InfluenceWatch Podcast

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 allegations of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russian government entities and the checkered history of the FBI.Links: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)Trump-Russia Collusion ClaimsJim BakerFollow us on our Social Channels:Follow us on our Socials:Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

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? Joining us today to discuss the end of Title 42 and her work investigating the role of nonprofit organizations in carrying out the Biden administration’s near-as-makes-no-difference open-border policy is Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center for the Heritage Foundation.Links:Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.Congress Must End the Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien ChildrenBiden Shovels Millions to Nonprofits to Aid His Open-Border Schemes. Congress Must Cut Off Cash SpigotCongress Should Stop Funding the Biden Administration’s Open-BordersFollow us on our Social Channels: Follow us on our Socials:Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

I’m Sarah Lee, and this is the Influence Watch podcast. With news last month that Visa and Mastercard had paused a plan to track gun purchases, and last year’s SCOTUS decision that struck down a New York law that put restrictions on concealed firearms used for self-defense, conservatives seem to be winning on the gun issue. In fact, more women and minorities – and even progressives – are buying guns for self-defense. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 that during the COVID pandemic, gun sales soared, and more than half of those buyers were women. Joining my colleague Mike Watson and me today is Dianna Muller, the founder of DC Project, a women-focused guns rights nonprofit in DC with chapters all over the country dedicated to fighting for the constitutional right to self-defense. Hi Dianna, welcome to the show. Links: DC Project Women for Gun RightsDC Project Women for Gun Rights - Dianna Muller - FounderVisa, Mastercard pause decision to track gun shop purchasesWomen Are Nearly Half of New Gun Buyers, Study FindsSupreme Court strikes down New York gun law, expanding concealed carry rightsThe Policies of Gun Control AdvocacyFollow us on our Socials:Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

I’m Sarah Lee, and this is the Influence Watch podcast. Yesterday, three years after the COVID pandemic lockdowns began, American Federation of Teachers union president Randi Weingarten, who many feel was the public face of extended school lockdowns, testified in front of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Weingarten, who had spent most of her time during the pandemic loudly decrying attempts to reopen schools – calling plans from the last administration to reopen in late 2020 “callous” and “cruel” -- struck a decidedly different tone before Congress, insisting her goal was always getting kids back to in-person instruction, an assertion that was rather hilariously fact-checked by Twitter’s community notes Thursday. Here to discuss the hearing are my colleagues Mike Watson and Parker Thayer. Weingarten TweetFree Beacon TweetBeware Teachers Unions Bearing School Reopening TalkRandi Weingarten says 'Biden transition team’ was first to solicit union’s advice on schools reopening

If the “ESG”—environmental, social, and governance—movement had a guiding text, it would the Proxy Preview. Put out by the corporate social responsibility investing nonprofit As You Sow, the Proxy Preview details all the ESG “shareholder resolutions” that activist shareholders, government worker and labor union pension funds, and left-of-center nonprofits want American businesses to adopt. Joining us to discuss the Proxy Preview and the organizations behind it is our colleague, Capital Research Center research specialist Robert Stilson.Sources: The Proxy Preview: ESG in 2023Influence Watch ESG Activism HubAs You SowFollow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

The Athenai Institute is a college student-led organization that seeks to limit the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on U.S. college campuses. Since their inception in 2020, they have worked to help young people understand not only the often-underreported billion dollar financial relationship between the U.S. academic sector and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but how the CCP exports their surveillance state techniques -- through apps like the infamous TikTok -- that serve to both downplay the regime's human rights abuses for American students, but to keep Chinese students studying in the U.S. in line and loyal to the CCP. Joining Sarah Lee on the podcast today to discuss these subjects and Congress' new moves on China is John Metz, co-founder, current board member, and former president of the Athenai Institute. Links: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/athenai-institute/ https://athenai.org/ https://thepienews.com/news/chinese-student-pro-democracy/ http://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/3.15.23-UPenn-Letter8.pdf Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

National Public Radio is adamant: Nobody is going to make you eat the bugs. In fact, NPR says that believing governments and environmentalist activists want to make you eat the bugs is a conspiracy theory! Oh, and if you don’t want to eat the bugs, you’re little different than Europeans who would not eat indigenous American foods during the period of colonization. But is that really the case? Do major advocacy groups like the World Economic Forum and the broader environmentalist movement in fact want to change what we eat? Joining us to discuss all this is Jim Lakely, vice president and director of communications for the Heartland Institute. Links: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1166649732/conspiracy-theory-eating-bugs-4chan https://capitalresearch.org/article/they-really-believe-youll-be-happy/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/supervillains-gather-in-davos/ https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-great-reset-and-its-critics-part-5/ Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

This week, a spree shooter killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee; our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims and the others affected. Now, even as they have campaigned to take away gun rights in response to similar spree shootings, left-wing interest groups have pushed to remove school resource officers—cops who work directly with the school community—from public schools. Joining me to discuss this anti-police campaign is CRC Senior Fellow Kali Fontanilla, a former teacher in California. Links: https://dcist.com/story/23/02/10/dc-debates-police-in-schools/ Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

What connects the disruptive protests against a conservative judge’s speech to Stanford Law and the arrests of over two dozen demonstrators outside Atlanta? Both involved people aligned with the National Lawyers Guild, a radical-left association of attorneys, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers. Joining me to discuss the NLG is our colleague Robert Stilson, who has written and researched extensively on the history of the Guild. Links: https://capitalresearch.org/article/national-lawyers-guild-part-1/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-lawyers-guild/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-lawyers-guild-foundation/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/atlanta-cop-city-attacks-georgia-police-training-site-63c4cf40 https://www.wsj.com/articles/struggle-session-at-stanford-law-school-federalist-society-kyle-duncan-circuit-court-judge-steinbach-4f8da19e?mod=article_inline Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

To readers of the Capital Research Center or InfluenceWatch, none of the findings reported by New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz and stay-at-home mother, children’s book editor, and political commentator Bethany Mandel in their book Stolen Youth: How Radicals are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation will be that surprising; capture of institutions ranging from school boards to the American Academy of Pediatrics by left-of-center interests will be familiar. But the details and personal accounts Mandel and Markowicz summon to warn parents about the direct challenges by left-wing interests to their children’s well-being are alarming. Joining me to discuss the book is co-author Bethany Mandel. Links: Link to Book: https://store.dailywire.com/products/stolen-youth-by-bethany-mandel-and-karol-markowicz Stolen Youth and the Power of the Powerless: https://capitalresearch.org/article/stolen-youth-and-the-power-of-the-powerless/ Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearch Instagram: @capitalresearchcenter Facebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter YouTube: @capitalresearchcenter