Soros’ $10 Million Funds Group Slamming Conservative ‘Islamophobia’
A liberal group funded by billionaire George Soros is accusing conservatives and the “religious right” of fear-mongering and slandering Islam. According to the Center for American Progress, the right has been coordinating to push “Sharia hysteria” which “mischaracterizes Sharia as a totalitarian ideology of hate and triumphalism committed to replacing the U.S. Constitution with a radical Islamic caliphate that will subordinate and punish all non-Muslim adherents.”
Soros has donated $10,117,186 to CAP since 2000. The group argued this “Sharia hysteria” is comparable to Japanese Americans being interned during WWII “because they were seen as ‘others’,” or to opposition to John F. Kennedy’s presidency on the basis of his Catholic faith. The report, entitled “Fear, Inc.” invoked a liberal term, “echo chamber,” to claim conservatives were working together. “The efforts of a small cadre of funders and misinformation experts were amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse.”
Ironically, the term “echo chamber” is specifically mentioned by the Soros-funded Media Consortium. That group is a network of 68 left-wing media outlets ranging from Alternet to The Young Turks. The Media Consortium has received $675,000 from Soros’ Open Society foundations.
That’s not the only thing wrong with “Fear, Inc.” Contrary to CAP’s claims, Sharia law is by nature a push for an Islamic theocracy. According to David Reaboi, at the time of this quote a spokesperson for the Center for Security Policy, “the Sharia contain numerous explicit punishments and exhortations to violence against the non-Muslim that (very significantly) have been reaffirmed through the centuries and until today.”
John Podesta, founder and president of the Center for American Progress, was recruited by the White House in December of 2013 to be a counselor to President Obama. His close relationship to George Soros and Tom Steyer (another liberal donor to CAP) earned Soros and Steyer the opportunity to advise the White House on environmental policy in August of 2014. Soros and Steyer are two of the top funders of left-wing causes.
Steyer had donated $3,850,000 in the same time period. The “Our Supporters” page of CAP’s website lists the liberal Ford Foundation and Tom Steyer as having donated more than a $1 million in 2014 (Steyer’s 2014 990 tax returns have not yet been publicly released, so this million is not part of the $3.85 million).
— Mike Ciandella is Research Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Mike Ciandella on Twitter.
