“The scurrilous left-wing group had to pay for racism to meet demand,” Dan McLaughlin, National Review

Revelations that the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center had been funding “hard right” extremist groups raise an important question beyond whether or not it was defrauding donors.

The question is: If right-wing hate is so prevalent in America, why does the left have to fund it?

We’re still learning what it is, exactly, that the SPLC has been up to, but what we’ve learned so far is pretty damning. The group — whose “hate map” holds tremendous sway with the press, politicians, and corporate America — was apparently raising money on the promise that it would stamp out hate groups, then use some of that money to fund the worst of the worst hate groups.

Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter hit the nail on the head with this post on X:

If you’re not clear on what’s going on with this SPLC thing, the federal prosecutors believe that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the SPLC was, among other things, funding the various organizations that it then cited to justify its own fundraising.

In other words, it’s accused of funding white supremacist groups, and then pointing to these white supremacist groups to get people to give it money. That’s not ‘paying informants.’ That’s a massive fraud.

As we pointed out in this space, fraud is a feature, not a bug, of today’s Democratic party.

But there’s another aspect to the SPLC case that goes beyond fraud. Because this isn’t the first time that some left-winger has been caught manufacturing the hate they are supposedly trying to stamp out. Right-wing hate crime hoaxes are practically an industry these days.

Most people know about Jussie Smollett’s hoax — one that the press ran with despite the fact that it was so obviously manufactured. But there have been many others.

A few years ago, Wilfred Reilly, an associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, wrote a book, “Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War,” that looked at more than 340 hate-crime allegations and found that more than two-thirds were hoaxes.

Interestingly, in response to that book, the SPLC in 2019 posted on Facebook that: “Hate crime hoaxes are rare. We can’t let the far right capitalize on the sensational headlines generated by them.”

But it’s the SPLC, and various other miscreants of the left, who’ve been guilty of capitalizing on the sensational headlines they’ve been manufacturing. The mainstream press can always be counted on to play up the initial “hate” story, and then downplay or ignore evidence that it was fake.

In fact, staged hate crimes are part of the left’s playbook these days. No matter the issue, it uses these hoaxes to fuel discord, set groups against one another, and sell its agenda.

Just last week, for example, a Wisconsin sheriff filed suit against Sundas Naqvi, a U.S. citizen who claimed to have been detained by ICE for 40 hours, after uncovering hotel records, surveillance videos, and texts showing that wasn’t the case.

When not funding “hard right” hate, the SPLC ignores, downplays, or makes excuses for the very real hate-filled rhetoric and violence that spews forth regularly from the left. (The assassination of Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassination of Rep. Steve Scalise, the multiple attempts against Donald Trump’s life — and the despicable reaction from leftists to the same — are just a few examples.)

Whether or not the SPLC broke the law is an open question. What is not in doubt is that SPLC should be at the very top of its own hate group list.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board