CPAC 2013: NumbersUSA to Appear on Panel with Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney

Rosemary Jenks of NumbersUSA speaking at CPAC 2012

Next time NumbersUSA’s Rosemary Jenks, the anti-immigrant group’s Director of Government Relations, comes a-calling to offices on The Hill, asking staffers to indulge the group’s research on immigration policy, the elected representatives and those staffers who find her at their doors might want to remember exactly what and who Jenks herself represents.

Yesterday, Breitbart News, a conspiracy-laden website, supposedly set up a panel at CPAC 2013 that should define all of its participants for what they are-extremists operating within their particular fields of activism and lobbying.

It is presently unclear whether or not the panel will fall under the official CPAC banner, as all of those speaking were apparently barred from doing so at this year’s conference (though many have participated in past years). CPAC’s theme this year is “The Next Generation,” and much of the focus has centered on how Conservatives will set about reinvigorating and revising the messaging and outreach efforts of a party that has lost four out of the last five popular votes in presidential elections. From that, those participating on the Breitbart panel have been deemed negative messengers who aren’t truly Conservative, who put forth such a harsh tone of rhetoric that being associated with them will, in some ways, prevent the GOP from drawing a new generation of voters into its fold.

Of course, for Breitbart News, as obsessed with controversy as it is conspiracy, this is the entire point of its panel, titled, “The Uninvited: A Session of Controversial Speakers and Topics.”

Here at Imagine2050, we’ve long argued that NumbersUSA is just that-wildly controversial. Its past that has led to its present power-role within the long established anti-immigrant movement proves that point, without any questions or debates grounded in facts and honesty.

And the appearance of Rosemary Jenks, NumbersUSA’s Director of Government Relations, on this panel is just more evidence of how controversial and single-minded NumbersUSA truly is. After all, in the group’s desperation to gain access to CPAC’s audience, it is allowing one of its longest serving employees to appear on a panel that it’s organizers are promising will “controversially,” i.e. unfairly, target Muslims and Islam.

Frank Gaffney, Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer-three of the fountainheads and leaders of the international anti-Muslim/-Islam movement are set to speak on the panel alongside Rosemary Jenks.

All three of these anti-Muslim leaders are quoted in the manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the mass murderer who slaughtered 77 people in Norway in part, he wrote, to prevent the “Islamization” of Europe. All three are also convinced that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated, is operating, and to a certain degree is controlling certain areas of the government of the United States. For example, Frank Gaffney has regularly claimed that Huma Abedin is an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood. And he has said as much about CPAC, declaring that the conference is now advancing Sharia law within America.

NumbersUSA has for years been forced to publicly defend its controversial background, especially recently from Conservatives. So often have the charges of anti-immigrant bigotry been leveled at them that the group maintains a permanent statement on its website addressing the issue, “No to Immigrant Bashing.” That’s not stopping Rosemary Jenks, however, from appearing on a panel with more than a few individuals who, like NumbersUSA, are interested in doing just that-blaming immigrants and outsiders for all of the problems of the United States. As the anti-immigrant movement apparently sees itself pushed further to the fringes by Conservatives, this also represents yet another moment of the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim/-Islam movements bleeding into one another and into a more provocative conglomeration of nativists.

Jenks’s recent appearance on Gaffney’s radio show is yet another example.

Read some of Breitbart’s press release below.

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