InfluenceWatch Podcast

By now, the story is familiar. Mark Zuckerberg (https://www.influencewatch.org/person/mark-zuckerberg/) financed the administration of the 2020 elections through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-tech-and-civic-life/). Eric Holder and an army of Democratic lawyers ensured that liberals would compete on favorable district lines and with favorable voting rules, with no small help from a Philadelphia union boss and political fixer who was just convicted of fraud. And liberal “dark money” groups like Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty Fund poured hundreds of millions of dollars from the most prominent liberal political donors—men like George Soros, Hansjorg Wyss, and Pierre Omidyar—directly into supporting Democratic campaigns. In all, it makes one wonder if the 2020 elections were in some way rigged. Not coincidentally, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections is the title of the book that our guest, The Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway, has just released on the 2020 Presidential election and its fallout. Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections by Mollie Hemingway -- https://www.regnery.com/9781684512591/rigged/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

Liberal special interests have effective control of many municipal governments and government arms. The most notable case: school boards. Thanks to “three exploits” of block voting, nonpartisan races, and off-cycle elections, teachers unions gain a structural advantage beyond their ideological support in electing the people who set standards, enforce policies, and fund public school systems. Joining me to discuss how special interest groups take advantage of municipal election structure is Max Eden, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. News Links: State Chapters of National School Boards Group Slam Letter to White House: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/11/02/state-chapters-of-national-school-boards-group-slam-letter-to-white-house-depicting-parents-as-domestic-terrorists/ Move School Board Elections On-Cycle to Restore Local Control: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/move-school-board-elections-on-cycle-to-restore-local-control/ How Government Worker Unions Manipulate Municipal Elections: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/11/05/how-government-worker-unions-manipulate-municipal-elections/ Defund the Education Deep State: https://americanmind.org/memo/defund-the-education-deep-state/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

Last month, the National School Boards Association threw a grenade into debates surrounding local school policy by sending a letter to the Biden administration asking for a federal investigation of behavior at school board meetings, even suggesting the Justice Department invoke the PATRIOT Act anti-terrorism law. Outrage descended from numerous quarters after the Biden Justice Department issued its own directive to convene FBI meetings on the matter; parents, political activists, school officials, and even state level school boards groups denounced NSBA’s actions, with some state associations disaffiliating from the national group—perhaps most prominent being Ohio. Joining me to discuss the Ohio School Boards Association’s decision to disaffiliate from the National School Boards Association is Sara Clark, OSBA's Chief Legal Counsel. Criticizing Teachers Unions and Their Allies? You Might Be A Domestic Terrorist: https://capitalresearch.org/article/criticizing-teachers-union-allies-you-might-be-a-domestic-terrorist/ Ohio School Boards Association Cuts Ties With National Board; Cites Letter To Biden Requesting Federal Assistance: https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/ohio-school-boards-association-cut-ties-with-national-school-boards-association-over-request-for-federal-intervention/530-2142e402-09ea-4616-b901-0434baed8fa3 Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

CRC's Research Director Mike Watson talks to CRC's Research Associate Parker Thayer about the events of Climate Chaos Week. It happened last week when a network of radical environmentalist activists staged five days of demonstrations around Washington, DC, to pressure the Biden administration to impose more fossil fuel restrictions and shut down pipelines, despite already skyrocketing gas prices and a looming energy crisis this winter. The demonstrations received relatively little media coverage, possibly because they repeatedly escalated from peaceful to ugly. Protestors attempted to tear down barricades at the White House, vandalized a statue of Andrew Jackson scrawling “Expect Us” on it in red paint, assaulted police officers while blocking traffic near Capitol Hill, sprayed fake oil on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building, and attempted to storm the Interior Department. The ensuing brawl at a Interior Department doorway led to more than 50 arrests and multiple officers injured. In total, an estimated 400 protestors were arrested during the week of “climate chaos.” Professional activist groups known for their dramatic style like Greenpeace were the primary agitators, but the protests were actually organized far in advance by a little-known group called Build Back Fossil Free. "Who Paid For 'Climate Chaos' Week?" -- https://capitalresearch.org/article/who-paid-for-climate-chaos-week/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

An interesting shift in the debate over electoral politics happened following the 2020 election: Americans began to wonder if the results they were seeing at the polls were reflective of the collective will of the people. Discussions about election integrity followed, and the focus quickly shifted to local elections as a potential source of at least some of the disconnect. CRC's Research Director Mike Watson is an expert at watching the role union organizers and activists play in local and off-cycle elections, and he's written an as-yet-unpublished op-ed explaining how those entities' involvement in local politics can be extrapolated out to explain some of the election integrity concerns at the state and federal level, and the broader -- and frankly radical -- culture shifts Americans are experiencing today. Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

We’ve covered Mark Zuckerberg’s financing of the administration of the 2020 elections through the Center for Tech and Civic Life before, but our guest today adds a provocative analysis to the evidence that the Facebook chief deserves a thank-you card from President Biden. In a piece originally posted at the Federalist and, as we record on Thursday October 14, the cover story of the New York Post, William Doyle of the Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute asserts that “The 2020 election wasn’t stolen — it was likely bought by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men pouring his money through legal loopholes.” William joins me to explain his thesis. The 2020 Election Wasn’t Stolen, It Was Bought By Mark Zuckerberg: https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/12/the-2020-election-wasnt-stolen-it-was-bought-by-mark-zuckerberg/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

The Ford Foundation: While created by a famed family of arch-capitalists, for decades the institution—long, though likely no longer, the largest private foundation in the country—has been the financial backbone of the radical left. And now some are proposing taking radical action to counter its influence; Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio J.D. Vance spitballed on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program: “Why don't we seize the assets of the Ford Foundation, tax their assets, and give it to the people who've had their lives destroyed by the radical open borders agenda?” Joining me to discuss what to do about the Ford Foundation and the broader Big Philanthropy is my colleague Mike Hartmann, director of Capital Research Center’s Center for Strategic Giving and co-editor of the Philanthropy Daily Giving Review blog. Michael Hartmann: https://capitalresearch.org/person/michael-e-hartmann/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch Special Guest: Michael Hartmann.

Who are the “Eco-Right,” and what do they stand for? They will tell you that they want to bring a market-based and conservative-minded approach to conservation challenges, but my colleague Hayden Ludwig questions that narrative in a new report for Capital Research Center titled “Rise of the Eco-Right.” Looking into the funding, staffing, and policy positions undergirding the “Eco-Right,” Hayden exposes what he calls “a web of overlapping boards and shared donors—all in service to a destructive and misleading agenda.” Rise of the Eco-Right: https://capitalresearch.org/article/rise-of-the-eco-right/ Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch Special Guest: Hayden Ludwig.

“Black Lives Matter”: Never has such an uncontroversial statement covered for a more radical political movement. That’s the thesis of "BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution," a new book exposing the radical intellectual undercurrents and leaders of the institutional Black Lives Matter campaign, by Mike Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Mike joins me today to discuss his book. BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution: https://www.heritage.org/blm Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch

“Woke capital”—social liberalism, especially focused on critical race theory and its intellectual children “antiracism” and “equity” carried out by businessmen rather than politicians or traditional nonprofit activists. Much has been written about it, but what does “woke capital” look like from the inside? That’s the subject of "Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam," a new book written by biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has seen the growth of woke capital from inside his own corporate boardrooms. Mr. Ramaswamy joins Mike Watson to discuss his book. Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam (https://www.vivekramaswamy.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjw-ZCKBhBkEiwAM4qfF16fam13INg2uf-UyCmMDFGV7KfBS69Gkaeo_-17GtAhcHTnv0xnJxoCvIUQAvD_BwE) Woke Capitalism in Woke, Inc. (https://capitalresearch.org/article/woke-capitalism-in-woke-inc/) Shareholder Activism: Woke Capitalism from the Inside (https://capitalresearch.org/article/shareholder-activism-woke-capitalism-from-the-inside/) Can “Woke” Boardroom Culture Be Broken? (https://capitalresearch.org/article/can-woke-boardroom-culture-be-broken/) Subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice at: https://influencewatch.fireside.fm/ • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenter • Twitter: https://twitter.com/capitalresearch • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capitalresearchcenter • YouTube: https://bit.ly/CRCYouTube • Rumble: https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all • Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/capitalresearch