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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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I think it's useful to note before getting into any particular details that the Trump admin's record of even securing a grand jury in prosecutions against groups and people they don't like has been extremely poor, yet alone ever getting to a conviction. Whether it be frivolous defamation lawsuits or nakedly politically motivated investigations against someone like Jerome Powell, they keep losing when forced to find or put actual evidence in front of judges and juries. One reason as stated by a top Bondi aide is that finding competent lawyers who are also willing to play MAGA politics over their career prosecution success rates has been quite difficult. Not many want to walk away in 2028 with tons of failed indictments that couldn't even get past a grand jury attached to their name.

Not that it necessarily matters, as FIRE points out

But sometimes, the lawsuit is the punishment. SLAPP suits are weaponized by the wealthy and well-connected to punish speakers with costly litigation, even if the suit is ultimately thrown out. They’re abuses of America’s legal system, and FIRE fights against these violations of our First Amendment rights.

In the same way, just having the federal government use the legal system to smear your name, out private details, and force you to defend yourself is a victory for lawfare wagers.

But let's get into the details anyway.

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.

This is already questionable. The idea that paying for an informant inside of a group to provide you leaks and information that you report on, and even share with law enforcement if it hints at potential criminal behavior counts as "funding" the movement as a form of support is quite a stretch. I doubt they'll find many major donors who consider this to be a fraudulent use of a really small fraction of their money.

It's also really interesting to see some of the blatant social media shills flip from "unite the right was peaceful" (which it was) to "unite the right was a dangerous rally caused by the SPLC!' just because of a single guy unrelated to the informant organizer driving into a crowd. Just peak partisan brain on display.

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.

Now that might actually have some teeth to it, assuming of course that this is actually correct considering ya know, the Trump admin repeatedly failing over and over when having to actually provide evidence for their claims in court against political opponents. But assuming this one is true and they did lie to the banks themselves, then it does seem criminal.

Your argument proves too much: the Trump administration also had difficulty securing a grand jury in cases where they had video evidence of the crime.

Grand juries have long been considered incredibly easy to get past, to the point a common joke is that you could even manage it with a ham sandwich. Given that nothing about the system has changed (they're still just made up of ordinary citizens through the jury selection process), the constant failings to convince ordinary people of crime seems to suggest a selection bias. Normal smart prosecutors would never try to indict a ham sandwich anyway so the grand juries never turn them down, similar to how Japan maintains their high conviction rates.

Given that nothing about the system has changed (they're still just made up of ordinary citizens through the jury selection process)

Several of the failures to indict have been -- and been clearly downstream -- of jury pools where a heavy and radicalized Blue Tribe lean is present.

Even the most partisan states are still generally around 60/40 like California and that's not including the rising number of independent aligned voters and nonvoters who are not "radicalized blue tribe". And a grand jury just needs a simple majority, it's famously easy to get past.

Now sure, maybe Trump is just so uniquely unpopular among the normies and independents now that even they are willing to sabotage their indictments against political opponents but I'm not sure the average American is that spiteful.

generally around 60/40 like California

needs a simple majority,

Do you not know, or not care, how fractions work?

Because I don't think you know, or care, about how jury trials work:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district [emphasis added] wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

And I also notice that you haven't actually engaged with the point (or examples!) of clear video evidence of criminal behavior being no-billed by Dem-leaning grand juries, juries, and magistrates.

It's a little funny watching people accuse you of letting LLMs do your thinking, because if I wanted a Darwin clone, I could do better with 3B param and a couple hours with an nVidia 3060. But mostly because it's just sad.

generally around 60/40 like California

needs a simple majority,

Do you not know, or not care, how fractions work?

Yes, I also understand that not everyone is partisan or political to begin with. Only about 60% of eligible voters turned out in California so even from the very start we have 40% of the population who is not particularly political. Then the remaining 60% of people are also split roughly 60/40 themselves, leaving only about 36% of the population who is Dem leaning. And that again is just leaning, they aren't all hyperpartisan. Some are swing voters, some are people who just vote what their spouse says, some just show up and pick randomly.

The large majority of randomly selected people in a grand jury, even in California, will not be that politically biased against the Trump admin. They're normies like the normies in basically every state. If you're losing them you either have a bad case, or you're despised among even the most apolitical normies.

And I also notice that you haven't actually engaged with the point (or examples!) of clear video evidence of criminal behavior being no-billed by Dem-leaning grand juries, juries, and magistrates.

Or perhaps you misunderstand the specifics of the law, the actual quality of evidence allowed in court (good evidence can get tossed because it was collected illegally or other procedural reasons) wasn't as strong, or plenty of other potential factors like that.

Considering you seemingly don't even know basic concepts like voter turnout not being 100% in the US, ignorance in the American legal field seems likely.

Only about 60% of eligible voters turned out in California so even from the very start we have 40% of the population who is not particularly political.

California, specifically, favors volunteer applications for grand juries. This selects directly for civic engagement, but if you think it's a random selection of political engagement, drop that estimate from 3B param to something that runs on a Raspberry Pi.

For Napa County, as the first example to come up on Google, the first random draw I could find was from 2016-2017, and that was still a tiny fraction. If we brought 2024's 65% Harris-voting Napa population and multiply it by the 17/19 that volunteered -- assuming without evidence that the 2 volunteers were just too apolitical to find an excuse -- you still get 58%. I'll leave the math for some place like San Francisco County as an exercise for the reader.

Or perhaps you misunderstand the specifics of the law, the actual quality of evidence allowed in court (good evidence can get tossed because it was collected illegally or other procedural reasons) wasn't as strong, or plenty of other potential factors like that.

Which you will magnanimously avoid beating like a pinata, because you'd rather use the worst possible arguments instead. Just like you'll ignore the district matter.

California, specifically, favors volunteer applications for grand juries. This selects directly for civic engagement, but if you think it's a random selection of political engagement, drop that estimate from 3B param to something that runs on a Raspberry Pi.

Nope, not true. Civil grand juries are voluntary (and not really juries in the typical sense, they're more like government watchdogs].

Criminal grand juries are random like normal petit juries

All persons selected for the criminal grand jury shall be selected at random and shall be reasonably representative of a cross section of the population that is eligible for jury service in the county. For this reason, there is no mileage limitation for the criminal grand jury and no excuse will be granted because of the distance from the courthouse or inconvenience to the juror.

Please refer back to my prior statement that you do not understand the legal process. This is what happens when the base of your knowledge is going "oh shit, let me Google that" and you should be wondering that maybe you're applying this same ignorance to other parts of these cases.

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