The Hate-Watchers Who Got Caught Paying the Haters

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(Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Discovery )

For years, the Southern Poverty Law Center told America who the extremists were. Now federal prosecutors say the SPLC was paying some of them. Heidi Beirich, once one of the group’s most senior officials, was arrested Wednesday. Prosecutors say she helped run a scheme that funneled donor money — millions of dollars, raised to fight hate — into the pockets of the very people spreading it. Beirich, 59, of Palm Springs, faces charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealed money laundering. The SPLC is charged

Wisconsin Dems Dodge a Holiday-Hating Socialist

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(Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

Wisconsin Democrats just got a plot twist nobody saw coming. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley pulled off a squeaker of a win over Francesca Hong in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor, overtaking a candidate who’d been sitting on a double-digit lead in the polls right up until voters actually showed up. The final margin: 3,200 votes out of 787,000 cast. That’s four-tenths of one percentage point — the kind of gap that keeps campaign staffers up at night. Hong, a 37-year-old state legislator and self-described Democratic Socialist, could have demanded a recount. Wisconsin law let her, since she lost by

Abdul El-Sayed Has a Michigan Problem

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(Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP via Getty Images)

Abdul El-Sayed would like to be the next senator from Michigan. That means, among other things, asking Michigan voters to believe the man he is today matters more than the things he said a few years ago. That may be a harder sell than he expected. Old videos and podcasts have resurfaced in which El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee, took aim at some fairly familiar pieces of American life: Fourth of July fireworks, the Second Amendment, the southern border and even football. None of these comments, taken alone, is likely to decide a Senate race. Taken together, though, they begin to

The Numbers From Washington: Trump Makes His Case on Crime

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(Photo by Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images)

People should be able to walk through their capital without fear. Children should come home. Illegal guns should come off the streets. Murder suspects should be found. That is the job. One year after President Trump launched the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, his administration says the operation has produced more than 16,000 arrests. The numbers are striking: 35 homicide suspects arrested, more than 100 known gang members taken into custody, over 3,200 narcotics arrests and nearly 2,000 illegal guns seized. Authorities also located 25 missing children and returned them home. That last number may be the smallest.

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