THE NEWS

Last week, the Department of Justice unsealed 11 indictments against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), charging the organization with wire fraud, conspiracy, and making false statements to a federally insured bank. At the heart of the alleged scheme was a shocking operation in which the SPLC paid “informants” embedded inside the very extremist groups it claimed to oppose, including the Nazi Party of America, the KKK and Aryan Nations. The indictments reveal these characters to be more than just moles, but rather the leaders, organizers and key influencers that make these groups work.As a conservative, I’ve watched these revelations with a sense of righteous vindication. For years, those of us on the right have viewed the SPLC as a caricature of left-wing overreach and moral panic, but we also shouldn’t dismiss its poisonous influence in progressive circles. Saturday’s failed assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner only underscores the seriousness with which we must approach the radicalizing propaganda network of the far left, especially groups like the SPLC, which wield outsized influence. As history tells us, that influence can come with deadly consequences.In 2010, the SPLC added the Family Research Council to its widely circulated “Hate Map.” Less than 22 months later, an armed gunman entered the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters intending to carry out a mass shooting. He was heroically stopped by a security guard and later admitted he had used the SPLC’s map to select his target.NEO-NAZI, KLAN ‘CYCLOPS’ AND ‘SADISTIC’ BIKER: HERE’S WHO SPLC ALLEGEDLY PAID IN ITS INFORMANT NETWORKTo understand how the Hate Map came to play such a role, it’s worth revisiting how the SPLC rose to prominence. Founded in 1971, the organization built its reputation through litigation aimed at advancing desegregation, expanding minority voter representation in the South and dismantling organized Klan activities. Fortunately for the country, but unfortunately for the SPLC, by the 1990s, its preferred targets had largely receded from public life. Klan hoods, swastikas and burning crosses were relics of a bygone era.This should have been celebrated by the SPLC, but instead, it represented an existential threat. Business was drying up. New targets were needed to satiate the worst fears of its generous donors still eager to cosplay as feted activists from the civil rights heyday.So in 2000, the SPLC created the Hate Map, an interactive tool that allowed prospective donors to click through and see just how much “hate” was lurking in every corner of the country, probably in a neighborhood near you.The map proved to be brilliant marketing. Filled with red — the color of hate and the Republican Party — the Hate Map was visual confirmation bias for the NPR donor class that wanted to believe the only true evil remaining in the world was white supremacy.SPLC FACES BLOWBACK FROM ‘HATE MAP’ TARGETS AFTER DOJ FRAUD INDICTMENTBut the SPLC soon discovered it could raise even more money by broadening the definition of “hate.” According to the SPLC, these extremists existed only because a broader network of mainstream conservative and Christian organizations provided the requisite permission structure for them. Groups opposing abortion or defending traditional marriage were added to the list. Over time, the map included organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, PragerU and yes, Turning Point USA (TPUSA). The line between violent extremism and ordinary ideological disagreement was deliberately blurred.But the SPLC still had a problem. There just weren’t enough real, outward signs of white supremacy to sustain the business model. So it decided to manufacture some. Beginning around 2014, the organization reportedly funneled millions of dollars through shell companies to pay extremist leaders, organizers and recruiters to subsidize the very stereotypes of 1960s-style white supremacy that had originally made the group famous.The return on investment was extraordinary. In 2017, immediately after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — an event we now know was organized with the help of an SPLC informant paid roughly $270,000 — the organization’s revenues nearly tripled, jumping from $51 million to over $133 million in one year. Major corporations like JPMorgan and MGM, along with high-profile donors such as Tim Cook of Apple and George and Amal Clooney, poured millions into its coffers. As of 2024, the organization reportedly maintains an endowment of well over $700 million.DAVID MARCUS: LIBERALS’ GET-TRUMP ‘FINE PEOPLE’ HOAX WAS WAY WORSE THAN WE THOUGHTI remember when my friend and colleague Charlie Kirk first learned that TPUSA had been added to the Hate Map in the spring of 2025. His initial reaction was characteristically defiant: “Of course. What took them so long?” We laughed at the absurdity. But later, when we were alone, he admitted he was worried about our students. He was used to the smears; they were not. Charlie knew it only took one lunatic to change everything.On Sept. 10, 2025, his worst fears were tragically realized.Exactly three months and 19 days after the SPLC fraudulently included Turning Point USA in its so-called Hate Map, a left-wing assassin killed Charlie, saying, “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”WILLIAM BENNETT: WHAT CHARLIE KIRK’S MURDER TELLS US ABOUT THE AMERICAN MINDI cannot prove the SPLC’s targeting of TPUSA directly caused Charlie’s assassination. But indirectly? Without question. The organization’s decades-long campaign helped turn “hate” into the ultimate catch-all slur wielded by powerful institutions to dismiss, dehumanize and ultimately justify violence against conservatives.Real violent extremism exists in America, but the data increasingly shows it is far more common on the political left. Just days after Charlie’s assassination, a YouGov/The Economist poll found that nearly 30% of self-described progressives ages 18–39 believe violence is justified to achieve political goals, compared with only about 5% of conservatives in the same age group. The SPLC and its allies were so successful at selling the myth of pervasive right-wing “hate” that far too many on the left became convinced that conservatives deserved whatever violence came their way.So what needs to happen now?CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONThe entire SPLC edifice must be dismantled, all the way down to the studs. Its financial networks should be exposed and severed. Donors should consider revenues from the SPLC’s fraudulent scheme to be blood money and demand refunds. Responsible institutions must immediately disavow any association with the group. Those involved in the alleged fraud should face full prosecution.In his final text message to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Charlie wrote about the urgent need to dismantle the networks and financial infrastructure that enable left-wing violence.The DOJ indictments are the first real step toward achieving his vision. Let’s hope they are just the first of many more steps, including criminal indictments of the leaders responsible. They must pay for what they’ve done if America stands any chance of overcoming the rise of left-wing political violence.

The United States Secret Service (USSS) was described as “an agency in crisis” way back in 2015, according to a comprehensive congressional report. Ten years later, it still is. Despite individual acts of heroism during repeated assassination attempts against President Trump, the agency has not fixed what is broken. We keep seeing the same mistakes repeated. Thus far, we have been lucky, but we can no longer rely solely on luck.The House Oversight Committee’s exhaustive 450-page report, released in December 2015, followed an in-depth bipartisan investigation. We reviewed more than 100 security incidents. The problems and challenges we highlighted remain the same today.The agency has a dual mission with little overlap that needs to be split. Most people don’t realize the majority of USSS personnel work on financial crimes and currency integrity. Government worker surveys routinely show the USSS has one of the lowest levels of morale in all of government. Staffing levels, training, workload and other factors are all contributing to that problem.But most importantly, accountability is virtually non-existent.WITNESSES RECOUNT CHAOS AT WHCA DINNER AFTER SHOOTING, SECRET SERVICE AGENTS DREW GUNS TO EVACUATE TRUMPThe president’s protective detail may be the most visible mission, but the Secret Service is also responsible for investigating financial crimes. Currency and financial crimes should go back to where they should have always been — the Treasury Department. The protective detail needs to stay focused at Homeland Security.In addition, the agency is stretched too thin. Staffing shortages are persistent and critical, forcing the agency to rely on overtime. The countersniper team alone is staffed at 73% below the level needed to meet mission requirements, according to a 2025 Inspector General report.A staffing shortfall was blamed in part for the inadequate coverage of President Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally where he was shot. But the agency has struggled to hire and train enough people amid high turnover rates for the past decade. Between the long onboarding process and high turnover, staffing has been a perpetual challenge.SECRET SERVICE FACES SCRUTINY OVER WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION DINNER SECURITY INCIDENTThe Secret Service also has a training problem. Most people don’t know about FLETC — the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center — where new recruits, hires and most federal law enforcement officers are trained. Our report found most Secret Service agents, after initial training and qualifications, only get 30 minutes of training a year. Yes, 30 minutes per year on average. It’s clearly not enough.Between the assassination attempts and upcoming security needs at the World Cup, visiting heads of state, the America 250 celebrations, the midterm elections and the upcoming presidential election, even the Democrats must admit we have to prioritize more training for our federal law enforcement agencies. Instead, FLETC has been sidelined by congressional Democrats intent on keeping the Department of Homeland Security shut down.BESSENT BLAMES LEFT’S POLITICAL ‘VENOM’ FOR VIOLENCE AFTER DEADLY MAR-A-LAGO INCIDENTMost disappointing to me is the agency’s lack of accountability. A president was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a presidential campaign. Nobody was fired. No one was dismissed. In fact, most were promoted. Protection was obviously inadequate, and the extraction of the president after he was shot was an embarrassment, as it was at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.This most recent incident exposed many flaws. The extremely poor extraction, the insufficient screening and the inadequate security at the site indicate there is much more work to do, to state the obvious.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONYet Democrats, who also need USSS protection, are still playing pure political games and refusing to fund Homeland Security when the agency desperately needs it most. It’s time for the Democrats to protect America and stop using ICE as a political football.The persistent inability to address these issues over a 10-year timeline suggests the solution may need to be structural. Focus determines reality. It’s time to break up the Secret Service and allow it to focus exclusively on one objective: protection. For financial crimes and the integrity of our currency, put that back at Treasury.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JASON CHAFFETZ

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will weigh the legality of President Donald Trump’s bid to revoke temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants living and working temporarily in the U.S. — a closely watched court fight with possible far-reaching ramifications.At issue in Mullin v. Doe is the Trump administration’s effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for some 350,000 migrants from Haiti and roughly 7,000 migrants from Syria. TPS grants individuals from certain countries temporary legal status to live and work in the U.S. if their home countries are deemed by the U.S. to be unsafe to return to, due to a disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”The Supreme Court agreed last month to review the two consolidated cases, and took the somewhat unusual step of granting “certiorari before judgment” — or, reviewing the case on its merits before federal appeals courts reviewed the lower district rulings. A ruling could come as early as this summer.Trump’s efforts to end TPS are not new. The administration has moved to revoke TPS designations for 13 countries since last January, and the arguments themselves are expected to focus closely not on the merits of individual designations under TPS, but the power of the courts to review the designations.A ruling from the high court could therefore have much more widespread ramifications, not only for the TPS holders from Haiti and Syria, but for the more than 1.3 million migrants currently living in the U.S. under the temporary legal program.BIDEN-APPOINTED FEDERAL JUDGE RULES TRUMP’S ‘THIRD COUNTRY’ DEPORTATION POLICY IS UNCONSTITUTIONALTrump has sought to unwind TPS designations, arguing they have been extended for far too long under former administrations, including under former President Joe Biden.Lawyers for the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court in March to consolidate two lower court cases seeking to overturn orders that blocked the administration from immediately revoking the temporary protected status designations for Syrian and Haitian migrants. Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the court to review more broadly the question of whether the Trump administration can revoke TPS without interagency review, citing a portion of the provision that states there “is no judicial review of any determination” of the DHS secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.” In the administration’s view, he said, that means that these cases, “directed at a specific TPS designation, termination, or extension,” are “unreviewable.”SUPREME COURT SIGNALS IT MAY LIMIT KEY VOTING RIGHTS ACT RULE”Unless the court resolves the merits of these challenges — issues that have now been ventilated in courts nationwide — this unsustainable cycle will repeat again and again, spawning more competing rulings and competing views of what to make of this court’s interim orders,” Sauer said. “This court should break that cycle.”The case sets up a broader legal fight over how much authority district courts have to block immigration decisions made by the executive branch.Haitians were first granted TPS status in 2010 after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left some 1.5 million in the country homeless.Both U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes and U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla blocked Trump’s bid to end TPS for Haitian and Syrian nationals, respectively, earlier this year.Reyes ruled that it was “substantially likely” that then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had ended the Haitian TPS designation “because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” and said she failed to consult with other agencies as required under the APA.SCOTUS TO REVIEW TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIPFailla’s ruling said much of the same, noting that the administration’s efforts to end TPS applied not only to Syrian migrants but for individuals from “virtually every country that has come up for consideration.”Trump officials have taken aim at district courts that have sought to block or pause their efforts to wind down TPS protections, accusing the judges of exceeding their authority and unlawfully intruding on the executive branch’s authority, especially when it comes to immigration policy.A Supreme Court ruling on the consolidated cases, expected by early summer, could determine how far the current and future administrations can go in scaling back humanitarian immigration programs.

The United States has sanctioned 35 entities and individuals accused of overseeing a shadow banking network for Iran.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state’s voter rolls following a comprehensive data comparison with a federal database.Earlier this month, the NCSBE submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state’s voter registration list. The NCSBE clarified that the identification of deceased individuals on the state’s voter rolls does not necessarily indicate illegal votes were cast.”While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated,” Sam Hayes, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release. “The benefit of entering into cross-state and federal database checks is that it allows us to uncover issues like this. Our goal is to use every available and legal tool at our disposal to achieve the most accurate voter rolls possible,” he continued. “Now, we must roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work to act of verifying that every person registered to vote in North Carolina is eligible. Our team, along with our state and federal will do what’s necessary to meet this responsibility.”TRUMP DOJ DEMANDS MINNESOTA VOTING RECORDS OVER SAME-DAY REGISTRATION ‘VOUCHING’ CONCERNSThe discovery came amid the agency’s ongoing effort to verify the citizenship status of voters, which the NCSBE voted along party lines earlier this month to do after facing lawsuits from the Trump administration for allegedly failing to maintain an accurate voter list.The NCSBE said it will work with county boards of elections to remove the names from the voter rolls.Federal law requires states to remove from their voter rolls people who are ineligible for reasons such as being deceased and North Carolina already has a process of biennial list maintenance to remove ineligible voters from its roles, according to Dr. Andy Jackson, Director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, who indicated that the state removed 500,000 ineligible voters through this program in 2025. However, as Jackson points out for deceased voters, it can take 8 to 10 years for their names to be removed.”Working with the SAVE database has already helped improve” North Carolina’s list maintenance system, Jackson added, calling the system “crucial.”ELECTION PROBE TARGETS ‘UNUSUAL’ REPORTS IN WAKE OF VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING REFERENDUM: AFPIThe second Trump administration has increased oversight and investigations into election integrity matters, including through updates to the SAVE program last year.The Trump administration has also launched a nationwide push to obtain full statewide voter-registration lists and list-maintenance records, suing those states failing to comply. The Justice Department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia to try to force the release of the data, according to the Associated Press.The Republican National Committee’s official election integrity account on X said that the findings in North Carolina “is EXACTLY” why the Trump administration is forcing states to clean up their voter rolls.”Turns out checking state voter rolls against federal records actually helps keep them more accurate. Who knew?” quipped Ohio Secretary of State and candidate for Ohio Auditor of State Frank LaRose.

The United Arab Emirates’ decision to leave OPEC is reverberating across global energy markets, sparking questions on who else could follow.

The European Central Bank and Bank of England are expected to hold their nerve and stand pat on rates this month.

NATO Mulls Nixing Annual Summits, Wary Of ‘Trump Drama’ Overshadowing

Fresh reporting in Reuters says that NATO leadership is mulling ending its practice of holding annual summits as the Trump presidency has “cast a long shadow” over such meetings and as member states are looking for “less drama”.

For example, at the 2018 summit Trump threatened to walk ⁠out after bitterly complaining over allies’ low defense spending. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general at the time, wrote in a recently published memoir, “Had he made good on his threat to leave ​in protest, we would have been left to pick up the pieces of a shattered NATO.”
via Associated Press

Also, in 2019 he exited summit early while lambasting then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “two-faced” after Trudeau was caught on a hot mike blasting Trump’s behavior.

One report recalls of the scene:

Footage emerged late on Tuesday that appears to show world leaders joking about Trump at the summit, which has been marked by sharp disagreements over spending and future threats, including Turkey’s role in the alliance and China, as well as a clash of personalities that triggered a flurry of incendiary language being deployed by leaders.

The video shows leaders including Trudeau, Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and Princess Anne at the Buckingham Palace event on Tuesday evening.

In audio caught on a nearby microphone, Johnson asks Macron: “Is that why he was late?” before Trudeau interjects: “He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.”

Trudeau adds: “Oh, yeah, yeah yeah. He announced … ” before he is cut off by Macron, who speaks animatedly to the group. Macron’s back is to the camera and his words are inaudible.

After an edited cut in the film, the footage later shows an incredulous Trudeau telling the group: “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.”

In his second administration, President Trump’s fierce criticisms have only grown, especially related to lack of help in the Iran war and Hormuz Strait crisis, labeling the alliance a “paper tiger” and charging member states with being “free-loaders”.

One European diplomat expressed an increasingly common viewpoint among members: “Better to have fewer summits than bad summits,” the official said.

And, per Reuters: “Some diplomats and analysts have long argued that annual summits create pressure for eye-catching results that distracts from longer-term planning.”

The 2019 Trudeau hot mic incident:

.@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day. (Video: Host Pool) pic.twitter.com/dVgj48rpOP
— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) December 3, 2019
For now at least, NATO leadership is insisting it will be business as usual and these annual summits will proceed. “NATO will continue to hold regular meetings of Heads of State and Government, and between summits NATO Allies will continue to consult, plan and take decisions about our shared security,” a NATO official told Reuters. But Trump’s anti-NATO rhetoric is unlikely to cease anytime soon, setting up for more drama to come.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 04/29/2026 – 04:15