It’s Time to Bring the Southern Poverty Law Center to Justice

Written by Tom DeWeese

There are many powerful forces operating today across the nation to divide the American people and silence opposing views. One of the most active of these efforts is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

There are two very serious reasons why the SPLC is in many ways more dangerous than other organizations that are fueling the flames of the far left radicals who use violence and lies to stop honest political debate.

First, the SPLC has contracts with the federal government, specifically the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), serving as advisors to help define what a domestic terrorist or hate group is, even helping to write official policy for this agency of our government. Here are just a few examples:

• In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report entitled “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” It targeted conservative groups that supported local rule over federal control. And it singled out groups that opposed abortion or illegal immigration.
• Two weeks later, DHS issued a Domestic Extremism Lexicon to define Right wing extremists = those who are concerned over the economy, had antagonism toward the Obama Administration or oppose the UN.
• According to these reports and many more, the list of potential terrorists, according to these reports and many more, included anyone who voted for Ron Paul for president, for example.

These reports were basically written by the Southern Poverty Law Center! And they were sent to law enforcement agencies across the nation. Soon after the issuing of these reports police department nationwide could be observed providing bulletins to their officers to be on the watch for dangerous right wing activity.

In 2010 DHS organized a “Countering Violent Extremist Working Group.” Its purpose is to teach local law enforcement how to counter terrorism. It was basically the root of militarizing local police forces.

Serving on this “advisory group” was Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society if North America, who has been accused of funding terrorist organizations. Also serving as an advisor to this group was Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The conclusion of this report is that conservative organizations and spokesmen are possibly bigger domestic terror threats than ISIS!

The SPLC also runs the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center which issues official certification to police groups all over the country for fighting “hate” groups, i.e. Right wing groups. And it is funded by the Department of Homeland Security!

In 2013, Brietbart.com released a report by Judicial Watch confirming a direct connection between the DOJ and SPLC. The report states, “Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C. based non-partisan educational foundation, released some two dozen pages of emails it obtained  revealing connections between the Department of Justice Civil Rights and Tax divisions and the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The second reason the SPLC is a dangerous threat to American freedom is its so-called “Hate List.” Each year, the SPLC updates its list of “extremist” groups and individuals it declares to be dangerous. Does the list include Black Lives Matter, ICIS, ANTIFA, or any of the forces that have taken credit for opening fire on crowds attending public events? Nope. SPLC’s list of hate groups are those who oppose Obamacare and  NAFTA, are concerned about the economy, and perhaps stockpile food to prepare for possible bad economic times. These are “Right Wing Extremists.” The list goes on to include people like Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers and Senator Rand Paul. A few years ago it included Dr. Ben Carson, now HUD Secretary. The list also includes nearly any conservative and Christian organizations that advocate limited government or Christian teachings or government adherence to the Constitution.

There is now a new trend moving across the nation that makes inclusion on this list dangerous to the very existence of those listed on it. Since President Trump’s election, the SPLC has ramped up its attacks on the Right with the clear purpose of destroying conservatives’ ability to speak out and counter SPLC’s assault on free speech and freedom of choice.

Joining SPLC in these attacks on the Right are major corporations and social media giants like Facebook and Google. These corporations are, in fact, using the SPLC hate list to deny services to some organizations and individuals who are listed. Here are some examples:

• Discover Card, one of the nation’s leading credit card companies, denied a conservative group the use of their card to accept donations.
• Quick Books cancelled a subscription of its product to a Christian organization because it opposed same sex marriage.
• PayPal has refused to let a conservative group use its service for fund raising.
• There have been several reports of social media giant Facebook censuring and banning conservative posts and pages.
• Google has taken steps to deny Internet searches of conservative websites.

Clearly, there is a drive to deny conservative and Christian organizations the ability to exist in the market place or in social media. How far off is the day when conservative leaders are denied access to public transportation, the rental of halls for meetings, or bank accounts are seized, all under the guise of protecting the public from hate and racism? Well, the answer is already in front of us.

First, there was the outrageous and planned violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in which two opposing sides supposedly clashed over removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue. The obvious fact is that the event was staged to make the Right look like the perpetrator. More importantly, the Ku Klux Klan was used as the villain. I’m going to go out on a limb to say there is hardly any real KKK activity taking place in the nation, especially any strong enough to create such violence as the Charlottesville incident. The fact is, the KKK basically exists only in the demented minds of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which loves to place it on the hate list next to groups like the NRA as a broad brush visual tactic. The reality that such groups have nothing to do with the KKK isn’t important to the SPLC.

However, the desired affect of the clash worked. Immediately after the Charlottesville incident, Congress, without any public debates, rushed to approve Public Law 115-58, which “urges the President and his administration to speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, and xenophobia.”

How is the President to choose what are actual “hate” groups? Of course the plan is for him to use the official list – the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list, of course. Again, who is on that list? The NRA, the Family Research Council and the American Policy Center, to name a very few.

It’s interesting to note that the very group that is now looked on by our government as the official definer of hate in our nation, has actually committed one of the most outrageous and dangerous acts of terrorism against certain American citizens.

In 2015, the SPLC issued a “Hit List of U.S. Women Against Sharia Law.” The list targeted 12 leading conservative women who have specifically spoken out against radical Muslims and their authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism. The hit list not only named the women, but listed the cities where they reside. Anyone who has studied radical Islam clearly understands that this SPLC hit list put these women in grave danger of reprisal from Muslim extremists.

The SPLC is a dangerous organization, guilty of the hate it claims to fight. Yet it works closely with our own government in its quest to destroy any Americans who hold opposing views, even to the point of denying them a place in society.

The fact is the SPLC would just be another run of the mill leftist outfit if it didn’t have such close ties with our government. Those ties need to be thoroughly investigated by the Congressional Homeland Security Committee and then severed immediately.

To demand those hearings, the American Policy Center (APC) has issued a petition to Representative Michael McCaul, (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The petition calls for hearings and an immediate investigation into the government connections with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The only way to end the SPLC’s reign of terror is to pull its teeth – its powerful connections with our government that make it a threat. Concerned Americans can sign the APC petition at our website.

The Southern Poverty Law Center labels any American who advocates that the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land as a potential domestic terrorist, dangerous to the nation. The question that must be answered is why the Department of Homeland Security and major corporations are working with them to make those attacks legitimate. If enough Americans will sign the APC petition, perhaps we will finally get some answers and perhaps even a little bit of justice.

SIGN THE SPLC PETITION

This article originally posted on AmericanPolicy.org.