It is increasingly well known, including through the work of our Capital Research colleague Parker Thayer exposing the Voter Registration Project, that left-wing billionaires and institutional interests use what are supposed to be charitable organizations to help win elections. But an Executive Order by President Joe Biden putting federal agencies into the voter-registration game has people asking whether federal taxpayers are now being dragooned into this “nonpartisan” electioneering. Joining u...
Apr 05, 2024•31 min•Ep. 311
Have you ever wondered how and why Big Labor became such a driving force in American politics, and how it’s come to be associated with the American left and the Democrat party? Many may be surprised to learn that in the Trump-era – for lack of a better expression -- some conservatives have begun embracing labor unions, and unions have, in return, begun openly donating to Republican politicians. But when one learns the history of the public and private labor union sector in this country, it’s imm...
Mar 29, 2024•30 min•Ep. 310
Congressional debate over the social media app TikTok has brought the subject of China’s influence operations into sharp focus for many Americans who might have known China was a geopolitical adversary but may not have known just how close they are to home, that they may have been quite literally in their child’s pocket as they sent them out the door.But TikTok is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what China has been up to stateside, much of it in conjunction with lobbying and ...
Mar 21, 2024•36 min•Ep. 306
Wind power sounds lovely; supposedly free, indeed infinite “renewable” clean energy from the predictable patterns of moving air. Except it isn’t quite so simple. Turbines catch fire with disquieting frequency. The amount of land needed to produce electricity is quite high. And there’s a political protection racket keeping even clean-generating rivals out of the market and wind generators on the government dole. Here to explain is our colleague Ken Braun, who follows the energy and environmental ...
Mar 15, 2024•32 min•Ep. 308
In 2022, Patagonia outdoors-wear brand owner and self-described socialist Yvon Chouinard and his family transferred ownership of the company to Holdfast Collective, an LLC that controls 98 percent of the shares, and the Patagonia Purpose Trust, an entity that holds two percent of the shares and allows Chouinard’s family to retain effective control of Patagonia. Holdfast Collective was announced as an environmentalist project, with Chouinard claiming, “Earth is now [Patagonia’s] only shareholder....
Mar 08, 2024•22 min•Ep. 307
You’ve probably heard of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing radical faction we most recently discussed in episode 302 for its financial problems. But the DSA is just a relatively small part of a worldwide movement for Marxist-inflected Everything Leftism led by a former Greek government minister and having current and former heads of state among its current and former leadership: The Progressive International. Joining us to discuss the left of the international left, its ties to...
Mar 01, 2024•31 min•Ep. 306
In 1965, future U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), then an Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Johnson administration, issued a report expressing alarm at rising rates of unwed childbearing, especially among Black Americans. In the intervening nearly six decades, the situation among Black Americans and white Americans alike has only gotten worse, and the left-progressive movement that has risen in influence has challenged the very idea that marriage and family formation, at least on hi...
Feb 23, 2024•29 min•Ep. 305
Whether or not it is the cause of recruiting shortfalls or not, rising left-wing ideology in the military is cause for concern. But who is pushing the military to adopt widespread social-liberal activist policies? Fred Lucas, a reporter from the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, joins us to discuss the organizations pushing the military to sign up to Everything Leftism. Links: The Architects of the Woke U.S. Military: Military Woke Complex The Architects of the Woke U.S. Military: Common Defen...
Feb 16, 2024•20 min•Ep. 304
As state legislatures convene in what is likely to be a competitive federal election year, what can states do to ensure their elections are fairly conducted? Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project joins us to discuss his organization’s recommendations for safeguarding U.S. elections. Link: Safeguarding Our Elections Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter...
Feb 09, 2024•24 min
All is not well at the Democratic Socialists of America, the most prominent and powerful openly socialist political advocacy organization in America. Longtime activists are quitting, the budget isn’t balancing, and Everything Leftism is propagating. Joining me to discuss the turmoil at the DSA are my colleagues Sarah Lee and Robert Stilson. Links: Turmoil at the Democratic Socialists of America Explaining “Everything Leftism” Follow us on Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalres...
Feb 02, 2024•26 min•Ep. 302
If you’re like me, electricity is something that just comes out of the wall and turns on the lights. If you’re like our guest, energy policy expert and creator of the docuseries Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid Robert Bryce, energy and electricity are so much more—he joins Ken and me to discuss the realities of the power we all use and how it got to our appliances. Links: Juice the Series Opposition to Nuclear Energy Robert Bryce Federal Judge Sides With Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wi...
Jan 26, 2024•29 min•Ep. 301
In theory, the case is a simple question: Must fishing rig owners pay the government for the mandatory government inspectors who attend those rigs? But in deciding that question, the Supreme Court must consider a more complicated one: How much “deference” do the courts owe to federal regulatory agencies’ interpretations of the law? The prevailing rules, known as Chevron deference after a Supreme Court case involving the oil company, demand wide deference to agencies, but that is now being questi...
Jan 19, 2024•24 min•Ep. 300
You would think that nobody remotely close to power in the United States would praise the barbarous attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel of early October 2023. But one very prominent activist group’s leader did: The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, whose national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the American Muslims for Palestine convention that he “was happy to see the people of Gaza break the siege on October 7.” Joining me to discuss the background...
Jan 12, 2024•23 min•Ep. 299
It is the final week of 2023, a time when many will reflect on the year rapidly passing by. Joining me to reflect on the past year in Big Philanthropy and its influence in public policy are two of my senior colleagues: Capital Research Center president Scott Walter and CRC Center for Strategic Giving director Mike Hartmann. Links: https://capitalresearch.org/article/best-of-2023-how-charities-secretly-help-win-elections/ https://capitalresearch.org/article/best-of-2023-everybody-votes-campaign-m...
Dec 29, 2023•28 min•Ep. 298
In the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s military response, America’s higher education institutions have been riven by radical pro-Palestinian demonstrations and a donor revolt against administrations that seem to be indifferent to antisemitism. To give some background on the strife in higher education and how we got to the point where Ivy League presidents could not explicitly condemn calls for genocide before Congress, the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald jo...
Dec 15, 2023•29 min•Ep. 297
As some follow the siren song of statism promoted by activist groups funded by liberal foundations and push for stronger and more coercive labor unions, the National Right to Work Foundation stands athwart, defending the right of all workers to choose whether union representation is right for them or not . Joining us to discuss the state of Big Labor and the right, as well as other labor-related issues is National Right to Work Foundation vice president Patrick Semmens. Links: NLRB Rules Union O...
Dec 08, 2023•30 min•Ep. 293
Are prominent environmentalist groups working on behalf of foreign powers—and wouldn’t that mean they have to declare it under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? That is the question that Senator Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas) and Representative James Comer (Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight Committee) are asking in light of some groups’ penchant for criticizing the United States while going easy on the People’s Republic of China. Joining me to discuss these concerns a...
Dec 01, 2023•19 min•Ep. 295
Since 2018, Big Philanthropy has offered great praise for one particular politician without an office to hold: Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat who claimed her 2018 loss in an election for governor was marred by improprieties. Her claims of supposed “voter suppression” brought millions from liberal foundations and mega-donors into the nonprofit voter registration group she founded, New Georgia Project, and directorships at prominent left-wing groups like the Center for American Progress and M...
Nov 17, 2023•25 min•Ep. 292
As if the national press were not liberal enough or sufficiently committed to the national left-wing agenda, Big Philanthropy is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to make local journalism also align with the left-wing agenda…er, be “revitalized.” The Press Forward initiative, announced by the left-wing MacArthur Foundation, may claim to be “independent of ideology,” but the funders list suggests that the goal is to make local news look more like the New York Times , if not The New Republi...
Nov 10, 2023•24 min•Ep. 293
Since the horrific Hamas terrorist massacres in southern Israel in early October, American observers have been horrified by something that really should not be happening: Mass marches of left-wing students expressing solidarity with the “Palestinian cause,” if not the Hamas regime that perpetrated the attacks itself. But a close analysis of the ideological currents in academia should have warned us that something like what we have seen on campus would, in fact, come to pass. Joining me to discus...
Nov 03, 2023•30 min•Ep. 292
They are the “Left of the Left”: The Democratic Socialists of America, a socialist political faction influential in the Democratic Party. Who are they, what do they stand for, and where do they want to take American politics? Those are the questions that our colleague Robert Stilson set out to answer in Capital Research Center’s latest magazine serial, “The Left of the Left: The Democratic Socialists of America.” Links: The Left of the Left: What Is the DSA? The Left of the Left: A Radical Agend...
Oct 27, 2023•26 min•Ep. 291
I’m Sarah Lee, and this is the Influence Watch podcast. With me today is my colleague Ryan Mauro, an expert on terror funding and the movements of terror cells across the Middle East and around the world. It’s good he’s with us today because last week, as the world watched in horror as violent terrorists aligned with Hamas led an incursion into Israel from Gaza and committed mass murder of unsuspecting Israeli civilians living near the border. Some of the discussion centered on terrorism funding...
Oct 20, 2023•26 min•Ep. 290
The Arabella Advisors-managed network of liberal dark money groups that includes the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, and North Fund continues to attract attention. Not all of it is good: The District of Columbia Attorney General subpoenaed information from Arabella Advisors concerning the electoral activities of the Arabella-managed nonprofits, and it was alleged that the father of disgraced cryptocurrency trader and Democratic political donor Sam Bankman-Fri...
Oct 06, 2023•30 min•Ep. 286
The United Auto Workers union has called rolling strikes against the Detroit Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) since mid-September. The labor action, and other strikes including the strikes that have struck Hollywood films and television, have rekindled debate over the proper role and powers of organized labor in the United States. Joining me to discuss these topics are my colleague Parker Thayer and Dominic Pino, the Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow at National Re...
Sep 29, 2023•21 min•Ep. 288
My colleague Ken Braun, who joins me today, has written extensively on the sheer scale of the environmentalist organizations opposed to emissions-free nuclear energy, which claim at least $2.3 billion in annual revenue. But what does their anti-nuclear activity look like in practice? Joining us today to discuss that is Hugo Krueger, a nuclear engineer from South Africa working in France who is also a public advocate for the technology. Links: The Richest Opponents of Carbon-Free Nuclear Energy H...
Sep 22, 2023•34 min•Ep. 287
It’s September: The kids have gone back to school, the oppressive heat dome is beginning to lift, and the sports calendar has turned from baseball (for those of us whose teams have woefully underachieved compared to their expectations) to football. But not all who take an interest in gridiron goings-on are interested in the on-field product: From team names to taking a knee, the NFL is surrounded by left-wing activists that want to push politics. Joining me to discuss the politics of pro footbal...
Sep 15, 2023•30 min•Ep. 284
Those of us old enough to remember the panic over Y2K – a panic that was, as it turns out, mostly driven by fear of the unknown – see a certain resemblance between the year 2000 and today as artificial intelligence – popularly known as AI -- joins the party. Its emergence has been met with both excitement and trepidation. Will it make mundane tasks easier? Will it help our kids do better in school? Will large language models infect our discourse with bias? Are the graphics programs going to chan...
Sep 08, 2023•31 min•Ep. 285
The weather is unreliable, and often unpredictable—anyone who has grumbled at the weatherman’s forecast knows this. But increasingly, environmentalists demand that only the weather can generate the electricity that modern people need to maintain their standard of living. Zero-emissions is not enough: My colleague Ken Braun, who joins me today, extensively categorized the scale of environmentalist opposition to zero-emission nuclear energy. Links: Opposition to Nuclear Energy The Richest Opponent...
Sep 01, 2023•27 min•Ep. 284
Electioneering by charities—“501(c)(3)s” in the trade—was forbidden, to begin with. But that has not stopped liberal Big Philanthropy from using charitable organizations for activities that dance along that legal line to help Democratic and left-wing politicians get elected. My colleague Parker Thayer recently released an extensive report on the Voter Registration Project, one such “charitable” election-winning scheme, he joins my colleague Robert Stilson and me to discuss his findings. Links: R...
Aug 25, 2023•24 min•Ep. 283
Do Americans appreciate foreign nationals using their money to help Americans decide who should lead them? Honest Elections Project Action recently asked people, and—no prizes for guessing this—they don’t. Joining us to discuss this and other findings from their national poll on election-administration issues is Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project. Links: Election Integrity Measures Remain Popular The Left-Wing Dark Money Behind the Push to Kill the Filibuster InfluenceWatch Podcast #181...
Aug 18, 2023•21 min•Ep. 282
