Day: December 29, 2025
Senate pressure mounts as Minnesota fraud scandal continues to unfold
Senator Jim Banks calls for federal investigation into alleged Minnesota childcare fraud involving fake daycare centers and Somali networks.
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Tim Walz scurries to defend record after video alleges new Somali-linked fraud
On Friday, independent video journalist Nick Shirley published a video on X that he claims shows widespread fraud involving purported day-care centers in Minnesota. Shirley wrote that he “uncovered over $110,000,000 [in fraud] in ONE day.” The video is the latest public allegation of fraud tied to Minnesota’s Somali community and comes as failed Democrat vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faces renewed scrutiny over the issue.
In the video, Shirley and his team are seen traveling Minnesota and visiting addresses where federally funded day-care centers are supposed to exist. When he arrived, he often found buildings with no children and seemingly no active day-care facilities.
‘There are not enough words to describe the breathtaking failure that has happened under the watch of @GovTimWalz.’
In a clip from Shirley’s video that Education Secretary Linda McMahon shared over the weekend, Shirley is shown standing outside a day-care facility identified as “Quality Learing [sic] Center.” The sign appears to misspell the word “learning.” Shirley says that when he attempted to enter the building during regular weekday hours, it was closed and its windows were blacked out. He also claims the center received $1.9 million in government funding.
In sharing the clip on X, McMahon wrote, “There are not enough words to describe the breathtaking failure that has happened under the watch of @GovTimWalz.”
RELATED: Somali fraud inspires Democrats to assimilate to Somalian culture
Blaze Media Illustration and Getty Images
Walz’s office pushed back over the weekend against Shirley’s allegations. Fox News Digital reported Sunday that a spokesperson for Walz said the governor has spent years working to “crack down on fraud” and has taken steps to strengthen oversight of state programs, including launching investigations into several facilities.
The spokesperson also pointed to the state legislature’s role in overseeing the programs and said that at least one business highlighted in Shirley’s reporting had already been shut down by Walz’s administration.
Despite the response, criticism continued. In addition to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Vice President JD Vance praised Shirley’s work, writing on X, “This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that the bureau is aware of the allegations circulating online. Patel wrote that the FBI had already deployed additional personnel and “investigative resources” to Minnesota to address “large-scale fraud” involving federal programs, even before the issue gained widespread attention on social media.
“Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide,” Patel wrote.
Patel also cited previous arrests and convictions as evidence of the bureau’s ongoing efforts to combat fraud in the state.
BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo disputed Patel’s characterization, calling it “misleading.” In a post on X, Rufo said Patel was taking “credit for investigations and convictions that occurred under the Biden Administration,” adding that the unresolved question concerns alleged fraud that has not yet resulted in charges. “When do we see arrests, mugshots, and new prosecutions?” Rufo wrote.
Rufo previously reported on alleged fraud involving Minnesota welfare and health programs earlier this year. As independent journalists such as Shirley continue to highlight the allegations, scrutiny of Minnesota officials, including Walz and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, has intensified.
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Trump broke decorum. The media broke the truth — again.
Recently, Paul du Quenoy published a necessary piece at Chronicles putting President Trump’s remark after the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner in proper context. In a Truth Social post that went viral, Trump quipped that Rob Reiner had died of “Trump derangement syndrome,” while also offering condolences and praying that the deceased would “rest in peace.”
The media response was instant and hysterical. As du Quenoy notes, legacy outlets erupted in moral outrage, eager to condemn Trump as uniquely depraved. He highlights one of the ugliest examples: a sermon from David Remnick in the thoroughly politicized New Yorker, denouncing Trump as a “degraded” human being.
Trump’s remark was ill judged. The media’s response was dishonest. Only one of those failures is being treated as a permanent moral indictment.
Du Quenoy asks: Where was this moral sensitivity when figures on the left trafficked in venom — or worse — after the assassination of Charlie Kirk?
The answer, of course, is nowhere.
This double standard defines our media culture. When rhetorical excess comes from the left, it is ignored, excused, or rationalized. When it comes from the right — especially from Trump — it is proof of moral disqualification. Etiquette is enforced selectively, always against the same targets. From the BBC to the Los Angeles Times, outlets had no difficulty canonizing Reiner while casting Trump as a cartoon villain.
A fair point must be made: Trump should not have said what he did. A president should observe certain proprieties, and Trump violates them all too often. I supported his policies and voted for him repeatedly, but that does not require defending every avoidable verbal misfire. This one was a mistake.
What deserves closer scrutiny, however, is the media’s attempt to weaponize that mistake. In outlets like People magazine, Trump’s comment was contrasted with Reiner’s allegedly noble reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Reiner, we are told, expressed “horror.” Trump, by contrast, showed cruelty.
This framing collapses under minimal honesty.
After seeing this contrast repeated again and again, I searched for Reiner’s public statements — not about Kirk, but about Trump. What emerges is not a portrait of an angelic figure suddenly besmirched. For years, Reiner unleashed a steady stream of invective against Trump: “mentally unfit,” “con man,” “fascist,” “lying buffoon,” along with a great many four-letter flourishes unprintable here. He pushed the Trump-Russia hoax long after it had been exposed as fantasy. His political obsession was not subtle, incidental, or private.
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Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Yet this entire record has been scrubbed from the story. Media profiles dwell on Reiner’s filmmaking career and his role as a loving father while erasing his lifelong activism and venom toward Trump. The reason is simple: The people telling the story agree with Reiner’s politics and share his hatred of Trump. Presenting Trump’s animus as unprovoked is not journalism. It is narrative laundering.
The comparison with Charlie Kirk’s murder is equally dishonest. Kirk, to my knowledge, never publicly attacked Reiner. There was no shared history, no prolonged feud. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) put it plainly: Trump should have said nothing after Reiner’s death, even if Reiner was obsessed with him. Still, pretending that Trump’s reaction should mirror Reiner’s response to Kirk ignores reality. The relationships were not the same.
Nor should Reiner be recast as a purely apolitical figure whose ideology can be set aside for the sake of a tidy morality play. He embraced his identity as a committed leftist as openly as he embraced his Hollywood career. The media’s erasure of that fact mirrors older myths, such as the claim that the “Hollywood Ten” were merely innocent artists with no communist affiliations. You can oppose blacklisting without lying about politics. The left never resists the temptation to lie.
So once again, we are presented with a familiar fable: a gentle, virtuous man smeared by a deranged tyrant for no reason at all. It is nonsense — but useful nonsense. It allows the media to posture as arbiters of decency while ignoring their own complicity in coarsening public life.
Trump’s remark was ill judged. The media’s response was dishonest. Only one of those failures is being treated as a permanent moral indictment — and that tells you everything you need to know.
We used to need guts to sin. Now we just need wi-fi.
Once upon a time, before the digital age swept us up in a current of global access, vices like gambling, pornography, and marijuana were kept in check with what BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Keeperman argue was healthy friction.
It’s what made Mr. Johnson blush when he skulked up to the checkout counter at the local video rental with an X-rated videotape sandwiched between two rom-coms. It’s what forced hopeful gamblers to sneak into illegal card rooms at the back of sketchy bars, pockets stuffed with ATM cash withdrawn in small increments to avoid spousal skepticism. It’s what necessitated dark parking lot meetups, secret car compartments, and stashes of air fresheners and breath mints.
But today, none of those physical and social barriers exist. Want to watch an adult film? Jump online; there are millions to choose from. Interested in placing a bet? Easy: Open an app and blow $10,000 on a random ping-pong match without ever leaving the comfort of your bed. Out of weed in a state that hasn’t legalized it? No problem; there are hundreds of dispensaries that will illegally ship right to your front door.
The glowing rectangle that lives in our pocket has pulverized every obstacle that once kept vices reined in.
Keeperman laments the death of “the gray market,” where “public shame and censure” were a real obstacle for vice-seekers but not so large an obstacle that they barred them completely from indulging.
“I think that balance is sort of ideal,” he tells Rufo.
“People, unfortunately, without any of these barriers to entry, they go down these rabbit holes; they start cultivating these bad behaviors, these addictions, and it ruins their lives. And it ruins the lives of the people around them, and it’s horrible for society.”
He remembers working at his town’s video rental shop as a teenager and the “cycle of shame” that commenced every time a local would sheepishly duck out of the curtained room at the back of the store with “Debbie Does Dallas” tucked covertly under his arm.
“It was like, ‘All right, man, like, cool. You’re embarrassed; I’m embarrassed to be doing this.’ … But it was good. That’s how it should be,” he reminisces.
This system of shame and risk also benefited kids. Keeperman recalls the notorious male student who stole Playboy magazines from his dad’s secret stash and smuggled them to school in his backpack so he could charge his fellow delinquents $5 for a week’s rental.
“It’s shameful, and if the vice principal catches you, you’re screwed, man. You’re in the doghouse. … You might get suspended or get these demerits or whatever, and your mom’s going to be mad at you,” he laughs.
But in all seriousness, these were real barriers that kept a lot of kids from engaging in pornography. But today, there’s no need for magazines or smuggling. All kids need to do is run a quick Google search alone in their bedrooms, and they’ll be inundated with graphic content from hundreds of sites. Addiction is all but guaranteed.
Keeperman says that while he takes all necessary precautions to prevent his children from accessing graphic content on their devices, he knows there’s only so much he can do.
“My kid’s going to have a public life. He’s going to have a social life that extends beyond the boundaries that we can draw for him as parents. And I can’t control what the kid next door does. You just can’t. And it’s just too easy. It’s too accessible,” he says.
Rufo says the answer to this problem of a barrier-less world is to re-create the barriers in the digital sphere.
“You have to have a digital version of the back room and the curtain, meaning you have to have ID verification, age verification,” he says.
To hear more of his theory, watch the episode above.
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