In their new report Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network In America ThinkProgress has done the hard work to bring into the light who is behind the phony Islamophobia campaign. All credit to them.
While they talk about seven foundations providing $42 million, what stood out to me was that just one of those, the Donors Capital Fund had single handedly contributed over $20 million of that. A quick google led to the their board of directors and officers and their affiliations. They are, on the one hand both mainstream insofar as cross-connecting to the usual so called respectable right wing beltway crowd we would expect (AEI, Heritage), and yet showing once again how the entire right wing apparatus is all the more extremist.
If one ever wondered how such blatently fact free demogogic extremism as the "Sharia Law" nonsense ever got to the level of mainstream coverage it has enjoyed, the answer is certainly connected to the inter-connectedness of these organizations and people:
Board of DirectorsAdam Meyerson, Chairman President, The Philanthropy Roundtable
Kimberly O. Dennis, Vice Chairman President, Searle Freedom Trust
Whitney L. Ball, Director President & CEO, DonorsTrust
Christopher DeMuth, Director DC Searle Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Steven Hayward, Director F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Kris Alan Mauren, Director Executive Director, The Acton Institute
William H. Mellor, Director President, Institute for Justice
Stephen Moore, Director Economist
John A. Von Kannon, Director Vice President, The Heritage FoundationOfficers
Whitney L. Ball, President President & CEO, DonorsTrust
Kimberly O. Dennis, Secretary President, Searle Freedom Trust
Steven Hayward, Treasurer F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Jeffrey C. Zysik, Assistant Treasurer CFO & CIO, DonorsTrustFounding Benefactor
Bruce H. Jacobs, 1918-2010 Anacortes, Washington
Further details of these folks behind the phony Islamophobia campaign are below