More On Daryl Metcalfe's FAIR Friends

The OPJ's on the story of State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry and his immigration legislation.

I do want to point to something she linked to yesterday. It's about FAIR and their "legal wing" the "Immigration Law Reform Institute."

As a faithful sifter of the Tribune-Review op-ed page I was not surprised to see that Metcalfe's legislation and it's connection to FAIR has warranted a mention by Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust:

State taxpayers of all political persuasions no doubt would like to stop spending what the Federation for American Immigration Reform pegs at $728 million annually to educate, incarcerate and provide medical care for an estimated 144,000 illegals.

We've written about FAIR before but given that it's legal wing worked hand in hand with Metcalfe to write this legislation another look is probably necessary.

By my count, Richard Mellon Scaife funneled close to a million dollars to FAIR between 2006 and 2008. That that information remains unmentioned in his paper's coverage of Metcalfe's nativist legislation is bad enough. But I want to focus on the charge the SPLC raised that FAIR is a hate group and FAIR's response to it.

Back to McCall's:

"If I told you that the Southern Poverty Law Center was a hate group, would you print that?" [FAIR's President Dan] Stein asked, not entirely rhetorically. "I'm proud of the broad, bipartisan support that our group has. I don't believe or take seriously a lot of what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say."

Of the SPLC, he continued, "They smear everyone on this side of the issue. I'm happy to sit down with [SPLC founder] Morris Dees. I'm happy to talk with people who disagree with us."

When we asked about the specific allegation about ties to white supremacists, Stein did not directly answer.

And it's telling what sort of response this got from the SPLC:

"It is remarkable how the man never addresses the criticism, only the critic," [SPLC's Mark] Potok said. "He can't deal with the truth."

Which is really all you need to know about FAIR's white supremacists.