Who's Afraid of Michele Bachmann?

Who’s afraid of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann? The entire range of far-left activists, apparently.

Bachmann (R-MN) is currently the target of an aggressive campaign sponsored by a leftist organization, People for the American Way. Its immediate objective is to get House Speaker John Boehner to strip her of her Intelligence Committee seat.

According to the Watchdog Wire, the group–affiliated with ACORN, George Soros, and United for Peace and Justice–has taken a rather vocal stance against Bachmann.

People for the American Way (PFAW) has launched a new campaign against Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who, after her recent re-election to Congress, has been re-appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

A PFAW-sponsored petition with 178,000 signatures is to be presented to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Monday 21 January 2012 to protest Bachmann’s HPSCI appointment.

Citing what PFAW calls “ugly Islamophobic fear mongering,” the petition decries what it alleges are Bachmann’s “unfounded and irresponsible attacks on dedicated public servants.”

The petition was not PFAW’s first assault on Bachmann, as the group spent most of 2012 producing propaganda to make people distance themselves from the Congresswoman and her startling revelations.

From FrontPage Magazine:

Last June, Rep. Michele Bachmann and four Republican colleagues sent letters to the Inspectors General at the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State, asking them to investigate whether the Muslim Brotherhood–the ideological wellspring from which such terrorist outfits as al Qaeda and Hamas first emerged–might be gaining undue influence over high-level U.S. government officials. One letter, for instance, noted that Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin, “has three family members… connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.”

Why the special interest from PFAW? According to Discover the Networks:

People for the American Way (PFAW) was established in 1981 as a Tides Foundation project designed to counteract the allegedly growing influence of what its founder, television producer and political activist Norman Lear, denounced as the ‘religious right.’ 

In July 2011, PFAW published a Right Wing Playbook on Anti-Muslim Extremism, whose theme is that: “Under the guise of defending freedom and American values, right-wing anti-Muslim activists are campaigning to prevent Muslim-Americans from freely worshiping and practicing their religion, curtail their political rights, and even compel their deportation.”

Bachmann is also despised on the left because of her role in taking down ACORN. Bachmann went after ACORN for its role in the federal census before the group received national media attention, and the far left has never forgotten it. ACORN received over $100,000 from the foundation started by the wife of PFAW founder Norman Lear. PFAW also shares other funders with ACORN and has worked with Project Vote for years on “election protection.” PFAW boasts celebrity board members like Alec Baldwin and Seth McFarlane. The board also consists of several members with connections to the Communist Party of the USA and the usual suspects of radical millionaires.

Would PFAW’s interest have anything to do with Deborah Rappaport and her husband Andrew?

Discover the Networks provides a very clear profile:

A committed Democrat and a socialist, Rappaport has established himself (along with his wife, the philanthropist and political activist Deborah Rappaport) as one of the largest donors to Democratic Party candidates and causes. Between 1999 and 2008, he contributed $340,139 to candidates and political action committees at the national level. In addition, he and his wife have given millions of dollars to organizations that promote Democrat objectives and policies…  

Andrew Rappaport is secretary of the Rappaport Family Foundation (RFF), which he and his wife established in 2002 as a vehicle by which to administer their charitable donations. Between 2004 and 2008, RFF gave $850,000 to People for the American Way, $700,000 to the Center for American Progress, and $323,000 to the anti-war group Project Billboard. In 2006 RFF sent $100,000 to the Tides Center, which in turn (on instructions from RFF) funneled the money to Allied Media Projects, an anti-corporate community-media organization where ACORN founder Wade Rathke sits on the board of directors. As of 2006, RFF’s assets totaled $7.6 million.

Other ACORN connected board members of PFAW include the well-connected radical Margery Tabankin, the Executive Director of both Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and The Streisand Foundation.

Bachmann’s enemies at PFAW even originate from her own backyard. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is not only connected to several of the PFAW board members’ radical organizations but he is also a friend of Bachmann’s old foe ACORN.

How close of a friend? While at ACORN, I remember several efforts working with local Democrats to raise money for the Franken versus Coleman efforts. This included a 2008 meeting between Secretary of State Ritchie, ACORN, Project Vote. The subject of the meeting? Ritchie was actively providing fundraising help for Project Vote and ACORN.

PFAW has a long history of partisan political activity that is ignored by the very same mainstream media that have funded–yes, funded them in the past. CBS, NBC, ABC and even the New York Times have failed to note what the Capital Research Center (CRC) pointed out in 2002. During the height of PFAW’s work to stymie all Bush judicial nominees, CRC wrote:

People for the American Way and its affiliates work together as a powerful lobby for leftist ideology and Democratic party politics. Whatever its tax lawyers may say, the scandal of PFAW is that foundations and corporations inflate its budget and pay for its politics. Every dollar contributed to PFAW advances a profoundly political agenda.

To recap, PFAW’s board is comprised of a who’s who of far-left radicals, socialists, and communists. They are tied to ACORN and Project Vote, and the bulk of their funding comes from far-left foundations like Tides. In addition, the Capital Research Center reported that in 2003 and 2004, 98 percent of the organization’s political contributions went to left-wing Democratic candidates.

Do PFAW and its allies aim to inflict further damage in the Alinsky style to one of our country’s most courageous and visionary leaders, to defeat her next year as part of the left’s determined bid to return the House to Democratic control? 

Speaker of the House John Boehner and the rest of the country should stand strong behind Michele Bachmann. With those kind of enemies, Bachmann appears to be one of the few in Congress on the right path. We must not allow the Islamists and their allies on the left to deprive our country at this critical moment of Michele Bachmann’s leadership on national security, limited government, and conservative values at a moment when they are needed more than ever. If one woman can bring the entire wrath of the left down on her, one must examine her statements and remember the old adage “the truth hurts.” Well, look who’s howling now.