FIGHTING BACK – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  We are seeing signs of serious resistance to the new McCarthyism, where conservatives and people of faith are routinely smeared as racists, homophobes, Islamophobes and everything phobes.  Reputations are ruined, people driven out of jobs and professions, even their children are stigmatized.  Many have had enough.  From PJ Media: 

On Wednesday, no fewer than 47 nonprofit leaders maligned by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — many if not most of whom are considering a lawsuit against the organization — warned a vast array of executives and leaders that if they parrot the SPLC's damaging "hate group" labels, they would be "complicit" in "defamation."

"Editors, CEOs, shareholders and consumers alike are on notice: anyone relying upon and repeating its misrepresentations is complicit in the SPLC's harmful defamation of large numbers of American citizens who, like the undersigned, have been vilified simply for working to protect our country and freedoms," the signatories wrote.

The letter followed news — broken at PJ Media — that no fewer than 60 organizations are considering suing the SPLC following a groundbreaking settlement in which the organization formally apologized to a Muslim reformer, Maajid Nawaz, for branding him an "anti-Muslim extremist."

In 2016, the SPLC published its "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," listing Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim, as one such extremist. The left-wing group listed various and changing reasons for including him, even at one point mentioning that he had gone to a strip club for his bachelor party. On Monday, the SPLC apologized and paid $3.375 million to settle a lawsuit Nawaz had filed.

"We haven't filed anything against the SPLC, but I think a number of organizations have been considering filing lawsuits against the SPLC because they have been doing to a lot of organizations exactly what they did to Maajid Nawaz," Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media on Tuesday.

COMMENT:  Good going.  The SPLC has been around since 1971.  Contrary to its name, it is an extremely wealthy organization paying very high salaries to its staff.  There is no poverty at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And many of its "reports" have the familiar ring of the blacklisting groups of the 1950s.  A bad mark from the SPLC can be devastating, even if it comes without evidence.

It is time to resist, and I'm glad to see that the victims of the new McCarthyism are organizing.

June 22, 2018