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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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But either way, how exactly would that change anything? My objection, and the DOJ's, is that the SPLC was telling donors that it opposed a white nationalist rally, while in reality they were secretly promoting and helping to facilitate that rally. That the SPLC was not solely responsible for the rally does not mean they didn't spend money they promised would oppose the rally to instead secretly promote and facilitate the rally. Can you explain otherwise? What am I missing?

Refer back to how informants are used elsewhere like the DEA. Federal officials paying a drug informant to give them information on drug deals is not interpreted as them "secretly promoting and helping to facilitate" taking drugs. Heck, even if the DEA helps an informant or cop stay undercover by providing drugs, we know contextually that this is not a pro drug action.

While law enforcement using a technique may be a testament to that technique's effectiveness, it does not follow from that statement that the SPLC should do the same. The SPLC is not a law enforcement agency, and there are a lot of things inherent to law enforcement agencies which are not inherent to the SPLC.

You can disagree with them as to whether or not the strategy is effective here, but "I don't think their idea works as well as they hope" isn't the same as fraud.

This is not a quote in support of CI programs.

Again, whether or not it's actually effective is a different question. It's not fraudulent to do a dumb idea that you genuinely think could work. If Tom accepts money on Kickstarter to make a new indie movie sequel, tries out a new editing technique for it and it turns out the sequel sucks because of that, Tom didn't commit fraud. Backers can be upset that the movie sucked but unless it was caused by purposefully wasting the money for something else then there's nothing illegal there.