Tag: welfare

If Fraud In Minnesota Looks Bad, Wait Till You See Gavin Newsom’s California 

As a former California state assemblyman who spent four years on the Budget Committee, I had a front-row seat to Sacramento’s obsession with “pulling down” federal dollars, turning welfare programs into a free-for-all.

Then-state Auditor Elaine Howle ran a lean operation, issuing spot-on reports about waste and vulnerabilities — and getting ignored time and again. California maximized payments for SNAP, Medi-Cal, and unemployment insurance with little regard for fraud controls.

That same reckless mindset has fueled scandals across blue states, with Minnesota serving as the appetizer to California’s main course of fiscal disaster.

Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud — where crooks were convicted last March of pocketing $250-300 million in federal child nutrition funds by claiming phantom meals for kids — was a mere fraction of what was to come.

Today, Minnesota’s likely fraud toll has ballooned, with nearly $9 billion in suspected Medicaid scams since 2018, involving fake providers, ghost services, and out-of-state hustlers. Despite 80 charged, 50-plus guilty pleas, and assets like luxury cars forfeited in the Feeding Our Future scam, recoveries are a drop in the bucket. State agencies have ignored red flags, paralyzed by fears of discrimination lawsuits — or even just being labeled “racists.” And that allowed fraudsters to run wild.

But if Minnesota’s the starter, California’s the feast.

The Golden State’s Covid-19 unemployment insurance debacle at the Employment Development Department (EDD) was a masterclass in negligence: $177 billion paid out, with fraud hitting $20 billion by official counts and up to $32.6 billion by independent estimates. Scammers exploited lax ID checks, using stolen Social Security numbers for bogus claims while the real workers who owned those SSNs labored for their daily bread.

The financial recoveries? Pathetic.

And now, in an effort to repay $20-23 billion in federal loans, businesses have been slapped with their fifth year of Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) surcharges — $84 per employee extra in 2025, rising yearly. In other words, Gavin Newsom’s California punishes job creators for his government’s failure. Interest could soon top $1 billion annually, with ongoing unemployment insurance shortfalls piling on.

Then there’s the expansion of Medi-Cal to cover illegal aliens, fully implemented in 2024. Promised costs: $3 billion or more a year. Actual costs: $9.5 billion, with $8.4 million coming from the General Fund in 2024-25, enrollment nearing 2 million, and per-person expenses soaring.

California isn’t legally allowed to spend federal money on covering illegal aliens. But through the magic of financial fungibility, California has figured out how to force taxpayers in Texas and Florida to pick up the tab. This must stop.

Facing a big budget blowout, Sacramento froze new adult enrollments from January 2026, axed dental benefits for this group, and slapped on $30 monthly premiums starting in 2027. All of this is projected to save roughly $80 million short-term but billions over time.

Yet it still drains resources from citizens, pulling in indirect federal funds while exposing taxpayers to runaway costs.

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James Comer Says Ilhan Omar Is “At the Top of the Suspect List” in Massive Minnesota Fraud Scandal — Ethics Complaints Incoming, Claims Her Husband Profited

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer dropped a bombshell this week, suggesting that far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar sits “at the top of the suspect list” in the sprawling Minnesota fraud scandals involving taxpayer-funded daycare and healthcare programs.

The comments came during a pointed exchange with journalist Alison Steinberg, who raised serious concerns about whether members of Congress themselves may have benefited from money funneled through political action committees tied to fraudulent daycare and healthcare schemes.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn has leveled explosive allegations against Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, claiming that a lack of accountability regarding massive taxpayer fraud in Minnesota is linked to the Speaker’s own financial networks.

Minnesota has become ground zero for some of the largest pandemic-era fraud cases in U.S. history, involving the alleged theft of hundreds of millions of dollars intended to feed children and provide healthcare services.

Many of these cases have centered on networks tied to Somali-run nonprofits and daycare operations, fraud that went unchecked for years under Democrat leadership.

When asked how Americans can trust Congress to police fraud if lawmakers themselves are implicated, Comer made it clear that there is a formal mechanism to deal with corruption on Capitol Hill.

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Fraud ignored: Former Homeland Security investigator reveals how fraud cases weren’t prosecuted

Jeremy Christenson, a former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent, joined Liz Collin on her podcast and explained how cases of cash smuggling and fraudulent day care centers were ignored by prosecutors.

Christenson, who worked as a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent for 16 years, is also a former air marshal and police officer in Minnesota.

Christensen said many of the cases he investigated “went away into thin air.” He had concerns ever since he started investigating cases of fraud in Minnesota some 10 years ago. But with Somali fraud making national headlines, he had to bring what he witnessed as an investigator to light.

Fraudulent day care investigations, back in 2015

Christenson told Collin that “around 2015, a case landed on my desk from my supervisor. He advised me that the state was running a fraud case regarding daycare fraud in Minneapolis through Health and Human Services or Department of Human Services.”

“Over the next several weeks and months, I attended … planning meetings with this task force of about 20 personnel of various law enforcement agencies, the Health and Human Services, BCA, St. Paul PD, Minneapolis PD and it was all revolving around fraudulent daycares,” Christenson said.

“They were setting up sham daycares, fake bills, fake students, or just enrolling students that never came,” he added.

Christenson also pointed out a suspicious detail: “Never — not one of the daycares I served warrants on, not one person was ever present.”

As for evidence, he explained how investigators found “empty buildings, stacks of invoices, and student records of people that our surveillance showed never went there.”

But what happened next has bothered Christenson ever since. He said the investigative task force “all of sudden, it just evaporated — just went away into thin air.”

As for the investigation into the fraudulent day care centers in the Twin Cities, Christenson said he had “no idea whatever happened with the case.”

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Billions in healthcare fraud discovered in California, Minnesota ‘pales in comparison’: Dr Oz

Billions of dollars in alleged fraudulent healthcare spending is being investigated in California, specifically probing foreign nationals operating illegal hospice facilities — officials announced Friday in a bombshell press conference.

“We have witnessed a sevenfold increase in hospice in LA County, sevenfold. That doesn’t happen naturally,” Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told The Post during at the press conference.

“There is not seven times more deaths in LA County than there were five years ago. These are fraudsters, and these do tend to be foreign influences, either Russian and Armenian gangs, mafia, that are leading a lot of these efforts.”

Fraudsters who run these facilities are working with about “100 bad doctors,” who convince a patient they’re dying to enroll them in hospice care, Dr Oz said, adding about 100,000 people have handed over their Medicare numbers.

“We are major focused on this issue, and I think our suspicion, our belief, is that the fraud in California will magnify whatever’s happening in Minnesota,” United States Attorney Bill Essayli said. “What’s happening in Minnesota pales in comparison to the level of fraud that we believe is occurring in California.”

Dr Oz said the Trump administration is also cracking down on taxpayer money being used to treat illegal immigrants for elective procedures.

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Biden Judge Blocks President Trump’s $10 Billion Welfare Funding Freeze in Five Blue States

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Trump’s $10 billion welfare funding freeze in five blue states.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee, issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and blocked Trump’s halt on funding for childcare and social services.

On Tuesday, President Trump sent letters to California, Colorado, New York, Minnesota and Illinois to inform them of the federal cuts.

Trump made the cuts to the welfare programs due to widespread fraud in the state’s programs.

The five states were given a January 20 deadline.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the other Democrat attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration and asked the judge for an emergency order.

Judge Subramanian halted Trump’s welfare freeze for two weeks as both sides submit arguments to the court.

Politico reported:

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from freezing $10 billion in welfare funds earmarked for five blue states.

In response to a request from the states for an emergency injunction, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ordered that the money from three programs — Child Care Development Fund, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and Social Services Block Grants — must continue to flow to the states.

His decision, which expires in two weeks, was meant to give the two sides time to submit more extensive legal arguments on whether the cuts should be allowed or the ban kept in place, the judge wrote.

Earlier in the week, California, Colorado, Illinois, New York and Minnesota received letters from the federal Department of Health and Human Services notifying them of the cuts. California is in line to receive about half of the $10 billion in targeted funding.

The attempt to withhold the funds was in response to what the Trump Administration has alleged without evidence is widespread fraud and waste in the states’ welfare programs. Along with the cuts, administration officials are also requesting reams of information about how states administer the programs in an effort to bolster the claims of malfeasance and ineptitude.

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78% of Somali Immigrant Households Still on Welfare After a Decade, Congressman Gill Says, Citing State Welfare Stats

78 percent of Somali immigrant households remain on welfare even after a decade in the United States—a statistic that ignited a fierce debate on Capitol Hill and reopened the debate over immigration, welfare dependency, and political accountability. 

The statistic, cited by Rep. Brandon Gill, during a heated Oversight Committee hearing, has become a flashpoint in a broader reckoning over Minnesota’s sprawling welfare system and recent revelations of large-scale fraud.

The exchange unfolded as Rep. Gill pressed state officials and witnesses on disparities in welfare usage. He contrasted the figures he cited for Somali-headed households with far lower rates among native-born Minnesota households, arguing that the gap raised serious questions about policy outcomes.

When challenged, Democratic witnesses attempted to blur the distinction, insisting that many Somali Minnesotans are American-born and culturally integrated. Gill rejected that framing, returning repeatedly to the numbers and arguing that outcomes—not intentions—are what ought to matter in public policy.

The congressman went further, stating that more than 80 percent of Somali-headed households receive some form of welfare assistance. Even after ten years of residency, he said, nearly four in five remain dependent on government support—a figure he argued is incompatible with claims of successful integration.

These remarks landed amid a cascade of corruption investigations in Minnesota that have shaken public confidence. State and federal authorities have uncovered what they describe as one of the largest fraud scandals in recent US history, involving alleged abuse of childcare subsidies, food assistance programs, and healthcare funding.

Investigators estimate that as much as $9 billion may have been siphoned off through fake nonprofits and shell organizations. According to prosecutors, many of these operations inflated enrollment numbers or fabricated services while collecting taxpayer dollars.

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HERE WE GO: NY Governor Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani Announce Plans to Spend Billions on ‘Free’ Childcare Program

New York Governor Kathy Hochul and newly sworn in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have just announced their plans to spend billions of dollars on a ‘free’ childcare program. What could possibly go wrong?

They are doing this as the state of Minnesota is imploding under the weight of a massive fraud scandal which is almost completely focused on daycare centers that received millions in funding even though many of them seem to be nothing more than empty store fronts.

Are New York taxpayers about to get fleeced too?

The New York Post reports:

NY Gov. Hochul announces lofty socialist plan to offer ‘free’ child care — with $4.5B pricetag

New York inched toward socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s lofty promise of universal child care Thursday — as Gov. Kathy Hochul rolled out a multi-billion-dollar plan to vastly expand kids programs.

The proposed “2-Care” program for all 2-year-olds in the Big Apple, along with a buildup of existing pre-K and early childcare in the rest of New York, will ultimately provide care for 100,000 more children across the state, Hochul said.

Mamdani, standing alongside the governor for a back-slapping announcement in the Flatbush YMCA, crowed that the proposals will help families struggling with the cost of childcare in New York City.

“We are now going to be able to fix 3-K, we are going to be able to deliver 2-Care universally across this city over the next four years and we are going to be able to make it easier to raise a family in a city where today it’s a good deal if you can get $22,500 a year for childcare,” he said.

The total price tag for Hochul’s “free” childcare proposals – which will be part of her “State of the State” address next week – will be $4.5 billion statewide, of which $1.7 billion is added spending.

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Dr. Oz Puts Tim Walz on Notice Over ‘Deep Rot’ of Minnesota’s Medicaid Fraud

Dr. Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has put Tim Walz on notice. Walz, who is so deeply embroiled in his state’s massive fraud scandal that he was forced to drop out of the Minnesota governor’s race this week, is also facing a criminal probe by the DOJ and a Congressional hearing next month.

“At CMS and HHS, we’re increasingly worried about the deep rot within Minnesota’s Medicaid and social services system, which are supposed to protect the most vulnerable Americans,” Dr. Oz said.

“The more we uncover, the more it becomes clear: it’s much worse than we were led to believe by state government officials. We’d previously learned that illegal immigrants were still getting care with allegedly state-only Medicaid programs that were actually using federal taxpayer funds,” Oz said. “And, because of that, we already withheld $1.3 billion from California, Illinois, and yes, Minnesota, which always seems to show up on the list of states with the worst fraud, waste, and abuse.”

“But this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Oz continued. “We have an unfortunate announcement for the Walz administration. They have to admit they were warned. Last month, we instructed the Walz administration to produce a corrective action plan by the end of the year, which we received late New Year’s Eve and found deeply insufficient.”

“We don’t want to hear, for example, that your state law doesn’t allow you to protect federal taxpayers from Somali fraud. And we want a sense of urgency to fix this, as well as clear milestones to hold Minnesota accountable on progress,” Oz said. 

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Keith Ellison Calls Massive Fraud ‘Not Serious’ After Audio of Him Helping Fraudsters Resurfaces

Back at the beginning of December, Townhall reported how Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was not only working to help Somali fraudsters keep access to funding, but that he allegedly received campaign donations for doing so. Here’s what American Experiment wrote about Ellison at the time:

Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, can clearly be heard pledging his support to individuals who would soon become his family’s campaign donors and later Feeding Our Future criminal defendants.

His recorded statements flatly contradict his contemporaneous public statements and raise uncomfortable questions about the intersection between political fundraising and constituent services.

American Experiment has exclusively obtained the complete 54-minute, 44-second audio file of a private December 2021 meeting between state Attorney General (AG) Keith Ellison and key figures in the Feeding Our Future scandal.

As I wrote last week, the audio file was named as Exhibit 710 on the evidence list presented to the court by Aimee Bock’s defense attorney, Kenneth Udoibok. The recording was not offered into evidence during the six-week trial that concluded last month, with Bock’s conviction on all seven counts she faced. A timeline of relevant events can be found here.

Now Fox News has picked up the story, and Ellison is not happy about it.

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Nick Shirley Drops Another Video, and It Will Blow Your Mind

Independent journalist Nick Shirley’s back at it, and his second Minnesota fraud video packs the same explosive punch as the first.

That original 42-minute bombshell ripped the lid off Somali-run daycares that are raking in millions from taxpayers while sitting empty, while the Walz administration did nothing to stop it.

The legacy media have been aggressively trying to discredit Shirley and his reporting, but he’s not backing down. In fact, he’s doubling down with fresh footage that makes his first video look like small beans. Last month, after his team dug up over $110 million in shady dealings in just one day, Tim Walz clearly felt the heat. The Democrat governor bailed on his reelection bid, and Shirley took a much-deserved victory lap.

Since then, the situation has gotten worse for Walz. As we previously reported, Minnesota’s legislative auditor dropped a bombshell report this week, revealing that. Walz’s Department of Human Services cooked the books, skipped controls, and blew oversight of $400 million-plus in grants. Employees faked documents to dodge audits.

I suspect this could shove Walz out the door for good—and potentially land him in cuffs.

Shirley’s new video dials things up to 11.

David Hoch, co-founder of Minnesotans for Responsible Government, joined him on the ground in Minneapolis, revealing an insane truth: this fraud hits hundreds of billions nationwide. Minnesota’s slice? At least $80 billion. Layers of shell companies obscure the cash trail, including 1,200 medical transport outfits in the area that do nothing while collecting taxpayer dollars.

Hoch swears by his evidence. “I have been to many of these transportation companies, and I’ve been time-stamping my photographs for a whole year at one facility in Minneapolis, and those vans in that parking lot had not moved one inch in an entire year. They’re all still sitting there.”

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