Wind power sounds lovely; supposedly free, indeed infinite “renewable” clean energy from the predictable patterns of moving air. Except it isn’t quite so simple. Turbines catch fire with disquieting frequency. The amount of land needed to produce electricity is quite high. And there’s a political protection racket keeping even clean-generating rivals out of the market and wind generators on the government dole. Here to explain is our colleague Ken Braun, who follows the energy and environmental issues for Capital Research Center.

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In 2022, Patagonia outdoors-wear brand owner and self-described socialist Yvon Chouinard and his family transferred ownership of the company to Holdfast Collective, an LLC that controls 98 percent of the shares, and the Patagonia Purpose Trust, an entity that holds two percent of the shares and allows Chouinard’s family to retain effective control of Patagonia. Holdfast Collective was announced as an environmentalist project, with Chouinard claiming, “Earth is now [Patagonia’s] only shareholder.” But Americans for Public Trust found something curious in some FEC filings: Holdfast Collective is using some nonprofit groups it created and manages Arabella Advisors-style to make contributions to Democratic Super PACs, and the paperwork is questionable. Here to explain is Caitlin Southerland, the executive director of Americans for Public Trust, which filed a complaint asking the Federal Elections Commission to investigate.

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You’ve probably heard of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing radical faction we most recently discussed in episode 302 for its financial problems. But the DSA is just a relatively small part of a worldwide movement for Marxist-inflected Everything Leftism led by a former Greek government minister and having current and former heads of state among its current and former leadership: The Progressive International. Joining us to discuss the left of the international left, its ties to America, and its broader influence is Robert Stilson, who wrote a four-part series on the Progressive International for CapitalResearch.org.

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In 1965, future U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), then an Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Johnson administration, issued a report expressing alarm at rising rates of unwed childbearing, especially among Black Americans. In the intervening nearly six decades, the situation among Black Americans and white Americans alike has only gotten worse, and the left-progressive movement that has risen in influence has challenged the very idea that marriage and family formation, at least on historical American lines, is even a good thing. Joining us to discuss this trend and its effects on American society is Delano Squires, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family.

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Whether or not it is the cause of recruiting shortfalls or not, rising left-wing ideology in the military is cause for concern. But who is pushing the military to adopt widespread social-liberal activist policies? Fred Lucas, a reporter from the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, joins us to discuss the organizations pushing the military to sign up to Everything Leftism.

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As state legislatures convene in what is likely to be a competitive federal election year, what can states do to ensure their elections are fairly conducted? Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project joins us to discuss his organization’s recommendations for safeguarding U.S. elections.

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All is not well at the Democratic Socialists of America, the most prominent and powerful openly socialist political advocacy organization in America. Longtime activists are quitting, the budget isn’t balancing, and Everything Leftism is propagating. Joining me to discuss the turmoil at the DSA are my colleagues Sarah Lee and Robert Stilson.

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If you’re like me, electricity is something that just comes out of the wall and turns on the lights. If you’re like our guest, energy policy expert and creator of the docuseries Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid Robert Bryce, energy and electricity are so much more—he joins Ken and me to discuss the realities of the power we all use and how it got to our appliances.

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In theory, the case is a simple question: Must fishing rig owners pay the government for the mandatory government inspectors who attend those rigs? But in deciding that question, the Supreme Court must consider a more complicated one: How much “deference” do the courts owe to federal regulatory agencies’ interpretations of the law? The prevailing rules, known as Chevron deference after a Supreme Court case involving the oil company, demand wide deference to agencies, but that is now being questioned in a case before the Supreme Court which might reverse or constrain Chevron deference. Joining us to discuss this is Paige Gilliard, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

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You would think that nobody remotely close to power in the United States would praise the barbarous attacks by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas against Israel of early October 2023. But one very prominent activist group’s leader did: The Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR, whose national executive director, Nihad Awad, told the American Muslims for Palestine convention that he “was happy to see the people of Gaza break the siege on October 7.” Joining me to discuss the background, influence, and future of CAIR are my colleague Ryan Mauro and Dexter Van Zile, managing editor of the Middle East Forum’s Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).

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It is the final week of 2023, a time when many will reflect on the year rapidly passing by. Joining me to reflect on the past year in Big Philanthropy and its influence in public policy are two of my senior colleagues: Capital Research Center president Scott Walter and CRC Center for Strategic Giving director Mike Hartmann.

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In the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s military response, America’s higher education institutions have been riven by radical pro-Palestinian demonstrations and a donor revolt against administrations that seem to be indifferent to antisemitism. To give some background on the strife in higher education and how we got to the point where Ivy League presidents could not explicitly condemn calls for genocide before Congress, the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald joins us.

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As some follow the siren song of statism promoted by activist groups funded by liberal foundations and push for stronger and more coercive labor unions, the National Right to Work Foundation stands athwart, defending the right of all workers to choose whether union representation is right for them or not. Joining us to discuss the state of Big Labor and the right, as well as other labor-related issues is National Right to Work Foundation vice president Patrick Semmens.

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Are prominent environmentalist groups working on behalf of foreign powers—and wouldn’t that mean they have to declare it under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? That is the question that Senator Ted Cruz (Republican of Texas) and Representative James Comer (Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight Committee) are asking in light of some groups’ penchant for criticizing the United States while going easy on the People’s Republic of China. Joining me to discuss these concerns are my colleague Sarah Lee and Kevin Mooney, who wrote about Cruz and Comer’s questioning for the Daily Signal.

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Since 2018, Big Philanthropy has offered great praise for one particular politician without an office to hold: Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat who claimed her 2018 loss in an election for governor was marred by improprieties. Her claims of supposed “voter suppression” brought millions from liberal foundations and mega-donors into the nonprofit voter registration group she founded, New Georgia Project, and directorships at prominent left-wing groups like the Center for American Progress and Marguerite Casey Foundation. But now Politico, the trade newspaper for D.C. political types, has released a long expose on poor management and financial practices at New Georgia Project when it was flush with cash following Abrams’s loss. Joining me to discuss these developments are my colleagues Parker Thayer and Sarah Lee.

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As if the national press were not liberal enough or sufficiently committed to the national left-wing agenda, Big Philanthropy is throwing hundreds of millions of dollars to make local journalism also align with the left-wing agenda…er, be “revitalized.” The Press Forward initiative, announced by the left-wing MacArthur Foundation, may claim to be “independent of ideology,” but the funders list suggests that the goal is to make local news look more like the New York Times, if not The New Republic. Joining me to discuss these developments are my colleague Parker Thayer and Capital Research Center president Scott Walter.

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Since the horrific Hamas terrorist massacres in southern Israel in early October, American observers have been horrified by something that really should not be happening: Mass marches of left-wing students expressing solidarity with the “Palestinian cause,” if not the Hamas regime that perpetrated the attacks itself. But a close analysis of the ideological currents in academia should have warned us that something like what we have seen on campus would, in fact, come to pass. Joining me to discuss these developments are my colleague Sarah Lee and Jay P. Greene of the Heritage Foundation.

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They are the “Left of the Left”: The Democratic Socialists of America, a socialist political faction influential in the Democratic Party. Who are they, what do they stand for, and where do they want to take American politics? Those are the questions that our colleague Robert Stilson set out to answer in Capital Research Center’s latest magazine serial, “The Left of the Left: The Democratic Socialists of America.”

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I’m Sarah Lee, and this is the Influence Watch podcast. With me today is my colleague Ryan Mauro, an expert on terror funding and the movements of terror cells across the Middle East and around the world. It’s good he’s with us today because last week, as the world watched in horror as violent terrorists aligned with Hamas led an incursion into Israel from Gaza and committed mass murder of unsuspecting Israeli civilians living near the border. Some of the discussion centered on terrorism funding in the aftermath. Everything from the Biden administration’s 6 billion dollar transfer to Iran, to the money behind pro-palestinian campus protests are in question. Joining Ryan and me today to discuss a series of articles on terror funding he wrote for the Washington Examiner BEFORE the Hamas massacre – articles that got the ear of Congress and actually led to significant changes – is investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky.

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The Arabella Advisors-managed network of liberal dark money groups that includes the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, and North Fund continues to attract attention. Not all of it is good: The District of Columbia Attorney General subpoenaed information from Arabella Advisors concerning the electoral activities of the Arabella-managed nonprofits, and it was alleged that the father of disgraced cryptocurrency trader and Democratic political donor Sam Bankman-Fried sat on an advisory board at Arabella. It was also reported that a project of the Arabella-managed Hopewell Fund called the Heat Initiative is pushing Apple to scan every photograph on every iPhone. Joining me to discuss these latest Arabella-related developments are my colleagues Parker Thayer and Sarah Lee.

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