Anybody who has scoffed at the proliferation of t-shirts bearing the image of Che Guevara, the famous associate of Fidel Castro who among other things oversaw purges of political opponents following Castro’s seizure of power, on college campuses knows that sectors of “elite” American society have an unhealthy appreciation for the repressive Communist dictatorship that has ruled Cuba since 1959. But for the subjects of today’s program, the Venceremos Brigades, backed by infrastructure support from the radical-left wing of Big Philanthropy, their unhealthy appreciation becomes outright support, as members travel to the Communist-ruled island to offer labor in exchange for ideological formation. Joining me to discuss the Venceremos Brigades’ history, their influence, and what they tell us about America’s radical left are my colleagues Robert Stilson and Ken Braun.

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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.

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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.

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Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales Reports Cease & Desist Order Issued Against BlackRock for Alleged Securities Fraud Related to ESG Investment Strategy

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.

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How the Ford Foundation Changed Entertainment: The Ford Foundation

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.

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I’m Sarah Lee and this is the Influence Watch podcast. Joining me today is my colleague Parker Thayer because sitting in the hot seat is our regular host Mike Watson, and we’re going to be grilling him on a 5 part series he wrote on the American elite, about which there has been much discussion over the last several years. They are a semi-mythical class made up of an American socio-political creature who, depending on your perspective, either needs to be heavily taxed to pay their fair share or are currently occupying the seats of power and actively trying to create a permanent majority. So just what defines the “elite” in American culture, which way do they vote, and are they ascending or descending on the political stage? Here’s hoping Mike can shine a light on what he says makes the American elites so WEIRD.

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Is it, or at least should it be, charitable to fund political-advocacy protest over controversial sociopolitical issues? Our colleague Robert Stilson calls it “megaphone philanthropy,” and perhaps the prototypical practitioner of “megaphone philanthropy” is the Marguerite Casey Foundation, the $800 million funder of some of the most radical activists within American politics’ Overton Window. Robert joins us to discuss Marguerite Casey Foundation and its “megaphone philanthropy.”

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NewsGuard: It’s a teachers-union approved tool purporting to rate information sources on how “nutritious” to one’s information diet they are, but the teachers’ union seal of approval should lead readers to question just what the NewsGuard “Nutrition Label” is actually rating. Joining us to discuss NewsGuard and its links to the left is Illinois-based conservative activist John Tillman.

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You’ve heard of Mike Bloomberg; those longer in years might remember Tom Steyer; deep readers of Capital Research Center might remember Fred Stanback; the billionaire environmentalist donor is a repeating figure. But you’ve probably not heard of C. Frederick Taylor, a reclusive California billionaire who drives millions to the environmentalist movement. Joining us to discuss Taylor, his Sequoia Climate Foundation, and the effect he’s having on environmental policy is our Capital Research colleague Ken Braun.

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The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to ensure public access to federal government documents, including written communications by senior officials. But the law has been wantonly circumvented; perhaps most notably by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “homebrew” email server, but more recently it has come to light that aides of former National Institutes of Health official and de facto COVID lockdown czar Anthony Fauci openly wrote about their FOIA circumvention. Joining us to discuss FOIA, how officials try to evade it, and what can be done about it is veteran journalist (and member of the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame) Mark Tapscott.

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Note: This episode contains discussions of subjects that may not be suitable for children. Parental discretion is advised.

Everybody’s doing it—sex education. And as American sexual mores have grown more permissive, the organizational institutions devising sex education curriculums have pushed the Overton Window of sexual permissiveness to its maximum. Joining us to discuss the rise of contemporary sex education and the institutions behind it is Kali Fontanilla, Senior Fellow at the Capital Research Center.

This week we cast our eye to the Pacific Coast, with inquiries into two major left-wing funders in the Golden State. First, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is suing the Tides Foundation; even as we say “Let them fight,” we must also ask what these two major left-wing institutions are fighting about. And then we introduce the California Endowment, one of many major left-wing grantmakers of which the average listener might not yet have heard. Joining us to discuss these major California institutions is Thomas Buckley, senior fellow at the California Policy Center.

https://californiaglobe.com/fr/blm-sues-tides-foundation/
https://thomas699.substack.com/p/pennies-for-health-care-millions
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/california-endowment/
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/black-lives-matter-foundation/