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TIL there’s something called fraud tourism. Congrats, Minnesota.

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Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

You completely misrepresented the funds being discussed and the blamed the tweet for it. 

How did I misrepresent anything? I was talking about the article and the tweet. I wasn't talking about everything else happening in Minnesota. The tweet by the company that published the article was incorrect and misleading. You've agreed with that. I don't understand why you're upset that I've pointed it out. 

The article is about two things:

1) 5 new defendants being indicted for a few million dollars in fraud;

2) Suggestions (not even allegations) by the prosecutor that there may be $9 billion in fraud.

The $9 billion isn't indicted. It isn't supported by any alleged facts. The sum total of his belief for that statement appears to be a cursory review of some billing data. That's a problem and not proper behavior by an officer of the court. 

34 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

How did I misrepresent anything? I was talking about the article and the tweet. I wasn't talking about everything else happening in Minnesota. The tweet by the company that published the article was incorrect and misleading. You've agreed with that. I don't understand why you're upset that I've pointed it out. 

The article is about two things:

1) 5 new defendants being indicted for a few million dollars in fraud;

2) Suggestions (not even allegations) by the prosecutor that there may be $9 billion in fraud.

The $9 billion isn't indicted. It isn't supported by any alleged facts. The sum total of his belief for that statement appears to be a cursory review of some billing data. That's a problem and not proper behavior by an officer of the court. 

You also alleged that Walz was misquoted in agreeing that fraud could reach over one billion. For no reason other than than that “you couldn’t find it,” and it’s not like this is some uber lib or con rag. Anyway, here he is saying it:

Clip starts at 30:35. 

Reporter: “Joe Thompson said that fraud could surpass one billion in Minnesota. Do you agree with that number?”

Walz: “Yes.” 

You are correct that the Star-Tribune analysis counts formal charges in addition to guilty verdicts and pleas. (It is much easier to say that since I am not a lawyer.)

So I will rework my statement: an analysis of all charges brought in RICO cases against mafia figures and the dollar amount involved would be interesting. I would never attempt to say that the figure represents something like a useful guide to mafia theft and corruption. It’s really silly to think so. And I don’t expect the Star-Tribune analysis of charges to get close to the real amount of fraud perpetrated on Minnesota DHS. 

So what we know is that Walz agreed that fraud could go over a billion. Now he disagrees with Thompson that it may be 9 billion. The real amount surely can’t be known. 

Maybe somewhere between 217 million and 9 billion we reach something that’s worth more concern than a misleading tweet. 

Edited by 956 Worldwide

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You also alleged that Walz was misquoted in agreeing that fraud could reach over one billion. For no reason other than than that “you couldn’t find it,” and it’s not like this is some uber lib or con rag. Anyway, here he is saying it:

Clip starts at 30:35. 

Reporter: “Joe Thompson said that fraud could surpass one billion in Minnesota. Do you agree with that number?”

Walz: “Yes.” 

You are correct that the Star-Tribune analysis counts formal charges in addition to guilty verdicts and pleas. (It is much easier to say that since I am not a lawyer.)

So I will rework my statement: an analysis of all charges brought in RICO cases against mafia figures and the dollar amount involved would be interesting. I would never attempt to say that the figure represents something like a useful guide to mafia theft and corruption. It’s really silly to think so. And I don’t expect the Star-Tribune analysis of charges to get close to the real amount of fraud perpetrated on Minnesota DHS. 

So what we know is that Walz agreed that fraud could go over a billion. Now he disagrees with Thompson that it may be 9 billion. The real amount surely can’t be known. 

Maybe somewhere between 217 million and 9 billion we reach something that’s worth more concern than a misleading tweet. 

1. I never said I wasn't concerned about fraud. I've said multiple times that I am and I want it prosecuted. But when an article (or the tween introducing an article from the company publishing it) is misleading, it raises my suspicions about the other parts of it. 

2. Thank you for providing a source for the quote. That is what I asked for. As I said, I couldn't find the source for it. I looked up other statements that were less specific, which is why I questioned what the article was referring to.

3. As a lawyer, I'm sensitive to the legal side of this, and the politicization of the DOJ and the justice system more broadly. Fraud is Minnesota is bad for Minnesota. I don't live there so I don't have a real connection or interest in it. Politicization of the justice system is bad everyone, is happening, and this appeared to be an extension of it. 

It is possible for multiple things to be true at the same time. There can be real and significant fraud and waste in Minnesota, and the weaponization of the justice system to stretch that issue for political gain can also be a significant problem. 

 

 

 

21 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Maybe somewhere between 217 million and 9 billion we reach something that’s worth more concern than a misleading tweet. 

This is just dumb. It is nowhere close to 9B the assertion is absurd on its face. That number was picked, and placed as it was in the CBS headline the way it was, and posted here by GRU, to fan anti Somali hatred and resentment. Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe 

8 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

This is just dumb. It is nowhere close to 9B the assertion is absurd on its face. That number was picked, and placed as it was in the CBS headline the way it was, and posted here by GRU, to fan anti Somali hatred and resentment. Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe 

Yep, it's like a lot of things Trump.  Somewhere buried in all the bullshit, there's a nugget of truth.

29 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

This is just dumb. It is nowhere close to 9B the assertion is absurd on its face. That number was picked, and placed as it was in the CBS headline the way it was, and posted here by GRU, to fan anti Somali hatred and resentment. Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe 

I will concur with Walz that it’s likely above $1 billion. We will see where it stops. Even  that figure is frankly obscene, but completely unsurprising as I’ve seen similar combinations of factors result in absurd amounts of ignored criminality. 
 

Even “only” $215 million across 77 conspirators is astonishing. It requires vast community-level complicity combined with willful ignorance at the bureaucratic level. It is extremely difficult to find 76 people willing to go in on a “defraud the government” scheme absent some very unique community factors. 

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The point is not whether there's fraud or not. 

There is. 

The point is that this is racist propaganda. 

1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I will concur with Walz that it’s likely above $1 billion. We will see where it stops. Even  that figure is frankly obscene, but completely unsurprising as I’ve seen similar combinations of factors result in absurd amounts of ignored criminality. 
 

Even “only” $215 million across 77 conspirators is astonishing. It requires vast community-level complicity combined with willful ignorance at the bureaucratic level. It is extremely difficult to find 76 people willing to go in on a “defraud the government” scheme absent some very unique community factors. 

What very unique community factors did it take for Senator (former governor) Rick Scott to get to 2B 🧐

16 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

What very unique community factors did it take for Senator (former governor) Rick Scott to get to 2B 🧐

You will get no argument from me that a culture of complete dependence on government largesse, a political sense of untouchability, and a feeling that “everyone else is doing it, I’m missing out if I don’t” has created a deeply corrupt set of people in high-level health care executives. 
 

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You will get no argument from me that a culture of complete dependence on government largesse, a political sense of untouchability, and a feeling that “everyone else is doing it, I’m missing out if I don’t” has created a deeply corrupt set of people in high-level health care executives. 
 

 So in the case of rich white males it has nothing to do with their ethni err community? That is very interesting indeed

Hey 
@immamac If you won’t ban the shitbird OP can you at least change the thread title to “CBS has become the propaganda arm of the Trump regime” ?


Weiss ruining 60 minutes

 

Quote

CBS News pulled a "60 Minutes" report on a mega prison in El Salvador that houses hundreds of Venezuelan deportees sent by the U.S. just hours before its scheduled Sunday broadcast, saying it would air at a future time

 

Here's some additional context most of the national reporting is leaving out:

On Friday, November 21, as most Americans were prepping for Thanksgiving, President Trump went on a tirade on his Truth Social platform. Egged on by unsubstantiated claims by noted right-wing pugilist Chris Rufo, he posted: “Minnesota, under Governor Waltz [sic], is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity…. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back where they came from. It’s OVER!”

Less than two weeks later, on December 3, Trump announced an ICE operation targeting the Somali population in the Twin Cities, while referring to Somalis as “garbage.” This crackdown continued through Christmas, with arbitrary arrests of Somali immigrants with no criminal record and fear spreading throughout the state’s Somali community.

In recent months, there has been ever greater attention paid to a spate of fraudulent activity in Minnesota, with most of those implicated being Somali. (The ringleader of the largest fraud, Feeding Our Future, is a white American, and nearly all of those indicted are naturalized or natural-born American citizens.)

CBS—under its new owners, the Ellison family—along with the Murdoch trinity of Fox News, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, have covered the story aggressively, at times picking up unconfirmed accounts from conservative influencers that have spun into wild charges about vote-buying and cover-ups.

The New York Times provided front-page coverage to a Sunday news story echoing key arguments made in Trump administration talking points: that a Nordic-style welfare state in Minnesota, combined with criminal tendencies inherent to the state’s Somali population, created an environment ripe for fraud. The Times also focuses on the defendants’ claims that they were being persecuted for racial reasons.

But a Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) review has found that the administration’s preferred narrative has been advanced in widespread coverage by corporate media outlets.

Prosecutors with the Department of Justice (DOJ) began filing charges in the fraud ring in 2022, during the Biden administration. At the time it was estimated at $250 million. Feeding Our Future and other groups were accused of filing false claims to the government for services under the Federal Child Nutrition Program, which provides free meals to children, despite having never provided the meals.

More indictments were filed this year, extending the alleged fraud scheme to a housing stabilization program and a health care program. CBS, Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post have all repeated DOJ claims that the frauds now exceed $1 billion. Joseph Thompson, the federal prosecutor leading the case, did not respond to repeated requests for comment from CMD asking for clarification on DOJ’s monetary estimates.

The only citations supporting the $1-billion claim in those stories come from a department that has been weaponized against its political enemies and is prone to “unprecedented errors” that seriously undermine its credibility.

Based on what the DOJ has actually filed in court, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune calculated the cost of the alleged fraud schemes to be $217.7 million over multiple years, while noting that the number was likely to grow.

The above-mentioned mainstream national news outlets did not respond to requests from CMD asking about the basis for reporting the $1 billion fraud claim. Meanwhile, the DOJ has since increased its estimate to as high as $9 billion.

“At the very least, newsrooms should be transparent [about] not fact-checking the president’s statistics and [admit] that he has a habit of gross overstatement,” Kelly McBride, a senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, told CMD. “But ideally, yes, they should do their own reporting, or cite another reputable news organization like the Minnesota Star-Tribune that has done the math.”

Compared to the Star-Tribune’s $217.7 million fraud estimate, the Department of Defense reported more than 10 times that amount—$2.4 billion—in confirmed fraud in military contracts in 2024 alone, which the legislative branch watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office notes “reflects only a small fraction of DOD’s potential fraud exposure.”

Additionally, key aspects of the November 30, 2025, New York Times article, titled “How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch,” raise questions about the paper’s approach to reporting on the fraudulent activity in the state.

For example, the Times quoted Ahmed Samatar, a Somali-American professor at Macalester College, who advanced claims reinforcing the idea that the fraudulent behavior in Minnesota emerged from a particular aspect of Somali culture blended with the concept of “Minnesota nice.” The Times reported that Samatar said that “Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.” The story also quoted Samatar as speculating that Minnesota proved susceptible to rampant fraud because it is “so tolerant, so open, and so geared toward keeping an eye on the weak.”

Samatar’s comments deserve closer examination. The Times failed to mention that the professor is very active in the Somaliland political scene, chairing a political movement in the breakaway region of Somalia. Somaliland’s independence has been championed by U.S. Representative Scott Perry (R–PA), who played a significant role in Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, including helping to plan congressional obstruction of the certification on January 6, 2021. The Somaliland independence cause received a huge boost by being included as part of the Project 2025 foreign policy platform. On December 27, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, in a widely condemned move.

In September, the Feeding Our Future scandal resulted in the indictment of the wife of the foreign minister of Somaliland, Muna Waceys Fidhin, who is also a politician in her own right and chair of a Somaliland political party’s U.S. branch. Samatar backed a rival party in Somaliland’s 2024 elections and has implied that Fidhin’s party took advantage of a “rotten” political system.

In an interview with CMD and in follow-up questions, Samatar did not clarify these points, stating: “That topic is not something I want to talk about in this context. All Somalis in this state are related as a community… Small fish, big fish, whatever they are, it’s not worthwhile to explore whether or not they are from this town or that town. I would like to leave the analysis at that level.”

Representative Ilhan Omar (D–MN), the most prominent Somali politician in the country, has taken a different tack than Samatar, contending that in the U.S. people generally “do not blame the lawlessness of an individual on a whole community.” She has also been a critic of Somaliland independence. The BBC reported in January that excitement related to the possibility of U.S. recognition of Somaliland independence had increased Trump’s popularity in the breakaway region.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., a former education director of the AFL-CIO who has written, organized, and lobbied on issues related to the Horn of Africa, told CMD that Samatar’s decision to avoid commenting on the nature of Somali dynamics was likely due to the complex internal politics and history of Somalia.

Fletcher made the case that the Somali-American community likely exhibits the same problems as any immigrant community—but that the way the Trump administration and the media have framed these problems is wrong. “Somali refugees start coming to the U.S. and get settled in Minnesota,” he said. “Nobody seems to object to that. Overwhelmingly, they [choose to] become U.S. citizens and part of the larger community.”

Fletcher argued that the characterization of fraudulent activity as inherent to the Somali community demonstrates a failure to understand how organized criminal activity typically works.

“The idea that criminal activity is a product of Nordic social services is absurd. It’s as absurd as saying that Lucky Luciano was a product of the New Deal,” Fletcher said, arguing that organized crime becomes parasitic within an ethnic community, and then expands outwards. “The kind of blame being put on the Somali community is very analogous to how Italians and Sicilians in particular were being characterized in the middle of the [20th] century.”

In a statement to CMD, a Times spokesperson maintains that “This reporting by The Times drew on a wide range of interviews, sources, documents and court records to show how fraudulent activity had spread within Minnesota social safety-net programs.” The spokesperson noted that the Times had spoken to the prosecutor handling the cases and Gov. Tim Walz, and reviewed all available evidence. “We are confident in the accuracy and fairness of this article.”

Media organizations have an obligation to report in such a way that “the audience walks away from your work with a clear understanding of the facts,” McBride of the Poynter Institute reminds us. “That means that when you use direct quotes that distort or misinform, you have to tell the audience what the truth is.”

TLDR: some reporting on this includes commentary from persons who are likely using that opportunity to further other political goals related to recognition of Somaliland, which is being presented as just disinterested, objective information by journalists who should know better.

Why Project 2025 is interested in US recognition of Somaliland, I have no idea.

"We have charged 98 individuals in relation to fraud in Minnesota. More than 60 have pled guilty or been convicted. More to come," the department said on the US social media company X’s platform.

How do they have convictions already? That is one fast process if true.

When President Fraud and the Fraudy Bunch are telling me to be concerned about fraud, my bullshit meter goes off bigtime. When I see that the main targets conveniently align with the President’s political targets, the meter explodes.

This all might be legit and worthy of concern, but the administration’s actions have made it impossible to view any of this impartially.

Folks, sometimes things are as they seem and one needs to surrender to reality before deciding that the NYT is being manipulated by Trump and tricksy Somaliland activists.

It should surprise absolutely no one that an insular, clannish set of first and second generation immigrants from a notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden locale, who are virtually all dependent on state welfare, have become the focus of massive welfare corruption in a high-openness, high-social safety net society. This sort of thing is replicable against time and space.

The comparisons to Italians are hilarious because all of that was completely true! Generations of overlapping clan/criminal networks completely took over entire public and semi-public activities in northern cities and hid within an ethic community thanks to a combination of fear, mistrust of the outside, clannishness and cultural solidarity. Those networks bought and installed local politicians, and even legit politicians were afraid to take it on because of the power of the groups and voting blocs. The Feds had to engage in generational crackdowns to get a handle on it and the same deflections got tossed out.

I can agree that the DJT tactic is distasteful and politically motivated. Success against other similar crime rings and phenomena depended on a pathway to pull ordinary people out of insularity and into the mainstream and things have gotten toxic because the right doesn’t want to allow in and influential swathes of the modern left has determined that actively pushing for integration and assimilation is violence.

Edited by 956 Worldwide

  • Popular Post
23 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

When President Fraud and the Fraudy Bunch are telling me to be concerned about fraud, my bullshit meter goes off bigtime. When I see that the main targets conveniently align with the President’s political targets, the meter explodes.

This all might be legit and worthy of concern, but the administration’s actions have made it impossible to view any of this impartially.

Fraud is super serious, and merits the expulsion of an entire ethnicity from our country.

Except when that fraud is committed by friends of the POTUS/people who bribed him with money from their ill-gotten gains. In those cases, it requires a pardon, and any conviction-gained through an exercise of complete due process, including final adjudication-was "a witch hunt."

And also except when that fraud is committed by a MAGA senator (Rick Scott) to the tune of billions, that's also a "witch hunt."

Lesson: if you wanna commit fraud, be white, and/or provide significant benefits (money, unflinching loyalty/fealty from a position of power, or both) to the regime.

So, forgive me if I never, ever, EVER listen to a single fucking WORD any MAGAt has to say about fraud. They have no fucking problem with fraud. They have demonstrated as much, in actual practice. There is no further discussion to be had.

Americans fall for racial agitprop every goddamned time. Not just Americans, I suppose. It's all over Europe too.

1 hour ago, VABuckeye said:

"We have charged 98 individuals in relation to fraud in Minnesota. More than 60 have pled guilty or been convicted. More to come," the department said on the US social media company X’s platform.

How do they have convictions already? That is one fast process if true.

Because this whole deal has been going on for years. One of the reasons the numbers are so large is they are cumulative over nearly a decade.

14 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Folks, sometimes things are as they seem and one needs to surrender to reality before deciding that the NYT is being manipulated by Trump and tricksy Somaliland activists.

It should surprise absolutely no one that an insular, clannish set of first and second generation immigrants from a notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden locale, who are virtually all dependent on state welfare, have become the focus of massive welfare corruption in a high-openness, high-social safety net society. This sort of thing is replicable against time and space.

The comparisons to Italians are hilarious because all of that was completely true! Generations of overlapping clan/criminal networks completely took over entire public and semi-public activities in northern cities and hid within an ethic community thanks to a combination of fear, mistrust of the outside, clannishness and cultural solidarity. Those networks bought and installed local politicians, and even legit politicians were afraid to take it on because of the power of the groups and voting blocs. The Feds had to engage in generational crackdowns to get a handle on it and the same deflections got tossed out.

I can agree that the DJT tactic is distasteful and politically motivated. Success against other similar crime rings and phenomena depended on a pathway to pull ordinary people out of insularity and into the mainstream and things have gotten toxic because the right doesn’t want to allow in and influential swathes of the modern left has determined that actively pushing for integration and assimilation is violence.

Both things can be true.

It's funny though, how Italian-Americans survived anarchist and mafioso stereotypes to essentially flourish here.

Anyone want to hazard a guess how Somali-Americans are going to weather such stereotyping?

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

No, no, no. As explained above, Somalis are inherently criminal as a nationality. Just the facts

I’m admittedly behind on this situation due to the holidays and what-not. But I was reading a bunch of rebuttals on this on Threads last night. Was this situation already being addressed/prosecuted by Biden’s DOJ as many of those posters were saying? Or is this something completely different?

I say all of that with full knowledge that if the right-wingy blogosphere/influencers world is pumping it incessantly, it’s likely BS talking points — and a means to distract from Dementia Donny’s Epstein involvement.

17 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Americans fall for racial agitprop every goddamned time. Not just Americans, I suppose. It's all over Europe too.

Evergreen

1*txP9TNp3wvb3XxS7fk279A.jpeg

2 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I’m admittedly behind on this situation due to the holidays and what-not. But I was reading a bunch of rebuttals on this on Threads last night. Was this situation already being addressed/prosecuted by Biden’s DOJ as many of those posters were saying? Or is this something completely different?

I say all of that with full knowledge that if the right-wingy blogosphere/influencers world is pumping it incessantly, it’s likely BS talking points — and a means to distract from Dementia Donny’s Epstein involvement.

Yes.

It's not a new thing. It is being politicized.

It's just too convenient: you got Minnesota and Walz, Ilhan Omar, dark brown immigrants, some of whom are on TPS. It's a quadfecta for Trump.

Edited by TwiceHorn

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Both things can be true.

It's funny though, how Italian-Americans survived anarchist and mafioso stereotypes to essentially flourish here.

Anyone want to hazard a guess how Somali-Americans are going to weather such stereotyping?

One has to be able to mentally do work. It was always wrong to assume that any Italian you met is a criminal or wise guy. However, it would have been stupid not to focus on Italians with connections to sanitation and unions and deny that the problem existed.

One issue is that Americans of all political stripes prefer to do welfare via grants and social organizations rather than just running them. The right typically has a mistaken belief that the government will fuck it up less than an NGO, business correctly see a way to grift. Special activist groups correctly recognize that it’s highly more effective at delivering “services” to preferred recipients directly. It’s like public schools, we just open those and you can go if you need it. It’s not that you can’t steal from coffers, it’s just a hell of a lot harder to do at scale.

25 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Evergreen

1*txP9TNp3wvb3XxS7fk279A.jpeg

True, but Rupert needs a fucking HUUUUGE stack of cookies for it to be representative these days ...

2 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

True, but Rupert needs a fucking HUUUUGE stack of cookies for it to be representative these days ...

yLVNRLs.jpg

I often wonder why Democrats don't have more effective methods for challenging Republicans' successful use of racism to combat class consciousness. Then I remember most "important" Democrats are obscenely wealthy.

Sigh.

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Because this whole deal has been going on for years. One of the reasons the numbers are so large is they are cumulative over nearly a decade.

So, it's yet another example of this administration taking credit for everything and the blame for nothing.

8 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I often wonder why Democrats don't have more effective methods for challenging Republicans' successful use of racism to combat class consciousness. Then I remember most "important" Democrats are obscenely wealthy.

Sigh.

There are democrats who support government thugs being able to strip-search children 12 years and younger

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:
https://www.kttc.com
No image preview

Group of GOP legislators call for Gov. Walz to resign

A collection of Minnesota House and Senate Republicans is calling for the resignation of Governor Tim Walz after increased scrutiny into the state’s fraud issues.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/us/minnesota-day-care-fraud-what-we-know

Because of? He didn’t authorize the fraud, he didn’t cover it up. It’s being investigated and prosecuted.

Therefore he has to go!

17 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Because of? He didn’t authorize the fraud, he didn’t cover it up. It’s being investigated and prosecuted.

Therefore he has to go!

Minnesota has a nonpartisan legislative auditor who had been flagging oversight breakdowns and a concerning (to her) dismissive attitude from the state gov.

The dismissiveness of these findings and reports is very concerning for me. And I want to be clear, there are a large number of state employees who are very concerned about protecting the taxpayer dollar, but not all of them. And that message isn’t always the thing that’s emphasized. 

The Governor’s response is pretty awful and patronizing in retrospect but not great even at the time:

We appreciate the OLA’s work and often agree with them, which is why state agencies have implemented many of their suggestions. There are also times when the OLA’s suggestions don’t apply because the audits come out years after we’ve resolved an issue, they suggest actions that have already been taken, or they evaluate programs that no longer exist.

Sometimes, state agencies have expertise and knowledge that the OLA does not, and in those cases we may fundamentally disagree. Regardless, we always take their advice and recommendations seriously and ultimately do what we believe is in the best interest for Minnesotans. We are constantly evaluating ways to eliminate fraud and improve government programs, and we’re grateful for the OLA’s assistance.

I cannot emphasize enough that it’s always a bad look for good government/civil society/institluitonalists to get defensive and dismissive of IG or GAO type reports instead of pouncing on them as an opportunity to show bona fides. The whataboutism with Trump is just that— they ran on the idea of destroying things and doling out favors and dismantling important government functions and protections while attacking enemies. That’s the schtick! That’s not a line of attack with them!

But if you’re trying to convince people of the need for transparency and accountability and good governance you need to deliver it and even when you think the IG as wrong, you have to publicly vow to take the reports seriously and not just disagree and say it’s no problem. This is a door Walz walked into. You have to do the good governance part!

19 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

But if you’re trying to convince people of the need for transparency and accountability and good governance you need to deliver it and even when you think the IG as wrong, you have to publicly vow to take the reports seriously and not just disagree and say it’s no problem. This is a door Walz walked into. You have to do the good governance part!

Transparency.

Accountability.

Good Governance.

In this year of our Orange Lord 2025.

brian-cox-laughing-at-you.gif

I'll take "words we no longer need in the English language" for $500, Alex.

Edited by Brisketexan

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Folks, sometimes things are as they seem and one needs to surrender to reality before deciding that the NYT is being manipulated by Trump and tricksy Somaliland activists.

It should surprise absolutely no one that an insular, clannish set of first and second generation immigrants from a notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden locale, who are virtually all dependent on state welfare, have become the focus of massive welfare corruption in a high-openness, high-social safety net society. This sort of thing is replicable against time and space.

The comparisons to Italians are hilarious because all of that was completely true! Generations of overlapping clan/criminal networks completely took over entire public and semi-public activities in northern cities and hid within an ethic community thanks to a combination of fear, mistrust of the outside, clannishness and cultural solidarity. Those networks bought and installed local politicians, and even legit politicians were afraid to take it on because of the power of the groups and voting blocs. The Feds had to engage in generational crackdowns to get a handle on it and the same deflections got tossed out.

I can agree that the DJT tactic is distasteful and politically motivated. Success against other similar crime rings and phenomena depended on a pathway to pull ordinary people out of insularity and into the mainstream and things have gotten toxic because the right doesn’t want to allow in and influential swathes of the modern left has determined that actively pushing for integration and assimilation is violence.

Seriously man, just fuck off. You keep using this story as cudgel against the Somalian as a whole, as if they imported welfare fraud from Somalia. It's exactly why the Trump administration is pushing it and you are just lapping it up. White people, including Aimee Bock, commit plenty of fraud, but your main take-away is that we must do something about those unethical African immigrants.

5 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Seriously man, just fuck off. You keep using this story as cudgel against the Somalian as a whole, as if they imported welfare fraud from Somalia. It's exactly why the Trump administration is pushing it and you are just lapping it up. White people, including Aimee Bock, commit plenty of fraud, but your main take-away is that we must do something about those unethical African immigrants.

Thank you. Any argument that starts with, "Somalis usually ..." needs to be completely rejected out of hand. If you have evidence that these particular Somalis committed fraud, then by all means bring it forward and those people should be prosecuted. But this shit is absolutely ridiculous, even before you add on the fact that everyone knows exactly why the GOP is pushing this.

"Hispanics are usually good at baseball." OK, but 99.999999% of Hispanics in the United States do not play professional baseball. My best friend is Hispanic and he is the most uncoordinated guy I know and can't hit for shit. For the record, his name is not Jesus, who can definitely hit a curve.

2 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

My best friend is Hispanic and he is the most uncoordinated guy I know and can't hit for shit.

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