As Insiders Reveal the SPLC's "Hate Map" Is Basically a Marketing Scheme to Drum Up Donations, Conservative Groups Consider Filing Lawsuits Against the Very Non-Impoverished Grifter Outfit

Sue like the wind.

Former SPLC employee Bob Moser described "the annual hate-group list" as "a valuable resource for journalists and a masterstroke of Dees’s marketing talents; every year, when the center publishes it, mainstream outlets write about the 'rising tide of hate' discovered by the S.P.L.C.’s researchers, and reporters frequently refer to the list when they write about the groups." According to The Progressive's John Egerton, SPLC co-founder Morris Dees "viewed civil-rights work mainly as a marketing tool for bilking gullible Northern liberals."

Current Affairs Editor Nathan J. Robinson slammed the "hate map" as an "outright fraud," a "willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC."

These admissions are not just interesting -- they could also help falsely accused "hate groups" formulate a powerful legal defense against the far-left smear factory.

"If you're admitting that it's done for purposes of fundraising, false, and intended to deceive older liberals, you've basically admitted all the elements of a Lanham Act and a defamation claim," Daniel Schmid, litigation counsel at the falsely accused Christian law firm Liberty Counsel, told PJ Media.

The SPLC has dodged defamation lawsuits by claiming its "hate group" accusations are merely a matter of opinion, protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Yet demonstrably false statements leveled with malicious intent to destroy someone's reputation constitute defamation, and these new admissions bolster a legal case against the smear factory, Schmid argued.

posted by Ace of Spades at 07:13 PM

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