Anyone who follows this issue knows that the Southern Poverty Law center is a joke that is all about promoting left wing politics.

Groups like the "American Family Association" and "Family Research Council" are labeled with the same wide brush as actual hate groups like the KKK.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.

Founded by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC is internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups. Our innovative Teaching Tolerance program produces and distributes – free of charge – documentary films, books, lesson plans and other materials that promote tolerance and respect in our nation’s schools.

We are based in Montgomery, Ala., the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement, and have offices in Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Fla., and Jackson, Miss.

A History of Protecting Society’s Most Vulnerable
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded to ensure that the promises of the civil rights movement became a reality for all.

By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had ushered in the promise of racial equality as new laws ended legal apartheid in the United States. But the new laws had not yet brought the fundamental changes needed in the South.

Blacks were still excluded from good jobs, decent housing, elective office, a quality education and a range of other opportunities. There were few places for the disenfranchised and the poor to turn for justice. Enthusiasm for the civil rights movement had waned and few lawyers in the South were willing to take controversial cases to test new civil rights laws.

Alabama lawyer and businessman Morris Dees sympathized with the plight of the poor and the powerless. The son of an Alabama farmer, he had witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. Dees decided to sell his successful book publishing business to start a civil rights law practice that would provide a voice for the disenfranchised.

His decision led to the founding of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“I had made up my mind,” Dees wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice. “I would sell the company as soon as possible and specialize in civil rights law. All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives.”

Dees joined forces with another young Montgomery lawyer, Joe Levin. They took pro bono cases few others were willing to pursue - the outcome of which had far-reaching effects. Some of their early lawsuits resulted in the desegregation of recreational facilities, the reapportionment of the Alabama Legislature, the integration of the Alabama State Troopers and reforms in the state prison system.

The lawyers formally incorporated the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971, and civil rights activist Julian Bond was named the first president. Dees and Levin began seeking nationwide support for their work. Committed activists responded from across the country, and the SPLC carried forward its mission of seeking justice and equality for society’s most vulnerable.

In the decades since its founding, the SPLC has shut down some of the nation’s most dangerous hate groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims. It has dismantled institutional racism in the South, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for women, children and the disabled, and protected low-wage immigrant workers from abuse. It also has reached out to the next generation with Teaching Tolerance, a program that provides educators with free classroom materials that teach students the value of tolerance and diversity.

As the country has grown increasingly diverse, the SPLC’s work has only become more vital. And its history is evidence of an unwavering resolve to promote and protect our nation’s most cherished ideals by standing up for those who have no other champions.

Board of Directors

The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States and exposes their activities to law enforcement agencies, the media and the public. We publish our investigative findings online, on our Hatewatch blog, and in the Intelligence Report, our award-winning quarterly journal. 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.

Currently, there are 1,018 known hate groups operating across the country, including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, border vigilantes and others.

And their numbers are growing.

Since 2000, the number of hate groups has increased by 69 percent. This surge has been fueled by anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy, an influx of non-white immigrants, and the diminishing white majority, as symbolized by the election of the nation’s first African-American president.

These factors also are feeding a powerful resurgence of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement, which in the 1990s led to a string of domestic terrorist plots, including the Oklahoma City bombing. The number of Patriot groups, including armed militias, grew by 755 percent in the first three years of the Obama administration – from 149 at the end of 2008 to 1,274 in 2011.

This growth in extremism has been aided by mainstream media figures and politicians who have used their platforms to legitimize false propaganda about immigrants and other minorities and spread the kind of paranoid conspiracy theories on which militia groups thrive.

Fighting Hate in Court
In the early 1980s, SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel Morris Dees pioneered the strategy of using the courts to battle organized, violent hate groups. Since then, we have won numerous large damage awards on behalf of victims of hate group violence. These cases are funded entirely by our supporters; we accept no legal fees from the clients we represent.

Among the groups shut down by crushing jury verdicts in SPLC cases are the White Aryan Resistance, the United Klans of America, the White Patriot Party militia and the Aryan Nations.

These cases have made the SPLC and Dees reviled enemies of the extremist movement. Our headquarters in Montgomery has been the target of numerous plots by extremist groups, including a firebombing that destroyed our offices in 1983. Several dozen people have been sent to prison for plotting against Dees or the SPLC.

Training Law Enforcement
SPLC representatives communicate regularly with law enforcement agencies about extremist activity and conduct in-person training for officers at the local, state and federal level. Thousands of officers have received training that helps them recognize and deal with hate crimes as well as threats posed by extremists. This training is available free to law enforcement agencies

So can anyone take a stab at explaining how a group puts out a list with Klan and Nazi groups and then Christians groups, the Tea Party and World Net Daily.

Clearly they are looking at groups that deliver messages they are opposed to.

My point is the Southern Poverty Law Center is a fraud.

They put on a face that they are trying to identify hate groups, but in reality they are just indentifying anyone they disagree with. Some are actually hate groups, and they disagree with them, and others are just political groups that are on the wrong side of issues.

This is how it starts.

Posted by rcrusso on 3/10/2013 5:28:00 AM (view original):
I consider the tea party and World Net Daily hate groups so again I ask what is your point?

"This is how it starts"? What the **** does that mean you simple minded *******?

We lets see...what is my point.

The left is all emotion and feelings. No logic.

Clearly if you are making a list and your standard for incusion could put almost any political group on it makes the list useless.

And if you are putting groups on in based on that standard, but you are only putting groups that you dont like your list is useless.

And if you cant see the useless aspects of the list because you are so violently angry at everyone of the oppostion party that your opinion is useless.

And "This is how it starts" shows how you can spread propoganda against an idea.

Posted by rcrusso on 3/10/2013 12:10:00 PM (view original):

This isnt about Latinos.

This is about 2 groups of people.

Legal immigrans who came to America following the rules. Like many of our ancestors did.

Illegal immigrants who broke the laws to get in, and now want to be able to stay.

So should we tell the people that followed the rules and for the most part are productive members of society that we need to throw you out because the rule breakers are going to get first crack?