• The Trump fascist regime's In-justice Department has brought charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), accusing it of money laundering and other crimes, and claiming that the civil rights organization, based in Alabama, paid sources to provoke racial hatred. Consider how broad this notion of “provoking racial hatred” might be defined by the Trump regime and the implications this has for a broad swath of organizations which are resisting and opposing discrimination and oppression of Black, Latino and other oppressed peoples. 

The SPLC began as a law firm in 1971, investigating civil rights cases. In recent decades it has become known for investigating and exposing dangerous, right-wing white-supremacist “hate groups.” The SPLC says the program being cited in the indictment, which is no longer in operation, was necessary when it started in, quote, "the shadows of the Civil Rights Movement," doing risky work. So it secretly paid informants and frequently shared the intelligence with law enforcement, including the FBI.¹ 

On April 21 a grand jury in Montgomery, AL, indicted the SPLC on 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, related to the now defunct program that paid informants to infiltrate white-supremacist and other hate groups. In addition, the FBI moved to “recover alleged proceeds of the organization's fraud scheme.” 

The acting U.S. Attorney General, in announcing the charges, said the work of the SPLC was not aimed at dismantling these “hate” groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.

The criminal indictment of the SPLC has been met with outrage, while sending shockwaves through progressive and radical groups and their supporters. The Trump regime has announced its intention to go after opposition to its reactionary agenda, in any way it can. The indictment of SPLC is an ominous development in that direction and one that must be opposed by all decent people.

• The fascist Congressman from Texas, Chip Roy, is preparing to introduce a bill called the "MAMDANI Act." This would empower the federal government to bar entry to, deport, and strip naturalized citizenship from any person who advocates for, or is “affiliated with,” any “totalitarian” movements. According to Roy, this includes a “socialist party, a communist party, or Islamic fundamentalist party, or [who] advocates for socialism, communism, Marxism, or Islamic fundamentalism.” 

This act is a blatant violation of, and represents a further leap in the assault on, the right to free speech and political advocacy and association. While it may not pass the House and/or the Senate and become actual law, it nonetheless sounds another alarm as to where the fascists are going with repression. This is further underscored by Trump’s executive order calling on the “Justice” Department to go after people who are identified as anti-capitalist, as well as anti-Christian, etc. (See “Regime Launches “All-of-Government Effort to Dismantle” All Opposition to Fascism: Fascism is not a looming threat. It is upon us now.”)