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Should U.S. Taxpayers Be Funding the Brookings Institution?

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Today’s post highlights an interesting audit on the Brookings Institution by Open the Books, which reveals considerable tax payer funding for the so-called “think tank.” The question is how much thinking is really being done, and are taxpayers getting their money’s worth?

Here’s some of what Open the Books’ Adam Andrzejewski had to say on the matter in a recent Forbes article, Brookings Institution — The Progressive Jukebox Funded By U.S. Taxpayers:

Washington, D.C. is known for its monuments, but it is also known for its “ivory tower” think tanks. These institutions can serve a valuable role in providing dispassionate and empirical analysis in divided times. One of the pre-eminent D.C. think tanks is the Brookings Institution, which has nearly half-a-billion dollars in assets and deep ties to political leaders on the left.

According to Brookings, its mission is to “conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society at the local, national and global level.” Brookings says it values the independence of its scholars and prides itself on “open-minded” inquiry.

Yet, public spending records captured by our organization at OpenTheBooks.com tell a somewhat different story. Rather than focusing on “open-minded” inquiry, Brookings seems swayed by “open-wallet” inquiry. In many cases, Brookings doesn’t resemble a think tank, but a jukebox – add a little coin and Brookings will play your tune, if the price is right.

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Retired FBI Special Agent Blows the Whistle on the Real Robert Mueller

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Shortly after former FBI Director Robert Mueller was announced as the special counsel for the Russia investigation, the screeching hordes of America’s “always wrong about everything” punditry class cheered in near unison, lauding the man as some sort of second coming. This sort of thing should always be seen as a red flag, and thanks to an excellent article written by retired FBI special agent Coleen Rowley, everyone can now know exactly why.

But first, who is Coleen Rowley?

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled “Questions for the FBI Nominee” was published on the day of James Comey’s confirmation hearing.

It’s important to be aware of that background as you read the following excerpts from the excellent post published at CounterPunch titled, Comey and Mueller: Russiagate’s Mythical Heroes:

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The Comey Testimony is Great for Trump, Terrible For Democrats

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The unanimous very smart person take on Trump’s firing of James Comey is that it’s a political disaster which will lead to total ruin and possibly his impeachment. I disagree.

The key factor that will determine how this ultimately turns out hinges largely on whether or not there was actual coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to sway the election through hacking or other nefarious means. Personally, I don’t think there was, which is why I don’t expect Donald Trump to be removed from office. The consensus view right now is that Trump’s firing of Comey offers further circumstantial evidence that he’s trying to cover up coordination with Russia in order to end the ongoing investigation. This is certainly a possibility to consider, but it’s definitely not the only possibility, nor is it the most likely explanation.

– From last month’s post: The Consensus Echo Chamber Take on Trump Firing Comey is All Wrong

I’ve been warning incessantly for months that the Democratic Party is on the verge of blowing itself up in a mushroom cloud of Russia conspiracy theorizing. Many high profile Democrats, corporate media hacks and partisans of all shapes and sizes have spent Donald Trump’s first six months screeching about how the President is a Russian agent who conspired with Putin to rig the election against Hillary Clinton. Of course, if there is any truth to this claim Trump should justifiably be tossed from office. The problem is we haven’t seen any proof, most likely because none exists.

You can already see Democrats trying to pivot to, “but Trump tried to obstruct justice.” Sorry, but based on what I’ve seen so far, this just ain’t gonna fly. The public’s expectations have been far too intentionally and incessantly inflated by Democratic politicians and corporate media pundits. Anything less than proof of collusion between Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election will likely be seen as a win for Trump. This is what happens when you’re really stupid strategically and decide to put all your eggs in the Russia conspiracy theory basket.

As such, despite there being all sorts of investigations going on, I don’t expect anything to emerge that will lead to an impeachment of Donald Trump. Considering what we know about how domestic spy agencies operate, I strongly believe we’d have leaked proof by now if Trump colluded with Russia to influence the election.

That said, the Democrats will never let this go because it would force them to talk about real issues like Wall Street, oligarchy and imperial foreign policy, but they don’t want to do that. That’s the dirty little secret. Since the Democrats largely agree with Trump on many of his most heinous policy stances, they have to come up with an overseas bogeyman to obsess about. That’s what this has been about since day one. As such, there continues to be no functioning opposition party in American at this time. Unfortunate, but true.

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Trump’s Middle East Foreign Policy is a Disaster Waiting to Happen

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Today’s post will focus on Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, a revolting spectacle which I could barely bring myself to follow. It all started Saturday morning as I tried to enjoy a beautiful day with my growing family and parents who were in town for a visit. My day was more or less ruined upon witnessing the appalling scene of Trump and his top advisors dancing with the rulers of the terrorist sponsoring state of Saudi Arabia while clutching swords. I’m sorry for doing this to you, but in case you missed it…

– From last month’s piece: America Has Become a Total Joke

The main thing we learned from Trump’s grotesque, orb clutching spectacle of a visit to the 9/11-funding absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia, was that our demented President essentially green-lighted the Saudis to do whatever the heck they want in the Middle East. Considering Saudi Arabia is effectively being run by a 30-something princeling with sociopathic tendencies, absolutely nothing good can come of this. While Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East was an unmitigated humanitarian and geopolitical disaster, it appears Trump’s doing his best to one up his predecessor.

Saudi Arabia is the most dangerous entity in the Middle East, and the writing’s been on the wall for a long time. In fact, German intelligence warned about it back in 2015. As The Telegraph reported:

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Saudi Arabia Used U.S. Veterans to Lobby Against 9/11 Bill

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Elements of the charm offensive include the launch of a pro-Saudi Arabia media portal operated by high-profile Republican campaign consultants; a special English-language website devoted to putting a positive spin on the latest developments in the Yemen war; glitzy dinners with American political and business elites; and a non-stop push to sway reporters and policymakers.

That has been accompanied by a spending spree on American lobbyists with ties to the Washington establishment. The Saudi Arabian Embassy, as we’ve reported, now retains the brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, the leader of one of the largest Republican Super PACs in the country, and a law firm with deep ties to the Obama administration. One of Jeb Bush’s top fundraisers, Ignacio Sanchez, is also lobbying for the Saudi Kingdom.

In September, the Kingdom helped sponsor opulent galas for Washington’s business elite at the Ritz Carlton and the Andrew Mellon Auditorium. The events were attended by King Salman, along with the chief executives of General Electric and Lockheed Martin, the chairman of Marriott International, and prominent think tank officials.

From the 2015 post: A Look Inside Saudi Arabia’s Elaborate U.S. Propaganda Machine

Some of the information in today’s piece was widely reported last month, but I didn’t have a chance to look into it until now. What the Saudis are up to in Washington D.C., throwing their money around everywhere is absolutely revolting. One of the more despicable things the barbaric, terrorist-supporting, absolute monarchy did recently was recruit U.S. veterans to go to D.C. and lobby against a bill passed under the Obama administration (Obama vetoed it, but his veto was overridden), permitting terrorist attack victims to sue foreign states. The bill was driven by the desire of 9/11 victims’ family members to have the opportunity to sue Saudi Arabia for its obvious and disturbing role in that attack.

A couple of months ago, I highlighted the fascinating story of attorney Jim Kreindler who is intimately involved in this fight.

Here are a few snippets from the post, Meet the Lawyer Who’s Suing Saudi Arabia for Financing the 9/11 Attacks:

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Dear Great Britain – Blame Your Intelligence Agencies and Government, Not the Internet

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The dishonest and dangerous response of Theresa May’s UK government to the horrific terrorist attacks of the past month is unfortunately all too common when it comes to those in power. Rather than look inward at the glaring shadiness and corruption inherent throughout UK government polices, its “leaders” are looking to use these barbaric acts as a excuse to push through an authoritarian and illiberal expansion of state power. Specifically, Theresa May’s government is despicably using the attacks to push for regulation and censorship of the internet.

As reported by the Independent:

New international agreements should be introduced to regulate the internet in the light of the London Bridge terror attack, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister said introducing new rules for cyberspace would “deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online” and that technology firms were not currently doing enough.

“We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed – yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,” Ms May said.

The Conservative manifesto pledges regulation of the internet, including forcing internet providers to participate in counter-extremism drives and making it more difficult to access pornography.

Silly me, I thought this was about terrorism.

The Act, championed by Ms May, requires internet service providers to maintain a list of visited websites for all internet users for a year and gives intelligence agencies more powers to intercept online communications. Police can access the stored browsing history without any warrant or court order.

Ms May’s speech is thought to be the first time she has publicly called for international cooperation in bringing forward more red tape to cyberspace, however.

The intervention comes after the introduction of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 – dubbed the “Snooper’s Charter” – which expands the powers of spying agencies and the Government over the internet.

It’s important to understand that May’s government was aggressively pushing for internet censorship well before both the recent terror attacks. For example, here’s some of what I highlighted in last month’s post, UK Government Moves Aggressively to Censor and Control the Internet:

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How Donald Trump’s Presidency Could Inadvertently Lead to a Far Less Powerful Washington D.C.

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Before I get started, I want to make it completely clear up front that while I will be discussing the Paris climate change agreement in this post, I am only doing so to make a much broader point about where we are as a species and where I think we need to go. In a nutshell, I believe a large percentage of people on this planet posses a slave mentality which essentially revolves around authority worship. I consider this to be comparable to a mental illness. It doesn’t matter whether that authority is Trump, Hillary or the UN, the sickness manifests itself in the same ways. There’s this conception that big government bodies, or powerful elected political figures, are indispensable when it comes to telling us what to do or how to think. Too many people prefer not work on themselves as individuals, and would rather be told what to do by an authority figure. This is perverse, unhealthy and it stunts the growth of the species.

I’m not in the camp that sees these United States as hopelessly divided. In fact, on many issues of existential importance, such as imperial militarism abroad, crony capitalism, Wall Street bailouts, the two-tiered justice system and some others, I think most Americans are very much on the same page. That said, there are definitely certain issues Americans are emphatically and passionately divided on, and divisiveness on these issues tends to prevent widespread unity on the others. Climate change, what causes it, how to stop it (or even if we can) is one of those issues.

It’s important to read the rest of this post without obsessing over your own personal opinions on the topic of climate change. The reason I am bringing it up at all, is to highlight the different ways people have responded to Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement. We see both a productive response, and a lunatic response.

First, let’s take a look at the lunatic response (and my response to that response), courtesy of billionaire Tom Steyer.

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Even Hillary Clinton’s Former Aides are Sick of Her Incessant Bull$hit

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Personally, I’m in the camp that thinks a large percentage of Trump voters didn’t support him out of personal affinity, but rather as a means to ensure that Hillary Clinton would finally shut-up and go away forever. That is not happening.

I issued a code red warning last month highlighting that I thought Hillary Clinton’s ongoing spotlight-hogging, blame deflecting, Russia fear-mongering tour is driven by a remnant burning desire to be President and the delusional dream that it could still happen. As I explained in the post, Manufacturing Resistance – The American Public is Being Manipulated Into Irrelevance:

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BAT ICO Raises $35 Million in 24 Seconds

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If you’ve read my last few pieces, you’ll be aware of my recent fascination with the biggest trend in the crypto-coin world right now, ICOs, or initial coin offerings (yes, it’s a horrible name).

Since the best way to learn about stuff is to dive right in and do it yourself, I spent much of yesterday getting prepared for the Basic Attention Token (BAT) sale in an attempt to participate. Considering I had very little to do with Ethereum up until that point, the learning curve was quite steep. Nevertheless, I got it all together and had an ERC20 wallet funded and ready to go for this morning’s sale. While I thought the ICO might be pretty popular, $35 million is still a decent amount of money and I didn’t foresee having any real issues with getting an allocation. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

At the end of the day, I got zero BAT tokens and was left extremely frustrated with how the whole thing went down. While it’s undoubtably a historic moment for the nascent ICO market and an incredible achievement for an experimental browser monetization model to raise such a sum in less than 30 seconds, could this really be called a crowdsale?

While details still seem a bit sketchy, what’s clear is that a lot of people are very pissed off and a very small number of players seem to have received a huge chunk of the offering.

Here’s what Coindesk reported:

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A Voice of Reason Speaks Regarding ‘The New Cold War’

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Last week was interesting for me. I spent about half my time getting up to speed with the latest happenings in the crypto-coin world, and got really excited about a lot of what I saw. In fact, this was the first time I became totally consumed by the space in several years, going back to when I first investigated and started becoming involved with Bitcoin.

What really caught my attention is the booming ICO market, and while it’ll invariably produce its fair share of total scams, I find it nonetheless captivating. I’m attracted to its dynamic wild west spirit, as well as its capacity to function as an alternative funding mechanism for startup projects utilizing a wider participatory structure consisting of anyone with a bit of crypto currency and a high-risk tolerance. It’s an entirely new experimental ecosystem funded by crypto currencies (mostly ethereum, but also bitcoin). It’s pretty mesmerizing (for more see: A New Financial System is Being Born).

Spending so much time on this esoteric world kept me away from following U.S. politics as closely as I typically do, which was a great thing. The level of discourse from nearly all sides of the political spectrum has turned so toxic, divisive, hysterical and counterproductive, leaving that environment for several days made me feel great, as if I had taken a vacation from idiot island. As such, today I once again decided to spend some time reading up on the crypto-coin space and getting further up to speed on ICOs and how they work. That said, I realize I still need to pay attention to the crazy happenings in the wider world around me, so I thought I’d share an interview with a rarity in today’s political discourse, a voice of reason.

What follows are excerpts from a Slate  interview with Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton:

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