InfluenceWatch Podcast

Immigration policy is an absolute mess—such a mess, that it can be hard for non-specialists to know even what is going on. And that’s where I for one sit regarding the so-called “CHNV parole” program, a Biden administration initiative to admit half a million or so people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua on so-called “parole authority” to temporary informal legal status in the United States. Is this legal? Are there appropriate security protections? Which groups support this program? What, in fact, is going on? We invite Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s border security and immigration center, to help get to the bottom of these questions.Links: Biden’s Precarious Parole Programs for Illegal Immigrants: The BorderLineTo Stop Administrative Abuse, Congress Must Narrow Scope of Immigration ParoleChairman Green on DHS Temporarily Halting Unlawful CHNV Mass-Parole Program: “Vindicates Every Warning We Have Issued”Nearly 530,000 migrants came to US 'legally,' paroled into US under controversial Biden program: CBPCommentary Fraud Permeates Biden-Harris’ Illegal Alien ‘Sponsorship’ Program: The BorderLineFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

We’ve covered “megaphone philanthropy”—the emphasis some left-wing activist groups and their multi-million or even billion-dollar funders place on street-protest imagery, often featuring people yelling through bullhorns—and the Ford Foundation, one of the Left’s multiple billion-dollar funders. Our colleague Ken Braun joins us today to link them, as he has just concluded a deep investigation of the Ford Foundation’s grantmaking. Links:Hoovering Up Henry Money: Free Money Versus Free EnterpriseHoovering Up Henry Money: Revolutions and BullhornsHoovering Up Henry Money: Crime and DemocracyHoovering Up Henry Money: Shaping the NewsHow the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: The Ford FoundationThe Ford Foundation’s Ugly, Warped View of America: Megaphones and Militancyhttps://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/ford-foundation/Follow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

The Internal Revenue Service rule regarding charities in voter registration is explicit: “voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.” Now questions are being raised about whether the Voter Participation Center, a charitable organization that is part of the left’s “voting machine,” is giving “evidence of bias” after the Washington Free Beacon revealed through Meta Platforms’ advertising disclosure tools that VPC was excluding fans of “NASCAR, golf, Jeeps, or other interests and hobbies typically associated with Republican men” from seeing its voter-registration advertisements. Here to discuss this and other stories from the world of dubiously nonpartisan nonpartisan civic engagement are CRC president Scott Walter and Parker Thayer, author of CRC’s special report on “How Charities Secretly Help Win Elections.”Links: Do You Like NASCAR? This 'Non-partisan' Voter Registration Group Doesn’t Want To Help YouVoter Participation Center (VPC)How Charities Secretly Help Win ElectionsThe Voter Participation Center: A Tax-Exempt Turnout Machine for DemocratsFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

BlackRock, Inc., a multinational investment company and one of the world’s largest asset managers with a $10 trillion portfolio, has been deeply involved in pushing the politically aligned environmental, social, and governance – or ESG – agenda for the last several years. Now secretaries of state in Mississippi and Indiana have hit the company with summary cease-and-desist orders accusing them of fraud for making “false and misleading statements” to investors related to their ESG push. Joining us today to explain what BlackRock’s been up to and what states can do to push back is Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales.Links: Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales Reports Cease & Desist Order Issued Against BlackRock for Alleged Securities Fraud Related to ESG Investment StrategyBlackRock: Nonprofit Allies“Progressive” ESG Shareholder Activism: Understanding ESG ActivismFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Protesting, always a feature of the 1st Amendment right to free speech in America, has become quite the fashion lately among the American left, possibly even more than it was during the height of the anti-war protests of the 1960s.But these new protests – from enflamed government buildings to tent cities on campus, to blocked traffic on major streets, to terrorist flag-waving congregations – seem to be different somehow. Less about engaging a right to speak freely and more about shutting down discourse. Joining me today to discuss the groups behind these modern melees is Asra Q. Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book, “Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Undermining America’s Freedom.” She is a founder of the Pearl Project, a nonprofit currently building the Malign Foreign Influence Index portal that examines the groups fomenting anti-Semitism. And she’s been on the ground covering the protests from DC to the DNC in Chicago. She joins us today. Links: Dispatches from Chicago: Unmasking the Web of ‘Malign Foreign Influence’ Behind #MarchonDNC‘Hamas Is Comin’: Following the Money at C and 3rd Streets NWFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Hollywood and the entertainment industry are leftist; it has been since before actual Communists tried to infiltrate it in the 1930s and 1940s. But if you’ve noticed that entertainment has shifted from merely having a liberal worldview to being indistinguishable from Big Philanthropy-funded leftist agitprop, that might be because a big proportion of it is Big Philanthropy-funded leftist agitprop. Joining me to discuss the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program are my colleague Robert Stilson and Thomas Pack of Palladium Pictures. Links: How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: The Ford FoundationHow the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Direct Film FundingHow the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Film FestivalsHow the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Outreach, Networks, and EducationHow the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: Why Ford’s Strategy WorksHow the Ford Foundation Took Over StorytellingFollow us on our socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Left-wingers have been losing at the Supreme Court in recent years thanks to the intellectual success of the conservative legal movement, audacity in Republican management of judicial confirmations, and the aid of the Fates. But progressives are not taking these setbacks lying down; the hot new advocacy cause, led by the classically Everything Leftism-branded Arabella Advisors spinoff Demand Justice, is “court reform,” a euphemism for rigging judicial results by manipulating the composition of the Supreme Court, which has been set by law and custom without alteration since 1869. Joining us to discuss Demand Justice and the leftist crusade for court-packing is our colleague Parker Thayer. Links: Just Court-Pack a MajorityDemand Justice, the “Dark Money” Group Behind a $10 Million Campaign Against the Supreme CourtDemand JusticeFix the Court (FTC)Follow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

Environmental, social, and governance or ESG: What is it, what does it mean for the public? Our guest today, Paul Mueller of the American Institute for Economic Research, argues that ESG strategies “undermine freedom, political self-determination, and economic prosperity.” He joins us to explain how and why.Links:The Threats Posed by Environmental, Social, and Governance PoliciesESG Activism20 Years of ESG ActivismThe Religiosity of ESG Activists Through the Prism of Amazon Shareholder MeetingsFollow us on our Socials: Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

There’s an ongoing policy war being waged between those who favor a weather dependent wind and solar approach to energy consumption and those who look to nuclear power and efficient electrical grids as the answer to future energy needs. And the dividing line between the two isn’t as easy to determine along ideological lines as people might think. While left-leaning charitable organizations and activists do currently fund a push toward the weather-dependent approach, there are some outliers. And while right-leaning legislators have long paid lip-service to nuclear power and efficiency in the energy sector, their behavior hasn’t always matched their words. Two new films explore this battle. Juice, a docuseries by energy journalist Robert Bryce and Tyson Culver, looks at the debate over nuclear power and government-induced inefficiencies in the power grid. And Climate: The Movie by British filmmaker Martin Durkin explores climate alarmism and the false claim that the scare tactics are based in science. Our colleague Ken Braun, who has seen both and reviewed one, is here with my colleague Mike Watson and me today to discuss all things energy.Links:Film Review of Juice: The Reliability ErrorJuice: Power, Politics & The Grid Is Out!Climate: The MovieTwitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter

How did universities become dens of sympathy for ideologies and factions implacably opposed to America and her allies, most recently demonstrated by the “Hamas glamper” protests at various elite campuses? Many have argued that funding of American universities by rival foreign governments and allies of America’s enemies, perhaps most prominently the People’s Republic of China and the State of Qatar, helped create the situation in which higher education now finds itself, and the House of Representatives is taking action to further scrutinize these donations. Joining us to discuss foreign funding of higher education and the DETERRENT Act proposed to scrutinize it is Angela Morabito of the Defense of Freedom Institute.Links: Colleges hide foreign sponsors of antisemitismPRESS RELEASE: DFI Releases Statement on Bipartisan Passage of DETERRENT ActComment on the Department’s Proposed Agency Information Collection Activities; Comment Request; Foreign Gifts and Contracts Disclosures Twitter: @capitalresearchInstagram: @capitalresearchcenterFacebook: www.facebook.com/capitalresearchcenterYouTube: @capitalresearchcenter