InfluenceWatch Podcast

Jan 17 2025 348 ep. 22 mins 178

InfluenceWatch Podcast artwork

The podcast where we go beneath the surface to reveal the web of connected influence, money, and motivation driving the news, sourced primarily from our website InfluenceWatch.org, the Capital Research Center's online encyclopedia of the donors, non-profits, and influencers driving politics. You can watch the video version of the podcast at: http://bit.ly/2rnQygY

Listen to all episodes of InfluenceWatch Podcast at Ricochet.com.

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Episode 348: Fix Education By Breaking Teacher Union Bloat (with Corey DeAngelis)

Jan 17 2025 31 mins

Almost everyone can look at the education landscape in America today and see that something has gone very, very wrong. Spending per student has increased, and there is no evidence that this increased spending has improved student performance outcomes. But what if there are factors eating up the budget and keeping the student performance outcomes stagnant? Factors such as the rise o

Episode 347: Texas Battles DEI

Jan 10 2025 25 mins

The incoming second Trump administration has vowed to take on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies in the federal government and in federally supported programs. In that, the incoming administration is following the model of conservative-led states like Texas, which have adopted policies restricting left-wing racial ideologies and race-conscious practices. Joining us to

Episode 346: New Year, New Administration, New Nonprofits

Jan 03 2025 33 mins

Well, 2025 is here. And while it came in rather tragically in the South – and we do extend our condolences to the victims of the terrorist attack in New Orleans– the new year also brings a new presidential inauguration. This incoming administration promises big changes both in how government functions and how it funds, and these changes could have immediate effects on the world

Episode 345: Department of Ed's Billion Dollar Failure

Dec 20 2024 27 mins

As the incoming second Trump administration prepares to target government waste with the “Department of Government Efficiency” commission and activists hope that Trump’s administration will root divisive left-wing racial ideologies out of government, Parents Defending Education has released a report relevant to both. The advocacy group identified $1 billion in federal grants

Episode 344: New Management for the FBI

Dec 13 2024 30 mins

A new presidential administration does not typically mean new management at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but typically the incumbent FBI director did not oversee the FBI when it raided the President-elect’s house. Given that fact and other standing disputes with the Bureau, it is not surprising that President-elect Donald Trump and Senator Chuck Grassley have informed FBI

Episode 343: Trump's Labor Mistake

Dec 06 2024 26 mins

Donald Trump has made quick work of nominating potential cabinet members, and many of those picks – while controversial – are being met with nods – albeit sometimes lukewarm nods -- by both conservative voters and Republican legislators.One pick, however, stands out as being not only controversial but downright anti-conservative. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s choice for Secr

Episode 342: Arabella's Tax (Return) Day

Nov 22 2024 25 mins

For us at the Capital Research Center, Christmas comes in mid-November. Not because of election results or an inability to read the calendar, but because of the Internal Revenue Service’s deadline for filing nonprofit tax returns after exhausting the automatic extensions. This means we get new insight into how the left-wing dark money networks that we track every mid-November, an

Episode 341: Progressive Transgender Coercion

Nov 15 2024 25 mins

The Wall Street Journal called it the “sleeper issue” of the 2024 election—“progressive transgender coercion.” But our guest today argues that it wasn’t the “sleeper issue”—it was the central issue. Now that the election is behind us, May Mailman, director of the Independent Women’s Law Center, joins us to discuss how the left-wing push on transgender issues has

Episode 340: Tyrannosaurs, Bridges, Ballot Measures, and the Story of American Gerrymandering

Nov 08 2024 34 mins

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 eac

Episode 339: Election Innovations: Legal or Loopholes?

Nov 01 2024 24 mins

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 promin