Posted on 06/20/2018 2:28:26 AM PDT by Liz
No fewer than 60 organizations branded "hate groups" or otherwise attacked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are considering legal action against the left-wing smear factory, a Christian legal nonprofit leader confirmed to PJ Media on Tuesday. He suggested that the $3 million settlement and apology the SPLC gave to Maajid Nawaz and his Quilliam Foundation on Monday would encourage further legal action.
"We haven't filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC, because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz that's part of the settlement," Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media on Tuesday.
Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit against the charity navigation organization GuideStar for defamation, after GuideStar adopted the SPLC's "hate group" list. That lawsuit is ongoing.
In 2016, the SPLC published its "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," listing Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim, as one such extremist. The left-wing group listed various reasons for including him, changing the reasons every so often, and even at one point mentioning that he had gone to a strip club for his bachelor party.
On Monday, SPLC President Richard Cohen extended his group's "sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best." In settling the suit, the SPLC paid Nawaz's organization $3.375 million.
"This is a significant settlement," Staver told PJ Media. "3.375 million dollars, and it did not even go to litigation; it was a result of a demand letter."
Importantly, "the allegations that were at issue here were very similar to the allegations against the other groups," the Liberty Counsel chairman explained. "The SPLC promotes false propaganda, demonizes and labels groups they disagree with, and that labeling has economic as well as physical consequences." SPONSORED
The SPLC started as a group to oppose racist terrorism, and its first legal action targeted the Ku Klux Klan. In recent decades, the organization has begun marking mainstream organizations as "hate groups" on par with the KKK. Last year, 47 nonprofit leaders denounced the SPLC's "hate list" in an open letter to the media. The SPLC has admitted that its "hate group" list is based on "opinion." Staver insisted that the settlement with Nawaz "will encourage further legal action." He suggested that the settlement "helps our lawsuit against GuideStar" and may encourage organizations that were considering suing the SPLC to actually file the paperwork.
"There are probably about 60 organizations that we're talking to — there's at least 60," Staver told PJ Media. He mentioned the group of 47 nonprofit leaders who denounced the SPLC last year, and said "that group has grown since then."
Furthermore, many of the "hate groups" attacked by the SPLC do not encourage hate or violence, but merely disagree with the left-wing organization's political views. Many — like the Family Research Council (FRC), the Ruth Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — merely stand for marriage as between one man and one woman. The SPLC has twisted 30-year-old arguments to smear these groups, and in one egregious case the group actually quoted as hateful The Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Other organizations attacked by the SPLC also told PJ Media they are "considering their options" regarding a lawsuit."Truthfully, I have not been following the activities of the SPLC too closely," Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, an organization that lost its credit card processor, Vanco Payments, over the SPLC's "hate group" labeling last year, told PJ Media.
"Pursuing our mission is more important than attempting to take on the behemoth of the SPLC.""I must say, though, this apology to Mr. Nawaz has caused us to consider our options," Morse added, cryptically."We are reviewing all our legal options," J.P. Duffy, a spokesman for the Family Research Council, told PJ Media on Tuesday.
A spokesman for Prager University, another organization attacked by the SPLC, said that "at this point" the group had "no intention to sue," but they "reserve the right to change their mind as the situation evolves."
Jeremy Tedesco, Senior Counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), echoed this trend, saying his organization is "evaluating all our options," including a potential lawsuit."It's appalling and offensive for the Southern Poverty Law Center to compare peaceful organizations which condemn violence and racism with violent and racist groups just because it disagrees with their views," Tedesco told PJ Media. "That's what SPLC did in the case of Quilliam and its founder Maajid Nawaz, and that's what it has done with ADF and numerous other organizations and individuals."
"This situation confirms once again what commentators across the political spectrum have been saying for decades: SPLC has become a far-left organization that brands its political opponents as 'haters' and 'extremists' and has lost all credibility as a civil rights watchdog," the ADF senior counsel added. Tedesco defended the good name of Alliance Defending Freedom, which SPLC falsely maligns as a "hate group."
"With eight wins in the last seven years at the U.S. Supreme Court and hundreds of victories for free speech at America's public universities, ADF is one of the nation's most respected and successful legal advocates, working to preserve our fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience for people from all walks of life," he said.
This lying and vile group of $oreA$$ funded liberals need to be hauled into every state court where they have pushed their lies as their form of truth and sued out of existence!
Amen
SPLC is a hate group.
Attorney Generals in Southern states need to organize and demand SPLC cease and desist.
SPLC is defaming and denigrating southern states...implying they are second-class states that are poverty-stricken.
Excellent. Turn the tactics of the left against them.
Facebook and Twitter are possible, but you won’t even get the majority of Freepers to move against Amazon. As long as they get their stuff they don’t care.
APPLE is SPLC fund-raising, as well.
Make no difference to me but there are some people that it would make a difference.
I believe they have it set up so Apple customers can head over to iTunes to send donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
On Monday, SPLC President Richard Cohen extended his group’s “sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best.” In settling the suit, the SPLC paid Nawaz’s organization $3.375 million.
You lyin SOB
BANKRUPT these bastards
Bring them in as part of a RICO
Sue the bastards
JUST DO IT!
Put the hate-purveyor SPLC out of business.
About time that we fought back.
Don't forget Wikipedia. Say one word against SPLC there and the crazies come out of the woodwork.
.......a RICO case needs to show an organized conspiracy to commit criminal acts. Embezzlement, misappropriation of donations to a tax exempt foundation, mishandling of funds, accepting illegal donations, “quid quo pro” funding for political jobs or favors, etc.....
BACKSTORY The 1980 Georgia General Assembly was concerned about the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements on the public payroll (and those in elective and appointive office). The Georgia General Assembly then adopted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), patterned after a similar federal law.
(RICO is routinely used to try to prove that a legal business was being used for illegal means, and, in at its inception, RICO was used to prosecute drug traffickers or organized crime members).
In recent years prosecutors have applied RICO to crooked government officials: (1) those accused of using their public offices for personal gain, and, (2) tax-paid officials of govt agencies using public monies to flout the law.
To bring a case under Georgias RICO law, there must be at least two underlying felonies such as fraud, bribery, witness tampering (among other felonies).
RICO allows prosecutors to include multiple defendants charged with various crimes in the blanket indictment, and to charge that govt employees, publicy-funded and publicly-sanctioned entities were allegedly part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
EXAMPLE A govt official commits two felonies by (1) accepting, and, (2) filing falsified documents.
UPDATE Georgia tried convicted and jailed 27 corrupt teachers under this law.....for falsely taking public money, falsifying official school records, and so on.
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