The headline on a 2006 “blurb” entry on an SPLC webpage screams “Former bookie stirs up anti-immigrant passions.” They were referring to me. If I had seen this before yesterday, I don’t remember it. As part of the beginning of the pending court action against the Southern Poverty Law Center, my lawyers have *apparently been sent an “index of initial disclosures” from the SPLC. I am still learning terms here but the index I see is a list of attacks one over the years from the SPLC hate merchants in Montgomery. *Correction Aug 4, 2023: I am now informed that the list was created by a staffer on my legal team and did not come from the SPLC. My error. dak
The blurb leads to a 2006 news article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution back when that shrinking, liberal newspaper still had some integrity. The “former bookie” description is a reference to my 1977 guilty plea to charges of illegal gambling. I was taking bets on sports. In the mid 1970’s. The penalty for the gambling plea was a $3000 fine and 2 years of probation, which was terminated early. The AJC knew about this only because I told their reporters, Jim Tharpe and Carlos Campos. A story for another time.
While it’s only one of many examples, the SPLC headline serves to illustrate how they have based their attacks on us by simply changing the words “illegal immigrant” (I usually say “illegal alien”) to merely “immigrant.” The headline on the AJC report was “Warrior against illegals lives, breathes the issue.” The sub-headline read “Cobb man quit job to become full-time activist.” Not exactly what most readers would regard as “anti-immigrant hate” or denigrating all immigrants, which the SPLC says we do here at DIS. It’s a lie, of course.
If you take the time to read the original AJC report you see various quotes from me and descriptions of my/our work and mission by AJC reports and editors that always clearly indicate the battle against illegal immigration while pointing at illegal aliens and illegal employment.
“Whether on the streets or in the halls of the Georgia Capitol, fighting illegal immigration is a way of life for D.A. King.
Photo: AJC Twitter
The 53-year-old Cobb County man quit his job selling medical insurance three years ago to become a self-educated activist against illegal immigration. Dismissed as a fringe figure by critics, King has forced his way into an influential role in this year’s debate over a legislative crackdown on illegals.”
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic
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Holding the SPLC to Account
The hard-left, speech-suppressing pressure group is finally facing a serious lawsuit for defamation. Patriot Post
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal court in Alabama refused to dismiss defamation claims filed by the Dustin Inman Society, a nonprofit promoting immigration law enforcement, against the Southern Poverty Law Center, which allegedly designated the nonprofit as an “anti-immigration hate group” and said its principal “focuses on vilifying all immigrants.” The court finds the defamation claims plausible.
Lawsuit alleges defamation against Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center for ‘anti-immigrant hate group’ label — ‘The beginning of the beginning’
Georgia’s only pro-enforcement immigration group announces expanded legal team
Re: Donald A. King and Dustin Inman Society v. Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc
Marietta, GA: D.A. King, president of the Dustin Inman Society (DIS) today announced the newly formed legal team as counsel defending against accusations from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which defamed the organization and King by labeling King as leader of an “anti-immigrant hate group that denigrates all immigrants.”
The nationwide public interest religious civil liberties law firm Liberty Counsel has joined the legal team as counsel defending the Dustin Inman Society (DIS) and its founder and president, D.A. King.
Todd McMurtry, a partner in Hemmer Wessels McMurtry PLLC. will be co-counsel on the legal team. McMurtry is a nationally recognized defamation attorney.
James McKoon, of McKoon and Gamble law firm in Phenix City, Alabama, will serve as local counsel. McKoon initially filed this lawsuit against the SPLC.
In Donald A. King and Dustin Inman Society v. Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc., U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins denied the SPLC’s motion to dismiss the case in April 2023. This now becomes the first “hate group” defamation case against the SPLC that will move forward with discovery.
“It came as quite a surprise to the proud immigrants on our diverse board of advisors and our immigrant supporters to learn that the SPLC uses their vast wealth and influence with the media to convince the world that we somehow hate immigrants” remarked DIS president, D.A. King. “More so considering that in 2011 the SPLC informed the Associated Press that we did not fit the SPLC’s own definition of “anti-immigrant hate group” for their ridiculous, annual “hate map” several years earlier. But that was before they started lobbying against immigration enforcement legislation in Georgia.”
“We are proud to be actively pro-enforcement on immigration. The record shows that the SPLC takes an anti-enforcement position on the issue. It seems they hate their political opposition and are willing to prove it,” says King.
King expressed concern for his personal safety and that of his family due to the reputation of SPLC supporters and staff for violence against political opponents.
Morris Dees in a Southern Poverty Law Center video(SPLC/via YouTube) & NRO.
“It’s not every day that an opportunity like this comes along to get accountability from one of the worst actors on the left. Don’t squander it.”
Mark Krikorian
June 7, 2023
National Review Online
You know those websites listing celebrities you thought were dead but are still around? The Southern Poverty Law Center might as well have been on such a list.
The “civil rights” group has been lying low for some time, since the eruption of multiple humiliating scandals involving racism and sexual harassment that led to the firing of most of the group’s leadership, including founder Morris Dees.
The appearance of its annual “hate map” was months late, raising suspicions that there were changes afoot. No such luck — the latest anathema was just pronounced. (Google it yourself, if you want to see it.)
The Center for Immigration Studies is still there, of course; after operating for three decades, we graduated to “hate group” status right after Trump’s election in 2016 — coincidentally.
The other usual targets are still there as well: Alliance Defending Freedom, Center for Security Policy, Family Research Council, etc.
But in what I assume is a bid to goose donations (and add to its half-billion-dollar hoard of cash), the SPLC has added parents’-rights groups like Moms for Liberty to the hate map. (Tyler O’Neil, author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Daily Signal’s indefatigable SPLC-watcher, is on the case.)
But the SPLC may be facing an unprecedented challenge. Earlier this year, a defamation lawsuit against it for a “hate group” designation was, for the first time ever, not dismissed and has made it to the discovery stage. The Dustin Inman Society — run by immigration-enforcement dynamo D. A. King in Georgia — was classified as a “hate group” in 2018, right after the SPLC registered as a lobbying organization to oppose a bill King supported in the state legislature. (Coincidentally.)
Defamation is hard to prove under U.S. law. D. James Kennedy Ministriestried and failed. We at CIS tried a different tack, filing a civil RICO suitagainst SPLC, but also failed. (The multimillion-dollar settlement SPLC paid to Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz meant his lawsuit never went to trial. The reasons for the settlement have never been revealed.)
But SPLC was sloppy in smearing the Dustin Inman Society, and King saw an opening. So last year he filed suit…
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