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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The United Auto Workers union has called rolling strikes against the Detroit Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) since mid-September. The labor action, and other strikes including the strikes that have struck Hollywood films and television, have rekindled debate over the proper role and powers of organized labor in the United States. Joining me to discuss these topics are my colleague Parker Thayer and Dominic Pino, the Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow at National Review Institute.

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My colleague Ken Braun, who joins me today, has written extensively on the sheer scale of the environmentalist organizations opposed to emissions-free nuclear energy, which claim at least $2.3 billion in annual revenue. But what does their anti-nuclear activity look like in practice? Joining us today to discuss that is Hugo Krueger, a nuclear engineer from South Africa working in France who is also a public advocate for the technology.

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It’s September: The kids have gone back to school, the oppressive heat dome is beginning to lift, and the sports calendar has turned from baseball (for those of us whose teams have woefully underachieved compared to their expectations) to football. But not all who take an interest in gridiron goings-on are interested in the on-field product: From team names to taking a knee, the NFL is surrounded by left-wing activists that want to push politics. Joining me to discuss the politics of pro football are my Capital Research Center colleagues Sarah Lee and Kristen Eastlick.

Native American group that wanted ‘Redskins’ removal is funded by Soros foundation, other leftist orgs

Those of us old enough to remember the panic over Y2K – a panic that was, as it turns out, mostly driven by fear of the unknown – see a certain resemblance between the year 2000 and today as artificial intelligence – popularly known as AI — joins the party. Its emergence has been met with both excitement and trepidation. Will it make mundane tasks easier? Will it help our kids do better in school? Will large language models infect our discourse with bias? Are the graphics programs going to change art as we know it? Will Skynet become aware? And who will be funding, pushing, and regulating this next phase of tech innovation? In short, is AI something to fear or something to embrace, something to turn loose or take in hand? And how much should our always eager government get involved in its development and dispersion? Joining us today to discuss the coming AI revolution is Taylor Barkley, Director of Technology and Innovation at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University.

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Taylor Barkley

The weather is unreliable, and often unpredictable—anyone who has grumbled at the weatherman’s forecast knows this. But increasingly, environmentalists demand that only the weather can generate the electricity that modern people need to maintain their standard of living. Zero-emissions is not enough: My colleague Ken Braun, who joins me today, extensively categorized the scale of environmentalist opposition to zero-emission nuclear energy.

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Electioneering by charities—“501(c)(3)s” in the trade—was forbidden, to begin with. But that has not stopped liberal Big Philanthropy from using charitable organizations for activities that dance along that legal line to help Democratic and left-wing politicians get elected. My colleague Parker Thayer recently released an extensive report on the Voter Registration Project, one such “charitable” election-winning scheme, he joins my colleague Robert Stilson and me to discuss his findings.

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Do Americans appreciate foreign nationals using their money to help Americans decide who should lead them? Honest Elections Project Action recently asked people, and—no prizes for guessing this—they don’t. Joining us to discuss this and other findings from their national poll on election-administration issues is Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project.

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This week, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) announced a special session of the legislature to consider various proposals related to public safety. But unusually for a reliably conservative and Republican state—Lee won 65 percent of the vote in his 2022 election campaign and both chambers of the state legislature are supermajority Republican—the session will consider gun control measures, especially so-called “red flag” laws. Joining me to discuss what’s going on in Tennessee and the gun control movement generally are my colleague Robert Stilson and John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.

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Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks schooling and school reform itself are due for a rethink. In his brief (less than 150 pages, excluding endnotes and acknowledgements) The Great School Rethink, Hess lays out his view on a new way to address the problems of American education, all informed by decades in the education policy field. Hess joins us today to discuss his Great School Rethink.

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We’re trying something new for this week: A round-up of stories and discussions not long enough by themselves to carry a podcast, all put together. Joining me to discuss solar panels and China, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s spousal hypocrisy, the burgeoning scandal around COVID origins, and ESG investing’s effects on the energy sector is my colleague Ken Braun.

“When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water.” That was the eyebrow-raising statement Vice President Kamala Harris made to a Baltimore audience last week; while the Biden White House amended the transcript to indicate she intended to say “reduce pollution,” the environmentalist movement has more than its fair share of associations with those who would “reduce population.” Joining me to discuss Harris’s comments and the connections between environmentalism and population control are my colleagues Sarah Lee and Ken Braun.

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As bad and left-wing as teachers unions can be, for some union activists and leftist agitators the normal level of leftism just isn’t enough. For that reason, the Democratic Socialists of America, the nation’s most prominent far-left political group, has pitched a pamphlet encouraging its members to become teachers and partnered with teachers unions and teachers-union-aligned politicians. What does this mean for your children’s schools? Joining us to discuss that and related questions is Rhyen Staley, a researcher at Parents Defending Education.

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Normally, when the government is sued the public expects the government to defend itself. But what if the government doesn’t defend itself, because it wants the same policy ends as the activists suing it? Then you get “sue-and-settle,” a practice that U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican of Iowa) says “is used by federal agencies and like-minded special interest groups to impose new and burdensome regulations on businesses and communities without sufficient public notice or participation.” Joining us to discuss sue and settle tactics and how Congress can push back against them is Karen Harned, a longtime lawyer and advocate for small-business interests.

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