Tag Archives: Southern Poverty Law Center

Are You A Terror Suspect Because You Attend Church?

Posted on by

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about documents  obtained by America First Legal (AFL).

The article reports:

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) brainstormed about infiltrating local communities to spy on Americans, and suggested being “religious” or “in the military” was an “indicator of extremists and terrorism,” excerpts of documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL) purportedly show.

These excerpts, released Thursday by AFL, purport to show how in 2023, the DHS’s newly created “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group” looked for ways to expand their spying on American citizens, including by trying to “get into local communities in a non-threatening way” to get fellow Americans to tattle tale on their neighbors.

The committee, on which John Brennan and James Clapper — both notorious for their participation in the Russia-collusion hoax as well as for falsely claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation — sat, also suggested religious Americans, members of the military, and Trump supporters were possible security threats, according to segments of the documents released by AFL.

The article notes:

Not only did the FBI expand its “anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists” (AGAAVE) classification to include the “furtherance of political and/or social agendas,” but it also created a new terrorism category, “AGAAVE-Other,” in October of 2022.

“[Y]es, in practical terms, it refers to MAGA, though the carefully constructed language is wholly nonpartisan,” an FBI officer told Newsweek.

The article concludes:

This is a top-down ideology, exemplified by Biden himself espousing the baseless yet inflammatory claim that “MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country.”

But the real threat is Democrats’ unabashed use of law enforcement agencies to target political dissidents. The FBI, for example, used a document from the left-wing extremist group, Southern Poverty Law Center, to target Catholics for beliefs like opposing abortion and holding orthodox views on sex. The FBI labeled these individuals as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,” as reported by The Daily Signal.

As you read this, there are people in our government making plans to limit any free speech opposing their agenda and using government force to silence those who continue to speak. We need to vote very carefully in November. Any politician at any level who opposes free speech or talks about jailing people who disagree with him needs to lose his election by a wide enough margin so that he can’t cheat.

Training the FBI To Work Against Religious Americans

Posted on by

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about groups targeted as terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The unfortunate part of the story is that the FBI is getting its information on exactly who is a terrorist from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), long known to be a very left-leaning organization.

The article reports:

The FBI trained personnel on countering extremism with material from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), according to former special agent turned whistleblower Steve Friend.

In an interview with the Tennessee Informer last month, Friend recalled his experience at the FBI Academy in 2014: “We were shown a video that was produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The film, Friend said, “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists.”

“I don’t know if they still show that,” Friend added, “but that’s what we were shown.”

The FBI still relies on SPLC material a decade later, leading a pair of top Republican senators to demand the agency sever ties with the leftist hate group that routinely smears right-of-center associations as “hate groups.” SPLC’s false “hate group” designations led to a domestic terrorist attack in 2012 on the offices of a pro-family organization.

The article concludes:

The SPLC also lists the first Amendment legal non-profit, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) as a “designated hate group.” ADF has won cases at the Supreme Court 15 times, setting significant precedents in favor of Americans’ constitutional rights.

Friend was asked on the Tennessee Informer whether students at the FBI Academy pushed back at the use of a leftist hate group to train agents that pro-lifers are a worse threat than Islamic terrorists.

“There was some eye rolling,” Friend said, because his peers at the time were a group that “leans more conservative, more libertarian. “It’s probably very different now,” Friend added.

“When you’re at the Academy for the FBI, a lot of people are a little bit older,” Friend said. “Now the FBI is actually recruiting young people so they can indoctrinate them further.”

I don’t think our Founding Fathers ever considered that people who stood up for the unborn would be considered a greater threat to our Republic than Islamic terrorists.

 

Learning From The Chinese Social Credits System

Posted on by

China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. American supported the move. There were a few reasons for admitting them to the organization. The first was the belief that there would be an economic gain for America when Chinese markets were fully open to Americans and vice versa. The other reason was the hope that through trade China would become more free under the influence of commerce with America. The economic gain was limited due to the manipulation of the Chinese currency by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and freedom has consistently been squelched in China by the CCP. Obviously, we had good intentions, but we were wrong. Instead of exporting freedom, we may be on the verge of importing their social credits system.

Yesterday The Hill posted an article with the following headline, “Coming soon: America’s own social credit system.”

The article reports:

The new domestic “War on Terror,” kicked off by the riot on Jan. 6, has prompted several web giants to unveil predecessors to what effectively could become a soft social credit system by the end of this decade. Relying on an indirect hand from D.C., our social betters in corporate America will attempt to force the most profound changes our society has seen during the internet era.

China’s social credit system is a combination of government and business surveillance that gives citizens a “score” that can restrict the ability of individuals to take actions — such as purchasing plane tickets, acquiring property or taking loans — because of behaviors. Given the position of several major American companies, a similar system may be coming here sooner than you think.

Last week, PayPal announced a partnership with the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to “investigate” the role of “white supremacists” and propagators of “anti-government” rhetoric, subjective labels that potentially could impact a large number of groups or people using their service. PayPal says the collected information will be shared with other financial firms and politicians. Facebook is taking similar measures, recently introducing messages that ask users to snitch on their potentially “extremist” friends, which considering the platform’s bias seems mainly to target the political right. At the same time, Facebook and Microsoft are working with several other web giants and the United Nations on a database to block potential extremist content.

The article notes:

The potential scope of the soft social credit system under construction is enormous. The same companies that can track your activities and give you corporate rewards for compliant behavior could utilize their powers to block transactions, add surcharges or restrict your use of products. At what point does free speech — be it against biological males playing in girls’ sports, questioning vaccine side effects, or advocating for gun rights — make someone a target in this new system? When does your debit card get canceled over old tweets, your home loan denied for homeschooling your kids, or your eBay account invalidated because a friend flagged you for posting a Gadsden flag?

The article concludes:

Until and unless there is an organized pushback, our future could track with those of increasingly illiberal societies. Just last week, the British government announced its own version of a health social credit system. China’s system was announced only seven years ago. Considering the growth of algorithms and dependence on tech giants, the ability to track, censor and eventually punish ordinary citizens will be mindboggling by 2030. America’s descent into a 21st century Gilded Age directed by tech titans isn’t an inevitability. However, do you know anyone who would take a 5 percent Amazon coupon in exchange for a “call to action”? Or someone who would replace their Facebook profile picture to avoid being locked out? 

Peer pressure, trendy movements, and the ability to comply with the new system with the click of a mouse combine all of the worst elements of dopamine-chasing Americans. As it grows in breadth and power, what may be most surprising about our new social credit system won’t be collective fear of it, but rather how quickly most people will fall in line.

There are several problems with this other than the fact that it totally ignores the freedom and rights of Americans protected under the U.S. Constitution. Who defines extremism? Is extremism the belief in principles that were considered the norm only fifteen years ago–men in men’s sports, women in women’s sports, marriage between one man and one woman, etc.? We are heading down a dangerous path. I am personally aware of someone’s PayPal account being closed because the company became aware that she was in Washington, D.C. on January 6th. She was nowhere near the Capitol Building, but she was in the city. That is what we have to look forward to if we don’t stand up for our Constitutional rights.

 

Common Sense In Alabama

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that the Alabama state Senate voted Tuesday to make it a felony for medical professionals to treat minors with hormone therapy or sex change surgery.

The article reports:

The bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Shay Shelnutt and dubbed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, passed through the chamber by a margin of 23-4, according to CBS News.

The bill would result in criminal felony charges for any medical professional who treats transgender minors under the age of 19 with “gender-affirming care” and would come with the punishment of up to 10 years in prison or a $15,000 fine.

…The bill also requires school staff in the state to notify parents that “a minor’s perception that his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

If signed into law, the bill would be the first of its kind in the United States to be enacted.

The article includes the following information about objections to the bill:

Liberal groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, AIDS Alabama, and the Alabama American Civil Liberties Union, have voiced opposition to the bill, arguing that it puts transgender children at risk.

“Lawmakers are insisting that they know what’s best for transgender young people and ignoring the recommendations of medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and more,” Allison Scott, a director at the Campaign for Southern Equality, said about the legislation. “It’s effectively endangering many possible lifelines for a transgender child: Under this bill, they can’t go to their doctor for help, and they can’t seek counsel or comfort from their teachers or school staff.”

The children need to talk to their parents. That should be their first resort. Also, you can’t get your ears pierced without parental consent if you are under 18, why should you be encouraged to make such a life-changing decision without their knowledge or consent? If a child still wants to make that decision at 19, then he is considered an adult. However, I would like to point out that we don’t let children smoke or drink until they are 21. Why would we allow them to change their sex before they can smoke or drink? The logic escapes me.

Not Dr. Seuss!

Posted on by

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported that Loudoun County Public School Board in Virginia has concluded that Dr. Suess’s children’s books contain “racial undertones” that are not suitable for “culturally responsive” learning.

The article reports the announcement made by the Board:

“Realizing that many schools continue to celebrate ‘Read Across America Day’ in partial recognition of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, it is important for us to be cognizant of research that may challenge our practice in this regard,” the announcement reads. “As we become more culturally responsive and racially conscious, all building leaders should know that in recent years there has been research revealing radical undertones in the books written and the illustrations drawn by Dr. Seuss.” 

Learning for Justice was formerly known as “Teaching Tolerance,” which has promoted radical views on teaching “social justice” and “racial justice” to students as young as five-years-old. Learning for Justice is the education arm of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). 

In a magazine article titled, “It’s Time to Talk About Dr. Seuss,” Learning for Justice cites a study from St. Catherine University that claims Dr. Seuss’s children’s literature is rife with “orientalism, anti-blackness, and white supremacy.”  

The researchers surveyed 50 Dr. Seuss books and concluded that there is not enough diversity in the children’s books, many of which were written in the 1950s. 

In case your missed it, Learning for Justice is the education arm of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). That explains a lot.

The researchers identified what they considered the problem:

“Of the 2,240 (identified) human characters, there are 45 of color representing two percent of the total number of human characters,” the study reads. Of the 45 characters of color, 43 “exhibited behaviors and appearances that align with harmful and stereotypical Orientalist tropes.” 

Learning for Justice alleges that many of the non-white characters in Dr. Seuss’s books were men and were “subservient” to the white characters in his book.

The article concludes:

Learning for Justice claims that anyone who defends Dr. Seuss’s problematic work is a racial “apologist” and is making excuses for why “bigotry doesn’t matter.” 

The education group also tells teachers to directly discuss Dr. Seuss’s “racist” past with older students, though “older students” remains an undefined category. Teachers were asked to explain to students how racism shows up in places and people they may least expect. 

“You can address these arguments directly, discussing the degree to which cultural norms excuse biased language or actions, how harmful stereotypical representation can be and whether — and how — a person can make up for hurtful mistakes.” 

This is getting ridiculous!

It’s About Time

Posted on by

Yesterday Sara Carter posted an article about some comments made during Wednesday’s House subcommittee tech hearing. The exchange was between Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

The article reports:

During Wednesday’s House subcommittee tech hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) questioned Amazon’s usage of the radical Southern Poverty Law Center to deem eligible charities for donations, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he would look to alternative options.

Gaetz layed out a list of charities that focus on Christian and Jewish causes as charities unjustly labeled as “extremists” by the SPLC — to which Bezos said he accepts Gaetz’s criticism and “would like a better source if I can get it.”

One of the groups unjustly labeled as a hate group by the SPLC is the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal group focused on defending religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and free speech. Their cases have included defending Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker sued for sticking to his religious beliefs.

In case you have forgotten, the Southern Poverty Law Center has not been a sterling influence.

On February 6, 2013, The Washington Examiner reported:

The Family Research Council shooter, who pleaded guilty today to a terrorism charge, picked his target off a “hate map” on the website of the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center which is upset with the conservative group’s opposition to gay rights.

Floyd Lee Corkins II pleaded guilty to three charges including a charge of committing an act of terrorism related to the August 15, 2012 injuring of FRC’s guard. He told the FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went to the law center’s website for ideas.

At a court hearing where his comments to the FBI were revealed, he said that he intended to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard.” The shooting occurred after an executive with Chick-Fil-A announced his support for traditional marriage, angering same-sex marriage proponents.

Generally speaking, the Southern Poverty Law Center labels any group that stands for traditional values, traditional marriage, and any other ideas that do not fit the liberal agenda as a hate group. Using them as a guide to determine which charities are acceptable is like using the Ku Klux Klan as an arbitrator in a civil rights case.

Our Legal System Is Being Used Against Us

Posted on by

The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that two illegal aliens have hired the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to represent them in a case claiming they suffered damages when they were deported by the United States. So illegal aliens want to sue America for enforcing its laws. Right.

The article reports:

Two fathers who were forcibly separated from their young children by immigration officials have filed administrative claims against the United States to seek compensation for the lasting harm caused by the Trump administration’s family separation policy. The claims, on behalf of families who will continue to suffer damage to their mental, physical and emotional health for years to come, are the latest in a series filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Covington & Burling.

“Thousands of children and parents will live with intense trauma the rest of their lives as a result of this policy, which the administration knew would leave indelible scars on these families,” said Michelle Lapointe, senior supervising attorney at the SPLC. “The government must be held accountable for its actions and it must put a stop to this practice once and for all.”

The filings detail the cruelty of both the practice of family separation and the treatment of these families while in federal custody. As has been well-documented, the intent of the family separations was to deter future migrants by deliberately subjecting immigrants in custody to harsh conditions that would ensure their suffering. The dehumanization of these families and other migrants is evident in the accounts of their treatment while in government custody.

How much suffering did these children endure in their quest to enter America illegally? When you break the law, are you not subject to the consequences?

The article concludes:

These administrative claims are the first step toward holding the government accountable for the separations and the resulting serious trauma and suffering of the affected families. If the government fails to respond within six months or rejects the claims, the families can seek damages by filing lawsuits in federal court.

“The harm inflicted on these fathers, their children and their entire families can never be undone,” said Jay Carey, a partner at Covington & Burling. “But those responsible for their pain can and must be held accountable.  And a message must be sent to this Administration — which has acted in the name of the American people — that such cruelty will not be tolerated here or in any civilized society.”

So if you are doing something illegal and something negative happens, you can sue the people who were enforcing the law? How does that make sense?

This Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

Posted on by

On Friday, PJ Media posted an article about a group trying to discourage donations to conservative organizations.

The article reports:

On Monday, the first day of the Islamic holy season of Ramadan, the Hamas-linked anti-Israel Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a report condemning mainstream charities and philanthropic groups for allowing donors to contribute to conservative organizations CAIR and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have accused of being “hate groups” comparable to the Ku Klux Klan. This is particularly rich, as CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror-funding case involving the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

The report, “Hijacked by Hate: American Philanthropy and the Islamophobia Network,” lists “philanthropic foundations, many of them mainstream, that were used by anonymous special interest donors to funnel almost $125 million to anti-Muslim hate groups between 2014 and 2016.” CAIR found 1,096 organizations funding 39 groups they accused of fomenting “anti-Muslim hate,” to the tune of $1.5 billion.

CAIR would define an anti-Muslim hate group as any group that tells the truth about the link between those who support Islamic supremacy and terror. Keep in mind that CAIR was one of the groups listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial. If you are unfamiliar with the details of that trial, please look at the circumstances of the trial and the government exhibits from the trial. The exhibits outline the plan of Islamic supremacists to use our freedom and our legal system to undermine our government.

The article continues:

“It is our hope that with sustained action, institutional collaboration, and dedicated will, a community of progressive and mainstream allies will emerge to push the Islamophobia Network back to the fringe of our society, where odious and incendiary speech belong,” CAIR National Research and Advocacy Director Abbas Barzegar said.

In addition to slandering and blacklisting conservative groups, the report brands Trump “the Anti-Muslim Hydra,” without explaining the use of the term “hydra.” This invective may suggest Trump’s administration is a monster, which grows three more heads for every severed head, or it may link the Trump administration to the fictional organization Hydra from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an organization which was too radical even for the Nazis.

To their shame, some of the charitable foundations said they took the report “very seriously.” Schwab Charitable told NPR that its direction of funding is done by individuals and does not “reflect the values or beliefs of Schwab, Schwab Charitable or its management.” Even so, the fund insisted that it “does not condone hate groups and we take concerns about illegitimate activity by grant recipients seriously.” It encouraged people to contact the IRS or state charity regulators if the “anti-Muslim hate groups” broke any laws.

Keep in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood managed to purge all references to radical Islam from our government briefings on terror during the term of Barack Obama. Now CAIR is going after conservative groups because conservative groups understand who CAIR is and understand CAIR’s relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Using Our Laws Against Us

Posted on by

In February, Judicial Watch reported that a group of illegal aliens working in a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in East Tennessee were arrested by ICE agents. These illegal aliens, aided by the Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC), are suing the federal agents that arrested them.

The article reports:

Represented by an extremist nonprofit that lists conservative organizations on a catalogue of “hate groups,” seven illegal immigrants detained in a workplace raid are suing the federal agents that arrested them, claiming that they were racially profiled for being Latino. In a federal court complaint filed this week by their pro bono attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the illegal aliens assert that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated their Constitutional rights against illegal seizures and to equal protection under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The raid occurred last spring at a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in a small rural town called Bean Station in east Tennessee. Agents from ICE and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raided the facility as part of a lengthy investigation into the owner’s multi-million-dollar tax evasion and fraud scheme. About 100 illegal aliens were arrested, most of them from Guatemala and Mexico and some had been previously deported from the U.S. more than once. At least 54 people were deported immediately, some were released and others faced federal or state charges, according to a local news report following the seize.

The owner of the business, James Brantley, eventually pled guilty to multiple federal crimes, including tax fraud, wire fraud, and employment of unauthorized illegal aliens. The feds say he avoided paying nearly $1.3 million in taxes by hiring at least 150 illegal aliens and paying them off the books in cash. The scheme began in 1988 and continued through 2018 when he got busted. Brantley had reported to the IRS that he had only 44 wage-earning employees, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). To avoid Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax obligations, unemployment insurance premiums, unemployment tax and workers’ compensation insurance premiums he paid illegal immigrants in cash at a rate of $8-$10 per hour.

Since when do illegal aliens have constitutional rights–they are not American citizens, and they are breaking the law by being here.

The article also states:

Leftist groups went ballistic, asserting that illegal immigrants were victims whose “rights” were violated by the federal government. Outraged, the SPLC called it the largest workplace immigration raid since the George W. Bush administration. “What happened on April 5, 2018 was law enforcement overreach, plain and simple,” said the group’s senior supervising attorney Meredith Stewart. “We, as a nation, have a shared set of ideals, rooted in the Bill of Rights: We have a right to be free of racial profiling and unlawful arrests. If we are not willing to uphold those ideals for everyone in this country, then we are all at risk of losing our rights.” In the complaint, SPLC attorneys write that the federal officers conspired to plan and execute the forceful and prolonged seizure of the meatpacking plant’s Latino workforce solely on the basis of their actual or apparent race or ethnicity.

If the workers were here illegally, why would anyone characterize the arrests as unlawful? Isn’t it lawful to arrest people who break the law?

I hope a judge throws this case out of court. The person running the business was breaking the law by hiring the illegals, but the illegals were also illegal. They are not protected by the U.S. Constitution. Does anyone believe that if they entered Mexico illegally that they would be under the protection of the Mexican constitution?

Somehow I Don’t Think This Is Helpful

Posted on by

The Washington Examiner is reporting today that the Nation of Islam has received $364,500 in contracts and awards from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2019.

The article reports:

The funding was designed to provide “Nation of Islam religious services,” “Nation of Islam spiritual guide services,” “Nation of Islam study services,” and other related programming led by the organization’s leaders, according to Bureau of Prison records. The Nation of Islam has been labeled a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It scares me that I agree with the Southern Poverty Law Center on anything, but in this case they are right. The Nation of Islam is led by Louis Farrakhan. Some of his teaching states that white people are “blue-eyed devils” and Jews are “the synagogue of Satan.” That is not a message that is helpful to anyone.

The article further reports:

In total, the Bureau of Prisons contracted with over a dozen organizations and individuals to specifically provide Nation of Islam programming for inmates. One of these individuals was Verbon Muhammad, a Nation leader in Monroe, La., who received over $60,000 to “provide Nation of Islam religious services.” Muhammad told a reporter at the Louisiana News Star last year that white people are not allowed to attend Nation of Islam religious services.

“We don’t allow white people in our meetings, period,” said Muhammad.

There is a concern that chaplains in our prisons are not helping inmates in their journey to be productive citizens.

The article reports:

King (New York Republican Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence) said the funding raises concerns about the federal vetting process for prison chaplains in light of reports that prisons can be a breeding ground for radicalization.

In 2010, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report that found “as many as three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam while in prison have traveled to Yemen, possibly for Al Qaeda training.” The issue has drawn recent attention in Europe, after a gunman who attacked visitors at a Christmas market in France was reported to have been radicalized during a prior stint in jail.

“Since there have been too many instances of radicalization occurring in prisons, that, to me, is a public concern as to what is being taught,” King said. “To me, once you’re associated with Farrakhan, that, to me, would end the vetting right away.”

It’s time to reevaluate our prison chaplain program to see if it is helping prisoners to become productive citizens or creating people that will not exist peacefully in society.

Political Attacks On Good People

Posted on by

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line today about the appointment of Fred Fleitz as chief-of-staff of the National Security Council. The smear campaign against a good man has begun. Yesterday the Washington Monthly posted an article calling Fred Fleitz a Neo-Nazi.  He is not a neo-Nazi–but he is a man who understands the threat of radical Islam. They describe him as the anti-Muslim senior vice-president of an Islamaphobic think tank and now NSC chief of staff. The think tank they are referring to is the Center for Security Policy headed by Frank Gaffney. The Center for Security Policy has been one of the few honest sources for information on Sharia Law and the attempts to infiltrate Sharia into our government. They are described as Islamaphobic just as anyone who understands the threat of Sharia extremists in America is described.

The article at Power Line concludes:

The previous administration did not take the danger seriously. Or maybe it just couldn’t discern an Islamic radical group when it saw one.

Adam Kredo of the Washington Examiner argues that members of the Obama administration are instrumental in the slander of Fleitz. He notes that “organizations closely tied to the Obama administration” have led the charge. Kredo cites the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also includes or Anti Defamation League which is currently headed by Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama administration official.

Desperate to defend Obama’s major legacy item — the Iran nuclear deal — Team Obama has a strong interest in bringing down John Bolton and Fred Fleitz, as it brought down Michael Flynn. But CAIR, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and even the Washington Post aren’t the FBI. These outfits are just shouting into the wind. But that doesn’t make some of the shouting any less despicable.

There are many places in our government that need to be revamped after the damage done by the last presidential administration. The National Security Council is one of those places. The appointment of Fred Fleitz is definitely a step in the right direction.

 

Discrimination Against Conservative Organizations

Posted on by

The Daily Caller reported yesterday that Amazon has barred the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom from taking part in their Amazon Smile program.

The article reports:

Amazon allows the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to determine which groups are and aren’t allowed to take part in Amazon Smile 

The article lists some of the groups who will be participating in the program:

Unlike ADF, hardline Islamic groups are allowed to participate in Amazon Smile. That includes the Islamic Center of Jersey City, whose imam called Jews “apes and pigs” and requested Allah’s help in killing them “down to the very last one,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

 

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is able to take part in Amazon Smile, despite a 2009 federal court ruling the U.S. government has “ample evidence” of ties between the group and Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

The similarly named Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is also an Amazon Smile member. ICNA promotes the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and has ties to a radical Pakistani political group, Jamaat-e-Islami. The ADL has criticized ICNA for giving a platform to extremists.

Amazon’s spokesperson declined to comment to TheDCNF on the eligibility status of individual organizations but stressed the diversity of the more than one million participants in the program.

ISNA is listed as an unindicted co conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Trial which began in July 2007. The Holy Land Foundation Trial dealt with groups funding money to Islamic terrorists. These are the people Amazon is allowing to participate in their charity programs while keeping Christian organizations out. This is definitely backwards.

Fighting Back Against Misinformation

Posted on by

On Monday The Center for Security Policy posted an article about the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and their hate group map.

The article reports:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has reportedly removed the “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” from its website after being faced with a lawsuit.

 Attorneys for a leading British Muslim reformer, Maajid Nawaz, threatened legal action over his being included in the list, according to National Review.

 The list also included female genital mutilation victim Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer and Frank Gaffney.

The SPLC report, which still exists in PDF form, was first published in December 2016 and was intended to be a resource for journalists.  It reads, “A shocking number of these extremists are seen regularly on television news programs and quoted in the pages of our leading newspapers. There, they routinely espouse a wide range of utter falsehoods, all designed to make Muslims appear as bloodthirsty terrorists or people intent on undermining American constitutional freedoms. More often than not, these claims go uncontested.”

Maajid Nawaz, who founded the anti-extremist think tank Quilliam Foundation in London, said on a podcast with Joe Rogan that the report was taken down under legal threat in the past few days.

Nawaz said, “We have retained Clare Lock, they are writing to the Southern Poverty Law Center as we speak. I think they’ve got wind of it – the Southern Poverty Law Center – and as of yesterday, or the day before, they’ve removed the entire list that’s been up there for two years.”

The problem with the SPLC’s hate map is that anyone who disagreed with the liberal agenda is listed as a hate group and anything said against the liberal agenda as hate speech. The people who have spoken out honestly against Sharia Law and the attempts to bring it to America have been charged with hate speech. Telling the truth is characterized as hate speech according to the SPLC. This is reminiscent of the purging of the Department of Homeland Security of documents related to terrorism (article here):

In October 2011, elements of the American Muslim Brotherhood wrote the White House demanding an embargo or discontinuation of information and materials relating to Islamic-based terrorism. The letter was addressed to John Brennan, who at the time was Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.  Days later John Brennan agreed to create a task force to address the problem by removing personnel and products that the Muslim Brotherhood deemed “biased, false, and highly offensive.” This move in effect allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to control the information given to the people charged with stopping the terrorism initiated by groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. At this point, the 9/11 reports and other actual historic documents were altered to make them compliant with the new paradigm. (I thought only the Russians rewrote history.)

The Center for Security Policy article concludes:

Family Research Council Executive Vice President General Jerry Boykin denounced the SPLC as “probably one of the most evil groups in America. They’ve become a money-making machine and they’ve become an absolute Marxist, anarchist organization.”
The SPLC website says “The organizations on our hate group list vilify others because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity – prejudices that strike at the heart of our democratic values and fracture society along its most fragile fault lines.”
The SPLC did not respond to a question why they have removed the “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists”.

America’s future security depends on an informed public. Organizations like the SPLC misinform the public about the dangers around them. Meanwhile some forces within our government work to prevent law enforcement from having the information they need to protect us. If Americans do not wake up, we will have to explain to our children and grandchildren how we lost their freedom.

Sanity Occasionally Happens In Government

Posted on by

On Monday, The Daily Caller Reported that the Department of Defense has cut its ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Previously the SPLC was regarded as a source when identifying hate groups. Unfortunately, the SPLC has degenerated into a liberal mouthpiece citing any conservative group that supports traditional values as a hate group.

The article reports:

Brian J. Field, assistant U.S. attorney from the Civil Division, stated that the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), in an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation from the Department of Justice.

The DEOMI is a DOD school founded to fight segregation and inequality that teaches courses in racial, gender and religious equality, among other subject areas like equal opportunity and pluralism. The courses are available to DOD civilians and service members.

The article concludes:

The Pentagon’s decision to terminate its relationship with the SPLC comes at a time when the group has under major fire from conservative organizations, particularly in the form of lawsuits. D. James Kennedy Ministries, a Christian ministry from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recently sued the SPLC after being labeled a hate group. The SPLC has also faced criticism from liberals. In late August, anti-Muslim extremism activist and feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali argued in The New York Times that “the S.P.L.C. is an organization that has lost its way, smearing people who are fighting for liberty and turning a blind eye to an ideology and political movement that has much in common with Nazism.”

For Ali, corporations and donors in Hollywood “need to find more trustworthy and deserving partners to work with than the SPLC.”

Notably, the Pentagon is not the only federal agency to drop the SPLC.

In February, The Daily Caller News Foundation published an exclusive piece indicating that the FBI, which formerly used the SPLC as a “hate crimes resource,” has also been distancing itself from the group.

It would be nice to have an unbiased source to keep track of hate groups, but I am not convinced that is possible. We have had the obvious hate groups with us for a long time–white supremacists, black panthers, and others. It is time simply to marginalize these groups and begin to unite as a country. Hopefully this is possible.

The Hate Group Supposedly Naming The Hate Groups

Posted on by

The following video was posted on YouTube on September 12th:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been linked to two shootings in Washington. The shooting at the Family Research Council in 2012 was linked to the SPLC having declared them a hate group and there were some questions as to whether the gunman who shot Steve Scalise was influenced by the SPLC. At any rate, when we start declaring organizations hate groups, we need to be careful. The problem with declaring groups hate groups or speech hate speech is that it involves very subjective judgement on the part of the person making the declaration.

The SPLC has every right to exist and state their views. It is the responsibility of those who hear those views to do their own research and draw their own conclusions. As Dr. Swain noted, the SPLC has done nothing for the poor. So what is their actual purpose? Based on their past performance, it appears that their only goal is to create problems between races rather than to solve them.

Common Sense Has Left The Building

Posted on by

The Daily Caller posted an article today about the latest target of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The group has totally lost all sense of reason.

The article reports:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared three of America’s largest Army bases Confederate monuments “with the potential to unleash more turmoil and bloodshed” if activists don’t “take down” the Army bases.

The SPLC included Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia on a list of 1,500 “Confederate monuments” that the SPLC claims could inspire more violence like what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia last month. All three bases are named after Confederate military leaders.

The list makes no mention of renaming namesakes of Confederate monuments; taking the monuments down is presented as the only option. The recent leftist campaign against Confederate namesakes and monuments has included a willingness among some far-left actors to destroy government property to accomplish their goals.

If the SPLC is so unhappy with American history and the American government, why don’t they take their organization elsewhere? Nothing they are doing is improving the atmosphere of division and hate that they say they are combating. In fact, it can be argued that this ‘anti-hate group’ is creating hate and division.

The article notes:

At the same time that the SPLC is waging its campaign against Fort Hood, approximately 400 American soldiers stationed at the base are down in Houston helping victims of Hurricane Harvey.

What is the SPLC doing to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey?

A Hate Group That Claims To Be Fighting Hate

Posted on by

Last week I posted an article about a donation given to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) by George and Amal Clooney. The donation was made in response to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and was given ‘to combat hate groups. As I explained in the article, according to the SPLC, a hate group is any group of people who do not share the same beliefs as the SPLC. That is the danger of designating hate groups–there may be a few we all agree on, but there is also a lot of room for disagreement.

PJ Media posted an article yesterday reporting that the SPLC is being sued by some of the groups it has designated as hate groups.

The article reports:

Now, some of the groups slandered by this organization have begun to fight back — and it’s not just Christian groups like D. James Kennedy Ministries and Liberty Counsel.

“The SPLC, who made their money suing the KKK, were set up to defend people like me, but now they’ve become the monster that they claimed they wanted to defeat,” Maajid Nawaz, a British politician and founder of the anti-Islamist organization the Quilliam foundation, declared in a video announcing his lawsuit against the SPLC for defamation.

“They have named me, alongside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, on a list of ‘Anti-Muslim Extremists,'” Nawaz said. “I am suing the SPLC for defamation and I need your help to win.”

The article notes:

In June, the charity navigation website GuideStar adopted the SPLC “hate group” list, marking each profile of the targeted organizations as a “hate group.” ABC and NBC  parroted the SPLC’s “hate group” label against Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) last month, and CNN published the group’s “hate map” online.

But the SPLC does not deserve this widespread trust, support, and publicity. The organization is a “cash-collecting machine” that spreads libels against religious organizations and has been connected to two domestic terror attacks.

There have been two domestic terror attacks that have connections to the SPLC. The first was the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise (R-La.) early this summer (James Hodgkinson had liked the SPLC on Facebook. The SPLC had attacked Representative Scalise for giving a speech to a white supremacist group.) The second attack occurred in 2012 when Floyd Lee Corkins III broke into the Family Research Council (FRC), aiming to kill everyone in the building. The article reports that during an FBI interrogation, the shooter said he targeted FRC because it was listed as an “anti-gay group” on the SPLC website.

The article at PJ Media centers on the lawsuit by Maajid Nawaz, a British politician and founder of the anti-Islamist organization the Quilliam foundation.

The article reports:

In the video announcing his lawsuit, Nawaz declared that “placing my name on a list like this not only smears my name, but also puts me in physical danger.” He noted that “the Left has descended into violence, whether that’s punching people on the street, throwing explosives and attacking people in protests and riots or assassination attempts on Right-wing politicians by leftist fans of the SPLC.”

Whatever their intention was at their inception, the SPLC has become a political hate group that has discovered a way to make money through lawsuits and gifts from people who want to feel good about ‘combating hate.’ It is my hope that a few lawsuits will convince them to find other ways of making a living.

Please follow the link above to the PJ Media article. It is chilling that an organization that claims to be fighting hate can be so misused by the political left. At the moment, the SPLC is being used as a weapon to stifle Christian beliefs and conservative speech. That is not a direction America should be moving in.

When The World Turns Upside Down

Posted on by

One America News Network is reporting the following today:

Actor George Clooney and his humanitarian lawyer wife, Amal Clooney, have donated $1 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a U.S. non-profit that monitors extremists and domestic hate groups, in response to protests in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month.

There are a few problems with this. The headline of the article reads, “George and Amal Clooney give $1 million to combat U.S. hate groups.” Actually the SPLC is in itself a hate group. That is the problem when you start labeling hate groups–one man’s political action group is another man’s hate group.

The group consistently lists Act for America as a hate group. It is not. The group was founded by Brigitte Gabriel to educate Americans to the threat of Islam. Ms. Gabriel was knighted in Europe in 2016 for her international work on fighting terrorism and standing up for Western Values. The SPLC also lists a number of Christian organizations as hate groups because these groups hold a Biblical view of homosexuality. The SPLC has no respect for a group that believes in the Bible and attempts to follow Biblical principles.

The SPLC is nothing more than a liberal group attempting to limit the free speech of people who do not agree with them. Contributing to this group does not fight hate in any way–in fact it supports people who do not believe in the freedoms guaranteed in the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, there are many people who will be taken in by the SPLC’s claim that they are working to fight ‘hate groups.’

I’m Feeling A Little Insecure

Posted on by

Yesterday Infowars posted an article about some changes the Department of Justice is making in fighting the war on terror at home. I think fighting the war on terror at home is a really good idea–particularly since we have no way of vetting the refugees from Syria that the United Nations is sending us (rightwinggranny). However, I guess the Department of Justice does not necessarily see things the same way I do.

The article reports:

The DOJ announced it will appoint a “domestic terrorism counsel” to focus on who the Obama administration and the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center considers “extremists.”

“Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that domestic terrorists and homegrown violent extremists remain a real and present danger to the United States,” the DOJ’s John Carlin said on Wednesday.

But the Justice Dept. and the Department of Homeland Security previously characterized libertarians, conservatives and constitutionalists as militia-inspired “domestic extremists.”

“Militia members most commonly associated with third-party political groups,” a 2009 Missouri Information Analysis Center report stated. “It is not uncommon for militia members to display Constitutional Party, Campaign for Liberty or libertarian material.”

“These members are usually supporters of former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr.”

Even more concerning, the MIAC report encouraged law enforcement to scrutinize Americans who oppose abortion, illegal immigration and the rapid growth of the government, all of which are views shared by a plurality of Donald Trump supporters.

I guess we have come to the point where not totally agreeing with the Democratic Party agenda puts you under suspicion as a ‘domestic terrorist.’ Meanwhile the Justice Department is ignoring the obvious threat that is currently invading our country, both as legal refugees and illegal aliens. At some point I hope the voters in America will hold these people accountable for what they are doing–they are not only putting our national security at risk, they are creating divisions among Americans that weaken us as a nation, This is not the way to bring America together.

I Guess This Is A Step In The Right Direction

Posted on by

Yesterday the Daily Caller reported that the U. S. Army is ordering a halt to all briefings classifying Christian groups as domestic hate groups. Yes, you read that right. The army needs a memorandum to stop teaching soldiers that Christians are a domestic terrorism threat. Good grief!  A memorandum sent out by the Secretary of the Army, John McHugh ordered all Army leaders “to cease all briefings, command presentations, or training on the subject of extremist organizations and activities, pending promulgation” of a uniform instruction and training program.

The article reports:

As Fox News notes, the Army’s Equal Opportunity Advisor Student Guide highlights the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center). Troops at Fort Hood were recently advised that donations to evangelical Christian groups or Tea Party groups could lead to penalties. Also, in May, Fox says, an Army Reserve training memo called evangelical Christians and Catholics as religious extremists.

The irony of this, of course, is that an SPLC law center map was used by Floyd Lee Corkins to find the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., where his goal was to shoot as many people as possible. Thank God he was stopped by a security guard that he did shoot.

The First Amendment protects our religious freedom. Our military takes an oath to protect and defend our Constitution. Our training memos and lectures should reflect that oath.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Being Court Martialed For Exercising The Rights You Are Supposed To Be Defending?????

Posted on by

Breitbart.com reported today that the Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers may be prosecuted for sharing their faith. What? What happened to “There are no atheists in foxholes“?

The article reports:

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith. 

(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians–including chaplains–sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military.

How in the world did we get to this place? This new regulation also includes military chaplains. Why are they there if they can’t share their faith?

If you are concerned about this violation of our soldiers’ rights, please follow this link to the Family Research Council to sign the petition protesting this new regulation. We need to protect the religious freedom of our troops.

On a historical note, I would like to include this picture which was posted by a friend on facebook:

Somewhere we have gone horribly astray.

UPDATE:  A website called Instant Analysis posted the following today:

UPDATE (May 2, 2013 – 1:30 p.m. Central) – The Pentagon is backing down on a Tuesday statement indicating members of the military could be subject to court-martial for religious proselytizing.

The Department of Defense has issued a new statement, saying that “Service members can share their faith, or evangelize, but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs.”

On Tuesday it was revealed that Lt. Commander Nate Christensen issued a statement on behalf of the Pentagon that court-martials for “proselytizing” would be considered on a case-by-case basis. The statement outraged the Christian community, including current and former members of the armed services.

The question arose as to whether members of the military lose their First Amendment rights at the point at which they enter the military.

– See more at: http://www.instantanalysis.net/latest-headlines-from-american-family-news/2013/05/02/report-court-martials-may-await-soldiers-who-share-their-christian-faith#.UYLPuIWEX-s.facebook

Enhanced by Zemanta