Think Tanks

Meet The Think Tanks Behind MAGA’s New Free Speech Crackdown

May 1, 2025 Robert Inlakesh, MintPress News. Educate! Censorship, Elon Musk, First Amendment, Free Speech, MAGA, Think Tanks

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump—and many of his most prominent right-wing supporters—are directly linked to some of the most radically pro-war, pro-Israel organizations in the country. These connections form a sprawling web of lobbying groups, tech billionaires, and media figures who consistently promote Israeli interests above those of ordinary Americans. Why has the pro-Trump right suddenly pivoted from branding itself as a bastion of free speech to openly supporting censorship and state-led crackdowns? This MintPress News investigation uncovers a donor-driven advocacy network driving that ideological shift.

Trump’s Yemen Surge: How DC Think Tanks Brought Famine Roaring Back

April 25, 2025 Robert Inlakesh, MintPress News. Educate! Collective Punishment, Displacement, Donald Trump, Famine, Think Tanks, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

President Donald Trump’s new Yemen campaign is driving what experts call a spiraling humanitarian disaster, nearly doubling the previous administration’s costs while slashing aid and intensifying airstrikes. Under pressure from powerful Washington think tanks, Trump has sharply increased airstrikes, cut $107 million in aid, and designated Yemen’s Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO )—all steps that experts and aid groups say are deepening famine, displacement, and collective punishment. The latest moves target Ansar Allah-controlled northern Yemen, home to roughly 70% of the population and 80% dependent on food imports.

Meet The DC Think Tanks Impoverishing Masses Of Latin Americans

April 8, 2025 John Perry, The Grayzone. Educate! Cuba embargo, Ivan Duque, Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado, Nicaragua, Think Tanks, US Sanctions, Venezuela

Sanctions are a form of hybrid warfare that harms or even kills the target populations at little cost to the country imposing them. In Latin America alone, US sanctions (correctly known as “unilateral coercive measures”) have killed at least 100,000 Venezuelans. The US blockade of Cuba has been so destructive that one in ten Cubans have left the country. Sanctions have similarly deprived Nicaraguans of development aid worth an estimated $3 billion since 2018, hitting projects such as new water supplies for rural areas. Who formulates these devastating sanctions, covers up their real effects, works with politicians to put them into operation and promotes them in corporate media?

Rich-People-Friendly Think Tank Confirms Richest Pay Under One Percent In Annual Taxes

December 2, 2024 Bob Lord, Inequality.org. Educate! Taxes, Think Tanks, wealth inequality, Wealth Tax

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation has long functioned as an apologist for America’s deepest pockets. Analysts at the Foundation have spent years assuring us that our wealthiest are paying far more than their fair tax share — in the face of a reality that has our richest aggressively growing their share of the wealth all Americans are creating. This past August, the Biden administration’s Treasury Department commissioned a new study that documented just how little of their wealth America’s richest are actually paying in taxes. Last month, the Tax Foundation responded with a predictable critique.

Right-Wing Network Manufacturing The War Against Higher Education

July 4, 2024 Colleen Scerpella, Exposed CMD. Educate! Higher Education, Legislation, Right wing politics, Think Tanks

A recent white paper by Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, details the ongoing culture-war backlash against higher education in America, largely in response to the grassroots activism of Black Lives Matter in 2020 and increasing LGBTQ+ visibility. More than 150 bills seeking to undermine academic freedom and intervene in university governance were introduced in state legislatures across the country during 2021-2023. While these bills are typically interpreted as an “organic” consequence of increasing polarization among Americans, the current wave of legislation targeting higher education is a coordinated effort between wealthy elites, a network of right-wing and libertarian think tanks, and Republican politicians at the state level.

How A DC Think Tank Helped Cause The Gaza ‘Deluge’

October 13, 2023 As’Ad Abukhalil, Consortium News. Educate! Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Think Tanks, Washington DC

The Hamas attack (with the loss of civilian lives) shook the Middle East and shattered many assumptions and misconceptions about the region. It’s not that Israel was shocked at the daring nature of the attack, but that Israel had long assumed that the Palestinian problem is dead and that there is no need to engage in a so-called peace process — even if managed by the U.S., the least neutral party in the Arab-Israeli conflict outside of Tel Aviv. Reflecting the belief in the death of Palestine as a question, the Biden administration was the first U.S. administration since Lyndon Johnson to not even attempt to launch a peace process regarding the Palestinian problem, demonstrating its belief that the issue is over.

How Military Industrial Complex Sets Media Narrative On Ukraine

July 2, 2023 Bryce Greene, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Media, Russia, Think Tanks, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

Wealthy donors have long funded think tanks with official-sounding names that produce research that reflects the interests of those funders (Extra!, 7/13). The weapons industry is a major contributor to these idea factories; a recent report from the Quincy Institute (6/1/23) demonstrates just how much influence war profiteers have on the national discourse. The Quincy Institute—whose own start-up funding came mainly from George Soros and Charles Koch—looked at 11 months of Ukraine War coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, from March 1, 2022, through January 31, 2023, and counted each time one of 33 leading think tanks was mentioned.

Six War Mongering Think Tanks And The Military Contractors That Fund Them

March 12, 2023 Amanda Yee, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Anti-War, Military contractors, Think Tanks, US army, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

From producing reports and analysis for U.S. policy-makers, to enlisting representatives to write op-eds in corporate media, to providing talking heads for corporate media to interview and give quotes, think tanks play a fundamental role in shaping both U.S. foreign policy and public perception around that foreign policy. Leaders at top think tanks like the Atlantic Council and Hudson Institute have even been called upon to set focus priorities for the House Intelligence Committee. However, one look at the funding sources of the most influential think tanks reveals whose interests they really serve: that of the U.S. military and its defense contractors.

New Report: More Than $1Billion From War Industry And Government Going To Think Tanks

October 23, 2020 Cassandra Simpson, Responsible Statecraft. Educate! Military Industrial Complex, Pentagon, Think Tanks, Washington DC

It’s well known that Pentagon contractors spend hundreds of millions each year on lobbying, but the other powerful weapon contractors wield to influence U.S. national security priorities — think tanks — is often ignored. A report released today from the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, or FITI, at the Center for International Policy, where I work, reveals more than $1 billion in defense contractor and U.S. government funds flowing to the top 50 most influential U.S. think tanks from 2014-2019. It is part of a think tank’s role to recommend policy, and putting ideas forth into debate can be a public good.

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