InfluenceWatch Podcast

Hello, I’m Michael Watson joined by Robert Stilson and this is the InfluenceWatch Podcast. There’s an odd thing about the loud demonstrators protesting Israel in the year and a half since the Hamas attacks on the country in October 2023: They don’t like America much either. And now, there’s documentary proof to go along with the suppositions derived from protest literature, marchers’ signs, and ideological manifestos. Our colleague Ryan Mauro, an expert on political extremism and Middle East policy, has detailed the increase in anti-American and anti-law-enforcement sloganeering by pro-Palestinian groups since the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.How “Pro-Palestinian” Protest Groups Promote Anti-AmericanismOrganizational ExamplesPrevalence of Charities Among Radical Groups

While we at Capital Research Center may not have a favorite Internal Revenue Service regulation, we do find one to be particularly relevant to our work on nonprofits in the public policy process: “Restriction of political campaign intervention by Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations.” Long story short, if you’re a public charity, you’re free to be ideological, but you cannot endorse or support candidates for office. And New Georgia Project, the charitable-nonprofit voter outreach group of serial Georgia candidate Stacey Abrams, is on the hot seat for allegedly breaking that regulation, with the group paying a state fine for campaign finance violations, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee asking the IRS to revoke the group’s tax exemption, and the state Senate investigating the Abrams-New Georgia relationship. Campaign finance expert Hans Von Spakovsky joins us to discuss what’s going on down in Georgia.New Georgia Project Leader Resigns After Ethics FineStacey Abrams-founded nonprofit faces crackdown threat from House GOP's top tax writerGeorgia Senate targets Stacey Abrams voting organization in new investigation

Sixty billion dollars—that is the estimate of foreign funding of American universities that Americans for Public Trust released earlier this week. Of that $60 billion, $20 billion went to just ten prestigious schools including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Yale, and Columbia, among others. Joining us to discuss the findings and the implications of the foreign funding of these major universities is Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of APT.Links:New report sounds alarm on 'staggering' amount of foreign money pouring into US universitiesNew Study Reveals ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Groups Promote Violence and Anti-AmericanismLinda McMahon to Education May Choke Foreign Influence Operations on Campus

To quote our colleague and guest for the week, Parker Thayer, the nonprofit voter registration industry “might not sound like a particularly exciting or important topic, and in an ideal world it wouldn’t be either, but unfortunately, it’s both.” Earlier this week, Parker testified to the Michigan House Election Integrity Committee on the nonprofit voter registration industry, which he has studied extensively. He joins us to discuss his testimony to the legislature and his research on nonprofit voter registration.Links:Nonprofit VOTE (IW)Voter Registration Project (IW)Partisan Charities Failed to Win in 2024 (VIDEO)Corrupt Voter Registration Scheme PersistsThe Winged Nike of Pennsylvania Ave

We here at CRC try not to wade into the more salacious soap opera stories that quite frankly infest the DC political world. But when a story intersects with work we already do, well, we’re not above getting down into the dirt a little. Such is the case with the report that dropped a few days ago that Connecticut liberal Senator and Biden mouthpiece Chris Murphy has recently left his wife and taken up with leftist activist Tara McGowan, late of the Obama administration and Courier Newsroom, a local news propaganda peddler that pushes political advertisements under the guise of local journalism. Watson has covered Courier fairly extensively so we decided to invite another Courier watcher Mark Hemingway of Real Clear Politics on to discuss what a union between Murphy and McGowan might mean beyond just a lot of really flattering, AI-generated pieces in quote “local news outlets."

Addiction breaks lives, breaks families, and on a mass scale can break societies, but breaking an addiction is quite difficult. There are two main schools of thought for how to help addicted people: Abstinence, or the cessation of drug (or alcohol, or other addictive vice) use, or “harm reduction”—the practice defined by the National Institutes of Health as “interventions aimed to help people avoid negative effects of drug use.” But is “harm reduction” a good policy and a good use of federal government money? Joining us to discuss his report on harm reduction spending by federal agencies is our colleague Robert Stilson.Links: DOGE and HHS: Harm ReductionBiden Admin To Fund Crack Pipe Distribution To Advance 'Racial Equity'The Weird Ideas and Shoddy Science Behind Free Government Crack PipesOmnibus Spending Bill Includes Ban on Government-Funded Crack PipesInside the East Coast’s Largest Open-Air Drug MarketDispensing Drug ParaphernaliaFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Today a Senate Committee voted to advance former Oregon Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s controversial pick for Labor Secretary, to a full floor vote, so Americans would do well to begin preparing for an impending onslaught of labor-related news, especially since, as my colleague Mike Watson will likely make clear in this episode, the new courtship of Big Labor coming from the right made the unlikely pick of Chavez-DeRemer a possibility. Adding to the drama was the no vote from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who, not coincidentally, earlier in February introduced the National Right to Work Act, a conservative-backed bill that among other things, makes paying union dues voluntary. Joining us to discuss that development, and his organization’s work on the act itself, is Jace White, Director of Federal Affairs at the National Right to Work Committee. Links: Dr. Rand Paul Reintroduces National Right to Work ActNational Right To Work FoundationWhy Is Josh Hawley Bringing Obamanomics Back from the Grave?It doesn’t go well when Republicans put Big Labor in the CabinetFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

How much did the U.S. government spend on illegal migrants and dubious asylum claimants over the past four years? That is the question that many people are asking after Elon Musk, who is the frontman for the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency teams, claimed that FEMA had spent $59 million on “luxury hotels” to house migrants. Unfortunately for taxpayers, as our guest Simon Hankinson of the Heritage Foundation has noted, that expenditure is only the tip of the iceberg of taxpayer support for the migration surge under the Biden administration.Links: DOGE Discovers the Biden-Mayorkas Illegal Migration Funding MachineFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

The new Trump administration has set its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the institutional bureaucracy with a mandate to streamline government operations and target wasteful spending or spending contrary to administration policy. Here at Capital Research Center, our “DOGE Files” are highlighting federal grantmaking to nonprofit organizations that DOGE, the rest of the administration, and Congress may find wasteful or contrary to sound policy. Joining us to discuss their investigations are our colleagues Parker Thayer and Robert Stilson.Links:The DOGE FilesDOGE and the Department of EducationDOGE and the Department of LaborDOGE and the Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentDOGE and Department of Agriculture’s “Climate Smart” GrantsFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Big Philanthropy and the so-called “good government” groups that it funds have a “solution” (I’m making air-quotes) to partisan gerrymandering: The “independent redistricting commission.” With funding from left-of-center groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the National Redistricting Action Fund, the SEIU, the NEA, and the Quadrivium Foundation, a supposed political neophyte named Katie Fahey (whom media reports placed at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Election Night event) campaigned to establish one in Michigan during the 2018 election. Fahey won, and then 13 citizens went about drawing Michigan’s congressional and state legislative districts after the 2020 Census. Joining my Michigan-based colleague Ken Braun and I to discuss her experiences inside Michigan’s redistricting commission is Rebecca Szetela, who served as the Commission Chair from September 2021 through March 2022. Links: Michigan’s Racist Redistricting “Reform”Michigan independent redistricting commission members on opposite sides of Ohio Issue 1Voters Not Politicians (VNP)The State of Redistricting 2022: The Coming CommissionsFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter