower / Creators Syndicate November 12, 2019

I should start this homily on inequality by distinguishing income from wealth. Income is your annual wages or salary, as well as your earnings from a business, pension or government benefits such as Social Security, etc.

As the average U.S. worker’s real wages have stagnated for more than a decade, income disparity has become enormous. The bottom 90% of us average $30,000 a year, while the top 0.01% and 0.001% (about 1,400 taxpayers) rake in average annual incomes of $35.1 million and $152 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, even mediocre CEOs pocket many millions a year, and the greediest Wall Street hucksters annually amass more than $1 billion in booty. Until relatively recently, the ethical standard was for workers to gain a proportionate share of the income growth we generate. But in the last dozen years, the rich have been gobbling more and more of the total income pie, so the bottom half of Americans now get only 14%.

As gross as income inequality is, though, it’s dwarfed by the lesser-known wealth disparity that has engulfed our land, mocking our egalitarian pretensions.

Wealth is your net worth, the total financial value of every asset you own: your home(s), business, stocks, cash, real estate, cars, yachts, jewels, gold, art, toys and … well, everything, minus debts.

Startling statistic: 1 in 5 Americans have zero net worth — or less. Many of us owe more than we own and, living paycheck to paycheck, can’t get ahead to build a nest egg.

More startling statistic: U.S. wealth disparity is the greatest of any advanced economy in the world, with the richest 1% holding more of our nation’s wealth than the bottom 90% of us.

Even more startling: Just three Americans — Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) — possess more personal wealth ($248 billion) than the entire bottom half. Yes, more than 165 million of us combined.

The rapidly widening divide between the rich and the rest of us is neither natural nor accidental. During the past half-century, myriad corporate and governmental decisions — from labor law to campaign finance regulations — have methodically slanted America’s economic and political systems so that money and power flow from the many to the few. The plutocrats’ most effective and least reported-on tool is America’s tax structure.

For most of us — workers, professionals, farmers, small-business folks, etc. — income taxes are generally straightforward. The rich are different. Multimillionaires and billionaires don’t usually draw the bulk of their fabulous incomes from paychecks but from their enormous financial assets, i.e., their wealth. This inherited or accumulated wealth generates “capital income” — and further wealth — with little or no work by the asset holder.

As the Center for American Progress’ excellent report “Ending Special Tax Treatment for the Very Wealthy” details, the moral basis of U.S. tax policy has been perverted since the 1980s by legislative and regulatory twists that tax work but let these massive accretions of wealth skate by virtually untouched. Thus, the ultrarich, who benefit the most from our country’s economy and public infrastructure, pay the smallest proportion of their incomes to sustain it.

Today’s tax laws offer a carnival of loop-the-loops, whirligigs and other tax-free joyrides for those who’ve stockpiled capital income. For example, while you might pay the top tax rate of 37% on ordinary income, someone selling a capital asset like stock pays only 20% tax on income from that sale.

Nearly 70% of such capital gains are made by America’s richest 1%,who reap trillions of dollars a year in savings through such special tax treatments. This windfall allows them to amass and concentrate even more of America’s wealth in their sheltered accounts and buy the political clout to push through laws that the great majority oppose — such as 2017’s Trump-McConnell trillion-dollar tax giveaway to the rich. (Facing overwhelming public opposition, the GOP wrote the bill behind closed doors, allowed no public hearings and rammed it into law on a partisan vote.)

And round and round it goes … unless and until we stop it.

Read the Center for American Progress’ report.

 Center for American Progress’ report.

Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes “The Hightower Lowdown,” a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org. COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

---

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/the-foreign-policy-money-trail-in-washington-how-middle-eastern-powers-fund-government-think-tanks-and-influence-us-legislation/

The 2016 elections awakened Americans to a startling reality: the country’s political system is ripe for foreign interference. The Russians took full advantage of social media with bot armies and through unregistered foreign agents. While their influence garnered considerable attention and has led to increased enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), one area has remained largely off the congressional and media radar screens. Yet it remains a vital part of the way other governments try to influence policy in this country: the foreign funding of think tanks.

This story originally appeared at Tom Dispatch.

Most Americans undoubtedly have little idea what a think tank actually does. Having worked at two of them myself, it’s fair to say that even those of us who have labored inside these basic building blocks for policymaking in Washington are often still trying to figure out just what many of them do. Still, whether you know it or not, you’ve certainly seen think-tank employees on cable news, heard them on the radio, or read their op-ed pieces.

After all, think tanks are homes for so many of the “experts” who are the go-to sources for media coverage of foreign and domestic policy topics on just about any day — and are often key go-to sources for those making policy in Washington, too). You know, the former Department of Defense official you caught on NBC News discussing Iran or the Middle Eastern expert you saw quoted in Newsweek critiquing the Trump administration’s policies there. Outside the public eye, members of Congress and executive branch officials rely heavily on think tanks for expertise on a wide range of issues, for key congressional testimony, and even for quite literally helping craft public policy.

Those who run Washington generally trust the inhabitants of think tanks of their political bent to provide the intellectual foundations upon which much of public policy is built. At least in some cases, however, that trust couldn’t be more deeply misplaced, since cornerstones of the ever-expanding think-tank universe turn out to be for sale.

Every year foreign governments pour tens of millions of dollars into those very institutions and, though many think tanks are tax-exempt non-profits, such donations often turn out to be anything but charitable gifts. Foreign contributions generally come with critically important strings attached — usually a favorable stance toward that country in whatever influential work the think tanks are doing. In other words, those experts you regularly read or see on screen, whose scholarship and advice Washington’s politicians and other officials often use, are in some cases being paid, directly or indirectly, by the very countries on which they are offering advice and analysis. And here’s the catch: they can do so without ever having to tell you about it.

The Money Trail From Foreign Governments to Think Tanks

“I’ve never had to worry in my years at CAP about an analyst or me saying X, Y, and Z and worry about a funding source. Never thought about it. Never,” explained Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress (CAP). He was speaking at aMiddle East Institute (MEI) event in January entitled “The Role of Think Tanks in Shaping Middle East Policy.” MEI President Paul Salem echoed this sentiment, noting that funding, particularly foreign government funding, shouldn’t ever shape a think tank’s work. “Independence,” he proclaimed, “is sacred.”

Such comments, like the events themselves, are just the norm in Washington think-tank life — unless, that is, you follow the money, in which case they seem both striking and supremely ironic. On any given day, Washington is, in fact, awash in foreign-policy events at think tanks. There, experts convene to publicly discuss just about every topic you’d want to hear about — except one, of course: their funding. And that is what made the Katulis-Salem exchange particularly interesting. What they and their follow panelists never mentioned at an event extolling the importance of think tanks in helping craft political Washington’s Middle East policies was this: both CAP and MEI have received millions of dollars from authoritarian governments in the Middle East.

MEI has publicly reported receiving millions from Saudi Arabia and lesser amounts from the Persian Gulf states of Oman and Qatar. By far its largest donor, however, seems to have been the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reportedly making a “secret” $20 million contribution to that think tank, earmarked to “hire experts in order to counter the more egregious misperceptions about the region” and “to inform U.S. government policymakers.” In other words, in the spirit of that MEI panel title, the UAE’s funding was explicitly designed to shape that think tank’s — and so U.S. — policy considerations.

While hardly in that $20 million range, CAP has also publicly reported receiving at least $1.5 million from the UAE.

And keep in mind that those two think tanks are hardly the only ones receiving donations from countries in the Middle East. The Center for a New American Security, for instance, received $250,000 from the United Arab Emirates to produce a study on the need for the U.S. to export military-grade drones to countries like… the UAE. That think tank’s subsequent report on the topic notes that the U.S. doesn’t export drones to the UAE and other countries, but should because “this reluctance to transfer U.S. drones harms U.S. interests in tangible ways.” Never mind that a third of those killed in drone strikes in the devastating war in Yemen are civilians.

The Brookings Institution received a $14.8 million donation from Qatar. In fact, according to a New York Times analysis, nearly all of the most prominent foreign-policy think tanks in Washington have accepted money from authoritarian regimes in the Middle East or elsewhere. And that, in turn, is just the tip of the iceberg, since think tanks are not legally required to publicly disclose their funding.

Charity or Influence Buying?

If think tanks are to be believed, the money they receive from such funders changes little. Recent events at a number of think tanks, including the Center for American Progress and the Middle East Institute, should, however, give pause to anyone who assumes that such institutions are by their nature insulated from the influence of foreign funders.

Recently, serious questions have been raised about whether CAP’s ties to the UAE, itself a close ally of the Saudi royals, contributed to its awkward response to the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi in that Kingdom’s embassy in Istanbul, Turkey.  Following that killing, CAP released a response condemning the Saudis for their involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, but not calling for specific consequences to punish the Kingdom.

According to reporting by the Intercept’s Ryan Grim, such consequences were stripped from the statement by a CAP staffer who just happened to be Brian Katulis. Then, in December, CAP largely sat on the sidelines as the Senate passed a historic resolution to end U.S. involvement in the devastating Saudi-UAE war in Yemen. At the MEI event in January, Katulis dismissed those giving “energy and dynamism” to “the Yemen debate” for ignoring “the full complexity of the challenges.” Jamal Khashoggi’s name wasn’t even mentioned.

Despite MEI head Salem’s claim that “independence is sacred,” there’s reason to question how independent scholars can be when their work is, at least in part, dependent on foreign funding. In at least one case, for instance, Salem’s institute published the work of Fahad Nazer, who was directly on the Saudi payroll. While earning $7,000 a month as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia, Nazer wrote several pro-Saudi articles for both think tanks and mainstream media outlets, including one for MEI that made no mention of his financial ties to the Saudis. That March 2018 article did, however, encourage yet more U.S. support for the country’s ruling crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who, Nazer wrote, would “be good for Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the world.”

Just seven months later, bin Salman would reportedly authorize the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and, in January 2019, Nazer himself would become the official spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

Blurred Lines and Lack of Transparency

Nazer’s case also illustrates a growing pattern of interactions between think tanks that receive foreign funding and the registered foreign agents of those countries. In fact, Emirati foreign agents last year reported contacting think tanks at least 85 times, according to an analysis of Foreign Agents Registration Act filings for a forthcoming report on the Emirati lobby in the U.S. by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, which I direct.

Perhaps not surprisingly, CAP’s Katulis and MEI were among the top think-tank contacts for UAE’s foreign agents. According to 2018 filings, Katulis was contacted at least 12 times by the Harbour Group, which the UAE paid more than $5 million in 2018 to “influence U.S. policy,” according to the firm’s FARA filings. Katulis was a particular focus for them because he was helping to organize a “study tour” in which think-tank experts would take a luxurious trip to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. That group also contacted MEI at least 14 times on behalf of the UAE, directing most of its efforts towards a “speaking engagement at MEI” for the Emirati ambassador to the U.S., the same man who had directed that “secret” $20 million contribution to the institute.

Under current law, it is perfectly legal for think tanks that receive funding from foreign governments to also work with foreign agents registered to represent those very governments. FARA includes an exemption for those engaged in “bona fide… scholastic, academic, or scientific pursuits.” Like many parts of the FARA statute, it’s not at all clear what “bona fide” means, but think tanks are presumably exempt from registration if they meet this threshold.

While the work done by both think tanks and registered foreign agents can sometimes overlap, the two are worlds apart on one critical score: transparency. Under FARA, registered foreign agents are required to disclose a considerable amount of what they do, including whom they’re working for, how much they’re being paid, and whom they’re contacting, as well as when and where they do it, on behalf of foreign principals like the United Arab Emirates. And most of that information is available online. Anything they distribute on behalf of a foreign backer must also include a “conspicuous statement” to let anyone know that what they’re reading is being distributed on behalf of a foreign principal.

Think tanks receiving funding from foreign sources are, however, not required to do any of the above.

As is appropriate during tax season, most of this should, in the end, be blamed on the Internal Revenue Service. Think tanks usually operate as tax-exempt organizations and, according to the IRS, “a tax-exempt organization is generally not required to disclose publicly the names or addresses of its contributors set forth on its annual return.”

While MEI and CAP do both disclose their funding sources on their websites — for which they should be commended — many think tanks do not. And few, even among those that do, mention any potential conflicts of interest that might be reflected in their published reports or the speeches and media appearances of their members. Even more worrisome, a Project On Government Oversight investigation by Lydia Dennett found numerous examples of think-tank experts not reporting or mentioning financial ties to foreign governments when testifying before Congress. Hiding such potential conflicts of interest is likely to leave the public and policymakers with the impression that they’re hearing truly objective experts, when they may, in fact, be taking testimony from someone who is functionally or literally on the payroll of a country with a deep stake in what they’re telling Congress.

If think tanks are to remain credible sources of foreign-policy expertise, such ties must, at the very least, be laid bare.

A first step would simply be to require think tanks to publicly disclose any foreign funding they receive, something easily done by amending the IRS code. In addition, just as registered foreign agents are required to include a “conspicuous statement” letting readers know they’re working on behalf of a foreign power, think tanks should have to fully disclose their funding sources and any potential conflicts of interest in all their written products, as well as at speaking engagements, especially testimony before Congress. It should also be incumbent upon the media to do a better job of vetting sources. Sure, journalists are extraordinarily busy, but if a simple Google search can reveal that the Middle East “expert” you’re quoting is being paid by a country in the Middle East, it behooves you to tell your readers that.

Finally, transparency is essential, but it’s well past time for think tanks themselves to focus on the track records of the countries they’re getting money from. The Brookings Institution did just that by cutting ties with the Saudis shortly after the murder of Khashoggi and, soon after, MEI, too, announced that it would decline any further funding from the Saudi government. More recently, and following the questions raised about CAP’s involvement with the United Arab Emirates, that think tank announced that it would no longer accept UAE money. As a CAP spokesperson said, “It’s just the right thing to do.”

CAP, MEI, and Brookings are, however, the exceptions.  Most think tanks haven’t done “the right thing” and dropped funding from autocratic regimes. Nor are they likely to voluntarily increase transparency about that funding. The burden then falls on Congress to enact reforms ensuring that senators and representatives will know when the expert they’re hearing discuss a specific country or the region it’s in is being paid by that very same country. Failure to act could leave Americans asking a simple and uncomfortable question: Which country is buying U.S. foreign policy today?

===

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/reports/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/

Download this report (pdf)

Read the report in your web browser (Scribd)

Download individual chapters of the report (pdf):

Video: Ask the Expert: Faiz Shakir on the Group Behind Islamophobia

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

Breivik’s manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam’s “war against the West.” This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer’s website, which “tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture,” boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer’s frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American values.” Based on Breivik’s sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik’s deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,” the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik’s manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism—three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric....

40K$ student newspapers 2005

http://thedartmouth.com/2005/02/18/free-press-receives-1500-from-think-tank/

==

The second installment of our “Bundy’s Buddies” series featured 15 incumbent members of Congress; we have now added Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID), as well as one new congressional hopeful from Arizona’s 1st district, who will join the previously identified candidates on the ballot in November 2014.

Arizona

California

Idaho

Kentucky

Nevada

New Mexico

Oregon

Texas

Utah

Washington

Claire Moser is a Research and Advocacy Associate with the Public Lands Project at American Progress. Matt Lee-Ashley is a Senior Fellow and the Director of the Public Lands Project at American Progress.

* New Bundy’s Buddies not previously identified in the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s series or on BundysBuddies.com.

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (April 2010)

Center for American Progress|   |

FoundersJohn Podesta
TypePublic policy think tank
Founded2003
LocationWashington, D.C.
MottoProgressive ideas for a strong, just, and free America.
Websitehttp://www.americanprogress.org

The Center for American Progress is a progressive[^^1]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-0) public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action."[^^2]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-APmission-1) It has its headquarters in Washington D.C.[^^3]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-2)

Its President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Located in Washington, D.C., the Center for American Progress has a campus outreach group, Campus Progress, and a sister advocacy organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Citing Podesta's influence in the formation of the Obama Administration, a November 2008 article in *Time* stated that "not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan's transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway."[^^4]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-3)

Contents[hide]

[edit] History and mission

The Center for American Progress was created in 2003 as a left-leaning alternative to think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.[^^5]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-4)

Since its inception, the Center has gathered a group of high-profile senior fellows, including Lawrence Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan; Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council under President Bill Clinton; Ruy Teixeira, political scientist and author of The Emerging Democratic Majority; and, most recently, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards.

The Center manages a radio studio, and offers the studio for use to shows across the ideological spectrum. It is used daily by the *Bill Press*Show, a syndicated talk radio program broadcast from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern Time weekday mornings. Jones Radio Networks is the syndicator.

The Center was often featured prominently on the *Al Franken Show* on the now defunct Air America Radio network, where Christy Harvey and Al Franken criticized the Bush administration at length, accusing it of dishonesty and incompetence.

The Center has no information on its website about its funding, but the *Washington Post* reported that "seed money pledged by such deep-pocketed Democrats as financier George Soros and mortgage billionaires Herbert and Marion Sandler" assisted its formation.[^^6]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-CAPfunding-5) The authors of Her Way, a biography of Hillary Clinton, also assert that the Democracy Alliance, a progressive donors collective, has funded the Center. They also assert that the Sandlers and Soros provided seed money.[^^7]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-CAPfunding-HerWay-6)

The Center helped Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) develop "strategic redeployment",[^^8]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-strategicredeployment-7) a comprehensive plan for the Iraq War that includes a timetable and troop withdrawals.

[edit] Media outlets

The Center for American Progress publishes a daily email newsletter entitled The Progress Report, which is a recap and analysis of major political news in the United States, providing a progressive perspective on the day's stories. The authors are Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matthew Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster.

The newsletter has four main sections:

  1. in-depth item on a major topic of the day, such as the economy or foreign policy;
  2. "Under the Radar," less prominent stories of the day including links to op-eds and news;
  3. "Think Fast," links to new stories; and
  4. the sidebar, entitled the "Daily Grill," which compares major right wing figures' current remarks with their past remarks.

The Center for American Progress began experimenting with video delivered over the internet to complement their policy work in early 2006. This video strategy, currently known as SEEPROGRESS, is distributed through the Center's website as well as YouTube and other video distributors, such as Google video, Blip.tv and Yahoo! video.

[edit] ClimateProgress.org

In addition, the Center publishes a daily global warming blog called Climate Progress.[^^9]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-8) Edited by climate and energy expert Joseph J. Romm, the blog discusses climate science, climate and energy technology solutions and political news related to climate change. It is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. In 2008, *Time* magazine named this blog one of the "Top 15 Green Websites", writing that it "counters bad science and inane rhetoric with original analysis delivered sharply.... Romm occupies the intersection of climate science, economics and policy.... On his blog and in his most recent book, *Hell and High Water*, you can find some of the most cogent, memorable, and deployable arguments for immediate and overwhelming action to confront global warming."[^^10]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-9) In 2009, Thomas L. Friedman, in his column in The New York Times, called the blog "indispensable",[^^11]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-10) and *Rolling Stone* magazine named Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America".[^^12]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-RS-11) Time magazine named Romm one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)", calling him "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger"[^^13]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-Hero-12) and, in 2010, it included Climate Progress in a list of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010"[^^14]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-BestBlogs-13) Romm's 2010 book, *Straight Up* is a compilation of some of his best blog entries from Climate Progress, with introductions and analysis by Romm.

[edit] Think Progress

Think Progress is a blog edited by Shakir that "provide[s] a forum that advances progressive ideas and policies."[^^15]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress#cite_note-14)

[edit] Campus Progress

caller hit /mirror?

‘Suffocating pressure’: Former ThinkProgress writer describes White House ‘censorship’

Posted By Brendan Bordelon On 12:30 PM 03/07/2014 In | No Comments

Zaid Jilani, a former blogger with the left-wing think tank Center for American Progress, explained this week how the Obama administration frequently tries to censor the progressive organization’s content when it departs from the White House’s agenda.

Jiliani was reacting to two on-air protests by journalists opposed to Russia’s invasion of southern Ukraine. The two worked for Russia Today (RT) — an English-speaking media outlet funded directly by Moscow — and felt their bosses were trying to censor their opinions (**RELATED: Anchor on Russia’s English-language propaganda network quits on air over Ukraine [VIDEO]**).

In a post titled, ”How Working in Washington Taught Me We’re All A Little Like RT America,” Jilani explained how the White House frequently played the part of the Kremlin — leaning on management to push their writers in a particular direction, and punishing them if they strayed from the party line.

“I’m writing this post to explain how working in Washington taught me we’re all a little bit like the good folks who work at RT America,” Jilani explained, “struggling against editorial censors, doing our best to follow our conscience despite sometimes suffocating pressures from our publishers and sponsors.”

The blogger never assumed he would agree with everything pushed by the Center for American Progress’s Action Fund when he joined the 501(c)(4) nonprofit to write about national security in 2009. But he soon discovered that one topic in particular was entirely shielded from criticism — the war in Afghanistan, which President Obama was then in the process of escalating.

“One of the controversial topics that was very constrained in our writing at ThinkProgress in 2009 was Afghanistan.,” he wrote. “CAP had decided not to protest Obama’s surge, so most of our writing on the topic was simply neutral — we weren’t supposed to take a strong stand.”

That was tough for Jilani, a strong opponent of the war. And as congressional opposition to the war increased over time, he found he was able to criticize the White House more directly.

But in 2011, one post went too far.

Jilani had just published a story — “one of the most successful things [he] had ever written at that point” — which indicated troops levels at the end of Obama’s Afghan “surge” would actually be higher than at any point in the George W. Bush administration. And it came complete with a graph, which congressional opponents of the war took into committee hearings on Capitol Hill.

The Obama administration was furious.

“Phone calls from the White House started pouring in,” Jilani claimed, “berating my bosses for being critical of Obama on this policy . . . Soon afterwards all of us ThinkProgress national security bloggers were called into a meeting with CAP senior staff and basically berated for opposing the Afghan war and creating daylight between us and Obama.”

And there was an ethical component to CAP’s compliance with the White House, as well.

“It confused me a lot because on the one hand, CAP was advertising to donors that it opposed the Afghan war,” Jilani noted. “In our ‘Progressive Party,’ the annual fundraising party we do with both Big Name Progressive Donors and corporate lobbyists (in the same room!) we even advertised that we wanted to end the war in Afghanistan.”

“What that meeting with CAP senior staff showed me was that they viewed being closer to Obama and aligning with his policy as more important than demonstrating progressive principle, if that meant breaking with Obama,” Jilani explained.

“Essentially, they were doing the same thing to us RT America is telling its American producers to do now — align with your boss, who is the president of the country.”

The blogger eventually left his post at CAP, citing “reasons of other censorship and dealing with both corporate sponsors and that institution’s fealty to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).”

Follow Brendan on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.