Raymond Ibrahim: The West is wrong about Islam’s relationship with extremism



Since 9/11, Western leaders have repeatedly insisted that radical Islam has little to do with the religion’s mainstream teachings — and that Islam, as a whole, is good.

But historian and author Raymond Ibrahim argues that this comforting narrative ignores centuries of religious texts, legal traditions, and historical precedent.

“Unfortunately here in the West, it’s become so mangled and, you know, apparently an impossible question to answer,” Ibrahim tells Freitas.

Islam, Ibrahim says, is “actually very simple, and every Muslim knows what Islam teaches.”

Some of what people believe is simply “radical Islam” are beliefs like “killing the apostate or having slaves, having sex slaves, concubines, treating the non-Muslim inferior, as an inferior subject,” and “killing someone because he blasphemed against Muhammad.”

“All of these are 100% Islamic. There’s no question to this, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise, be he Muslim or non-Muslim, is either an idiot or a liar,” Ibrahim says.

“This is just not even open to debate, OK, it’s in the scriptures. It’s in the Quran. It’s in the Hadith. All the scholars and schools of law have agreed to it,” he explains.

“The Muslim who does not do those things … they do exist, OK, he’s good, but he’s not the representative of Islam. We want to convince ourselves that Islam is by nature the good guys. And then you have the few crazy guys,” he continues.

“It’s, like you said, the opposite. Islam by nature is radical because it teaches things that are inherently antithetical to Western norms,” he adds.

Radical Islam, he says, “is the mainstream way.”

“It’s always been understood. You want to know what Islam is? OK, stop listening to the American apologist who no Muslim even has heard of,” he tells Freitas.

“Go to the Muslim world and see what happens there. You will find Christians are subjugated. They’re being persecuted. They’re sometimes being killed. They are not allowed to have churches. They’re being thrown in jail because they shared a Facebook post that’s negative about Muhammad, OK, that’s real Islam. It’s happening now,” he continues. “So why on earth would I think it’s not the real thing?”

“Making the Argument with Nick Freitas” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms.

Start watching Nick Freitas NOW at blazetv.com and use the promo code NICK for $20 off your BlazeTV+ subscription.

Shocking number of undergrads say the US deserved 9/11: Poll



Young Americans might be trending straighter these days, but recent polling indicates that some of their minds are still twisted.

According to the Yale University-based Buckley Institute's 2026 National Undergraduate Study, undergraduate students — self-identified liberals in particular — are increasingly a censorious, thin-skinned bunch who not only entertain anti-American views but are warming up to socialism.

'The 14-point spread in favor of socialism is the largest in the five years the question has been asked.'

Pollsters with Inquire LLC found in their survey of over 800 students that while 87% of respondents agreed that the First Amendment is important and needs to be followed and respected in today's society, a record high 49% of undergraduate students overall said that they favor their college or university "having speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty." A majority of liberal students — 53% — were on board with speech regulation on college campuses.

When asked whether they would avoid taking a class with a professor who publicly shared opinions they disagreed with, 55% of liberal students, 33% of moderates, and 33% of conservatives confirmed that they would steer clear.

Whereas 27% of conservative students said that they could not bring themselves to be "close friends with someone who affiliates with a different political party," 65% of liberal students said that they keep their friend groups politically homogeneous.

A plurality of liberal students (47%) said that offensive speech should be subject to criminal prosecution. Only 24% of conservatives and 34% of moderates agreed with the proposition.

RELATED: 'Reign of terror': One-third of Democrats give thumbs-up to Trump assassination

MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images

As for the use of physical violence to prevent someone from uttering so-called hate speech or making "racially charged comments," 45% of all respondents said it was justifiable.

When broken down by ideological affiliation, a majority of liberals were once again in the extreme camp, with 54% agreeing that violence is sometimes warranted. Only 30% of conservatives and 36% of moderates agreed.

Perhaps more troubling, when asked about the Turning Point USA founder's assassination last year at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, 38% of liberal respondents agreed with the statement, "Charlie Kirk's rhetoric was harmful and threatening to many people. It should not be a surprise that his words had consequences."

Seven percent of conservative students similarly agreed with the statement, which effectively justifies Kirk's murder.

Only 13% of all respondents overall said that Kirk's rhetoric "was neither harmful nor threatening and that his assassination is a bad sign for public discourse on college campuses."

Unsurprisingly, a majority (58%) of the liberal cohort that appeared receptive to both censorship and political violence said that they prefer to live under a socialist regime. Fifty-seven percent of liberals also said that socialist countries like Cuba and the former Soviet Union "offer a better economic model than capitalist countries like the United States."

Nineteen percent of conservatives and 28% of moderates also chose socialism over capitalism, according to the survey. On the question of whether countries like the failed Soviet Union and failing Republic of Cuba offer preferable economic models to the U.S., 32% of moderates and 53% of conservatives said they disagreed.

"The 14-point spread in favor of socialism is the largest in the five years the question has been asked and only the third time socialism has led capitalism," the Buckley Institute said. "The only major demographic groups that favored capitalism over socialism were conservatives and Asian students."

Not only have liberal undergraduate students idealized failed states where food scarcity is the norm, they have adopted cynical views about the promise of equality in America.

Fifty percent of all respondents — and 66% of liberal respondents — agreed with the statement that "America is inextricably linked to white supremacy and in general most minorities remain excluded from the American promise of equality."

When asked whether America "deserved September 11th" — an Islamic terrorist attack that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, including children, and injured thousands more — a staggering 22% overall somewhat or strongly agreed, including 28% of liberals, 16% of moderates, and 17% of conservatives.

A vast majority — 72% — disagreed, 63% strongly so. Another 6% said they weren't sure.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Gay Atlantic writer whines to Bill Maher that LGBT extremism is blowing up support for homosexual 'marriage'



Popular support for homosexual "marriage" is plummeting — and liberals are beginning to panic.

James Kirchick, a gay liberal contributor to the Atlantic, suggested on Friday's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" that this waning popularity is in response to years of LGBT extremism.

'Gay men purchasing babies didn't help.'

A lesbian bar in Massachusetts recently made headlines after it became a target of local LGBT leftist hatred after operators announced on Aug. 31 that they were waiving the establishment's mask requirement just one night a week.

Maher highlighted the LGBT attacks on Greenfield's Last Ditch lesbian bar as yet another example of leftist intolerance. Kirchick said the story also illustrated the "growing divide between gay and lesbian people, and queer people."

"To be gay or lesbian is a sexual orientation. That's it," continued Kirchick. "To be 'queer' is to embrace a whole political orientation. There are straight people who identify as queer. It's about deconstructing gender, which is how you get in that [bar] story a lesbian who uses 'he/him' pronouns."

The Atlantic writer provided an example of the political and conformist nature of those in the "queer" camp, referencing California Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener's apparent excommunication over his lukewarm support for Israel.

When he tried to join the Trans March in June, Wiener — a radical homosexual activist who previously claimed that "the word groomer is categorically an anti-LGBTQ hate word," advanced a law that made California a sanctuary state for child sex-change mutilations, and advocated for exempting some adults who had sex with minors from automatically registering as sex offenders — was told, "You stopped being queer the moment you started supporting Israel," reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

RELATED: 'There is no mama': How a viral video accidentally exposed the true cost of gay adoption

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty Images

"There was a poll done two years ago, and it was a poll of the LGBT community — who identifies as what within the LGBT community," Kirchick told Maher. "About 15% identify as lesbians. About 21% identify as gay. Fifty-six percent identify as bisexual. ... 0.5% of LGBT people identify as queer."

Kirchick unironically asked, "Why are we allowing this 0.5% of the community to speak for all of us?"

"All this queer, trans extremism is having a real impact," he continued. "I mean, support for gay marriage has started going down."

According to a Gallup poll conducted in May, support for homosexual "marriage" is down six percentage points from the peak in 2022 and 2023.

The percentage of U.S. adults who said that same-sex "marriages" should be valid rose from 27% in 1996 to 71% in 2022, where it remained for another year. In 2024, however, the percentage dropped to 69%, and it has been declining in the years since.

The percentage of U.S. adults who say that gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable has similarly begun to decline, dropping from 71% in 2022 to 62% this year.

The decline has largely been driven by changing attitudes among Republicans. Whereas 55% of Republicans said that they favored homosexual "marriage" in 2021 and 2022, the number is now 37%.

The liberal writer speculated that this decline in support is a "backlash to this queer extremism. And as a gay man, it's something I really worry about, frankly."

Katy Faust, founder and president of children's advocacy group Them Before Us, said in response to Kirchick's observation, "Queer definitely poisoned the well. But gay men purchasing babies didn't help."

Kirchick is hardly the only liberal concerned about declining support for homosexual "marriage."

Andrew Sullivan, an LGBT activist who has written for the New York Times, wrote in a July blog post, "On all questions gay and trans, the Dems are now entirely controlled by trans and 'queer' extremists."

Referencing the recent Gallup data, Sullivan added, "As someone who played a part in bringing those Republicans and moderates around to gay marriage, it’s distressing to see what the queer overreach has done — especially in red states."

Last month, Log Cabin Republicans dropped the "T" from its LGBT advocacy, recognizing the reputational damage that trans-radicals have done to the cause of their fellow non-straight activists.

Ross Hemminger, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, argued that support for homosexual "marriage" is waning because many voters' "view of the gay community is based on today’s radical transgender activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America’s youth."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trump's DOJ exposes how the Biden FBI didn't stop targeting Catholics even after getting caught



The Biden FBI targeted adherents of what it dubbed "traditionalist Catholicism" and suggested in a widely distributed internal assessment that certain Catholic beliefs were linked to violent extremism and criminal activity.

Although a whistleblower exposed the bureau's abuse of counterterrorism tools to smear Catholics and SSPX adherents in 2023, some in the Biden FBI continued on with the project, according to a new report from the Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group.

'History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure.'

"The Richmond Memo was a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight," said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. in a statement released Thursday. "No more."

The investigation

The FBI's assessment smearing members of a Catholic sect and certain Catholics with socially conservative views as potential extremists was the outgrowth of a Richmond field office investigation into an individual identified as "Target 1" in the new report but revealed to be Xavier Louis Lopez through the footnotes.

Lopez was on the FBI's radar due to his alleged "violent and racially motivated ideology" posts online, assault of police officers, and espousal of "violent, racial views" in state prison following a felony vandalism conviction.

After his release from state prison in June 2021, Lopez — who last year was sentenced to over eight years in federal prison for illegally possessing Molotov cocktails — began attending a chapel affiliated with the Society of St. Pius X, a group that the Vatican declared schismatic in July.

According to the new DOJ report, in November 2022, the FBI reached out twice to the priest who oversaw the chapel and grilled him about Lopez's religiosity, political beliefs, and involvement in the chapel. After the priest finally signaled that he could not "violate" the relationship he had with the people of his church and said, "I don't want to be involved," the FBI launched an investigation into the priest and his chapel.

RELATED: The Justice Department finally has a grown-up in charge

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Upon discovering that the priest's uncle was himself a priest ordained by the late British Bishop Richard Williamson, the leader of an SSPX breakaway group who was convicted in Germany of Holocaust denial, the FBI expanded its investigation to the uncle.

The FBI ramped up its surveillance of the two SSPX priests, tracking their movements and scrutinizing credit card details. The uncle's phone was even searched at Boston Logan International Airport to determine his "level of contact with his nephew, Priest 1," said the report.

Days after the Boston Field Office surveilled the uncle and a travel companion, former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin leaked the internal assessment — commonly referred to as the Richmond Catholic Memo.

The memo

In late 2022, FBI intelligence analysts cooked up a memo about the supposed "increasing intersection of rad-trad (radical-traditional) Catholics and DVEs [domestic violent extremists]" despite acknowledging elsewhere that there was insufficient evidence to point to any such increase.

At the time, analysts could identify only two potentially relevant cases elsewhere in the nation — one of which concerned a dead subject in Oregon and the other pertaining to an SSPX-linked subject who moved to Wisconsin. That was evidently enough for the FBI bad actors to presume there must a pattern and to create a document suggesting as much.

The Richmond Catholic Memo was developed partly on the basis of information from the Portland field office, which was apparently heavily reliant on an Anti-Defamation League "dossier"; a proposed paragraph from the Milwaukee field office; the Richmond field office's investigation into the two priests; and intelligence from a foreign law enforcement agency.

The FBI analysts also relied on several politically biased sources including the Atlantic, Salon, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Around this time, the FBI built a presentation titled "Traditionalist Catholicism Overview," in which agents identified various core beliefs supposedly held by potentially extremist Catholics and SSPX members — including support for the Traditional Latin Mass, isolationism, conservative family values, and "hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, [and] interreligious dialogue," according to documents included in the DOJ report.

Justice Department

In this particular presentation, the FBI suggested that "radical-traditionalist Catholicism" was not limited to sects that have rejected the authority and/or legitimacy of the pope but included some "Canonically Regular" groups formally approved by the Vatican and "in full communion with mainline Catholic Church."

Despite vague definitions, a dearth of evidence, and a reliance on biased sources, the FBI's Richmond Catholic Memo confidently asserted:

FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists] in [radical-traditionalist Catholic] ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development. FBI Richmond makes this assessment with high confidence based on FBI investigations, local law enforcement agency reporting, and liaison reporting, with varying degrees of corroboration and access.

The memo, which is dated Jan. 23, 2023, also concern-mongered about the supposed threat posed by traditionalist Catholics ahead of the 2024 election and suggested that legislation and judicial decisions related to abortion, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBT "protections" might serve as "catalyzing events."

Justice Department

Shameless

The DOJ report released Thursday highlighted the bureau's various attempts at damage control after Seraphin leaked the memo to the public on Feb. 8, 2023, including the decision by FBI leadership to delete the memo from its files. However, this deletion was not immediate — and staff continued to work on the project.

Citing correspondence between FBI intelligence analysts, the DOJ report noted that the memo remained accessible for weeks and was accessed by "19 intelligence analysts from 13 field offices, along with four agents and two task force officers from two field offices, three senior intelligence analysts from three different field offices, and a Chief Division Counsel from another field office."

Not only was it accessed after the deletion order, but "one of the original drafters" of the memo "continued workshopping it," said the new DOJ report.

In an internal FBI email dated March 17, 2023, an intelligence analyst said that the analyst "spent today tinkering with" the domain perspective and had made "major changes."

RELATED: Why Christian nationalists can still be conservatives

Justice Department

The individuals behind the memo at the Richmond field office, at least one of whom continued to work on the project despite public outrage, received little discipline under the previous administration.

The FBI's Inspection Division reviewed the creation and approval process behind the memo and concluded both that it "erroneously equated the ideology of domestic terrorism (DT) subjects who self-identified as ‘Radical Traditional Catholic’ ('RTC') with [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist] ideology, without sufficient support" and that the memo "failed to consider the potential bias and credibility of open-source information" upon which it relied, the DOJ report said.

The Inspection Division also determined that the drafters of the memo demonstrated a lack of "professional judgment and failed to adhere to FBI standards," the report added.

Following these findings, the leadership of the Richmond field office said in July 2023 that the "people involved didn't deserve this" and blasted the whistleblower as "cowardly." The drafters of the memo and others involved ultimately "received positive feedback in their performance reviews," the new DOJ report said.

Accountability

The DOJ did not mince words in the conclusion to its report: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is entrusted with the solemn responsibility of protecting the First Amendment rights of all Americans. History will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office to uphold that responsibility."

The Trump Justice Department has made abundantly clear that those responsible for this weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans have met some consequence.

"This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity," said Attorney General Todd Blanche. "The individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer with the Department, and our working group’s efforts to investigate weaponization under the previous administration will continue."

After firing multiple employees tied to the memo in June, FBI Director Kash Patel underscored that "this FBI will never infringe on religious freedom."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Republicans MOCK Democrat leader after devastating losses to Mamdani-backed socialist candidates



The National Republican Congressional Committee mocked the establishment wing of the Democratic Party after the far-left socialist victories in New York City elections.

Three socialist candidates backed by Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani crushed their centrist opposition and tipped the scales in the party toward more extremism.

'How can he defend against the Marxist march around the country and these other districts?'

The NRCC sent flowers and a card expressing condolences to the Washington, D.C., office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

"Three losses in one night is tough. We wanted so-called 'Leader' Jeffries to know our thoughts are with him, his candidates, and whatever remains of his influence in the Democrat Party," said NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella in a statement to Fox News.

The card read "With heartfelt sympathy," according to a photo posted by Bill Melugin of Fox.

Jeffries' Republican counterpart, Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, reiterated how bad the losses were in a media briefing where he pointed out that many Democrat voters booed Jeffries and chanted that he was next.

"These are socialists. These are Marxists in their ideology," said Johnson.

"Hakeem Jeffries has a tall task ahead of him right now, he's gotta go out and somehow make a credible pitch to Democrat establishment donors that that's a good national investment right now, that's a tough one to make," he added.

"He has just proven that he cannot even hold the line in his own back yard," Johnson said. "How can he possibly defend against the Marxist march around the country and these other districts? This is not your father's Democratic Party, as we see all the time."

RELATED: Hunter Biden wants Democrats to learn EXTREME lesson from NYC elections

"The Democrat Party — the socialists, the Marxists — have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office, and they're running for Congress. The insurgent left is on the rise."

Others, like Hunter Biden, say the results of the elections show that Democrats need to veer to the far left and be far more socialist and far more extremist.

"The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led," Biden said.

President Donald Trump, on the other hand, replied: "America the Beautiful will NEVER be a communist Country!"

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

SPLC director allegedly used donor cash to fund secret romance with neo-Nazi informant: Indictment



Heidi Beirich was a director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. A man identified as "F-9" was allegedly a neo-Nazi informant. And according to a damning new report building off the Justice Department's latest indictment against the SPLC, the two allegedly fell in love under the most unlikely circumstances.

Indictments

In April, the Justice Department announced that a grand jury in Alabama returned an indictment charging the SPLC — a liberal outfit whose bread and butter is smearing law-abiding conservatives as "extremists" — with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.

'I knew it was that fat, ugly hog.'

The organization is accused of secretly dumping several million dollars in donated funds to individuals linked to various extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America — groups the SPLC was supposedly fighting against.

The DOJ expanded its case against the SPLC this month, filing a superseding indictment on June 2 that alleged, among other things, that the "SPLC secretly funneled approximately $4.1 million dollars in tax-exempt donor funds to a series of fictitious accounts" — such as for the fake Tech Writers group — that in turn paid so-called field sources "who were either leading or affiliated with multiple violent extremist organizations."

The field sources allegedly used SPLC donor money for various activities, including:

  • Attending and hosting extremist group rallies across the country;
  • Growing existing chapters of extremist groups;
  • Creating new chapters of extremist groups;
  • Making donations to extremist group leaders;
  • Purchasing materials for cross burnings as well as for Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods;
  • Creating racist paraphernalia that extremist groups sold at rallies; and
  • Publishing extremist literature for recruitment purposes.

RELATED: Klansman allegedly on SPLC payroll was 'true believer' white supremacist, not reformed infiltrator

Heidi Beirich. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

SPLC CEO Bryan Fair, whose smear- and fear-mongering racket has denied the allegations of wrongdoing, claimed that the field sources were "paid confidential informants" tasked with gathering "credible intelligence on extremely violent groups." He said the SPLC no longer works with such informants.

F-9 finds love

The superseding indictment alleges that in one case, at the SPLC's direction, a field source referred to only as "F-9" "infiltrated" a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance.

While reportedly funded over a 20-year period, F-9 allegedly received over $1.2 million in SPLC donors' money just between 2010 and 2023. While receiving SPLC donor funds, F-9 allegedly fundraised for the National Alliance and helped it "carry out its extremist activities."

Although a proven asset to the neo-Nazi group, F-9 apparently gave the SPLC some return on their investment.

According to the allegations, in 2014, he broke into the National Alliance's headquarters in West Virginia; stole 25 boxes of documents; transported those documents across state lines; and, with the knowledge of an SPLC employee and the help of SPLC funding, copied those documents before breaking back into the National Alliance headquarters to return the originals.

The New York Post identified the SPLC employee involved in this alleged plot as the former director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, Heidi Beirich.

Beirich, an anti-Trump liberal who now serves as the chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

The SPLC employee identified as Beirich allegedly used around $6,000 in donor money to pay a different field source — a man the Post identified as Randolph Dilloway, an accountant whom the neo-Nazi group hired to conduct a forensic audit — to falsely take the fall for the burglary.

The indictment alleged further that the stolen documents served as the basis for an SPLC "Hatewatch" story, which was used to solicit more donations.

Beirich penned the lengthy March 2015 "Hatewatch" article titled "Chaos at the Compound," where she discussed drama and mismanagement behind the scenes at the National Alliance, making extensive use of internal documents that she claimed Dilloway had copied and provided to the SPLC.

RELATED: SPLC indictment BOMBSHELL: Charlottesville violence allegedly was a leftist-funded 'false flag'

MIKE THEILER/AFP/Getty Images

Beirich allegedly leaned on her field source for more than information.

Not only was the SPLC employee identified by the Post as Beirich overseeing payments of donor money to F-9, but she was also allegedly in a romantic relationship with him, according to the superseding indictment.

"During this relationship, Employee-2 and F-9 shared a house and two bank accounts," the indictment said. "Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000.00 in donors' money flowed from the SPLC operating account, through the Tech Writers account, and was ultimately deposited into the joint bank accounts held by F-9 and Employee-2. This amounted to approximately 66% of all money ever deposited into their joint bank accounts."

The indictment further alleged that the employee identified as Beirich "then used donors' money to pay the couple's personal living expenses."

Property records reviewed by the New York Post revealed that during the period covered by the indictment, Beirich owned a vacation home in Ellijay, Georgia, in addition to her Montgomery, Alabama, residence.

After over 20 years with the SPLC, Beirich left the organization in December 2019 — around which time she was reportedly earning $190,000 in salary and benefits.

The SPLC and National Alliance did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

William White Williams, National Alliance's 78-year-old chairman, told the Post, "I knew it was that fat, ugly hog Heidi Beirich."

In addition to confirming that the details of the indictment comport with what happened to his organization and expressing uncertainty about the identity of F-9, Williams said, "I think some of those cluckers wanted to get out of the movement, and they went to the SPLC for help. But instead of helping them, [the SPLC] said, 'Why don't you stay in and get paid?'"

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

War against 'race-baiting' SPLC opens new front in Alabama



The Southern Poverty Law Center was federally indicted on April 21 for allegedly funneling millions of dollars to the very racist and extremist groups it claimed to be fighting, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, the American Front, United Klans of America, and the National Socialist Party of America.

The Alabama-headquartered smear- and fearmongering racket — charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering — pleaded not guilty on Thursday to all counts.

'We have always suspected that they were monetizing hate.'

"The charges against the SPLC are provably wrong," stated SPLC interim president and CEO Bryan Fair. "They are based on inaccurate facts and a misapplication of law. Our informant program was successful in accomplishing its purposes: Threats and attacks were prevented, criminal activity was stopped, and information was gathered to dismantle the efforts of hate and extremist groups."

Now thanks to the state of Alabama, SPLC smear merchants will have to mount a defense on more than one front.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced on Monday that his office has launched a civil investigation into the SPLC, alleging deceptive fundraising practices under Alabama's consumer protection statutes.

The probe is looking specifically at whether the SPLC's alleged activities referenced in the federal indictment violated Alabama's Deceptive Trade Practices Act or other state laws concerning charitable organizations.

RELATED: Klansman allegedly on SPLC payroll was 'true believer' white supremacist, not reformed infiltrator

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Marshall's office has subpoenaed SPLC documents disclosing to Alabama donors or prospective donors the organization's use of "informants"; identifying the annual donations received from donors in Alabama and beyond; showing annual disbursements of donated funds to "informants"; reflecting the percentage of the SPLC's annual budget blown on "informant"-related costs; and showing payments to groups or individuals appearing in the SPLC's extremist files or on its hate map.

The SPLC, which has been ordered to produce these documents by June 1, confirmed to WSFA-TV that the organization's leaders "have received notice of a subpoena and are currently reviewing."

"My office has been fighting the SPLC for years — whether fighting them to protect minors from transgender medical procedures, fighting them to keep bad guys behind bars, or fighting them to preserve Alabama’s Republican congressional districts," Marshall said in a statement.

"We have always suspected that they were monetizing hate and trading on race-baiting; it was just a matter of proving it," continued Marshall. "Thanks to the U.S. Justice Department’s action to deal with the SPLC, the state’s efforts have now received a shot in the arm. We look forward to learning more about the inner workings of an organization that we have long believed was rotten but, until recently, has been impervious."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Host Shocked When Rubio Says What No Other Politician Will Admit
play icon

Host Shocked When Rubio Says What No Other Politician Will Admit

'Die in your rage': Islamist attacks and murder plots are quickly adding up



Islamic terrorism may be undergoing a resurgence in the U.S., energized in part by the latest conflict in the Middle East.

According to a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security terror threat assessment report published last year, there were over 50 jihadist cases in 30 states between April 2021 and June 2025, including vehicle ramming attacks and efforts to provide material support to ISIS.

Last year, for instance, started off with the slaughter of 14 Americans and the grievous injury of scores of additional victims in New Orleans by Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a radical whom the FBI revealed had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

'This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet.'

The perennial threat of violence by adherents of Islamist ideology do not appear to be letting up — and if the rash of attacks and attempted attacks that have already occurred this month are any indication, the reverse might be true.

New York

A pair of Pennsylvania residents with alleged ties to radical Islam — Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi — were arrested on March 7 after two homemade improvised explosive devices were ignited near anti-Islam protesters outside Gracie Mansion in New York City.

"This was an alleged ISIS-inspired act of terrorism that could have killed American citizens," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

RELATED: 'So pathetic': Virginia governor nailed with backlash over response to possible terror attack at Old Dominion

Department of Justice

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche noted, "These men allegedly sought to inflict mass casualties in service to ISIS with the hope of exceeding the carnage of the Boston Marathon bombing."

An FBI examination of the explosive devices revealed that "they were each approximately the size of a mason jar; that they each had an attached fuse; and that they each had nuts and bolts attached to the exterior, surrounded by duct tape," according to the criminal complaint.

The first device contained "TATP, a highly volatile explosive that is colloquially known as the 'Mother of Satan' and extremely sensitive to impact, friction, and heat. TATP has been used in multiple terrorist attacks over the last decade," the DOJ press release said.

According to the complaint, Balat allegedly told police after his arrest, "This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet. ... We take action! We take action!"

After arriving at the precinct, Balat allegedly requested a piece of paper and wrote, "All praise is due to Allah lord of all worlds! I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar!"

Kuffar or kafir is a derogatory Arabic term for a non-Muslim, an alternate to "infidel," used by radicals including Muhammad Masood — a Pakistani doctor who worked for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York, and pleaded guilty in 2022 to attempting to provide ISIS with material support.

Virginia

On Thursday, an American who pleaded guilty in 2016 to similarly attempting to provide material support to ISIS opened fire on ROTC students in a classroom at Virginia's Old Dominion University.

'The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets.'

Before heroic students subdued Mohamed Bailor Jalloh and "rendered him no longer alive," the 36-year-old shooter killed Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, a professor of military science at Old Dominion's Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps.

Dominique Evans, an FBI special agent, said that "prior to him conducting this act of terrorism, he shouted ... or stated 'Allahu akbar.'"

Authorities said that Jalloh admitted in 2016 to carrying out an attack similar to the Fort Hood massacre where Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. citizen whose radicalization to violent Islamist extremism was reportedly clear to his superiors and peers, murdered 12 U.S. service members and one Pentagon civilian employee.

Michigan

Just hours later on March 12, a Lebanese native rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel, a Detroit-area Reform synagogue with a preschool and religious education school on-site. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, the suspect who reportedly killed himself when confronted by security personnel, appears at the very least to have been associated with Islamic terrorists.

Officials have confirmed that Ghazali, who was granted U.S. citizenship in February 2016, lost family members — including two brothers, Qassem and Ibrahim — in the recent Israeli military strikes in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces alleged in a statement on Sunday that Ibrahim Ghazali was a Hezbollah commander "responsible for managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of the Badr Unit. The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets toward Israeli civilians throughout the war."

Hassan Qazwini, the leader of the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, told the New York Times that Ghazali attended a service at his center for the first time earlier this month.

Dearborn appears to have incubated a great many other Islamic radicals over the years.

'There were indicators.'

On Oct. 31, 2025, for instance, the FBI arrested a pair of Dearborn residents, Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, for allegedly planning to carry out a terrorist attack on behalf of ISIS. Ayob Nasser was later arrested and charged in connection with the alleged plot.

The trio — each of whom has been charged with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS as well as with having firearms that would be used to commit an act of terrorism on behalf of the jihadist terrorist organization — allegedly scouted the nearby city of Ferndale for possible targets.

Texas

In the early hours of March 1, a suspect armed with a pistol and a rifle opened fire outside Buford's Backyard Beer Garden in Austin, killing two individuals and wounding 14 others.

The man whom authorities identified as the shooter, 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, shot at patrons outside the bar through the window of an SUV. He then parked the vehicle nearby and opened fire with a rifle on unsuspecting pedestrians.

Police intercepted the gunman, then permanently neutralized the threat.

Photo (center): Austin Police Department; Photo (background): FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

The FBI indicated that "there were indicators ... on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism," and a law enforcement official told CNN that the dead suspect was wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag design on it as well as a hoodie emblazoned with the text, "Property of Allah."

A Quran was reportedly also recovered from Diagne's vehicle.

Diagne entered the U.S. from Senegal on a B-2 tourist visa in March 2000 and was naturalized in April 2013, seven years after his marriage to an American citizen. Over 97% of the Senegalese population identify as Muslim.

There was another incident earlier this month in the Lone Star State that had all of the markings of another potential tragedy.

Kyle Najm Chris, a 39-year-old Iraqi native who also goes by Muhi Mohanan Najm, entered Zwink Elementary School in Spring, Texas, through an unsecured door on March 10, allegedly armed with a holstered firearm and a taser and wearing military attire, reported KHOU-TV.

The Klein Independent School District said in a statement that when confronted by an employee and asked for identification, Chris — who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2022 and reportedly has no affiliation with either the school or the district — allegedly declined to identify himself. Staff contacted the school's armed campus guard, and Chris, barred from entering deeper into the school on account of its "secure vestibule" system, left without incident.

Chris has been arrested and charged with felony possession of a prohibited weapon. He allegedly told authorities that he was a security guard, but court records reviewed by KRIV-TV show that the Iraqi native is currently unemployed and holds neither a security license nor a peace officer certification.

A neighbor told KTRK-TV that Chris is a veteran and suggested that this might be a misunderstanding.

Europe

In recent days, there have been multiple potential Islamist terrorist attacks in other Western nations.

On March 8, an IED was placed outside the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Norway. The blast caused minor damage and resulted in no injuries, reported the BBC.

Three brothers, all Norwegian citizens in their 20s with links to Iraq, were arrested in connection with the attack. Their mother was later arrested on suspicion of involvement with the attack. Frode Larsen, head of the Oslo police investigation unit, said that the bombing — which is being treated as a likely terrorism attack — may have been linked to the conflict unfolding in the Middle East, reported CBS News.

On March 9, an explosion went off outside the main doors of a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liège on March 9. The blast reportedly inflicted only minor damage and resulted in no injuries. Nevertheless, a group calling itself the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right reportedly claimed responsibility for the Liège bombing.

French police reportedly stopped a pair of Moroccan-Italian nationals last week whom they suspect were plotting a "lethal and anti-Semitic" attack. The suspects were found to be in the possession of a semi-automatic weapon, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, and an ISIS flag.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

‘Strike, Strike Tel Aviv’: Mamdani Introduced at Ramadan Celebration by Extremist Who Called on Hamas To Bomb Jewish State

Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D., N.Y.) celebrated Ramadan last week at a Staten Island mosque where he was introduced by an extremist who has called on Hamas to strike Tel Aviv and led a crowd in chants for "intifada."

The post ‘Strike, Strike Tel Aviv’: Mamdani Introduced at Ramadan Celebration by Extremist Who Called on Hamas To Bomb Jewish State appeared first on .