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@kevin_smith45 - kevin smith
After destroying hundreds of people’s lives manufacturing hate in America!!! The SPLC has FINALLY BEEN INDICTED https://t.co/W8gX7DpVHI
Video Transcript AI Summary
A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to the indictment, SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups. The indictment describes that SPLC was not dismantling these groups, but instead “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose” by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.
One example cited in the indictment involves SPLC allegedly paying a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, which resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more. The indictment alleges this person received approximately $270,000 over eight years.
The indictment further states that, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight individuals. The indictment describes these individuals as affiliated with multiple extremist organizations and groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Clans of America, National Socialist Movement, an Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Nazis, and the American Front.
After SPLC paid members of these extremist groups, the indictment alleges SPLC created work product reporting on these activities and the members’ participation or contributions to them. The indictment concludes that, based on these allegations, SPLC was doing the opposite of what it told its donors it was doing.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Good afternoon. Today, a few minutes ago, in the Middle District of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups. As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred. The indictment describes this conduct in detail, but one troubling example is that the SPLC was paying a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more. This particular person being paid by the SPLC allegedly received approximately $270,000 over the course of eight years. In total, according to the indictment, Between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight individuals at least. These individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Clans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Nazis, and the American Front. As the indictment lays out, after SPLC paid members of these extremist groups, it created work product that reported on these activities that the members participated in or contributed to. And to that end, it was doing the exact opposite of what it's told its donors it was doing.
@kevin_smith45 - kevin smith
Oh... MY... GOD... So Chuck Schumer has spent his entire career telling a story about a Long Island couple... The only thing is... THEY DONT EXIST!!!! THEY ARENT REAL https://t.co/dgmWLKvqwC
Video Transcript AI Summary
Chuck Schumer’s imagined middle-class couple, Joe and Eileen Bailey, symbolize Reagan Republicanism for a Massapequa family. They worry about job loss, don’t believe in trickle-down or heavy government spending, but support tax breaks for kids to go to college. Joe, an insurance adjuster, makes about $50,000 a year; Eileen works in a medical office. Schumer says he has guided his political life through the Baileys and first introduced them in Winning Back the Middle Class Majority One Family at a Time (2007), mentioning them 265 times in 264 pages. They’re real, he says, but they’re literally not real, Chuck—we invented them. The Baileys influence policy on the 2008 crisis and cybersecurity, and their views are nuanced: “not anti immigration, but they are anti illegal immigration,” they are pro choice, and they supported civil rights movements in the past but were “lost” after the late sixties. They voted Clinton, then Bush; in 2016 Trump; 2020 split; likely Trump in 2024. Five of the six votes went to Donald Trump, “most recently because of crime.” The piece argues Schumer should break up with the Baileys.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: But I actually wanna talk less about Chuck Schumer himself and more about two of his favorite people, Joe and Eileen Bailey. They're a couple that throughout Schumer's career, he has talked about a lot. They're a middle
Speaker 1: class couple in Massapequa, which is a suburb on Long Island. Joe and Eileen Bailey, this middle class couple, they bought into Reagan Republicanism in 1980. Joe and Eileen are worried about losing their jobs or their friends' jobs. The Baileys really don't believe in trickle down. They don't believe in a whole lot of government spending, but they believe in tax breaks for, kids to go to college.
He's an insurance adjuster and lives in the New York suburbs. By New York standards, he makes 50,000 a year. If he lived in the middle of the country, he'd make 40. Wife works in a medical office. She makes about 20.
She might make 15 elsewhere. And, you know, I have guided my political life through the Baileys.
Speaker 0: The Baileys have guided Chuck Schumer's political life, which is a little weird given. They don't exist. Seriously, he invented them. Schumer first introduced the world to the Baileys in his 2007 book, Winning Back the Middle Class Majority One Family at a Time. In it, he mentions the Baileys an astonishing 265 times in 264 pages.
But he'd apparently been talking about them for years before the book was published. One of his former spokespeople said he's always asking, what would the Baileys think? And to be fair, Schumer acknowledges that some may find this a little weird.
Speaker 1: If you ask my staff, I've been talking about them, talking to the Baileys for fifteen years. I have conversations with them. One of my staffers once said I had imaginary friends to the press. Got me in some trouble. But these people are real, and I respect them, and I really love them, and I care about them.
Speaker 0: Okay. Sure. But they're literally not real, Chuck. But even if you can understand the potential utility of creating a prototypical voter in your head, this goes way beyond that because Schumer's given the Baileys an unnecessarily detailed backstory. For instance, he said, Joe takes off his cap and sings along with the national anthem before the occasional Islanders game.
Okay. And when their daughter, Megan, oh, yeah. They've got kids, by the way, told Aileen a friend was caught cheating on a quiz. Aileen was appalled because lying is not tolerated in the house ever. Also, Aileen apparently helps with the clothing drive at her church, and her father had a prostate cancer scare a few years ago.
Again, this is a made up family. None of these people exist. But wait. I'm still not done. Apparently, Joe Bailey would never have a goatee.
They watch Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives, though Joe pretends not to like either show. They think most baseball players probably take steroids, and if they were to ever go out to a Chinese restaurant, they would order kung pao chicken. That is a JRR Tolkien level of gratuitous backstory, and I don't say that lightly. But the Baileys do seem to have a lot of sway over Schumer's politics as he brought them up when discussing everything from the two thousand eight financial crisis to cybersecurity, which he framed as protecting the security the Bailey's feel when they go online to buy birthday presents. And to hear Schumer tell it, the Bailey's views can be complicated.
Speaker 1: The Bailey's are are not anti immigration, but they are anti illegal immigration. They really dislike the Enron executives who stole money, but they hate the people who burned the flag even more. They are pro choice. They understand that a fundamental decision like that should be made by the individual, but they're glad their church isn't.
Speaker 0: Really? Are you sure about that? And the more you hear about the Baileys, the more it feels like they represent a very particular slice of the electorate. Schumer said that they supported the civil rights and anti Vietnam war movements because they understood that morality was on the side of the protesters. But starting in the late sixties, when those protesters cursed the returning veterans and Stokely Carmichael advocated armed resistance against the white ruling class, the Baileys were lost, which fun fact is both a misleading history of the civil rights movement and what people who never supported it tend to say.
And yet Schumer will insist that Bailey's concerns are widespread and that they could just as easily have been the Ramirez's of Port Chester, the Kim's of Elk Grove, California, or the Salim's of Dearborn, Michigan. But, crucially, for all he talked about how much he loves the Baileys, they don't seem to return that love. Because in 2021, he explained how the Baileys had voted in the past few presidential elections.
Speaker 1: They voted for Clinton, and then they voted for Bush. They're not a member of one party or another. They're independent.
Speaker 0: Did they vote for Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: Both of them did in 2016. Joe Bailey still did in 2020 with misgivings, but she didn't.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The Baileys voted for Trump. And just this March, a reporter actually got an update on their voting history.
Speaker 1: You said the Baileys voted for Trump in 2016. They split Trump Biden in 2020. I'm wondering who they voted for in 2024. Probably voted for Trump. Probably voted for Trump.
But if you ask them why, I think they'd say, above all, crime.
Speaker 0: Okay. So to recap, of the six votes the Baileys had across the last three presidential elections, five went to Donald Trump most recently because of crime, which, for what it's worth, was down in every category last year with violent crime at its lowest rate in twenty years. They also think the civil rights movement went too far and aren't against immigration, just illegal immigration. And this is the couple who, in Chuck Schumer's own words, have guided his political life. And at this point, it might be worth asking, is that a good idea?
Because the truth is, Schumer's devotion to his imaginary friends may help explain why he and the Democratic party have been so underwhelming in recent years. Because he seems to be focusing a huge amount on the interest of the Baileys from Long Island while forgetting other voters actually exist. And look, I'm not saying that you shouldn't think about how his messaging plays with suburban middle class voters with pretty right off center views although they're not theoretically winnable in the future. What I am saying is by tailoring your policies so heavily to them, you are pulling yourself to the right, and in doing so, be alienating not only the rest of your base, but new voters looking for a party that speaks for them. So, senator Schumer, at least when it comes to formulating policy, it might be time to break up with the Bayleys, which really shouldn't be that hard to do given that, politically, it seems they've already broken up with you.