Who Funds that?

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 sug...

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 u...

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 Sociali...

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 unsuspe...

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 alleg...

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 thes...

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 als...

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...

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...

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...

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” el...

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...

This week, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) announced a special session of the legislature to consider various proposals related to public safety. But unusually for a reliably conservative and Republican state—Lee won 65 percent of the vote in his 2022 election campaign and both chambers of the state legislature are supermajority Republican—the session will consider gun control measures, especially...

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks schooling and school reform itself are due for a rethink. In his brief (less than 150 pages, excluding endnotes and acknowledgements) The Great School Rethink , Hess lays out his view on a new way to address the problems of American education, all informed by decades in the education policy field. Hes...

We’re trying something new for this week: A round-up of stories and discussions not long enough by themselves to carry a podcast, all put together. Joining me to discuss solar panels and China, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s spousal hypocrisy, the burgeoning scandal around COVID origins, and ESG investing’s effects on the energy sector is my colleague Ken Braun. Links: Solar Panels Are Three Times M...

“When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.” That was the eyebrow-raising statement Vice President Kamala Harris made to a Baltimore audience last week; while the Biden White House amended the transcript to indicate she intended to say “reduce pollution,” the environmentalist movement has more than i...

As bad and left-wing as teachers unions can be, for some union activists and leftist agitators the normal level of leftism just isn’t enough. For that reason, the Democratic Socialists of America, the nation’s most prominent far-left political group, has pitched a pamphlet encouraging its members to become teachers and partnered with teachers unions and teachers-union-aligned politicians. What doe...

Normally, when the government is sued the public expects the government to defend itself. But what if the government doesn’t defend itself, because it wants the same policy ends as the activists suing it? Then you get “sue-and-settle,” a practice that U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican of Iowa) says “is used by federal agencies and like-minded special interest groups to impose new and burdens...

Over the past few years, conservatives have begun to push back against the powerful “environmental, social, and corporate governance” or ESG investing movement. Helping lead that charge has been today’s guest, Will Hild of Consumers’ Research joining me with my colleague Robert Stilson. Links: About BlackRock Bank of UnAmerica Yes, America, There Is a War on Cars The Proxy Preview: ESG in 2023 Fol...

George Soros, the famous liberal billionaire investor-philanthropist, is over 90 years old, which would motivate anyone in his position to think about his succession. This week, the Wall Street Journal profiled the heir apparent: Soros’s son Alexander, who claims to be even “more political” than his father. Joining me to discuss Alex Soros and the future of the Soros family advocacy-philanthropic...

The private automobile defined post-World War II America, liberating the masses from the regimentation of railroad schedules and the limitations of foot transportation. But the left has never liked the motorcar, or at least the social changes it brought. It liberated middle-class Americans from core-city governments by expanding the suburbs, helped turn renters into homeowners, and lessened public...

A new union-curious faction of conservatism is growing in the run-up to the 2024 election. Leading the charge is a group of otherwise solidly conservative legislators (you’ll recognize the names) and policy wonks who have the ear of venerable conservative think tanks (you’ll recognize these names, too) who insist that if conservative candidates are going to win, they must reimagine 75 years of uni...

If I could provide just one piece of free advice in public advocacy, it’s this: Don’t openly say you messed up on an on-record call with a reporter—you might as well be bleeding in a tank full of piranhas. But the principal officer of Fix the Court, a liberal organization spun out of the Arabella Advisors “dark money” empire advancing “transparency” changes to the Supreme Court as part of a libera...

This week, Justice Department Special Counsel John Durham issued the final report on his investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, better known as the “Russia collusion investigation” targeting the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Joining us to discuss the broader “Russiagate” scandal and the Durham Report is Ken Braun, who wrote InfluenceWatch’s extensive profile on the unsubstantiated a...

Title 42, an emergency policy allowing U.S. authorities to send border-crossers back whence they came (usually Mexico) on public-health grounds, is ending with the COVID-19 public health emergency. And with the Biden administration extremely lackadaisical , to put it mildly, in its approach to general immigration law enforcement, what does the end of Title 42 portend at the US-Mexico border? Joini...