Tag: minnesota

Son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Accused Of Collecting Six-Figure City Salary Despite Harvard Fellowship In Massachusetts

Minnesota city council member and son of radical AG Keith Ellison is accused of “accepting a full time accepting a full-time fellowship at Harvard University while continuing to collect his six-figure taxpayer salary.”

This was recently reported by Campus Reform.

Minnesota, sadly, seems to be a focus of corruption right now.

Jeremiah “Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, told The Minnesota Star Tribune that he is splitting time between Minneapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the final months of his term.”

“The fellowship requires him to be in Massachusetts, meaning Ellison has already stepped back from the Business, Housing, and Zoning Committee and the Public Health and Safety Committee.”

Minneapolis city council members like Ellison are given a salary of close to $110,000.

Ellison was first elected in 2017, representing North Minneapolis.

“Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw, the only other member representing the North Side, blasted the move, calling it unacceptable that her constituents will now have “zero” representation in the city’s most consequential committees.”

Ellison argues he can attend virtually the city’s year-end budget vote.

“Minneapolis rules do not allow council members to vote remotely, raising questions about how effective his virtual participation will be.”

“Council President Elliott Payne admitted that the arrangement was largely made on the advice of the city clerk and said the full council will revisit the issue in the coming weeks.”

Some other members are already calling for Ellison’s seat to be filled.

A council member named Jamal Osman is calling for a replacement during the transition.

“Concerns about the arrangement have been dismissed by Ellison, who told KSTP-TV that he “will be present for most full city council meetings,” and that nothing remarkable is actually happening.”

Fortunately for his city, Ellison will not be running for reelection.

His father is previously known for his pro Antifa and support of CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group.

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500 Illegal Immigrants Arrested In Minnesota, 1,000 Immigration-Fraud Cases Investigated: DHS Official

As additional investigators surge to fraud-plagued Minnesota, federal agents have already arrested 500 illegal immigrants and probed 1,000 immigration-fraud cases during the past two months, a Homeland Security official estimated.

Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary, gave those updated figures Dec. 30 during an interview with the Charlie Kirk Show.

Fraud was substantiated in about half of the immigration-fraud investigations, she said, and many of the arrested illegal immigrants were from Somalia.

Somalis dominate the list of nearly 100 people federally charged in various schemes to defraud the government, authorities have said.

McLaughlin gave additional details in a Dec. 30 Fox News interview. She said “hundreds” of investigators were on the ground in Minnesota.

They were knocking on doors of day care centers, health care centers, and “other organizations that take taxpayer dollars,” she said.

“These suspected perpetrators are really trying to cover their tracks,” McLaughlin said. She accused the suspects of “trying to whitewash” their operations to appear to be “legitimate” businesses, but they are shams, McLaughlin said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up its operations in Minnesota in recent months, well before a media firestorm erupted over widespread Somali childcare fraud.

YouTuber Nick Shirley gained nearly 132 million views after he posted a Dec. 26 video saying he uncovered over $110 million in alleged fraud in a single day.

The video shows Shirley visiting day care centers that appeared to have no children present, yet these sites had received large payments from a federal childcare program run through the state of Minnesota.

Federal officials have since cut off funding to that program in Minnesota, and are demanding more solid documentation from day care providers nationwide.

ICE has frequently encountered resistance and protesters in Minnesota, which is considered a “sanctuary” state that shields illegal immigrants.

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Trump SBA SUSPENDS Nearly 7,000 Minnesota Borrowers Amid Suspected PPP and EIDL Fraud

The Trump administration’s Small Business Administration announced Thursday that it has suspended 6,900 Minnesota borrowers after uncovering a widespread suspected fraud tied to COVID-19 relief programs.

According to the agency, an internal review of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) approvals in Minnesota revealed nearly $400 million in potentially fraudulent loans—money that was supposed to keep small businesses afloat and American workers employed during the pandemic.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency reviewed thousands of pandemic-era loans approved in Minnesota and identified 7,900 PPP and EIDL loans connected to the suspended borrowers.

In a blunt statement posted to X, Loeffler laid out the scope of the action:

“Over the last week, SBA has reviewed thousands of potentially fraudulent pandemic-era PPP and EIDL loans approved in Minnesota.

Today, our agency took action to suspend 6,900 Minnesota borrowers amid suspected fraudulent activity. In total, these borrowers were approved for 7,900 PPP and EIDL loans worth approximately $400M.

These individuals will be banned from all SBA loan programs, including disaster loans, going forward. We will also refer every case, where appropriate, to federal law enforcement for prosecution and repayment.

After years, the American people will finally begin to see the criminals who stole from law-abiding taxpayers held accountable – and this is just the first state.”

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Minnesota To Mandate K–12 Ethnic Studies Instruction In 2026

In the coming weeks, school boards across the Land of 10,000 Lakes state will decide on curricula to meet ethnic studies mandates for the 2026–2027 academic year.

There appear to be limited alternatives to the free instructional materials developed with taxpayer dollars and endorsed by the state teachers’ union.

That curriculum instructs 6th graders to learn the 13 guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement; 7th graders on how protesters have breached federal buildings; and higher schoolers to “identify plans of action that people have used to resist, refuse, and create alternatives to oppressive systems,” according to the materials developed by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender and Sexuality Studies (RIDGS).

“Students will be able to explain how race is socially constructed and how that social construction has been used to oppress people of color, specifically in relation to Jim Crow, segregation, and racial covenants,” reads the description for the 11th and 12th-grade Jim Crow of the North course.

The Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota-based education policy organization that opposes partisan and race-based curricula, is helping districts find politically neutral alternatives that it says are more like traditional social studies and history electives and less like social justice advocacy guidance.

“The words ethnic studies have been hijacked,” Catrin Wigfall, a policy fellow with the center, told The Epoch Times.

“But boards [of education] have more power in this than they might think.”

Additionally, state laws allow parents to review a curriculum and opt their child out of any instruction they find objectionable, in which case the school is required to provide alternative materials, Wigfall said.

The Minnesota Department of Education defines ethnic studies as an interdisciplinary area of instruction that “analyzes how race and racism have been and continue to be social, cultural, and political forces, and the connection of race to the stratification of other groups.”

The state law requires public schools to incorporate ethnic studies lessons in mandatory social studies courses across all grade levels, in addition to offering a stand-alone ethnic studies elective course for high school juniors and seniors.

In 2023, the Minnesota Department of Education stipulated that the ethnic studies context is expected to be embedded in other subject areas, including math, physical education, and health, as courses are periodically revised.

The Center of the American Experiment argues that those standards habituate angry, inaccurate, and “identity-first” ideological and political perspectives.

By definition, ethnic studies should focus on global histories, cultures, and religions, but the instruction pushed in Minnesota schools forces a polarizing and narrow political worldview, Wigfall said.

“It’s been a bait and switch campaign,” she said.

The center endorses the American Experience curriculum by the Foundation Against Tolerance and Racism, which Johns Hopkins has approved as a model for ethnic studies instruction, as a suitable alternative to the University of Minnesota’s instructional materials.

In addition, the 1776 Unites free curriculum focuses on historical stories that “celebrate black excellence, reject victimhood culture, and showcase African-Americans who have prospered by embracing America’s founding ideals,” according to its website.

Wigfall said her organization will work with school districts to navigate curriculum choices and the timetable for meeting state requirements across various subject areas.

The center isn’t advocating litigation over the mandate, but local education leaders, under federal Title VI provisions, have legal recourse if they are forced to foster a hostile learning environment under state requirements.

“It will be interesting to see what the rollout looks like,” she said. “When you emphasize tribalism, what does that do to knowledge development?”

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The Legacy Media’s Long Knives Are Out for Nick Shirley

You knew this would happen. An independent journalist scoops the legacy media, and they go after him. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Nick Shirley has made CNNCBSABCNBCNYT and all of the other leftist media look bad, and now they will try to make sure he pays.

Our own Eric Florack captured the essence of what Shirley accomplished just a few days ago: 

This is most likely the single biggest story ever covered by an independent journalist. In one video alone, Nick Shirley has exposed over $100 million in fraud. I suspect he’s merely scratched the surface on the story.
 
Keep in mind, this is right in the backyard of the big paper in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Star Tribune, a paper with far more in the way of resources to lean on than Mr. Shirley could ever hope to field. They can’t be bothered. Or perhaps they’re shielding us from something. As you can imagine (and I suspect some viewers can see) the video has had over 100 million views so far. You can imagine why. Nobody, including the Tribune, is covering the story well enough.

Eric is right. The legacy media couldn’t be bothered, that is, until Shirley’s discoveries spurred on more investigations in Minnesota and elsewhere, and a pattern has emerged. There is a ton of corruption in the Somali-American communities, and we’re paying for it, as PJ Media’s Victoria Taft revealed: 

In the state of Washington, one internet sleuth began going through the grants and found 539 Somali daycare centers. Some of these centers are in people’s homes. Many of these taxpayer-subsidized centers do not list an address.

So, how does the legacy media respond to all of this? Does it wake up and start covering the alleged fraud and corruption, or does it go after the journalistic whistleblower?   

Actually, those were just rhetorical questions. I know you know what they did. 

Here’s CNN confronting not the alleged scammers, but Shirley himself. 

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ICE Director Says Sanctuary Cities Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Crisis

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Toddy Lyons asserted that Minnesota’s so-called sanctuary state laws are in part to blame for the rampant fraud being exposed in the state. He argued that those laws, ensure that fraudsters, as well as illegal immigrants, have safe havens to abuse the American taxpayers.

“There’s always a tie when it comes to sanctuary jurisdictions, where you can hide in plain sight. You see a lot of these fraudsters use a lot of sanctuary rules and sanctuary protections to enact in criminal fraud just like this,” Lyons said.

We’ve been on the ground for so long looking into these states that are conducting these type of material fraud, and when Homeland Security Investigations goes into these businesses, there is criminal activity when it comes to labor trafficking, child trafficking, human exploitation and that’s what we’re looking at up there in Minnesota. And you’ll always come back to these sanctuary jurisdictions where you’ll find them hiding in plain sight and using those sanctuary protections to employ not only illegal aliens, but to conduct criminal fraud just like you’re seeing right now.

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Mortifying moment anti-Trump Minnesota mom suddenly cuts speech short after admitting ‘fraud is bad’

A Minnesota mother who spoke out Wednesday against the Trump administration’s freezing of child care funding abruptly cut her remarks short after admitting that “fraud is bad.”

Deko Nor, a medical student whose four-year-old attends a daycare center outside Minneapolis, told reporters at a New Year’s Eve press conference that her child would be one of more than 20,000 losing access to the facilities without federal help.

“I rely on child care. I work. If child care is cut, I am unable to work or go to school,” she said, before beginning her next sentence by declaring: “I understand fraud is bad—”

Nor immediately looked down at the text of her speech, shook her head in disbelief and placed her right hand to her mouth while inhaling sharply.

She then looked up, apparently flustered, and told the other attendees at the news conference: “I don’t think I can speak.”

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It’s Official: Tim Walz’s 20-Week PAID Leave Program Now in Effect — Open to Illegals and Non-Citizens

In a move that’s sure to infuriate hardworking American taxpayers, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s radical socialist agenda has kicked into high gear today with the rollout of his so-called “Paid Family and Medical Leave” program.

Under the new law signed by Walz, employees in Minnesota will be eligible for up to 12 weeks of medical leave and 12 weeks of family leave — up to 20 weeks total per year — with partial wage replacement paid out of a state-mandated payroll tax on employers and employees.

But the detail sparking the most outrage isn’t just the length of the leave—it’s who is eligible to collect the check.

If a worker meets the minimum earning threshold of approximately $3,900 in the past year and has paid into the system through payroll taxes, they are eligible to apply for state-funded wage replacement.

No Social Security number? No problem! No proof of citizenship? Who cares!  Walz and his leftist cronies have made sure that anyone, including those who snuck across our southern border, can now access taxpayer-backed paid leave benefits to bond with a new child or recover from an illness for nearly five months of the year.

How It Works

  • The Tax: The program is funded by a new 0.88% payroll tax, split between employers and employees.
  • The Benefit: Workers can take up to 12 weeks for serious medical conditions and 12 weeks for family leave (bonding, caring for a sick relative, etc.), capped at a combined 20 weeks per year.
  • The Payout: Benefits function on a progressive scale, with lower-income workers receiving up to 90% of their weekly wages.

Walz’s rollout comes amid severe criticism of his administration’s oversight of public benefits.

Minnesota was recently thrust into the national spotlight after federal prosecutors exposed over $8 billion in welfare and aid fraud tied to multiple schemes — including cases involving Somali-linked entities — under Walz’s watch.

The fraud centered on a non-profit called Feeding Our Future, which sponsored hundreds of meal sites that claimed to be feeding thousands of children a day during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, most of these meals were never served.

Federal authorities have recently surged resources into Minnesota to investigate allegations of similar fraud schemes involving Medicaid, autism services, and daycare centers, again involving networks within the Somali community.

Minnesota’s paid leave scam is just the latest in a long line of Democrat disasters.

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‘Fraudian’ Slip?? Two Women React Strangely When They Mention “Fraud” at Minnesota Rally – One Goes “Off Script” and Gets Brutally Honest

The Somali fraud stories are emerging across the country.  From its origin in Minnesota, new claims have emerged in Ohio, Maine, Massachusetts, and Washington.

Yesterday, in Minnesota, state legislators and daycare providers held a press conference to speak out after the Trump administration announced that Health and Human Services (HHS) would be suspending the program until an investigation into the fraud claims was completed.

The press conference began with an opening statement from a childcare center director named Amanda Schillinger, who claims that many in her community are afraid to come forward because they’re being targeted and that she really doesn’t want to be there.

“So lets be honest about how we got here.  “Our President decided he doesn’t like the Somali community and he wants to destroy them,” she said.  “Speaker Demuth and the GOP caucus sent a YouTuber out to create the narrative they want out there.  Not the truth.”

She continued by saying that “Minnesota does investigate suspected fraud in childcare and hold people accountable.  And they will continue to do so because fraud is never acceptable.  But cutting off childcare funding to everyone in the state is not the answer and its not acceptable.”

She claims that 75 percent of the children in “our program” qualify through the state for childcare funding.

Next to speak was a woman that said she is a mother, medical student, and benefactor of childcare funding spoke at the event.  She began her speech, seemingly reading from her phone, by acknowledging that she’s “not much of a good speaker” but would try her best.

Nervously reading from her cell phone, she stated that 20,000 kids will be unable to attend daycare as they and their parents depend on this funding.

But when the script prompted her to say, “I understand: fraud is bad,” she covered her mouth in shock, seemingly concerned for what she had just said, and backed out of her speech.

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Minnesota: Police Dispute Somali-Run Day Care Claiming ‘Important Documents’ Were Stolen

Police in Minneapolis have disputed a Somali-run daycare center’s claim that “important documents” disproving fraudulent activity were stolen.

The Nokomis DayCare Center claimed that a burglar broke into the building through the kitchen in the rear of the facility on Tuesday, rummaging through the main office and stealing documents pertaining to its operations, but police say that no report was filed, per the New York Post:

Nasrulah Mohamed, manager of Nakomis Day Care Center, told reporters that a suspect entered through the kitchen at the rear of the facility, damaging a wall and breaking into the building’s office, sometime on Tuesday. He said the alleged prowler stole “important documentation” including children’s enrollment information, employee documentation and checkbooks.

However “no loss was reported to officers,” according to a preliminary report by the Minneapolis Police Department. MPD noted that the center later reached out with additional information, but the updated police report was not immediately available.

The Nokomis DayCare Center provided video of a hole in the wall in what may have been a utility closet.

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