Still in Operation, still getting money

[neurosis]

I don't believe that Trump would have had a second term if it hadn't been for Covid.

Trump was his own worst enemy in his first term in the same way that he's his own worst enemy now.

[beej]

interesting stat:
Missouri population 6.2million budget $52 billion.
Minnesota populatoin 5.8 million budget $67 billion.

the difference is 15 billion, which is very close to the amount of fraud that news sites are throwing around.

that budget costs each Minnesotan $3,164 more than each Missourian per year. I just wonder if they care about that.

[gcode]

With the incompetence (or worse) of Tim Walz's administration being the number one news story in the country, my non-Minnesota friends ask me: "Tim Walz couldn't possibly be re-elected. Could he?"

Let's first dispose of any criminal issue. Elon Musk, in the tweet embedded above, urges that Walz be prosecuted. But there is no evidence that he, or other members of his administration, have committed crimes. Rather, they have perpetrated the dodge that has been a mainstay of the Democratic Party for going on 100 years: buying votes with other people's money. They have pumped billions of dollars into Minnesota's relatively small (100,000-150,000) and insular Somali community, and by doing so have created a solid and reliable voting bloc that has helped to swing one election after another their way. Why should they care if half or more of those billions of dollars were fraudulent? Criminal or not, the spending bought votes.

Did Tim Walz know the frauds were going on? Of course. Even Walz isn't that stupid. But absent taking bribes, of which there is zero evidence, he has not committed a crime.

That said, Walz's standing with Minnesota voters is teetering on the edge. Conventional polling has shown him around even in approval/disapproval, with approval a little under 50%. Not great, but not hopeless. I think the most meaningful poll is the one that was conducted for American Experiment by Meeting Street Insights and published here. We found a very high level of awareness of the frauds among Minnesota voters, and also a high level of concern: 68% said that fraud would play a role in their vote for governor in 2026, with 50% saying it would play a major role.

PowerLine  Is it Over for Waltz

my guess is No.

[YoDoug]

that budget costs each Minnesotan $3,164 more than each Missourian per year. I just wonder if they care about that.

You have to remember, this is the state that elected Jesse Ventura and Al Franken. If you live here you quickly learn that the saying MN nice, is really just MN ignorant. It's the nice guy that just keeps getting taken advantage of by the scheming pretty girl. Doesn't want to believe she is really like that and that she really is a nice person.

[Bucky Cornstarch]

PowerLine  Is it Over for Waltz

my guess is No.

First: if fraud, or bribery, or dishonest transactions, or any of the other things done daily by Trump have been done by Walz or anyone else in Minnesota or by any other democrat or anyone else who the Nutcons here have a problem with, may they all hang by their genitalia until they bleed out, and may their families rot in hell.

Now that we've got that out of the way, you know that's an opinion piece, don't you G?

[Smit]

Now that we've got that out of the way, you know that's an opinion piece, don't you G?

An opinon piece by Powerline.

Detailed Report

Questionable Reasoning: Propaganda, Poor Sourcing, Failed Fact Checks
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: USA
MBFC's Country Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

[gcode]

Barking up the wrong tree

Minnesota's fraud scandals have become the country's number one news story, and conservatives are after someone's hide. Countless tweets, etc., have demanded accountability and asked Republican politicians, what are you going to do about it? The administration is responding:

ICE agents Monday targeted Minnesota sites suspected in the state's sprawling, billion-dollar fraud scheme in a bid to root out potential illegal migrants amid the shameful scandal, authorities said.

"DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites," the Department of Homeland Security posted on X along with a video of a pair of DHS agents entering Nicollet Tobacco & Vape in Burnsville, about 17 miles south of Minneapolis.
***
"Right now in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Investigations and ICE are on the ground conducting a large-scale investigation on fraudulent daycare and healthcare centers, as well as other rampant fraud," DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Post.

In the video shared by the agency, two immigration officers enter the Burnsville business and quiz a woman behind the counter about a nearby building that the agents said appeared closed and asked her if she had "seen any people come and go from there" in recent days.

ICE is the wrong tool for the task at hand. The Minnesota Somali story is not about illegal immigration. The massive frauds that have been uncovered over the past four years have not been perpetrated, to any significant degree, by illegal immigrants. Rather, Minnesota's Somalis pretty much all came here legally, as refugees. (There probably was widespread asylum fraud going back many years, but that is not something that ICE can address.)

Moreover, the vast majority of Minnesota Somalis are not only legal immigrants, they are American citizens. Of those convicted so far in the Feeding Our Future scandal, the large majority have been citizens. This is why Somalis have become a significant voting bloc. The scandal is not illegal immigration, it is vote-buying.

[Smit]

Double down!

Detailed Report

Questionable Reasoning: Propaganda, Poor Sourcing, Failed Fact Checks
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: USA
MBFC's Country Freedom Rating: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

[gcode]

The New York Post

Last week independent journalist Nick Shirley did what any mainstream journalist could have done, but didn't.

He found a list of Somali-run "day care" institutions funded by the state, then visited them to see what kind of care they were offering.

The answer is, the kind with no actual kids.

In all, Shirley identified approximately $110 million worth of fraud.

These institutions were supposedly visited by state inspectors — who sometimes noted violations, but didn't note that the whole thing was a scam. (One of these "educational" facilities even misspelled "learning" on its signage.)

Shirley's massively viral video — with 116 million views and counting — inspired others to dig into political donation records.

Sure enough, recipients of the daycare funding were making big donations to, you guessed it, Democratic politicians.

First to come under scrutiny is Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who represents the district where many of the scams — which may have siphoned off a staggering $9 billion — are centered.

Omar's venture-capitalist husband is quietly scrubbing his website of key officer details as questions grow over how the congresswoman suddenly acquired a $30 million fortune.

Now Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris' bumbling 2024 running mate, is starting to get some tough questions.

John Hinderaker, whose Minnesota-based Center for the American Experiment think tank has been on top of this fraud story for years, explains this scandal isn't exactly new.

A decade ago the FBI investigated Somali child-care fraudsters for opening daycare centers with no kids and collecting state money for fictitious children.

"A number of Somalis went to prison, but it didn't deter others from carrying out similar frauds, on a grander scale," Hinderaker wrote on his PowerLine blog.

Walz, who was in Congress when the last batch of Somali scam artists faced charges, can't be ignorant of this history.

Does this mean Tim Walz is going to jail? Unlikely.

"Did Tim Walz know the frauds were going on?" Hinderaker asks. "Of course. Even Walz isn't that stupid.

"But absent taking bribes, of which there is zero evidence, he has not committed a crime."

Probably correct.

The FBI is surging investigators to Minnesota in search of more fraud — and director Kash Patel says what we've seen so far just the "tip of a very large iceberg."

Perhaps high-level officials will someday face charges.

But until then, this scandal leaves additional questions to be addressed.

First, with Walz on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024, why did no national or local "mainstream" journalists look into all this?

Given the previous prosecutions, the background of a state's governor on a national ticket should be a top priority for any honest press.

(I know, haha, I said "honest press.")

Even now, Minnesota press isn't covering this story.

Shirley's findings went uber-viral on social media — but the Minnesota Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press have said not a word about his post as I write. 

Well, like much of the national media, these papers have long had a hand-in-glove relationship with the state's Democrats.

And as humorist Jim Treacher puts it, they see their job as determining what stories the public doesn't need to know about, because they might hurt the Democratic Party.

The other question, of course, is whether this scandal extends to other states, too.

And the answer is, almost certainly.

Where money floats around without adequate safeguards, fraud is almost inevitable — and many federal and state programs seem almost deliberately designed to facilitate fraud.

I added that "almost" purely out of courtesy. 

This month a whistleblower in Maine alleged that the state's Medicaid program was bilked out of millions by another Somali scammer.

And California's nonpartisan state auditor recently issued a report on "high risk" state programs that found billions lost to wrongful food-assistance and other welfare claims. 

The extent of the loss is staggering, even to cynics like me.

But what do we do?

We could try to find more honest public officials. (Haha, I said "honest public officials").

[Bucky Cornstarch]

The New York Post

Heck yeah G, stay away from facts and reality and credible news sites AND be damn proud of it!!!

👍

[gcode]

LA Times

About half of $18 billion in Medicaid claims to 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may be fraudulent, federal prosecutors said Thursday, calling it "industrial-scale" fraud.
Five new defendants were charged for housing services fraud, allegedly pocketing Medicaid money meant for recipients and using proceeds for international travel and luxury goods.
Gov. Tim Walz ordered a third-party audit due by late January as the state grapples with eroding public confidence in program oversight.
MINNEAPOLIS — About half or more of the roughly $18 billion in claims paid out by Medicaid to 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been fraudulent, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Joe Thompson said the scale of fraud in Minnesota outpaces that of other states and puts services at risk for people who really need them.

While prosecutors typically see fraud manifest as providers overbilling, he said, companies have been created to provide zero services while pocketing federal funds for international travel, luxury vehicles and lavish lifestyles.

"The magnitude cannot be overstated," Thompson said during a news conference in Minneapolis. "What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It's staggering, industrial-scale fraud."

The investigators' new findings may bolster President Trump in his claims that Minnesota is a "hub of fraudulent money laundering activity" under Gov. Tim Walz, who was the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in last year's election.

Trump has capitalized on the fraud cases to target the Somalian diaspora in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S. The majority of the defendants in the child nutrition, housing services and autism program schemes are Somali Americans, and most are U.S. citizens.

Advertisement
New charges, a guilty plea and more programs under investigation
Five new defendants were charged Thursday in connection with a Minnesota housing services fraud, in which they pocketed the money instead of helping Medicaid recipients find stable housing, Thompson said. One defendant fled the country after his company received a federal grand jury subpoena, the prosecutor said.

The five charged include two Philadelphia residents who have been accused of "fraud tourism," Thompson said, because they saw the Minnesota Housing Stability Services Program as a source of "easy money." They submitted $3.5 million in fraudulent claims.

They join eight others who were charged in September for their alleged roles in the scheme to defraud the Minnesota Housing Stability Services Program.

Prosecutors also named a new defendant accused of defrauding another state-run, federally funded program that provides services for children with autism, alleging he submitted $6 million worth of claims for Medicaid reimbursement. One woman previously charged for exploiting that program pleaded guilty Thursday morning, officials said.

Authorities also served a search warrant Thursday in an investigation of a third state-run program, Integrated Community Supports, which was intended to support adults with disabilities who want to live independently. Payments to providers are on track to reach $180 million this year — exponentially more than when the state program was introduced in 2021 — leading prosecutors to believe it's another program that has been abused.

"Every day, we look under a rock and find a new $50-million fraud scheme," Thompson said.

The announcements Thursday follow years of investigation that began with the $300 million Feeding Our Future scheme, for which 57 defendants have been convicted. Prosecutors said the Feeding Our Future nonprofit was at the center of the country's largest COVID-19-related fraud scam, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.

Money sent abroad but no evidence it has purposefully funded terrorism
Trump's rhetoric against Somalis in Minnesota has intensified since a conservative news outlet, City Journal, claimed last month that taxpayer dollars from defrauded government programs have flowed to the Somali militant group Al Shabab, an affiliate of Al Qaeda.

Trump has referred to the Somali community as "garbage" and said he doesn't want immigrants from the East African country in the U.S.

Thompson said a significant amount of the fraudulently obtained funds have been sent abroad, and much of it has been used to purchase real estate in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, which has a large Somali diaspora.

While Thompson said money might have indirectly gotten into the hands of Al Shabab, he emphasized that there was no evidence that defendants were sending money to or otherwise supporting terrorist organizations.

"There's no indication that the defendants that we've charged were radicalized or seeking to fund al-Shabab or other terrorist groups," Thompson said.

Instead, one Feeding Our Future defendant spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an aircraft in Nairobi. Another wired $1.5 million to China and Kenya, prosecutors said, and sent a text message claiming to have invested $6 million in Kenya. And one man bought Mediterranean coastal property in Alanya, Turkey.

Fraud has eroded statewide confidence
Thompson said the massive scale of fraud that seems to be unique to Minnesota has eroded a statewide sense of confidence, allowed to go on for "far too long," he said.

"Our state has not done a good job of mining these programs," Thompson said, adding that leaders across the state have to grapple with accountability.

The governor has initiated a third-party audit, due for completion by late January, that he says should give a better picture on the extent of the fraud. Walz said in a Dec. 12 op-ed that the state has made significant progress in detecting fraud, but "we have much more to do."

Walz also appointed a director of program integrity, who is tasked with finding and preventing fraud statewide. It's not stopped his Republican counterparts from criticizing his administration for failure to protect Minnesota's taxpayer dollars.

A spokesperson for Walz did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.

[Smit]

The New York Post

That is probably the best source you've ever used.

Still pretty awful, but everything being relative, that best.

[CNCAppsJames]

You cannot view this attachment.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[neurosis]

It was bound to happen? 

https://komonews.com/news/local/federal-fraud-investigation-minnesota-seattle-somali-community-governor-bob-ferguson-community-social-media-youtuber-fbi-director-kash-patel-tukwila

In response to the investigation, the Somali community in Seattle has reported experiencing backlash. Nafisa Samatar, executive director of the Somali Independent Business Alliance (SIBA), said, "As a Somali and as a small business provider, we are really scared; people are afraid." She noted that the backlash affects Somali-run businesses across the board, from restaurants to daycare centers.

[CNCAppsJames]

It only takes a little leaven to go through the whole loaf.