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SPLC Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 03, 2017 32 Comments
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) SPLC has repeatedly listed a great many mainstream, right-leaning, and/or conservative groups and persons as "hate groups."  So indiscriminate are they in their listings that they have been forced to retract "hate group" claims when called upon to provide evidence or to defend its categorization. The SPLC has been making news lately in relation to its being touted as an "authority" on "hate groups."  SPLC lists are being used not only by unbalanced people who believe the lists and then go on a rampage but as a means of internet censorship and even massive, unscrupulous fundraising in the wake of Charlottesville. In a 2007 interview, a former SPLC spokesman proudly boasted that the goal of SPLC, its "aim in life," is to "destroy these groups, completely destroy them."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 24, 2017 18 Comments
I've been covering the manipulative "hate" lists put out by the Southern Poverty Law Center for almost eight years, long before it was fashionable to do so. I took an interest in it because as a past contributor to SPLC, I was deeply offended by the use of these lists to target political opponents who posed no threat of violence. SPLC's tactics are the exact opposite of what I was taught, that the best anecdote to offensive speech is more speech, not less.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 20, 2017 27 Comments
This was a really bad week for freedom of speech and internet freedom. As documented in my post Gathering Storms And Threats to Liberty, corporations that operate the gateways to the internet, such as domain registrars and services such as Cloudfare, have come under pressure and have capitulated to drive the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer from the internet. That pressure is now moving to other organizations based on biased and politicized "hate" lists from groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League. I pointed out the danger to internet freedom:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 13, 2017 13 Comments
I have written often, and recently, about the corrosive effect of the Southern Poverty Law Center's highly-politicized "hate" and "extremist" lists. Politico also recently focused on the problem, which I described in Southern Poverty Law Center “extremist” lists used “to silence speech and speakers”, including this quote from the Politico article:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 28, 2017 47 Comments
Politico magazine has a very detailed article on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), for which I was interviewed, Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?. The article, written by Ben Schreckinger, addresses several aspects of the SPLC, including its massive accumulation of wealth seemingly beyond its needs. But much of the focus is on SPLC's aggressive politics and use of "hate" and "extremist" lists:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2016 40 Comments
Keith Ellison, Democratic Congressman from Minnesota, is the favorite to become Chair of the Democratic National Committee. He has the support of big names like Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Harry Reid, among others. Yet for years there have been questions about Ellison's past association with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, as well as his association with anti-Israel groups. We touched upon Ellison's background in two recent posts: Scott Johnson of Power Line, who is based in Minnesota, has been following the career of Ellison for a decade. Scott talked about some of what he has learned about Ellison in a recent radio interview, Ten Years On The Ellison Case:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 14, 2015 3 Comments
A North Carolina man named Craig Hicks murdered three young Muslims last week over what appears to be a parking dispute. Some liberals in the media have consulted the Southern Poverty Law Center on the subject---but have failed to point out that Mr. Hicks is an apparent fan of SPLC. Jesse Walker of Reason reported. H/t to Instapundit.
The Killer, the Reporter, and the Southern Poverty Law Center Craig Hicks, the man who murdered three Muslims in North Carolina this week, had a Facebook page. One of the groups he liked on it is the Southern Poverty Law Center. An AlterNet article about Hicks—reprinted today in both Raw Story and Salon—includes several long quotes from Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Guess what subject never comes up? No, I don't think the SPLC deserves any blame for the crime. That would be ridiculous. But the SPLC itself has a long history of throwing around blame in precisely that ridiculous way, so it would have been nice to hear how Potok reacts when an event like this lands in his own backyard. Double standards deserve to be challenged, right? By the way: While the AlterNet piece doesn't mention Hicks' apparent fondness for the SPLC, it does mention the fact that his Facebook likes lean liberal. But it dismisses this as unimportant, telling us the significant thing is that Hicks "appears to fit the psychological profile of violent extremists—regardless of their ideological stripes."
Patrick Poole of PJ Media recently made this observation:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 11, 2015 30 Comments
On the O'Reilly show tonight, it was announced that the Southern Poverty Law Center has taken Dr. Ben Carson off the "Extremist" Watch List. And sure enough, Carson no longer is on the List. Carson's former Extremist profile now redirects to a page with this statement:
In October 2014, we posted an “Extremist File” of Dr. Ben Carson. This week, as we've come under intense criticism for doing so, we've reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.
http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/splc_statement_carson_feb2015.pdf Legal Insurrection first brought this travesty to public attention last Friday. Whether you agree with Carson or not, he didn't deserve to be on a list with Klan and Neo-Nazi leaders (there are a few other people who don't deserve to be on the list, but that's a different matter.) Since our report, the issue has been the subject of hundreds of columns, radio shows, and obviously SPLC, worth $300,000,000, felt the heat. Who says a small blog can't make a difference. Should I do it? Should I? Okay, here goes: (WARNING, MAY CAUSE SEIZURES)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 06, 2015 27 Comments
The Southern Poverty Law Center ceased long ago to be a neutral source of information. As we have documented over the past years, SPLC has used the credibility it earned decades ago fighting the Klan to turn itself not only into a huge money-raising machine, but also to poison the political process: SPLC's "Extremist" watch lists are particularly notorious, and in some cases blatantly political.   Most of the people on the list are on it without much controversy, including Klan and neo-Nazi figures.  But several critics of political Islam are on the list, as was Rand Paul in 2011 (accused of Electoral Extremism). Landing on SPLC's Extremist list can be politically deadly, and also deadly in the real sense.  The Family Research Council made the list because of its position on same-sex marriage, inspiring Floyd Lee Corkins to go on a murderous shooting spree at FRC headquarters. Yesterday I noticed a name I was surprised to see on the list: Ben Carson, listed as "anti-LGBT."

Posted by Laurel Conrad on October 30, 2013 12 Comments
Stephen Jimenez is the author of "The Book of Matt," a book that calls into question the deeply ingrained narrative that the murder of Matthew Shepard was an anti-gay hate crime. The extensively researched book reveals that the Shepard anti-gay hate crime narrative may be all wrong. Jimenez, who is gay himself, has been praised by prominent gay rights activists, including Andrew Sullivan.  In response to the new information, Sullivan has even called the narrative "a politically convenient myth" deployed to "raise gobs of money and pass unnecessary laws." Stephen Jimenez: Meth And The Murder Of Matthew Shepard from The Dish on Vimeo. On Monday, The New York Post's Andrea Peyser lauded Jimenez for shedding light on "an uncomfortable truth":
 Jimenez unearthed a story that few people wanted to hear. And it calls into question everything you think you know about the life and death of one of the leading icons of our age.
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