The anti-Muslim activists, who all play a prominent role in the Center for American Progress’ report, “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America,” play pivotal roles as misinformation experts and online activists, stirring up Islamophobic fears across the country.

The SPLC’s list of “new activists heading up the radical right” include:

The prominent role given to Islamophobes in the SPLC’s list underscores the anti-Muslim sentiments which have emerged on right-wing media outlets, Washington think tanks like the Center for Security Policy and the “anti-Shariah” legislation which has swept across more than two-dozen states.

Slide from a presentation titled: "Sharia And The Constitution"

Not all of the material in the course, however, was anti-Muslim. Materials from reputable sources such as the Brookings Institution and RAND corporation also appeared among the readings, and only some of the presenters to the class used blatantly Islamophobic material. (The public affairs officer of the Joint Forces Staff College didn’t respond to repeated inquiries by press time.)

But the “Islamophobia network,” discussed in the Center for American Progress’ “Fear, Inc.” report, played a prominent role in many of the 266 documents acquired by ThinkProgress. Islamophobic “misinformation experts” — as they’re defined in “Fear, Inc.” — cited in Army teaching materials included:

Robert Spencer – 34 mentions across 8 documents (his blog, JihadWatch.org, was cited 11 times across 7 documents)

Spencer is the co-founder of Stop Islamization of America and the director of JihadWatch.org. He has argued that “traditional Islam itself is not moderate or peaceful. Spencer is prominent pseudo-intellectual in the “counter jihad” blogging community who argues that Islam is inherently violent. He says “It is the only major world religion with a developed doctrine and tradition of warfare against unbelievers.”

Steven Emerson – 16 mentions across 4 documents

Emerson is the founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism and a former journalist at U.S. News & World Report and CNN. His greatest notoriety came from prematurely declaring that Oklahoma City bombing was committed by Muslims. The actual culprit was right-wing anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh. Emerson tells his followers that “Nearly all of the Islamic organizations in the United States that define themselves as religiously or culturally Muslim in character have, today, been totally captured or dominated by radical fundamentalist elements.”

Center for Security Policy (CSP) – 60 mentions across 3 documents

CSP is led by notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney and produced the report, “Shariah: The Threat to America” which has served as the blueprint for “anti-Shariah” legislation across the country.

David Yerushalmi – 9 mentions across 3 documents

Yerushalmi is general counsel for CSP, a co-author of “Shariah: The Threat to America” and the founder of Society of Americans for National Existence. The Anti-Defamation League concluded that he has a “record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.”

Daniel Pipes – 50 mentions across 10 documents (his organization, Middle East Forum, was cited 39 times across 10 documents)

Pipes, the director of Middle East Forum, is increasingly strident about the supposed threat posed by Islam and Muslims in America. He argues, “All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most.”

Finally, right-wing news publications were frequently cited in the training materials acquired by ThinkProgress. The Washington Times was cited 76 times across 16 documents; The National Review 130 times across 6 documents and Fox News 130 times across six documents.

Instructors’ reliance on far-right thinktanks and experts adds to the increasingly disturbing portrait of counter-terrorism instruction at the Joint Forces Staff College, potraying the West as at war with Islam and Muslims. The sheer frequency of citations in the course materials raises questions that hopefully will be answered by an investigation launched at the behest of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who admirably said the questionable course material was “totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound.”

Frank Gaffney warning of Sharia

Oklahoma passed a Sharia ban by ballot in 2010, but that measure has been deemed facially unconstitutional by the courts because it specifically targets Muslims for discrimination. Because of Oklahoma’s experience, state legislatures are moving bills that are more oblique about their discriminatory intent. South Dakota, Louisiana, Arizona, and Tennessee have all passed laws that ban “foreign law in American courts” and don’t mention Muslims or Sharia by name.

Kansas’ proposed anti-Muslim law also similarly asserts it is about promoting “American law for American courts.” (Note: the Constitution already establishes this in its Supremacy Clause.) As Kansas Republican state Sen. Chris Steineger noted, the measure was “presented” to him as a bill specifically targeting Muslims:

But Sen. Chris Steineger, R-Kansas City, said a marketing campaign by supporters of the bill inundated him with materials that “explain why sharia law is coming and Muslims are trying to take over America.”

“I thought that was quite ludicrous at the time, and I still do,” Steineger said. “I pointed this out, because this was not presented as protecting the Kansas Constitution. The proponents of this measure, clearly by the literature they gave me and by the video link they directed me to, they presented this as protecting us against sharia law. Despite the fact that this doesn’t mention sharia, that’s how this whole issue was presented.”

Indeed, Kansas was bombarded by anti-Sharia emails and letters from out-of-staters. The bill’s sponsors and advocates proclaimed that it was really about protecting “women’s rights.” The bill helps “women know the rights they have in America,” said sate Rep. Peggy Mast (R). “To me, this is a women’s rights issue,” said Sen. Susan Wagle (R). Nevermind that these same legislators have been engaged in a war against women’s health, Planned Parenthood, the right to choose, and so many other far more relevant “women’s rights” causes.

Right-wing legislators have been pushing Sharia bans across the country; roughly 20 other states are also considering similar legislation. The anti-Sharia legislative movement was spawned by David Yerushalmi, an influential Islamophobic lawyer who we profiled last year in Fear, Inc.

The anti-Sharia movement continues despite the fact that no evidence has been provided that there is any threat that a Sharia takeover is occurring. Kansas Republican state Sen. John Vratil “said he quizzed the bill’s supporters on when a Kansas court had ever based a decision on sharia law and had yet to be provided with an example.” As Vratil asserted, “Ladies and gentleman, this is a solution in search of a problem.” True, unless you are someone who views the increasing presence of Muslims in America as the problem.

Muslim Advocates head Farhana Khera, former counsel with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, told MSNBC, “Sen. McConnell should rescind his appointment.”

Muslim-Americans and organizations are right to view with disdain Jasser’s ties to less-than-savory anti-Muslim bigots. The MSNBC article captured this nicely by describing Jasser as “a controversial figure who many American Muslims see as a shill for anti-Muslim bigots.” CAP’s “Fear, Inc.” named Jasser as someone “often tapped by the Islamophobe network as a validator of their views on Islam and Muslims in America.” Jasser could start to alleviate these concerns by disavowing an Islamophobic group he’s associated with.

Indeed, Jasser sits on the Clarion Fund‘s advisory board, a position he shares with outright Islamophobes like Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, among others.

Gaffney, one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes (and sometime conspiracy theorist, including noxious “bitherism”), among other egregious positions, contends that the problem is not Islamism (political Islam) or even radical, extremist Muslims, but the faith of Islam itself.

Clarion, under the guidance of Gaffney and his like-minded cohort, produces hawkish films such as 2006′s Obsession that lambast Islam as a faith, even as they proclaim to target only radicals. Jasser narrated another Clarion film called The Third Jihad. Jasser is featured prominently in the trailer:

Speaking to the The New Republic last year, Jasser had some limited criticisms of the film:

One part of it talked about Muslim population concerns, which I did not like. I disagreed with it. Obviously, I want the Muslim population to grow. My kids are Muslims. I want them to have Muslim kids. But you know, listen, you’re not going to agree with everything people write… I think if [viewers] hadn’t seen that there’s a Muslim that’s part of the solution, it would have been worse.

In January, the film came under attack in a New York Times editorial. The New York Police Department was criticized for showing it, and NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelley apologized for his appearence in the “inflammatory” film. But Jasser defended it in a New York Post op-ed and the National Review.

Less than two weeks after Jasser defended the film, Clarion Fund again invited controversy by uncritically posting in its newsletter reader comments that attempted to legitimate the views of Norwegian anti-Muslim mass killer Anders Breivik. After ThinkProgress reported on the comments, Clarion scrubbed the newsletter from its archives, but the organization failed to apologize and even refused to comment on or explain the incident.

Nonetheless, the newsletter confirmed that many accusations of anti-Muslim animus behind the Clarion Fund’s sleek, PR-friendly facade are well-founded. Coupled with the involvement by Gaffney — who has said practicing Islam is “sedition” — Clarion lurches beyond the pale of reasonable public discourse.

Jasser should begin to rehabilitate his image among American Muslims — even while maintaining his criticisms of the community and radical extremists — by disavowing the group.

Right-wing donor Irving Moskowitz

Moskowitz generates his millions from a bingo enterprise in California. The catch is that the gambling license requires that Moskowitz only hand over 1 percent of gross receipts to the city so long as the rest of the profits go to the tax-exempt Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation (net holdings: $52 million). Through this foundation, Moskowitz gives to a bevy of less-than-savory causes — American Crossroads and its dishonest attacks are just the latest. Blumenthal notes that donations involving electoral politics are a relatively new thing for Moskowitz, but he’s got a long history of backing far-right-wing causes. Here are some of his greatest hits:

Islamophobia – Since 2002, the foundation has given $485,000 to the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish Washington think tank run by former Reagan administration official and conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney. As reported in CAP’s “Fear, Inc.,” Gaffney’s group pushes Islamophobia in the U.S., and Gaffney has proclaimed that practicing the Islamic faith is tantamount to “sedition.” Gaffney, who thinks President Obama is Muslim, also leads the advisory group of the Islamophobic group Clarion Fund, which produces documentaries that have been denounced as “inflammatory” and once published approving comments about Norwegian anti-Muslim mass-murderer Anders Breiviks views.

“Birthers” – Since 2006, Moskowitz’s foundation gave $200,000 to the Western Center for Journalism (WCJ), a non-profit founded by Joseph Farah. WCJ describes Farah as “the brains behind WND.com news website.” Formerly known as World Net Daily, WND is a hub for “birtherism,” the conspiracy theory that President Obama’s publicly released birth certificate is a fake, and that Obama therefore is not a U.S. citizen nor eligible to be president. WND even hosts conferences on the issue and WND Books published Jerome Corsi’s “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” tome just after Obama’s long-form certificate was publicly released — though that hasn’t stopped WND’s conspiracy theories. WCJ’s blog, naturally, pushes the same, lame discredited theories.

Israeli settlements – By far, Moskowitz’s most generous philanthropic work — and other non-philanthropic funding — goes toward projects linked to Israel’s settlement enterprise in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, considered “illegitimate” by the U.S. government and international bodies. In addition to gifts of at least $1.985 million to projects in West Bank settlements like Kiryat Arba and Kedumim, Moskowitz’s and his wife’s foundations have donated more than $300,000 to the Hebron Fund, which supports some 800 ideological settlers living in the Palestinian West Bank city. Moskowitz also focuses on East Jerusalem, giving huge sums to developments there, including one million dollars in the late 1980s to purchase a defunct hotel and, as of the late 1990s, more than $2 million to support a religious pro-settlement group in East Jerusalem called Ateret Cohanim.

So far, the millionaire-backed American Crossroads took cash from an oil speculator to run an ad campaign absurdly accusing Obama of driving up gas prices. If the ad campaigns are, as with this case, linked to the donor’s pet causes, American Crossroads could be on its way to putting out some of the most vicious attack ads of the election season.

But Gaffney, who has said “it is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] or a derivative organization,” doesn’t hold much credibility with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

As part of a September 2010 Senate Homeland Security committee hearing, “Nine Years After 9/11: Confronting The Terrorist Threat To The Homeland,” the FBI issued written responses to questions posed by committee members. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) issued the following question to the FBI (see page 123-123 in the PDF):

LIEBERMAN: What is your perspective on the Center for Security Policy’s recent report entitled “Shariah: The Threat To America”?

FBI: The FBI believes the report underestimates the United States Government’s (USG) level of knowledge and understanding of the activities taking place in the United States and overstates the threat posed by those activities. The report also fails to note that some of the threats were disrupted by the USG and are no longer viable, and it makes unsubstantiated assertions regarding limitations on our ability to respond to ongoing threats. Among other reasons, this may be because the report relies on outdated information.

David Yerushalmi, a coauthor of the report and CSP’s general counsel, is the author of the model “anti-Sharia” legislation introduced in over twenty states. As the “anti-Sharia” movement spreads across the country, members of communities facing the Islamophobia campaigns led by Yerushalmi and Gaffney — both of whom are discussed in the Center for American Progress’s report, “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network” — should note that the FBI largely disregarded their report as making “unsubstantiated assertions” and relying “on outdated information.”

Edwin Meese

The fear-mongering against Ramadan grew so vociferous that Edwin Meese, former Reagan administration Attorney General and Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, became a target of Geller and Gaffney’s campaign after he endorsed Ramadan. Geller wrote:

James Lafferty, SIOA board member and VAST [Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force] chairman, just advised me that Ed Meese bought into stealth jihadist David Ramadan’s ruse. That’s just what this country needs, more Muslim Brotherhood plants in the legislature.

And Gaffney, Geller, and Islamophobic blogger Robert Spencer — all of whom are featured in the Center for American Progress’s report, “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network” — issued a letter to Meese, demanding he withdraw his endorsement.

Yesterday, Meese explained to NewsMax TV why he chose to endorse Ramadan and how the hate campaign against Muslims goes against American values. Meese says he supported Ramadan because he’s a “fine man” who “thought very much in terms of political lines the same way I do.” Watch it:

Gaffney, Geller, Spencer and others’ attacks on Ramadan didn’t deter Meese because he saw them as a “fringe group” accusing Ramadan of “…not being totally an American or being an Islamist or somehow not being worthy of running for office.” The attacks strengthened Meese’s conviction in helping Ramadan’s candidacy. “I felt that this was an unfair attack and persisted in my support of him because of that,” said Meese.

Meese says his exposure to the “fringe group” that attacked Ramadan concerns him because “I think it’s always serious when any American is disparaged [...] solely because of their religion or their background when there’s no basis for it.”

It’s heartening to see conservatives begin to speak out against the forces of intolerance within their camp; hopefully, Meese will find more allies than opponents among fellow Republicans.

But Gingrich’s anti-Muslim crusade found an ally with noted Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy, leaped on Gingrich’s anti-Shariah comments yesterday in a column for National Review Online and on his radio show, Secure Freedom Radio. His column reads:

Newt is absolutely right in making such a distinction [between a "moderate person who worships Allah" or "a person who belonged to any kind of belief in sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us]. The danger we currently face from the so-called Muslim world arises not from the fact that people are Muslim, but from the extent to which they adhere to the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of sharia.

Speaking on his radio show yesterday, Gaffney took a similar line:

With his successive warnings about sharia…Newt Gingrich has, in my judgement, rendered a real public service. We must know who are enemies are and we must defeat, not accommodate, those who in the name of Sharia are obliged to wage Jihad against us. And we must keep America Sharia free.

But Gaffney’s concerns about religious and personal freedoms rarely extend to Muslim Americans. Last year, he said:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

Newt Gingrich makes no secret of his hostility toward Muslims but Frank Gaffney’s defacto endorsement — he also picked up an endorsement from anti-Muslim activist and Gaffney ally Pamela Geller — might not be helpful as Gingrich attempts to appeal to moderate voters and chip away at Mitt Romney’s momentum in the primaries. Gaffney is a noted member of the Islamophobic far-right and his organization, the Center for Security Policy, was highlighted as a major nexus for the anti-Sharia initiatives sweeping the country in the Center for American Progress’s report, Fear, Inc.

Extra security guards at the Nashville anti-Muslim conference equipped with handguns.

We were hoping to speak again with Gaffney at the “Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, a gathering of other opponents of Islam, last Friday. Initially, Gaffney agreed to speak to us and said he would grant an interview after his book signing.

As we waited, several security personnel hovered around. When he finished signing the last book, Gaffney promptly stood up, and walked out of the conference, refusing to make eye-contact with us. Five security guards, all wearing bullet-proof vests under their suits, quickly surrounded Gaffney and physically blocked us from approaching him. We followed him into the parking lot to ask if had forgotten about us, but Gaffney refused to acknowledge our presence. Instead, one of the conference’s burly security men moved to ensure we couldn’t come within several yards of the neoconservative activist. After a few minutes of confusion, we turned on our camera to try to record what was going on. And just before he got into his car, Gaffney responded, “I gotta go”:

FANG: Uh, Undersecretary Gaffney, you said you’d give us a few comments after the event?

CLIFTON: Undersecretary, you have two minutes?

GAFFNEY: I gotta go.

FANG: Any reason you have five security guards protecting you here? We’ve interviewed you in the past!

Watch it:

Gaffney’s retreat from ThinkProgress seemed bizarre, but similar hostility was evident throughout the conference. Lou Ann Zelnick, a failed congressional candidate and activist involved in protesting the construction of a mosque in nearby Murfreesboro, yelled at us without provocation.

Later in the evening, towards the end of the conference, we encountered three additional security guards. The new guards, who paced near us at times, had handguns displayed in their holsters.

Gaffney and McCarthy, who both are mentioned in CAP’s report as part of the influential “Islamophobia network,” make a series of unfounded allegations against CAP and the report.

McCarthy, the author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, has made no secret of his dislike for Muslims and progressives. His eagerness to create a grand-conspiracy between the two was on full display during the interview.

But Gaffney and McCarthy take a turn into uncharted, and wildly unsubstantiated, territory when they float the theory that the CAP report was, as Frank Gaffney declares, a product of “a red-green axis between George Soros’ friends and beneficiaries on the radical left like the Center for American Progress and the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood most notably.”

Listen here (Gaffney’s theory of a “red-green axis” starts at 3:45):

Gaffney, and his allies like Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, have been desperate to paint Fear, Inc. and CAP as a radical institution aligned with violent Islamists. But their attempts to make their fantasies a reality has resulted in some bizarre attempts at guilt-by-association.

Gaffney, McCarthy, and most critics of the report — Islamophobe Pamela Geller said the authors should “choke on their own vomit” — are eager to discredit CAP and the report’s authors using factually baseless attack and wildly speculative conspiracy theories. McCarthy responded to Gaffney’s “red-green axis” theory that, “the evidence [that radical Islamists and the Center for American Progress] cooperate is so strong, that the real question that the interesting quesiton is ‘why this happened’ not ‘whether it happened.’

Conveniently, neither McCarthy nor Gaffney provide any actual evidence of this bizarre theory. But the report does show plenty of evidence of their hostility toward American Muslims. In 2009, Gaffney announced there is “mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims but may actually be one himself” and, after the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) banned Gaffney for making baseless accusations against board members, he declared that the Muslim Brotherhood had “infiltrated” CPAC.

While Gaffney might be finding fewer friendly audiences for his anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, he and his friends still have a home on AM radio, every weeknight.

Although Gaffney has enjoyed an uninterrupted platform on major media outlets, this conference, however, might be different. Former Maryland state Del. Saqib Ali (D) and activists from a number of civil rights groups in Maryland have organized a rally outside the conference. “Unfortunately, instead of inviting legitimate conservative speakers, MDCAN has instead chosen speakers who are well-known conspiracy theorists, McCarthyites, racists and anti-Muslim fanatics,” Ali wrote in a letter protesting the event.

Gaffney, whose unhinged anti-Muslim writings heavily influenced the Norway mass murderer, has responded to Ali’s rally with his signature style of paranoia:

“This is standard operating procedure for CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups,” Gaffney told TheDC in a discussion about the letter. “They are trying to impose what are known as Shariah blasphemy laws, whereby anyone who says anything critical about Islam, no matter how true, is to be silenced. It is actually a capital offense.”

In an interview with ThinkProgress, Ali laughed off Gaffney’s accusations. “I can promise him that neither I nor anyone else is trying to kill him,” said Ali. “However we do seek to get him some urgent psychological care.” Ali added, “The voices in his head seem to be getting a tad unruly.”

Ali is also concerned that several of the major speakers have a history of bigotry. “At this conference, one of the speakers, Robert Stacy McCain has repeatedly referred to gay people as ‘Faggots’ and Mexicans as ‘Beaners,’” Ali notes. “That is highly offensive to me.”

Gaffney, one of the leading anti-Muslim misinformation experts profiled in the Center for American Progress’ recent report on Islamophobia in America, has spent years fighting what he sees as “creeping Sharia” in the United States. His efforts culminated in the release of a report last year entitled “Sharia: The Threat To America.”

In an effort to whip up support for his anti-Sharia campaign, the Center for Security Policy president released the “Twelve for ’12” policy platform earlier this month, which implores candidates to, among other things, “preserve and protect the Constitution” by “repudiat[ing]” Sharia:

It’s understandable that even presidential candidates as extreme as Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum don’t want to associate themselves with Gaffney. Beyond his absurd notion that Sharia law is a threat to the United States, Gaffney has made a name for himself with one outlandish claim after the next. He has accused Gen. David Petraeus of “submission” to Sharia law, claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the federal government, and even argued that the government’s Missile Defense logo is further evidence of creeping Sharia law.

Though anti-Sharia sentiment had been fairly common in recent Republican rhetoric, the public outcry against presidential candidate Herman Cain’s declaration that he will not appoint Muslims in his administration was deafening. Cain’s campaign was dogged by the story for months until July when the candidate met with Muslim leaders outside Washington, DC and issued a public apology to all Muslim-Americans. Cain’s newfound tolerance did no harm to his standing among Republican primary voters; this past weekend, the former pizza executive enjoyed an overwhelming victory in Florida’s presidential straw poll.

Republican presidential candidates like Cain have clearly concluded that Gaffney’s anti-Sharia pledge is a political loser. Even a pledge stipulating that black families were better off during slavery than today earned signatures from Bachmann and Santorum. Gaffney’s flop is further evidence of Islamophobia’s waning influence in politics.

For more about Gaffney and other anti-Muslim, check out the Center for American Progress’ recent report: “Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.”

Gaffney has made a name for himself — and an annual salary of at least $300,000 — by propagating the baseless threat of a “creeping Sharia.” (For a primer of what Sharia is, see this report.)

Gaffney authored a report last year titled “Sharia: The Threat To America.” He conceded that he did not consult any Muslims in the process of writing that report. “I don’t hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law,” Gaffney has said. “But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.”

As we note in “Fear, Inc.,” in the past, Gaffney has accused CIA Director David Petraeus of submitting to Sharia and alleged that the design of a missile defense logo was proof of Obama’s submission to Sharia. Now, he wants every Republican candidate to join his conspiracy.

Elizabeth Varet and Nina Rosenwald

The Varet family helps fund: Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism ($10,000); Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation ($15,000); Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum ($2,320,229.33); Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy ($437,000); the Clarion Fund ($25,000); David Horowitz’s Freedom Center ($11,000) and Brigitte Gabriel’s American Congress for Truth ($125,000).

David Steinmann — also a director at American Securities Management, a trustee for the Anchorage Charitable Fund and president of the William Rosenwald Family Fund, sits as a board member at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy.

Nina Rosenwald, co-chair of the board at American Securities Management and a vice-president at the William Rosenwald Family Fund, is: chairwoman of of the board at the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI); vice president of the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA) and sits on the board of the Hudson Institute. She also serves on the board at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC); Human Rights in China, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and served as a delegate at the 1996 Democratic National Convention.

According to a 2007 New York Jewish Week article, Elizabeth Varet, who chairs the Anchorage Charitable Fund and serves as vice-president at the William Rosenwald Family Fund, gained inspiration for her philanthropy from her father, William Rosenwald, who she says:

…was driven by an empathy for people at risk — people who were suffering — “and a feeling of ‘there but for the grace of God go I.’ And he believed in acting on it.”

Indeed, the Anchorage Fund engages in a broad array of philanthropy to various right-wing institutions such as the: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD); Hoover Institution; Hudson Institute, America Enterprise Institute; and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Additional board members of the Anchorage Charitable Fund include Michael A. Varet, Sarah R. Varet, David R. Varet, and Joseph R. Varet.

In the 2008 tax year, the Anchorage Fund “suffered a complete loss of its investment through PJ Administrator LLC,” according to its 2008 tax filings. PJ Administrator was a client of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008.

Charitable activity from both Varet related foundations has significantly decreased since 2008 but it’s safe to say that the Islamophobia network described in Fear Inc., wouldn’t have become such a formidable force without the deep-pocketed support of family foundations like the ones operated by the heirs to Julius Rosenwald’s Sears Roebuck fortune.

Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller

The report’s authors have appeared on CNN.com, Al Jazeera English, Current TV, Guardian.co.uk and numerous radio interviews. Print media outlet such as The Jewish Daily Forward, The Atlantic, Salon.com, The Washington Post and The Nation have all run articles discussing the report’s findings.

Unfortunately, that accuracy and thorougness has proven a challenge for many of the Islamophobes mentioned in the report. With no serious factual errors with which to attack the authors, they’ve fallen back on attacking straw men and offering vitriolic, if at times colorful, ad hominem attacks.

Here’s the top ten list of right-wing responses to “Fear, Inc.”

10.) Townhall.com columnist Karen Lugo concludes that the report’s authors are “the real cowards” and claims “it was the authors of this 138-page report that demonstrated a real phobia when they evaded the urgent question: Does America have a reason to fear Muslims?” (Actually, that was a major part of the report.)

9.) Writing on David Horowitz’s FrontPageMag, Daniel Greenfield runs with the new meme that the report blames Jews for Islamophobia. He writes, “Any report on Islamophobia that scapegoats Jews is not a report on bigotry, it is an act of bigotry.”

8.) Ed Lasky, writing on The American Thinker, inaccurately claims that the report pins blame on Jews, arguing, “…this ‘report’ relies on the conspiracy and age-old anti-Semitic trope that Jews fan prejudice towards others and promotes divisions for their own nefarious purposes (to support Israel in this case). This mindset is straight out of Mein Kampf.”

7.) Adrian Morgan, editor of Family Security Matters, takes issue with report author Wajahat Ali, writing, “Ali is said to be a ‘humorist’ but there is pitiably little that appears in his blog ‘Goatmilk’ that displays this purported sense of humor.” Morgan also identifies a typo in the report and ponders “Was there no money left for a proof-reader, to here strike out the superfluous word, ‘he’?”

6.) Middle East Forum’s Daniel Pipes told The Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein that, “I am not against the religion of Islam but am very much against the political ideology of Islamism, which I see as the third great totalitarian movement after fascism and communism. This lack of distinction points to the intellectually shoddy premise of the report.”

5.) Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer wrote on Human Events that the report’s authors are assisting jihadists because “Fear, Inc.”, “ignores jihad activity altogether, portraying Muslims as victims and demonizing all who stand in the way of the misogynistic and unjust agenda of the Islamic jihad, whether advanced by violent or nonviolent means. It thus reveals itself to be just another tool of those same jihadists.”

4.) Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney bizarrely, and we might add inaccurately, describes the report as CAP’s “…latest ‘copy and paste’ effort [duplicating] large sections of five nearly identical ‘investigations’ just this year, complaining that millions of concerned Americans are Islamophobes.” Gaffney, in what might be an editorial misstep, proceeds to interview himself, writing, “Frank J. Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, noted that ‘The ‘Shariah Defense Lobby’ is in a race against time to hide the grim reality of Shariah law as it is actually enforced…’”

3.) Daniel Pipes’ PipeLineNews.org observed that the report “neatly falls into lockstep with the efforts being exerted by Muslim Brotherhood front groups to incrementally Islamize the West.”

2.) Blogger Pamela Geller calls the report “a predictable misfired missile by Islamic supremacists and leftist useful idiots” and “a pile of dung masquerading as research” that “reads more like a Mein Kampf treatise.” She encourages her readers to “watch [the authors] choke on their own vomit” and concludes “they will never defeat me.”

1.) Fox Business Network’s Eric Bolling, inaccurately attributed an outlandishly anti-Semitic quote to the report, saying, “I’m reading directly from this report: ‘The Obama-allied Center for American Progress has released a report that blames Islamophobia in America on a small group of Jews and Israel supporters in America, whose views are being backed by millions of dollars.’

To be clear, neither that quote nor anything resembling it, appears in our report. Please email Brian Lewis, VP for Corporate Communications at Fox Business (brian.lewis@foxnews.com), and tell him that Bolling’s wildly inaccurate reporting on “Fear Inc.” requires an on-air correction.

Gaffney, who runs a well-funded Islamophobic operation, celebrated the House Un-American Activities Committee — the Cold War-era investigative committee that epitomized the overblown “red scare” of a Communist takeover of the U.S. — before calling for a new similar committee. The new “House Anti-American Activities Committee would look into American-Muslims, who Gaffney thinks are criminally “seditious” for observing their faith, and their witting and unwitting allies:

Back in the Cold War as we talked about in our first program we wrestled with another totalitarian ideology that was determined to destroy us back when the McCarren Act was enacted, we had what was then called the House Un-American Activities Committee to explore what was going on, who was doing it, who was helping them do it, what the implications would be if it weren’t stopped. I think we need at the very least a new House Anti-American Activities Committee.

Watch the video:

The new “green scare” committee came up as Gaffney and the host, Christian right figure Rick Joyner, discussed prosecuting Americans for simply not reporting “treasonous” acts — known as “misprision of treason” — by American Muslims. Gaffney has previously accused Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) of this crime, which carries a seven-year sentence, for appointing a Muslim to a judgeship in New Jersey. Gaffney considers adherence to Muslim religious law to be “seditious“:

A mosque that is used to promote a seditious program, which is what Sharia is…that is not a protected religious practice, that is in fact sedition.

While many regard the “red scare” and the McCarthyism associated with it as a less than savory period in American history, Gaffney seems to whole-heartedly approve of the program and calls for its revival — but targeted at religious beliefs instead of a political views. Some might argue that taking away the freedom of speech and religion are themselves “un-American” acts. (HT: Right Wing Watch)

The Bradley Foundation has a reputation as a supporter of right-wing causes and its philanthropy is intended to “support limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutes,” according to the foundation’s website.

But the Bradley Foundation’s idea of defending “American ideas and institutes” has meant funding Islamophobes within the U.S. and promoting the militant foreign policy which left the U.S. military overextended in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a key funder in the Islamophobia network, the Bradley Foundation contributed $4.25 million to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, $815,000 to Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and $305,000 to Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum.

When not funding some of the key groups responsible for propagating misinformation about Muslim-Americans, the Bradley Foundation uses its financial resources to promote a militarist foreign policy, most notably through their $1.2 million in support for the Project for the New American Century, a highly influential group which helped promote a neoconservative foreign policy during the Bush administration.

Indeed, the Bradley Foundation has played an instrumental role in bringing neoconservatives into the halls of power in Washington. Irving Kristol, one of the movement’s key intellectuals, commented that AEI’s efforts to recruit neoconservatives in the 1970s and 1980s was “facilitated by the appearance on the scene of a rejuvenated Bradley Foundation and John M. Olin Foundation.”

The foundation also generously supports various right-wing institutions such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, the Hoover Institution, the Institute for American Values and the Hudson Institute.

While both Lynde and Harry Bradley are deceased, the foundation is run by a board comprising an influential list of American conservatives.

Board members include: columnist George Will; Terry Considine, Chief executive of AIMCO Apartment Homes, who serves as the foundation’s chairman; David V. Uihlein, president of Uihlein-Wilson Architects; Michael W. Grebe, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer; Princeton University Professor Robert P. George, whom the New York Times describes as “his country’s most influential Christian thinker; Marshall & Ilsey Corporation Chairman Dennis J. Kuester; Wasau-Mosinee Paper Corporation Chairman San W. Orr Jr.; attorney Thomas L. Smallwood; and the president of Milwaukee’s Messmer Catholic Schools, Brother Bob Smith.

With a staggering $622,913,819 in assets at the end of the 2009 tax year, it’s safe to assume the Bradley Foundation will have a lasting impact on the American political debate for years, if not decades, in the future.

Richard Scaife

Scaife has become a reliable funder of right-wing causes and, as the principal heir to the Mellon family banking, oil and aluminum fortune, he has $1.2 billion at his disposal for influencing the U.S. political and cultural landscape.

Serving as the vice chairman of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank (Heritage president Edwin Feulner serves as a trustee for the Sarah Scaife Foundation), Scaife has positioned himself as a central figure in conservative politics.

A closer examination of his philanthropy reveals that, in 2009 alone, the Sarah Scaife Foundation supported neoconservative mainstays such as the American Enterprise Institute ($550,000), the American Foreign Policy Council ($125,000), and Commentary magazine ($40,000).

Scaife has a nearly 50-year history in philanthropy and has left his mark by staying focused on specific ideological objectives. In 2009, the National Journal reported:

The intellectual flowering of the conservative movement at AEI, Heritage, and elsewhere was possible not only because a few visionaries distilled a movement’s discontent but also because a handful of deep-pocketed, committed, and unusually patient wealthy benefactors such as John M. Olin, Richard Scaife, and foundations affiliated with them were willing to underwrite the broad ideological movement.

Indeed, Scaife has shown himself to be one of the more strategic right-wing philanthropists, more interested in influencing the political and cultural discourse than investing directly in electoral outcomes.

His ownership of the Pittburgh Tribune-Review proved valuable in the campaign to attack then-president Bill Clinton as the small publication emerged as the chief source for editorials claiming that Clinton was responsible for the death of Deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster.

Finding relative success in keeping the Vince Foster conspiracy theories alive, Scaife has since expanded his media holdings to include a 42 percent share in NewsMax, a conservative online news outlet that regularly gives a platform to Islamophobes.

The Scaife Foundation’s support of the Islamophobia network is a fraction of Scaife’s overall philanthropy, but it falls in line with his long-history of both creating right-wing echo chambers while, at the same time, funding the “experts” who feed it with soundbite fodder. To our knowledge, Scaife hasn’t publicly commented on whether he supports the anti-Muslim ravings of the people he funds.

Soon after the horrific terror act in Norway last month, it was revealed that the killer was neither a jihadist nor Muslim, but rather a right-wing Christian Norwegian named Anders Breivik.

Breivik’s 12-minute video manifesto outlined the killer’s conservative beliefs, including that President Obama is a Marxist and that “Christian soldiers” and “cultural conservatives” should rise up against “multiculturalism” and Muslims. ThinkProgress examined the sources Breivik used in his manifesto and found, unsurprisingly, a glut of Islamophobic bloggers and pundits among the citations.

ThinkProgress spoke with one of the conservative figures Breivik cited, Frank Gaffney, during the Western Conservative Summit last weekend. We asked Gaffney if it was concerning that his rhetoric was being used for violent ends.

Rather than reconsidering his outlandish views, Gaffney eschewed Occam’s Razor and took a far different view: Breivik’s manifesto may actually be a hoax planted by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Center for Security Policy president called for a “thorough investigation as to whether it was in fact an authentic piece of his own creation, whether it’s a false flag operation, whether it actually was meant to do anything other than to contribute to Sharia’s efforts to suppress criticism and awareness of its agenda.” He closed by noting he could “absolutely” see the Muslim Brotherhood perpetrating this kind of fraud.

THINKPROGRESS: Obviously we saw some horrific acts in Norway. I read in news reports that you yourself and the CSP had been mentioned seven separate times. Is that concerning that some people are using your rhetoric for violent ends?

GAFFNEY: I think there’s a lot yet to be determined about who this individual was and what exactly his agenda was. What’s very peculiar to me is the nature of this so-called manifesto, which seems about as unrelated to anything having to do with Norway or Norwegian nationalism as you can imagine. It’s basically entirely made up of, it’s a pastiche, a very eclectic pastiche at that, of American writers and some non-American writers but of a similar mind. It cries out for a thorough investigation as to whether it was in fact an authentic piece of his own creation, whether it’s a false flag operation, whether it actually was meant to do anything other than to contribute to Sharia’s efforts to suppress criticism and awareness of its agenda. Until we know the answers to some of those questions, I’m not going to go too far down the road of saying what its consequences might be.

Watch it:

For those keeping score at home, Gaffney’s list of those influenced or infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood now includes:

- Anders Breivik
- Herman Cain
- CPAC
- Grover Norquist
- David Petraeus
- President Obama
- The federal government
- Elena Kagan
- James Clapper
- Janet Napolitano
- The Pentagon’s missile defense logo
- The conservative movement

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