The curtain has been pulled back on the FBI’s involvement with helping perpetrate the Hillary Clinton-ordered Russia Hoax and the revelations of the FBI colluding with the old Twitter regime to censor and ban people, newspapers, and organizations. The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearings are now peeling back the corruption of that onion. And who can forget the Biden administration coordinating with the National School Boards Association in an attempt to smear, demonize, and frighten parents who dared to engage with their local school boards over Marxist material being taught to their children?
This vile behavior by federal law enforcement is not a “one off” mistake, but instead is a feature of how our bloated and self-reverential government views itself, and the contempt with which it holds the citizens and the Constitution. From Big Tech to partisan political organizations and even self-professed non-partisan charitable advocacy groups, federal law enforcement uses and relies upon supposedly independent entities as handmaidens for a government bureaucracy determined to cement us into a political and cultural leftist nightmare.
Earlier this week a riot provided a surprising reminder of how nefarious and disgusting the corruption really is. In Atlanta, Georgia 35 people were detained and 23 people were arrested on domestic terrorism for a violent attack on the building site of a police training center. The police described a violent scene which unfolded in classic Antifa style: people wearing black clothing holding shields were throwing rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at property and building materials and at police officers. Also typical of Antifa, 21 of the 23 arrested had come from out of state, as ABC News reported, “Some from as far away as Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New York. Two protesters charged are from other countries, one From France and another from Canada, according to police.”
As details came in, the headlines revealed that one of the two locals who was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism was identified as Thomas Jurgens, a “Staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the left-leaning anti-hate group, according to the State Bar of Georgia and his since-deleted LinkedIn page,” reported the New York Post.
According to Newsweek, “The SPLC confirmed Jurgens’ employment and told Newsweek in a statement that Jurgens was at the protest as a ‘legal observer’ with the leftist National Lawyers Guild (NLG). ‘The employee is an experienced legal observer, and their arrest is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters,’ the SPLC said. The NLG said legal observers play an ‘important role’ in supporting movement organizers and activists and reaffirmed NLG’s commitment to supporting protests.”
They’re correct in that being arrested does not mean you’re guilty of a crime. That determination will be left to a judge and perhaps jury. We do know that Americans are tired of violent riots being described as “protests.” The left works very hard to vandalize everything, including the language, in an effort to gloss over their intentions and actions. What Jergens knew and when he knew it will be determined, and video of the conflagration should help make clear his role, if any, in the violence. In the meantime, a judge denied bail to everyone arrested with the exception of Jurgens, who was set free on a $5000 consent bond. The charges remain.
Abandoning its original values, the SPLC has become one of those handmaidens more than willing to do the left’s bidding to smear and destroy anyone they perceive as a threat to the regressive left narrative. Christopher Tremoglie at the Washington Examiner put it very succinctly, “A supposed civil rights organization, the SPLC has been weaponized by the Left as an extension of the law. It claims it’s bipartisan and objective, yet it has repeatedly shown it is an agenda-driven legal advocacy group that frequently categorizes organizations with ideological differences as hate groups. To have such authority while exhibiting hyperpartisanship is dangerous. This is especially true since the SPLC assists the FBI in identifying supposed hate groups or organizations.”
Case in point, in late November the FBI made the unusual move to rescind a memo targeting Catholics after it had been released by a whistle blower. “The memo suggests that the FBI should monitor these Catholics through ‘the development of sources with access,’ including in ‘places of worship.’ It presents a list of ‘hate groups’ published by the SPLC as a place to start this work,” reported Heritage. In other words, the FBI memo suggested the development of spies and informants inside the church itself. That this is outrageous is an understatement.
And let’s not forget the SPLC placing Dr. Ben Carson on its “Extremist Watch List” list due to his support for traditional marriage therefore labeling him as “anti-gay.” After national outrage, they eventually apologized and removed him from the list.
In 2019 The New Yorker published a story recognizing that the SPLC had gone off the rails. For years, the SPLC has been publicly derided by observers across the political spectrum. Politico Magazine, 2017: “Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?” The Washington Post, 2018: “The Southern Poverty Law Center Has Lost All Credibility.” USA Today, 2019: “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered.” AMAC, 2019: “Southern Poverty Law Center Bias Exposed.” PJ Media, 2020: “The SPLC’s Fall From Grace: How a Civil Rights Group Became a Threat to Free Speech.” Fox News, 2022: “Conservatives respond as SPLC continues to brand them ‘hate groups’ despite terror attack, defamation claims.”
All of this portends a difficult road for the SPLC attorney charged with domestic terrorism. Unfortunately for all of us, the SPLC has a track record indicating an agenda that has nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with its own political extremism.