InfluenceWatch Podcast
The podcast where we go beneath the surface to reveal the web of connected influence, money, and motivation driving the news, sourced primarily from our website InfluenceWatch.org, the Capital Research Center's online encyclopedia of the donors, non-profits, and influencers driving politics. You can watch the video version of the podcast at: http://bit.ly/2rnQygY
Episodes
April 26, 2024 • 26 mins
I’m fond of saying—it’s in my Twitter bio—that “there’s always a labor angle.” From bad MLB umpiring to anti-anti-Hamas demonstrations, Big Labor is there. So I am the least surprised person to discover that the left-wing environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) activist investing movement is backstopped in part by and operates in service of Big Labor and its Everything Leftist agenda. Joining me and my colleague Rober...
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April 19, 2024 • 23 mins
It might be America’s worst teachers’ union—and knowing American teachers’ unions, that’s saying something. Since its takeover by a radical-left-wing, militant caucus in 2010, the Chicago Teachers Union has pushed a radical-left agenda through numerous strike actions and controversially aided the mayoral campaign of Brandon Johnson, a former lobbyist for the union, in the city. Just last month, the union allegedly used school time ...
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April 12, 2024 • 25 mins
Journalism is changing, with nonprofit outlets, especially on the left, playing an increasing role in how information gets to the people. Just this week, the press has praised States Newsroom, the Arabella Advisors-seeded network of DEI-focused state-level journalism outlets, and a senior editor at the government-and-Big-Philanthropy-funded National Public Radio has published an article detailing how the outlet shifted from orthodo...
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April 5, 2024 • 30 mins
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 ...
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March 29, 2024 • 30 mins
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 th...
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March 21, 2024 • 35 mins
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 b...
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March 15, 2024 • 32 mins
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 o...
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March 8, 2024 • 22 mins
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 ...
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March 1, 2024 • 30 mins
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. Join...
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February 23, 2024 • 28 mins
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...
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February 16, 2024 • 20 mins
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 Wok...
Links:
The Architects of the Woke U.S. Military: Military Wok...
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February 9, 2024 • 23 mins
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/capi...
Link:
Safeguarding Our Elections
Follow us on our Socials:
Twitter: @capitalresearch
Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/capi...
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February 2, 2024 • 26 mins
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 u...
Links:
Turmoil at the Democratic Socialists of America
Explaining “Everything Leftism”
Follow u...
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January 26, 2024 • 28 mins
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
F...
Links:
Juice the Series
Opposition to Nuclear Energy
Robert Bryce
F...
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January 19, 2024 • 23 mins
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...
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January 12, 2024 • 23 mins
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 br...
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December 29, 2023 • 28 mins
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://capit...
Links:
https://capitalresearch.org/article/best-of-2023-how-charities-secretly-help-win-elections/
https://capit...
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December 15, 2023 • 28 mins
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...
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December 8, 2023 • 30 mins
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 Foun...
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December 1, 2023 • 19 mins
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 P...
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