The revolving door between government and industry is nothing new. Government regulators get jobs in related industries when they retire; military officers accept positions with defense contractors. Former members of Congress have also accepted positions in business and industry, often as lobbyists, after tiring of office or being voted out.

But [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The revolving door between government and industry is nothing new. Government regulators get jobs in related industries when they retire; military officers accept positions with defense contractors. Former members of Congress have also accepted positions in business and industry, often as lobbyists, after tiring of office or being voted out.

But there seems to be a new and somewhat unexpected trend among members of Congress: some are stepping down from elected office before their term is complete without a scandal or personal circumstances prompting their resignation.

Jim DeMint became the third member of Congress in just over three years to give up elected office to work for a think tank when he announced on Dec. 6 that he has accepted the position as head of the Heritage Foundation.

Midway into his seventh term representing Florida’s heavily Democratic 19th congressional district, self-described “fire breathing liberal” Robert Wexler announced in October 2009 that he would be giving up the House seat he’s held since 1996 to become Executive Director of the Daniel S. Abraham Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. Not quite a year and a half later, nine-term California Democrat Jane Harman stepped down from her House seat to become the first woman President and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Institute.

DeMint, founder of the Tea Party caucus, is the first Republican and sitting senator to relinquish his elected office in order to head a think tank. The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board has much in common with Heritage Foundation ideology, explains the impetus behind DeMint’s career change:

Sen. DeMint said he is taking the Heritage job because he sees it as a vehicle to popularize conservative ideas in a way that connects with a broader public. “This is an urgent time,” the senator said, “because we saw in the last election we were not able to communicate conservative ideas that win elections.” Mr. DeMint, who was a market researcher before he entered politics, said he plans to take the Heritage Foundation’s traditional research plus that of think tanks at the state level and “translate those policy papers into real-life demonstrations of things that work.”

While DeMint’s new salary has not been publicly disclosed, his predecessor Ed Feulner received $1,025,922 in 2010 according to the Heritage Foundation’s IRS filing for that year. The filing also indicates that Feulner received a base salary of $477,907, a bonus of $535,300, plus deferred and non-taxable compensation. Wexler openly stated that financial considerations played a role in his decision to take up a think tank post. DeMint has made no such admission, although the Los Angeles Times has pointed out that DeMint is one of the less wealthy members of Congress.

Interestingly, although the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) recent presidents overwhelmingly favor pro-Israel Democrats, DeMint has also received political contributions from AIPAC’s current president, Michael Kassen.

Since its founding in 1973, Heritage’s “think” has always been subordinate to its “tank.” Its Board is a Pandora’s box of political has-beens from the Reagan and Bush years, such as Edwin Meese, and some very rich men like Richard Scaife (a Vice Chairman who Robert Kaiser and Ira Chenoy dubbed the “funding father of the right”) and whose individual largesse, however generous, now pales in comparison to the $80 million annually that Heritage is able to rake in.

Hawkish and hardline (albeit vague) on foreign policy issues, the Heritage Foundation presents the Middle East — particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — relations with the Arab world and the Iranian nuclear threat, through an often warped prism of US “national security.”

While the Washington Post laments that “the intellectualism that was once the Heritage hallmark has become somewhat suspect in an era in which the insurgent passion of the tea party sets the terms of political activism,” Jacob Weisberg’s astute observations a dozen years ago are still timely and even more on point:

Because of its combat mentality, Heritage has never been a place with very high standards. Like other conservative outfits, it loves the lingo of academic life. Its hallways are cluttered with endowed chairs, visiting fellows, and distinguished scholars. The conceit here is that as a PC Dark Age has overcome the universities, conservative think tanks have become the refuge of thought and learning. At Heritage in particular, this is a laugh. AEI and the Manhattan Institute frequently produce stimulating books and studies and occasionally arrive at unexpected positions. Even the more dogmatic Cato Institute has cultivated a reputation for rigorous research and analysis from a libertarian point of view. Heritage, however, is essentially a propaganda mill.

To counter this image, Heritage has been attempting to cultivate a new generation of Fellows — aspiring pundits, interns, bloggers and twitterati — who spread Heritage talking points and sound bytes for the right-wing media from policy papers that could be mistaken for actual studies.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Heritage Foundation is not permitted to engage in lobbying. When its “experts” testify before Congress, they are always careful to preface their remarks with the disclaimer “The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.” Briefing papers and other literature intended to influence policy contain the disclaimer, “Nothing written here is to be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.” This, Weisberg pointed out, “is an evident absurdity. Heritage exists to aid and hinder legislation before Congress and often boasts about doing so.”

The creation of Heritage Action for America (HAFA) in 2010, a 501(c)(4), was designed to sidestep such restrictions entirely. CEO Michael Needham explained that HAFA would provide “heat” while Heritage itself would continue to provide “light.” Not surprisingly, DeMint received a 99% rating from HAFA. Placing him in the top slot may mean even more “fangs for the Conservative beast“.

Commenting on DeMint’s leaving the Senate, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell disclosed, perhaps inadvertently, his own close ties to the Heritage Foundation. “We’re sorry to see Jim go. He’s had a distinguished career,” McConnell told Politico. “My wife [Elaine Chao] is a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation. She’ll be reporting to him.”

*This week’s must-reads/watch:

The event [...]]]> CNN’s video game like introduction to Tuesday night’s Republican national security debate was more interesting than the actual event. It included footage of the Bush Administration’s rhetoric during the Iraq war and a clip of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech, but the debate maintained a heavy focus on immigration especially with regard to Mexico.

The event was co-sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, two U.S. think tanks that have taken hawkish positions on a variety of U.S. foreign policy issues. The “questions from the audience” were in fact provided by think tank members such as Bush Administration neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, and David Addington, one of the authors of the infamous “torture memos”.

There were a number of serious fact check moments, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann’s declaration that President Obama has “essentially handed over our interrogation of terrorists to the ACLU” and the “CIA has no ability to have any form of interrogation for terrorists.” Read about some of them here. Also following are some points worth noting about the candidates’ positions on U.S.-Pakistan and Mideast policy.

Pakistan: Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the U.S. shouldn’t be writing “blank checks” to Pakistan because it has been uncooperative with regard to U.S. military initiatives on its territory. While calling Pakistan “a nation that lies” and “does everything possible that you can imagine wrong”, Bachmann said U.S. aid to the country “is helping the United States.”

Iran: All candidates accepted a question from the Heritage Foundation that cited Ehud Barak’s claim that Iran is “less than a year away” from creating a nuclear weapon and apart from congressman Ron Paul, no one took issue with the U.S. supporting “regime change” or using military force against the country. Leading candidate Newt Gingrich said war should be a “last recourse” to bring about regime change, an outcome which he strongly endorsed. He said the U.S. “could break the Iranian regime” in a year by “cutting off the gasoline supply to Iran and then, frankly, sabotaging the only refinery they have.”

Perry called for sanctioning Iran’s central bank to “shut down that economy” but his most important statement about Iran came later on when he asserted twice that the reason the U.S. should intervene in Syria is not because of the massive human rights violations that are taking place, but because taking out Bashar al-Assad’s government would weaken Iran and strengthen Israel:

I think you need to leave [a no-fly zone] on the table to make sure, because this is not just about Syria. This is about Iran and those two as a partnership, and exporting terrorism around the world. And if we’re going to be serious about saving Israel, we better get serious about Syria and Iran, and we better get serious right now.

There is no evidence to back up Bachmann’s claim that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will attack Israel with a nuclear weapon. Even the Atlantic’s anti-Iran agitator Geoffrey Goldberg tweeted that “Ahmedinejad has not stated that he would use a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Just sayin.’”

Former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman criticized Obama’s Iran sanctioning policy, stating that “the Chinese aren’t going to play ball. And the Russians aren’t going to play ball, and I believe the mullahs have already decided they want to go nuclear.”

Businessman Herman Cain said he would support an Israeli attack on Iran as long as they had “a credible plan for success.” He also seemed fixed on the fact that Iran is a “mountainous region” and stressed that its terrain should be calculated into any attack plan.

Israel: Mitt Romney declared that his foreign trip as president would be to Israel “to show we care about them.” Paul reminded everyone that former Mossad leader Meir Dagan said attacking Iran would be “the stupidest thing to do in the world” and argued Israel is “not about to do this.” Paul added that

Israel has 200, 300 nuclear missiles, and they can take cares of themselves. We don’t even have a treaty with Israel. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we’re going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel? So I think they’re quite capable of taking care of themselves.

Huntsman tried to outdo Romney’s declaration of allegiance to the Israelis by saying that  “our interest in the Middle East is Israel.”

Obama’s Foreign Policy: Obama’s foreign policy record was consistently bashed but Huntsman essentially argued that he would continue his policy in Pakistan by using special operation forces along with drone bombing campaigns:

Pakistan is a concern. That’s the country that ought to keep everybody up at night…It’s a haven for bad behavior, it’s a haven for training the people who seek to do us harm. And an expanded drone program is something that would serve our national interests.

Details of the alleged plot by an Iranian-American to hire Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington remain few and far between. But that hasn’t stopped analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) [...]]]> Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

Details of the alleged plot by an Iranian-American to hire Mexican drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington remain few and far between. But that hasn’t stopped analysts at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the Heritage Foundation from calling for a military response.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano weighed in with a blog post promoted at the top of the center’s website. Carafano lists actions “required” in response to the Justice Department’s allegations against Texas used car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar. The first action is:

Take strong measures to respond. The U.S. is fully within it rights to conduct a proportional military response against suitable, feasible, and acceptable targets in Iran. (In many ways, the situation is similar to military operations conducted against al-Qaeda in Pakistan.) The Iranian government knows full well that the Iran Qods Force is a terrorist group that has provided material support to the Taliban and other groups. The Tehran government has not restrained this organization and is responsible for its conduct.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at AEI, called for an end to diplomatic outreach to Tehran, colorfully writing in the New York Daily News:

The terror plot was no rogue action. Obama may hold an olive branch, but the White House must recognize the Iranian regime’s fist holds only blood.

The time for talk has ended.

And FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz taunted the White House for what he anticipates will be an indecisive reponse to a “brazen attack” — albeit ineptly planned and nowhere near a point of execution — in Washington. While coming up short of explicitly endorsing military action, he writes in the Huffington Post:

What will be a surprise to the Iranian regime is if the United States, in the face of a brazen attack on its capital, finally responds decisively.

Under Obama’s watch the U.S. has imposed tighter sanctions on Iran than those implemented during the George W. Bush administration. Perhaps more importantly, assuming the Attorney General’s indictment holds up, federal law enforcement agencies were highly effective at breaking up a terrorist plot well before it was operational or posed an immediate threat to the U.S. or diplomatic targets in Washington.

Now, with analysts and the media still scratching their heads over what to make of a convoluted plot alleged to have been hatched by an Iranian American in collusion with Mexican drug cartels, FDD, AEI and Heritage analysts — along with their friends in Congress — are quickly declaring the end of diplomatic strategies to curb Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.

Richard Scaife and his three Pittsburgh-based foundations — the Sarah Scaife, Carthage, and Allegheny foundations — represent one of the biggest contributors to the Islamophobia network with combined contributions of $7.875 million. CAP’s report, Fear Inc., shows that Scaife contributed $3.4 million to the Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

Richard Scaife and his three Pittsburgh-based foundations — the Sarah Scaife, Carthage, and Allegheny foundations — represent one of the biggest contributors to the Islamophobia network with combined contributions of $7.875 million. CAP’s report, Fear Inc., shows that Scaife contributed $3.4 million to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, $1.575 million the Counter Terrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation (CTSERF), and $2.9 million to Frank Gaffney‘s Center for Security Policy.

Scaife has become a reliable funder of right-wing causes and, as the principal heir to the Mellon family banking, oil and aluminum fortune, he has $1.2 billion at his disposal for influencing the U.S. political and cultural landscape.

Serving as the vice chairman of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank (Heritage president Edwin Feulner serves as a trustee for the Sarah Scaife Foundation), Scaife has positioned himself as a central figure in conservative politics.

A closer examination of his philanthropy reveals that, in 2009 alone, the Sarah Scaife Foundation supported neoconservative mainstays such as the American Enterprise Institute ($550,000), the American Foreign Policy Council ($125,000), and Commentary magazine ($40,000).

Scaife has a nearly 50-year history in philanthropy and has left his mark by staying focused on specific ideological objectives. In 2009, the National Journal reported:

The intellectual flowering of the conservative movement at AEI, Heritage, and elsewhere was possible not only because a few visionaries distilled a movement’s discontent but also because a handful of deep-pocketed, committed, and unusually patient wealthy benefactors such as John M. Olin, Richard Scaife, and foundations affiliated with them were willing to underwrite the broad ideological movement.

Indeed, Scaife has shown himself to be one of the more strategic right-wing philanthropists, more interested in influencing the political and cultural discourse than investing directly in electoral outcomes.

His ownership of the Pittburgh Tribune-Review proved valuable in the campaign to attack then-president Bill Clinton as the small publication emerged as the chief source for editorials claiming that Clinton was responsible for the death of Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster.

Finding relative success in keeping the Vince Foster conspiracy theories alive, Scaife has since expanded his media holdings to include a 42 percent share in NewsMax, a conservative online news outlet that regularly gives a platform to Islamophobes.

The Scaife Foundation’s support of the Islamophobia network is a fraction of Scaife’s overall philanthropy, but it falls in line with his long-history of both creating right-wing echo chambers while, at the same time, funding the “experts” who feed it with soundbite fodder. To our knowledge, Scaife hasn’t publicly commented on whether he supports the anti-Muslim ravings of the people he funds.

But if the Iranians were paying attention, they would see that BBC Persian has an excellent report on another piece of [...]]]> Due to recent protests in Iran, authorities are reportedly jamming the BBC Persian satellite broadcast. Iran’s leaders regard the channel as a propaganda outlet for the Brits’ nefarious aim of regime change.

But if the Iranians were paying attention, they would see that BBC Persian has an excellent report on another piece of propaganda: the neoconservative-dominated “Iranium” documentary from the Clarion Fund.

The BBC Persian piece notes that the film’s writer and director, Alex Traiman, is an ideological Israeli settler who lives in the West Bank; it is critical of many of the facts and figures in the film.

The movie’s narrator, Academy Award-winning Iranian actor Shoreh Aghdashloo, answered some tough questions. Aghdashloo said she is against a war — which organizers of a premiere event said was Traiman’s goal — but can tolerate opposing or critical views. She said that some of the comments about “executions” may be exaggerated, but this film reveals the true appearance of the regime.

That tracks closely with Traiman’s own comments. At the Heritage Foundation premiere, the West Bank settler more or less admitted that the movie presents an alarmist account.

Aghdashloo, having admitted some exaggerations, goes on to praise the film as a detailed historical account. The point, she said, is the Iran can’t be trusted with a bomb. “Can you trust a regime that does not respect its own people/children to have such a destructive weapon?” she asks in the interview.

So, if she’s against war, and Iran doesn’t relent in its alleged nuclear weapons program, what does she suggest doing?

This problem is the same one which Clifford May, a star of “Iranium” and the head of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, faced when quizzed on television about it. May and other neocons call for sanctions and “credible military threats,” though they think neither tack is likely to succeed. Some former Iraq hawks, like Ken Pollack, have softened their stance on Iran — calling for a policy of eventual military containment because launching a war would be disastrous. May, on the other hand, thinks that should pressure fail, bombing would be the next U.S. move.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, another expert from FDD interviewed for “Iranium,” is an unabashed Iran hawk, who manages to squeeze in jokes about how much he has written about advocating an attack on the country.

It seems that, unlike Pollack, some hawks have not learned their lessons from Iraq. This should give pause to Aghdashloo, as she opposes a war. Those who painted a worst-case scenario for Iraq — as “Iranium” does for Iran — were wrong. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Yet those who ignore these lessons are exactly the people with whom Aghdashloo has joined forces.

Columbia Professor Hamid Dabashi also appeared in the BBC Persian report. While Aghdashloo said she lent her voice to the film to speak the truth, Dabashi claimed that her voice doesn’t give the film any credibility. In fact, he said, her presence in the movie only undermines her own credibility.

More then Aghdashloo, what worries me is how quickly those involved in this film seem to acknowledge and dismiss its exaggerations. The choice to use violent force in international affairs is one of the gravest decisions a government — whether in the U.S. or Israel — can undertake. That these critics of Iran are so sloppy when trying to present the public with a series of casus belli is disconcerting.

At the screening, hosted [...]]]> The Clarion Fund has been careful to promote their latest film, “Iranium,” as an attempt to educate the public and “sound an alarm” about Iran. The film’s director, Alex Traiman, told an audience at the film’s Washington, D.C. premiere that it was designed to further public discourse.

At the screening, hosted by the Heritage Foundation, Traiman said:

We’ve gotta show support for the right side of this debate, which is the Iranians, the Iranians that risked their lives in June 2009 to fight for freedom of speech, to fight for free elections, to fight for democracy. We’ve got to support them. If we would come out with simple statements — in June 2009, if we would have said we support the Iranian people’s rights to free and fair elections, and their rights to protest in the streets, we might have already gotten through these problems.

But, after the New York premiere of the film last night, the reaction from audience members, which was actively encouraged by the moderator of the post-screening’s Q&A, suggested that “Iranium” was an attempt to build support for a military strike on Iran.

The post-screening Q&A, hosted by Traiman and Fuel For Truth’s president Todd Ingwer (see Kiera Feldman and Josh Nathan-Kazis’s exposé on the group), had a strikingly hawkish tone.

Ingwer kicked things off by asking, “What can we do as regular people? What can we do?”

The first person to answer suggested that “we need a tea party,” which was largely met with derisive laughter from the audience.

The second answer was more to the point, it would seem, of what Fuel For Truth and the Clarion Fund were hoping to evoke from the audience.

Audience Member: It’s very serious. We need to strike hard in the heart of Iran and destroy all of its tentacles. Not another word needs to be said. The staggering amount of evidence over thirty years and the lack of action by leadership all over the free world– it’s a disgrace. What are they there for? What is the purpose of the free world? What do we send all these taxes to Washington for? The UN is a pathetic joke.

*audience applause*

Ingwer: I agree with you. And Alex, I think you hit your mark.

Alex Traiman did not indicate that this comment was out of line or missing the “mark” of what his film is trying to convey.

He did, however, do his part to stoke fears and made some rather bizarre claims about Meir Dagan’s and Hillary Clinton’s motivations:

Statements that came out of the mouths of Secretary Clinton as well as even the Israeli outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan which stated that we have in fact set back Iran’s nuclear program three to five years– those statements are extremely dangerous. And I think that those statements are being made to lull the American people as well as the rest of the free world into a sense of security that I don’t think exists.

I raised my hand to ask what information Traiman had access to that would run counter to the messages conveyed by Clinton and Dagan. Furthermore, I would have liked to know why Clinton and Dagan would seek to “lull the American people as well as the rest of the free world” into a false sense of security. Unfortunately, I was not called upon to pose these questions.