InfluenceWatch Podcast
The podcast where we go beneath the surface to reveal the web of connected influence, money, and motivation driving the news.
We found 10 episodes of InfluenceWatch Podcast with the tag “law”.
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Episode 172: Using the Courts to Push Unpopular Policy (with guest Robert Stilson)
June 4th, 2021 | 16 mins 14 secs
climate change, conservatize, culture, environmentalism, law, left, liberal, libertarian, politics, progressive, right, society
In this episode: Radical environmentalists have a problem: Their policies are unpopular, and even a unified Democratic government aligned with them can only advance so many restrictions on personal choice, industrial activity, and employment opportunities before it provokes public revolt. But they have one weird trick to get around public opposition: The courts. Joining us to discuss the tactics that environmentalists are pursuing to have judges force their policies on the rest of us is Capital Research Center’s Research Specialist Robert Stilson.
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Episode 170: Pennsylvania's "Zuck-bucks" (with guest Todd Shepherd)
May 21st, 2021 | 14 mins 11 secs
biden, conservative, ctcl, culture, election, law, left, liberal, libertarian, pennsylvania, politics, progressive, right, society, zuckerberg
In this episode: When people think “political billionaire,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not the one who usually comes to mind. But after the 2020 elections, maybe he should. The Center for Tech and Civic Life, funded principally to the tune of a reported $350 million by Zuckerberg and his wife through entities the couple controls, provided millions of dollars in grants to counties to support their implementation of mail-in voting and other left-of-center election administration procedures. And there is strong circumstantial evidence that those grants may have favored Democratic counties over Republican counties, contributing to Joe Biden’s victories in battleground states. Joining us to discuss his analysis of these “Zuck-bucks” in Pennsylvania is Todd Shepherd, chief investigative reporter for the website Broad and Liberty, which covers Philadelphia city and Pennsylvania state-level news and politics.
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Episode 169: A Democrat Takeover of Election Law? (with guest J. Christian Adams)
May 14th, 2021 | 13 mins 8 secs
bills, congress, conservative, elections, ideas, independent, law, left, libertarian, politics, progressive, right, senate, society, unions
In this episode: In this Congress, bad ideas don’t die—they get marked up by the Senate Rules Committee. And this week it was the turn of S 1, the Senate companion to HR 1, the Democrats’ federal-election-takeover legislation. Joining us today to discuss the potential consequences of HR1/S1 should they pass is J. Christian Adams, right-leaning elections lawyer extraordinaire.
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Episode 152: Aggressively Political Philanthropy
January 15th, 2021 | 19 mins 24 secs
america, business, conservative, elections, foundations, government, labor, law, left, liberal, libertarian, nonprofits, philanthropy, politics, progressive, right, society
In this episode: In recent years, American big business, big labor, and other “bigs” have gotten aggressively more aligned with progressive liberalism—even those bigs, like Big Philanthropy, that are technically required by law not to intervene in elections. While Big Philanthropy might always have been liberal-leaning ideologically, it has gotten so openly Democratic that as conservative philanthropic scholar Bill Schambra noted, “it’s no longer suspect, or even noteworthy, to treat nonprofits and foundations as anything other than useful tools to “build a Democratic Party that can translate [progressive values] into public policy as a true governing majority.”” Joining us to discuss how we got here and the consequences of philanthropy losing its nominal political neutrality is Mike Hartmann, head of Capital Research Center’s Center for Strategic Giving and editor of the Giving Review blog at Philanthropy Daily.
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Episode 146: Unions Want Coercive Power...
November 20th, 2020 | 19 mins 38 secs
ab5, california, conservative, contracting, culture, democratic, federal, georgia, law, left, legislation, liberal, libertarian, politics, progressive, right, right-to-work, society
In this episode: As all eyes are turned toward Georgia’s two Senate runoff races, we discuss proposed legislation that both the Democratic challengers in Georgia support, and that has serious implications for right-to-work laws nationally if the Senate flips from red to blue. The legislation is called the Pro Act, and it’s an expanded federal version of the controversial AB5 legislation in California that has upended independent contracting in that state.
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Episode 143: Alternatives to Unions' Coercive Power (with guest Vincent Vernuccio)
October 31st, 2020 | 22 mins 6 secs
1935, america, big labor, coercive law, conservative, culture, european unions, freedom, labor, law, left, liberal, libertarian, mackinac center, national labor relations act, progressive, right, sectoral bargaining, society, worker's rights
In this episode: Since the enactment of the National Labor Relations act of 1935, American collective bargaining law in the private sector has relied on exclusive monopoly representation at the enterprise level. In layman’s terms, a single labor union forcing all employees in a designated portion of an employers’ work force to accept a single union negotiated contract. The unions and their allies have eyed a different approach, that of the social democracies of continental Europe, which practice so-called sectoral bargaining to set nationwide or region-wide contracts, while workplace representation is handled by union-influenced work councils. Joining us today to discuss the expansions of unions’ coercive power and possible alternatives to the current American or European coercive models, is Vincent Vernuccio, the Senior Fellow at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
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Episode 142: California Proposing a Major Tax Hike
October 23rd, 2020 | 22 mins 11 secs
california, conservative, culture, economy, law, left, liberal, libertarian, politics, progressive, prop 13, prop 15, right, ronald reagan, society, tax hike, taxes, voters, voting, woke
In this episode: For over forty years, residential and commercial property taxes in the State of California have been limited by a law known as “Proposition 13,” passed by voters in response to skyrocketing tax bills from steadily increasing property-value assessments. But while California—which hasn’t had a Republican “trifecta” control of its government since Ronald Reagan was governor—was never the blood-red state of partisan Republican memory, changes in its dominant industries (less gritty defense manufacturing, more “woke” information technology), an exodos of its middle classes in response to skyrocketing housing costs, and international immigration patterns that select for the most socialist-leaning immigrants (compare the voting patterns of Hispanics in California with Hispanics in Florida), liberals see an opportunity to break the dead hand of Howard Jarvis with 2020 Proposition 15, a measure to repeal the limitations on commercial property tax. Joining us to discuss the ballot measure, the special interests behind it, and the possible effects the measure could have on California is Capital Research Center’s Research Specialist, Robert Stilson.
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Episode 131: Confronting Big Labor
August 6th, 2020 | 17 mins 58 secs
big labor, conservative, culture, fight for $15, foundations, labor unions, law, left, liberal, libertarian, minimum wage, politics, pro act, progressive, right, unions
In this episode: If it walks like a labor union, talks like a labor union, acts like a labor union, and is funded by labor unions is it a labor union? That is the question our guest Max Nelson, Director of labor policy at the Freedom Foundation, is asking about Working Washington. A Service Employees International Union front group active in the state of Washington. Freedom Foundation, alongside the Center for Union Facts, filed a complaint with the Department of Labor. They asked the labor department to regulate Working Washington as a labor union because it advocates for changes in workers’ wages, hours, and conditions of employment while taking over fifteen and a half million dollars from labor unions.
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Episode 73: Major Union Embraces Communism
May 16th, 2019 | 9 mins 46 secs
administration, afl-cio, big labor, boycott, capitulated, communism, conviction, defense attorney, democrats, harvard, labor law, law, liberal, marxists, privileges, reforms, repeal and replace, republicans, right to work, right-to-work, sex abuse, strike, strikes, student, taft-hartley, truman, union, uprising, veto, weinstein, winter of discontent
The AFL-CIO breaks with its history and speaks in support of Marxists, Democrats push to expand union privileges for forced dues and expanded mass strikes, and Harvard ousts a criminal defense attorney from a deanship for working as a criminal defense attorney.
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Episode 30: The War to Replace Justice Kennedy
June 28th, 2018 | 47 mins 45 secs
alliance for justice, american constitution society, anthony kennedy, conservative, courts, demand justice, donald trump, federalist society, influence watch, judicial crisis network, judicial nomination, judiciary, justice kennedy, law, libertarian, president trump, robert bork, supreme court, supreme court justice, trump
The swing vote on the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, has decided to resign, providing President Trump with the monumental opportunity to cement a conservative majority on the court. But will the Democrats let it happen? Will Republicans be able to come together to pick a replacement? We explain how the war will play out, and the activists on both sides.