qulevergrrl: I really liked your post right up to the part where you start writing about the Clintons. Dammit.
I know a CFR member and attended some meetings (obviously not the blood ritual ones

). I wouldn't describe it as a liberal think tank that pours money into a PAC.
There are a number of very powerful think tanks in D.C. that are conservative, liberal, or neutral. There are a also a lot of PACS and worse are the 501(c)4 organizations, which have very few reporting requirements.
For example, Trump gave the go-ahead to the 501(c)4 America First Policies to run a $1 million ad campaign against Republican Senator Dean Heller because he publicly announced that he was not voting for the Better Care Reconciliation Act (the Senate's proposed healthcare plan).
More about 501(c)4 organizations:
If America First was a super PAC, as some outlets have incorrectly labeled it, it would be required to disclose its list of donors. But non-profit, 501(c)4 organizations, known as "social welfare organizations," are not legally required to produce such disclosures, making them an extremely attractive option to use for political purposes.
Robert Maguire, political nonprofit investigator at the Center for Responsive Politics, told Business Insider that these 501(c)4 organizations "can operate pretty much like a super PAC even though "they're not supposed to have politics as their primary interest" because "there is essentially no oversight of these groups."
"So they can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from anonymous donors," he said. "They do not file regular financial reports. And they do not report a lot of their ads and things like that to any entity like the FEC or anything like that."
He added that in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision in 2010, which dealt with the regulation of campaign spending by organizations, liberal and conservative nonprofits have taken advantage of the rules surrounding 501(c)4 organizations to spend heavily for and against candidates by using "issue ads," such as America First's Heller ads, as "sort of political ads."
The IRS, which provides oversight over such nonprofits, has revoked the status from next to no organizations among the hundreds which have spent hundreds of millions in similar ways.
"So, there's a reason they form these groups the way they do, and it's because of that," Maguire said. "They basically get all the perks of non-disclosure and a slow filing schedule and all of these things. And it lacks oversight."
Source: Business Insider
A Trump-backed group's effort to attack a GOP senator shows just how far politically active nonprofits can go
Allan Smith
June 30, 2017
Source