"Manufacturing Hate" - the SPLC on the hot seat | Hour 3

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetcleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. So the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing, as the Committee is known to do. They brought before them the Southern Poverty Law Center and the organization's interim president and CEO, Brian Fair. Again, we live in a Dickensian novel. The guy's name is be Fair. Poverty Law Center, Totally Fair. They actually just put out their twenty twenty five Hate and Extremism Report, which identifies one thousand, two hundred sixty three active hate and anti government groups nationwide. According to the Hate Map, the Center's interactive map that tracks hate and anti government groups, sixteen groups are classified as anti Semitic, including the Nation of Islam as well as the Goyam Defense League. The map also lists fifty four neo Nazi groups and fourteen q klux Klan chapters. You'll recall the SPLC has been indicted for using donor money to pay extremists, racists, white supremacists, giving them money to continue their activities. They claim this is a confidential informant system. However, some of these people that they were paying use the money to purchase the materials for things like cross burnings and recruitment drives. And it makes you wonder, are you actually using donor money to fund a rise in hate right to prop up the hate groups, to make them more prolific in order to keep the fundraising rolling in So here is Brian Fairs from the SBLC. Here's his opening statement. Last July, I took on a one year leave from teaching to become the interim out of the Southern Popular Law Center. So my testimony today will be one of my last official acts in this role. It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to work alongside the talented, dedicated, and principled SPLC staff for fifty five years. With a support of generous donors who appreciate our work, the SPLC has fought racial terror, white supremacy and other forms of discrimination and hate. Seeking to build and defend a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive. That was the goal of the civil rights movement, and it is our mission. We are known for exposing and dismantling extremist. Hate groups and funding them. We took on the United Clans of America, whose hateful violence killed four little girls in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and we sue them out of existence. In the decades since, hate has continued, but so have our efforts to expose it and funding litigation, policy, research, and education. We fight for the underdog, the poor, the unhoused, the hungary, the incarcerated, the disenfranchised, the immigrants, the outcast, the vilified. Many groups, and some in this room, have misrepresented our work, including our confidential Informant program, repeating the false allegations. Some say we've lost our way. That's false. We've never lost our north star, a fair and just society for every person. All our programs advance that mission. Our work saves lives, but it comes at a price. Since our earliest days, we've been targeted by those who oppose our mission. Our office was firebombed, our staff, threatened, our leaders the target of assassination. We know political violence, we unequivocally condemn it. However, despite the danger, we will not stop exposing hate. This morning, we released our annual Year in Hate and Extremism report. It chronicles how the hard right has weaponized the levers of government to weaken the political and economic power of non weights, immigrants, women, the lgbt Q plus community, religious minorities, and the poor. The forces turning back hard won progress against discrimination are unrelenting and unashamed. The SPLC, alongside many civil rights groups and democracy defenders, is resisting them. To American people of goodwill, especially those left out of the American promise, your civic participation matters now more than any time since the civil rights movement. Today, I'm joined by several people who inspire our work. First, Miss Karen Finn and her son Aaron are here. Aaron faced expulsion from school for alleged conduct that was a manifestation of his disability. Aaron lives with autism, and federal law prohibits schools from excluding students from behaviors connected to their disabilities. We sued, and with his mother's courage, and dedication and his perseverance. Karon graduated from that school in twenty twenty three. Miss Tanya Gersh is also here, a Jewish Montana mom. Gersh and her family became the target of relentless anti Semitic harassment from white nationalists, including threatening phone calls where all that could be heard on the line was gunshots. With the center's help, Gersh won a fourteen million dollar judgment against the neo Nazi who incited her harassers. We stand with Karen, Aaron, Tanya and thousands we protect. Every day. Vanni lu Hamer said, nobody's free until Everybody's free. The SPLC will continue our constitutionally protected work to ensure everyone in this country is treated with dignity, lives lives free of discrimination, and enjoys liberty and opportunity to thrive. These promises of our democracy are not self executing. They require our collective vigilance, and we will continue to defend them when they come under attack. Finally, I must note that I'm constrained in answering some questions today because they may touch on matters involving pending criminal litigation against the SPOC, or conversations that I've had with counsel. Frankly, this constraint is the result of the majorities injecting itself into a pending criminal matter three days after it was filed, and then refusing our request to delay this hearing until that case is resolved. With that, I will answer what I can. So you dastardly Republicans pouncing and seizing upon the indictment of us for bank fraud. So yeah, needless to say, any question that came up regarding any of the allegations in the superseding indictment that's been filed against the SPLC, he refuse to answer, and you know, citing the pending litigation, right, which you would expect. Now, keep in mind some of the stuff that he said there. As you hear the rest of these sound bites, I will get to them. You know, stories are powerful. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. All right, more audio. This is from one of the other witnesses who was called to the hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee. This is Ryan Bangert. He is the senior vice president for Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the President at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Over fifty years ago, the SPLC was founded to fight the scourge of racism, but the SPLC has drifted from that founding purpose. The indictment alleges. That the SDLC deceived owners into funding the racist groups that claim to fight. But beyond these shocking allegations of hypocrisy lies a broader story how the SDLC tarred mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups and then relentlessly sought to silence those groups by persuading America's leading financial and technology firms to exclude them from the marketplace. ADF is one of those organizations. We've been on the SPLC's hate map since twenty sixteen, which is odd given that we reject racism. Our Christian faith teaches that all are created equal and all are made in the image of God. But it makes sense when you understand today's SPLC and the words of some as a political hit operation. The SPLC has branded ADF and others like us as hate groups solely because it disagrees with our work, grounded in our religious conviction on behalf of children told by the medical establishment to disfigure and permanently mutilate their bodies, on behalf of the most vulnerable among us, both those unborn and those at the end of life. Our advocacy for these mainstream positions has repeatedly led us to the US Supreme Court, where we have secure we heard eighteen victories since twenty eleven, including two more cases under submission today. In fact, the SPLC even quietly filed in a MEEKUS brief supporting one of ADF's Supreme Court wins on behalf of freedom of association and donor privacy. But the SPLC cannot abide our work on behalf of the vulnerable parents, children, and the unborn, so it has slandered ADF and other groups like US as hate groups and sought and sought to lock us out of the public square. The SPLC began targeting mainstream Christian and conservative organizations by adding them to their hate map in twenty ten. Seven years later, the SPLC's fundraising skyrocketed in response to the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. But this wasn't a stroke of good luck. The superseding indictment alleges that the SPLC funded and supported one of its ring leaders. In the immediate aftermath of Charlottesville. The SPLC received large donations or commitments from leading firms and personalities, including JP Morgan, Chase, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and even tim cooked out. In twenty eighteen, it launched a coalition of left wing organizations called Change the Terms. They understood that you don't have to win a debate with. Your opponents if they're invisible, So the coalition targeted critical banking, payment processing, donor advisory technology, and digital communications infrastructure. It embedded the SPLC within that infrastructure of corporate decision making, allowing it to influence terms of engagement, flag business partners, and bully corporations into compliance. In short, the SPLC mobilized corporate America to crush the voices of mainstream conservative organizations. The Biden year saw the SPLC deep in its presence in America's political and corporate infrastructure. The Biden dog and White House met regularly with SPLC officials. Amazon used the SPLC to blackball groups from its Amazon's Smile Giving program. So did the employee charitable giving platform. Benevity, which serves nearly a quarter of the fortune one thousand ADF saw tangible impacts. We lost access to the Amazon Smile program, non profit pricing from large technology providers like Microsoft, Adobe, and into It, web hosting on the Pantheon platform, and access to donor. Advised funds at Fidelity. A partisan political organization like the SPLC should never have been allowed to function as an unaccountable private gatekeeper to critical financial, technology and communication services, and corporations should never have accepted the word of an organization that is itself severely compromised. In addition to standing and data, today, the SPLC has paid millions in settlements for defamation. Its co founder and president left in twenty nineteen amid staff reports of a systemic culture of racism and sexism. It received an f from Charity Navigator for hoarding donor money to the tune of more than eight hundred million dollars, much of it offshore. Former employees have said that the SPLC is little more than a highly profitable scam. The time has come to uproot the SPLC from America's financial and technology infrastructure, and Congress can help. Investigations of the SPLC can reach beyond the indictment to examine the SPLC's relationships with financial institutions, technology companies, and digital communications platforms. Moreover, Congress can pass legislation barring federally ensured financial institutions from delegating decision making to private entities that discriminate based on First Amendment protected activity. These would be critical steps toward dismantling the SPLC's shadow censorship regime. We thank the Committee for its interest in doing so. Okay, and so what does the SPLC say, Well, we're just exercising our First Amendment rights. We're allowed to say these things. That's our First Amendment right. Banger later on called their designation of his group as a hate group. He said, it's slanderous. The problem with the SPLC is that is trying to shut down debate in the public square. And there are numerous examples of the SPLC, including not just with law enforcement, but also major corporate actors, to do exactly that. Of course, we all witness what happened with the malicious prosecutions by the Biden administration's DOJ under the Face. Act, but it goes beyond that. We've seen major corporations consistently canceling dbanking, refusing service to organizations that simply have a political disagreement with the SPLC, oftentimes on issues that the vast majority of the American public disagree with the SPLC on, and yet they're pressuring both the government and large corporations to take adverse action against those corporations simply to grind to political acts. That's not right right. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican from Wisconsin, noted that the SPLC criticized the ADF for what the ADF had created with its Viewpoint Diversity Score. That's what it's called. Specifically, they state that the Viewpoint Diversity score quote mimics white supremist narratives. Mister Banger, My understanding of the Viewpoint Diversity Score is that it seeks to hold companies accountable for respecting all religious and ideological diversity in the workplace. Is that white extremism to you? Thank you for your question, a congressman, Absolutely not, in that allegation is preposterous. ADF works through its Viewpoint Diversity Score initiative as well as through all the work that we do to defeat censorship by preserving freedom of speech, and the objection we have to what the SPLC has done with its hate map, especially when it comes to groups conservative pro family groups like Family Research Council TPUSA, Moms for Liberty EIGHTF, is that they work to defeat free speech by they work to defeat free speech by eliminiting those. Groups from the public square entirely right. And that's the distinction between the hate Map and the work that ADYF does. Right. So they claim First Amendment protection to say whatever they want to, slander and libel and call you, you know, white supremacists, and then hook into the infrastructure of our society in order to silence political opponents, to rob them of their free speech. Therein lies the problem. More audio. By the way, this hearing the other day at the House Judiciary with the Southern Poverty Law Center, thing ran almost four hours long. I watched it so you didn't have to. You're welcome. Next up, Brandon Gill. Love this guy. He's hilarious Republican from Texas. He starts off his questioning of the SPLC's president, Brian Fair by holding up a photo of Graham Platner with his Nazi tattoo. Do you recognize that tattoo on this man's chest? This is scretary, hegseeth. Oh, sorry, this hegset first, right, right, right, No, it's a tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross. Your organization has referred to it as essentially a hate image. Do you do you agree with that? Assessment. I would have to see the assessment in our material to determine referred to. I'm not familiar with the symbol. You're not familiar. Do you have any thoughts on that symbol on that tattoo? No, I don't know none at all. You don't have any opinion on it? No, I don't, okay. What about this tattoo? Do you have an opinion on this tattoo? By the way, I believe the Jerusalem Cross is like on the floor at the National Cathedral. It's a pretty common icon. I'm not an expert on tattoos. No, I don't, okay. I can give you a little bit of background. This is a tattoo on main Democrat Senate candidate Grand Platner's check. That's the Nazi SS death had death head tattoo. Do you have any opinions on that? If it's what you say, if it's a Nazis, we oppose Nazis, we opposed. I agree, we do oppose Nazis. Do you think if somebody got a Nazi tattoo on their chest that's indicative that they might be a Nazi? You'd have to ask mister Plattner why he has that symbol. I've likely said that if it is a symbol of Nazism, we oppose Nazi. You don't think that that's indicative that perhaps he holds Nazi sentiments. It may well be. It may well be. I think do people who aren't Nazis normally get Nazi tattoos on their chests? Again, I assume they don't. You assume they don't. I would assume so too. I don't know anybody who's not a Nazi. I don't know anybody who has a Nazi tattoo on their chest but it's not a Nazi. Do you I know? No. Do you think that somebody who has a Nazi tattoo on their chest should serve in the United States Senate? I wouldn't vote for that person. I certainly wouldn't either. Do you think that this should disqualify him politically from serving in the Senate? Again, I'm not sure where the line of questions it's going the SPLC. If you're asking me, I'm sorry, go ahead. If you're asking me if the SPLC opposes Nazis and Nazis symbols, the answer is yes, yep. The SPLC is referred to this same tattoo as a racist skinhead symbolant tattoo. You can see the resemblance there. You wouldn't want somebody with a tattoo like in the Senate. No, No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't either. I appreciate your candor there. I got a couple other questions, shifting gears a little bit. Your organization said that restricting and banning abortion is a tool of the far that the far right uses to maintain white supremacy. Do you believe that that pro lifers are white supremacists. I believe that reproductive liberty is No. Do you believe that pro lifers are white supremacists. I will tell you what I believe. If you're as yes or no, I can't answer that question yesterday. I don't think that pro lifers are white supremacists. Do you? What I think is that reproductive liberty is a right that every woman should enjoy. How many babies in the United States that are aborted or black? About forty percent of abortions nationwideer of black babies. Blacks represent about thirteen percent of the population. Does that sound like something a white supremacist would oppose? What I would say again, is that SBLC. Supports reproductive Calling somebody a white supremacist is a pretty serious charge, isn't it. I would I mean, I would think you would be able to defend that if your organization says that you clearly seem unable. To mister Gil, I'm not sure why you would think I'm able to do anything. You're the president of the SPLC, which labels pro lifers as racists. Well, but does your. Organization just hurl around epithets like that without any justification? Mister Gill, what we do is we're giving you the opportunity to giving. Mister Sherman what's he referring to? And can you let the wins? This is outrageous. What are you referring to? I question, what are you referring from? Time belongs to the gentleman from Texas? Right, So you hear Gil there say to Jamie Raskin, who just like tags himself into the ring in order to try to save Brian Fair from the line of questioning which the time was expiring, because he's making the point and Fair knows exactly the point. It's just like the genocide charge against Israel. Meanwhile, the population of Gaza grows like they're the worst genociders ever. In other words, if he, as Fair said, if his organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, says that restricting and banning abortion is a tool of white supremacy, then why would white supremacists be opposed to it when the when almost a disproportionate number of abortions are of black babies thirteen percent of the population, almost forty percent of. The abortions, it seems like. Pro abortion people would be the white supremacists because you're you're killing off a lot of the black race. Right. In fact, if you go back to the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, this was part of the reason why they wanted to implement abortions. That's why they wanted to do them. She was a eugenicist racist, like like worst white supremacy tactic ever. That's just dumb, and he can't answer it. And that's why Raskin has to, you know, swoop in to Fairs defense to try to, you know, derail the questioning. And you heard Brandon gil there say I understand why you don't like the questions, Yeah, because they answer themselves. Going over some more audio from the here this week in the House Judiciary where they brought the Southern Poverty Law Center to answer questions. A lot of the stuff they could not answer because they're under federal indictment for fraud, money laundering, a bunch of other stuff. Here is Congressman Chip Roy from Texas asking the Southern Poverty Law Center president and CEO Brian Fair about several things, but specifically about the different treatment that is given to different political ideologies. In twenty twelve, the Family Research Council was attacked and the guard in the front. Of the building was shot and killed. The head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, made quite note at the time of Southern Property Law Center's involvement in that of putting Family Research Council on their so called hate map. And by the way, the reason why the Family Research Council Council made that connection was because the shooter referenced the hate map. The shooter talked about that, So that's the connection. It's not like just the FRC was saying, we think this is because we're on the haty mat. No, the shooter actually identified that's how we picked the target. Has the SPLs ever acknowledged that his designation contributed to that. Attack, Congressman Roy, yes or no? I can't answer that question with the yes. Who know you asked me if I yes? Actually yes, he could because the question which Chip Roy then moves away from, I think erroneously he should not have abandoned that question. It was whether or not the SPLC has ever acknowledged the role that the designation played in that attack. That's a yes or no. Has the SBLC ever acknowledged it? They either did or they did not? And Fair is saying, oh, I can't answer that is a yes or no? Did they react correct or Reconsider the listing of the Family Research Council on its hate map. See, now that's a different question. Ask the first question again. See, you got five minutes with these witnesses. You should probably only have maybe six questions because they just refuse to answer the question. They pretend they don't understand what you're asking. They find different ways to try to run out the clock. So you just have to keep dragging them back to the first question. The Family Research Council is listed on our pay map because it meets the criterion. This day, you continue to keep the Finder Research Council on its hate map. Is that true? The Family Research Council remains on the hate map because it meets the criteria that we use. For which criteria the Family Research Council is an anti LGBTQ. Okay, So on your website you used to have language on their defending your position on the Family Research Council, and you had language saying that other groups like Focus on the Family are not included, and you use that as your defense. Well, that language is now gone and Focus on the Family is now noted as a hate group. Can you explain that, Congressmanroy, we take no pleasure in listing any group and wirst the list was empty, sure, but we have the constitutional right to express or. How many leftists? How many leftists to anti Jewish groups do you have listed on your website? We name them. Anyone listening to this can go to our website and see our again. Our year and Hate and Extremism report was released this month on the. Extra How many extremists Islamic groups do you have of the fifteen hundred or so organizations you have in your hate map? Again, anyone can go to our website. I obviously been looking over it and can't really find. One again, it is the SPLCS. The SBLC can provide us a list of the is the Islamic oriented groups do you have on your hate map? Mister Roy, we don't target any group because of its religion. Really, I want to be clear about that. Really, yes, that's exactly right. We target no group because of its religion. We target groups because they express statements and engage in activities that demean and villain. You brought up LGBTQ groups, So you brought up lgbt groups a minute ago. So you think there's a bunch of Islamic groups that are pro LGBTQ. Is that the position of the SPLC. I just want to make sure the record is reflecting that. Mister Roy. As I said, we target no group or label no group because of its religion. We target groups and label groups because of what they say about others. And we have a constitutional right to do that and we will continue to do that. Okay, So just to be clear, if you are a Christian organization that opposes the left on policies regarding LGBTQ plus two ia, spirit animal whatever like, you land on the hate map even though it is your religious beliefs that inform your policy positions hate Man, if you are an Islamic organization and you hold identical beliefs to the Christian groups, you do not get on the hate map, see, because that would be targeting you as a Muslim. That would be a target simply because of your religious beliefs. But if you are a Christian who holds those exact same views, those are not because of your religious beliefs. I think I think we're all clear on that now, right, that makes total sense? Of course, yeah, sure, at that's. Tom McClintock had to ask a few times whether there was essentially any kind of coordination with the DOJ And here's how that went. During the Biden administration. Did the Department of Justice seek your organization's guidance on determining political groups to target? The SPLC, over its fifty five year history, has met with members of every administration since it's found Yes. Now, we've met with every administration since our founding. Did the Department of Justice seek your guidance on organizations or individuals to target for investigation? The SPLC identifies groups based on the criteria that we've set out one is So. The answer is yes. Notice he refuses to answer that question. Did the DOJ ask you? Did they solicit your input? That is a very simple thing to answer. They either did or they didn't, And his answer is always, well, we talk with everybody, not what I asked. No, the answer is not yes, maybe I don't understand you. Answer under oath is no, did we I'm sorry, I'm not sure that I'm following your question. Yeah. See, this is again how much time is wasted by leftists pretending they don't understand what you're talking about. Right, try again during the Biden administration to Department of Justice, seek your organization's guidance on determining political groups to target, not to myrin knowledge. Finally, we blow through a minute worth of the hearing, so twenty percent of mclin talks time used up just to get there. All right, last clip? What about left wing groups? Okay, explain to me the reason behind target and groups like Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council, traditional Catholic groups as hate groups, but not groups like Antifa, James Revenge Use Liberation Front. We list groups that demon eyes or vilify people based on immutable characteristics, or that express anti government conspiracy theory. You believe that any Fahn and Jane's Revenge and Use Liberation Front of committed violent acts. Congressman Mclenstocke, it's my understanding that the FBI has said Antifa is an ideology, not a group. There it is, it's an idea. Everybody Antifa is simply an idea. That's why they're not on the hate map. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.