Thread by @Tyler2ONeil

🚨THREAD🚨
The arrest of Thomas Webb Jurgens only serves to highlight the Southern Poverty Law Center's long history of carrying water for Antifa extremists.

dailysignal.com/2023/03/07/sou…

In 2020, the SPLC attacked Trump's decision to designate Antifa a "terrorist organization," defining Antifa as "a broad, community-based movement composed of individuals organizing against racial and economic injustice." It claimed Trump was echoing "far-right extremists."

“Individuals loosely affiliated with Antifa are typically involved in skirmishes and property crimes at demonstrations across the country, but the threat of lethal violence pales in comparison to that posed by far-right extremists," the SPLC claimed.

Yet the summer 2020 riots following George Floyd's death led to more than $2 billion in damages and the deaths of more than two dozen Americans, including David Dorn.

In 2021, the SPLC condemned as a "far-right and racist" view that the riots represented a bigger problem than police violence against blacks. The group claimed that the far right had constructed a "false alternative reality" about the violence.

As I documented in my book "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center," activist researcher Megan Squire—dubbed Antifa's "secret weapon"—fed information to the SPLC. Since my book's publication, Squire has joined SPLC full time.

Extremism researcher @EoinLenihan mapped the Twitter interactions of Antifa activists, finding ties to SPLC reporter Michael Hayden. @CathyYoung63 confirmed that Hayden had a record of "downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points."
dailysignal.com/2023/03/07/sou…

Extremism researcher Laird Wilcox told me that Antifa uses "information provided by the SPLC." He noted that Antifa agitators are “virtually” all white, “in order to avoid associating their violence and terrorism with black or brown activists.”

SPLC provided a grant to establish the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which modeled itself on SPLC. A Canadian judge ruled evidence shows "CAHN did in fact assist Antifa and... the movement has been violent." CAHN has called for libraries to be "sites of anti-fascist resistance."

Even in SPLC's statement claiming the alleged domestic terrorist attorney was a legal observer, the Southern Poverty Law Center downplayed the violence of the "Stop Cop City" protest.

The SPLC said the lawyer’s arrest “is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.”

Agitators threw “rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police,” according to Atlanta police.

The National Lawyers Guild, which identified the SPLC attorney and alleged terrorist as one of the guild’s legal observers, called all 23 arrests Sunday, out of 34 detained, “part of ongoing state repression and violence against environmental justice protesters.”

The Atlanta Police Department released video footage of the black bloc Antifa rioters descending on the construction site in Atlanta. The Southern Poverty Law Center's staff attorney was among this horde.

https://twitter.com/Atlanta_Police/status/1632871440226697225

Read more about the arrest here:

https://twitter.com/Tyler2ONeil/status/1632834238516002816