title:  Trump Campaign Manager And CEO Outed As Members Of A Secret Far-Right Extremist Group
text: The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on Wednesday, outing both of the newest additions to the Trump campaign as members of a secretive far-right extremist group made up of the most powerful conservatives and white supremacists in the United States.In what was described as a  shakeup,  Trump hired conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway and Breitbart bigwig Stephen Bannon as his campaign s CEO (Whatever the hell that is, since presidential campaigns don t have CEO s.)According to the SLPC s report, Conway and Bannon are members of the Council for National Policy (CNP). This right-wing group is known for its secrecy and is comprised of some of the country s most powerful conservatives. The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as  the most powerful conservatives in the country,  reads the SPLC report. In addition, it is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The membership rolls also boast some of the most notorious white supremacists in the country as well. The CNP is not controversial so much for the conservatives who dominate it   activists of the religious right and the so-called  culture wars,  along with a smattering of wealthy financiers, Congressional operatives, right-wing consultants and Tea Party operatives   as for the many real extremists who are included. The report states that the CNP s members include  Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama  birther  and the propagandist hit man responsible for the  Swift boating  of John Kerry; Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist  news  operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a large number of other similar characters. Earlier this year, the SPLC got their hands on the CNP membership directory for 2014. This document showed that Bannon had been a regular member and Conway had served as a member of the group s executive committee. It is unknown what their current standing with the group is today.When the SPLC first published the original article on the CNP several months ago, they pointed out that it is very much within their rights to operate in secret. However, this means that the group  also provides an important venue in which relatively mainstream conservatives meet and very possibly are influenced by real extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law. The SPLC concluded that it is  not known how their contacts within the CNP may have affected Conway and Bannon.  But they reiterated what they wrote in May: At a time of extreme political polarization in our society, in the middle of an ugly presidential contest which has featured an almost unsurpassed record of ethnic, racial and sexual insults and lies, Americans deserve to know who their ostensible leaders are mixing with as we collectively decide our country s future. That is as true of campaign leaders as it is of political candidates,  the SPLC added.Trump has been trying to distance himself from the alt-right, the modern term for white supremacists, especially after Hillary Clinton gave a blistering speech calling out his ties with the fringe element. Bannon s connection to Breitbart has drawn scrutiny, as the blogspot is known for its racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic content. But from the looks of it, Trump and his campaign are sitting right in the laps of these right-wing extremists. Conway and Bannon s involvement with the CNP just made that abundantly clear.Featured image via Rawstory  and Liberal America