'THOUGHT POLICE' PUT BULL'S-EYE ON 12 MEDIA STARS
'That's something the Taliban would do'
Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama
The “thought police” have officially arrived in America – and they’re disguised as a nonprofit group raking in millions and producing “hate lists” that are endangering the safety of a dozen high-profile women in the media who are outspoken in their opposition to jihad and Shariah law.
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SPLC’s Mark Potok, one of the authors of the “Women Against Islam” list
That’s according to the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, a Christian public policy ministry in Washington, D.C., which was attacked by a domestic terrorist gunman who said he consulted one of the hate lists and tried to kill “as many people as I could” in 2012.
As WND reported, an extreme leftist organization known as the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, issued what critics contend is a “starter kit” for jihadists and a “hit list” that paints a target on the backs of 12 women, including Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, talk host Laura Ingraham, columnist and author Ann Counter, American Freedom Defense Initiative President Pamela Geller and former CIA career operations officer Clare Lopez, among others.
The list, which includes unflattering sketches of the ladies it vilifies, is titled “Women Against Islam” and was compiled by Mark Potok and Janet Smith of SPLC. Potok is editor in chief of the SPLC’s Intelligence Report and Hatewatch blog, which claims its mission is “Keeping an Eye on the Radical Right.”
One of Potok’s columns was once featured in the official online newspaper of the Communist Party USA. He has asserted that the “biggest domestic terror threat” in America today isn’t Islam, but “pretty clearly comes from the radical right.”
‘These are the thought police’
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Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, FRC’s executive vice president, told WND, “These are the thought police. They’ve appointed themselves as the thought police, so anything that disagrees with their position is considered hate speech. They have no authority whatsoever to do this. All they do is endanger people, like these 12 women and like the Family Research Council.”
Boykin said the SPLC is staffed by Marxists.
“Anybody who is a conservative voice, they are going to try and marginalize” he said. “In this case, it’s not just that they talk about radical Islam, they’re conservative women.”
Secondly, Boykin said, the SPLC is appeasing two primary entities in America today: the LGBT community and the Islamic community.
“Why? Well, in the case of the Islamic community, there’s money in it,” he said. “There’s petrodollars in it. They have almost $300 million worth of assets and offshore accounts.”
The tax-exempt entity has those offshore accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
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It also has investments in “several foreign corporations” and is an “indirect owner in several passive foreign investment companies.” According to its 2013 IRS form 990 filing, SPLC has also conducted fundraising activities in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization boasted a $245 million endowment and $54.4 million in revenue in 2013.
Terrorist consults SPLC ‘hate’ list
In August 2012, 28-year-old homosexual activist Floyd Lee Corkins II attempted a mass shooting at FRC’s headquarters. Corkins said he intended to kill “as many people as I could.” He admitted he chose FRC because the organization was listed as an “anti-gay” hate group by the SPLC on its website.
The gunman shot and injured FRC facilities manager Leo Johnson, who is credited with heroically stopping the attack.
Corkins fingered SPLC as his inspiration during an interview with the FBI.
Asked how he picked the FRC to attack, Corkins stated, “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”
He said he spotted FRC on SPLC’s “hate map.”
Corkins pleaded guilty to terrorism. Chief U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts sentenced him to 25 years in prison, saying it was clear Corkins intended to commit mass murder because he had rehearsed his crime, practiced shooting his gun and had brought 95 bullets with him on the day of the crime.
FRC President Tony Perkins told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, “We’re seeing this same type of thing play out in South Carolina. The key to overcoming the trauma is forgiveness. I think that’s what’s important. These folks are forgiven. We forgive and hold no bitterness, but I do believe we have an obligation to speak out and prevent organizations like [SPLC] from putting other people at risk – like they’ve done to these women. They’ve put them on a hit list.”
Watch Kelly’s interview with Perkins:
Even after the armed terrorist used SPLC lists to find and target Americans, the leftist group continues to publish them.
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SPLC’s unflattering rendering of talk host Laura Ingraham
“There’s no consideration for the safety of the people who are listed on those lists,” Boykin said. “They are connected to domestic terrorism, yet they still go unchecked in terms of this reckless behavior.”
He added, “When you attack people like Jeanine Pirro – who not only is tougher than nails, but she has her own program that reaches millions of people – that is, I think, overreach on the part of SPLC. And then you add Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham and Brigitte Gabriel, all of whom have platforms from which to fight back, it’s stupid.”
Washington watchdog Judicial Watch described the list as “a starter kit for Islamists to attack American women who refuse to comply with Sharia law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism.”
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SPLC’s sketch of Pamela Geller
In addition to highlighting Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative and WND columnist, in their list, Potok and Smith describe her as “the country’s most flamboyant and visible Muslim-basher” and a “professional provocateur” with “a long and infamous record of smearing and demonizing Muslims.”
“Who appointed the SPLC the judge of what is a hate group and what isn’t? Its listing about me is made up of one lie after another, and that is no surprise,” Geller told WND.
“The SPLC is the real hate group, using that label to demonize and stigmatize all who don’t share their hard-left agenda. The SPLC smear machine does not profile jihad groups but they target and libel patriots, veterans, tea-party orgs and other groups that work in defense of freedom.”
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SPLC’s attempt at a sketch of Diana West
‘Something the Taliban would do’
WND asked several women on the list whether they are concerned for their safety after SPLC released their names and personal information such as their birth years, home towns and other identifying information.
“With three jihadis dead and two jihadis jailed in attempts to kill me, this is just encouraging more jihadis to come after me – and the other women this communist hate group names,” Geller told WND. “At a time when jihad killers are moving actively against those whom they hate in the U.S., this is a quite literal hit list.”
WND posed the following questions to SPLC but has still received no response: “While it’s clearly one thing to publicly oppose these women because you have ideological differences – and everyone protects SPLC’s right to do just that – does it concern you that this list could be endangering the safety of these women? Was this a consideration at all when SPLC published the list?”
Another name on the SPLC list is Clare Lopez, former career operations officer with the CIA and current vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy.
“Under Islamic doctrine, all Muslims are obligated to take individual responsibility for enjoining the good and forbidding the evil,” Lopez explained to WND. “That means that under Islamic law, every single individual Muslim has the right and even the obligation to enforce Shariah. Many ignore this obligation – thank goodness – but there are those living among us who take it seriously, and that’s the danger with a list like this.
“No one, law enforcement, or any of us, knows which Muslim will take the next step on the pathway to jihad by deciding to step up to this doctrinal obligation.”
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SPLC’s less-than-flattering sketch of Ann Coulter
Lopez called SPLC’s list “an incitement to violence.”
“Publishing this list of names – along with artist sketches, birth dates and home towns – is a call to the jihadist enemy to target and attack the 12 of us,” she said. “With this list, the SPLC has aligned itself with Islamic law on slander, a capital crime, which is defined by Shariah as ‘anything that would offend a Muslim,’ including speaking truth about Islam. …
“At a time when champions of our First Amendment like Pamela Geller need 24/7 armed protection – just to stay alive – in America! – due to death threats from the Islamic State and other fifth-column jihadis living among us, for the SPLC to collaborate with that enemy, against our rights as American citizens freely to speak truth, is reprehensible.”
Perkins also called the SPLC list an example of a “war on women.”
“These 12 have something in common,” he said. “Yes, they’re all women. But they’re all conservative. And they all have spoken out, not against Islam, but against radical Islam that abuses and kills women.”
He asked, “What legitimate civil rights organization would try to intimidate and silence women? They wouldn’t! That’s something the Taliban would do.”
The SPLC list includes the following women:
- Cathie Adams, president of Texas Eagle Forum
- Ann Barnhardt, blogger at Barnhardt.biz
- Ann Coulter, columnist and author
- Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT! for America and author of “They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It”
- Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, WND columnist and author of “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance”
- Cathy Hinners, blogger at DailyRollCall.com and a retired police officer
- Laura Ingraham, host of “The Laura Ingraham Show” and author
- Clare Lopez, former career operations officer with the CIA and current vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy
- Jeanine Pirro, former prosecutor, judge and host of Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine”
- Sandy Rios, radio talk show host for the American Family Association’s “Sandy Rios in the Morning”
- Debbie Schlussel, attorney and blogger at DebbieSchlussel.com
- Diana West, columnist and author of “The Death of the Grown-up” and “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character”
