Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

I cannot begin to tell you how much it sickens me that the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group I supported many years ago because of its work against the Klan, has become a key player in labeling legitimate conservative political and religious groups as "hate groups."

I have documented how SPLC exaggerated the number and extent of "hate" groups, including counting two Klan groups in my home state of Rhode Island which simply don't exist; how SPLC falsely labeled a black conservative law professor "an apologist for white supremacists"; how the SPLC falsely accused a history professor of being on the payroll of Turkey because the professor's research questioned whether the killings of Armenians constituted "genocide"; and how SPLC falsely claimed that a speech by Sarah Palin at the first National Tea Party Convention was one of the landmark events in the "patriot movement" (which SPLC defines to mean Tim McVeigh-types).

Time and again SPLC, through its Hatewatch division, seeks to shut down debate by applying the "hate group" or similar epithets to political opponents, and those political opponents almost always are conservative. 

Being labeled a "hate group" by SPLC can be devastating, because most of the country is unaware of how politicized SPLC has become.  Until I started blogging a little over two years ago, I too was working off of SPLC's prior reputation of fighting real hate groups, like the Klan.

SPLC is at it again, with a list of 18, "anti-gay" groups, 13 of whom also will make SPLC's upcoming "hate group" list.  Here is SPLC's explanation for how one gets on this list (emphasis mine):

"Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family moderate their views, a hard core of smaller groups, most of them religiously motivated, have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities. These groups’ influence reaches far beyond what their size would suggest, because the “facts” they disseminate about homosexuality are often amplified by certain politicians, other groups and even news organizations. Of the 18 groups profiled below, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be listing 13 next year as hate groups (eight were previously listed), reflecting further research into their views; those are each marked with an asterisk.  Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups."

Most of these groups are unknown to me,  although a couple are well-known Christian groups, such as American Family Association and Family Research Council (both of these entities will be on SPLC's upcoming Hate Group list).  I don't defend or not defend these groups because I don't know much about them, but based upon SPLC's past performance, the burden should be on SPLC to make the case for including a group on a hate list.

All these groups, with one exception below, were included for having a fundamentalist Christian view of homosexuality and gay marriage.  Oddly, no Orthodox Jewish or Muslim groups were included, even though those religious affiliations have views not much different from fundamentalist Christians.

What really jumped out at me, however, was the inclusion of the National Organization for Marriage as an "anti-gay"group (but it does not appear NOM makes the "hate group" list, yet).  Here is SPLC's explanation as to why NOM was included on the list:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which is dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage in state legislatures, was organized in 2007 by conservative syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher and Princeton University politics professor Robert George. George is an influential Christian thinker who co-authored the 2009 “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto developed after a New York meeting of conservative church leaders that “promises resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same sex marriage.”

NOM’s first public campaign was in 2008, supporting California’s Proposition 8, which sought to invalidate same-sex marriage in that state. It was widely mocked, including in a parody by satirist Stephen Colbert, for the “Gathering Storm” video ad it produced at the time. Set to somber music and a dark and stormy background, the ad had actors expressing fears that gay activism would “take away” their rights, change their lifestyle, and force homosexuality on their kids.

The group, whose president is now former executive director Brian Brown, has become considerably more sophisticated since then, emphasizing its respect for homosexuals. “Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose,” NOM says on its website, “[but] they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”

For a time, NOM’s name was used by a bus driver named Louis Marinelli, who drove a van for NOM’s “Summer for Marriage Tour” this year. Marinelli called himself a “NOM strategist” and sent out electronic messages under the NOM logo that repeated falsehoods about homosexuals being pedophiles and gay men having extremely short lifespans (see story, p. 32). In homemade videos posted on his own YouTube page, he said same-sex marriage would lead to “prostitution, pedophilia and polygamy.” But this July, NOM said it was not associated with Marinelli.

The inclusion of NOM on this list really is outrageous, and typical of how SPLC seeks to demonize a mainstream conservative (and in this case, constitutional) view.  The explanation SPLC gives for including NOM is flimsy and filled with innuendo. 

Being mocked by Stephen Colbert now is part of the test applied by SPLC?  Is SPLC joking around?  Unfortunately, it is very serious to be included on one of SPLC's lists.

Does taking the position that “Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose ... [but] they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us,” really constitute hate speech?  Why does SPLC devote a paragraph to someone who used NOM's name even though he had no affiliation? 

There is nothing in SPLC's description to distinguish NOM's position on gay marriage from the vast majority of Americans, including many legal scholars and judges, and of course, the current President of the United States.

NOM's inclusion on this list surely will be used to try to keep NOM speakers off campuses and out of the media, and to demonize the attorneys who work for or with NOM on gay marriage issues around the country.

I expect NOM's inclusion on the list to be used against supporters of traditional marriage much as the Family Research Council's inclusion on the list is being used:

I'm sure I don't need to explain how odd it would be for Barack Obama's administration to be conducting meetings with a known hate group. Let alone letting that known hate group influence Pentagon policy on, of all things, a national security decision affecting civil rights. Yet, that is in fact what the Pentagon did. (And in fact, the White House has also met at least once with representatives of the hate group.)

Fortunately for the President, the group in question, the Family Research Council, had not yet officially been designated a 'hate group' by the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the" national organization, and revered civil rights organization, that tracks such extremists.

But now that SPLC has officially designated the Family Research Council a hate group - and SPLC's list of hate groups includes the Klan and white supremacists - will the White House, and the Obama administration overall, continue to invite the hate group's representatives to official meetings?

SPLC's current management has done extensive damage to the real fight against hate groups by conflating political opponents with violent extremists, by using the hate group and similar lists against mainstream conservative groups and individuals, and by using its past reputation to shape the political landscape.

Hopefully, with time the public will become aware that SPLC is not what it once was.

Update:  As if on cue, It's Official: Southern Poverty Law Center Labels NOM a Hate Group. 
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The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued its latest screaming report: “Patriot” Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year.

Unfortunately, the hype surrounding the SPLC report is just another indication that SPLC has lost its way and has become a primary source to smear anyone who is against the liberal dogma of big government.

As Robert Stacy McCain documents, the portion of the SPLC report dealing with "patriot militias" is both exaggerated in numbers (for example, if one group has 50 state branches, that counts as 50 groups in the report) and in scope (standard libertarian groups without any "militias" are included).

I pointed out last October the depths to which SPLC goes to smear political opponents, when SPLC falsely accused a black female law professor of being an "apologist for white supremacists."

So it is not surprising that SPLC includes libertarians (whose positions on many issues resemble those of the far left) in the list of "patriot" groups. Nor is it surprising that SPLC, through some linguistic slights of hand, tries to smear the Tea Party movement:

The Patriot movement has made significant inroads into the conservative political scene, according to the new report. "The ‘tea parties' and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," the report says.

But there was one aspect of the report which really caught my eye. SPLC's report lists Rhode Island as having three hate groups, but the SPLC "hate map" indicates only a single Ku Klux Klan chapter in Rhode Island.

Even that seemed strange to me, because in the 17 years I have lived in Rhode Island, I never had heard of the Klan being active in Rhode Island.

Other gangs, yes. Violent gangs are active among Hmong and other Asian immigrant groups, as are street gangs in black neighborhoods of Providence. But the Klan?

So I did some looking around. First, I checked The Providence Journal website. The ProJo is the only statewide paper, and the paper of record in RI. It is hard to spit on the street without the ProJo writing it up.

A search of the ProJo website did not uncover any Klan activity. The only reference at all was to an allegation by a "mentally disabled" person in 2006 that a police officer stated during an arrest that the police officer was a card carrying member of the Klan. I could find no follow-up or verification of that allegation. That's it for reported Klan activity in RI, unless you count the ACLU's successful 1992 attempt to get David Duke on the ballot (would that make the ACLU a hate group?).

A Google search also reveals no Klan activity in RI in the past several decades. If the Klan is active in RI, it is keeping it very, very quiet.

The Klan group listed by SPLC, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has an alleged P.O. Box in North Providence, RI. The box number, which is six digits, looks suspicious, but I'm not in RI right now so I can't check out whether it is real. (I tried calling the Postal Service center in the zip code, but they do not pick up the phone.) No contact name is given for the Klan member or members in RI, and there is no other record of the group actually doing anything.

I could not even find a P.O. Box, much less an actual person, for any other Klan group in RI, although SPLC elsewhere lists a second Klan group as being in RI.

Rhode Island may not be representative of the nation, but it is a good example of how SPLC exaggerates the number and scope of hate groups. If the Klan is active in Rhode Island, no one seems to know about it.

Maybe there is someone sitting in a house or apartment somewhere with a white robe in the closet, but I assure you such person wouldn't last two minutes in RI if he tried to wear it on the street.

Who loses from SPLC's political tactics? Most obviously SPLC, whose credibility is undermined. More important, is that the public loses because SPLC's tactics mask the truth.

Undoubtedly there are real hate groups out there, but the identity of such groups gets lost in the avalanche of accusations and numbers run up by SPLC.

Which groups among the 1000 or so "hate groups" listed by SPLC do we really need to worry about? Your guess is as good as mine.

Update: I received this e-mail from someone in Rhode Island, about her unsuccessful attempt to get details from SPLC:

I've been reading your blog for several months now, I live in RI, and wanted to see what I could find out. I would have posted a response, but for some reason I can't post there using the options provided (I don't have a blogger account either). I went to the SPLC page, looked at the "hate map" and then called the national hq of the SPLC. I was put through to a man named Booth, and asked him for whatever substantiation they had to back up their claims. He treated me sarcastically, and basically inferred that he didn't feel that they'd necessarily have to cite sources. That he'd grown up in Alabama and hadn't known there was a kkk group there til he'd grown up. I stated that I believed, that had there been one, let alone three, we'd have heard something about it, but he just laughed. I told him that I wanted some info on what they based their claim on, and he said he would have someone call me. Whether they will, I don't know.

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Saturday Night Card Game (Southern Poverty Law Center)

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• Confirmed - SPLC Exaggerated About Klan In Rhode Island
• The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
• SPLC's Democratic Party Mission
• Saturday Night Card Game (Southern Poverty Law Center)

So why am I writing today about the SPLC? Because I just read an article in The Daily Caller (h/t Instapundit) in which the author notes that the SPLC lists Sarah Palin's speech in Nashville last February at the National Tea Party Convention as one of the landmark events in the "Patriot Movement" historical timeline.

When SPLC speaks of the "patriot movement," it doesn't mean it as a compliment. Instead, here is how SPLC defines the movement (emphasis mine):
Why would SPLC put Sarah Palin's Nashville speech in a timeline of this movement? Here is the entry on the timeline by SPLC:
Here is the link to the text of Palin's speech. It is clear that SPLC is being purposefully misleading and deceptive in suggesting, by including this sentence from the speech in the timeline, that Palin was calling for violence consistent with the "Patriot movement" (as defined by SPLC).

The sentence quoted by SPLC and the sentence I quote above are the only times Palin used the word "revolution" in her speech. Why would SPLC quote one, without quoting the other which explained what Palin meant?

So is Scott Brown also part of the "Patriot movement"? Shouldn't Brown's election, under SPLC's standard, also be on the timeline? And the people of Massachusetts, are they now radicalized by the "Patriot movement"?

Whatever SPLC once was, it now is a bastion of political hackery which, by equating legitimate political opposition with criminal violence, is doing substantial damage to our national fabric.


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The SPLC has come out with its latest list of active right-wing "hate groups," now claiming the list exceeds 1000 such groups. 

SPLC continues to list two Klan groups in my home state of Rhode Island, even though those claims have been shown not to be true and such falsity has been called to the attention of SPLC.  SPLC also does not appear to have stopped inflating its numbers by counting multiple "branches" of a single group as multiple groups.

When SPLC says hate groups, it means right-wing hate groups:

For the second year in a row, the radical right in America expanded explosively in 2010, driven by resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the government’s handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities. For many on the radical right, anger is focusing on President Obama, who is seen as embodying everything that’s wrong with the country.

As proof of supposed right-wing violence, SPLC lists the following:

"the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, an attack that left six dead and may have had a political dimension."

The allegation that Jared Loughner was right wing has been so thoroughly debunked that SPLC may be the last group actually making such a claim.  It truly is amazing that SPLC still peddles this garbage.

The SPLC report and its wild claims are contrary to the actual statistics, which show that hate crimes are decreasing in the United States:

The reported rise in hate groups come at a time when albeit incomplete FBI hate crime data for 2009 showed a 15% decrease in reported hate crime in the nation. The 6,598 hate crimes in 2009 were the lowest number of hate crimes reported by the FBI since 1994, although participation in the voluntary program varies widely from state to state.

The SPLC report is just another fundraising tool, but it is not harmless.

The damage SPLC does with such posturing is very real, as buried in that list of 1000+ supposed active hate groups probably are some groups we need to keep an eye on. 

We just don't know which ones, because SPLC has so politicized the process that it is impossible to separate the potentially violent from the politically incorrect.

Update 2-24-2011:  Bruce McQuain has a good review of the latest SPLC report, including this quote showing how SPLC tries to tie Loughner to right-wing views:

"That’s in addition to the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, an attack that left six dead that same month. The assailant appeared to be severely mentally ill, but he also seemed to have absorbed certain ideas from the radical right, including the notion that the federal government is evil."

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Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness
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SPLC To Apologize to Prof. Guenter Lewy For False Accusations

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

The Southern Poverty Law Center once served a vital role in shutting down Klan groups and dangerous white supremacist groups. Morris Dees endured death threats and was a heroic figure in the struggle for civil rights.

But as with many focused organizations, the SPLC is a victim of its own success. The reason to be of the SPLC no longer exists. The Klan and other such groups are virtually non-existent. The threat to society is from two sources, lone wolves or very small groups of people, as to which the SPLC cannot be effective, and Islamic extremists, as to which the SPLC appears not to care.

For a long time, my best estimate is that it was well over a decade, I regularly donated to the SPLC. I stopped those donations long ago, as the SPLC drifted from its original mission into left-wing politics. Take a look at the Blogroll at SPLC's Hatewatch blog; it is populated almost exclusively with left-wing bloggers and George Soros-related left-wing organizations.

Nowadays, if I see or hear of Mark Potok, the spokesman for the SPLC, it almost always is in the context of Potok trying to paint conservative groups with the white supremacist brush in order to help Democratic Party politics. Potok and others at the SLPC have politicized the SPLC needlessly, and blurred the line between those who believe in a limited role for government in the interest of personal and constitutional freedoms, and the very small fringe who espouse racist ideology.

An incident highlighted by James Taranto in The Wall Street Journal (h/t Instapundit) demonstrates that SPLC needs to reexamine and recalibrate its mission. Read the entire article, but here is the gist.

Carol Swain is a Professor at Vanderbilt Law School. I've seen her on television, and perused her website. She has a long scholarly history of writing on the role of race in society, and generally could be construed as a political conservative.

Potok of SPLC recently smeared Swain as an "apologist for white supremacists" because Swain did a review of a film which, as described by Taranto, contained controversial racial comments by the filmmaker as he interviewed people in the film. Swain's review was not an approval of these comments, but rather, an approval of the film as a valuable tool for discussing racial issues:

This outstanding film provides an opening salvo for the long-awaited national debate on race. Meticulously done, it offers people of all races a rare opportunity to engage in cross-racial dialogue. I highly recommend this film for social science courses dealing with race, class, and ethnicity.

Nothing in Swain's review, or prior writings, possibly could be considered legitimate fodder to brand her an "apologist for white supremacists." That is a highly inflammatory accusation, and one which should not be made against anyone, and particularly against a black woman, without rock solid evidence. Potok has no such evidence.

Swain's response to the accusation was right on point:

One of the most troubling facets of life today is the powerful movement by left-leaning organizations and governmental officials to engage in character assassination, by labeling anyone who disagrees with their liberal utopian vision for society as unworthy of participating in the conversation about our nation's future. A quick look at global history reveals the dangers of following such a short-sighted approach.

Today, conservatives and Christians (of which I am both) are targeted by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that regularly seek to discredit us.

Potok and the SPLC need to apologize to Swain, and to figure out where they are going with the SPLC in the 21st Century. The SPLC quickly is becoming a caricature of an organizations which hides behind its past honorable accomplishments in order to shield its present politically-motivated use of the race card. Becoming the organizational equivalent of Jesse Jackson is not something to which the SPLC should aspire.

If all the SPLC has left is the race card, it needs to find a different game.

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Saturday Night Card Game

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In early March I wrote how the Southern Poverty Law Center had exaggerated regarding the alleged presence of the Ku Klux Klan in Rhode Island as part of SPLC's report on a "surge" of hate groups.

Specifically, I pointed out that SPLC claimed the Ku Klux Klan was active in North Providence. Being from Rhode Island, and never having heard of any such group or any Klan activity at all, I expressed doubt about the accuracy of SPLC's accusation, The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again.

In response to that post, several readers from Rhode Island confirmed that they too had not heard of any Klan activity. One reader even contacted SPLC for proof, but never received a response.

As far as I or anyone else was able to determine, other than a single reference to such a Klan group in North Providence on a website, and a supposed P.O. Box, there was no evidence of such group in Rhode Island, much less any public activity by such group.

The Providence Journal, which interviewed me on the subject, writes today that the police in North Providence investigated the Klan, and also could find no evidence of such a group in North Providence (emphasis mine):

According to the [SPLC] report, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has a post office box in North Providence.

North Providence Police Capt. Paul Ricci said he investigated the Klan group a year ago, “but it didn’t lead anywhere.” The police looked for a Klansman supposedly named Cole Thornton, until they discovered Thornton was the name of the gunslinger played by John Wayne in the film, “El Dorado.”

“We’ve had no contact with the Klan,” he said.

I doubt this will move SPLC to retract its accusation about the Klan presence in Rhode Island. Indeed, as reported by the ProJo, Mark Potok of SPLC is sticking by the allegations of Klan activity in Rhode Island:

“We’ve been doing this for a very long time,” he said. “And we do it very carefully.”

As I made clear in my original post, and reiterated to the Projo, the exaggeration by SPLC is harmful in the fight against hate groups, akin to the tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. As quoted in the Projo today:

But critics say the report exaggerates the threat of hate groups in places like Rhode Island.

“They may do thorough research on some groups, but on others they take the easy route,” and rely on questionable sources like web sites, said William A. Jacobson, a Barrington resident and law professor at the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y.

“They say there are three hate groups in Rhode Island, but as far as I can tell, they don’t exist,” he said. “I don’t dispute there are hate groups out there. But we have no way of knowing which ones are dangerous –– and which ones are pixels on a web site.”

Striking the supposed North Providence Klan group from the SPLC list merely because it did not actually operate would mean that the number of hate groups was dropping, and that would not make for good headlines or help drum up contributions.

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The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
SPLC's Democratic Party Mission
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Guenter Lewy, an emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachetts, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2008 against the Southern Poverty Law Center, and two one of its employees, (including Mark Potok) David Holthouse.

The lawsuit arose from Lewy's historical research in which he determined that the evidence of a Turkish genocide against the Armenians was inconclusive.  SPLC's Intelligence Report labeled Lewy, who is a Holocaust survivor, the equivalent of a Holocaust denier and also asserted that Lewy was paid by Turkey.  Among other things SPLC asserted:

"Lewy is one of the most active members of a network of American scholars, influence peddlers and website operators, financed by hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government of Turkey, who promote the denial of the Armenian genocide."

Lewy sued for defamation, and a court recently ruled that the lawsuit could proceed.  As of today, the link at SPLC's website containing the accusations still is up and running.

I have learned that Lewy and SPLC recently settled the case, and as part of the settlement, SPLC and its employees will apologize to Lewy and publish the apology in numerous publications including the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Here is the text of the apology [added:  see updates below as to text of apology]:

TEXT REMOVED - See Update 2 below

I am still working to confirm any other details of the settlement and will update this post if new information becomes available.

As I have noted before, SPLC is very quick to label people with the worst epithets, and it is good to see that someone stood up to SPLC's tactics.

Update:  After this post, I was contacted by the attorney for Prof. Lewy, indicating that the text above is not accurate, and that what follows below is the only apology to be offered between the parties.  The source of my original post above was very reliable, and there must have been changes just prior to signing. 

Prof. Lewy's attorney stated that there was a financial settlement, and that while he could not disclose the amount, Prof. Lewy was very happy.  Additionally, SPLC will be printing the retraction on its website.

In light of the e-mail from Prof. Lewy's attorney, I am printing the update, as follows:

Retraction and Apology

In the summer 2008 issue of its Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Guenter Lewy, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, was part of a network of persons, financed by the Government of Turkey, who dispute that the tragic events of World War I constituted an Armenian genocide. We now realize that we misunderstood Professor Lewy's scholarship, were wrong to assert that he was part of a network financed by the Turkish Government, and were wrong to assume that any scholar who challenges the Armenian genocide narrative necessarily has been financially compromised by the Government of Turkey. We hereby retract the assertion that Professor Lewy was or is on the Government of Turkey's payroll.

To our knowledge, Professor Lewy has never sought to deny or minimize the deaths of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey; nor has he sought to minimize the Ottoman regime's grievous wartime miscalculations or indifference to human misery in a conflict earmarked by widespread civilian suffering on all sides. What he has argued in his book, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, and elsewhere is that the present historical record does not substantiate a premeditated plan by the Ottoman regime to destroy because of ethnicity, religion ,or nationality, as opposed to deport for political-military reasons, the Armenian population. In this view, he is joined by such distinguished scholars as Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University. As additional troves of archival information come to light, Professor Lewy advocates greater study of this contentious subject.

We deeply regret our errors and offer our sincerest apologies to Professor Lewy.

Professor Lewy adds the following comment:

The SPLC has made important contributions to the rule of law and the struggle against bigotry. Thus I took no pleasure in commencing legal action against it. But the stakes, both for my reputation as a scholar and for the free and unhindered discussion of controversial topics, were compelling.  It must be possible to defend views that contradict conventional wisdom without being called the agent of a foreign government.. 

Lewy v SPLC - Retraction and Apology

Update 2 - 9-30-2010:  At the request of Prof. Lewy's attorney, I have removed the original text of the Retraction (although I don't think I was required to do so).  Prof. Lewy's attorney states that the version originally posted never was agreed-upon text, and that the only agreed-upon text of a retraction is what now appears in the first update.

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Related Posts:
Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness
Confirmed - SPLC Exaggerated About Klan In Rhode Island
SPLC's Democratic Party Mission

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The Southern Poverty Law Center issued a misleading and politicized report on hate groups for the purpose of smearing those who oppose Democratic Party plans to expand government.

This has become an all too common SPLC tactic, and is a disgrace because there was a time when SPLC actually went after hate groups rather than simply putting the label "hate group" on law-abiding political groups which happen to oppose SPLC's fundraising base.

By conflating political opponents with almost extinct groups like the Ku Klux Klan, SPLC creates powerful, but distorted, imagery.

SPLC's report caused the The Guardian in Britain to run the image at right on its homepage to highlight the SPLC's report.

Congratulations, SPLC.

Your mission to smear all opponents of the Obama agenda as the equivalent of Klansmen is on the way to being accomplished.

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Related Posts:
The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
Saturday Night Card Game (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Calling For Sparkman Apologies

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There are many cheap tricks used against bloggers.

Perhaps the most common is to attribute the views expressed in comments to the blogger.  The problem there is that the nature of a comment section is to give people other than the blogger the chance to express an opinion, so one has nothing to do with the other.  In addition, as happened to Sarah Palin, sometimes comments are planted for the deliberate purpose of making the blogger (or website organizer) look bad.

There is yet another cheap trick, which is to attribute the views of those who link to the blogger to the blogger. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has used this trick by claiming that linkage by a racist or white supremacist website is evidence that the content linked and the blogger linked reflect the views of the linking website.  With regard to Pamela Geller SPLC wrote:

"Her comments were so incendiary, in fact, that several neo-Nazi organizations even ignored the fact that she is Jewish and published her diatribes."

Geller's rebuttal to SPLC's charges is here, but that is somewhat besides the point.  If SPLC is going to make the case that views expressed are racist or white supremacist, the mere linkage by racist or white supremacist organizations is not enough, or if it were, Glenn Greenwald would be guilty as well.

On November 13, 2010, I was harshly critical of Greenwald for his post Eric Cantor's Pledge of Allegiance in which Greenwald suggested that Eric Cantor (R-Va) was disloyal to the United States and had instead pledged allegiance to Israel.  Greenwald responded on November 20, (wrongly) claiming that I was accusing him of being anti-semitic.  In preparing my further response, I noticed that Greenwald's original post had been reposted at Stormfront, a white supremacist website.
I could have used the Stormfront reposting against Greenwald, but that would have been as wrong as what the SPLC did to Geller. 

Both Greenwald and Geller (and I and every other blogger) deserve their writings to be praised or criticized based on the only thing the writer can control, namely, the content.  We are not responsible for people who comment on it, or link to it.


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Pulling The Financial Mask Off The SPLC, Slowly
SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
SPLC To Apologize to Prof. Guenter Lewy For False Accusations

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The Southern Poverty Law Center was a focus of my post earlier this week regarding SPLC's new "anti-gay" list and "hate group" list.

An important blog post (h/t Instapundit) by someone who describes himself as a "veteran gay and aids human rights activist" takes SPLC to task for its new list not because he agrees with the listed groups, but rather, because the lists are just another SPLC fundraising tool.

The blog post details some of SPLC's finances, including its Cayman Island's bank account and $170 million in listed assets (as of its 2008 IRS report).

I'll have more on SPLC's finances in coming posts.  But for now, read the linked article.

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

On February 25, 2010, the People for Change group in Prince George's County Maryland held a town hall forum to discuss the impacts of illegal immigration on local communities. NumbersUSA President Roy Beck and DC Mayoral Candidate Leo Alexander came under fire from a protesters for taking a stand against illegal immigration. One protester compared the meeting to a Klan rally.

The video speaks for itself as to the absurdity of the charge. (h/t Moonbattery).



Expect more of this as the illegal immigrant amnesty push moves into full gear this spring and summer.

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Saturday Night Card Game
SPLC's Democratic Party Mission
The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

As detailed here before, the NAACP has launched a campaign to smear the Tea Party movement as racist.  Now the NAACP is doubling down.

In order to prove that it is all-in with left wing causes, and does not even pretend otherwise, the NAACP has teamed with Media Matters, Think Progress, and a new group called New Left Media to create Teapartytracker.org.

First reported on at The Daily Caller, the website is devoted, in the words of the NAACP, to monitoring "racism and other forms of extremism within the Tea Party movement.”

Yes, we know the model.  It is the Southern Poverty Law Center's HateWatch blog.

SPLC's HateWatch blog serves as a vehicle by which to falsely label legitimate political opposition to the Democratic Party as racist and extremist. I have documented how SPLC has exaggerated claims as to the existence of some Klan groups and the supposed increase in hate groups, and falsely smeared a black female law professor as being an "apologist for white supremacists."  Now NAACP is getting in on the act.

By officially teaming with Media Matters and Think Progress, NAACP simply has proven that it has not interest in the truth.  As documented here many times, Media Matters and Think Progress are advocacy organizations, not news sources, which try to shape the news not report on it. 

Whether one thinks MSNBC or FoxNews are biased to the left or right, respectively, Media Matters and Think Progress are in a different league.  The misleading anti-Tea Party video created by Think Progress now is legendary.

Andrew Breitbart was right on point on this one, as quoted in The Daily Caller:

“It’s called projection,” Breitbart said. “The alliance of the left, the Think Progress, the Media Matters and the NAACP are projecting onto the Tea Party. The accusations are a projection of who the coordinated, well-funded left is. They are manufacturing the racism. They are the ones who are fomenting the violence, the ones who are the only perpetrators of violence over the last year.”

NAACP now simply serves as a conduit for Democratic Party operatives and message makers. 

The roll out of the website demonstrates that NAACP mostly just regurgitates Media Matters and Think Progress stories.  Here are the most recent blog entries at the website:


What is the NAACP's big news?  A photo at the Restoring Honor Rally of a guy wearing a tee shirt that said ""Blacks own Slaves in Mauritania, Sudan Niger and Haiti."  Wow, that's a danger to the nation. 

Perhaps the NAACP should run the video of Floyd Mayweather, Jr.'s anti-Asian rant, instead.  How about we now establish "BoxerWatch.org."

The NAACP knows exactly what it is doing.  By creating a website devoted exclusively to watching the Tea Party movement, NAACP is attempting to create the impression that the Tea Party is dangerous.  Even if there is no real news to back it up, the public relations damage is done.

The NAACP has doubled down in its smear campaign.  Ultimately, the NAACP will be the biggest loser because it it marginalizing itself even more than it already is.

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Related Posts:
Saturday Night Card Game (Is This The Week The Dream Died?)
Shocked - Think Progress Misleading Anti-Tea Party Video
NAACP Passes "Tea Party Is Racism" Resolution

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

The answer to the headline question is ... Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran.

You may have heard that in an interview with Al Jazeera after Obama's State of the Union address, Moran blamed the Democrats' 2010 electoral losses on racism.

As reported at The Weekly Standard, when asked about the losses, Moran responded as follows:

“It [the Republican successes in the 2010 elections] happened for the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States. It happened because the Southern states, the slaveholding states, didn’t want to see a president who was opposed to slavery. In this case, I believe, a lot of people in the United States don’t want to be governed by an African-American, particularly one who is liberal, who wants to spend money and who wants to reach out to include everyone in our society….”

Here is the video, which is dubbed over in Arabic, but you still can hear the question and answer in the background starting at the 2:50 mark:



So now we have covered the race card, one down, two to go.

Now Israel Lobby Derangement Syndrome, as detailed at HuffPo:

In the buildup to the Iraq war in 2003, Moran sparked a firestorm when he claimed that the pro-Israel lobby and Jews were driving the decision to engage Iraq militarily.

CNN reports on Moran's original comments, made at a local antiwar forum:

"If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this," said Moran, whose remarks were first reported by the Reston Connection newspaper. "The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should."

In 2007, Moran again rankled the Jewish community when he lamented the power of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) by saying their influence was driven by their wealth.

Two down, one to go.

In justifying Moran's recent comments to Al Jazeera, Moran’s spokeswoman, Anne Hughes defended the comments, citing a list of 1000 supposed "hate groups" in the U.S. as proof Moran was right:

“With nearly 1,000 identified hate groups in the U.S. and recent studies showing a majority of Americans believe racism is still widespread against African-Americans, it is no secret that our country has and continues to struggle with racial equality,” Hughes said. “The congressman was expressing his frustration with this problem and the role it played in the last election. Rather than ignore this issue or pretend it isn’t there, the congressman believes we are better off discussing it in order to overcome it.”

Moran's spokeswoman almost certainly was referring to the hyperbolic hate group list published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has been debunked in prior posts here.

So there we have it. 

The Race Card, Israel Lobby Derangement Syndrome, and SPLC Hyperbolic Disorder all wrapped into one Democratic Congressman from Virginia.

How did Moran win in 2010?  Can't Virginia Republicans find someone to beat this guy in 2012?

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Related Posts:
Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness
What Does The "Israel Lobby" Have To Do With The Discovery Channel Hostage Taking?
Yup, Soros Is Behind J-Street

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Some thoughts, and inviting reader comments, on a variety of topics today (a running list):

1. Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers.  Which is an interesting point, because some of my readers are trolls and nutroot lurkers.  I even wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, because I'm that big a person.
2. The job is not done, and don't you forget it, you bitter clingers.  One more term, one more term, one more term:  "It's Important He Finish What He Started."  (h/t HotAir)
3. But, the good news is, you are allowed to eat pie, just not cake.  In 2012 we need to make them eat humble pie.
4. They're protesting a possible pardon for a Christian woman in Pakistan sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam.  Worldwide outrage to follow.  Call the U.N. Human Rights Council.  SPLC to add a new person to the hate group list (the woman, not the people killing her).
5. Hezbollah - so if we killed Rafik Harriri, no biggie, let's not destroy Lebanon over it.
6. Can you believe it, that fool thinks Europe is a country, they speak Austrian in Austria, and we have 57 states.  That's what happens when you don't get a proper education.  And that person wants to be President, hah!  Such an ignoramus would ruin our economy, destroy our standing in the world, and get government agents to touch our junk.  We cannot let that happen.  Get Oliver Willis on the case, he'll stop this person cold.
7. Everything you eat has been snuffed.  That includes vegetables - they have rights too, they just don't have lawyer, yet.
8. Remember, you can order Sarah Palin postage stamps.
9. Your "too good not to be true Stuxnet news of the day":  Stuxnet messed with Iran's air defense drill causing Iranian fighter planes to chase intruders which didn't exist.
10. Israel still helping in Haiti, while most of the Israel-hating U.N. member nations have moved on.

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Barack Obama backed the decision of the Central Falls School District in Rhode Island to fire all teachers at its underperforming high school, much to the anger of teachers' unions.

Now a teacher at the school has hung Obama in effigy:

Responding to a rumor that one of the terminated teachers at Central Falls High School had hung a doll representing President Obama in effigy in his classroom, school Supt. Frances Gallo went to the school after hours on Monday to investigate.

In a classroom on the second floor, she found the doll hanging upside down.

A spokeswoman for the Central Falls School Department said Gallo immediately removed the doll, reported the incident to "the appropriate authorities and the proper disciplinary actions have been taken," although no details of these steps were given, citing personnel reasons.

Gallo also declined to identify the teacher.

In a statement, Gallo said she would work to ensure incidents like this will not be repeated.

"This was an ill-conceived, imprudent act that has upset the lives of some of our students," Gallo said.[*]

Can you imagine the uproar if anyone associated with the Tea Party movement had done this. The screams of "racist" would be flooding the blogosphere, and the columnists at the NY Times would be wondering whether we were on the verge of violence.

*Note: The quote has been changed from the original post to reflect an updated report in the link.

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Related Posts:
The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
Calling For Sparkman Apologies
Inevitable "Tea Party" and "Amy Bishop" Link Attempt

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See Update below
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Politico is one of the class acts in internet news to which I link frequently, and Ben Smith is a justifiably respected commentator at Politico.

Which is why it pains me to have to point out that yesterday Smith unfairly smeared Robert Stacy McCain as a racist who opposes interracial marriage based upon disputed allegations. And it all emanates from the fact that McCain knows Lynn Vincent, who co-wrote Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue."

The hatred for Palin among the self-anointed intelligentsia and left-wing blogosphere is renowned and indisputable. Merely knowing Palin puts one's career and reputation at risk, as happened to Vincent. In the effort to get Palin, the Palin haters tried to smear Vincent as a racist.

Having no evidence against Vincent, they cited the fact that Vincent co-wrote a book many years ago with McCain, with the false assertion that McCain was a racist. The evidence was either non-existent, distorted, or fabricated, as I have written before when Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs made the accusations. But no matter. McCain's crime was knowing someone who knew Sarah Palin.

The latest round took place yesterday, when in the left-wing hysteria to get Palin and Vincent, Max Blumenthal at The Daily Beast repeated the accusations against McCain. Blumenthal quoted from and linked to an article by Michael Signorile from 2002, where Signorile repeated hearsay and gossip about McCain, and made the assertion that McCain, using a fictitious Username, posted a statement hostile to interracial marriage on a posting board called Reclaiming the South. (The meaning of the disputed post itself could be disputed, but I'm not going to make that argument.)

McCain repeatedly has fended off these accusations, and has gone on record denying such posting ("contrary to Michelangelo Signorile's assertion, I never contributed to the white separatist site 'Reclaiming the South.'").

I have no personal way of knowing if McCain's denials are true, but in the absence of other conclusive evidence, at least cite the denials when making the accusation. (Yes, I've listened to the 2006 interview of McCain by Alan Colmes, and no it does not prove that McCain was the author, which he denied in the interview.)

The fact that the post in question cited by Signorile used a Username McCain had used in the past means nothing to me. Someone has been using the Username "Legal Insurrection" without my prior knowledge or permission to post comments at Huffington Post.

Some other person used my blog address without permission to post a derogatory comment directed at the author of a blog called Peking Duck ("“I hope you get AIDS from a loved one.”) I never made that comment, and the blog author then had to post this correction: "Twisted, the commenter wrote back and said he/she is not Bill Jacobson despite listing it as their blog, so let’s not retaliate."

The internet is a nasty, nasty place. Publications like Politico need to be really careful before attributing comments to a particular person, particularly when the person has denied being the author.

Instead, Smith simply took Blumenthal's characterization and wrote that McCain's "views on race -- he opposes, among other things, intermarriage -- have since made him a pariah even on the right."

I e-mailed Smith and asked for the basis for that statement, and pointed out that I was not aware of anything supporting the proposition that McCain opposed interracial marriage (or that he was a pariah, but that's not the point of this post).

Smith then changed the wording, to state that McCain "has written critically of interracial marriage" with a link to the Signorile article, with no mention that McCain denied the assertion. Sometime overnight, Smith changed the post again to include a link to a Southern Poverty Law Center assertion in 2005 that McCain was associated with racist groups, an allegation McCain also has denied. (My own views of the demise of the SPLC into partisan hackery, including labeling a black female law professor an "apologist for white supremacists," are here.)

To his credit, Smith added an update linking to McCain's denial of the allegations. But Smith also added a link to Little Green Footballs, which has been the main source agitating against McCain after McCain criticized Charles Johnson's attacks on other bloggers. Smith may not realize it, but he has become an unwitting tool in an old-fashioned blog war.

There are few worse epithets than to label someone a racist, so a responsible news organization like Politico should know better than to throw that charge around so loosely. And the clarifications of the post merely have made matters worse, by linking to more disputed charges against McCain from people with a personal and political agenda.

It's one thing when the Max Blumenthals of the world engage in such tactics. It's quite different, and infinitely more damaging, when Politico does the same.

For years into the future, Smith's Politico post will be cited by bloggers and pundits as proof that McCain (and anyone who knows him) is a racist; that's how smears work on the internet. Start the smear at some blog or publication no one ever has heard of, get someone partisan at a larger publication to cite to it, then get a respected organization like Politico to cite to it, and now it is "proof."

How does one defend oneself against such charges? It's the age-old problem of self-publication. In order to defend oneself against defamatory accusations, one has to repeat the accusations as part of the defense. So McCain is put in the difficult position of having to defend himself while not self-publishing the accusations. "Ignore it or fight it" is a difficult choice, made all the more difficult by the rise of the internet, where smear merchants playing the race card abound.

And it's a choice I faced in deciding whether to write this post. By so doing, I'm including links to and discussion of the accusations. More fodder for the search engines. But it has to be done, because anyone to the right of the far left-wing blogs is a potential victim of the race card.

When I wrote a post in October 2008 critical of Obama's lack of record, with a spot-on assessment that Obama was over-rated and narcissistic, I was accused of having a hidden racist agenda: "Considering that it adds no value to the debate at all, one has to conclude that Jacobson is doing only what other [John] McCain supporters are starting to do, produce these worthless pieces from some narrow perch in order to cover up their own racist bigotry." (The link has gone dead.)

It can happen to any of us. Ignoring it will not make it go away. The people for whom the race card is the debate-stopper will not stop using the race card. Politico and Ben Smith should be aware of this dynamic, and not fall victim to it.

Which gets me back to this question: Why are we even talking about McCain at all? It's because McCain knows someone who knows Sarah Palin.

By writing this post, I put myself at risk. Because I can be accused of knowing someone who knows someone who knows Sarah Palin.

Update 12/7/09: Patterico has posted That Quote Most of You Called “Racist” Was Written by Robert Stacy McCain, attributing the wording quoted by Smith to a 1996 e-mail exchange by McCain, with a link to a Founding Bloggers post in which McCain argued that the language was taken out of context. So Smith may have had it wrong about the 2002 posting, but right ultimately about the quote, so for that I owe Smith an apology.

As to the ultimate meaning of the quote, it really doesn't matter if it was in a private e-mail 13 years ago. I'll agree with Patterico on this:

Again, I’m not willing to write off the man entirely for one quote. And yet, it’s clear to me that this quote is his — and that it is racially prejudiced.

He ought to stop halfway pretending he didn’t say it. He should just flatly renounce it.

Nothing I've read from McCain in the past year-plus that I've been following his blog leads me to think he is a racist or white supremacist, or anything close. So I stand by my reaction to Charles Johnson's attempts to paint McCain as a white supremacist. In fact, McCain's writings reflect just the opposite. But ignoring something will not make it go away. Disavow it or explain it. It's out there.

And McCain's response begins here ... and I think ends here.

And Update 12-08-09: Perhaps I had the context of that single pararaph wrong, see this defense of the statement in a guest post at Patterico:

The next statement also appears to arise from a paleoconservative outlook: that a white man might have a high NTF (”Negro tolerance factor,” a very useful phrase invented by black activists) in dealing with black men in everyday transactions… but still feel panic when his brother wants to marry a black chick. And McCain is correct that this is not racism: There is no hint that blacks, as a group, are inferior, or that they should be treated differently as a group. The same man may have the same reaction to his brother wanting to marry an Italian or a Pole — both of whom are of course white.

It’s not racism; it’s more like tribalism or xenophobia. It’s similar to a blonde family being upset if their beautiful, blue-haired, blonde-eyed daughter decides to marry a swarthy southern-European with dark brown hair; the reaction flows from preservation of the sub-subspecies of blonds, not a belief in the superiority of the yellow-hairs, which would be required for true “racism.” ....

McCain draws the same distinction I would: That father is not racist for not wanting his daughter to marry a blind man; he is stupid, irrational, prejudiced, and unreasonable for a very different reason: because the important components of a marriage are a sense of decency, moral uprightness, loyalty, shared interests, sexual desire, and the willingness to love (v.t.) the partner — none of which depends upon being able to see.

That’s how I read the lengthy McCain quotation, most of which appears to be McCain quoting Kent H. Steffgen, whoever he was. (Steffgen wrote at least a couple books attacking Ronald Reagan as a socialist, of all things.) R.S. McCain is not exonerating or praising those who recoil in revulsion from a biracial marriage, but he is acquitting that person of being driven by a belief in the inferiority of one race to another — at least on the evidence presented at trial.

And consider this defense of the alleged hostility to interracial marriage in the black community, by someone who considers himself an expert race theorist (emphasis mine):

To call this racist is, well, stupid. It is no different than the in-group preference you see in any other racial or ethnic minority. Indeed, it is best understood as another way to preserve cultural cohesion and push back against negative depictions of ones ethnic group. Of course, seeing as how conservatives are constantly on the hunt for anything to deflect charges of racism onto minorities, it’s not really a shock that they would latch on to this as an “example” of racism.

So is McCain's statement 13 years ago in an e-mail "racist" on its face? Would it be "racist" if someone preferred that relatives marry within their ethnic or racial group not out of hatred for others but as a defense mechanism or out of pure pride in one's own group? Do Jews "hate" Christians merely by wanting their Jewish children to marry within the faith? I'll let you be the judge.

Because I don't hold myself out as a "race theorist," and never will. I prefer to judge people individually, and from what I've read at McCain's blog and other writings in the past year-plus, there is nothing to suggest that he is racist or a white supremacist or any of the other Charles-Johnson-isms being cast McCain's way.

The original point of this post remains correct, notwithstanding the updates: McCain was targeted by Johnson and Blumenthal because of agendas having nothing to do with the meaning of a single paragraph McCain wrote 13 years.

And Update 12-10-09: The final update to this post (hopefully), where you can read everyone's point of view on this, at Little Miss Attila

--------------------------------------------
Related Posts:
Charles Johnson and Robert Stacy McCain
An Allergic Reaction To The Race Card
"Race" As Political Weapon

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This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:

Tonight's issue came to my attention due to the controversy stirred up in Australia over these two t-shirts:


The t-shirts, particularly the one that says "we eat meat, we drink beer and we speak f**kin English," have been branded as "racist," as reported by the Herald Sun:

RACIST T-shirts on sale at the Queen Victoria Market are telling people from international backgrounds to "speak f-----' English''.

The shirts, which are on a stall close to shops selling stuffed koalas and boomerangs, have been branded ignorant by a multicultural group....

The discovery of the provocative shirts comes after the Federation of the Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia met sporting, religious and ethnic groups around the country last month to tackle racism nationwide.

Queen Victoria Market spokeswoman Misti Dullard said the market was "investigating the appropriateness" of the T-shirts and other items sold by stall operators.

"We have noticed that recently there has been an increase in (those) types of T-shirts," Ms Dullard said.

We frequently hear people refer to English-only policies as "racist," but I think that is a misnomer. 

The desire to maintain a nation's predominant language is not a racial classification.  The French are not racist for wanting to maintain French as the nation's language, and that goes for just about any other country. 

An English-only policy here would apply as equally to immigrant Swedes as it would to Argentinians.  A black person from Britain would have no trouble complying while a Caucasian who grew up in Spain might have trouble.  The American child of a Chinese immigrant would not have a problem, while the parent may -- yet they are of the same race.

Requiring English-only, or English as the core language of Australia, or Britain, or the U.S., simply does not reflect racial classifications.  Criticize it if you want, but not on racial lines. 

Applying the term "racist" is simply a means of preventing a rational conversation on whether an English-speaking nation has the same rights as other nations to maintain the predominant, and in many cases unifying, language.  I say Oui!

Indeed, I'm wondering why the t-shirt is not under attack for being anti-vegetarian, since it also demands that people eat meat. 

As we know, hatred of vegetarians is a growing problem (even the vegans hate them).  Godwin must be turning over in his cabbage patch, because they're already comparing vegetarians to Hitler.

And while it is not acceptable to make fun of racial minorities, anti-vegetarian humor is out in the open:



First they came for the vegetarians ....

I demand that the Southern Poverty Law Center add the Anti-Vegetarian Society of Meat Eaters to its list of hate groups.  Think how many donations it will bring in for SPLC from the vegetarians, and those who love them.

Now repeat after me, in English only: 

We are all vegetarians now.

Update:  Thanks to reader Helen for this photo taken last August in Sheridan, Wyoming:


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