Who Funds that?

Hello, I’m Michael Watson and this is the InfluenceWatch Podcast. Like the 2020 elections, which saw then-President Trump’s coalition prove unexpectedly resilient amid a horrible national environment dominated by COVID despite his loss to Joe Biden, the 2022 elections did not go as expected…but this time the other way, with Biden’s Democrats defying the apparent “fundamentals.” While others will d...

Following the 2020 election, and one very strange Time Magazine article detailing a “shadow” campaign of left-leaning operatives that “saved” the 2020 election by “fortifying” it, conservative groups began to get serious about election integrity. Some efforts to re-instill faith in American elections had pre-existed 2020, but news reports of poll watchers being barred from carrying out their dutie...

Today, we meet ERIC—the Electronic Registration Information Center. Created with the aid of the left-of-center Pew Charitable Trusts to help states maintain their voter rolls, recent years have seen it expand into voter registration drives. With those drives comes concern about ERIC’s connections to left-wing figures. Joining me to discuss ERIC and its ties to the political left is my Capital Rese...

For the past several weeks, Iranians—especially Iranian women—have taken bold stands against the nation’s theocratic government, discarding compulsory headscarves and cutting their hair. This isn’t the first time that mass demonstrations have contested the control of the Iranian regime; can they succeed this time? Joining me to discuss the situation in Iran and its relation to American policy is G...

Since the Supreme Court decided the Janus v. AFSCME case and held that forcing government workers to pay union fees was an unconstitutional infringement of their free speech rights, union-aligned governments have come up with some creative approaches to supporting their government worker union allies. California hasn’t even bothered with creativity: The state’s ruling Democrats enacted legislation...

Expanding access to high-speed internet: It’s a trendy cause that the COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures made urgent. And when government acts with urgency, bad ideas proliferate; in broadband, the bad idea is municipal government control of the broadband network. Joining me to discuss the drawbacks and problems with this approach are my colleague Parker Thayer and Jarrett Skorup of the Mackin...

“Who decides? Congress or the executive?” is a key question underlying many prominent legal interpretation disputes. One such dispute, over defining “waters of the United States,” has trapped one family that sought to build a home on their Idaho property in limbo for over a decade—and two trips to the Supreme Court. Joining me to discuss Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency and the other wor...

These days, amid debates over critical race theory and radical gender theory in school curriculums as early as elementary school, parents might be wondering what alternative resources might be available to them. Joining me is Jill Simonian, Director of Outreach for PragerU Resources for Educators & Parents and PragerU Kids, to discuss some of PragerU’s resources. Action Gudie: https://assets.c...

In 2002, President George W. Bush stood astride the post–September 11 political world and Republicans looked poised to do the unthinkable and strengthen their positions in Congress in a midterm year. Yet liberal scholars John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published a provocative thesis: A new Democratic majority would “emerge” by the end of the decade. Traditional middle-class and working-class Democrats...

Today’s guest is not the only person to have left California for Florida in the past few years. Kali Fontanilla left her teaching job in Monterey County after her school district pushed critical race theory and aligned ideologies and now runs the Exodus Institute, a homeschooling group based in Florida. She joins us to tell her story and discuss how education got to the present moment.

This week, the New York Times reported that a “little-known donor” — industrialist Barre Seid — had given a $1.6 billion “windfall” to a new conservative group known as Marble Freedom Trust in the network of Leonard Leo, the conservative activist most notable for his involvement in the Federalist Society and support for the judicial selections of former President Donald Trump. The Times made much...

We’ve discussed government worker unions and their left-wing politics on the podcast before, but what can workers do to protect themselves against union activities they disagree with? Americans for Fair Treatment is helping educate public sector employees about their constitutional rights around union membership. Joining me to discuss some recent government worker union abuses and Americans for Fa...

This week, FBI agents conducted a search at the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump. We’ll leave it to others to speculate on the justifications, causes, and ramifications of the unprecedented law enforcement action, but should the historical record of the FBI itself provide a cause for increased scrutiny or increased trust in the propriety of the search? Joining me to discuss the F...

We’ve discussed “woke capital” on the podcast before with author Stephen Soukup and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. But now we turn to a related topic: Environmental, Social, and Governance — "ESG” – investing. ESG strategies adopted by fund managers—perhaps most notably BlackRock—can place left-of-center social policy goals as equal considerations with investors’ returns in investing decisions. Maki...

We’ve heard a great deal lately about education in America, from discussions about school choice post-COVID restrictions to whether or not curriculum is being developed that helps children learn to succeed at something more than simply activism. Our guest today has a keen interest in all these issues and has written a book called, “Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for All Children to Overcom...

Who are the “Legal Observers” in green caps and vests who appear whenever the Left is engaged in a public demonstration? They are probably members of the National Lawyers Guild, a radical-left association of attorneys, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers. Joining me to discuss the NLG is my colleague Robert Stilson, who recently wrote an in-depth history of the group for InfluenceWa...

Were any liberal organization not to weigh in on a Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that invented a nationwide right to abortion, one might expect organized labor—ostensibly dedicated to improving workers’ wages and working conditions—to be that abstaining faction. If one expected that, one would have been wrong; Big Labor, in keeping with a longstanding practice of “soc...

You know Soros and Steyer, Buffett and Bloomberg, but you may not be familiar with one of the most important left-of-center billionaires of all: Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. Through vehicles such as the Democracy Fund and its affiliated “social welfare” Democracy Fund Voice, Omidyar supports left-of-center and anti-populist causes to the tune of millions of dollars per year that are increa...

Seventy-five years ago last week, the U.S. Congress overrode Harry Truman’s veto and enacted the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act. The law corrected imbalances of power among individual employees, employers, and labor unions that had emerged after the passage of the original Wagner Act in 1935 that had culminated in the largest strike wave in American hi...

Since the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn Roe v. Wade, a wave of vandalism and arson has hit pro-life advocacy groups and crisis pregnancy centers that promote alternatives to abortion. Claiming responsibility for the attacks is a collective calling itself “Jane’s Revenge.” Joining us to discuss who, or what, Jane’s Revenge might actually b...

The actions of Big Tech companies—most prominently Twitter and Facebook’s decision to ban then-President Donald Trump from their platforms—have led conservatives to consider invoking anti-trust powers of which they have long been skeptical to crack down on these companies’ power. Joining me today is an advocate of that approach, Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project, to make the case for...

After teachers unions staked their political positions and the future of public education on keeping schools closed—excuse me, open for virtual learning—and students in masks, a “parents revolt” has erupted nationwide, with parents and their advocates taking a greater interest in schooling issues. Some in the education field have also become alarmed at ideologically charged teaching influenced by...

The actions of Big Tech companies—most prominently Twitter and Facebook’s decision to ban then-President Donald Trump from their platforms—have led conservatives to consider invoking anti-trust powers of which they have long been skeptical to crack down on these companies’ power. Joining me today is a skeptic of that approach, Paul Steidler of the Lexington Institute, to discuss the case against a...

Last year, we had author Stephen Soukup on the podcast to discuss his book The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business. In recent months, “woke capital” has taken a few major hits: heterodox billionaire Elon Musk has bid to purchase Twitter with a promise to expand free speech on the platform, Florida’s state government responded to an intervention in social p...

By fighting to keep schools closed—excuse me, open for virtual learning—for a full year in the jurisdictions in which they hold the most power, teachers unions sought to expand their power. Now public-school enrollments are tumbling and evidence is piling up that the school closures harmed students’ mental health and expanded the racial achievement gaps the unions claim to seek to close. Joining m...