Thursday, January 01, 2026

🧶

Is our children learning?
The video, which questioned whether there were any children at the facilities, has rocked the entire day care community in Minnesota. On Dec. 30, the Trump administration declared that it was freezing child care funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some day care centers partly in response to the claims made by the video’s creator, conservative influencer Nick Shirley.

Those funds, which help poor parents pay for child care while working, are a lifeblood for many day cares.

In his video, Shirley claimed that Somali day cares had defrauded the state by $111 million.

In response to those claims, state officials visited all 10 of the facilities featured in Shirley’s video earlier this week. The state has not yet released any details on the findings.

The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.

A Star Tribune review of state enforcement records and court filings shows that none of the individuals publicly identified as owners or operators of the 10 businesses have ever been charged with fraud or any other felonies. However, seven of the eight facilities with publicly available licensing records have been cited by the state for violations over the past four years, with some cited dozens of times.
The interesting thing is, the article is replete with mentions of records of violations (none of them necessarily egregious or serious), which indicates state oversight is alive and well. Which further indicates, if there was fraud to the tune of $111 million, somebody would have noticed it before now. Not to the state of Minnesota mention the question of federal oversight of the money they distribute. Whatever happened to the IG’s I assume are supposed to pay attention to things like this?

I’m not sure this “controversy” lasts as long as next Monday. I say that because the state of Minnesota has grounds to sue for the suspended federal funds (the Feds have no valid grounds to withhold them, in brief). That increases by at least every state with a Democratic AG who has lost funding with even less justification.

Watch it come crashing to a halt when the states move for summary judgements, and the DOJ has to rely on Shirley’s video and pulled-from-his-ass claim of fraud. This is post-November 2020 all over again.

Why do I get the feeling there’s a theme here? Or at least a thread of continuity….

Epilogue: to prove I’m not exaggerating.
BOMBSHELL: Federal judges say the U.S. government lied in 35+ court cases, falsified records, fake declarations, sworn statements built on fiction.

This isn’t a paperwork mistake. It’s systemic deception.

When judges and legal scholars are saying it looks intentional, the rule of law is already on life support.
For decades, federal judges treated the U.S. government like a special kind of litigant. Not because judges are naïve, but because the Justice Department was supposed to have one non-negotiable currency: credibility.

That currency is getting torched in real time.

A 60 Minutes investigation highlighted more than 35 cases in which federal judges said the government provided false information, including false sworn declarations “time and again,” according to NYU law professor Ryan Goodmane.
I like to think the infamous Kavanaugh footnote is a sign word of this has already percolated up to the highest court.

I also think it means the cases about freezing childcare support will crash and burn faster than I expected.  I’ve never seen a report like this. This is…mind-blowing. 🤯
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