☕️ FRAUD FATHER ☙ Monday, December 29, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

A special breaking news edition: the astonishing, far-reaching implications of the disastrous Minnesota Welfare Fraud story.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday (really)! Today’s post is a special edition about the biggest breaking story on Twitter: the Minnesota Somali Welfare Fraud. We have dots to connect, and the implications will astonish you far beyond the obvious implications. Remember— there’s nothing new under the Sun.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Never has the disconnect been more stark between social media’s town hall and corporate media’s ivory tower. As I’ve previously reported, the Minnesota Somali Fraud story continues surging online, while all references in the top legacy platforms have been scrubbed from home pages. For instance, on the New York Times’ overlong website this morning, the word “Minnesota” appeared only once in a story headlined, “Winter Storm Batters Minnesota, Bringing ‘Potentially Life-Threatening Travel Conditions.’” Some kind of storm is battering Minnesota; that much is true. Meanwhile, on X, YouTuber Nick Shirley’s homespun investigative video exposing empty day care centers has shot past 108 million views:

In yesterday’s C&C, I noted there is much to say about this story, which squats like an above-average sumo wrestler atop the intersection of immigration, election security, welfare, corruption, media malpractice, government waste, fraud, and abuse, and unsightly Democrat officials. Corporate media has been ignoring the story so hard it isn’t even trying to debunk it, or even running the classic “Republicans Pounce!” meme.

This studious disinterest is at least partly due to being in the fog of an extended hot-takes phase. Media can craft clever excuse narratives, but they may not hold up as new information emerges. Just yesterday, for example, a viral TikTok made the rounds, appearing to show that one of the suspicious ‘day care centers’ from Nick’s video —Sweet Angel Child Care— lists an official phone number on Google that sweetly rings through to Governor Tim Walz’s office.

Ruh roh.

🔥 Having said all that, some news is trickling through. Reuters ran a “somebody said something” story early this morning, with the completely understated headline, “FBI investigating Minnesota fraud scheme, director says.” FBI Director Kash Patel’s longish tweet began like this:

Patel mentioned the 78 indictments and 57 convictions already in the can, for charges including wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and jury tampering. Investigations continue. “The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg,” Patel said. What Kash didn’t say, but was clear between the lines, was that the FBI has been investigating this massive fraud for years, even during Biden’s Administration —the first raids occurred in January, 2022— but the media has never mentioned it.

The media didn’t even platform the two-year-old story when Walz was nominated as the Democrat candidate for vice-president. Isn’t that curious?

But Reuters’ story didn’t report on the fraud. It only reported on what Kash Patel said about the fraud. And while it mentioned Nick Shirley’s video, it did so without linking to the clip or even mentioning the 23-year-old by name.

It’s not clear why Reuters didn’t just easily check Shirley’s claims. They didn’t have to go there. They could have, for instance, just called the daycare centers in the video seeking a response. After all, Reuters is a vast reporting enterprise with millions in cash, thousands of workers, hundreds of offices, jillions of computers, phones, copiers, and staplers, not to mention a dwindling audience, but that’s beside the point.

Reuters’ ostrich-like progressive reporters could have squashed the story like a bug. It would have taken just one live daycare owner to go on record explaining how their operation was totally legit and why “for security” they refused to answer Nick Shirley’s questions. Oddly, Reuters seems to have avoided any confirmation calling. They didn’t even say they sought statements.

I mean, if random TikTokers can find the daycare centers’ phone numbers and squeeze out a few minutes to call them, what’s stopping Reuters and the other massively funded corporate news operations? If a TikToker can dial a number and get the governor’s voicemail, why can’t a multi-billion-dollar newsroom?

What does it say that TikTokers are being forced to take these obvious first steps?

🔥 One is reminded of how the media reacted like they’d eaten a bad shellfish and were in allergic shock after James O’Keefe’s ActBlue “smurf” story. The smurfing investigations started in 2023, when the O’Keefe Media Group went door-knocking at the homes of elderly donors who flat denied making thousands of small contributions that ActBlue attributed to them.

O’Keefe’s onsite investigation follows a strikingly similar pattern to Nick Shirley’s Minnesota daycare fraud exposé.

Both stories involved independent influencers using public data —FEC filings for ActBlue; DHS license/payment records for Minnesota childcare providers— plus simple on-the-ground verification by knocking on doors, calling phone numbers, and visiting the physical sites. Both saw explosive viral spread on social media with millions of views, and replicated efforts by other random users. Both involved allegations of massive-scale fraud potentially tied to Democratic fundraising or oversight— ActBlue as a Democrat slush conduit versus welfare programs under Governor Walz. Both saw swift reactions from conservative figures and officials— in the ActBlue scenario, even an executive order from President Trump.

But the media similarities are most striking. Despite the salacious claims, and despite official, real-world responses in both cases, corporate media like CNN, NYT, WaPo, ABC, CBS, and MSNBC have shown a nearly pathological reluctance to repeat the simple steps that started these stories. Instead, they lean into the “no credible evidence” gag, when credible evidence is readily available, one phone call or one door-knock away.

🔥 Today, out of all the possible angles, I’d like to focus on permission structures. Serious welfare reform is always hard, since progressives always deploy suicidal empathy to protect the racket.

The Minnesota Welfare Fraud scandals echo a pivotal prior chapter in our national history: the 1980s and early 1990s, when perceptions of rampant welfare abuse —fueled by high-profile fraud cases and powerful political rhetoric— created the momentum for the most sweeping welfare reform in generations: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996.

Under President Jimmy “Peanut Brain” Carter, the 1970s saw programs like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamps explode. Caseloads soared, costs ballooned, and isolated but sensational fraud cases captured the nation’s attention.

The most iconic was Linda Taylor, a Cadillac-driving, fur-coat-wearing Chicago woman dubbed the “welfare queen” by the press in 1974. Taylor used multiple aliases —up to 80 names, fake addresses, and phony claims for nonexistent children and deceased husbands— to defraud the system of tens of thousands (in some accounts up to $150,000 annually). She was convicted in 1977, and her story became a cause celebré for welfare reform.

Under Reagan’s presidency, 1980s federal task forces uncovered food-stamp trafficking rings in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia— recipients selling coupons for cash, drugs, or even guns. (Sound familiar?) One 1980s study estimated fraud in some areas was as high as 10-20%, costing billions. Cases like Dorothy Mae Woods in California, who posed as multiple women to claim benefits for thirty-eight fake children, racked up hundreds of thousands in illicit welfare payments, and filed 135 fake tax returns for refunds over $350,000.

USDA investigations led to thousands of indictments. At that time, the media ran these stories wall-to-wall. Reader’s Digest and major outlets ran serial exposés on “welfare cheats,” with many stories focusing on a singular community: urban minority recipients.

🔥 All of this attention on a relative handful of welfare cheats sparked long-simmering public outrage, which in turn created what political scientists call a permission structure. The term describes an event or movement that gives someone “permission” —political, moral, or social cover— to take a position that might otherwise be seen as risky, unpopular, or inconsistent with their usual stance.

In this case, the anecdotal evidence of welfare fraud provided broad bipartisan cover for radical change without making voters susceptible to accusations of heartlessness. States began experimenting with work requirements, time limits, and family caps. By the mid-1990s, with a Republican Congress and Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare as we know it,” the table for reform was all set.

In 1996, PRWORA passed overwhelmingly. It wasn’t even close. It ended AFDC’s presumption of automatic entitlement, and replaced the whole program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in the form of block grants to states. PRWORA imposed lifetime limits (typically five years), mandated work participation, and devolved power from federal to state control. Caseloads plummeted— plunging over 60% in the following ten years. Poverty rates fell, and employment among single mothers rose dramatically.

Sadly, Democrats —weaponizing Americans’ empathy and generosity— have chipped away at PRWORA’s reforms for thirty years, and you can see the results for yourself in 2025. I suppose it is an improvement that welfare fraud is now mostly confined to blue states and isn’t national in scope. A small improvement.

Among other, more painful lessons, the Obama team provided us with two enduring political concepts. First, the aforementioned concept of “permission structures”— political opportunities for which Barack was always on the lookout. The second concept was letting no good crisis go to waste, a restatement and extension of the permission structure principle.

It is beyond debate that the nation again faces a welfare crisis. One wonders how this story, developing since 2021, entered public debate now. One notes with interest that the FBI holds all the details— and more. One further notes that, if Kash’s crew did quietly leak the previously obscure Minnesota Somali Fraud story now, for strategic purposes, right before the midterm year begins, like setting a snowball to rolling down a Minnesota hill, then one would be all for it.

It’s past time.

🔥 Now, in 2025, the Minnesota fraud scandal is massively worse than the handful of high-profile 1980s welfare queens whose Cadillacs and Caribbean cruises paved the way for generational welfare reform. Ever since, Democrats have complained that the 1980s welfare fraud cases were anecdotal or exaggerated. But Minnesota’s fraud is court-documented, with dozens already convicted, millions in assets seized, paused programs, a half-dozen agencies surging into Minnesota, and a potentially far larger effect— $9 billion+ in one state alone, versus national welfare fraud estimates under $10 billion total, and far less concentrated.

The scandal is already too big to be stopped. The FBI is sitting on four years of evidence.

Ironically, the fact that media buried the story for Biden’s entire term may have actually helped cement it into its place in history. Had the story been more widely publicized and politicized, Democrats could have moved quickly to narrow its scope or smother it in the crib. Instead, the media’s intentional passivity gave the FBI breathing room and time to work, and thereby developed a fulsome record that is now undeniable.

Also ironically, public outrage is amplified when officials respond too slowly to this kind of crisis. When judges, like the one in Minneapolis, let fraudsters get away with it, it just fuels further backlash. And when corporate media stubbornly refuses to engage with the subject matter, even refusing to make a few phone calls, the end result might be a permission structure many times more powerful than the one that birthed PRWORA.

In other words, it is safe to predict that 2026 will deliver a welfare reform package that goes far beyond PRWORA. Who, at this point, could argue against it? And the story is likely to get worse; Tim Walz’s incompetence* (* at best) is still being exposed. Perhaps most tellingly, even Walz has abandoned any pretense of trying to defend the programs or to argue that critics are racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, immigrant-hating, or anti-smurf.

Instead of attacking conservative critics, the Coach is calling for fraud crackdowns and bragging about how much fraud he’s already allegedly run to ground.

Yesterday, when Fox News asked Governor Walz’s spokesman about Nick Shirley’s video, this was the response: “The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed.”

In other words, because of the scandal’s slow windup and sudden release, Democrats can’t invoke the “no evidence” canard, they can’t minimize the scope, they can’t cry about the fraud being overstated or just Republicans pouncing. That is why Tim “Fraud Father” Walz is leaning into the fraud story, and why corporate media doesn’t know what to say.

At this point, any progressives trying to defend unbounded empathy will just look complicit in fraud tourism. Moderates and independents, seeing billions diverted from the genuinely needful, now have cover to demand accountability— without being guilt-manipulated into feeling heartless.

🔥 I cannot conclude without acknowledging the critical role of Twitter/X. This is not like the 80’s, when corporate media helped expose the rotten foundations of the country’s welfare system after 40 years of Democrat political dominance. Now, in 2025, media is completely sold out to the progressive agenda. Be sure that, without social media, corporate media would have successfully buried this story. After all, it did just that for four years under Biden while the fraud continued to percolate despite ongoing investigations.

Without Elon Musk buying and freeing Twitter (now X), there would be no permission structure to talk about. The Minnesota story would still be censored; Nick Shirley’s video would probably have been throttled, shadowbanned, or outright suppressed for violations of community guidelines against racism or something. Instead, the YouTuber’s 45-minute video has garnered 108 million views.

Once Twitter/X was freed in 2023, the other platforms followed suit out of commercial necessity. Ironically, the only place where censorship remains fully in control is in corporate media itself. They’re still operating under the old rules. They’re not going to pick up the phone and call Sweet Angel for themselves. They’re still waiting for a public letter from 51 former intelligence agents swearing the Minnesota Welfare Fraud bears all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.

If this long-simmering Minnesota welfare scandal wasn’t deliberately released this month to pave the political way for what’s to come next year, it might as well have been. The timing is perfect. Republicans have everything they need to sell a historic welfare reform package to the public. All they need to do now is end the silent filibuster and make Democrats actually debate.

Wouldn’t that be glorious? Who do the Democrats have left who can debate beyond an AOC-style soundbite? We’re not ready to declare victory yet, but momentum is building. I believe we’ll see something different from Republicans in Congress starting early next year. And different is good.

Have a magnificent Monday! Enjoy these last days of 2025, and get back here tomorrow morning, for a regular roundup of essential news and candid commentary.

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