InfluenceUpdates Podcast 17 Notes 012419 Thanks for tuning in, Im Michael Watson and this is the Influence Watch Podcast. In this episode: The free world backs President Trumps diplomatic intervention against the socialist regime in Venezuela as the limousine leftist-backed pink tide in Latin America recedes amid scandal, the rate of workforce unionization continues to decline as Big Labor gets more desperate to conscript new members, and the liberal press attacks Catholic school students for defending themselves against a media mob. 1. By now, everyone is familiar with a set of demonstrations at the Lincoln Memorial last week involving students from a Catholic high school in Kentucky, an extremist black-nationalist sect, and some Native American activists. After a misleading video of the encounter went viral, the press and left-wingers descended like Furies on the students, who found themselves in need of reputational defense. That became its own scandal when it emerged that one of the kids families employed a PR firm with conservative ties to help shape their defense, RunSwitch PR. a. If youre interested in an analysis of what happened, Id refer you to the work of Reasons Robby Soave; the Washington Posts Meghan McArdles twitter, at asymmetricinfo; and the writing of Caitlin Flanagan of the Atlantic. b. The presss counter-counter-narrative took shape predictably: NBC News tweeted an opinion article headlined "How the Covington Catholic boys were redeemed by the dark magic of crisis communications." (For those who know Twitter, it was cracking a ten-to-one Ratio as of Thursday morning.) i. The article suggested that the studentwho had been falsely smeared as a smirking racist chanting racially-charged slogans after accosting one of the Native American activistsengaged in dark magic that fed a media machine desperate to show Trump supporters journalistic fairness. ii. The author of the piece, Beau Friedlander, is a left-wing PR flack who cofounded a podcast distribution company (Loud Tree Media) and the former director of communications for left-wing activist publication The Intercept and former editor-in-chief of now-defunct left-wing talk radio network Air America. c. But wait, I was told only evil right-wingers used dark magic PR firms! If you, oh journalist, believe that, bless your heart. Throughout the left-wing infrastructure, public relations firmsmost prominently SKD Knickerbocker and Fusion GPSdrive media coverage of all sorts of public controversies. i. SKD Knickerbocker or SKDK is best known for its involvement in two major pro-abortion efforts: The 2012 campaign to promote Sandra Fluke, a pro-abortion-rights activists who was called a nasty name by right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh and became the poster case for a conservative war on women, and Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas response to undercover video allegations that it was violating federal laws regulating the sale of human tissue. ii. Fusion GPS is best known for its involvement in controversial opposition research efforts into then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 general election funded by the DNC through Democratic power-lawyer Marc Elias, but also worked to cast doubt on the Planned Parenthood undercover videos and allegedly seeking the divorce records of supporters of Mitt Romney during the 2012 election. 1. For what its worth, SKDK and PPFA flooded the zone during the heat of the Planned Parenthood controversy claiming the footage supporting the allegations was deceptively edited, based on a Fusion GPS analysis. Last week, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted in a legal finding that an independent review found that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited, in a ruling lifting an injunction against an effort by the State of Texas to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. iii. Berlin Rosen, a New York-based PR firm close to Big Labor and union-allied successor groups to the ACORN organizing network, has received millions of dollars from the Service Employees International Union to manage the so-called fight for $15 unionization campaign. iv. And while the students PR firm is being vilified for its relations to a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the liberal PR mega-firms have their own close ties to prominent institutions. 1. SKDK was founded by former Recording Industry Association of America lobbyist, Washington Post columnist, and Huffington Post political director Hilary Rosen and former acting Obama White House communications director Anita Dunn. 2. Fusion GPS was founded by Glenn Simpson, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. 3. BerlinRosen has close ties to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio; co-founder Jonathan Berlin was so close to the mayor that de Blasio tried to have him declared an agent of the city to keep his communications with Rosen secret from open records laws. 2. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual estimates of union membership and union representation in the American workforce. The numbers show the continuation of a long-term trend: Big Labor is in decline, especially in the private sector, where union density (the labor-nerd term for the proportion of the workforce that is a union member) tied its all-time low of six point four percent. In total, ten point five percent of workers were union members. a. This decline has been precipitous from the 1950s height of Big Labor. When the BLS started keeping track in 1983, union density was twenty percent. b. Private sector unions have declined as the economy has changed to become more dynamic and as the unions have been exposed for historical corruption and political machination. i. Their response? More political machination. During the Obama administration, when union-associated Democrats controlled the National Labor Relations Board, the board overturned an estimated 4500 law-years of precedents to make conscripting workers into unions easier. ii. The NLRB is currently considering overturning an Obama-era rule which would make it easier for the SEIU to unionize restaurant workers without a secret-ballot vote; the unions have staunchly opposed the Labor Board and encouraged the Obama-era rule to stand. c. Government workers remain heavily unionized; thirty three point nine percent are unionized. That number may fall somewhat in light of the Janus v AFSCME decision holding that mandatory fees for government workers violated the First Amendment. 3. And in our final item we turn abroad, as civil conflict has erupted in Venezuela as the countrys socialist economy has collapsed into hyperinflation and its revolutionary socialist government has collapsed into authoritarianismviewers of Capital Research Centers video Communism Will ALWAYS Be Violent will recognize the trend. Now the countrys democratically elected National Assembly President Juan Guaido (GWAY-DO) has taken the oath of office as Acting President of the nation in response to the fraudulent re-election of socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro. The United States, Canada, and a number of European states have recognized Guaido, while Russia, China, and Iran have supported Maduro. a. Maduro responded to President Trump recognizing Guaidos transitional government by purporting to break off relations with the United States; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has vowed to continue relations with the recognized Guaido government. b. Members of the U.S. Senate of both parties (most prominently Marco Rubio of Florida on the Republican side and Richard Durbin on the Democratic side) have commended the establishment of relations with Guaidos government. c. American far-leftists, most prominently the Democratic Socialists of America faction of the Democratic Party and CodePink, have condemned the Trump administrations proactive action and supported Maduro. d. What is perhaps more interesting to those with some historical memory is that rather than the recognition of Guaido being a crusade of American dominance against Latin self-government, the majority of the democratic Latin American nations, most prominently Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru, have also recognized Guaido. e. Just nine years ago, that would have been unthinkable, at the peak of the socialist pink tide under which socialist governments (most prominently Venezuelas under Hugo Chavez) took power throughout South America. i. Chavezs rise and petroleum-fueled initial success tantalized a number of leftist activists in the United States and EuropeCRCs Jake Klein has a video on Venezuelas American Support, featuring the positive things Senator Bernie Sanders, left-wing activist Jesse Jackson, and a number of entertainment industry figures said about Chavezs socialist regime. ii. Oliver Stone even made a propaganda documentary, South of the Border, touting Chavez and the other pink tide governments. f. But behind the Hollywood glamor was the rot that infects all statist systems. Economic stagnation hit countries across South America as commodity bubbles burst, and the Operao Lava Jatooperation car washconstruction bribery scandal upended Brazils political order, sent popular socialist ex-President Lula da Silva to prison, and implicated Maduro in bribe-taking. i. As this was going on, right-of-center forces started winning elections and forming governmentsa development known as the conservative wave. ii. In Brazil and Argentina pro-American Presidents replaced Chavez allies, and in Colombia a pro-American President replaced a moderate who negotiated with that countrys violent factions of Communist narco-terrorists. iii. And so, of all people, President Donald Trump is the one to lead a coalition of mostly Latin American free nations to restore democracy to Venezuela. g. What comes next is hard to predictthe high ranks of the Venezuelan military support Maduro and have attempted to violently suppress protests and arrest National Assembly members. A confrontation is imminent if the US (and other nations recognizing Guaido) refuse to withdraw their diplomats. Thats our show for this week. If youre listening to this on Youtube we encourage you to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and if you have subscribed, thank you and please leave us a five-star rating. Well see you next week!