‘I am valued here’: the extraordinary film that recreates a disabled boy’s rich digital life
Mats Steen had muscular dystrophy and died very young. But a touching new documentary has used animation and his own posts to reveal the fulfilling
‘DEFAMATORY’: Conservative Demands Swing-State Newspaper Retract ‘Hate Group’ Smear
D.A. King, an immigration enforcement activist whose defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center is proceeding in court, sent a legal demand letter to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, requesting a correction when the newspaper called his organization an “anti-immigration hate group .”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , the paper of record in and around Georgia’s capital city, mentioned King’s group, the Dustin Inman Society, as an aside in an Oct. 7 article about Katy Stamper, who won the Democratic primary in Georgia’s 11th Congressional District. Democrats now support a write-in candidate, claiming Stamper won the primary on false pretenses.
“A search of activity under her birth name, Karen Sacandy, which Stamper legally changed in 2019, showed that she previously was aligned with a Marietta-based anti-immigration hate group,” The Journal- Constitution’s Washington correspondent, Tia Mitchell, wrote. Mitchell went on to include links to the Dustin Inman Society’s website, without mentioning the society or explaining why the paper characterized it as an “anti-immigration hate group.”
The Dustin Inman Society, which advocates enforcing immigration law and combats illegal immigration , has three legal immigrants on its board of directors: Mary Grabar (from Slovenia); Maria Litland (from Austria); and Sabine Durden-Coulter (from Germany). The society takes its name from a 16-year-old Georgia boy killed in a 2000 car crash caused by an illegal immigrant.
“This smear is an ongoing and retaliatory habit for the staff at the AJC,” King told The Daily Signal in a written statement Friday. “They know it’s false and have had to run corrections many times over the years telling readers that we are aimed at illegal immigration and are not somehow ‘anti-immigration.’”
Where Did AJC Get the Idea?
King is already fighting to restore his reputation in court after one left-leaning organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center , branded the Dustin Inman Society a “hate group.”
The SPLC, which routinely brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and puts them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, branded the society an “anti-immigrant hate group” in 2018. Yet back in 2011, the SPLC told The Associated Press that it didn’t consider the society a “hate group.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which advocates lessening immigration restrictions, registered a lobbyist to oppose a bill the society supported. The SPLC marked the society as a “hate group” around the same time.
King sued the SPLC for defamation , and a federal judge allowed the lawsuit to move to the discovery process.
As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center ,” a terrorist used the organization’s “hate map” to attack a conservative Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C., in 2012, and a former SPLC staffer called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.” Many defamation lawsuits against the SPLC have failed, however, in part because few plaintiffs before King could prove that the organization had reason to suspect the “hate group” label was false.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution didn’t cite the SPLC in its attack on the Dustin Inman Society, and it didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this story.
In Competition With the SPLC?
King told The Daily Signal that the newspaper is echoing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s attack but setting itself up as a separate arbiter of “hate.”
“Since we began our battle against illegal immigration here in 2005, the AJC has migrated from merely being biased, liberal and agenda-driven to blooming into apparent competition with the despicable SPLC,” he said. “They have now apparently taken it upon themselves to bypass the leftist establishment smear artists and classify pro-enforcement political opponents who talk back as operating an ‘anti-immigration hate group’ themselves—including those who are immigrants.”
King said the newspaper was engaging in a double standard: condemning his organization as a “hate group” while celebrating those on the left who advocate amnesty for illegal aliens . He cited the Georgia Association of Elected Officials, which goes by the acronym GALEO and describes itself as focusing “on increasing civic participation of the Latinx community and developing prominent Latino leaders throughout Georgia.”
“In the meantime,” King said of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “they label anti-enforcement, far-left groups such as the notorious GALEO that publicly protest against immigration enforcement as “civil rights groups.”
King also noted that the AJC paid to sponsor the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund gala in 2004. Mario Obledo, MALDEF’s co-founder, had suggested that non-Hispanic, white California residents should move “back to Europe.”
When then-President Bill Clinton gave Obledo the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, a man in the audience asked, “You also made the statement that California is going to become a Hispanic state and if anyone doesn’t like it they should leave. Did you say that?”
“I did,” Obledo replied . “They ought to go back to Europe.”
“The AJC has openly promoted open borders and helped this far-left, anti-borders group with fundraising,” King told The Daily Signal. “Just because MALDEF founder Mario Obledo called for Americans who didn’t agree with his plan for California and saying those who didn’t ‘ought to go back to Europe’ didn’t stop AJC from serving as ‘dinner chair’ for a MALDEF funder gala here.”
“There once was a time when I could get a pro-enforcement guest column on their opinion page,” he lamented of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The Letter
Todd McMurtry, the defamation lawyer who represents King, sent the demand letter to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week.
“Through use of internet links, the AJC article wrongfully characterizes the Dustin Inman Society as a ‘Marietta-based anti-immigration hate group,’” McMurtry wrote. “This characterization is false, defamatory, and published with actual malice.”
“The Dustin Inman Society pushes for secure borders, is not ‘anti-immigration’ and its proprietors do not hate anyone,” McMurtry added in the letter. “Rather, DIS advocates for enforcement of U.S. immigration laws and actively opposes unlawful immigration. This distinction is crucial and well-known to staff at your publication.”
McMurtry laid out the society’s position on immigration, saying “it supports sustainable levels of legal immigration through established channels;” it “opposes unlawful immigration due to various societal concerns;” and it “defends legal immigrants when media attempt to blur the difference between them and illegal aliens.” He also noted that legal immigrants serve on the society’s board.
McMurtry demanded that the newspaper immediately retract the “defaming statement,” publish “a prominent apology,” and “cease and desist from further defamatory characterizations of the Dustin Inman Society.”
The letter warned that “failure to comply with these demands may result in further legal action.”
The post ‘DEFAMATORY’: Conservative Demands Swing-State Newspaper Retract ‘Hate Group’ Smear appeared first on The Daily Signal .
Documentary Exposes Real-Life Consequences of ‘Rogue Prosecutors’
A first-of-its-kind documentary for The Heritage Foundation is the culmination of years of work, scholarship, live events, and debates, highlighting the radical nature of the George Soros -inspired rogue prosecutors movement—and the dire consequences to the safety and security of the residents and businesses in the communities overseen by so-called progressive prosecutors.
Told through the eyes of real prosecutors, real victims, and the radicals themselves who support this pro-criminal, anti-victim movement, “Rogue Prosecutors: The Full Story” paints a vivid portrait of how and why crime has risen in cities presided over by rogue prosecutors—and what you can do about it.
We coined the term “rogue prosecutors” in 2020 when we first exposed this toxic and dangerous social experiment. We started with a Daily Signal blog series on individual rogue prosecutors, among them George Gascon in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Kim Foxx in Chicago and others.
We published research papers on how they sabotage the rule of law , implement policies that lead to rising crime rates, and ignore victims. We exposed the fact that there is a blue city murder problem . We published our book, “Rogue Prosecutors : How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities,” and created an audio version of it on Audible.
A critic of George Soros shares his opinion of the left-wing activist billionaire in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 22, 2020. (John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
We debunked the notion that the United States incarcerates “too many” people in our paper “The Myth of Mass Incarceration ” by pointing out that most criminals, especially violent criminals, never get caught, much less spend any time in jail or prison.
Over the years, we hosted numerous events, including an event featuring U.S. attorneys who served in cities with rogue prosecutors; an event in Los Angeles featuring women whose children were slain and how Los Angeles D.A. Gascon’s policies helped the criminals and not them; an event at the University of California at Berkeley Law School with former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, where we debated and exposed radicals who advocated for abolishing all prisons and defunding the police; and created a video series in San Francisco and Oakland, California, called “Societal Rot ,” where we showed the consequences of rampant drug use and the soft-on-crime policies of Boudin—who was voted out of office because of it—and Oakland District Attorney Pamela Price.
We produced a mini-movie called “An Avoidable Tragedy ,” featuring the murder of Wicomico County Deputy Sheriff Glenn Hilliard by a career criminal who then-Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby refused to hold accountable for his repeated parole violations after his armed robbery conviction.
The new documentary stitches together the full story of the rogue prosecutor movement and features crime policy experts Heather MacDonald and Rafael Mangual, elected district attorneys, and victims of crime.
There are approximately 2,300 elected district attorneys across this great country. Who your district attorney is directly affects public safety, which is the bedrock of a civil society.
We hope this documentary opens the public’s eyes to what’s at stake and the real-life consequences of the rogue prosecutor movement.
The post Documentary Exposes Real-Life Consequences of ‘Rogue Prosecutors’ appeared first on The Daily Signal .
‘This Is What Makes Us Fearful’: Migrant Caravan Hoofs It Toward Southern Border as Election Day Nears
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day , the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.
A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October.
Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.
“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”
The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry, and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole.
More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.
Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP.
While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.
“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”
Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump , for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
The post ‘This Is What Makes Us Fearful’: Migrant Caravan Hoofs It Toward Southern Border as Election Day Nears appeared first on The Daily Signal .