Global Policy, Corruption, Economic Crimes, Fronting, Whistleblowers

Aside from the brazen corruption of the CGD/Norway relationship, the report focuses on three other Washington DC biggies: the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, all of which receive substantial chunks of cash from rich overseas donors, primarily from the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. For example, the Times notes:

"The United Arab Emirates, a major supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the center’s gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House. Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to make a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world."

CSIS was a major supporter of the Iraq war (both of them), as were the Gulf sheikdoms that have been funneling money into it: CSIS has also been a major bulwark of the War Party when it comes to Iran.

Brookings, the grand old man of Washington thinktanks, denies all that cash has any meaning as far as its "product" is concerned, but it’s hard to take this seriously when it publishes papers like this and sponsors events like this one, where Qatar’s funding of extremist groups like ISIS and other radical Syrian rebel factions is downplayed in favor of putting the onus on Kuwait. Qatar has been a major backer of the decidedly non-"moderate" wing of the Syrian rebel movement, and while Brookings has published writers skeptical of the idea of arming and/or funding them, a bit of research shows that their overwhelming bias has been pro-rebel, e.g. "Arm the Syrian Rebels. Now."

Brookings has also been a major source of pro-Israel propaganda in the United States via their Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Funded by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American television and film producer – originator of the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" – whose wealth is estimated at $3 billion, the Saban Center has consistently supported the Israeli party line and acted as a "nonpartisan" complement to AIPAC’s Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Quite naturally, the Saban Center’s Kenneth Pollack was a major supporter of the Iraq war amongst the policy wonk crowd.

Dual Israeli-American citizen Saban makes no bones about the goal of his giving: he has said that his number one priority in giving money to thinktanks like Brookings is to "strengthen the US-Israeli relationship." As a New Yorker profile of Saban put it, he counts "three ways to be influential in American politics": "make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets." Saban owns Univision and has repeatedly tried to buy the Los Angeles Times. He is also one of the top donors to the Democratic party, and will no doubt be a major contributor to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

At a recent Brookings Institution dinner, Saban engaged in a "two-cheeked kiss" with Qatari Prime Minister Jaber Al Thani. What unites these two somewhat disparate figures is their fulsome financial support for Brookings, which – like any whore – sells its services to the highest bidder.

While Brookings, one of Washington’s most established courtesans, charges higher prices, and thus relies on high-rollers like Qatar and Saban, the relatively new Atlantic Council takes the quantitative approach: the Times reports the Council has accepted donations from at least 25 countries since 2008." Among the donors: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Hungary, the Czechs, the Slovaks, Sweden, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. This donor list isn’t surprising: the Atlantic Council, as befits its name, is NATO’s unofficial lobbyist in Washington. It has been particularly militant around the Ukraine issue, pushing the NATO-crat party line that the fascist coup leaders in Kiev are really Jeffersonian democrats and stoking the embers of the cold war.

CSIS, long a mainstay of interventionist policymaking, actually posted a list of the governments that have filled its coffers, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, NATO – and the United States of America! Yes, your tax dollars are going to fund the efforts of CSIS co-director and senior fellow Thomas Sanderson and CSIS "Transnational Threats" head honcho Arnaud de Borchgrave in their efforts to torpedo a possible peace agreement with Iran. We don’t know how much Uncle Sam doles out to CSIS because they refuse to divulge specific amounts – and of course we peons have no right to know.

The extent of the problem of foreign governments buying up American thinktanks like house flippers buy up foreclosures is bigger than even I imagined. As the Times puts it:

"The scope of foreign financing for American think tanks is difficult to determine. But since 2011, at least 64 foreign governments, state-controlled entities or government officials have contributed to a group of 28 major United States-based research organizations, according to disclosures by the institutions and government documents.

What little information the organizations volunteer about their donors, along with public records and lobbying reports filed with American officials by foreign representatives, indicates a minimum of $92 million in contributions or commitments from overseas government interests over the last four years. The total is certainly more."

As Todd Moss, COO of CGD, said "after being shown dozens of pages of emails between his organization and the government of Norway": "Yikes"!

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires foreign lobbyists to register and report their activities to the federal government, has never been enforced except selectively: US allies are given a free pass, and the "foreign aid" gravy train flows freely and fast. This makes perfect sense, given our status as a global empire on which the sun never sets: our foreign clients and protectorates are constantly begging for handouts, intervention against their enemies, and special economic privileges of one sort or another, and the government would no more shut down this profitable industry than it would voluntarily dismantle the Empire itself.

NATO’s eastern European members want US troops and bases on their soil, ostensibly to "protect" against the nonexistent threat of a Russian invasion – and it’s only natural for them to go running to the Atlantic Council to lobby on their behalf. Qatar wants US aid to Syria’s extremist rebels – and off they go to their bought-and-paid-for "scholars" at Brookings to write policy papers and sponsor events pushing US intervention in the Syrian snake-pit.

Corruption – there is no other word for the buying of America’s thinktanks by rich foreigners – is part of the price we pay for our empire. It won’t stop until we return to our roots as a republic that "seeks honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none."

AHT/HRJ

Ms Gillard is giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption today and is being questioned about a slush fund linked to her former boyfriend, Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) official Bruce Wilson.

She has repeated her assertion in evidence that her former boyfriend did not pay for renovations to her home. She has also defended her decision to do free legal work for him.

Just before lunch, Ms Gillard was asked about the purchase of a property in Fitzroy, Melbourne for which she prepared the power of attorney, and was allegedly bought using money from the slush fund.

Ms Gillard attended the auction in 1993 with Mr Wilson but she said she did not remember how the deposit was paid.

“I don’t have any recollection from the time about how the deposit was paid,” she said.

Mr Wilson allegedly bought the property using money from the slush fund.

The commission was due to resume at 2pm.

NO SIGNFICANCE

Ms Gillard said her legal work to create an incorporated association for her boyfriend in 1992 had no particular significance to her at the time.

The association was later turned into a $400,000-plus slush fund run by Mr Wilson.

Ms Gillard said that while her legal advice on the setting up of an incorporated association for Mr Wilson, “has come to assume a great deal of significance in the years since, at the time of these events and my provision of advice, it had no particular significance.

“This did not stand out among the number of legal matters I advised on, as it has come to now,” Ms Gillard said.

When asked whether she ever discussed the association with Mr Wilson, Ms Gillard said: “As couples do in relationships from time to time, we’d discuss matters at work - if you had a particularly good day or a particularly bad day, but no we did not discuss the association”.

TIME MACHINE

Ms Gillard said she had not checked with the union to confirm it had given approval for the use of its name as part of the name of the incorporated association, the Australian Workers’ Union Workplace Reform Association.

When asked about whether, on reflection, she should have contacted the AWU, she said: “None of us get to go in a time machine and go backwards. Obviously given the opportunity I would do things differently”.

MISLEADING?

Counsel assisting the royal commission Jeremy Stoljar SC asked Ms Gillard whether she thought that the association’s name was “misleading”.

“There was nothing in any of this back at the time which caused me to conclude in any way that the name of the association or anything else about the association would be used to mislead people,” Ms Gillard said.

She said that while she didn’t recall where the name came from, after the best part of 20 years, she believed it would have come from instructions to her from Mr Wilson or former AWU official Ralph Blewitt. It was noted that Mr Wilson has claimed to have come up with the name.

NOT PART OF UNION

Despite the name, Ms Gillard said it was not proper for the association to be part of the union.

“It is not proper for union moneys to be used to fund union elections,” Ms Gillard said.

“If it had been part of the union, clearly it couldn’t play a role in union elections.”

FREE ADVICE COMMON

Ms Gillard said in the early 1990s Slater and Gordon was a smaller firm that was heavily reliant on plaintiff personal injury matters.

She said it was common do work for the unions for free in the hopes of receiving referrals for personal injury matters.

A file was not always opened for matters that the firm would not be charging for.

“It was always a judgment call on whether to open a file for work for which you would not charge a fee,” Ms Gillard said.

In hindsight, she said it would have been better for Slater and Gordon if she had opened a file for the work she did to set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association.

But when quizzed about whether it was a “substantial job” that she completed for free, she said: “I did more substantial jobs than this for free for trade unions at Slater and Gordon”.

She said it was a job that would have taken “three, four, five hours work at most”.

Ms Gillard said it was her understanding that Slater and Gordon had set up incorporated associations for other unions but that she did not recall doing so for any other unions.

When asked about whether she was “predominantly communicating” with her then boyfriend about the work, she said that she was “more regularly in contact” with Mr Wilson, but also dealt with Mr Blewitt.

NO KNOWLEDGE OF BANK ACCOUNT

Ms Gillard said that while she knew there was an intention to set up a bank account for the Workplace Reform Association, “I had no knowledge at that time or knowledge at any time about the banking arrangements”.

Mr Wilson raised with her that he wanted to set up a fund that would support him and his team in their re-election efforts in Western Australia, but she said she had no knowledge that a fund had been set up until media interest in the fund had emerged in recent years.

THE HISTORY

The former prime minister confirmed that she met Mr Wilson in 1991 and they started dating late that year.

She also confirmed she received a $40,000 advance from Slater and Gordon, when she was made a salaried partner in lieu of a pay rise. She used the money to buy a property in Abbotsford.

Ms Gillard has always denied allegations that money from the slush fund was used to pay for renovations to her home.

Or that she knew that money from the fund was used to buy a house in Mr Blewitt’s name.

Federal Court judge Bernard Murphy, who was Ms Gillard’s boss at the firm, told the commission on Tuesday he became aware of rumours around Slater and Gordon’s offices in late 1995 that renovations to Ms Gillard’s Melbourne home had been paid for by funds from the AWU.

In her supplementary statements, Ms Gillard rejected previous evidence to the commission by a builder, Athol James, who said she had told him Mr Wilson was providing cash to pay for renovations to her home in Abbotsford, Victoria, in 1994.

“I never said to Athol that Bruce Wilson was paying for his work and I did not obtain cash from Bruce Wilson for the work Athol James undertook,” Ms Gillard said.

Ms Gillard also rejected claims by a former union employee, Wayne Hem, that he deposited $5000 into Ms Gillard’s bank account on Mr Wilson’s orders.

Ms Gillard said she had no recollection of ever receiving money in her account from Mr Wilson.

“All payments made for renovations on my property were from my own money,” she said.

Ms Gillard arrived almost two hours early for her appointment with the royal commission, getting there about 7.45am. She managed to avoid the media and was driven into an underground car park.

The hearing was not scheduled to start until 9.30am.

The Hon. John Dyson Heydon AC QC has been appointed to lead the royal commission.

The Commissioner has been asked to provide a report of his findings and recommendations on or before 31 December 2014.

The hearing in Sydney continues.

The inspector general of government has described chronic absenteeism from Parliament by MPs as a quiet form of corruption.

In her 2014 Report on Tracking Corruption Trends in Uganda, IGG Irene Mulyagonja laments that despite rampant dereliction of duty, absentee MPs continue to receive their full salaries and entitlements. Launched at Hotel Africana recently, the report also points out that this form of “corruption” seems to be gaining acceptance as normal.

The report notes that sometimes Parliament has failed to pass crucial legislations due to lack of quorum. The full effect of the rampant absenteeism spilled into public view recently, when the Constitutional court nullified the Anti-Homosexuality Act because it was passed without quorum.

The report also quotes Gen Moses Ali, the deputy leader of government business in Parliament, who attacked MPs last December for dodging parliamentary sittings. Ali argued that MPs were engaging in a form of ‘quiet corruption.’

“A House of 300 MPs could not sit on Thursday for lack of quorum. When it comes to payment of salaries, all are paid, whether they attend or not. That is corruption, yet nobody talks about it. If you take taxpayers’ money when you do not attend, sign the register and go away, it is corruption,” Gen Ali said, according to the report...