SPLC Indicted for Being the SPLC; 10 Commandments in Classrooms; Trump’s Stupid Ballroom
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
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Summary
OA1255 - Has the Southern Poverty Law Center really just been indicted for helping to provide information to the FBI? Did the Trump administration really just tell a federal judge that building a White House ballroom was a matter of “national security”? Did the 5th Circuit really just require Texas to display the 10 Commandments in every public school classroom? We take on these questions and many more before getting to our footnote: Did a Rolls-Royce hating bear really just commit insurance fraud in California?
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Indictment in U.S. v. Southern Poverty Law Center (filed April 21, 2026)
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Trump Administration Finally Discloses White House Ballroom Funding Contract in Response to Public Citizen’s FOIA Lawsuit, Public Citizen (April 22, 2026)
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“The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Bob Moser, The New Yorker, (March 21, 2019)
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Memorandum opinion in National Trust For Historic Preservation in the United States v. National Park Service et al, DC Dist. Ct. (Leon, J., 3/31/26)
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Nathan et al v. Alamo Independent School District, No. 25-56095 (5th Cir. April 21, 2026)
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“Operation Bear Claw,” California Department of Insurance
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And they have this contract for donors where they say you're donating to improve the president's house in a project that means a lot to the president personally. |
| 0:17.5 | Most of the indictment is about the fact that they were paying these informants with the cooperation and assistance and partnership of the FBI, then the FBI turns around and |
| 0:24.6 | prosecutes them. |
| 0:32.5 | Hello and welcome to opening arguments. This is episode 1255. I'm Thomas Smith out over |
| 0:36.4 | there's real life attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing? |
| 0:38.7 | I'm doing all right. Climate control was once again whacked out, but it's springtime in Boston, feeling good, ready for another round of Friday news. Yeah, yeah, lots of news. Boy, too much to cover. Yeah, always. Yeah, what are we going to be talking about today? Oh, we got a good one. I mean, it's not great, but we've got the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I'm going to argue is actually one of the worst things. It's really hard to rank these days, but one of the worst things that DOJ has done in this administration. It gets so bad. Yeah, I saw that just came in like last night as of recording, and I was like, oh, great. I had a thought of like, well, you never know if the DOJ is still doing real work. |
| 1:13.7 | Like, who knows if somebody embezzled or something? I didn't really look through it. Nope. But, you know, wouldn't be surprised if it was complete bullshit. I guess that's why I listened to opening arguments. No, they just don't want the group that identifies hate groups to exist for some reason. Ah, that makes sense. Yeah. |
| 1:27.7 | Find out why and what's going on with that. We haven't touched this case yet, but we've got the White House ballroom has had quite a lot of twist and turns. A lot of developments there. So got to talk about that. That is quite a story. We dug into the legal basis for it and what's going on there, as well as the corruption, of course behind the funding and construction inevitably. |
| 1:45.8 | There's going to be corruption behind that. |
| 1:47.4 | You're already doing that. |
| 1:47.9 | Like more. for it and what's going on there, as well as the corruption, of course, behind the funding |
| 1:44.2 | and construction. Inevitably, there's going to be corruption behind that. You already knew that. |
| 1:47.9 | Like more than the background amount? |
| 1:50.2 | Yeah, more than the usual. Like actual specific corruption to that. Okay. |
| 1:54.6 | Yeah. We got a big decision out of the Fifth Circuit on requiring 10 commandments in the classroom. |
| 1:59.8 | Oh, saw that, yeah. |
| 2:01.2 | It's bad. |
| 2:02.0 | So this is a big First Amendment case for establishment, |
| 2:05.5 | for kind of seeing the state of the law after the Kennedy praying coach case, |
| 2:08.7 | kind of leapfrogging from that, |
| 2:12.1 | and playing out some of the pet theories that the Maga Wright has been working on for a while. |
| 2:16.7 | So I'll kick you through those and what to expect in front of the Supreme Court when this gets up there and what they're setting up. |
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