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The Southern Poverty Law Center And Hate

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Folks, Wednesday’s sad, misguided and evil shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters has sadly brought out attacks against an American icon of equality and civil rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center. Frankly, I remember as a young man in my 20’s and 30’s seeing their mailings in my father’s home, and remember him explaining to me that, (despite their odd name,) they were an important group that did amazing work. Little did I know that years later, the SPLC and I would be tied in a battle to help the American people understand what hate looks like.

For those unaware, the Southern Poverty Law Center watches and reports on people and groups that pose a threat to this country in the form of hate.

From taking down the KKK (yes, they did that) to monitoring the actions of the man who became the Sikh temple shooter a few weeks ago, the SPLC has a long history of fighting for civil rights. Noted civil rights activist Julian Bond was president of the SPLC in the 1970’s. Bond later went to the NAACP where today he is their Chairman Emeritus.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors hate groups and extremists throughout the United States and exposes their activities to law enforcement agencies, the media and the public,” the SPLC website states. “We’ve crippled some of the country’s most notorious hate groups by suing them for murders and other violent acts committed by their members.”

They add they are “dedicated to defending the rights of the LGBT community. Our current work has a national reach but is primarily focused on the Southeast where relatively few organizations advocate for this community.”

As you no doubt know, the SPLC today is under attack because hate groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, and groups and individuals who support hate groups, like Maggie Gallagher and NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, don’t like the “hate group” label being applied to “Christian” organizations.

Well, in case anyone forgot, the KKK was a “Christian” organization too.

The SPLC doesn’t place anti-gay groups on its list just because they feel like it. They are slow to act, waiting sometimes years as they monitor and write about the actions of groups that are concerning.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 1,018 active hate groups in the United States in 2011. Only organizations and their chapters known to be active during 2011 are included” in the SPLC’s hate map:

All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

This list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.

Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing. Websites appearing to be merely the work of a single individual, rather than the publication of a group, are not included in this list. Listing here does not imply a group advocates or engages in violence or other criminal activity.

It’s time hate groups stop attacking those who expose their hate, and just put and end to their hate.

Of course, that will never happen, at least, not in my lifetime.

Yesterday I turned 50 years old. Today, I made a donation of $100 (I wish it could be more) to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in honor of my father, a man who hated inequality and, after years of being a conservative, and a libertarian, grew increasingly displeased with the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan pushed him over the edge and my father ultimately became a Democrat. He died after a long battle with cancer in 2004. I think this would make him happy.

And so, in honor of my dad, and of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 41 years of fighting hate and inequality, starting Monday we will begin a new series, the “Hate Group QOTD,” or, quote of the day.

Each day, Monday through Friday, we’ll share with you a quote from a hate group leader that symbolizes why their organization is listed among the SPLC’s active anti-gay hate groups.

It’s my hope that you’ll share these quotes, which, no doubt, you’ll find offensive, with as many folks as you can, so we can expose the anti-gay hate and lies that these hate groups spread.

Remember, groups like the Family Research Council and the American Family Association, and others, like Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries and Mission: America, are hate groups not because of the hate they spread, but because of the lies they spread.

Now, it’s time to end the lies, and hopefully, the hate.

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News

‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

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President-elect Donald Trump pledged to fast-track permits and tamp down regulations, including environmental, for any entity that wants to invest $1 billion or more in America, while offering no specifics or parameters, including how the federal government could arbitrarily overrule state and local laws.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.

During the campaign, Trump told oil and gas executives and lobbyists at a closed-door Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that if they invested $1 billion in his campaign, he would scale back or remove environmental regulations.

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

“Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry,” The New York Times had reported in May. “The event was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies.”

Trump has announced his nominee for Secretary of the Interior will be North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

“Under the National Environmental Policy Act,” Forbes reports, “the federal government is required to conduct environmental reviews before approving energy production plans, infrastructure builds and other projects.
​ How Trump will help investors get around regulations isn’t clear, but Trump has vowed to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas, projects that are often stymied or killed in the regulatory process.”

Critics blasted Trump’s statement.

314Action, which says it is “the only organization in the nation focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office,” wrote: “To tackle the climate crisis, Congress needs to pass and enforce bold, evidence-based legislation. However, Donald Trump doesn’t believe that billionaires should have to follow the law. In his world, they can pay-to-play and bypass crucial environmental protections. That’s why we’ll always fight to #ElectScientists who will fight back against his anti-science agenda and hold these bad actors accountable.”

“A government of oligarchs that will exist to solely serve the interests of oligarchs while distracting working people with culture wars. Foreign corporations & persons can loot & pollute the US and bypass regs that protect the health of Americans as long as they got lots of cash,” observed MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski.

Journalist David Leavitt asked, “How many animals will go extinct because of this? How much quicker will this hasten the destruction of our planet?”

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

Image via Shutterstock

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News

‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

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The Secretary of Defense nomination of Pete Hegseth, the ex-Fox News weekend co-host under a cloud of allegations ranging from sexual assault and sexual harassment to abuse of alcohol to financial mismanagement of two charities, appears to have turned around after several media appearances, and the support from key Republican Senators, especially Joni Ernst, who is being subjected to a “swarm of MAGA attacks,” Politico reports.

Senator Ernst, a combat veteran who sits on the critical Armed Services Committee and initially appeared skeptical about Hegseth running the world’s largest and most lethal military, has opened the door to the possibility of giving him the thumbs up.

Ernst “previously said she wasn’t ready to back Hegseth. But after their second meeting on Monday, she said she’d be ‘supporting him through this process’ — though she would not say whether she would ultimately vote in favor of his confirmation,” ABC News reports.

Meanwhile, Politico reports Ernst’s possibly changed stance may have something to do with the extraordinary pressure she is receiving, thanks to Trump’s transition team and MAGA allies.

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

“In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what’s in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.”

Politico adds that “the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.”

“People in Trump’s orbit believed that if Hegseth’s nomination was ‘sacrificed’ to Ernst, it would become a ‘feeding frenzy’ with the president-elect’s other controversial picks.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, who served in the military for decades, on Tuesday appeared dismissive of the numerous allegations against Hegseth, claiming that they were made anonymously. He seemed prepared to afford the nominee the same civil rights as if he were being prosecuted and tried in a court of law, and not a presidential cabinet nominee to head the Pentagon, which has a budget of just under $1 trillion.

“The accusations are anonymous, the police report I’ve read uh, right now, he’s in pretty good shape,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju (video below). “I think he’s very smart, I actually was with him in Afghanistan what he’s doing is his duty, I was over there very briefly as a reservist. So, the accusations about mismanaging money and about, um, nonconsensual behavior, if they come forward, I will listen to those accusations, but they have to be credible and they have to be presented in a fashion that Pete can rebut.”

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

“So he’s much better off this week than he was last week,” Graham said.

Raju reports there currently are no GOP Senators who have said publicly they absolutely will not vote for Hegseth.

But Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal “says a number of his GOP colleagues are opposed to Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Defense Secretary,” reports CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane. “But he says GOP colleagues might still vote for Hegseth because ‘Trump is a bully and a tyrant.'”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

 

Image via Reuters

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OPINION

Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

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He’s been called the “least qualified nominee in American history,” and has insisted to reporters that his confirmation battle will not be played out in the press, but Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, after multiple appearances before the cameras, appears to be gaining ground on what some assumed last week was a nomination that was dead in the water.

Hegseth has put to use his decade of experience as a Fox News host and leveraged his ties with his former employer to turn the ship around.

In addition to charges of being “wholly unqualified,” Hegseth is attempting to overcome numerous damning allegations, including tattoos that reflect an affinity for Christian nationalism, alleged “aggressive drunkenness,” possible alcohol intoxication on the job, alleged sexual assault of a woman who attended a Republican conference with her husband and children and says she was trapped by Hegseth in his room, and alleged financial mismanagement of two charities that support veterans.

He is also trying to change the accurate perception that he opposes women in combat roles. Women have been in combat roles in the U.S. Armed Forces since 2015. But Hegseth has long been opposed to women in combat.

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

Last month, Hegseth took heat after declaring, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” and that “men in those positions are more capable.”

“Rather than fight, women are best suited to ‘carry the banner of Christian love’ into war as nurses and support staff members, Hegseth writes,” opinion columnist Carlos Lozada reported at The New York Times last week, citing passages from Hegseth’s book. “Women’s physical shortcomings compared with male warriors — in terms of bone density, muscle mass and lung capacity — would make the U.S. military ‘softer’ and easier to defeat. He also emphasizes that women are naturally ‘life givers,’ so do we really want to train them to become killers? Besides, if men grow accustomed to treating women as equal targets in wartime, he reasons, ‘then you will be hard-pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home.'”

Even top news outlets and political pundits appear to have been hoodwinked after Hegseth’s appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night.

Telling Sean Hannity he had a “great” meeting with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Monday, the fast-talking Hegseth launched into apparently pre-scripted remarks (video below):

“I mean, people don’t really know this. I’ve known Senator Ernst for over ten years. I knew her when she was a state senator, running to be the first female combat veteran, and we support her in that effort and have continued to, because, you get, you get into these meetings and and you get, you get to listen to senators as an amazing advise and consent process, and you hear how thoughtful and serious and substantive they are on these key issues that they pertain to our Defense Department, and Joni Ernst is front and center on that, so able to have phone calls and meetings time and time again to talk over the issues is really, really important.”

“And the fact that she’s willing to support me through this process means a lot, and I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

“Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women, who who serve raised their right hand to defend this country, and love our nation, want to defend that flag, and they do it every single day around the globe. So I’m not presuming anything, but after President Trump asked me to be his secretary of defense, should I get the opportunity to do that, I look forward to being a secretary for all our warriors, men and women, for the amazing contributions they make in our military.”

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

What Hegseth did was change the framing of the controversy.

Hegseth isn’t under fire for saying he doesn’t want women in the military, he is under fire for saying he does not believe women are capable of serving in combat—even after nearly a decade of them doing so.

And yet, that’s exactly what he said on Monday, when he conflated “warriors” with combat soldiers, saying, “I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

And he’s getting help from the media.

Here’s CBS News on Tuesday morning, almost using his words as their own reporting: “now clarifying comments he made that women should not serve in military combat roles.”

His “clarification” did not state he now believes women should serve in combat roles.

NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday published a report on YouTube titled, “Pete Hegseth appears to reverse views on women in combat.”

David Axelrod successfully served as Barack Obama’s chief strategist for both of his presidential campaigns, and as a White House Senior Advisor to the President. Now a CNN senior political analyst, here’s what he wrote on Tuesday:

“Watching Hegseth proclaim his appreciation for women in combat, months after denouncing the idea of women in combat, is reminiscent of the SCOTUS nominees who told skeptical senators that Roe v. Wade was ‘settled law.'”

And while he is correct about the justices, the only woman he proclaimed his appreciation for being in combat was Senator Ernst, who largely holds the key to his confirmation.

Watch Hegseth’s “Hannity” interview and the other videos above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

 

 

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