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The SPLC has been federally indicted on six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. And the charges were filed in the Middle District of Alabama. 14-page indictment PDF here.
In brief, the indictment alleges that the SPLC raised money under false pretenses by claiming to fight right-wing extremism, instead funding extremist informants with roughly $3 million dollars of donor money. The informants included members of the KKK and an organizer of the infamous Charlottesville unite the right fiasco. They allegedly did this using illegal means, creating fictitious cutouts and lying to banks to open phony bank accounts to obscure the flow of funds from the SPLC to their informants.
I can't help but feel some schadenfreude here - "no one is above the law" also applies to left-wing NGOs who think they can larp as spies. They even named one of their cutouts Center Investigative Agency... It seems like they flew very close to the sun thinking that their brand and political affiliation would shield them from scrutiny. Project Veritas got a lot more heat for doing a lot less.
From a layman's perspective the indictment seems pretty compelling but I'd be curious to hear what the legal commentators here think. Of course this is only one side of the argument, but those statements to the bank in particular seem quite incriminating. Also, what exactly would be the consequences for the SPLC if the DOJ succeeds on some or all counts?
I am dying. The meme is that the demand for racism vastly outstrips the supply leading to things like the Jussie Smolet situation. The reality is so, so, so much more entertaining. It's pretty well-established that the going rate for bribing American politicians is shockingly low (according to the US Sentencing Commision, median amount is $45k-65k). From the indictment, between 2014 and 2023 the SPLC paid an informant more than a million dollars to steal documents for them. Oh, and also they paid somebody else a measly $6k to be the fall guy for the first informant's theft. Wonder how he's gonna feel knowing he could have held out for so much more?
I believe that the demand for active, violent white racism probably outstrips the supply here in the US. However, I don't see how that applies to the SPLC case. Paying informants money with the hope of getting information is not the same thing as paying them money with the hope that their racism justifies your existence.
Money is fungible, and the difference between the two is a perforated line of intent. If you want information, you need your stool pigeon to stay in the group and keep participating.
That said, the SPLC probably has more money than every group they "track" combined, and nobody really cares that much if they just make shit up or fall for 4chan trolling. It does suggest they're trying to find something real rather than just continue justifying their existence, though I do suspect it's mostly in their heads.
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In the case of the SPLC, they are the same thing. The organization only exists as long as donors can be convinced the big scary evil hate organizations actually exist in any meaningful way. When the SPLC was founded, the KKK was an actual social force that had real political heft in the South. They are now a joke in internet memes. The biggest "racist gathering" in recent memory, Charlottesville's "Unite the Right" appears to be at least partially funded and organized by the SPLC themselves. There are functionally zero active, violent, White race groups in the US, and thats a big problem for the SPLC, because thats their entire raison d'etre. Its not that demand outstrips the supply, its that the supply is entirely fictional.
Would it be fair to say the views of “Unite the Right” people is just the median or center left view of an under 35 voter today? The worst thing they chanted was “The Jews will not replace us” which it feels like the majority of people share that view now.
It was specifically organized to protest the then-planned removal of General Lee's statue. I'm guessing it's maybe fair to go as far to say that current Democrats would prefer to just memory-hole the entire leftist activist wave of vandalism and removal that (mostly) targeted Confederate monuments and lasted many years, coinciding with BLM-adjacent acts of vandalism and arson. In that sense, I think you're correct.
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I guess if by “Jews” you mean Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Mark Zuckerberg then yes.
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