MEET ANA MARIA ARCHILA
I’d like you to meet Ana Maria Archila. She was the woman with the Columbian accent who confronted Senator Jeff Flake as he was attempting to exit the elevator on September 28. CNN and other media outlets are crediting her for getting Flake to call for a seventh FBI investigation on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. CNN had her on for an interview a few hours after she confronted Flake and lauded her “bravery.”
CNN apparently had no interest in asking Archila about her background and affiliations. That would seem to be relevant. So, with my family at Disneyland, leaving me behind to take care of the pets, I decided to take a little time to do the research that CNN wasn’t interested in doing.
Archila is the co-director at the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD). CPD is a federation of groups, including groups that were the old chapters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN disbanded shortly after two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, secretly made and released videos of interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several of their offices, portraying the personnel as encouraging criminal behavior.
CPD has received funding from the Democracy Alliance. As I noted in my book, The Tea Party Challenge, the Democracy Alliance in 2005 agreed to give $28 million to several progressive groups. According to The Nation, “[T]he bulk of the money went to familiar names on the DC circuit, like the Center for American Progress, a think tank run by [John] Podesta, and Media Matters for America, which monitors right-wing media and media bias, headed by former conservative journalist David Brock.”
The Democracy Alliance Democracy Alliance was formed with major backing from billionaires such as financier George Soros, Colorado software entrepreneur Tim Gill, and Tom Steyer. You may know Steyer from his commercials on CNN and MSNBC, in which he calls for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Kelly Craighead, Democracy Alliance’s managing director, served eight years in the Clinton Administration with the rank of Deputy Assistant advising both President and First Lady Clinton on a range of domestic and international activities and initiatives.
I checked CPD’s list of partners and recognized one of them, Sunflower Community Action (SCA) here in Kansas. SCA, a Wichita-based group, bused nearly 300 people to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s home on June 15, 2013 to protest his views on illegal immigration. Fortunately, Kobach and his family, which then included four young daughters, were not home when the mob arrived.
SCA is part of National People’s Action (NPA), a Chicago-based community organizing network with affiliates in fourteen states. In fact, Emira Palacios, a coordinator with SCA, also serves as NPA’s vice president and secretary. In the past, NPA has engaged in protests similar to the one at Kobach’s home. For example, in March 2004, NPA protested outside the home of Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s chief political advisor, to show their support for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act. “If President Bush wants our [re-election] vote, he has to give us the dream,” Palacios said. According to CNN, “Palacios said Rove agreed to meet with group leaders in his garage but then chastised them for protesting in front of his house and scaring his children.”
According to NPA’s website, NPA was founded in 1972 by Shel Trapp and Gale Cincotta “to develop the ideas, talent, and organizations that will help reclaim our democracy and advance racial and economic justice.” After Trapp died in 2010, an obituary in the Chicago Sun-Times noted that Trapp “appreciated [Saul] Alinsky’s use of the dramatic gesture to afflict the powerful and attract news coverage.”
The use of the dramatic gesture to attract news coverage. Mission accomplished.
So, contrary to CNN’s portrayal of Archila as an individual who bravely confronted Flake, it’s clear she is part of an effort financed by George Soros and Tom Steyer to use Alinskyite tactics to intimidate elected officials. They obviously succeeded with Flake, who was duped into accepting the Democrats’ dishonest delaying tactics.
I was able to find all of this in less than an hour. CNN, MSNBC, and the networks, with their resources, could have found it as well. However, that would not have advanced their anti-Trump/anti-Kavanaugh agenda.
Since they won’t share this information, I urge you to share it on Facebook and elsewhere. Thank you.
Kevin Groenhagen
