The Southern Poverty Law Center was deeply involved in setting federal policy during the Biden administration, as well as law enforcement and even school policies across the country, despite labeling mainstream right-of-center organizations as “hate groups,” experts told a House panel Tuesday.  The SPLC previously claimed it was not anti-Christian, citing how it did not label Focus on the Family on its “hate map.” However, earlier this year, the group did add Focus on the Family to the list–and removed the defense of being anti-Christian from the website, said Tyler O’Neil, senior editor of The Daily Signal and author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The “hate map,” is intended to chill speech, O’Neil told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government on Tuesday.  “This contributes to the hostile climate in which conservatives keep their mouths shut in order to avoid being accused of racism, Islamophobia, or hate,” O’Neil said. “It is no accident that activists use this hate map to deplatform conservatives, or that activist groups have tried to pressure donor advised funds to blacklist the SPLC’s targets.” The Real Reason the SPLC Excludes Antifa From Its Hate MapAt today's @JudiciaryGOP hearing on the SPLC's influence on federal civil rights policy, @RepHageman asks The Daily Signal's @Tyler2ONeil why ?they exclude "Antifa, pro-Palestinian, and pro Hamas organizations on… pic.twitter.com/dfYW3Lq2TJ— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) December 16, 2025 The subcommittee held a hearing investigating the SPLC’s coordination with the Biden administration titled “Partisan and Profitable: The SPLC’s Influence on Federal Civil Rights Policy.”  The SPLC has frequently labeled conservative groups as comparable to the Ku Klux Klan. O’Neil noted the Biden White House hosted SPLC staff at least 18 times. During the Biden administration, the FBI cited the SPLC in its memo targeting “radical-traditional Catholics.”  He highlighted an SPLC staffer who advised the Justice Department on hate crimes and spoke at a symposium for prosecutors about the “anti-LGBTQ movement.” Further, Biden nominated SPLC attorney Nancy Abudu to a federal judgeship on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.   Daily Signal Editor Schools Democrat Rep. On How the SPLC Targets CatholicsThe Daily Signal’s @Tyler2ONeil sets the record straight with Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., on how the SPLC demonizes Catholics by labeling the Ruth Institute a “hate group” for adhering to the teachings of… pic.twitter.com/JYWBQGmEiP— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) December 16, 2025 During the hearing, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., asked about why the SPLC hasn’t warned about Antifa, pro-Palestinian groups that targeted Jewish students at college campuses, or pro-abortion agitators that targeted pro-life centers.  O’Neil said it was an “absolute travesty” that conservative groups such as Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty were labeled as anti-government extremist groups, while the SPLC “did not put actual groups that are hurling Molotov cocktails at government buildings” on its list of threats. What Happens to an Organization When Labeled a ‘Hate Group’ by the SPLC?At today's @JudiciaryGOP hearing on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s influence on federal civil rights policy, Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin dismissed the SPLC’s hate map as something that can simply be… pic.twitter.com/LI9o0Muykh— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) December 16, 2025 Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said no one from the SPLC has ever been convicted in a violent crime. “The Southern Poverty Law Center has been a vigilant voice in civil society, against radical white nationalist violence and extremism, neo Nazism, and other forces across the political spectrum that spread organized hate,” Raskin said.  Members and witnesses noted that earlier this year, the SPLC added Turning Point USA to its “hate map.” In October, a gunman assassinated TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk in Utah. Kirk warned about the SPLC’s rhetoric, said Andrew Sypher, executive vice president of field operations for TPUSA.  “Charlie warned, just before his murder, that the SPLC’s hate map designation, equating campus kids who promote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and pro-life, pro family values with the KKK and neo-Nazis, would put Turning Point in the crosshairs. This proved prophetic,” Sypher said.  Subcommittee Chairman Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the SPLC began as a legitimate civil rights organization, but “has reinvented itself as a political fundraising machine built on an ever-expanding ideologically defined hate mission.” Roy noted the SPLC has more than $829 million in assets with an endowment of more than $738 million. “Fear is profitable, and this organization  built a financial model around it,” Roy said.  Toward the conclusion of the hearing, Roy asked if the SPLC rhetoric created an atmosphere that led to Kirk’s assasination. Sypher, of Turning Point USA, replied, “most definitely.” “I find it ironic that a civil rights organization is marginalizing the country,” Sypher said.  In 2012, an LGBTQ+ activist opened fire at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Family Research Council after the gunman saw the conservative group on the SPLC’s “hate map.” The shooter was stopped and later convicted on terrorism charges.  “To the SPLC, the life threatening gunshot suffered by our African American building manager, Leo Johnson, was a little more than collateral damage, acceptable if it intimidated Christians who uphold biblical teaching on marriage and human sexuality,” FRC President Tony Perkins said of the shooting. “Local law enforcement agencies circulate SPLC lists as though they were intelligence bulletins,” Perkins later followed. “Schools have incorporated SPLC’s material into curriculum presented to children as objective facts. Major corporations from online platforms to payment processors have used SPLC’s label to deny services, restrict donations, and cut off basic financial tools to Americans. “Once a group is branded, the SPLC label functions like a digital scarlet letter deployed to restrict speech, marginalize, and financially ruin individuals in organizations.” The SPLC did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story on Tuesday. Subcommittee ranking member, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., complained the SPLC was not invited to the hearing to defend itself. The Democrats’ witness was Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “Civil rights organizations, Southern Poverty Law Center included, are part of the essential infrastructure of American civil society,” she said. “Civil rights organizations have historically helped communities in many ways, including documenting and combating discrimination.” The post House Investigates SPLC’s Profiting, Partisanship in Attack on Conservative Groups appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Pentagon is plowing ahead in its investigation of Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly, who told service members they “can refuse illegal orders.” “The Office of the Secretary of War, in conjunction with the Department of War’s Office of the General Counsel, is escalating the preliminary review of Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.), to an official Command Investigation,” a Department of War official told reporters in a statement Monday. “Retired Captain Kelly is currently under investigation for serious allegations of misconduct,” it adds. Kelly retired from the Navy in 2011, having served since the 1980s. He served as a naval aviator during the Gulf War. Kelly said in a response statement Monday that it “should send a shiver down the spine of every patriotic American that the president and secretary of defense would abuse their power to come after me or anyone this way.” Kelly drew the Pentagon’s attention when he contributed to a video statement alongside other Democrat lawmakers in which they urged members of the military and the intelligence community to disobey unlawful orders. “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” the lawmakers state as they each say different parts of a sentence.  “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” Kelly says personally. Department of War Senior Legal Advisor Tim Parlatore said earlier in December of the investigation, “There’s a range of options here … They could give him a letter of reprimand. They could actually take one of his ranks away in retirement and lower his pension.” The Department of War has previously said that its actions in Kelly’s case “may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”  Kelly told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday in response to the news, “This is just about sending a message to retired service members, active-duty service members, government employees—do not speak out against this president or there will be consequences.” The post Pentagon ‘Escalating’ Mark Kelly Investigation appeared first on The Daily Signal.

America failed to establish a democracy in Afghanistan and then failed to properly vet many of the 200,000 Afghans taken into the U.S. after the fall of Kabul in 2021, according to Simon Hankinson.   After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban under President Joe Biden, the U.S. scrambled to evacuate nationals who had served the U.S. government and military. What ensued was an “Afghan vetting fiasco,” says Hankinson, who served as a Foreign Service Officer for over 20 years.   “I don’t know who made the decision and how, but when we were flying people out of Afghanistan, we were not flying people who … had [Special Immigrant Visas] only,” Hankinson, currently a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.   “We were not flying people who were confirmed Afghan allies,” he continued. “We were flying everybody who showed up to the airport, and could somehow, you know, bluff their way onto a plane. So, the default seemed to be, well, bring them and we’ll figure it out later.”   Hankinson was scheduled to testify before members of Congress on Tuesday on the issue of Afghans nationals being paroled into the U.S., but the hearing was postponed until 2026.  Before 2021, Special Immigrant Visas were reserved for people who had served the U.S. government in a foreign country in an outstanding way for 20 years, and in some rare cases for just 15 years. There is usually a long progress of vetting and levels of recommendation for a foreigner to receive a Special Immigrant Visa, but in the case of Afghanistan, visas were fast-tracked initially to Afghans who had only served the U.S. government for a year, and then later for two years, Hankinson explained.   But there was not time to give every Afghan who had helped the U.S. a Special Immigrant Visa, so many were simply paroled into the U.S. and given all the benefits of a refugee, such as a driver’s license and work permit.   Missing Data  While the U.S. did conduct vetting of the Afghans paroled into the U.S., “vetting is only as good as the data that you have,” Hankinson said.   Because some Afghans are illiterate and don’t know the date of birth, it is impossible to find their records without actuate biographical information.   For example, he explained, among the 200,000 Afghans who have come to the U.S. since the fall of Kabul, 10,000 list their birthday as Jan. 1.   “Whoever is doing the typing is in a hurry and puts in ‘Jan. 1,’ [and] some may only have one name,” Hankinson said. Furthermore, some crimes, such as certain sex crimes, are not considered crimes at all in Afghanistan, and the Taliban, of course, is not a government the U.S. can work with to confirm an individual’s criminal record or lack thereof.   Afghans who had worked for the U.S. military or CIA in Afghanistan were vetted more thoroughly, and a background check with the Afghan authority would have likely been completed, which is “about as good as you can get,” he said. Yet even this higher level of vetting is not perfect.   While most of the 200,000 Afghans who come to the U.S. under the Biden administration “are probably not criminals,” Hankinson said, “among those, I absolutely guarantee you that there are child molesters, there are rapists, there are thieves, there are people who work for the Taliban, and there are terrorists.”   Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man and suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in D.C. in November, worked under CIA direction in Afghanistan and would have undergone thorough vetting.   Lakanwal, like thousands of other Afghans, entered the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome.  What Now?   Since the tragic shooting that left National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom dead and National Guard member Andrew Wolfe seriously injured, President Donald Trump has paused the issuance of visas for Afghan nationals.   Moving ahead, Hankinson says there needs to be more information sharing within the U.S. government since it was found that the Department of War had information on Aghan nationals that it had not turned over the Department of Homeland Security.   Among the 200,000 Afghans, those “who were not allies, who just got out by accident, and, of course, the terrorists and the criminals,” need to be deported, he said.    Hankinson argues the U.S. government should have paid another country, such as Tajikistan, to receive Afghan nationals fleeing the Taliban since there were likely only about 10,000 Afghans who served the U.S. government in such a way that put their lives at risk with the Taliban, he estimates. But since that was not done initially, Hankinson says “solutions closer to Afghanistan” should be found for additional Afghans currently living in refugee camps and who are in fear of returning to Afghanistan.    The post How Fall of Kabul Led to ‘Afghan Vetting Fiasco’   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced Vanity Fair’s profile on chief of staff Susie Wiles as “fake news.” “This was, unfortunately, another attempt at fake news by a reporter who was acting disingenuously and really did take the chief’s words out of context,” Leavitt told Fox News Channel’s “America Reports.” “But I think, most importantly, the bias of omission was ever-present throughout this story. The reporter omitted all of the positive things that Susie and our team said about the president and the inner workings of the White House.” Wiles sat for 11 interviews with Vanity Fair to discuss her role as White House chief of staff and reflect on President Donald Trump’s eventual first year. Wiles called the finished product a “disingenuously framed hit piece.” Wiles reportedly said Trump has an “alcoholic’s personality;” called Elon Musk an “avowed ketamine [user];” said Vice President JD Vance was a “conspiracy theorist for a decade,” and referred to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as “a right-wing absolute zealot.”  “Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,” Wiles wrote in a rare post on X. “I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.” “The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in 11 months than any other president has accomplished in eight years, and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade. None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of Making America Great Again!” she continued. Leavitt said the story won’t distract the White House from the work at hand. “And President Trump has been such a productive president and has accomplished more in 11 months than most presidents do in eight years because of his vision and his tenacity, which is executed on and facilitated by our great White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, whom I’m very proud of to call a boss and a mentor and a friend,” she said. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he was not offended by being compared to an alcoholic. “I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive-type personality,” he said. “Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before.” Trump said he didn’t read the story because he doesn’t read Vanity Fair, a magazine which he believes has “lost its way.” “I think from what I hear, the facts were wrong, and it was a very misguided interviewer, purposely misguided,” he said. “Yeah, deceived — and he didn’t have great access, a couple of very short interviews. And Susie generally doesn’t do interviews,” he continued. Vance agreed with Wiles assertion that he is sometimes a conspiracy theorist. “Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” he said. “By the way, Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believe in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three year olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills. I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.” “And I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win an argument against his political opponent, at least on some of these conspiracy theories,” he said. “It turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it, and that’s my understanding.” According to Vance, Wiles understands that understands she is in the role to effectuate the will of the American people. “I really love Susie Wiles, because Susie is who she is in the president’s presence. I’ve never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go and counteract him or subvert his will behind the scenes, and that’s what you wanted a staffer. “We have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree,” he said, “but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the President of the United States, and that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask.” The post ‘FAKE NEWS’: Trump, Leavitt React to Susie Wiles Profile appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’ve talked about affordability, this new meme, this new theme that the Democrats are using against the Trump administration. They have belatedly responded to it, as I pointed out earlier. Perhaps because they thought it was sort of absurd when the 21.5% aggregate inflation came under President Joe Biden. And their inflation rate that they inherited in the month of January was 3%—it’s already gone down. It’s 3%-2.7%. Gas is cheaper, etc. So, I don’t think they took it seriously that anybody would believe that the people who caused the problem would blame the people who are trying to clean it up. And four years the problem, 10 months the cleanup? And then I think they thought their foreign policy successes would mitigate any criticism. In fact, they amplified it because the Democrats said: You’re all involved with these ceasefires or Ukraine, you don’t care about us. And so, then they had all these initiatives, which will boom, I think, the economy in 2026. But they didn’t emphasize them, exactly how increased oil and gas will help us very quickly. How all this foreign investment, how all this new deregulation, how these new tax cuts, how the new trade policies, how artificial intelligence and the jobs they will create are going to boom the economy in ’26. Could I go back in history just a minute to offer a warning? In 1992, George Bush was up for reelection—George H.W. Bush, the elder Bush. He was riding high because the 1991 Gulf War had finished, I think, a little problematically, with the survival of Saddam Hussein. But he had ended that threat, expelled him from Kuwait with a four-day ground war, following a brilliant air campaign. Very few American casualties. He was at the top of his game as an international diplomat, former war veteran. George H.W. Bush came into campaign cycle 1992 as high as 90% approval rating. There had been a recession in ’90-’91, but by ’92, when the year started, that year would show 3% inflation. That’s not too bad. It would show 3.5% gross domestic product growth. The unemployment rate had gone down. It was still over 7% too high, but it was going down. And he was at 90%. What happened? He had a lackluster campaign. I would not wanna speak ill of Fred Malek or Robert Teeter, who has passed away, or Robert Mosbacher. But that campaign team really lacked a Lee Atwater. He was the “No Prisoners” campaign director of 1988 that got George H.W. Bush elected. I know a lot of you say, “Well, he did the Willie Horton ad. He did the Boston Harbor ad. He did the tank ad.” He did. And he was relentless. And he destroyed the Dukakis candidacy, maybe cruelly, but he destroyed it. And he got George H.W. Bush elected. He didn’t play by the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. And he was gone. He had passed away. He had a new Wall Street-type of team, and they played by the rules, and they didn’t take the Clinton-Gore campaign seriously, and they did not take the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot seriously. Why didn’t they do it? Because—I hope this doesn’t sound eerily similar to the problem today—but they said: We had such foreign policy successes. We were polling 90%. They said: The recession is almost over. Look at all the GDP, the inflation. They’re all going in the right direction, and they’re not at recessionary levels. Meanwhile, the Clinton-Gore-George Stephanopoulos team was saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And they took that meme and said: This is the worst economy since the Great Depression. We have no jobs. Inflation is affordable. And then they got an amplification from Ross Perot. He was kind of like the never Trumpers of that age, although he was an independent third party. And the result of it? Bush’s popularity went from 90% to 40% that election year. And he would lose that election, partly because of Ross Perot, partly because of a lackluster, complacent campaign, and partly because they created this meme, “It’s the economy, stupid,” and turned a recovering economy that they had, in a sense, inherited a recovering economy into the Great Depression. I hope that doesn’t sound too familiar, but that’s exactly what is happening now. The economy is on the uptake. President Donald Trump is overseas with a lot of successes. And the same Democrats are saying: It’s affordability, stupid. And they need to get out in front of that issue and not discount it in the way that Republicans did in 1992. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’: How a Political Meme Toppled a President and Could Do It Again appeared first on The Daily Signal.