As the nation awaits the final results in a few dozen House races, the subject of gerrymandering has once again reared its head. This little understood – and often misunderstood – process of drawing congressional maps has been a subject of discussion in state legislatures and activist enclaves since the practice began in the early 1800s. Both right and left routinely accuse each other of manipulating the process even while both sides openly try to make it work in their interest. Now, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a dispute in Louisiana over the question of racial gerrymandering and a citizen-led gerrymandering proposal fails in Ohio, the question of gerrymandering is once again in the news. Here to shed light on this most confusing American political process – or tactic, depending on your perspective — are my colleagues Mike Watson and Ken Braun.

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As political parties, candidates, and the increasingly relevant party-aligned but technically independent activist groups that have come to dominate the post-McCain-Feingold world work to draw Americans out to the polls, new innovations have raised the hackles of observers and left citizens asking, “Can they actually do that?” Joining us to make sense of some of the more prominent innovations is Brad Smith, former Chair of the Federal Election Commission, professor of law at Ohio’s Capital University, and chairman of the Institute for Free Speech.

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Will the 2024 election be administered more effectively and more fairly than the 2020 election? There’s reason to believe in many states that it might be, and advocates have made election integrity—making it easy for citizens to vote and hard for politicians to cheat—a key focus of their efforts. Joining us to discuss efforts to protect election integrity in the upcoming and in future elections is Fred Lucas, a reporter for the Daily Signal.

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This week marked the first anniversary of the October 7th, 2023 attacks against Israel by Iranian-backed terrorist groups, most prominently Hamas. Unfortunately, in addition to solemn remembrance, the anniversary was marked by more demonstrations by the activists some might call Hamas-glampers who have come to support irredentist Palestinian nationalism. Our colleague Ryan Mauro, an expert on political extremism, has released a report detailing the pro-terrorist connections and allegiances of over 150 of the groups upholding these demonstrations, and he joins us today to discuss his findings.

Link: Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement

As the country moves through a contentious election season, where the state of the economy and worries over inflation have been a major talking point, a new economic hazard has appeared on the horizon threatening to hammer the American consumer just as Hurricane Helene threatened – and then did – hammer the Southeast: the International Longshoreman Association, a union of dockworkers who manage the transport, loading, unloading, and all other things associated with shipping containers at the nation’s ports, threatened – and then did – go on strike over wages and automation of their jobs. Here to explain what’s happening, what it could mean for the American consumer right before a busy holiday shopping season, and if any deal or government action may be forthcoming are my colleague and usual podcast host Mike Watson, who also happens to be our labor expert, and Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute here in Washington, DC specializing in labor and employment issues.

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Sean Higgins

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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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.

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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.”

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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.

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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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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.

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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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