Southern Poverty Law Center Added Immigration Group to ‘Hate Map’ After It Reported SPLC ‘Charity’s’ Attacks on Trump to IRS

by Tyler O’Neil   A recent interview with the leader of an immigration reform organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has branded a “hate group” potentially shines new light on how the SPLC allegedly uses its “hate” accusations as a tactical political weapon. Throughout the 2016 presidential election, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity, condemned candidate Donald Trump for his supposed ties to “far-right extremists.” The following year, an immigration group helped report this to the IRS, claiming the SPLC had violated its tax-exempt status by engaging in political activity against Trump, and the SPLC appears to have responded by adding that group to its “hate map” in what the immigration group calls an act of retaliation. “It was direct retaliation,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, and chairman of the board of directors of its affiliated legal organization, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told The Daily Signal in an interview this week. In November 2016, the Immigration Reform Law Institute announced that it would represent FAIR in an official complaint to the IRS that claimed the SPLC had violated its tax-exempt status. FAIR, founded in 1979 by self-declared liberals, conservatives, and moderates as…

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Metro Nashville Police to Host Toy Drive at the Nashville Zoo This Weekend

Nashville Zoo

The Metro Nashville Police Department’s (MNPD) Horse Mounted Patrol Division will hold a toy drive this weekend at the Nashville Zoo as part of the department’s annual Christmas Basket Program.

“We need your help!!! This weekend we will be hosting our annual toy drive at the Nashville Zoo! These toys will be delivered by our fellow MNPD Officers to families and children across Nashville on Christmas Eve. Please help us fill our horse trailers for the kids,” MNPD’s Horse Mounted Patrol Division wrote in a Facebook post.

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Christian Organizations Continue to Make Amazon Smile’s ‘Naughty’ List

Amazon Smile continues to deny admission to Christian organizations that support traditional marriage and religious freedom, opting instead to place them on a proverbial naughty list by recommendation of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Amazon Smile allows customers who sign up to have 0.5% of their purchases donated to their favorite charity. Organizations on SPLC’s “designated hate groups” list, however, are barred from registering, according to Amazon’s website.

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Survey Suggests Pennsylvanians Back Free-Market Reforms, Believe State Economy Needs Improvement

A new survey released Thursday by the Commonwealth Foundation (CF), a Harrisburg-based think tank, suggests Pennsylvanians broadly support free-market reforms the institute urges policymakers to embrace. 

CF publicized its Better Pennsylvania 2023 Plan, a list of 23 such recommendations, in conjunction with the poll. Executive vice president Jennifer Stefano said the foundation plans to distribute the agenda to state lawmakers and candidates for public office. She believes the ideas’ implementation will “restore hope to our citizens across the commonwealth and set us on a better path that allows all Pennsylvanians to flourish.”

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Commentary: Charity Constitutes a Robust Alternative to Government Welfare

People compiling donation boxes of food

It’s that time of year again, the time when Americans consume more than ever, but also the time when Americans give more than ever. Indeed, America’s generosity as a whole is actually quite extensive, with Americans giving $471 billion in 2020, an all time high. That’s more than what the vast majority of countries bring in for tax revenue. 80% of this is from individuals, according to Giving USA.

Americans, in general, are incredibly generous, with 25% of Americans volunteering every year. Converted to a dollar value, this is roughly $179 billion worth of work. Most of this charity comes from the rich, with 93% of households that make over $162,501 donating to charity and 91% of households that make over $125,001 donating to charity.

Since the government started the “War on Poverty” 56 years ago, it has spent $27 trillion on this effort. And yet, it was only the beginning 7 years when poverty rates went down. Why? Well, one likely explanation is that welfare has taught people not to work, as governmental welfare dependency statistics have shown. Indeed, 93% of welfare recipients rely on welfare for more than 2 years. Charity, on the other hand, is not guaranteed, so it encourages people to take responsibility and become self-sufficient.

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Commentary: Income Inequality in America Related to Deaths

Holding Hands

The top quarter of American income earners can expect to live a decade longer than the bottom quarter, medical research shows. This health disparity seems downright cruel. Not only do those in poverty have to pay more for things like credit and insurance, they also pay more years to the Grim Reaper.

Unlike income inequality, transferring years of life from the rich to the poor is not a feasible option. To find a real solution, we must know what drives the inequity.

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BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors to Step Down Following DCNF Reports of Potential Self-Dealing

Patrisse Cullors

Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, will depart from her role as the organization’s executive director, the charity announced Thursday.

Cullors’ abrupt departure from the charity, which serves as the national arm of the BLM movement, came three weeks after the Daily Caller News Foundation reported that she had used her position as the charity’s leader to funnel business to an art company led by the father of her only child. Charity experts said BLM’s arrangement with the art company, Trap Heals, amounts to self-dealing and raises ethical and legal questions.

BLM Global Network did not provide an explanation in its statement Thursday for Cullors’ sudden departure. The statement said Cullors would be replaced by two senior executives who will lead the group until it “finds a new permanent team.”

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Virginia’s Battle over Bingo Intensifies

A seemingly-innocuous bill in the Virginia Senate is causing quite a stir among the Commonwealth’s bingo community. 

According to the summary of SB 1127, introduced by State Sen. Bryce Reeves (R-17th District), the bill “Removes the requirement that an organization qualified to conduct bingo games may only play instant bingo, network bingo, pull tabs, or seal cards as part of such bingo games and at such times designated in a permit, if any, for regular bingo games.”

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New York Gov. Cuomo Tells Hero Healthcare Workers Who Traveled There to Save Coronavirus Patients Now Must Pay State Income Taxes

Gov. Andrew Cuomo

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who once pled for an influx of healthcare workers to treat COVID-19, now says they have to pay up for the privilege of having worked there to treat the coronavirus.

Cuomo said out-of-state medical professionals who volunteered to help his state owe income taxes, Fox News said. That applies even if they stayed on the payroll in their home states. However, only workers who stayed in New York for more than 14 days are on the hook.

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Bernie Sanders Donated Less Than One Percent to Charity First Year He Made Over One Million Dollars

by Andrew Kerr   Vermont Sen. and 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’s charitable contributions fell far under the average for his income bracket the first year he reported earning more than one million dollars. Sanders released 10 years of tax returns Monday, revealing that he earned an average of $280,975 per year from 2009 through 2015, and that his income skyrocketed to $1,062,626 in 2016 due to sales of his best-selling book, “Our Revolution.” Sanders reported $10,600 in charitable contributions in 2016, making up slightly less than one percent of his reported income and falling under the $21,365 average charitable contribution for Americans who earned $250,000 or more that year, according to the latest available IRS data. The self-avowed Democratic-socialist purchased his third home in 2016 — a $575,000 lake-front property in Vermont, according to Fox News. The following year, Sanders donated $36,300 of his adjusted gross income of $1,131,925 to charity.   Year Adjusted Gross Income Charitable Gifts Percent to Charity 2018 $561,293 $18,950 3.38% 2017 $1,131,925 $36,300 3.21% 2016 $1,062,626 $10,600 1.00% 2015 $240,610 $6,150 2.56% 2014 $205,271 $8,350 4.07% 2013 $278,779 $6,800 2.44% 2012 $280,954 $1,900 0.68% 2011 $324,870 $5,500 1.69% 2010 $321,596 $5,750 1.79% 2009 $314,742…

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Rockefeller Treasures Set Record at Auction

Peggy and David Rockefeller’s lavish artworks and other treasures set a new world record this week at a Christie’s auction, topping $800 million as the priciest single-owner collection. That’s about twice the previous record of $484 million from a 2009 Paris sale of designer Yves Saint Laurent’s estate. The three-day live sale of the late couple’s belongings ended Thursday with a $115 million star lot — a Picasso painting called “Fillette a la corbeille fleurie” of a naked girl holding a basket of flowers that once belonged to the writer Gertrude Stein, estimated to be worth $100 million. The runner-up, at $84 million, was a Monet canvas with his famed water lilies, “Nimpheas en fleur,” which surpassed its $50 million estimate and set a record for his art at auction against a previous high of $81 million. Matisse’s “Odalisque Couchee aux Magnolias,” depicting a woman in a Turkish harem, sold for $80.8 million, topping the $70 million estimate and setting a new record for a Matisse, whose highest price at auction had been $48.8 million. Rockefeller Mania In what one art publication dubbed “Rockefeller Mania,” Christie’s said 100 percent of the 893 Rockefeller lots offered live had sold, for a…

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