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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On May 18 2026 16:59 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Huh, that's an interesting perspective, at least. If I'm understanding it - Shirley took an... anti-immigrant?... slant on an existing story and that caused it to get enough national attention for people to actually look at an deal with it. Meaning that even if Shirley's intentions were bad it wouldn't matter, because the end result was good. If that's what you're angling towards, that feels generous? People were dealing with it before he said anything and it's hard to say it'll be dealt with better now because of the national attention. The national attention is as relevant to the issue as Shirley is - you could run propaganda stating that potholes in the street are the biggest issue faced by Americans and everyone will be so very grateful when you fix it, it just doesn't mean potholes were ever the biggest problem in America. Likewise, you’re being very generous to say that the issue was being dealt with already and it’s hard to say that increased scrutiny will matter! We’ll see the result of the increased investigations to determine if that was remotely true. With hundreds of millions across multiple government programs, perhaps billions of dollars in total, it’s worthwhile to consider that the politically powerful were knowingly enabling a broken and corrupt system, and weakly trying to deflect blame for their lack of oversight or care that the money went to the people it was intended to help. I had hoped that the linked article was enough to show the possibility of that. The fraud was obvious and there were investigations, yet top officials were stopping the best efforts to put the money back to where it should go. They’re obviously not named Nick Shirley, but they’re probably quite glad to keep the attention on Nick Shirley to protect themselves and their future aspirations.
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Heh, some interesting news are coming from Iraq. A 26 year old dude took his pickup to go to a nearby town for groceries and disappeared. It was later discovered that his vehicle was destroyed by an unknown helicopter. Further investigation revealed a hidden Israeli military site in Iraq. Speculations are abound now because they might've been responsible for some of the drone attacks on neighboring countries that were attributed to Iran but which Iran denied.
Some shepherd also found a second military site like that by accident. They were built there without the knowledge or permission from the Iraqi government.
I wonder what will come from it all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/world/europe/israel-iraq-iran-bases.html
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On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long.
Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it.
There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day.
If you think there should be more enforcement or more investigation, you can blame the republicans who denied funding for it.
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Northern Ireland27269 Posts
On May 18 2026 22:19 Manit0u wrote:Heh, some interesting news are coming from Iraq. A 26 year old dude took his pickup to go to a nearby town for groceries and disappeared. It was later discovered that his vehicle was destroyed by an unknown helicopter. Further investigation revealed a hidden Israeli military site in Iraq. Speculations are abound now because they might've been responsible for some of the drone attacks on neighboring countries that were attributed to Iran but which Iran denied. Some shepherd also found a second military site like that by accident. They were built there without the knowledge or permission from the Iraqi government. I wonder what will come from it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/world/europe/israel-iraq-iran-bases.html
Well the Greatest AllyTM sure took their time in getting over to Iraq but they’ll got there in the end…
Being less flippant, interesting indeed. Strange one might say.
I dunno what kinda footprint we’re talking about, and what Iraq’s native remote reconnaissance abilities are, so I don’t know if it’s conceivable that these simply weren’t detected, or if somebody somewhere knew and it wasn’t disclosed.
It certainly doesn’t sound like the forces dispatched to investigate who got fired upon were in any particular loop, but were/are there folks elsewhere in the chain who were?
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Northern Ireland27269 Posts
On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. If you think there should be more enforcement or more investigation, you can blame the republicans who denied funding for it.
Shirley you can’t be serious? Apologies I couldn’t resist
I’m a bit too lazy/old and out of touch to be super familiar with the bloke and his work, just based on posts in here I’m definitely getting Project Veritas vibes though. If I’m even getting that name right from memory.
Even if they did break any legit stories, they also frequently disseminated bullshit and didn’t exactly rigidly adhere to the ethical frameworks that legitimate journalists generally do.
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On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it.
ICE is in every single state, they didn't go to Minnesota to punish lack of fraud enforcement, they went there to enforce immigration law, which they have to do more of when Minnesota blocks cooperation with the federal government.
On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work.
What?
On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day.
Jake Lang is Nick Shirley?
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The guy is a right-wing media project, kind of like a Charlie Kirk but born into a more mature system for signal boosting people who appeal to the lowest common denominator.
That he impresses who he impresses is very much not surprising, his "journalism" style is literally "hurr durr immigrants" so obviously people who made hating immigrants their whole personality are passionately coming to his defense.
On May 18 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 22:19 Manit0u wrote:Heh, some interesting news are coming from Iraq. A 26 year old dude took his pickup to go to a nearby town for groceries and disappeared. It was later discovered that his vehicle was destroyed by an unknown helicopter. Further investigation revealed a hidden Israeli military site in Iraq. Speculations are abound now because they might've been responsible for some of the drone attacks on neighboring countries that were attributed to Iran but which Iran denied. Some shepherd also found a second military site like that by accident. They were built there without the knowledge or permission from the Iraqi government. I wonder what will come from it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/world/europe/israel-iraq-iran-bases.html Well the Greatest AllyTM sure took their time in getting over to Iraq but they’ll got there in the end… Being less flippant, interesting indeed. Strange one might say. I dunno what kinda footprint we’re talking about, and what Iraq’s native remote reconnaissance abilities are, so I don’t know if it’s conceivable that these simply weren’t detected, or if somebody somewhere knew and it wasn’t disclosed. It certainly doesn’t sound like the forces dispatched to investigate who got fired upon were in any particular loop, but were/are there folks elsewhere in the chain who were?
It's interesting, this is the second such base, Iraq seems to have became aware of it, allegedly because some of their forces were in a firefight with the IDF, lodging an official protest to the US, however, doesn't seem like that bore any fruit.
This shouldn't really be surprising to anyone, having such base(s) makes absolute sense from the logistical standpoint, and USA obviously has many, but, USA, for what it's worth has those bases there with consent from the Iraq's goverment , Israel has no such concerns.
This is the 4th country who's sovereignty they've completely flaunted in the past year or so, with their "buffer zones" in Syria and Lebanon and bombing of the negotiators in Qatar.
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On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. If you think there should be more enforcement or more investigation, you can blame the republicans who denied funding for it. This is the straw man argument I tried to explicitly provide for in multiple former posts. I'll put it in the Star Tribune context, since that one is long enough advanced to have confidential investigative records released. They raised concerns about fraud, were stopped by higher-ups from taking aggressive action to pursue it, discouraged aggressive oversight in general, and feared lawsuits and accusations of racism. Sermokala would take all that and tell the reporter, "But were the number of trials and number of convictions 0? Oh they weren't 0? Ok. The system was working and dealing with the problems." But the former corruption, neglect, and cowardice exists quite harmoniously with that stance!
I don't find what you wrote even remotely a defense, and barely discernable as a position you might hold in good faith. You almost justify the existence of a Shirley here: any trials and jailtime is the system working, so there must be a Shirley, and national furor, and that outrage creating political pressure and executive pressure, and such pressure overcoming resistance to correct the problem and restore the system to working! That is weirdly its own system of correction, and not without its downsides. Add to that the political dimension, which is the current Democratic governor being thrown out for appointing people that incompetently ran programs which administered taxpayer dollars (Tim Walz is not seeking re-election, so this is kinda already accomplished), and future governors making effective and active countermeasures a top priority (Amy Klobuchar has said she would treat things in state government very differently than Walz, and threw out multiple action items to prevent the years of neglect from reoccurring. "You are right to be angry about the fraud," Klobuchar said. "It is unacceptable and it must end.") That's another system working, although its harder to claw back money that's already been spent many years later, and I would suggest more attention to competent administration and protection of public monies at square one. Even incompetent and corrupt people make some bare attempt to convince the public that they're doing great fraud protection, but don't be an easy sap to convince!
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On May 19 2026 00:04 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. ICE is in every single state, they didn't go to Minnesota to punish lack of fraud enforcement, they went there to enforce immigration law, which they have to do more of when Minnesota blocks cooperation with the federal government. Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. What? Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. Jake Lang is Nick Shirley?
They went to minnesota because Trump's attention was on it due to the viral video. He has been targeting minnesota and the somali population endlessly.
Are you unaware of all the children that were kidnapped to texas? I thought you would have at least heard of Liam.
And yes I'm sorry I got my ring wing grifters mixed up my bad.
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On May 19 2026 00:22 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. If you think there should be more enforcement or more investigation, you can blame the republicans who denied funding for it. This is the straw man argument I tried to explicitly provide for in multiple former posts. I'll put it in the Star Tribune context, since that one is long enough advanced to have confidential investigative records released. They raised concerns about fraud, were stopped by higher-ups from taking aggressive action to pursue it, discouraged aggressive oversight in general, and feared lawsuits and accusations of racism. Sermokala would take all that and tell the reporter, "But were the number of trials and number of convictions 0? Oh they weren't 0? Ok. The system was working and dealing with the problems." But the former corruption, neglect, and cowardice exists quite harmoniously with that stance! I don't find what you wrote even remotely a defense, and barely discernable as a position you might hold in good faith. You almost justify the existence of a Shirley here: any trials and jailtime is the system working, so there must be a Shirley, and national furor, and that outrage creating political pressure and executive pressure, and such pressure overcoming resistance to correct the problem and restore the system to working! That is weirdly its own system of correction, and not without its downsides. Add to that the political dimension, which is the current Democratic governor being thrown out for appointing people that incompetently ran programs which administered taxpayer dollars (Tim Walz is not seeking re-election, so this is kinda already accomplished), and future governors making effective and active countermeasures a top priority (Amy Klobuchar has said she would treat things in state government very differently than Walz, and threw out multiple action items to prevent the years of neglect from reoccurring. "You are right to be angry about the fraud," Klobuchar said. "It is unacceptable and it must end.") That's another system working, although its harder to claw back money that's already been spent many years later, and I would suggest more attention to competent administration and protection of public monies at square one. Even incompetent and corrupt people make some bare attempt to convince the public that they're doing great fraud protection, but don't be an easy sap to convince!
Yes I'm glad you've repeated and properly labeled your straw man argument and misinterpreting of the situation.
You can't deny that there were trials and convictions, so you instead pivot to them wanting to happen sooner. You don't know how government works and how large scale investigations work, and you don't know how republicans can stop investigative funding from allowing agencies to agressively go after fraud, so you default to blame the nebulous government. You know that the investigations, the trials, the convictions happened before the viral video, so you think that its retroactivly justified to go to random day care centers with videos demanding to see the children inside.
There is nothing to justify a Shirley here, you are either ignorant or just uninterested in being informed. Minnesota has had a 2 term governor stint culture. The investigations and trials started before Walz was even in office, so the person to blame would have been dayton who was already out of office.
You are looking at a system working properly and are frustrated that a state that has its shit togeather is actually dealing with fraud. Go as Mississippi, how much jail time bret farve is going to have for his actions. You have the president just stealing money left and right from people from his phone to his cypto to his merch. But yes lets create a national crisis over something that is being solved and worked on.
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On May 19 2026 02:17 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2026 00:04 oBlade wrote:On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. ICE is in every single state, they didn't go to Minnesota to punish lack of fraud enforcement, they went there to enforce immigration law, which they have to do more of when Minnesota blocks cooperation with the federal government. On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. What? On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:
The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. Jake Lang is Nick Shirley? They went to minnesota because Trump's attention was on it due to the viral video. He has been targeting minnesota and the somali population endlessly.
Your position is Nick Shirley making a video about fraud centered around the Somali community caused Trump to have a Hispanic child moved to Texas, because there is no way Donald Trump of all people would have been doing immigration enforcement unless a youtuber had put the idea into his head at the end of 2025. It just never occurred to him before.
It's interesting, but seems shaky to assign direct moral responsibility to such a roundabout chain of events. It's not something I would do on account of the implications if it were applied universally. But I guess there's a chance you could apply it consistently. What do you think, are you consistent? Do you think Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin, Kayla Hamilton, and Nilufa Easmin were murdered because of/due to the votes cast by people for Biden, since his immigration policy enabled their deaths? If making a video affects the president, surely choosing the president has some effect.
On May 19 2026 02:17 Sermokala wrote:
Are you unaware of all the children that were kidnapped to texas? I thought you would have at least heard of Liam.
It's even worse than you think - In March Liam and his family were ordered to be kidnapped further than Texas, all the way to Ecuador due to... not being legal residents.
On May 19 2026 02:17 Sermokala wrote:
And yes I'm sorry I got my ring wing grifters mixed up my bad.
People in glass houses lol.
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On May 19 2026 02:24 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2026 00:22 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 23:28 Sermokala wrote:On May 18 2026 14:29 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 13:21 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 08:49 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 08:26 Fleetfeet wrote:On May 18 2026 07:14 dyhb wrote:On May 18 2026 01:57 Jankisa wrote:dynb, of course, comes to try and downplay the fascist propagandist by pretending like this guy "uncovered" fraud, when investigations and convictions on it predate this hysteria by quite a bit. Links to investigations including "failure to keep hazardous items away from children" are a little weird to link to, and a representative "told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this showed 'oversight is incredibly lacking.'" Kind of like telling people that the drug investigation is a nothingburger because the cops investigated and arrested 2 low-level dealers last week. Let's check in with the star tribune for one second, State education officials repeatedly raised concerns about possible fraud in the federally funded meals program during the pandemic, but their supervisors stopped them from taking more aggressive action, according to law enforcement interviews and other investigative records newly obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Frontline regulators said that they questioned soaring reimbursement claims and suspicious food distribution operations to their supervisors long before prosecutors uncovered what became one of the nation’s largest pandemic fraud schemes.
Three state employees told investigators that their managers discouraged aggressive oversight because they were afraid of lawsuits. One believed the department’s leadership feared accusations of racism from Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the fraud case, which largely served Minnesota’s East African community.
The interviews provide a rare inside account of the state’s botched response to early warning signs of fraud — and how legal concerns and delayed enforcement allowed the scheme to grow, ultimately siphoning more than $250 million from a federally funded child nutrition program overseen by the state education department. MN STShe said that her supervisors repeatedly stopped her from digging into suspicious reimbursement claims and discouraged her from visiting sites that seemed “unbelievable” to her. “Bock and her associates in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme used allegations of racism as a tactic throughout their criminal enterprise,” Buss said in the statement. She added it was litigation and court decisions that limited the department’s ability to prevent the fraud “not fear of being called racist.” Story just came out May 17th, 2026. It's not from a random youtuber, but established print journalism. I'm not on board with the method that happened to make this a national story with national attention and a lot more federal involvement. But I can't get with your method of crying fascism and pointing to the little that was done. Stories allege poor oversight and non-aggressive investigation (we aren't catching the fraud at a good rate). That's meat on the story. The object should be to stop the perpetrators prior to tens of millions or hundreds of millions going out the door. I do think "People are so afraid of being racist that they don't report" is a more interesting line than "89% of the fraud was Solmalians and that means ________", but in both cases there's good reason to tread lightly with regards to racism. The former is at least asking why this event happened, instead of leaving it hanging without exploring the context. It makes it seem like the 'journalist' is satisfied with "Well obviously it's because somalians are bad people trying to steal the heart of america" The two questions I had were whether he had stumbled across widespread fraud with lazy or missing enforcement and whether the example of state-funded daycares were the tip of the iceberg in state mismanagement of public funds. This is a developing story. Feel free to comment on the news article I linked about a different program and a different department and concerning comments from people that tried to stop that example of fraud. I already gave you the example of a partisan hack protester agitating against police and happening to catch the police in a clear instance of excessive force and assault. You can choose to say "Look at this partisan protester. He's such a bad man. He has terrible opinions. And besides, the police have had internal investigations recently that led to arrests!" You can also choose to say, "That looks pretty bad. Yeah, the guy that caught it engages in scummy behavior, but is there an innocent explanation to all of this, or is actually exactly what it looks like and more common that I would presume?" More directed at Jankisa than you, but read his post to me. It's almost beside the point to focus on the societal reasons why a particular community got more clued into the (allegedly) weak anti-fraud protections in several state programs. I don't care if it was a bunch of neighbors in Maple Grove that took the state for $100 million over years. I care that money taken from taxpayers did not go to the needy and deserving. My presumption is that the youtuber got lucky in those hallways of identical businesses in a windowless office building, and the other stuff, and then it was so comical that it went viral. There's no fairness in who strikes the match that starts the national fire. I kind of wish it was so-and-so veteran reporter for the Star Tribune that spent two years of investigating the issue and asking questions of state officials, but it wasn't. Was he the first to it, though? It seems he wasn't (specifically regarding the 89% Somali fraud stuff) If he wasn't the first to it, your partisan hack protester analogy doesn't hold. To bring it up to speed, Nick is the third party in that scenario, noticing the partisan protester and the police officer, and making a point of highlighting the race of the police officer. You and I agree that we don't particularly care if the offender is Somalian, Norwegian, or anything else. It's strange, then, that Nick is here really drilling in the fact that the police officer is a particular race. In fairness - I hadn't heard of Nick Shirley before and am not familiar with his particular coverage. It seems to me that he's a third party 'journalist' that picked up a story and ran with an immigrant slant to it. He's relevant to the story insomuch as he went viral in telling about it, but isn't relevant in that he didn't start the story and doesn't seem particularly interested in seeing it to a conclusion. Please, correct me if I'm mistaken! I don't think we necessarily disagree here. He's the guy that made it go viral. You can hate that fact or love that fact. Quality Learing Center entered the national dialogue. What happens later is at one remove from him: is there widespread fraud, are the state systems too corrupt or incompetent to deal with it, and how many programs are affected? It's not a youtuber that's in charge of the follow-up; he's now a bit player. I linked the story that broke yesterday on Feeding Our Future as a compare/contrast. You can imagine the same elements impacting both. Were there the same derelict supervisors in other departments, inaction from the specter of lawsuits, and fears of accusations of racism if oversight was actually applied? None of those questions involve Shirley! He's on to London or the next meme/culture-war flash point getting clicks for monetization. The national attention is what put public pressure to examine the system. It might also help counteract whatever corrupt networks kept the fraud going for so long. Except even in the best faith framing you're providing it was in the middle of trials for the fraud and people had already goen to jail for it before he made the video. The system was working and dealing with the problems, and as a reward the state was occupied by federal goons kidnapping random people and shooting multiple people killing two in the street and more in cells. The guy did zero research on that and instead questioned, like you are showing, if anything at all was going on to stop it. There were multiple children taken from their families and locked up in a horrific jail in texas because of this guys work. The guy was arrested later in minnesota because he had such little respect for the state that he decided to randomly kick over an ice sculpture, on camera, only to act surprised that it was a crime later that the state was able to investigate and arrest him for same day. If you think there should be more enforcement or more investigation, you can blame the republicans who denied funding for it. This is the straw man argument I tried to explicitly provide for in multiple former posts. I'll put it in the Star Tribune context, since that one is long enough advanced to have confidential investigative records released. They raised concerns about fraud, were stopped by higher-ups from taking aggressive action to pursue it, discouraged aggressive oversight in general, and feared lawsuits and accusations of racism. Sermokala would take all that and tell the reporter, "But were the number of trials and number of convictions 0? Oh they weren't 0? Ok. The system was working and dealing with the problems." But the former corruption, neglect, and cowardice exists quite harmoniously with that stance! I don't find what you wrote even remotely a defense, and barely discernable as a position you might hold in good faith. You almost justify the existence of a Shirley here: any trials and jailtime is the system working, so there must be a Shirley, and national furor, and that outrage creating political pressure and executive pressure, and such pressure overcoming resistance to correct the problem and restore the system to working! That is weirdly its own system of correction, and not without its downsides. Add to that the political dimension, which is the current Democratic governor being thrown out for appointing people that incompetently ran programs which administered taxpayer dollars (Tim Walz is not seeking re-election, so this is kinda already accomplished), and future governors making effective and active countermeasures a top priority (Amy Klobuchar has said she would treat things in state government very differently than Walz, and threw out multiple action items to prevent the years of neglect from reoccurring. "You are right to be angry about the fraud," Klobuchar said. "It is unacceptable and it must end.") That's another system working, although its harder to claw back money that's already been spent many years later, and I would suggest more attention to competent administration and protection of public monies at square one. Even incompetent and corrupt people make some bare attempt to convince the public that they're doing great fraud protection, but don't be an easy sap to convince! Yes I'm glad you've repeated and properly labeled your straw man argument and misinterpreting of the situation. You can't deny that there were trials and convictions, so you instead pivot to them wanting to happen sooner. You don't know how government works and how large scale investigations work, and you don't know how republicans can stop investigative funding from allowing agencies to agressively go after fraud, so you default to blame the nebulous government. You know that the investigations, the trials, the convictions happened before the viral video, so you think that its retroactivly justified to go to random day care centers with videos demanding to see the children inside. Nothing to add to my previous post's recognition that your strawman argument coexists harmoniously with actual repression of oversight and accountability, as linked in the article.
There is nothing to justify a Shirley here, you are either ignorant or just uninterested in being informed. Minnesota has had a 2 term governor stint culture. The investigations and trials started before Walz was even in office, so the person to blame would have been dayton who was already out of office. I am sure there were other reasons for getting rid of him/discouraging reelection campaign than his performance on state programs.
You are looking at a system working properly and are frustrated that a state that has its shit togeather is actually dealing with fraud. Go as Mississippi, how much jail time bret farve is going to have for his actions. You have the president just stealing money left and right from people from his phone to his cypto to his merch. But yes lets create a national crisis over something that is being solved and worked on. Based on what you include in working properly, I would hate to know what it has to be to be working improperly. The only things working properly such as I can discover is the public response and resulting pressure, Amy Klobuchar campaign's response, and the political consequences for the current leadership.
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Canada11594 Posts
@oBlade
I agree it would be considerably worse if Shirley did not say on camera that he was paying them. He is just as much a performative activist. Comparing him to Roger Stone's rats was probably hyperbolic and has gotten us off the main point. Partisan provocateur was my earlier descriptor and that stands. I'll settle for performative activist as a more accurate descriptor (using the mode of Just Asking Questions).
Now that you have the context, what is your view on how Shirley represented his time Ukraine as well as his claims on where US support to Ukraine went?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It's astonishing at how brazen it all is.
Run a ten billion dollar lawsuit against your own government and when the justice system just starts to balk at Trump paying himself and whether there was any foundation...
"A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls," the experts wrote in what is known as an "amicus brief".
Trump turns around and says, no problem. I'll do you a solid and pay myself and my followers $1.7 Billion instead. Art of the Deal. High ball with no foundation, then low ball with no foundation and generously include your supporters. The basic facts still haven't changed, but he's 'compromised' in how much he plunders the government. How very benevolent of Trump. Art of the Grift. Art of the Looter.
His 'compromise' also include an agreement that the IRS never audit Trump family members again.
Also, I strongly suspected deliberate market manipulation with most of Trump's tariff war of 'will he won't he' announcements seemingly timed with when markets close (and really many of his big bombshell foreign policy announcements.) But this is definitionally insider trading
https://www.notus.org/money/donald-trump-stock-investments-palantir-axom-nvidia
President Donald Trump personally bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock in technology companies and government contractors early this year, according to new government records.
Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million dollars worth of Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. Trump previously purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China. The Chinese AI market is a long-sought target for Nvidia since the federal government controls the sale of advanced AI chips to countries designated as foreign adversaries, such as China.
While the Trump administration spent billions of dollars on immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts, Trump also invested in companies that contracted with immigration enforcement agencies.
Chief among them: Palantir Technologies. Trump purchased at least $260,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of 2026.
In January alone, Trump bought $65,000 to $150,000 of Palantir stock. In February, Trump sold between $1.1 million and roughly $5.3 million of his Palantir stock. In March, Trump’s Palantir stock purchases totaled between nearly $200,000 and $500,000.
In February, Palantir struck a billion-dollar agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the company’s software in the president’s deportation surge. Palantir also has a contract surpassing a billion dollars with the Pentagon to develop AI systems that help orchestrate attacks.
He bought Axon shares before Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Axon to produce Tasers. His departments control which companies get the contract and he can buy stocks before the contract is announced or approved.
A nice bipartisan bill that most Americans would support ought to restrict Congress AND the president from trading stocks in some way... blind trust? Index only? I don't know, but it's pretty wild as it stands now. And no doubt Congress restrictions would pass and somehow we would learn that the president cannot be restricted in this way as it would infringe on the executive somehow, even though past presidents did so voluntarily. But Trump is special.
Plus the pay for pardons
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-corrupt-is-trump-here-are-the-numbers-trades-chips-nvidia-pardons-settlement-fund
But 1.7B to himself and is supporters and pay for pardons is the swamp, the vast Dead Marshes, that Trump built from the mud puddle from before.
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Ok, when it comes to Nick there is few things to address:
Whether, or not he is retarded he was willing to do the job. From what I have seen (regarding Minnesota) it looked like it was 1 guy doing research who was guiding him.
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On May 19 2026 08:57 Falling wrote:@oBlade I agree it would be considerably worse if Shirley did not say on camera that he was paying them. He is just as much a performative activist. Comparing him to Roger Stone's rats was probably hyperbolic and has gotten us off the main point. Partisan provocateur was my earlier descriptor and that stands. I'll settle for performative activist as a more accurate descriptor (using the mode of Just Asking Questions). Now that you have the context, what is your view on how Shirley represented his time Ukraine as well as his claims on where US support to Ukraine went? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It's astonishing at how brazen it all is. Run a ten billion dollar lawsuit against your own government and when the justice system just starts to balk at Trump paying himself and whether there was any foundation... Show nested quote +"A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls," the experts wrote in what is known as an "amicus brief". Trump turns around and says, no problem. I'll do you a solid and pay myself and my followers $1.7 Billion instead. Art of the Deal. High ball with no foundation, then low ball with no foundation and generously include your supporters. The basic facts still haven't changed, but he's 'compromised' in how much he plunders the government. How very benevolent of Trump. Art of the Grift. Art of the Looter. His 'compromise' also include an agreement that the IRS never audit Trump family members again. Also, I strongly suspected deliberate market manipulation with most of Trump's tariff war will he won't he announcements seemingly timed with when markets close (and really many of his big bombshell foreign policy announcements.) But this is definitionally insider trading https://www.notus.org/money/donald-trump-stock-investments-palantir-axom-nvidiaShow nested quote +President Donald Trump personally bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock in technology companies and government contractors early this year, according to new government records. Show nested quote +Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million dollars worth of Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. Trump previously purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China. The Chinese AI market is a long-sought target for Nvidia since the federal government controls the sale of advanced AI chips to countries designated as foreign adversaries, such as China.
While the Trump administration spent billions of dollars on immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts, Trump also invested in companies that contracted with immigration enforcement agencies.
Chief among them: Palantir Technologies. Trump purchased at least $260,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of 2026.
In January alone, Trump bought $65,000 to $150,000 of Palantir stock. In February, Trump sold between $1.1 million and roughly $5.3 million of his Palantir stock. In March, Trump’s Palantir stock purchases totaled between nearly $200,000 and $500,000.
In February, Palantir struck a billion-dollar agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the company’s software in the president’s deportation surge. Palantir also has a contract surpassing a billion dollars with the Pentagon to develop AI systems that help orchestrate attacks.
He bought Axon shares before Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Axon to produce Tasers. His departments control which companies get the contract and he can buy stocks before the contract is announced or approved. A nice bipartisan bill that most Americans would support ought to restrict Congress AND the president from trading stocks in some way... blind trust? Index only? I don't know, but it's pretty wild as it stands now. And no doubt Congress restrictions would pass and somehow we would learn that the president cannot be restricted in this way as it would infringe on the executive somehow, even though past presidents did so voluntarily. But Trump is special. Plus the pay for pardons https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-corrupt-is-trump-here-are-the-numbers-trades-chips-nvidia-pardons-settlement-fundBut 1.7B to himself and is supporters and pay for pardons is the swamp, the vast Dead Marshes, that Trump built from the mud puddle from before.
The utter lack of literally any pushback or consequences for this absurd grift is somewhat impressive. In this way, Trump is truly visionary. No other president before had even thought of looting this much money from the public.
Trump is really seeking new horizons both in corruption and in looting the public. Far beyond what anyone thought possible.
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The staggering part is how sheepish the people just accept it.
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Northern Ireland27269 Posts
On May 19 2026 13:24 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2026 08:57 Falling wrote:@oBlade I agree it would be considerably worse if Shirley did not say on camera that he was paying them. He is just as much a performative activist. Comparing him to Roger Stone's rats was probably hyperbolic and has gotten us off the main point. Partisan provocateur was my earlier descriptor and that stands. I'll settle for performative activist as a more accurate descriptor (using the mode of Just Asking Questions). Now that you have the context, what is your view on how Shirley represented his time Ukraine as well as his claims on where US support to Ukraine went? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It's astonishing at how brazen it all is. Run a ten billion dollar lawsuit against your own government and when the justice system just starts to balk at Trump paying himself and whether there was any foundation... "A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls," the experts wrote in what is known as an "amicus brief". Trump turns around and says, no problem. I'll do you a solid and pay myself and my followers $1.7 Billion instead. Art of the Deal. High ball with no foundation, then low ball with no foundation and generously include your supporters. The basic facts still haven't changed, but he's 'compromised' in how much he plunders the government. How very benevolent of Trump. Art of the Grift. Art of the Looter. His 'compromise' also include an agreement that the IRS never audit Trump family members again. Also, I strongly suspected deliberate market manipulation with most of Trump's tariff war will he won't he announcements seemingly timed with when markets close (and really many of his big bombshell foreign policy announcements.) But this is definitionally insider trading https://www.notus.org/money/donald-trump-stock-investments-palantir-axom-nvidiaPresident Donald Trump personally bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock in technology companies and government contractors early this year, according to new government records. Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million dollars worth of Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. Trump previously purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China. The Chinese AI market is a long-sought target for Nvidia since the federal government controls the sale of advanced AI chips to countries designated as foreign adversaries, such as China.
While the Trump administration spent billions of dollars on immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts, Trump also invested in companies that contracted with immigration enforcement agencies.
Chief among them: Palantir Technologies. Trump purchased at least $260,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of 2026.
In January alone, Trump bought $65,000 to $150,000 of Palantir stock. In February, Trump sold between $1.1 million and roughly $5.3 million of his Palantir stock. In March, Trump’s Palantir stock purchases totaled between nearly $200,000 and $500,000.
In February, Palantir struck a billion-dollar agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the company’s software in the president’s deportation surge. Palantir also has a contract surpassing a billion dollars with the Pentagon to develop AI systems that help orchestrate attacks.
He bought Axon shares before Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Axon to produce Tasers. His departments control which companies get the contract and he can buy stocks before the contract is announced or approved. A nice bipartisan bill that most Americans would support ought to restrict Congress AND the president from trading stocks in some way... blind trust? Index only? I don't know, but it's pretty wild as it stands now. And no doubt Congress restrictions would pass and somehow we would learn that the president cannot be restricted in this way as it would infringe on the executive somehow, even though past presidents did so voluntarily. But Trump is special. Plus the pay for pardons https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-corrupt-is-trump-here-are-the-numbers-trades-chips-nvidia-pardons-settlement-fundBut 1.7B to himself and is supporters and pay for pardons is the swamp, the vast Dead Marshes, that Trump built from the mud puddle from before. The utter lack of literally any pushback or consequences for this absurd grift is somewhat impressive. In this way, Trump is truly visionary. No other president before had even thought of looting this much money from the public. Trump is really seeking new horizons both in corruption and in looting the public. Far beyond what anyone thought possible.
It’s absolutely insane that it’s even happening so brazenly, more insane still that some folks are applying a ThisIsFine.jpeg attitude towards it
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I remember when Netanyahu's corruption trial was still in public consciousness that several Israeli voters were quoted as saying something like "he's doing such a great job, who cares if he skims a little from the top." Now, multiply that attitude by several orders of magnitude because Trump's base is a personality cult in every metric, and there you go.
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On May 19 2026 08:57 Falling wrote:@oBlade I agree it would be considerably worse if Shirley did not say on camera that he was paying them. He is just as much a performative activist. Comparing him to Roger Stone's rats was probably hyperbolic and has gotten us off the main point. Partisan provocateur was my earlier descriptor and that stands. I'll settle for performative activist as a more accurate descriptor (using the mode of Just Asking Questions). Now that you have the context, what is your view on how Shirley represented his time Ukraine as well as his claims on where US support to Ukraine went? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It's astonishing at how brazen it all is. Run a ten billion dollar lawsuit against your own government and when the justice system just starts to balk at Trump paying himself and whether there was any foundation... Show nested quote +"A sitting president seeks monetary damages for alleged harm to his personal interests from an executive agency that he controls," the experts wrote in what is known as an "amicus brief". Trump turns around and says, no problem. I'll do you a solid and pay myself and my followers $1.7 Billion instead. Art of the Deal. High ball with no foundation, then low ball with no foundation and generously include your supporters. The basic facts still haven't changed, but he's 'compromised' in how much he plunders the government. How very benevolent of Trump. Art of the Grift. Art of the Looter. His 'compromise' also include an agreement that the IRS never audit Trump family members again. Also, I strongly suspected deliberate market manipulation with most of Trump's tariff war of 'will he won't he' announcements seemingly timed with when markets close (and really many of his big bombshell foreign policy announcements.) But this is definitionally insider trading https://www.notus.org/money/donald-trump-stock-investments-palantir-axom-nvidiaShow nested quote +President Donald Trump personally bought and sold millions of dollars worth of stock in technology companies and government contractors early this year, according to new government records. Show nested quote +Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million dollars worth of Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. Trump previously purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China. The Chinese AI market is a long-sought target for Nvidia since the federal government controls the sale of advanced AI chips to countries designated as foreign adversaries, such as China.
While the Trump administration spent billions of dollars on immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts, Trump also invested in companies that contracted with immigration enforcement agencies.
Chief among them: Palantir Technologies. Trump purchased at least $260,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of 2026.
In January alone, Trump bought $65,000 to $150,000 of Palantir stock. In February, Trump sold between $1.1 million and roughly $5.3 million of his Palantir stock. In March, Trump’s Palantir stock purchases totaled between nearly $200,000 and $500,000.
In February, Palantir struck a billion-dollar agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the company’s software in the president’s deportation surge. Palantir also has a contract surpassing a billion dollars with the Pentagon to develop AI systems that help orchestrate attacks.
He bought Axon shares before Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted Axon to produce Tasers. His departments control which companies get the contract and he can buy stocks before the contract is announced or approved. A nice bipartisan bill that most Americans would support ought to restrict Congress AND the president from trading stocks in some way... blind trust? Index only? I don't know, but it's pretty wild as it stands now. And no doubt Congress restrictions would pass and somehow we would learn that the president cannot be restricted in this way as it would infringe on the executive somehow, even though past presidents did so voluntarily. But Trump is special. Plus the pay for pardons https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-corrupt-is-trump-here-are-the-numbers-trades-chips-nvidia-pardons-settlement-fundBut 1.7B to himself and is supporters and pay for pardons is the swamp, the vast Dead Marshes, that Trump built from the mud puddle from before.
Just the newest version of sue and settle or other related techniques. Dems have been passing money out or changing rules using similar tactics for ages. Environmental activist orgs and the EPA in particular have done many dances like that over the years. A way to get what you want without changing the law and often biding your successors.
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Ordering the government to cut yourself a check is exactly the same as suing industries that dump forever chemicals in the rivers.
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EPT
