Who Funds that?

In this episode: Since the enactment of the National Labor Relations act of 1935, American collective bargaining law in the private sector has relied on exclusive monopoly representation at the enterprise level. In layman’s terms, a single labor union forcing all employees in a designated portion of an employers’ work force to accept a single union negotiated contract. The unions and their allies...

In this episode: For over forty years, residential and commercial property taxes in the State of California have been limited by a law known as “Proposition 13,” passed by voters in response to skyrocketing tax bills from steadily increasing property-value assessments. But while California—which hasn’t had a Republican “trifecta” control of its government since Ronald Reagan was governor—was never...

In this episode: We talk about the Capital Research Center’s new report on Arabella Advisors, The Shadow Over America, which details a little-known $635 million “dark money” network and is a follow-on to our report from last year, Big Money in Dark Shadows, that initially charted the massive Arabella empire. Joining us today is the report’s author, CRC’s Hayden Ludwig, and another expert on Arabel...

In this episode: For two years former FBI Director Robert Mueller, acting as a Justice Department special prosecutor, conducted an investigation to determine if “individuals related to the Trump campaign are witting of or coordinating activities with the government of Russia related to the 2016 presidential election.” Despite breathless media speculation about the inevitable forthcoming proof of “...

In this episode: We are joined by John Hinderaker, Minnesotan and President of the Center of the American Experiment, a free market think tank holding the line against the state’s historic populist tendencies. We’ll discuss the Project Veritas allegations of illegal ballot harvesting Minnesota, ruminate on how true defunding the police has never been tried, and talk a little bit about Big Labor in...

In this episode: We sit down to hash out some of the issues of the day as they relate to the research and work CRC is currently engaged in.

In this episode: Hayden Ludwig, an investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center fills in for Mike Watson. With us today is Kevin Mooney, a reporter for the Daily Signal and the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania. We’ll be discussing CRC’s new report, The Shadow Over America: Arabella Advisors’ $635 Million Empire, pulling back the curtain on a vast web of liberal “dark money” influ...

In this episode: In recent weeks we have covered the actions of Big Philanthropy, and for most of the modern history of philanthropy there has been no bigger force than the Ford Foundation. Today, we are joined by Sloan Rachmuth, Executive Director of Pen and Shield Media, to discuss the foundation’s recent activities supporting the rise of the radical Left, the history of the Ford Foundation, and...

In this episode: Since the initial demonstrations following the police-custody death of George Floyd, foundations have pledged over one billion dollars to support efforts to combat alleged “systemic racism.” In practice, that means more foundations have followed the path of the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts and abandoned the business-friendly pro-capitalist out...

In this episode: They say that in warfare, amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk logistics. With that in mind, I’m joined by Mike Hartmann, Capital Research Center Senior Fellow and Director of CRC’s Center for Strategic Giving to talk advocacy logistics, specifically the multi-billion-dollar world of private foundations that sustains much of the Professional Left, the position of the Ri...

This week I’m joined by my colleague Sarah Lee to discuss how recent developments in the investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators illustrates the problems with the administrative state, ask how American political parties might work to improve the quality of their nominees and what they stand to gain from doing so, and investigate the Lincoln Project, a Democratic Super PAC with pretentions...

In this episode: In this episode: Ninety years ago this week, George Soros was born; in the last year for which data are available, he spent $708 million through his two principal Open Society Foundations, mostly on left-progressive activism. Today, I’m joined by my Capital Research Center colleague Shane Devine, who joined us earlier this year in Episode 115 to discuss the left-progressive billio...

In this episode: If it walks like a labor union, talks like a labor union, acts like a labor union, and is funded by labor unions is it a labor union? That is the question our guest Maxford Nelsen, Director of labor policy at the Freedom Foundation, is asking about Working Washington. A Service Employees International Union front group active in the state of Washington. Freedom Foundation, alongsi...

In this episode: With the world upside down, we are trying something new this week. Sarah Lee, Communications and External Relations Director at CRC, interviews this podcast’s regular host Michael Watson on the coronavirus lockdown and what we can expect in the future. We discuss school closures, union power grabs and more! Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencew...

In this episode: The demands are clear, government run Medicare for all, state welfare taxes and income tax hikes, and defunding the police. Those are just three of the demands that one teacher’s union, United Teachers Los Angeles, have set out as conditions to return to classrooms this fall. We are joined by Daniel DiSlavo, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and professor of political scien...

In this episode, we look at Marxist-inspired organizations looking to exploit the coronavirus pandemic to fundamentally transform America’s largely private housing market, we expose the institutional foundation behind the curtain of the national pro-abortion movement, and we take a 30,000-foot view of the rising militancy of Big Philanthropy and how it powers the broader Left. Subscribe to the pod...

In this episode: The message of the film Slay the Dragon is simple, straightforward, and honest: A grassroots movement of Michigander “Voters Not Politicians” outspent by an incalculable margin won a huge victory to defeat evil Republican plots to ensure minority rule. However, that third epithet—honest—cannot be supported by the tangled web of myths, misinformation, and political ignorance that S...

In this episode: We round up some developments related to the organizations behind the Black Lives Matter organization, teachers unions set themselves as a principal roadblock to re-opening American economic and social life, and vote-by-mail leads to shenanigans in Indiana and New Jersey. Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https:...

In this episode: Nationwide demonstrations continue against perceived American racial and ethnic groups. And while left-wing activists in the metropolitan press focus on Leftist wish lists and mob-initiated iconoclasm, our guest offers a different answer to improve the material and social circumstances of Black Americans. Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solution,...

In this episode, NBC’s factually challenged “News Verification Unit” tries to get a conservative website de-funded, Big Labor makes it harder to get fired for committing police brutality than for writing about it with less-than-impeccable left-progressive language, and we attempt to unpack the organizational structure of Black Lives Matter. Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: h...

In this episode: Since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in police custody, the country has been rocked by debates and demonstrations over police misconduct. And while radicals on the far-left demand the defunding or abolition of commentators across the ideological spectrum have noticed the problem of police unions, which often stand in opposition to accountability for the bad apples...

In this episode, we’ll continue to cover the ongoing protesting, rioting, and looting and talk about how – although it may feel like we’re in unchartered territory – the country has actually seen this kind of upheaval before. And we’ll tell you a little bit about the primary groups involved in some of the violence. We’ll also discuss the blatant hypocrisy of journalists and legislators encouraging...

In this episode, we interview Capital Research Center’s own investigative researcher Hayden Ludwig on his five-part series on Margaret Sanger and her outsized influence on the modern left. In the first part of the series, “The Birth of Birth Control,” Ludwig introduces Sanger as a proponent of population control and birth control, parts of her history that are well-known and formed the basis for t...

In this episode, we’ll cover just how much Democrats love the things they profess to hate as we reveal they’ve outspent Republicans in the 2020 election cycle using “dark money” to pay for political ads; and discuss their recent embrace and affection for the devil they know, Super PACS. Next, we’ll revisit the vote-by-mail furor and tell you just what states like Michigan and Pennsylvania are will...

In this episode: As the COVID-19 death rate continues to decline in the U.S., some states are beginning the process of cautiously re-opening for business. This has not stopped other states like California from embracing a complete vote-by-mail scheme in preparation for an absentee election in the Fall. Nor has it stopped federal Democratic legislators from attempting to mandate a vote-by-mail syst...