The Southern Poverty shakedown

Tablet: "The Southern Poverty Law Center: From Klan Hunters to Multimillion-dollar Smear Machine" - "By bizarrely going after Sam Harris, Majid Nawaaz, and others, the once venerable organization has abandoned its core mission, focusing instead on dirty partisan politics."

Harper's magazine (!) had their number a long time ago:

I also agreed to the invitation because, much like CIS, I feel that the Law Center is essentially a fraud and that it has a habit of casually labeling organizations as “hate groups.” (Which doesn’t mean that some of the groups it criticizes aren’t reprehensible.) In doing so, the SPLC shuts down debate, stifles free speech, and most of all, raises a pile of money, very little of which is used on behalf of poor people.

That pile is nearing half-a-billion dollars, mostly to help the SPLC alone.