There are so many different things that went wrong in Minnesota, but I am inclined to follow lots of stories to the same ending.
Our systems hold liberals and Democrats to more stringent standards than they hold conservatives and Republicans.
They hold the left to stronger anti-corruption standards. And higher benchmarks of public support. And more consistency in appealing to the center rather than the fringes.
The media does this. Pollsters do this. And election officers do it too.
And now, we see, so do the online influencers who drive media attention to the politically disengaged.
Nothing will ever get better for the left until the left begins demanding our political systems to hold the right to more consistent standards of official competence, public support, and service to the entire range of citizens of all political positions.
> Nothing will ever get better for the left until the left begins demanding our political systems to hold the right to more consistent standards of official competence, public support, and service to the entire range of citizens of all political positions.
The left has always demanded this, but the world runs on power, not demands.
-The proven "fraud" is still less than what Philip Esformes ($1.3 billion) or Rick Scott ($1.9 billion) stole. And Trump pardoned Esformes in December 2020.
-The "$9 billion" is pulled out of Press Con Joe Thompson's ass.
-By forcing Walz to drop out, they opened the door to Amy Klobuchar to run. Oops.
If Klobuchar runs, she not only wins big, she pulls the rest of the party ballot up with her. The Democrats would lock up both Houses of the state legislature for at least the next two years.
A-Klo has incentives to do it. She's been in the Senate for years but is stalled out careerwise. A move to the Governor's Office gets her the executive experience she needs to pursue a run for the presidency in 2028.
I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg of fraudulent claims on taxpayer dollars. There have been many stories, for example, about massive numbers of fraudulent claims by businesses (or fake businesses) for payroll protection during Covid. This is what makes the American citizens mad, defeated, and cynical. The level of fraud keeps growing and yet Congress keeps shoveling money out the door with ZERO accountability. Maybe during the early days of the first big welfare program (FDR's Great Society) there was enough social trust for the programs to work with minimal waste, but social trust has been declining since, and fraud appears to have grown. As just one example, what happened to the $billions appropriated for rural broadband? I live in a rural area where the connection to broadband should be easy as we're only a couple of miles from a major fiberoptic line, but it hasn't happened, and it appears to not have happened in most rural areas. You could ask the exact same question of all such programs, where Congress seems to trust independent grantors to spend the money as intended. Yet people in power were angry when DOGE started exposing fraud? People in power are angry that this fraud has been revealed? Yeah, because it's cutting off the money spigot for them, a spigot that should never have been opened in the first place.
What’s making this story viral is the claimed size of the fraud. It seems to have grown exponentially since the first reporting in the main stream media. Do we know what the actual figure is? It also appears that no main stream media employed the shoe leather approach of actually visiting claimed distribution sites. Was this because of Covid or because of cost cutting? And finally there must have been a huge spike in funding costs for child hunger in Minnesota relative to other states. Seems like this readily apparent leak should have triggered a federal investigation right from the start.
This has probably been asked, but considering the date of the release of Nick Shirley’s video, was he knocking on doors of Day Care Centers on Christmas Day, when many may have been closed for the holiday just like many public and private primary and secondary schools? Just askin’. Thanks!
Many threads of thought on this article Gabe, so I’ll share what stands out for me. Why an influencer? Why not mainstream media? You mention the under 30 group. As an under 50 year old I never engage with mainstream media anymore. In fact, I rely on independent journalism and influencers to parse out the rage-click bait from the rest and provide me with cogent and deeply written pieces.
And that isn’t changing anytime soon. Recently I read that betting is the future of mainstream media: we will be able to place online bets on the outcome of politics and hot ticket news items. Which will push those stories even further to the top of the headline regardless of facts and importance. This pushes me further away (than I already was) from CNN, ABC, NYT, etc. and right into the open arms of you and other independent journalists and influencers.
Great read, Gabe! Thank you for the analysis on the situation. This has just been so crazy. Emboldened criminals will always take advantage whenever they can. And we are the ones who pay for it.
"... for someone who less than a year ago was being floated as possible presidential timber."
Gabe, I immediately saw the wood (no pun intended)analogy in your description. However my mind went to decaying, rotting and useless wood in our current crop of "timber".
The mainstream media responds to its audience. No one who watched PBS wanted to see migrants stream across the border. So, it wasn’t shown. Anyone with any foot hold in mainstream society pays a steep price for mentioning in polite company fraud by the “poor", people of color or anyone regardless of color or ethnicity whose fraud gives them access to things some consider government should supply freely to all (like health care.) That is the essence of woke and it is alive and well. So, we are left with (1) carefree and often careless influencers and the (2) so’s your old man (Trump) trope to guide our political moral standards.
There are so many different things that went wrong in Minnesota, but I am inclined to follow lots of stories to the same ending.
Our systems hold liberals and Democrats to more stringent standards than they hold conservatives and Republicans.
They hold the left to stronger anti-corruption standards. And higher benchmarks of public support. And more consistency in appealing to the center rather than the fringes.
The media does this. Pollsters do this. And election officers do it too.
And now, we see, so do the online influencers who drive media attention to the politically disengaged.
Nothing will ever get better for the left until the left begins demanding our political systems to hold the right to more consistent standards of official competence, public support, and service to the entire range of citizens of all political positions.
Demuth and Shirley used bigotry, as all Republicans do nowadays. Look up "the Southern Strategy".
But it's backfired. By dropping out now, Walz has set up Amy Klobuchar to have his seat.
That's your takeaway from this?
Like I said at the beginning, it’s what I take away from a lot of stories. Do you object?
> Nothing will ever get better for the left until the left begins demanding our political systems to hold the right to more consistent standards of official competence, public support, and service to the entire range of citizens of all political positions.
The left has always demanded this, but the world runs on power, not demands.
A few comments:
-The proven "fraud" is still less than what Philip Esformes ($1.3 billion) or Rick Scott ($1.9 billion) stole. And Trump pardoned Esformes in December 2020.
-The "$9 billion" is pulled out of Press Con Joe Thompson's ass.
-By forcing Walz to drop out, they opened the door to Amy Klobuchar to run. Oops.
If Klobuchar runs, she not only wins big, she pulls the rest of the party ballot up with her. The Democrats would lock up both Houses of the state legislature for at least the next two years.
A-Klo has incentives to do it. She's been in the Senate for years but is stalled out careerwise. A move to the Governor's Office gets her the executive experience she needs to pursue a run for the presidency in 2028.
Came for this. The scale of COVID-era fraud (PPP and other avenues) is beyond measure, but we live in different times.
I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg of fraudulent claims on taxpayer dollars. There have been many stories, for example, about massive numbers of fraudulent claims by businesses (or fake businesses) for payroll protection during Covid. This is what makes the American citizens mad, defeated, and cynical. The level of fraud keeps growing and yet Congress keeps shoveling money out the door with ZERO accountability. Maybe during the early days of the first big welfare program (FDR's Great Society) there was enough social trust for the programs to work with minimal waste, but social trust has been declining since, and fraud appears to have grown. As just one example, what happened to the $billions appropriated for rural broadband? I live in a rural area where the connection to broadband should be easy as we're only a couple of miles from a major fiberoptic line, but it hasn't happened, and it appears to not have happened in most rural areas. You could ask the exact same question of all such programs, where Congress seems to trust independent grantors to spend the money as intended. Yet people in power were angry when DOGE started exposing fraud? People in power are angry that this fraud has been revealed? Yeah, because it's cutting off the money spigot for them, a spigot that should never have been opened in the first place.
DOGE didn't expose any fraud other than their own.
What’s making this story viral is the claimed size of the fraud. It seems to have grown exponentially since the first reporting in the main stream media. Do we know what the actual figure is? It also appears that no main stream media employed the shoe leather approach of actually visiting claimed distribution sites. Was this because of Covid or because of cost cutting? And finally there must have been a huge spike in funding costs for child hunger in Minnesota relative to other states. Seems like this readily apparent leak should have triggered a federal investigation right from the start.
As Public Notice said a few days ago, the Republicans gutted oversight the last time they controlled the state government:
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/shirley-video-somali-daycares-fraud
For someone making a buck off of misspelled words, this Shirley fellow had incorrect grammar in his 'dis-post'. Just sayin'.
This has probably been asked, but considering the date of the release of Nick Shirley’s video, was he knocking on doors of Day Care Centers on Christmas Day, when many may have been closed for the holiday just like many public and private primary and secondary schools? Just askin’. Thanks!
Many threads of thought on this article Gabe, so I’ll share what stands out for me. Why an influencer? Why not mainstream media? You mention the under 30 group. As an under 50 year old I never engage with mainstream media anymore. In fact, I rely on independent journalism and influencers to parse out the rage-click bait from the rest and provide me with cogent and deeply written pieces.
And that isn’t changing anytime soon. Recently I read that betting is the future of mainstream media: we will be able to place online bets on the outcome of politics and hot ticket news items. Which will push those stories even further to the top of the headline regardless of facts and importance. This pushes me further away (than I already was) from CNN, ABC, NYT, etc. and right into the open arms of you and other independent journalists and influencers.
What’s your take on this concept, Gabe?
Nick Shirley isn’t done. He is doing interviews and posting often.
Great read, Gabe! Thank you for the analysis on the situation. This has just been so crazy. Emboldened criminals will always take advantage whenever they can. And we are the ones who pay for it.
"... for someone who less than a year ago was being floated as possible presidential timber."
Gabe, I immediately saw the wood (no pun intended)analogy in your description. However my mind went to decaying, rotting and useless wood in our current crop of "timber".
The mainstream media responds to its audience. No one who watched PBS wanted to see migrants stream across the border. So, it wasn’t shown. Anyone with any foot hold in mainstream society pays a steep price for mentioning in polite company fraud by the “poor", people of color or anyone regardless of color or ethnicity whose fraud gives them access to things some consider government should supply freely to all (like health care.) That is the essence of woke and it is alive and well. So, we are left with (1) carefree and often careless influencers and the (2) so’s your old man (Trump) trope to guide our political moral standards.
Lisa Demuth is your captain, Nick. And she's going down on your ship of bigotry along with David Hoch and Joe Marble.