The headline on this article may suprise some, who were under the impression that the Sons of Confederate Veterans always were a group of racist loons. Well, they weren't. Up until about five years ago at least, when a decades-long campaign by right-wingers came to a head...if any of this sequence sounds vaguely familiar, read on.

Short version: since the takeover membership in the SCV has fallen off a cliff. In the last year alone, according to the just-released Intelligence Report Fall '07 from the superb Southern Poverty Law Center, dues-paying membership has fallen from around 30,000 to 18,600. The people I defended all those years, the ones who lived up to the motto "Heritage Not Hate," were derided as "Grannies" by the neofascists one too many times and walked away.

And the guy who orchestrated this takeover, while remaining as far back in the shadows as he could manage,

There is no possible way Nancy Pelosi had any idea who was behind this proposal. However, should someone bring this background to her attention, she might want to find a way to recind this invitation, like, pronto.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has approved a Robert E. Lee birthday celebration on April 7th at Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) Chapter No. 644.

Sounds harmless so far, right? The UDC is a legitimate historical organization, not unlike the Daughters of the American Revolution and similar descendants groups. This particular chapter, however, brings along some unfortunate baggage:

The organization is being joined in the celebration by the Jefferson Davis Camp No. 305 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV). Richard Hines, the commander of the Jefferson Davis Camp No. 305 is the major financial sponsor of Kirk Lyons, the white supremacist lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, according to John Edward Hurley, president of the Confederate Memorial Association.