I think of the Southern Poverty Law Center as the German's Gestapo, Russia's secret police, and the Mob's enforcers... Any newspaper could debunk 99% of the crap they feed the 'select'... and that's why the 'good stuff' is NOT given to newspapers.
And yeah livius, 'scary' is the right word...
Particularly scary because this is unknown to just about everybody. The SPLC works on some perfectly innocuous things, such as clearing title to rural black properties in the South. These things literally go back to 40 acres and a mule, but since blacks were not generally in the normal legal network (buying, selling and registering properties) and also often didn’t marry and have legal heirs, nor did they write wills, when whoever is living on the property now goes to sell it...they can’t. So this is a worthwhile project.
But most of their money comes from huge shadowy donations and contracts...such as the one they have with the FBI to identify and monitor “hate groups.”