Some of them exceed even my capacity for fury:
The FBI trained personnel on countering extremism with material from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), according to former special agent turned whistleblower Steve Friend.
In an interview with the Tennessee Informer last month, Friend recalled his experience at the FBI Academy in 2014: “We were shown a video that was produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The film, Friend said, “ranked people who oppose abortion, pro-life activists, as a greater threat than Islamists.”
“I don’t know if they still show that,” Friend added, “but that’s what we were shown.”
The FBI still relies on SPLC material a decade later, leading a pair of top Republican senators to demand the agency sever ties with the leftist hate group that routinely smears right-of-center associations as “hate groups.” SPLC’s false “hate group” designations led to a domestic terrorist attack in 2012 on the offices of a pro-family organization.
If it weren’t for the multitude of offenses against justice the FBI has verifiably committed this past decade, the above would be incredible, in the exact sense. At this point, no outrage seems beyond an agency that berates private citizens about what they’ve posted on Facebook.
We’ve known for a while that the federal law-enforcement and intelligence agencies have been “weaponized” against the American Right. Even so, I for one expected some subtlety from an agency as prominent as the FBI. Time was, it largely deserved its reputation for integrity. Many of its recruits came from Catholic colleges and universities. An agent could be summarily dismissed for even a hint of scandal, especially a sexual scandal. Ah, those halcyon days of yore.
Tempora mutantur. But to return to the association with the SPLC, it appears to have become a complete and absolute instrument of the Left – and the far Left, at that. Quoth Carol Marks:
In case you didn’t know, the SPLC likes to create lists of what it considers hate groups in America. Who designated them as the gatekeepers of hate groups? I guess anyone could make a list about anything. But having the FBI look at it as informant material is ridiculous.
Let me share with you that Moms of Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, The Remembrance Project, Oath Keepers, and Gays Against Groomers are some of the groups making their list of hate.
Most recently, the Southern Poverty Law Center added Chaya Raichik, creator of LibsofTikTok, to its list. She joins Tucker Carlson and Matt Walsh, who are also on the list. SPLC claims that Chaya uses her Libs of TikTok account to mobilize white supremacists.
Last year, Senator Blackburn of Tennessee asked judicial nominee Nancy Abudu about her work with the SPLC. Blackburn wanted to know why she and two colleagues were on their hate group list.
Of course, Senator Blackburn didn’t get an answer.
If the SPLC is getting federal funds in any amount, the federal government has tacitly endorsed all the above. If I may borrow a phrase from…someone:
However much you despise the Feds,
You don’t despise them enough.
Back later.
