This is all Benjamin Franklin's Fault

[GO-NAD!]

Is there real proof of fraud in MN? Claims are easy, facts are more difficult to come by.

Have you not seen reports of this?

I hope you’re kidding. But yes. It’s really bad.

Maybe everyone needs to take a step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

What prompted the ICE operation in Minnesota?

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/05/us/ice-minnesota-immigration-federal-agents-somali

Background:

For years, investigators have been examining fraud of state funds in the state. In 2022, dozens of people – the vast majority of them Somali, although the leader was not – were charged after prosecutors say they falsely claimed to be providing meals to needy children during the Covid-19 pandemic through a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. In all, 37 defendants have pleaded guilty, The Associated Press reported, but it’s unclear how many of them are Somali.

This was 3-4 years ago. Why ICE? Why now?

The day after Christmas, the controversy reignited with a viral video by 23-year-old conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley who claimed Somali-run child care centers were committing fraud using federal funds. His video, which received millions of views and was boosted by Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance, showed him attempting to enter child care centers in Minneapolis and claiming he wanted to enroll a child.

The video set off a firestorm – although it included little evidence for its claims, which have also been rebutted by the owners of several of the centers. State officials have since said investigators visited each of the centers featured in the video and found them all operating as expected.

So, there was an issue that was being handled by the courts. However, a guy with an agenda sets off a firestorm that becomes a convenient excuse for the administration to initiate a surge of ICE into Minnesota, presumably with the aim of grabbing as many dastardly illegal Somalis as possible - because, of course, they must all be in on the fraud scheme. (That's sarcasm, if anyone is unsure)

Just how many do they hope to sweep up?

The exact number of undocumented immigrants in Minneapolis is unclear. The Twin Cities are home to the US’s largest diaspora from Somalia, a small Muslim-majority nation on the Horn of Africa that has been rent by decades of civil war and entrenched poverty. Nearly 58% of Somalis in Minnesota were born in the US, according to the US Census Bureau. Of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority — 87% — are naturalized US citizens.

Most Somali people in America and Minnesota are citizens • Minnesota Reformer

Apart from Minnesota’s biting cold this week, one complication in Trump’s plan to deport Somalis from Minnesota through immigration enforcement is that the vast majority of Americans and Minnesotans of Somali descent are U.S. citizens, many of whom were born here.

minnesotareformer.com

In Minnesota, around 5,000 people of Somali descent are not citizens, according to ACS. That figure includes people here through other legal means, such as permanent residents, green card holders and the couple hundred covered by Temporary Protected Status, a protection Trump said he would end earlier than planned.

So, while the exact number of undocumented people of Somali descent is unknown, it's pretty small. And, of those, how many would have been involved in the fraud scheme? Maybe a handful, maybe none. Regardless, does it justify the thousands of ICE agents and the associated costs, not to mention the chaotic poop pageant?

And, whatever the total funds fraudulently obtained in this scheme, they will be chump change compared to what Trump and his inner circle are soaking up from American taxpayers. The cognitive dissonance required to clutch pearls over one, but not the other, must be breaking brains.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I wouldn't say "hardly", the Clintons have decided that they won't attend the questioning, so they'll likely be held in contempt of Congress. While it's an official charge, I think most of the country holds Congress in contempt. Not sure how someone with Bill's eye for woman and creeping hands (among other parts) can make this look innocent.

I would not want to be on the receiving end of Hillary's wrath.

January 15, 2026

You know what Americans aren’t talking about very much today after Trump’s threat to detonate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) this week and his threat this morning to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota?

open.substack.com

You know what Americans aren’t talking about very much today after Trump’s threat to detonate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) this week and his threat this morning to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota?

They aren’t talking a lot about the fact that the Department of Justice has released less than 1% of the Epstein files despite the law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Congress passed requiring the release of those files in full no later than December 19. Trump loyalists are trying to shift public anger at Trump over the files back to former president Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom QAnon conspiracy theorists believed were at the heart of a child sex trafficking scheme.

Representative James Comer (R-KY) has threatened to hold former president Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear for a closed-door deposition about Epstein. But in a scathing four-page public letter to Comer, the Clintons called the subpoenas invalid and noted that Comer had subpoenaed eight people in addition to the Clintons and had then dismissed seven of them without testimony.

They also noted that Comer had done nothing to force the Department of Justice to release all the Epstein files as required by law, including all the material relating to them, as Bill Clinton has publicly called for. They said, “There is no plausible explanation for what you are doing other than partisan politics.”

I have the impression that Bill is willing to take his lumps - if it includes every name that might be in the files. What he is not willing to do, is allow himself to be the sole punching bag, allowing anyone else to slide under the radar. And, maybe if they released the remaining 99%+ of the Epstein files, testimony by the Clintons would be redundant.