John Stossel Calls the Southern Poverty Law Center a ‘Scam’
“Looking at their map of hate groups, you’d think hate groups were everywhere.”
Libertarian journalist John Stossel aims at the Southern Poverty Law Center in a new report. He points out that the group has become little more than a far left fundraising machine which, in some cases, targets people just for having opinions that progressives don’t like.
Stossel uses specific examples, such as the SPLC’s attacks on Moms for Liberty and parents’ rights groups.
We have covered the SPLC extensively over the years:
- Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness (regarding SPLC attack on Sarah Palin)
- Confirmed – SPLC Exaggerated About Klan In Rhode Island
- Neo-Nazis in Rhode Island? SPLC exaggerates again
- SPLC’s hatewatch gives cover to hate
- SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
- Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger
This analysis by Stossel is top notch. Partial transcript via Real Clear Politics:
JOHN STOSSEL: There are dangerous hate groups in America, who will warn us about them? The media tell us. The “Southern Poverty Law Center,” based in Alabama calls itself “the premier group monitoring hate groups and other extremists.”
Looking at their map of hate groups, you’d think hate groups were everywhere. I once believed what the Center said. Well-meaning people still do. Apple gave them $1 million. But what donors don’t know is that today, the Center smears good people.
Somalian woman [Ayaan Hirsi Ali] speaks out against radical Islam. For that, the Center put her on its list.
When I first investigated the Center, its leaders would not talk to me. So liberal commentator Nomiki Konst defended them.
NOMIKI KONST: They have a history, a long history, of fighting against extremists like the KKK.
JOHN STOSSEL: History, yes, but they labeled skeptical Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali as haters.
NOMIKI KONST: If you have a horrible experience with religion, that’s one thing. It’s another thing to use those experiences as ammunition against others who are practicing their religion and remain peaceful.
JOHN STOSSEL: But they’re just speaking, criticizing it.
Watch the whole thing below:
The "Southern Poverty Law Center" is more like the Southern Poverty SLANDER Center.
It blasts @Moms4Liberty & @MomsForAmerica as "extremists" while excusing actual violent extremists like Antifa, which it calls: "individuals organizing against… injustice.”
The SPLC is a scam: pic.twitter.com/2DflDRQxon
— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) March 3, 2024
Featured image via Twitter video.
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Comments
Past time to cancel SPLC for toxic anti-white rhetoric. DEI/CRT is such a fraud.
I have been saying this for decades but one little voice gets no attention.
That slander factory otherwise calling itself the SPLC needs to be sued out of existance.
Unfortunately it rarely makes any factual allegations against identifiable individuals. It has slipped up once or twice and been sued, but generally it’s good at not doing that. It confines itself to opinions and conclusions, which are not actionable, or else it speaks vaguely of large groups of people, so there’s no one who can sue. Remember, these are professionals. They know what they’re doing, and they do it for fun and profit, but mostly profit.
By the way, the ADL and the Wiesenthal Center also play the same game, puffing up bogeymen when they can’t find enough credible threats. Unfortunately, lately they haven’t had to do that because there have been plenty of genuine threats. Still, they exaggerate regularly. And misdirect, when it suits them.
The Left likes to invent boogeymen. It’s a twofer for them – not only do they get to demonize normal people, they get to fundraise off of it.
In the mid-90s, 6-8 of us were in a “militia” group in Phoenix. (Not the Viper militia, but we knew a few of them … ) One day, I stumbled across (I forget how) our unit’s name — the First Mounted Rangers” — on the SPLC’s list of anti-government hate groups!
I wish I had a screen shot … those were the days. 🙂
The only poverty that the SPLC represents is a poverty of brain function.
Just like the “fact checkers,” they only push the left and condemn the right.
They are hacks of the first order, and like Democrat union voting guides, their advice is only a guide on what NOT to do or vote on.
BTW, John:
Southern
Poverty
LIBEL
Center
We at The John Birch Society label the SPLC as an extremist hate group.
And I don’t even have a garage. You can call home and ask my wife.
Like my super soul brother #1, the tour guide to the stratospheric atmosphere of beautiful kisses and lovely wishes where butterflies and zebras dance among the piscatorial allude to the sea while strumming left-handedly would say…be careful pointing when you live in a roomful of mirrors.
He was experienced.
I joined Mons For Liberty last year
Do you mean “Moms for Liberty?” (M4L)
One of their founders is one Tina Descovich.
Descovich was on the Brevard County (FL) School Board. She was elected in 2016 and when she ran for re-election in 2020, she was defeated by a left leaning woman. This came about because even in a right leaning county, conservatives would not support her and undervoted the race.
As a School Board member, Tescovich voted for masking in schools, denial of people speaking at Board meetings, advocated against standardized testing in schools, took positions that were contrary to Florida law dealing with freedoms and accountability in schools, and a host of other things.
It was no wonder she was not re-elected.
M4L was started with a decent idea, but has morphed into a money making machine. People have asked for their financials, and because the group is compartmentalized, they only will provide that data for individual chapters.
M4L has become what they said they hated.
Antifa didn’t make the SPLC’s hate group list “because they don’t hate”.
But the American College of Pediatricians, the World Congress of Families, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, among other notable no-leftist organizations, did.
Validity check – failed.
That SPLC is a scam is really old news, I mean decades old news. I have no idea how they’ve survived. I suspect money.
Wasn’t there a huge scandel at SPLC?
SPLC a scam?? I’m SHOCKED!
…that anyone believes otherwise at this point.
These guys were grifting when grifting wasn’t cool.
SPLC is a 501c3 corporation. They have flouted the IRS rules for years, but they are protected by the same leftists at the IRS that went after the Tea Party. I am an advocate of getting rid of all 501c3’s c4’s and the rest of the tax exempt trash. And that includes all foundations and trusts. They are liberal hotbeds and training grounds. I know there are good conservative foundations and tax exempts, but they all have to go. They are the source of the dark money at the root of our current troubles. FJB
“I am an advocate of getting rid of all 501c3’s c4’s and the rest of the tax exempt trash.”
Do you think that will stop the leftists from cheating and doing evil in general?
“Liberals find something good, gut it, wear it as a skinsuit, and then demand respect.”
Of course anyone reading LI has known all this for years. I remember when Prof J went looking for the two nazi organizations that SPLC claimed were operating in Rhode Island, and couldn’t find either one.
Now do “Planned Parenthood.”