"one of the most cynical, toxic, and morally bankrupt pieces of sustained political theatre I’ve ever come across." Indeed. When I first read this, I couldn't believe it! I thought I'd seen it all. If there had been any doubt left, it is now clear that all these "progressive" values we'd been hit over the head with for years are no more than cynical theater. Something needs to change in the way the media portrays progressivism. I doubt any of the mainstream channels will talk about this. If this is the case, the Left has now taken the place of the Far Right.
They have pretty much cured most forms of Cystic Fibrosis within the last decade. And the weight-loss peptides are also revolutionary with the potential to improve hundreds of millions of lives. The pharmaceutical industry gets an overly bad rap, in my view.
I mean, they work by suppressing appetite so that is to be expected. But the weight lost while on them doesn't just magically reappear. If you revert to a calorie surplus of course you will regain weight. They're still impressive drugs.
Some years' ago at my husband's boarding school 50th class reunion, listening to schoolmates speak of their ups and downs thru the years, one fellow whose marital woes were well-known, described recognizing that the marriage "counselor" he was seeing had zero interest in discovering what needed fixing in his marriage!
Your post omits that the money was used to pay informants inside violent extremist groups. You make it sound like it is an open and shut case that the SPLC was directly and intentionally funding the operations of these groups. Perhaps the intention of the group was the manufacture hate to feed its own existence. Perhaps it was actually to get insider information about insidious actions of domestic terrorist organizations and hate groups. But you sort of ignore the complexity of the situation to put forth a thesis in an uncomplicated manner.
Some of these were leaders, and the leader of an organization really can't be an informant, since the whole point of an informant is to return information that yields a bigger fish.
Also, there are many things the FBI can do that would be illegal for anyone else. The FBI can (and does) promote and fund phony terrorist networks with the express goal of roping in some real terrorist wannabees. This is legal (although does risk an entrapment defense) and common. But try that as a private citizen and see what happens. If the indictment is true, that's exactly what SPLC was doing.
Now that's a weird question... how does one declare income from being a law enforcement snitch? Does the FBI send you a 1099? Or is it W-2? :-)
I'm joking, but it actually is an interesting question. According to ChatGPT it's lumped on Other Income on Sch 1 unless it's consistent, in which case you're in the "business" of being a snitch and it's on Sch C. The downside is then you have to pay self-employment tax.
If you do go the latter route though, you can likely deduct the gas masks, black-bloc clothing, masks, posterboard for signs, anarchist and confederate flags, red spray paint (for nazi and commie logos), and perhaps even the pipes you use for bashing your enemies heads in.
I have not seen exact numbers, but the amount of money alleged to have been transferred go beyond informant expenses, they include event expenses. Also, some of the informants are alleged to be leaders in their organizations. If the allegations pan out then the informant excuses are dead.
It would be amusing if members of the SPLC were convicted for failure to pay income taxes, just as Al Capone was. Illegal income is subject to federal tax. U.S. v Sullivan, 274 US 259 (1927).
Totally possible that this will end up revealing horrible rot inside the SPLC and they will be exposed as active funders of some of the worst organizations in America. But we don't know anything conclusive yet. My initial point was less about defending or denouncing the SPLC and more about how Mary's original post on the topic felt more the a Gateway Pundit or Breitbart article that selectively omitted basic and crucial information about the situation in order to drive home a point.
I don’t think that lack of conclusiveness (which awaits a verdict or a plea deal) constitutes the omission of basic and crucial information. Also, “selectively” is a serious charge, would you care to substantiate it?
What was? Mary’s only omission, as far as I can see, is not explicitly quoting the SPLC defense. I can tell you that an informant defense re payments of over $1,000,000 to the National Alliance is not going to hold up in court, so I don’t see where Mary’s omission is of any real significance. In fact, looking over this indictment makes me conclude that the outcome will be a plea bargain.
The omission is not mentioning anything about paid informants. They could even be called "suspiciously overcompensated paid informants", but I stand by my position that the omission itself is strange.
Sorry, Zach, your attempt to use "complexity" as a screen for the nefarious activity of the SPLC fails.. whatever may have been their presumed "intentions," the money they provided fueled the groups they professed to oppose, that's a fact, don't try to hide it under a "we were just looking for info" cover. Whatever the original purpose of the SPLC, it has long since evolved (like pretty much every organization) into an organization whose primary mission is its own survival. And that required creating/fostering "white supremacist" groups that it could then fund raise off of. Despicable.
Not a screen. Giving some dirtbag a million bucks is surely terrible and I'm hard pressed to imagine how it could be justified.
With that said, we are still a long way from being able to conclude that the SPLC was intentionally injecting the KKK with cash to inflate an enemy that could juice fundraising. Certainly looks like that might be possible, though. I don't know. Maybe some informants were basically legit and reasonably compensated and the seven figure informant was blackmailing the SPLC, threatening to expose that they were sending money to members of the KKK. Maybe an SPLC board member was boning a Grand Wizard. I don't know, you don't know, doesn't yet mean any of this scandal is proof of the SPLC's "Racism Industrial Complex". I'm going to have to wait to find out, even if you don't. I almost envy your certainty.
A thoughtful reply, Zach, and I, of course, await a trial before being too certain about any of this. That said, the SPLC has been doing sketchy things for years, mainly attacking anyone right of center as being a "white supremacist" (Charlie Kirk, for example)... And against a backdrop of years of racial hoxes designed to make you think the country is more racist than it actually is (Jussie Smollett, Bubba Wallace/noosegate, etc). Bull Connor was the perfect racist foil sixty years ago, and the Left has been trying to re-create him ever since. And as I said in my previous post, that's despicable.
Law Enforcement Agencies use informants to get the skinny on organized crime and such, but it’s kind of a weird thing for a 501(c)(3) to do. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if not all the counts result in convictions, the money laundering seems pretty solid.
Dream on? The omission is either intentional or lazy. It's one of the most very basic details of the story but most of the choir doesn't mind being preached to because the SPLC are woke creeps and the emerging scandal reinforces most readers' worldview. Perhaps Mary has fallen victim to audience capture.
1) Law enforcement can legally pay informants. Private institutions can’t.
2) If they were actually paying informants, where is the evidence of the good that justifies that? Where are all the arrests that LEAs were able to make based on intel from SPLC informant evidence?
3) Regardless of informant status, the SPLC committed outright fraud over and over, lying on bank applications about non-existent businesses. Then it committed wire fraud over and over by making payments from those bank accounts.
Even if the payments actually did go to informants, which is a big if, it’s still wildly illegal. Mary's coverage aligns with that, even if it lacks the word "informant".
I think the SPLC is a biased and vindictive organization. But Kash Patel is also about as complete a moron as I have seen in public life, and I’m skeptical that he and his team have really done the work. I suspect that when the evidence actually lands in a courtroom, it will turn out to be, well, not as lurid as advertised.
The evidence has already been seen in a courtroom, by a grand jury, remember? Yes, the standard of proof is lower, probable cause rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. And yes, grand juries have a long history of lack of proper judicial oversight (a major pet peeve of mine). But if a Federal magistrate supervised this grand jury then I would conclude there is no doubt to preclude a petite jury trial.
I am willing to defer to your US legal experience, of course. I am just mindful of that old saw (though I don’t know the degree to which it is true) that a grand jury would “indict a ham sandwich.” The FBI announcement says the SPLC was paying the leadership of these unsavory organizations; the SPLC says the payments were to informants. Both the allegations and the defense smell funny to me, which is why I’m inclined to wait and see.
Yes, my pet peeve definitely involves ham sandwiches.
I do think that the low dollar payment allegations would not stand at trial, but the more I look at this the more I conclude it will never see trial. I am convinced the SPLC will plea bargain to save whatever they can save.
Hopefully, Wikipedia will amend all of those article smearing perfectly moderate conservative organizations and people as extremists based upon SPLC mischaracterizations.
Let's say they can get a conviction and end up breaking up the organization. The leaders of the SPLC will be rewarded as martyrs: visiting professor appointments, new Left-wing board org seats, book deals, CNN commentator slots, pardons from whatever Dem wins in 2028, and money of course... lots of money.
It's still worth doing. But the Left never punishes their own. Especially those who have been such good soldiers for as many decades as the SPLC.
After a little research it seems possible the SPLC funded *paid informants*, which is quite different from how it is characterized in Patel’s statement. Don’t get me wrong, I have realized I’ve been betrayed by SPLC and other progressive groups for several years now, but it will be important to be accurate in the assessment of what happened.
Well, DOJ lawyers certainly double checked the FBI evidence. My one concern is the grand jury. Was it supervised by a magistrate? If so then there was another gatekeeper in this case. If not then there is more potential for errors. We will see.
1) Law enforcement can legally pay informants. Private institutions can’t.
2) If they were actually paying informants, where is the evidence of the good that justifies that? Where are all the arrests that LEAs were able to make based on intel from SPLC informant evidence?
3) Regardless of informant status, the SPLC committed outright fraud over and over, lying on bank applications about non-existent businesses. Then it committed wire fraud over and over by making payments from those bank accounts.
Even if the payments actually did go to informants, which is a big if, it’s still wildly illegal and directionally supports the framing in Mary's piece.
Related: Public Health’s Historical Prejudice Against Men and Boys
A paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2011 illustrates how misguided ideology has precluded care for male well-being
“Shorter life expectancy among men in general, if likely avoidable, would clearly be an issue of public health importance based on the magnitude of potential population impact. However, men as a group have more wealth, influence, and prestige, so this difference would not be a social injustice and, therefore, not a health disparity or equity issue.”
That statement was written in a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2011. The title of the paper is “Health Disparities and Health Equity: The Issue Is Justice,” and it has been downloaded over 97,000 times according to the publisher’s website and cited over 1,400 times according to Google Scholar. The lead author of the paper is Paula Braveman, who is currently a professor emeritus at the University of California – San Francisco.
Another example of supply-induced demand. The stank of this phenomenon in health care, as one of the more notable industry examples, leads to excessive waste and fraud.
Many large financial services corporations donate to SPLC. This was especially so during the high watermark of DEI immediately following the George Floyd riots when many, if not most, large corporations flipped and ceased being largely apolitical business focused entities and made promoting cultural Marxism a priority. In doing so, like SPLC, corporate America strayed from its mission. DEI/ESG became the shiny new thing. Maximizing shareholder/investor financial (and in some cases local community) interests not so much. ESG forces Boards of Directors to give heavy (in some cases exclusive) weight on whether or not a Board candidate is a member of a favored race and sexual orientation. Thus this cements the capture by social justice warriors of the Boards of publicly held corporations.
The name "Southern Poverty Law Center" misleadingly conjures up images of goodness, justice and apple pie. On the corporate level, "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" and "Environmental, Social & Governance" are similarly misleading.
Totally unsurprising. I’ve referred to these clowns as “constituents of racism” for well over a decade now. Good to see the new clowns taking time off from their own clownery to expose the old clowns.
"one of the most cynical, toxic, and morally bankrupt pieces of sustained political theatre I’ve ever come across." Indeed. When I first read this, I couldn't believe it! I thought I'd seen it all. If there had been any doubt left, it is now clear that all these "progressive" values we'd been hit over the head with for years are no more than cynical theater. Something needs to change in the way the media portrays progressivism. I doubt any of the mainstream channels will talk about this. If this is the case, the Left has now taken the place of the Far Right.
Which makes Justice Thomas's recent speech on progressivism perfectly timed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0igGDF9-Q)
It is very difficult to get someone to fix something if their income depends on their not fixing it.
You often hear this said of the pharmaceutical industry.
Although they at least do keep curing diseases.
The left-wing racial grift complex never manages to cure racism. Or even put it into remission.
I believe they've mostly moved on from curing to managing deseases.
They have pretty much cured most forms of Cystic Fibrosis within the last decade. And the weight-loss peptides are also revolutionary with the potential to improve hundreds of millions of lives. The pharmaceutical industry gets an overly bad rap, in my view.
I don't know what's going on with Cystic Fibrosis, but the weight loss peptides stop working if one stops taking them.
I mean, they work by suppressing appetite so that is to be expected. But the weight lost while on them doesn't just magically reappear. If you revert to a calorie surplus of course you will regain weight. They're still impressive drugs.
Some years' ago at my husband's boarding school 50th class reunion, listening to schoolmates speak of their ups and downs thru the years, one fellow whose marital woes were well-known, described recognizing that the marriage "counselor" he was seeing had zero interest in discovering what needed fixing in his marriage!
Exactly!
Your post omits that the money was used to pay informants inside violent extremist groups. You make it sound like it is an open and shut case that the SPLC was directly and intentionally funding the operations of these groups. Perhaps the intention of the group was the manufacture hate to feed its own existence. Perhaps it was actually to get insider information about insidious actions of domestic terrorist organizations and hate groups. But you sort of ignore the complexity of the situation to put forth a thesis in an uncomplicated manner.
Some of these were leaders, and the leader of an organization really can't be an informant, since the whole point of an informant is to return information that yields a bigger fish.
Also, there are many things the FBI can do that would be illegal for anyone else. The FBI can (and does) promote and fund phony terrorist networks with the express goal of roping in some real terrorist wannabees. This is legal (although does risk an entrapment defense) and common. But try that as a private citizen and see what happens. If the indictment is true, that's exactly what SPLC was doing.
I suspect that some of the SPLC informants are now FBI informants.
I also suspect that many if not all of the informers will be found to have failed to declared their income to the IRS
Now that's a weird question... how does one declare income from being a law enforcement snitch? Does the FBI send you a 1099? Or is it W-2? :-)
I'm joking, but it actually is an interesting question. According to ChatGPT it's lumped on Other Income on Sch 1 unless it's consistent, in which case you're in the "business" of being a snitch and it's on Sch C. The downside is then you have to pay self-employment tax.
If you do go the latter route though, you can likely deduct the gas masks, black-bloc clothing, masks, posterboard for signs, anarchist and confederate flags, red spray paint (for nazi and commie logos), and perhaps even the pipes you use for bashing your enemies heads in.
It seems like Sch C is the way to go.
Right. I am near certain that the FBI has told their informants what to do. I will bet the SPLC never did. Most are likely open to prosecution.
PS I knew a guy who ran covert ops for the CIA. He was a stickler for doing these things by the book.
I have not seen exact numbers, but the amount of money alleged to have been transferred go beyond informant expenses, they include event expenses. Also, some of the informants are alleged to be leaders in their organizations. If the allegations pan out then the informant excuses are dead.
It would be amusing if members of the SPLC were convicted for failure to pay income taxes, just as Al Capone was. Illegal income is subject to federal tax. U.S. v Sullivan, 274 US 259 (1927).
Precisely
Totally possible that this will end up revealing horrible rot inside the SPLC and they will be exposed as active funders of some of the worst organizations in America. But we don't know anything conclusive yet. My initial point was less about defending or denouncing the SPLC and more about how Mary's original post on the topic felt more the a Gateway Pundit or Breitbart article that selectively omitted basic and crucial information about the situation in order to drive home a point.
I don’t think that lack of conclusiveness (which awaits a verdict or a plea deal) constitutes the omission of basic and crucial information. Also, “selectively” is a serious charge, would you care to substantiate it?
Do I need to substantiate it? It's right there in her post, err, I mean it isn't right there in her post.
What was? Mary’s only omission, as far as I can see, is not explicitly quoting the SPLC defense. I can tell you that an informant defense re payments of over $1,000,000 to the National Alliance is not going to hold up in court, so I don’t see where Mary’s omission is of any real significance. In fact, looking over this indictment makes me conclude that the outcome will be a plea bargain.
The omission is not mentioning anything about paid informants. They could even be called "suspiciously overcompensated paid informants", but I stand by my position that the omission itself is strange.
Sorry, Zach, your attempt to use "complexity" as a screen for the nefarious activity of the SPLC fails.. whatever may have been their presumed "intentions," the money they provided fueled the groups they professed to oppose, that's a fact, don't try to hide it under a "we were just looking for info" cover. Whatever the original purpose of the SPLC, it has long since evolved (like pretty much every organization) into an organization whose primary mission is its own survival. And that required creating/fostering "white supremacist" groups that it could then fund raise off of. Despicable.
Not a screen. Giving some dirtbag a million bucks is surely terrible and I'm hard pressed to imagine how it could be justified.
With that said, we are still a long way from being able to conclude that the SPLC was intentionally injecting the KKK with cash to inflate an enemy that could juice fundraising. Certainly looks like that might be possible, though. I don't know. Maybe some informants were basically legit and reasonably compensated and the seven figure informant was blackmailing the SPLC, threatening to expose that they were sending money to members of the KKK. Maybe an SPLC board member was boning a Grand Wizard. I don't know, you don't know, doesn't yet mean any of this scandal is proof of the SPLC's "Racism Industrial Complex". I'm going to have to wait to find out, even if you don't. I almost envy your certainty.
A thoughtful reply, Zach, and I, of course, await a trial before being too certain about any of this. That said, the SPLC has been doing sketchy things for years, mainly attacking anyone right of center as being a "white supremacist" (Charlie Kirk, for example)... And against a backdrop of years of racial hoxes designed to make you think the country is more racist than it actually is (Jussie Smollett, Bubba Wallace/noosegate, etc). Bull Connor was the perfect racist foil sixty years ago, and the Left has been trying to re-create him ever since. And as I said in my previous post, that's despicable.
Law Enforcement Agencies use informants to get the skinny on organized crime and such, but it’s kind of a weird thing for a 501(c)(3) to do. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if not all the counts result in convictions, the money laundering seems pretty solid.
Bless your heart
Your comment puts the southern in Southern Poverty Law Center
Dream on.
Dream on? The omission is either intentional or lazy. It's one of the most very basic details of the story but most of the choir doesn't mind being preached to because the SPLC are woke creeps and the emerging scandal reinforces most readers' worldview. Perhaps Mary has fallen victim to audience capture.
It just seems really bizarre coming from a writer who typically displays very nuanced and multi-layered thought.
Yes, I just read another article about this. Her piece is, at the least, incomplete.
1) Law enforcement can legally pay informants. Private institutions can’t.
2) If they were actually paying informants, where is the evidence of the good that justifies that? Where are all the arrests that LEAs were able to make based on intel from SPLC informant evidence?
3) Regardless of informant status, the SPLC committed outright fraud over and over, lying on bank applications about non-existent businesses. Then it committed wire fraud over and over by making payments from those bank accounts.
Even if the payments actually did go to informants, which is a big if, it’s still wildly illegal. Mary's coverage aligns with that, even if it lacks the word "informant".
Paying "informants" is a common way to engage in this kind of corrupt money laundering.
Uh huh. Read the indictment https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1437146/dl
Okay, I read it.
Ok, here are exact numbers. Items 5&6 seem reasonable to me and will likely be rejected at trial. The others are not, especially the top two or three.
<trying to add graphic, darn Substack>
I heard there has been some shady funding of Ockhamists. Is that you?
No <hides roll of used fivers behind back> that was Richard Weaver
Let’s wait to see the evidence, yeah?
I think the SPLC is a biased and vindictive organization. But Kash Patel is also about as complete a moron as I have seen in public life, and I’m skeptical that he and his team have really done the work. I suspect that when the evidence actually lands in a courtroom, it will turn out to be, well, not as lurid as advertised.
The evidence has already been seen in a courtroom, by a grand jury, remember? Yes, the standard of proof is lower, probable cause rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. And yes, grand juries have a long history of lack of proper judicial oversight (a major pet peeve of mine). But if a Federal magistrate supervised this grand jury then I would conclude there is no doubt to preclude a petite jury trial.
I am willing to defer to your US legal experience, of course. I am just mindful of that old saw (though I don’t know the degree to which it is true) that a grand jury would “indict a ham sandwich.” The FBI announcement says the SPLC was paying the leadership of these unsavory organizations; the SPLC says the payments were to informants. Both the allegations and the defense smell funny to me, which is why I’m inclined to wait and see.
Yes, my pet peeve definitely involves ham sandwiches.
I do think that the low dollar payment allegations would not stand at trial, but the more I look at this the more I conclude it will never see trial. I am convinced the SPLC will plea bargain to save whatever they can save.
There is way more evidence than the SPLC typically provides for its accusations.
I am shocked, shocked to find narrative manufacturing going on in here!
Hopefully, Wikipedia will amend all of those article smearing perfectly moderate conservative organizations and people as extremists based upon SPLC mischaracterizations.
Let's say they can get a conviction and end up breaking up the organization. The leaders of the SPLC will be rewarded as martyrs: visiting professor appointments, new Left-wing board org seats, book deals, CNN commentator slots, pardons from whatever Dem wins in 2028, and money of course... lots of money.
It's still worth doing. But the Left never punishes their own. Especially those who have been such good soldiers for as many decades as the SPLC.
Oh, and the media whitewashing is already starting: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/04/22/splc-indicted-paying-sources-fbi-pays-informants/89726011007/ "What the SPLC did can't be criminal because the FBI does it too."
After a little research it seems possible the SPLC funded *paid informants*, which is quite different from how it is characterized in Patel’s statement. Don’t get me wrong, I have realized I’ve been betrayed by SPLC and other progressive groups for several years now, but it will be important to be accurate in the assessment of what happened.
Well, DOJ lawyers certainly double checked the FBI evidence. My one concern is the grand jury. Was it supervised by a magistrate? If so then there was another gatekeeper in this case. If not then there is more potential for errors. We will see.
1) Law enforcement can legally pay informants. Private institutions can’t.
2) If they were actually paying informants, where is the evidence of the good that justifies that? Where are all the arrests that LEAs were able to make based on intel from SPLC informant evidence?
3) Regardless of informant status, the SPLC committed outright fraud over and over, lying on bank applications about non-existent businesses. Then it committed wire fraud over and over by making payments from those bank accounts.
Even if the payments actually did go to informants, which is a big if, it’s still wildly illegal and directionally supports the framing in Mary's piece.
Related: Public Health’s Historical Prejudice Against Men and Boys
A paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2011 illustrates how misguided ideology has precluded care for male well-being
“Shorter life expectancy among men in general, if likely avoidable, would clearly be an issue of public health importance based on the magnitude of potential population impact. However, men as a group have more wealth, influence, and prestige, so this difference would not be a social injustice and, therefore, not a health disparity or equity issue.”
That statement was written in a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2011. The title of the paper is “Health Disparities and Health Equity: The Issue Is Justice,” and it has been downloaded over 97,000 times according to the publisher’s website and cited over 1,400 times according to Google Scholar. The lead author of the paper is Paula Braveman, who is currently a professor emeritus at the University of California – San Francisco.
https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/p/mens-health-prejudice?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1071344&post_id=191553755&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6mos7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Another example of supply-induced demand. The stank of this phenomenon in health care, as one of the more notable industry examples, leads to excessive waste and fraud.
I hope that now Wikipedia will amend all the entries smearing perfectly moderate conservative organizations as extremists.
Yes, completely agree with you, Mary.
Many large financial services corporations donate to SPLC. This was especially so during the high watermark of DEI immediately following the George Floyd riots when many, if not most, large corporations flipped and ceased being largely apolitical business focused entities and made promoting cultural Marxism a priority. In doing so, like SPLC, corporate America strayed from its mission. DEI/ESG became the shiny new thing. Maximizing shareholder/investor financial (and in some cases local community) interests not so much. ESG forces Boards of Directors to give heavy (in some cases exclusive) weight on whether or not a Board candidate is a member of a favored race and sexual orientation. Thus this cements the capture by social justice warriors of the Boards of publicly held corporations.
The name "Southern Poverty Law Center" misleadingly conjures up images of goodness, justice and apple pie. On the corporate level, "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" and "Environmental, Social & Governance" are similarly misleading.
Good analysis. This a moment of reckoning for the grievance industry. Let's see how deep the dishonesty goes.
Unsurprisingly, this is not getting much media attention over here in the States.
Totally unsurprising. I’ve referred to these clowns as “constituents of racism” for well over a decade now. Good to see the new clowns taking time off from their own clownery to expose the old clowns.