John Law (10:39)
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So head to livemomentous.com and use promo code TANGLE for up to 35% off your 1st order. That's livemomentous.com promo code TANGLE. Alright, first up, let's start with what the Left is saying. The left acknowledges the significance of the fraud schemes, but argues Republicans are using the story for ulterior motives. Some push back on the latest claims about the scale of the fraud. Others say the demonization of Somalis is wrong, but the community must also take ownership of real issues. In Ms. Now, Paul Waldman wrote, Minnesota childcare fraud is MAGA's new obsession. Why was Trump suddenly interested in allegations of fraud that have been under investigation for years by federal and state authorities and for the record, have nothing to do with Representative Omar Waldman asked. If you think it's because some Somali Americans have been involved and Trump wants to foment racist and anti immigrant hatred, then you're absolutely right. That's not subtext, it's text. Trump couldn't be more clear on that score. He's referred to Somali immigrants as garbage, but also a valid illustration of how the right wing propaganda machine works. It doesn't matter whether a story is new or whether the allegations are made true. Minnesota is just one state where that kind of fraud seemed to accelerate after 2020. Since 2022, the federal government and Minnesota's state government have undertaken sweeping investigations of fraud in nutrition and childcare programs, resulting in dozens of criminal convictions, waldman wrote. Many of the people convicted have been Somali American, but the most significant of those convictions is probably that of Amy Bach, a white woman who was the ringleader of a scheme that defrauded $250 million from nutrition programs. Does Bach's case prove white women are inherently inclined toward criminality and should be removed from the country so we can finally be safe from the danger they pose? In her weaponized substack, Caroline Oro Bueno said Nick Shirley's Somali daycare fraud video is bullshit. Shirley's video has now been pretty thoroughly taken apart by numerous news organizations and many of his core claims have been debunked or at least called into serious doubt. In one case, Shirley arrived when the facility was closed. In another instance, security footage from the daycare center shows children being dropped off on the same day Shirley was claiming that no children were anywhere to be seen. In two other cases, Shirley showed up to non operational childcare facilities, bueno wrote. While there have been proven and prosecuted cases of fraud in publicly funded programs in Minnesota, Shirley's video doesn't prove that it's happening at the daycares he went to. Shirley's video also featured one of the defining characteristics of orchestrated disinformation, which is the use of selective editing rather than fabrication. The video shows footage taken at real daycare centers. Bueno said the deception emerges from what is left out things like comparative data, explanations of editorial choices and context about how common or uncommon fraud actually is across childcare providers of all backgrounds. He also failed to mention things like what time he visited the facilities and what their operating hours are. In the Minnesota Star Tribune, Baraidoule explored what Somalis must do in the face of suspicion and insults. Trump's simplistic stereotyping was uncalled for and it is not right to call any human being garbage, but it is true that But Somalis involved in large scale fraud should face the consequences of their poor choices. And it is true that we Somalis need to ask ourselves what role we may have played in becoming the target of such hostile criticism, dule said. Just like everyone else, Somalis need to take responsibility for their behavior. It's time to stop blaming others for our wrong choices. Blaming is self sabotage. It keeps us stuck in our problems and prevents us from taking steps towards solutions. Many Somalis lived through decades of state collapse with corrupt and violent conditions. We saw how rules were enforced unfairly and were used to harm rather than protect people. This experience with broken systems and injustice created rural skepticism, Dule said. When we face barriers to adjustments such as poverty, social exclusion or discrimination, we must take the high road. Many of us have. Research consistently shows that most immigrants are law abiding and often commit less crime than native born citizens. Yet a minority of Somalis who have failed to integrate have chosen to engage in fraud or corruption. They have given us all a bad name. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying. Which brings us to what the right is saying. The right welcomes malls announcement saying he failed as a leader due to subservience in identity politics. Some suggest the fraud cases underscore the risks of unchecked immigration. Others say vast welfare systems are to blame, not immigrants. In Fox News, David Marcus wrote, tim Walz's white guilt finally ends his career. Governor Tim Walz will not seek a third term leading the Gopher State. In the end, the massive scale of Somali fraud that went unchecked under his nose was just too much to recover from. Bad news on the Somali front snowballed fast for Walls, with reports that as much as 9 billion with a B dollars was pilfered by members of the migrant community. While the governor appeared to do little but protect the thieves, Marcus said Walls might have survived this imbruglio had he taken it more seriously as the scandal broke. But the intrepid work of independent journalist Nick Shirley, whose shocking videos of empty daycare centers receiving millions from taxpayers were likely the final straw. Ultimately, Walsh decided to blow up his political career rather than be accused of racism by accurately addressing the broad systemic fraud rampant in Minnesota Somali community. Watching Walls struggle to wish away one of the biggest fraud scandals in American history was more awkward than watching him trying to load a shotgun. In both cases, he seemed to be trying to sell something to voters that even he didn't really believe, marcus wrote. This is also a tragic day for the members of the liberal media who spent weeks defending Walz's shambolic handling of the Somali scandal, telling us it was no big deal and that it happens everywhere. In his substack, Eric Woods Ericsson explored what Nick Shirley uncovered. Shirley showed up at Somali childcare centers in Minnesota and discovered despite those entities getting millions in federal dollars, they actually had no children present. Even if some of the claims Shirley made were not quite as he claimed, which some say he still exposed a rampant system of corruption, waste, fraud and abuse, Erickson said what is most notable is how progressives are simply screaming racism because they do not want to acknowledge a conservative argument is true. In fact, so much of what is happening with immigration is progressives simply willing the stories not to be true so they do not have to confront their own policy failures. I am encouraged in this case. The Department of Justice and FBI are rounding up people for fraud in Minnesota, but we need more and more indictments. We need deportations. We need massive exposure in such a way that the Democrats cannot hide from it. We need a public campaign in Congress to change the laws if necessary and highlight Democrat opposition to those legal changes if they oppose them, erickson wrote. Frankly, we need Donald Trump to hop Air Force One over to Minnesota and do a press conference so the national news networks can't ignore the story, The Wall Street Journal editorial board said Minnesota's fraud problem isn't immigrants While governor Tim Walls and Somali migrants may be easy political targets, the GOP will let this scandal go to waste if it fails to explain how vast government welfare payments have become an invitation for fraud and abuse, the board wrote. Minnesota's varieties of government fraud are prompting welcome scrutiny of its welfare system. Visitors to the state government website could mistake it for an Internet scam because it advertises so many cash, housing support, childcare, food, emergency assistance and more. These are on top of federal transfer payments. With so much money and so many programs, this vast system is an open vault for scammers, especially when politicians are loath to police fraud because doing so might be called racist or anti poor. But it's also corrupting for beneficiaries who have an incentive to remain on the dole rather than build an independent life, the board said. Republicans complain about fraud, but too few want to tackle the perverse incentives that allow it to flourish. Annual government transfer payments have increased by some 1.7 trillion to 4.9 trillion since the start of the pandemic, roughly double the rate of inflation. Minnesota's problem isn't immigrants, it's the welfare state that corrupts them. All right, let's head over to Ari for his take.
