Free Republic

The 24-page report released this month by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) entitled, “The Second Wave: Return of the Militia” is sweeping in its indictment. In it, police officers, soldiers, veterans, tax defiers, Patriots, tea party members, right-wing militias, “birthers” and sovereign citizen proponents are all said to exhibit elements of a resurging anti-government movement that reached it’s zenith in the mid-1990’s and spiraled out of control with violence and domestic terrorism. A number of national and local citizens groups are called out in the report — the National Rifle Association, Minutemen, Oath Keepers — as well as mainstream...

The serial exaggerators at the radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center are trying to capitalize on the Department of Homeland Security report that smears Americans on the political right. That odious report quotes from the SPLC, which I've argued is ideologically motivated and unreliable. Here is the fundraising email the SPLC sent out today: April 16, 2009Dear Friend,As you may recall, we've recently documented 926 hate groups operating in the U.S. These organizations are being fueled by immigration fears, the faltering economy and the racist backlash to the election of President Obama.Now, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has just...

Are you on some government list as a possible "domestic terrorist" suspect because you have exercised your First Amendment right to express opposition to a government program or a proposed piece of legislation? Have you, like millions of your fellow Americans, expressed outrage over the trillions of dollars being poured into the unending series of government bailouts?Are you concerned about the escalating violence in Mexico and upset over the refusal of our government to secure our border and stop the continuing deluge of illegal aliens entering our country?Do you support the Second Amendment and oppose the prohibition, restriction, and confiscation...

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence...

2007 ANNUAL MEETING October 17-19, 2007 The Cornhusker Marriott Lincoln, Nebraska The General Session will be held on Thursday, October 18th in Ballroom DEF1 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. MORRIS DEES is this year's featured speaker. In 1967, lawyer Morris Dees had achieved extraordinary business and financial success with his book publishing company. The son of an Alabama farmer, he witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. He sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement but had not become actively involved. A night of soul searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati airport changed his life, inspiring Dees to leave...

Into the Mainstream An array of right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable By Chip Berlet Around the country, ideas that originated on the hard right or in the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists are finding their way into the mainstream. In a number of cases, these ideas have become commonplace in American minds. Are black people inherently less intelligent and more prone to criminality than whites? Are Catholics incapable of self-government? Did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 strip Americans of their freedoms? Does a tiny cabal of Jewish families control international...

Anti-Immigration Movement Newspapers Inflated Minuteman Numbers, Report Finds Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox made big promises but didn't deliver much. A new study of media coverage shows that a large number of daily newspapers wildly exaggerated the number of volunteers who actually took part in the Minuteman Project, a vigilante "citizens border patrol" operation that took place in southeastern Arizona over the month of April 2005. The report, "Creating the Minutemen," is based on an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) analysis of 581 articles and editorials printed in major U.S. newspapers between January 2005 and February 2006. The ACLU has been...

Neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate groups are taking advantage of relaxed recruiting standards to infiltrate the US military to get combat training, a civil rights group reported. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks domestic extremists groups, called on US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacist groups in the military. "Neo-Nazi groups and other extremists are joining the military in large numbers so they can get the best training in the world on weapons, combat tactics and explosives," said Mark Potok, director of the center's Intelligence Project. ... The report quoted a Defense Department...

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on...

You've read about him. You've seen him on TV. A sappy network TV movie about him, starring Corbin Bernsen, is now doing re-run hell on the Lifetime Channel. To believe the conventional wisdom, Morris Dees, Jr. is a brave man who protects Blacks and Jews against White Supremacist Klansmen. That's the PR, anyway. The truth is otherwise. The real Morris Dees, chief of the misnamed Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is using our courts to take American land from Americans and give it to illegal aliens. If this is the new civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. must be turning...

OKC BOMBING FALLOUT Congressman to FBI: Turn over documents Rohrabacher hopes feds won't attempt to delay investigation into attack Posted: August 24, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern By J.D. Cash © 2005 McCurtain Daily Gazette Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. The McCurtain Daily Gazette has obtained a copy of U.S. Rep. Dan Rohrabacher's tersely worded letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, asking him to comply with a federal judge's order directing the Oklahoma City FBI office to provide records regarding their investigation at Elohim City and the Mid-west bank robbery gang. Rohrabacher, R-Calif., recently interviewed convicted killer Terry Nichols and others with information concerning...

Illegal Immigrants Win Arizona Ranch in Court By ANDREW POLLACK DOUGLAS, Ariz., Aug. 18 - Spent shells litter the ground at what is left of the firing range, and camouflage outfits still hang in a storeroom. Just a few months ago, this ranch was known as Camp Thunderbird, the headquarters of a paramilitary group that promised to use force to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border with Mexico. Now, in a turnabout, the 70-acre property about two miles from the border is being given to two immigrants whom the group caught trying to enter the United States illegally....

Two Illegal Immigrants Win Arizona Ranch in Court Fight ANDREW POLLACK Published: August 19, 2005 DOUGLAS, Ariz., Aug. 18 - Spent shells litter the ground at what is left of the firing range, and camouflage outfits still hang in a storeroom. Just a few months ago, this ranch was known as Camp Thunderbird, the headquarters of a paramilitary group that promised to use force to keep illegal immigrants from sneaking across the border with Mexico. David Bowser for The New York Times The New York Times Now, in a turnabout, the 70-acre property about two miles from the border is...

America is Indeed Becoming Two Nations Over the last few weeks I have come to realize that Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards is at least partially correct when he says there are two Americas. Unfortunately, his portrayal of the two Americas is nothing more than a recycling of the liberal political tactic of promoting class distinction and envy attempting to pit us against each other. But a more serious analysis of the social, cultural and political forces presently vying for their place in our nation would show that there are, indeed, two Americas. One America is still trying to...

The McCurtain Daily Gazette has obtained an unclassified copy of a memorandum marked From the Director of the FBI containing several new facts that could impact the upcoming state murder trial of Terry Nichols, scheduled to begin March 1 in McAlester. The electronic message was sent to the OKBOMB investigation task force and a select group of FBI offices around the nation some eight months after the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City left 168 dead. The potentially explosive contents of the teletype, among other things, exposes an informant operation being conducted by nationally known civil rights lawyer Morris...

Chip Berlet is hailed by left-wingers as their preeminent hunter of fascists, extremists and hatemongers; however, this leftist muckraker hides a history of political extremism and yellow journalism. For example, Berlet has recently turned his poison pen on such dubious "anti-Semites" as David Horowitz. That's because Chip Berlet practices a strain of the leftist faith so vile that even some of his fellow ideologues have disavowed him. Berlet, in turn, has targeted those not sufficiently left-wing for him.

To his admirers, Morris Dees is one of the nation's top civil rights lawyers, a man who put his life on the line for racial justice by facing down Klansmen and neo-Nazis in court. NBC broadcast a made-for-TV movie about him. Life Magazine named him a hero of the year for 1998. U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, one of the heroes of the 1960s' civil rights confrontations, has called Dees "one of the most persistent seekers of truth and justice in the South." All this positive attention helps put the chief trial counsel for the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law...

That should pis off those rednecks! They can't stop me now! LEFT Mon Nov 18, 2:17 PM ET. Southern Poverty Law Center Director Morris Dees, left, discusses a ruling by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson concerning the Ten Commandments monument on display at the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala. At Dees' right is SPLC attorney Richard Cohen. (AP Photo/Dave Martin). RIGHT The Ten Commandments monument designed by Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is pictured at the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala., in this Aug 7, 2001, file photo. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled Monday,...

MONTGOMERY, Ala.- A Ten Commandments monument in the rotunda of Alabama's judicial building violates the constitution's ban on government promotion of religion, a federal judge ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson gave Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had had the 5,300-pound granite monument installed in the state building, 30 days to remove it. Moore testified during the trial that the commandments are the moral foundation of American law. He said the monument acknowledges God, but does not force anyone to follow his conservative Christian religious beliefs. A lawsuit seeking removal of the monument argued that it promoted the...

Opponents of Alabama's top judge have revealed — unintentionally — their true feelings about the man determined to honor the Ten Commandments in a government building. A lawyer's letter sent to the wrong person reveals bitter religious intolerance by those opposing Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore. The chief justice of the state's highest court is being sued for placing a Ten Commandments monument in the Supreme Court building. The letter was written by Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which opposes the Ten Commandments display. But a copy was mailed to Judge Roy Moore's attorney — apparently...