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Graham Platner wins his primary in Maine and now he's a much bigger problem for Democrats. Iran shoots down an American helicopter and President Trump vows to respond. And for waste. Wednesday we get into another major story dealing with Minnesota. All that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up. The story of America is the story of an adventure. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God and I believe God intended for us to be free. Yesterday, President Trump announced that Iran had shot down an American helicopter. This from Truth Social. I've just been informed by our great military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved. Both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must of necessity respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I expect we're going to learn a lot more about that rescue mission. There have been reports that it was carried out by an unmanned drone, which is the first time this has ever happened. We will wait to hear more from the Department of War about that.
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However, the U.S. military conducting new strikes in Iran, quote, U.S. central Command forces began launching self defense strikes against Iran at 5pm Eastern today at the Commander in Chief's direction in response to yesterday's downing of a U.S. army Apache helicopter. The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.
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We're waiting to see what this retaliation against Iran looks like and whether it will elevate to the point of breaking the ceasefire that was never actually a ceasefire because no one ever ceased firing. But we will follow here closely and report back tomorrow. Yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law center was on Capitol Hill to be grilled by Congress over reports that they have been tied to some major shady business. From the New York Post, far left, Southern Poverty Law center reimbursed Klan members for cross burnings from the feds. Now this relates to an indictment from the Department of Justice that highlights the fact that the Southern Poverty Law center has reportedly been paying sources within hate groups that are also trying to attack exposed through the Southern Poverty Law Center's resources. And in this indictment, there's a number of cases, including Klan members who reportedly reimbursed the funding for crosses, that they burned the wood and the fuel. They also paid informants that were a part of the Unite the Right rally that happened in Charlottesville during President Trump's first term. So they have been getting a lot of attention for the last six or seven months. Because of these extremely strange reports and ties, the fact that many have suggested they're actually funding and supporting the hate that they are making money off of trying to expose. So they were brought to Capitol Hill yesterday to be grilled.
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The SPLC tarred mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups and then relentlessly sought to silence those groups by persuading America's leading financial and technology firms to exclude them from the marketplace.
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That is Ryan Bangert with the Alliance Defending Freedom. Now, what he's highlighting there is the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center's primary function is calling out mainstream conservative groups as hate groups. The. This is their hate map. Now, when you delve into that hate map, as Ryan Bengert said, it is a lot of mainstream conservative groups, groups that we know well, like Defending Education, have been on that list for exposing left wing propaganda in the education system and things like that. The Southern Poverty Law center has become an arm of the Democrat Party in trying to attack conservative groups that are calling out bad behavior from liberals. And so that was a major theme of this hearing yesterday.
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Southern Poverty Law center has spent years putting labels on other people. It has even used hate Watts to target me. As a matter of fact, I think the reason I'm on the list, and there's 11 congressmen on this list, is because we simply put a flag in front of our office that encouraged the people to pray for this nation.
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So the Southern Poverty Law center has made a major booming business out of calling everything hate. After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in which they had paid an informant and in effect in some degree contributed to that rally, they tripled their donations to continue to become this financial juggernaut opposing everything related to conservative America and President Trump and the right and things like that. And so this indictment from the Department of Justice about fraud is going to get a lot more attention as they delve into these threads. But the Southern Poverty Law center, the most important thing for you to understand is they are an arm of the Democrat Party trying to weaken conservative groups across America. Last night, Graham Platner handily won the main Democrat Senate primary. Not a huge surprise. He was not actually opposed. Even though Janet Mills had tried to sort of remind people her name was on the ballot, she didn't really do anything to actually contest it. Now Democrats are saddled with this historically bad candidate.
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Can't believe that the Democrats are gonna support someone who had a Nazi tattoo and who. He's just. He's just a real extremist to me. I just. I'm not interested in him. I don't believe in misogyny or power over women. And although he has said all of those things were in the past, I don't know if a person can change that much.
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Over the weekend in a rally, Graham Platner said that the national media was trying to make this election all about him, when in fact it was all about all of us. Now that's something that a candidate said says when they don't want scrutiny of their own record history, things like that. But the reality is it is very much about Graham Platner because his massive list of incredibly disqualifying scandals stand terribly against the juxtaposition with Susan Collins, who is one of the most effective and most reliable senators in modern history. Over the weekend there was a split screen of Graham Platner having to answer for his latest scandal, which at that time was the New York Times story about him abusing women at the exact same time as Susan Collins was casting her 10,000th consecutive vote, which is a crazy accomplishment. But throughout all that time, she's continued to be just as effective in advocating for her state and bringing home resources to the people that she represents. And Mainers still generally feel really pretty darn good about her. I think she's done a lot for the state of Maine. I truly believe that Susan Call is is the one to represent us.
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Definitely Susan Collins will have my vote
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for another segment of waste Wednesday. We've got three little things we want to highlight today. First off, we go to Cleveland Clinic. We've talked about them quite a bit as the poster child of hospital waste, fraud and abuse because they abuse their tax exempt status. Now they get tax exempt status on the promise that they will provide discounted drugs and care to lower income patients. They don't do that. They actually provide drugs and everything at full price and then keep that discount, keep that windfall and use it for things like paying their CEO a multimillion dollar salary at a nonprofit hospital and things like building an NBA practice facility for the Cleveland Cavaliers, building out a 7,000 piece art museum. Everything but providing better healthcare to lower income patients, which is what they get tax exempt status. 4 well, Cleveland Clinic was back in the news over the weekend. This from Brett Shumate at the Department of Justice. Today the Justice Department announced that Cleveland Clinic foundation joined Texas Children's Hospital in agreeing to cease performing sex rejecting procedures on minors and provide detransition care to victims of these procedures. Now what Brett's talking about there, and Brett is an assistant Attorney General at the Civil Division of the Department of Justice is the fact that they've reached this settlement with Cleveland Clinic over Cleveland Clinic's practice of hiding the their sex change surgeries for minors, even after President Trump had an executive order banning it and banning any federal funds from going to it. Now, the reason this fits into Waste Wednesday, people like Ken Blackwell, the former Secretary of State of Ohio, have suggested that this 340B program, the program that gives Cleveland Clinic tax exempt status to provide charity care, has given them a potential loophole to get around President Trump's ban on sex chain surgeries for minors by using that 340B windfall money to fund the those sex change procedures. This in town hall. Cleveland Clinic owes patients transparency and accountability. So the next step for Cleveland Clinic should be to look at their tax exempt status and whether or not they actually are wasting taxpayer dollars on everything but the healthcare that taxpayers think they're getting through this tax exempt program instead of funding things like building out practice facilities for the Cleveland Cavaliers, even though they had a pretty good run this year. Second thing we're gonna talk about in today's waste, fraud and abuse segment is comes from the U.S. department of Agriculture.
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We found 200,000 dead people getting food stamps. We found half a million people that were getting more than one benefit. And y', all, this was in the red states. The blue states wouldn't give us the data. They're suing us. We're in massive litigation right now looking to cut those funds off until they give us that data. But the fraud is so rampant and so stunning.
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So what Secretary Rollins there is highlighting is the fact that they've been able to to find an incredibly high volume of fraud in the food stamp program. And you'll remember during the debate over the big beautiful bill, Republicans were talking about trying to cut waste, fraud and abuse both in Medicaid, but also in the food stamp program. And just in red states, they found hundreds of thousands of people who are dead still getting food stamp benefits. That money's just getting lost, but also people getting double benefits, things like that. And she also pointed out blue states will not cooperate to try and cut down on this waste, fraud and abuse at all. Third thing we wanted to highlight for today's Waste Wednesday relates to the Minnesota fraud scandal. The first thing that really kicked off this larger conversation about getting into waste, fraud and abuse and the fraud squad led by Vice President J.D. vance, and he broke this news on Jesse Waters on Monday night.
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I guess now I can make a bit of breaking news because I left the White House to come here to do this interview with you. And before I did, we actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation.
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Now this has been an incredibly troubling case because as the New York Times highlighted, yes, the Somali fraudsters were stealing all the cookies out of the cookie jar, but somebody was refilling it and that was Tim Waltz, Keith Ellison and others. Not only were they refilling it, they were paving the way for that fraud to continue. And we have the closest thing you will ever find to a smoking gun in this case with the audio of Keith Ellison meeting with these fraudsters, telling them that he would support them in their efforts to get more taxpayer dollars from departments within the Waltz administration in exchange for them giving him campaign contributions. This has been a little bit dead in the air for a while while people were wondering, is this going to go further? Is there any further prosecution here? Vice President Vance is making it clear the Department of Justice is going to investigate and see if there is more there to go after from Tim Waltz and Keith Ellison. For our Can't Make it up segment today, we are going to James Talarico in Texas and a very interesting story. There's been a lot of speculation about him, his private life and things like that. This from the Texas Scorecard. Second Capitol staffer confirms past relationship with Talarico. And in this story they highlight a couple of social media posts between Talarico and who was apparently the first staffer of his office that he dated. Happy birthday to the incredible Irma Reyes. I think she liked my flowers. Opening day of Texas legislature is really just nerd prom. And that is from Irma herself in a picture of her in a masked James Talarico. Now this follows the first bombshell story of James Talarico preying on staffers. Tallarico faces questions about relationship with former staffer and abortion lobbyist. Of course she's an abortion lobbyist and it's kind of funny to watch Democrats spike the football on this and saying things like, see, he does date women and he is a perfectly normal guy but he can only date women who work for him. He is a perfectly normal guy, but he believes there are six genders and that God is non binary. He is a perfectly normal guy, but he believes we need abortion care for our transgender brothers and sisters and they thems. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us on 10 Minute Drill. Please like subscribe, leave us a review. Tell your friends and have a great day.
Episode Title: Meet the left-wing group that funded hate groups.. So they could raise money to fight hate
Host: Matt Whitlock
This episode centers on a congressional grilling of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) regarding revelations from a Department of Justice indictment that the organization reimbursed and paid sources within hate groups for activities it would later “expose,” effectively funding the very hate it claims to fight. Matt Whitlock also covers breaking national and political news, including rising U.S.-Iran tensions, primary election fallout in Maine, and another “Waste Wednesday” segment on government fraud and abuse.
Timestamps: [00:00]–[01:32]
“We’re waiting to see what this retaliation against Iran looks like and whether it will elevate to the point of breaking the ceasefire that was never actually a ceasefire because no one ever ceased firing.” [01:32]
Timestamps: [01:32]–[04:01]
“The SPLC tarred mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups and then relentlessly sought to silence those groups by persuading America’s leading financial and technology firms to exclude them from the marketplace.” [02:55]
“Southern Poverty Law center has spent years putting labels on other people. It has even used hate watts to target me. … The reason I'm on the list… is because we simply put a flag in front of our office that encouraged the people to pray for this nation.” [03:46]
Timestamps: [04:01]–[06:35]
"Can't believe that the Democrats are gonna support someone who had a Nazi tattoo and who... He's just a real extremist to me... I don't know if a person can change that much." [05:00]
"I think she's [Collins] done a lot for the state of Maine. I truly believe that Susan Call is is the one to represent us." [06:35]
Timestamps: [06:39]–[10:09]
[06:39]–[08:55]
[08:55]–[09:15]
“We found 200,000 dead people getting food stamps. We found half a million people that were getting more than one benefit. And y’all, this was in the red states. The blue states wouldn't give us the data. … The fraud is so rampant and so stunning.” [08:55]
[09:15]–[10:23]
“I guess now I can make a bit of breaking news… before I did, we actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation.” [10:09]
Timestamps: [10:23]–[End]
Ryan Bangert (ADF):
“The SPLC tarred mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups and then relentlessly sought to silence those groups by persuading America’s leading financial and technology firms to exclude them from the marketplace.” [02:55]
Congressman on SPLC Hate List:
“It has even used hate watts to target me… because we simply put a flag in front of our office that encouraged the people to pray for this nation.” [03:46]
Secretary Rollins (USDA):
“We found 200,000 dead people getting food stamps… The fraud is so rampant and so stunning.” [08:55]
Vice President J.D. Vance:
“We actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation.” [10:09]
In this brisk, news-dense episode, Matt Whitlock spotlights major congressional scrutiny of the SPLC for financially entangling itself with hate groups it claims to fight—raising attacks of hypocrisy and political bias. Whitlock threads this scandal with new developments in government waste, from misused hospital tax exemptions to rampant food aid fraud and high-profile state-level corruption. He concludes with a snarky look at the latest Texas political staffer romance flap, blending hard news with irreverent commentary.
For listeners:
This episode is an incisive, entertaining rundown of the day’s sharpest political stories, offering context, pointed humor, and quotations directly from the day’s newsmakers.