It’s Thursday, April 23. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on why Trump’s Iran deal is nothing like Obama’s. Charles Lane on the scourge of partisan gerrymandering. Will Rahn asks: What should smart people think about UFOs? And much more.
But first: Did the Southern Poverty Law Center break the law?
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice issued an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC raised millions on a promise to combat hate. Except, according to the indictment, the SPLC was secretly funding the very groups—including Ku Klux Klan affiliates—that it claimed to be fighting.
Like so much in our politics today, the case quickly became a Rorschach test.
To the left, it was yet another example of the Trump administration’s targeting of its political enemies. As we reported in our pages last year, the White House had been planning a crackdown on liberal nonprofits.
To the right, a pernicious organization was getting its just deserts. Once upon a time, the SPLC worked to overturn the wrongful convictions of black men. Today, it smears conservative organizations like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty as “hate groups.”
But what about the actual case? What the DOJ calls “funding” of hate groups, SPLC says was payment to informants, whose information they then funneled to law enforcement.
To get to the bottom of this politically explosive case, we turned to our legal columnist Jed Rubenfeld. The moral case against the Southern Poverty Law Center is strong, he says. But what about the legal argument? Read Jed’s verdict.
—The Editors
Democrats and the press have been claiming, quite vehemently, that the nuclear deal the Trump administration is trying to negotiate with Iran is nothing more than a warmed-over version of the deal the Obama administration negotiated back in 2015. It ain’t so, says Eli Lake, who lays out a compelling case that Iran would be much closer to a nuclear weapon if the Obama deal had remained in force—and that the current war has made the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon more unlikely than it ever was under Obama.
This week in Virginia, voters approved a Democratic redistricting plan that The New York Times calls “as extreme a gerrymander as exists in the United States.” True, this unprecedented frenzy of mid-decade redistricting began with Trump, but Free Press columnist Charles Lane finds himself dismayed at “the zeal with which Democrats have embraced the logic of knife-fight politics.” It is, he concludes, just the latest normalizing of “negative partisanship among not just professional pols but voters.”
Will Trump’s promised disclosure of UFO-related government files amount to anything more than smoke and mirrors? In search of answers, Will Rahn interviewed science historian and Skeptic magazine co-founder Michael Shermer, who is—well—skeptical that space aliens have visited Earth and is unconvinced about the existence of UFOs. And wait till you hear what he has to say about the FBI’s investigation into 11 missing nuclear and aerospace scientists.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
David Scott, a Georgia Democratic congressman whose health had significantly declined in recent years, has died at age 80. Scott was seeking a 13th term in his deep-blue district where he faced a raft of Democratic challengers.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced yesterday that it had taken control of two freight vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, adding to the tension around the ceasefire that President Trump had extended just a day earlier, shortly before it was set to lapse. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News that the president does not consider Iran’s actions to be a breach of that agreement.
A chemical leak at a West Virginia silver recovery plant killed two people and left 30 hospitalized yesterday. The incident was the result of a “violent” reaction of several chemicals, a local official said at a news briefing.
Kalshi has suspended three candidates for public offices from its site after discovering that they were betting on their own races, in violation of its terms. The prediction market said that the three individuals—Virginia Senate candidate Mark Moran, Minnesota congressional candidate and current state senator Matt Klein, and Texas congressional candidate Ezekiel Enriquez—were also fined. They will not be allowed back on the platform until 2031.
The low-cost airline Spirit, on the verge of its second bankruptcy in two years, is seeking a $500 million loan from the government, according to Bloomberg, which added that the deal could result in the government owning up to 90 percent of the company. Spirit has not turned a profit since 2019.
The FBI launched an investigation into New York Times journalist Elizabeth Williamson after she published a story about FBI director Kash Patel’s alleged use of agency staff to provide security and travel services for his girlfriend. According to the Times, the FBI was pursuing a potential stalking case against Williamson. The agency acknowledged to the Times that “while investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking,” it had decided not to pursue a case.
Stanford University is awarding more money to the Muslim Student Union—$175,000—than all Christian student groups combined, The Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday. A student-led vote on activities funding also resulted in a campus drag troupe receiving five times more university funding than an undergraduate veterans association.
SPLC is a hate group
“To the right, a pernicious organization was getting its just deserts.“
Absolutely. They got a whole lot of sand, and no water.
Or did you mean, desserts? 😀