Minnesota Child Care Fraud Scheme | Retrospect Ep.222

In this week’s episode we discussed the recent Minnesota child care fraud controversy that has captured national attention. From long-running welfare fraud investigations in Minnesota’s social services to a viral video alleging wrongdoing at several Somali-owned daycare centers, the story has sparked federal action, the freezing of child care funding, and intense public debate. We’ll break down what’s been alleged, what’s been confirmed by authorities, the broader fraud crisis involving state programs, and the community and political reactions shaping this complex and charged issue.

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Transcript

Keywords
Minnesota child care fraud, taxpayer dollars, shell daycares, phantom children, federal oversight, Nick Shirley, Somali community, welfare benefits, Hawala network, Al Shabaab, government corruption, ICE agent shooting, Trump administration, childcare funding, media bias.
Jason  
In Minneapolis, the word daycare is supposed to mean safety, juice boxes, nap mats, a place where parents can work and kids can grow instead, it became a money shoot. What Nick surely helped expose wasn't a clerical error or a few bad actors cutting corners. It was a system that hemorrhaged 10s, possibly hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars through shell day cares, Phantom children and paperwork that no one seemed eager to question. Here's the uncomfortable part. This wasn't hidden very well. Addresses that housed dozens of licensed day cares enrollment numbers that defied basic math and fire codes, food reimbursements for children who didn't exist served by kitchens that weren't there. And yet, the money kept flowing. This was pandemic era spending on auto pilot federal dollars rushed out in the name of compassion, filtered through state agencies that were either sleep at the wheel or afraid to touch the brakes. Oversight was labeled suspicion. Questions were labeled bias, and anyone who raised a hand too loudly was told the real emergency was speed, not accuracy. Nick Shirley didn't invent the scandal. Prosecutors, auditors and whistle blowers have been circling it for years. What he did was pull the thread in public, connect the dots, follow the money and say the quiet part out loud. This wasn't about helping kids. Kids were the cover story, and when children become a talking point instead of a responsibility, fraud doesn't just happen. It's invited because of a system designed to feed and protect children could be hijacked this easily. The question isn't how this happened. The question is how often it's still happening right now, under different names in different cities, with the same moral shield. That's the story and it deserves daylight. The Hey. Welcome to

Ian  
the retrospect podcast, a show where people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Jason.

Jason  
 Hello, everyone.

Ian  
 It's Stoney.

Stoney   
 Hello.

Ian  
 How's everyone doing?

Stoney   
Oh, well, we might need to lose any weight after the holidays.

Jason  
Everybody right now? No, I've been going in the gym, and there's always new people, and everybody's making their New Year's resolutions to get in there and reduce some poundage and get a little stronger.

Stoney   
I was doing some research quickly. I know we have a big show ahead of us, and I read somewhere that farting burns 67 calories. Let's see. So if you were to fart 52 times a day you would burn a pound of fat a day just by farting. Wow. So I just ordered $30 worth of Taco Bell. My fitness journey begins today.

Ian  
How would the Taco Bell counteract that? I mean,

Jason  
good old Taco Bell. You can just somehow Taco Bell and flatulence seems to always be connected. I wonder if there's a there's something to that. So I haven't

Stoney   
eaten that I've said before. You know, Japan has the most space aged. Yes, toilets, greatest toilets on the planet, and they have no Taco Bell or Mexican food. That's like having a brand new Ferrari and driving it 10 miles/hour,

Jason  
yeah, well, at least they're probably clean and probably look good.

Ian  
I don't know, maybe Yeah, but yeah, today we had a again, I think we had mentioned this topic potentially last week, or obviously, it's been a big thing. There's been a couple of big stories that's been taking place. Everyone. Stay tuned for next week. I guess you could probably guess we're going to talk about wink wink Venezuela.

Jason  
Yeah, not only that. I mean, there's a lot of movement, a lot of things happening. I mean, in the short time Trump has been in office, I mean, I mean, it's unbelievable how just alliances are shifting, and how world politics is changing. I mean, I think we're starting to see something new is going to emerge

Stoney   
that but McDonald's has the greatest employment advertisement out there on the planet. Now, what is that? Did you know A former McDonald's employee just liberated Venezuela.

Jason  
How did he do that?

Stoney   
President Donald Trump, remember when he did the media McDonald's and worked in the drive through for a couple of hours. So McDonald's got some free employment advertisements.

Ian  
Right, yeah. But come on, yeah, that's good. That's good, yeah. But today, specifically, we're talking about all the stuff that's been happening in Minnesota, as you've heard from the intro of this.

Stoney   
Well, I have a question about the Minnesota thing, why does the community with such a high unemployment rate, high stay at home? Mother rate needs so many daycare centers? Yeah, suspicious. I mean, they found one building with 22 unpopulated daycare centers. That's all that one, one building, yeah, yeah, four floors, I think it was. And, you know,

Jason  
Nick, I'm telling you that video, that 43 minute video that didn't just just YouTuber, yeah, that's all

Stoney   
he is, yeah, independent journalist, right? This is what I've been saying for years and years. Where are the real journalists now that they've been bought out by the lip tard, you know, people with money, okay? Because at one time, it was against the law to own more than two of the three medias. You could have a TV station and a radio station. You couldn't have a newspaper. You could own two of the three. Now that everybody owns this, all of them just own together. Yeah, who broke Watergate.

Jason  
It was, it was, I believe it was a journalist two journals Yeah,

Stoney   
who broke the Iran Contra affair, where the CIA was selling cocaine to the black community in California to

Jason  
make money to fight the fight Nicaragua. Sanders standing whatever it was by

Stoney   
journalist who committed suicide with two taps to the back of his head. Where are those journalists today that used to be able to watch the Real News, where they were secretly recording the mafia or secretly doing this? Where are those journalists? So this guy, he is being demonized, and this is starting to tick me off, because somebody actually went out and did something, oh, he's not a real journalist. Well, neither are you, neither you.

Jason  
It's amazing now how the dynamics have shifted when it comes to journalism, and here you got this 23 year old YouTuber and difference, and now the big networks are now running after, after the story, after he breaks it. And it's because these, I hate to say it, these big networks have been bought. They owe their owe their allegiances to, if to a certain political ideology, and if it goes against that, they just either don't cover it or they'll find some means of trying to discredit. You know, anything else?

Stoney   
But they live in fear. Okay? They live in fear of getting their money pulled or being fired or whatever. And then on top of that, you have some jackass like Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison, who says, If you are a journalist and you go after and start investigating the Somalian fraud, you will be charged and put in prison.

Jason  
It's unbelievable. That's what I'm saying. How did you wait a minute? What world have we woken up into that this would be coming from a sitting state attorney general. I mean, you would, I would have never, in my wildest dreams growing up, ever hear anything remotely like that coming from somebody, what, what, what? What has happened is we have become so now entrenched in our camps that you can't even fraud should be something that should be universally condemned. I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican, an independent, a libertarian, whatever fraud is the misuse of tax dollars to, you know, to for personal gain for personal gain, and how anybody could be against that, I do not understand. But that is where we're at now, this kid, all he did was simply walk. I mean, I watched that video. I remember when he came out. I was sitting there. I've listened to now he's going on to several big name podcasts that I've listened to, and they've talked, he talked about all he's now talked about all these attacks that have come to warn him. His kids gotten death threats. His family's gotten death threats. I mean, it's just like, I mean, what? This is a clown world, yep, but that's what I'm saying it. What it is, is this scheme, and I hate to say it, and everybody, look, everybody wondered when Kamala Harris was gonna pick, if you remember, though, Tim waltz. Tim waltz. He came out of kind of nowhere. Remember the big talk it was to cover this up, right? It was Josh Shapiro. That's where everybody wanted her to pull but, but Josh appears. No, I don't want anything to do with Kamala Harris, but so markets move here. Tim waltz. This guy comes out of nowhere, and guess what? And surprisingly, all this money flows into

Stoney   
or more from Minnesota. Oh, really amazing. And magically, the day she takes office, she's $65,000 in debt, with no home, no car, and magically, today, she's got a multi million dollar home, about $30,000,000.30 to $40 million

Jason  
amazing how that works. It's amazing how that works. Yeah, yeah. I mean, also,

Ian  
I also don't think that, like, I mean, I, I don't. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of, like, the major media companies just aren't looking for things like this, looking for stories and, like, actually being active about, like, being, like, questioning, curious about that sort of stuff. But they're like, they're bandwagoning. I think that's what many, many people online do. I think many major media companies do as well as the second, like, a big story gets big, story gets big, they're just like, oh, we have to talk about it, because we got to get the revenue money from it. We want eyes on money. We want eyes on

Stoney   
is now it's opened up. What's happening in Ohio? Oh, yeah, finding the same thing. Really fun. Fact, Somalia's ambassador to the UN is a daycare administrator in Ohio, yes. Oh, you can't make this shit. Yeah. Okay. And here's what's funny to me. Did y'all see and I wish I could find it. I thought I had saved it, but I don't, can't. Oh, wait, yes, here it is submitted Minneapolis, Craigslist post in search of child actors for daycare site where funding was cruelly whipped away without cause to hurt. To help. Hurry the state vetting process, we are looking to hire 20 child actors for three days while the state is present on site, $1,500 a day. That's a copy I'm showing Ian and Jason,

Jason  
supposedly I saw that, supposedly the media experts are saying that was a joke. I'm kind of with you. I find it strange that they would post that on Craigslist, Craigslist,

Stoney   
because nobody uses Craigslist. Exactly, all right, okay, but here, here's what you have to understand, okay, no one would make a joke. No one post a joke on Craigslist. We shipped during the Biden crime family administration, we shipped in over 80,000 Somalians to America to plane loads of people. And I don't know if you know very much about Somalia, but there is not one person that is not touched by incest in Somalia. Yeah. Their average IQ is, I think, 67 or 68 Yeah, okay, in America to be declared handicapped, you have to have an IQ of 70 or less, and then you see this stuff go on. Okay? Number one, these Somalians aren't smart enough to figure this out on their own, so Mr. Tim waltz and all these other people who are now being caught back dating information. Have y'all seen this back dating? No, I haven't. They're coming out all of these forms, and I know somebody that works in a state arena that that's supposed to be checking if you receive government money, you're supposed to be audited yearly. Oh, yeah, okay. They want to find out everything, and even some of it's done on paper and some of it's done in visits. So how many this has been going on since covid? What 2019, yeah, that's crazy, and none of this has been found out. Okay? This is crazy to me. Something smells fishy, yeah? Yeah, yeah. Because all of these, you know, I saw this great meme on the internet, and it just made me laugh so hard that, you know, what is it? The the highest paid professions in the US right now, airline pilot makes 200,000 or more. A psychiatrist makes 250,000 or more. A corporate CEO makes 300,000 or more. A surgeon can make 400,000 or more, but a Somalian daycare owner makes $1.2 million a year for not having to watch any kids.

Jason  
You know, it's funny that you all saw that Tim Walz had basically, has now withdrawn his name. Yeah, he's not running. Oh, yeah, I didn't know that

Stoney   
this, this is the guy who was gonna be one heartbeat away from being president.

Jason  
Nick, sure. Nick, sure. Early on, X posted a dig. He goes, I ended Tim Walz, that's great. It's a 23 year old kid. You know, this guy was the, you know, the key

Stoney   
players, you know. And I don't what I don't like, and I, I Donald Trump is doing some things to help America, putting America first. Hey, Russia puts Russia first. Oh, yeah, okay. Mexico puts Mexicans first. China puts China first. Everybody can put everybody, you know, their country, first, except for Americans. But why all of the sudden? Does it so hard to just want to put America first, but I don't like the name calling. Okay? He called Tim waltz a retard, and the reason Tim waltz has not sued him for it is because it's true. Okay? It has to be false for it to be called defamation of character, but then all of a sudden, once he calls him that, and Tim waltz gets his panties in a wad, because he's also the guy who said boys need tampons, all of the cheese. Down syndrome, Down Syndrome people and all the other people who that word was used against now they're mad that they're calling Tim waltz a retard because it says it makes us look bad. Wow. I'm like, wait a minute. They're actively on going stop calling him that. Yeah, it's worse than that. He's making us look bad. I'm like, Well, yeah,

Jason  
I'm looking at here a list of daycare centers that say, here's a list of childcare centers receiving CCAP funds. Reference in the video. And in fiscal year, 25 and Super Kids daycare center received $471,787 I see the future leaders Early Learning Center. I i I think that was one of those. Was like one that was really brought in the video, where the early leering, yeah, the spelling was, they received 3.6 8 million. Quality learning centers received 1.9 million. Teo daycare 1.0 9 million Minnesota childcare center, 2.6 7 million.

Ian  
Like, I wonder, I guess, incredible. I wonder if there's actual like, I know that. I mean, I would imagine that somewhere in Minnesota and in Minneapolis there are actual real like, childcare daycare centers. And I just, I wonder, like, what, like, how much better the actual daycares would be if they even got, like, a fraction of all this money? Like, you know what? I mean, like, How much better would it be? Like, I don't know,

Jason  
yeah, what was so, you know, eye opening with, you know, Nick Shirley did was, you know, going in there. And I know some of the things like, well, you would normally not open the door if you just see some guy childcare, but there's no receptionist. There's no one.

Stoney   
They wouldn't even open the door. They would have somebody give him a brochure. Any Can I have an application for, right? No, slam,

Ian  
Yeah, or like, an office to visit or something.

Jason  
The thing about the Somali community, that's one thing about them, they do not talk to anybody outside their own community. It's, it's kind of the, you know, and that's the problem with trying to find out about what's going on with these people. But, and then I saw some some news regarding that, some of this money now linked to this went overseas, you know. So it's like, you know, I hate to say it, but I mean, it's our own money that's being used in this way to basically hurt ourselves. It's, that's what I do not understand, how Democrats that are aligned to this, how do you sleep with yourself, yeah. How do you sleep with yourself? What happened to

Stoney   
Europe with 3040, 50, $200 million in the bank? That's how they sleep with themselves. And the video of ELAR Omar or AOC, I'm sorry, AOC said this one where we just didn't, we didn't hurt the American public enough. We need to hurt them more to bend their will to our side. When that government shutdown happened, she's like, Oh, we didn't hurt them enough. Yikes. There's a video of that look. Look that up for yourself one day. Because I was like, wow, she just said the thing that wasn't supposed to be said out loud,

Jason  
you know? Well, they DCYF, and I'm trying to figure out what that acronym stands for, but right now, they said has has ongoing investigations at four of the centers on the list. In total, the agency has 55 open investigations involving providers that are getting funds through the CC. The AP.

Stoney   
What about the one that the FBI was watching for almost a month and never saw a kid go in it before this kid did this?

Jason  
Well, if you recall, if you watched that video, it was not only Nick Shirley. He was with an older gentleman that had been investigating this for a long time, and he'd watch these daycare centers, and not one time in months to see a single child show up.

Stoney   
But the FBI was there, yeah. Where is their work?

Jason  
I'm telling you what you got the

Ian  
DCYF stands for the Department of Children, Youth and Family. Okay, state level agency focus on child welfare, including child protective services,

Jason  
yeah, I'm reading some of these articles of various news sources, but I'm just telling you, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. You wonder. This is why, kind of deviating real. Just off this topic briefly, but this is why Elon Musk and Doge ran into the problems, because he started getting close to where some of this money, it's been goes

Stoney   
to the Democrats, yes. And

Jason  
look, even some Republicans, I hate to say, even some Republicans, have been probably benefiting from some of this. And I'm telling you it they all need to go. This is where people are fed up with right now. They're tired of just excuses, people defending fraud, defending dictators, defending all this stuff. It's like, I'm telling you, it's clown. It's a clown world we live in now, and it's all because I hate Trump. And if it's somehow Trump supports it. I've got to hate it. No matter what it might be, I've got to hate it. Default position.

Stoney   
What's the word when you cliffhanger the next week is that it? I'm going to cliffhanger the next week the Obama administration, the Biden crime family administration, said we need to take out Maduro in Venezuela. And then all of a sudden, Trump does it. And now how many people are protesting in America to free the dictator, the mean, awful man. Trump didn't do that. And somebody, somebody asked Trump, how could you be so mean to him, to steal him like that? He says, what? I was nice. I even gave him a plus one. I let him take his wife. I it. I mean, people are just, they got no appreciation, I know. And now the guy's singing like a bird, but we'll leave that for next one. Right, right, right. But all this and more, I got a three page list of somebody in Venezuela that is listing all of the politicians that have received money.

Jason  
Oh, I can't wait. I'll be, I'll be waiting to see when that hits really pushed out on the national it's not good, because that's all you're Democrats, and exactly there. That's what I'm saying there. There really is no journalism now. That's why, when Elon Musk at the conclusion of when, when President Trump got elected, he he's basically point to all the youtubers you are the media now, yeah, because you can't trust what these people say anymore. YouTubers and podcasts cannot now the journals, because as long as you owe somebody, oh yeah, no, you're and they're gonna dictate what you say. There really is you're not really being or tell you what you can and right, yeah, yeah. They say. They say, brightening. You know, they were in Congress. They had hearings regarding all this fraud. I saw the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Republican, Kentucky State in his opening remarks. Federal prosecutors estimate that these criminals have stolen least $9 billion dollars.

Stoney   
I was gonna say, I was gonna say, it's, it's up to over $9 billion now, that's insane.

Jason  
Yeah, they said the breadth and depth of this fraud is breathtaking, and I fear it's just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah? Because, well,

Stoney   
think about this now California's, they're talking 20 to 40

Jason  
billion. Yeah, I think Minnesota is going to be

Stoney   
small, yes, now you got Ohio coming into it. Now you got some of the other What about New York? Oh, San Francisco. San Francisco's $2 billion in debt. They just passed a law that says they want to give $5 million in reparations. They passed a law this is a state that never had slaves that and then they're $2 billion in debt. Where they gonna get the money from?

Jason  
Well, they say, to date, the US Department of Justice has charged 98 defendants in Minnesota fraud related cases, 85 of whom are of Somali descent, wow. 64 have already been convicted, really? Yep, the DOJ has also issued over 1750 subpoenas, executed over 130 search warrants, and conducted over 1000 witness interviews. So there's actually some action. Oh, it's been going on. I think what's happened was. Was, I think that's what I'm saying. I think Nick actually made it public, yeah, so it's now the spotlight has been put on this thing, yes. And now people are like, wow, because my understanding was, when he posted that video, it is. It was reposted and seen by everybody. It was, I think it's the single biggest video ever viewed to date. Oh, okay, yeah, it's supposed to be because Elon Musk was retweeting it, retweeting it, retweeting it. So, yeah, and the kid is, the kid is, I give the kid credit, he goes. I don't know what they can do to me, because I haven't done anything. Yeah, I'm not I've lived a good life. I'm not married, I've never had sex, you know? I mean, unless they want to go and pull a high school prank, you know, that's about all they can do to me, other than threaten people around me right in which they have, you know, it's just, it's just sad.

Stoney   
Okay, one thing that is, I'm finding really interesting. The in the household welfare participation is crazy. Roughly 54% of Somali headed households in in Minnesota receive SNAP food assistance benefits really, 73% of Somali households have at least one member on Medicaid. That's compared to 18% for native households and the other one, the snap is roughly 7% for non Somalians. Nearly 90% of Somali households with children receive some form of welfare benefits, SNAP, Medicaid, cash assistance, etc. So 80% plus of Somali households consume some form of welfare. Yeah. Now, these may not be necessarily fraud, but come on, when you got that many people getting welfare? Something, something's up.

Jason  
I'm looking at some of the transcripts from the hearing they had in Congress regarding this, they said the cover letter of the audit report states, quote, however, during the course of our audit, we identified a number of documents that behavioral health administration either backdated. He mentioned that Stoney or created after our audit happened. It sounds like Governor Tim Walz DHS. Tim Waltz's DHS may have fabricated evidence by creating

Stoney   
I was talking about going to get into that a little bit, but run with it

Jason  
documents after the fact to mislead the auditors. The new report noted that one grantee who received nearly 680,000 from this agency for one month's work could not provide any documentation or proof that any work was actually completed. What the report even notes that the grant manager who approved this money left the agency within days of approving the grant to take a job with the very same grantee they had granted money for that's a conflict of interest. Have you ever seen anything like this in your time as a member of the Minnesota fraud prevention and state agency oversight Policy Committee? It's just It's unbelievable what this and I'm telling you this is just a tip. This is going on in a lot of communities.

Ian  
Yeah, I think I found Nick Shirley's YouTube channel, and I think that this video, the investigation of Minnesota's billion dollar fraud scandal, is his third most viewed video. Okay, he has two other videos that have much more okay?

Jason  
And he Yeah. Heard him say that on one of his interviews on one of these

Ian  
3.4 million views, though, that's, that's insane. It's a lot of people getting their eyes on this. Yeah. Talk about public Yeah. It's Well, I

Stoney   
think it's really interesting that he gave two he gave a large sum of money to a Somali investigations company to investigate the fraud. Tim waltz did that's unbelievable. He wanted an independent investigation. Unbelievable. Wait, What? What? That's insane,

Jason  
yeah, look this. I all this is, I'm telling this is how the Democrats are funding all these NGOs. Yeah, all this. How? This works, all these protests that all of a sudden pop

Stoney   
up with the bricks and pallets and bricks that magic show up.

Jason  
Where's the money coming from? I hate to say it, they're using our own tax dollars, yeah,

Stoney   
to do this, Soros was given $250 million out of USAID,

Jason  
like he needs it, right?

Stoney   
But that's how he funded all of this stuff. That's crazy it.

Ian  
And I wonder, like you were mentioning the fact that there's stuff over in so

Stoney   
it was Ohio, yeah, they're starting to uncover some of this things in Ohio. What is the

Ian  
stuff that was happening over you were saying Los Angeles has a bunch of stuff that was like a lot of fraud stuff. Was it because of the same sort of thing, or is it just just fraud? Okay, just just

Stoney   
once, once, once, covid happened? Yeah, they were able to easily disperse this money into the welfare system, right? Without a lot of checks and balances are oversight, I see. And so now that it's being investigated for kind of reels like, oh, right, right. It's coming, yeah.

Jason  
Well, I mean, there is going to be, I was listening to, as I've just listened to, Nick Shirley going on some of these shows, yeah, there is, will be another one. He's He's preparing right now. There'll be another CEO regarding he's going after now, the transportation companies really tied to all this, and how, how much money they have built the government for in cars and trucks that just literally sat in a parking lot and did nothing for long periods of time.

Stoney   
You have to think about it. Okay, you have there was one. One of these had one of 1200 kids, yeah, that they were supposedly feeding a day. Okay? They were still buying the food. Oh, yeah. You got to truck the food in. Then where'd the food go right? They found out that they were only feeding the people, the workers, the one or 234, people there, and then, where's the food go right? You still had to have that trucked and delivered and then shipped out somewhere else. So not only are these people making the money on welfare, yeah, but they're scattering all the food that they just brought in to feed the kids, supposedly, where does all that go? And that's what, that's what he's talking about, because

Ian  
you still bought it. Yeah, it's, you still have it,

Stoney   
because that's how you're that's how you're dispersing the funds.

Jason  
I'm looking here, Representative Donald's many people probably know about him. I believe he's out of Florida, if I'm not mistaken, Byron Donald's. I believe is his first name. And he and just once again, I'm reading this is very interesting. Reading this, this transcript of the hearing. He says, I want to talk about the use of funds. You've talked about some of these funds being used to buy property in Kenya, property in Turkey. Do I have that correct? State Representative, Robbins, yes. Representative Donald's Somalia. State Representative, Robbins, yes. And then Donald's goes again. I think it's important for the committee to understand that these remittances, in part, are used in what's called the Hawala if I'm pronouncing that right, it's H, A, W, A, l, a, I want to make sure the terminology is right the Hawala network. Miss. Robbins, can you speak to what that the Hawala network is? State Representative? Robbins, yes. So it's an informal network where someone brings goes to a place in Minneapolis, which is like a money exchange or a money sending site, and they say, I want to send X amount of dollars. And then there's a receiving site in Somalia, and they put the cash, take the cash out so money doesn't cross the border. It's an order for money here that gets transmitted to Somalia. Representative, Donald, because I'm out of time, I want to expound in Somalia and other parts in the Middle East. In the Middle East region writ large, a Hawala network is a bunch of money exchangers, hand to hand, not bank account to bank account, of course. And State Representative Robbins, exactly representative Donald's. And what is clear in Somalia and other parts is that Al Shabaab the largest al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, they have their hands all through this network. So taxpayer money United States, dollars that are being remitted into Somali import have been utilized or have fallen into the hands of Al Shabaab. Do you think that's a correct assessment State Representative Robbins, yes, we have plenty evidence of that. I mean, yeah, it's what I'm talking about. Guys, did we we? I hate to say we're on. We're our own worst enemy. Dang, we are. We just choose because our politics here, we have lost the common bonds. I'm telling you, we've kind of mentioned this as why is the United States so fright is fracturing at one time on the history, this would have never been tolerated. No, it would have never been tolerated. It's one thing if your own citizens are doing that within its own communities, it's another thing that now I'm tacitly approving the use of these dollars to go now to these terrorist network overseas. I mean, it's just crazy that we've gotten to this point that they're okay with this, and they're, they're actually fighting this. I mean, I don't, I don't. I mean, this is a, this is a, this is a big deal, man, it just is. I mean, and as I said it, many people say this is going to be small potatoes compared to what they uncover in California. I mean, I was reading somewhere there was 25 billion designated for homeless people. Really, yes, 25 billion over. It's unaccounted for. They don't know where it's at.

Stoney   
25,000,000,025 California, California. That's the California thing. Really?

Jason  
Yes, $25 billion I saw that, and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. How do you just miss? Oh, no, it's not. They know where it's at, but they know exactly because they use it for other things. Of course, all that are fronts they use. They tug on the heartstrings. Of course, we got to help these people. We got to do this. And you know what you do need to help people. No one's against that, yes, but this level of magnitude, look, I'm a look, when it comes to government, there's going to be inefficiency and waste. It's just kind of baked into the DNA of just how government operates. But there comes to a point where the scales just get like, Okay, this goes beyond just general inefficiency in ways. Yeah, money is being siphoned off the top, and it's going to whatever, whether it's going to fund Antifa fund, terrorist groups support all this is BS that's going well,

Stoney   
look at, look at what happened to the Black Lives Matter, person under, multiple homes, multiple countries. Nothing to do with BLS, nothing. Millions and millions of dollars gone multiple luxury cars.

Ian  
I know this is a, probably a controversial like, belief, but I've done the same. I'm not saying that government should do this, but a lot of times whenever, like, like you had said, like, it tugs on the heart strings, and you should help people in need, and that is something I feel like, especially as like, a Christian person, that I'm I'm called to do, but like, there's a level of wisdom, I think, for me that I feel like, where I don't just give people cash, I don't just give people money, but I will, I will give you what you're asking for, right? And more often than not, I've been turned down. Someone's like, hey, I want some I just need some to drink. I just want something to eat or whatever. And I'd be like, Oh, yeah. Like, come inside and you order what you want, and I'll pay for it. And they're like, Oh no, no. Like, I was just want, I want, I want some money. I'm like, No, buddy, I'm not. First of all, I don't really carry a lot of cash on me. If I do, it's usually a little amount. And I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm I'm sorry, but that's just not what I'm gonna do. I will gladly give you it gives you a drink. I'll gladly buy you food it for you and whoever, whatever, I'll do that. I'm not just gonna give you cash, because I know you're probably gonna buy someone else with it, and that's I'm not gonna fund that. Yeah. And so I had a, I had a friend. This is, I, you know, this is probably a bit of a tangent, but I think it furthers what I'm saying before. Is like, you know, I had a friend who was saying that this person was wanting to ride. Was wanting to, you know, go somewhere. I was like, I just need a couple extra dollars for like a taxi or for like an Uber or something. And he was like, I'll call it Uber right now, and I'll pay for him. And right? And he was like, Oh no, no, don't do none of that. And he was like, no, like, that's what you want. You need to ride. I'll, I have the app right here. I'll call it up, pay your way to wherever you got to go. And he's like, Oh no, you don't. He's like, Oh, okay. Well, then you don't need a ride. Then you want my money and you want for it for something else. But anyways, it just feels like that kind of same thing where it's like it's all to just tug on your heart strings.

Stoney   
But that's why these things crop up during the holidays. Oh, 100%

Jason  
they said. Well, last week, the Trump administration paused the Child Care and Development Fund payments about 10. Billion Wow, the primary federal source for child care assistance to all states, according to Andrew Nixon, a space a spokesperson for HHS, while the connection between the new the new five state freeze and earlier actions remains unclear, and HHS official confirmed on Tuesday night that action builds on existing Minnesota funding halt.

Stoney   
That's not the only funds that he stopped. He stopped the yearly check to the UN. Now if the UN wants money, it's case by case. You have to bring what you want, and then we'll approve it case by case.

Jason  
It's basically goes back to what we all saw with USA ID, you know, and the absolute where this money supposedly was going get, you know, or just price fronts, yeah, they're not going for that. They're going, that's just a name they give, because they have to designate something and make it, you know, that way the money flows, but it's being pocketed and used for other purposes. That's just how this game is played. He goes, President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that the fraud investigation of California has begun. Okay? And he says, you know, without really providing any specifics, he says, he says it's more corrupt. He said, basically talking about Newsome in California, it's more corrupt than Minnesota. President Trump said that, yeah. And then Newsom responded to Trump in a social media post on Thursday, calling the President a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality into years ago, tit for dat, back and forth and

Ian  
stinkin I think that's your boss.

Jason  
New York Governor Kathy whole show a Democrat called the funding cuts an impending threat to our state, and accused the Trump administration of carrying out a frontal assault on children. Large springs, you know? Yeah, yeah. It says, Why is there such a frontal assault on children in this nation from this administration? Whole said during news conference in a new in New York City Tuesday, now they don't give a damn about childcare for kids.

Ian  
Are we talking about imaginary children or world children? Yeah, well, are the children the room with us?

Jason  
New York. New York has not received formal notification that funding has been withheld from the state. If it comes hope will pledge to fight it in court. I'm gonna see you try. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think you have to kind of sort this stuff out to make sure, hey, we got to make sure this money is being used where it's supposed to be being used as

Stoney   
a taxpayer in the concert Exactly. We have a right to know how every dollar is spent.

Jason  
And trust me, they'll get, they'll get some federal judge, they'll probably go along with them. There's no doubt my mind, there's definitely some federal judge it's either on the take or corrupt, sympathetic to that side of the political spectrum, right? That's gonna basically say, No, they can't do that, because that's an action of Congress. I don't know what, how the I think there is a limited time that the executive can pause funding, I don't know for how long, because, I mean, Congress is the appropriator of money, okay, so I think that how you know how the Constitution works with I think temporarily, the executive can do that For short time, but it can't do it indefinitely. It would take an act of Congress to basically suspend permanently money. I don't think the President can, regardless of as a Democrat or Republican, right? I think it would. But yeah,

Ian  
I was trying to look it up and see the it's, I think it says the an executive of an was maybe from an estate generally has about six to 12 months to distribute funds or something like that. So maybe there's like, a, I think I typed in the wrong thing. But anyway, I was curious about what would like, how that wouldn't

Stoney   
well, that gives them six to 12 months prove where you're using the money.

Ian  
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, this is a I'm interested to see what like, where this, what this kind of spurs on to what it transforms into from other states and other situations.

Jason  
As a federal prosecutor alleged earlier in December, that half or more the roughly 18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Most of the defendants are Somali Americans. They said, do.

Ian  
Are any of those Somalis actually like US citizens? Are they illegal?

Jason  
I don't know. I think I know they sent ice in there, and unfortunately, we all now know about what's happened with the shooting that occurred. This is all you know. This is all part now.

Ian  
So was the shooting a correlation? Correlated? Well, I

Jason  
think, I think they've sent ice into the Somali community to start deporting those that are illegal, which then, now has led to this incident that occurred because, you know, as well as I do, you know, people that live 10 states away have got to feel like they've got to show up and, you know, fight, fight, to fight the man, or whatever the case may be. And unfortunately, a tragedy happened where a woman got killed. Yeah, you know, trying to, you know, it appears strike a nice officer with her car. So, yeah, I mean, I

Stoney   
what appears See, I like that word appears she got shot in the front windshield, right, not the side windshield, which means she got shot trying to hit him. Oh, yeah, and they want to spin it. And this poor mother, yeah, and it's a they them. And why would we do that? No, why would you hit somebody with your car? Okay, if they want to say, Hey, she's a mother. Well, why wasn't she home taking care of her kids? She made a decision. She tried to hit somebody with her vehicle, and paid the ultimate price.

Jason  
Yeah, they've shown the video. I mean, they showed it multiples, and you know, I

Stoney   
the only spin to looking at that is what the libtard media is trying to spin. Oh no, that, because if you look at every angle, and there's multiple angles that you can pull off of the internet and look at it, she tried hitting which car, yeah. Anyway, you look at it, right? She made a decision,

Ian  
yeah, this is a waltz.

Jason  
Is saying he's always, you know, he's been clamping down on fraudsters and, you know, like, yeah, what? Yeah. I think, as part of the the video, which I find interesting. The one, the one of these daycares, actually had a direct line to Tim waltz. Now, on the surface, you may not think much about that, but think about that, what daycare center you were that when their number is called, it actually rings on the desk of the governor of that state.

Stoney   
Okay, he's not clamping down on fraud. He's clamping down on a cut to allow them to continue to operate, is what he's doing. That's what he's clamping down on. And you wonder he's shaking these people down, is what he's doing, his guy,

Jason  
it's part of the deal. And part of the reason why he's resigning is because to the powers that be who are really backing this, he's no longer useful, right? So you need to

Stoney   
remember, this guy was a heartbeat away, yep, from being the president. And people voted for that, and people voted for that. And, and, and if something, God forbid, would have happened to Kamala Harris, that would have been our next president had they got into office, you want to talk about a cover up then. And I believe firmly, that's the whole reason that she picked him, oh yeah, because they knew it was going to come

Jason  
out well, and that's what I'm saying. And I think at the time when he was selected, there was a huge influx of cash to that, to the to the campaign. Matter of fact, I think they said it was the single largest, yep, I remember the fundraising event that occurred at the time, and that's why I remember when that happened. I remember time the talk was all Democrats are loaded with cash, and now we all know that the Democrats spent a billion and a half dollars in that campaign, which basically, what a waste, what an absolute waste. A billion and a half dollars to run for office,

Ian  
insane and

Stoney   
yeah, but they're hiding how many billions of dollars in kickbacks? Yeah, well, it's, it's chump change.

Jason  
It's all the NGOs, it's all this stuff that's going out. I'm telling you, this is where, this is where the story is. It's these NGOs, these organizations have been set up as shell games, and then the money sent to them, and then it comes back to these campaigns, and it's all mostly, mostly on the Democratic side. I'm not excluding Republicans in this, because I'm sure. There's a few that might be tied into this too. So I want to be fair in that that's not all, but well over, I would venture to say 80% are Democrat, Democrat candidates. So yeah, there's definitely some some issues there. So I don't know. I mean, this is a this is sad. I mean, it really is. But you know what? None of this really surprises me anymore. I've always wondered, Where are they getting their money from, and this is how they're doing it. This is just one thing you don't know, there might be other schemes out there, right? And how they've kind of massaged the system to a degree where these money, these monies, are coming back. What's so what's so disturbing is they're okay with this money going to terrorist organizations, and seem to be complicit in it to me now that rises to the level of treason, of outright criminal charges against them, if they can be proven and connected, right? I'll be very curious what this eventually uncovers. But yeah, you know, Mad props to this 23 year old kid who, yes, who basically is, you know, it's so funny that, how now the national media has made him out to be immediately, they made him a right wing, of course, white national I cannot believe Tim waltz sitting up there, basically called him a white supremacist. And I'm sitting there going, Really, everyone has to have a title and like, I mean, so let's, let's, let's put a label on that.

Stoney   
That's what I said earlier about calling people names. Yes, this has got to stop. It's just become so easy just to name just racist, Christian, nationalist, retard. I mean, so many ugly things, because we're trying to bend things and perceptions, and it's got to stop. Yeah, I

Ian  
was trying to look up to see what the verdict is on the the ice agent that had,

Jason  
whether, believe it or not, I saw they've released this ICE agents name, really? Yes, yes. Unfortunate, yes. So what do you think? What do you think's gonna happen to him now?

Ian  
Well, I think that if I read a little bit here now, now, I don't know if there's any of this is factual or not, but it says that the local officials rejected the Trump administration's explanation that it was self defense. So I'm not not, I don't know if that I think that's a that's not a verdict on anything like that, but it says that the officer fired a defense, or defensive shots after the after a, quote, violent rioter attempted to run over the officers, a spokeswoman of the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, adding that the officer had feared for his life. I'm not sure how many shots were fired, but I definitely see only one bullet hole in the window, which I think is technically the fatal blow. But I just was, I was looking that up, curious

Jason  
about it's easy to sit back after the fact, when it's you and it's your life. You know, it just amazes me, these people who sit around and talk about, I said you would have done the same thing. Yes, matter of fact, they've done they've done studies on people like go in criticize the police and use of force and stuff like that. And they did some studies, and they got people who were very critical of law enforcement, generally, people on the left side, journalist. And guess what? They pulled the gun faster than they so

Stoney   
justice for the for the but that's not even a real stressful situation, right?

Jason  
I know exactly that's it. Just yeah, it says, Now I dare you to

Ian  
look down the barrel of a freaking of a What was that a Honda, a Honda Pilot, or whatever the hell it was, and then try not to freaking defend yourself and come

Jason  
to find out this lady or man or whoever, whatever she was, I think

Ian  
them. Her name was Renee.

Jason  
I think she, she was from California. I thought Colorado, Colorado. Or where was she? It may have been Colorado and and so what is she doing in Minnesota? She's leading this organized protest, from our understanding, she was the kind of the coordinator of it.

Stoney   
So Minnesota, What

Jason  
job do you have that you can just simply take off from your job? And I'm going over

Stoney   
to she has the same job as Barack Obama had before he was President, a community activist. You. That was his only job before he became president, because he didn't do shit. As a representative

Ian  
says that Renee good was originally from Colorado Springs. Colorado spring once hosted a podcast with her husband at the time. Yeah, just watch other stuff. Anyways. So Colorado Springs is

Jason  
where she says, just talking about Nick Shirley. Here, he says he has received death threats and harassment, including phone calls to his family. You know, after he released the video, he says, Shirley described the threats during a December 31 appearance on the PBT podcast. And I watched that podcast was very good, and she's and he'd said he was warned he would be Kirk, a reference to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Ian  
That's sad, but that's all but I feel like there's so many people online that do it anyways. That's the that's the kind of like, the sad and scary part about the internet is that you can just say something a little bit wrong on the internet, and people will give you death threats. That's the kind of, the The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Part of it, it's kind of scary is you got moments like that where it's like, you know, you just say something that's a bit controversial, and you get death threats. And then you have moments like this, where it's like, you know, who actually knows

Jason  
he was the last person to be with Charlie Kirk? He was the last interview. Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, get out.

Ian  
Yes, wow. Oh, that's scary, especially with the threat like that, getting assassinated like Kirk, that's and may I say, I don't have any information about this, and we didn't plan on talking about this, but I've been looking into a lot of, like, a lot of the stuff with Charlie Kirk's wife, Erica, and there's Something's fishy there as well. I don't know if you guys have been in touch with some of that stuff or been looking into it, but into it. But the more and more I kind of dig personally and start looking into some of that stuff, I'm like, I don't something's not right there, and I don't know it, and I'm not gonna It's all alleged. It's all none of it's I'm not saying anything, but just anybody out there who's interested, or was was interested in our Charlie Kirk episode, or, you know, sympathize for that kind of for him. Just, I mean, you know, peel back the layers a little bit, and there's some suspicious stuff with his wife and very important figures and money and all that stuff. It's always about, I know, and that's, it's just scary that someone so close to you could, I don't know. It's I don't know. It's just scary. It makes me I don't know. I There's a lot of people I love my life, and a lot of people that I feel like I know well, but everybody has a past, everyone you're right, and everyone has a price. I think is another thing. I don't have a price. I know you're right. But what I'm saying is that, in this scenario, specifically, somebody had a price. And that's the scary part. Is that you can love someone very dearly and they can. Again, this is all allegations. I don't nothing's factual. But again, you know, it's just scary stuff that, like, you know, who knows

Jason  
for the this is going to be I will be very interested to see how, what were the result that fallout of of this, and where this goes, especially,

Stoney   
I have a feeling there'll be a second episode, yeah?

Jason  
Feeling that, oh, you know what they start uncovering in California, yeah? Ohio, Ohio, Illinois, yeah, New York. I hate saying, I think all these, these states that I hate saying, these are Democrat stronghold states.

Stoney   
Well, Mo dobb, you know, he comes up saying his the busses are going to be free. His first executive action was make the bus fare $3 he raised the price of the bus fares. Yeah. Oh no, they're supposed to be free,

Jason  
right? Yeah. Well, unfortunately, I think his

Ian  
cabinet, his cabinet, also talked about the fact it's like everyone needs to get comfortable with, like, not really owning property and it being like a community based thing. And I was like, nod, well, look,

Stoney   
if you know, what did he say, we're gonna get rid of the rugged individuals? Yeah, embrace the collect, the collective, something. There's a quote I

Jason  
know exactly what I saw him say that, and it's

Stoney   
Owning a home is white privilege, and we're gonna go after the whites,

Jason  
yeah, by moving to the suburbs, that's that's being a white supremacist. It's just what the terms that are being used now, and labels being placed on people. It's just, it's unbelievable. It really is. And I don't, I just don't know where, I don't know how we get out of this. I really don't. I just the fourth turning people want, people want free stuff. And I hate to say it, and I understand what's kind of what's driving some of this, and unfortunately makes people embrace people that sound good, but ultimately they have a fraud in their in their it's they're deceitful and. What they really are, and I think mandami is one of them. The quote

Ian  
is, we will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,

Jason  
good old communism, because that what is the antithesis to the collectivism is the rugged American male that conquered this country, but you see, that is why

Stoney   
I'm glad you said that, because that's something that's pissing me off right now. And I'm saying it pissing me off because they're saying, Oh, we have all these immigrants that want to come here, and this country was founded on immigration. Okay? The first immigrants busted their butts. Oh, yeah. They changed the continent. They came and built a civilization. They didn't come over here with their hand out and give me, give me. Give me. Free, free, free, free. They came over here and worked, yep, made it. They worked hard. It's not the same thing. Okay, if you want to come over here and work and bust your ass and follow the real American dream. The American dream is not to make $1.2 million on a Somali daycare center, right? Okay, that is something else, yeah, being taken from my tax dollars, right? If you want to come here and bust your butt and follow the American and actually create something.

Jason  
And create something. What value do you bring?

Stoney   
My No, but Russia can do that. If you go to Russia, you have to prove that you can be a benefit to the Russian people, right? Not just the Russian government, but the Russian people.

Ian  
The embarrassing thing is, whenever I was, whenever I went to go live in Canada for a while, I had to do that as an American citizen. I had to go to Canada and prove that I was that I had some value, and I wasn't going to just take from their systems with, you know, money and documentation and, of course, having a job and things like that. So it's even for even going to Canada, which is like, you know,

Stoney   
well, Miranda's from Canada, and it cost her almost $50,000 in 11 years to become a real citizen, yeah. And on her thing, it says you must carry this visa with you at all times. If you were caught without this visa, you will be deported and can't come back for 10 years, a minimum, to some Yeah, yeah. I'm like, wait, what? Yeah. But then

Ian  
we have these situations like this where we can just,

Stoney   
we can give everything, 80,000 of them over here, and give them everything for free.

Jason  
Yep, that's it. Because we have got politicians that have so lost their way that they would do things that their ancestors before them would have never thought

Stoney   
and see other countries don't play, right? Okay? Rosie O'Donnell gave up her American citizenship, moved to Ireland because she was Irish. Well, after doing some documentation and fact finding they found out she's not Irish, so now she has no country because she can't come back here because she gave up her citizenship. Interesting. She's a joke. Fuck around. Find out there's

Jason  
a joke. That's what I'm saying. It's that's what I'm saying, that there's this level of delusion that seemed to have come out when Trump came on the political scene, it's like people lost their minds over this stuff. And it's like,

Ian  
well, like, a lot was the media, a lot, you know, painting him as this bad guy, paying him as this big like,

Jason  
yeah, you know he's gonna, he's the Nazi coming in, round you all up and put you in concentration camps. It's like this crazy talk, yeah,

Ian  
it's all of us versus him.

Stoney   
Somebody asked me other day, how do you feel about having a racist for President? I says, I don't like it at all. That's why we replaced them with Trump. That's correct, yeah. I mean, hello, that's why we got Trump in office.

Jason  
You're right. I've had those conversations with people. So what exactly we making a claim of? Where do you base that off of, right? In most people, they can't really

Stoney   
know Donald Trump in the early days, long time ago, and I'm not going to say how I know this or how I witnessed it, but Donald Trump bought a golf club course, etc, to allow Jews and blacks to be able to play golf, because all the big clubs in America couldn't be in black or Jewish and play golf. Okay, he bought and how many awards Did he win from the end double ACP, I don't know, for helping the black community out pictures with all these leaders, yeah, now, all of a sudden he runs against Hillary, and he's the racist, yeah,

Jason  
it's, I'm telling you, he is up ending the established order. Oh, yeah, huh, that is what his and

Ian  
I and I don't, and I mean. Maybe can't be bought. I think there's, I think, I think there's a lot of things that are probably being hidden as well. But I do think that it's strategic that like, the first big move of the new year we're talking about, you know, we're approaching, like, the second like, or, you know, the, I think he's working on his second year in in office right now, right, right? So, or of this term, I mean, right? I think that that's strategic that, like, starting off the new year strong again. We'll talk about more this in next week's episode. But I think that that's a strategic thing as well, of being like, Okay, first things first. We'll go ahead and take care of that, and then we're gonna, oh, he's moving. This is all. It's all a plan.

Stoney   
Think about what you just said. We did an episode while back, 2025 26 Yep, what's the next year after that? 27 that's the year that all the shit is going to hit the fan. Suppose everything else that's going to be his last year in office. What's somebody going to try?

Ian  
Who knows? But But again, I think that it's probably going to come. It's probably going to happen. Because, again, I don't think Trump's going to stop.

Stoney   
That's, that's it right there. He's not going to stop. So in that last year, hell yeah, what they going to try?

Ian  
He got it. You got to swing for, swing for the bleachers in that last run, anyway. So with all that being said, we're really curious to hear what all of you at home think, because obviously, again, we, as we've teased numerous times in this episode, we're going to be talking about Venezuela, and that the, you know, the capturing of the President in next week's episode, he wasn't the real president. Oh, well, exactly. Yeah. We'll get it all this and more. Tune in next week. But anyways, we're curious to hear what you think about what we talked about today. And of course, if you're excited to hear about next week, or if you have any opinions you want to go ahead and, you know, forecast for next week, or, you know, whatever, we have comment sections on Spotify and on YouTube, where you can, you know, send those more, those kind of short form responses and the email address get infinite together@gmail.com where you can send more long form responses and all that good stuff. Be sure to like and subscribe all the platforms that you do. It's really appreciated. It helps us out, exactly helps us out. Share us with someone you feel like would enjoy this, or would or would hate this, or I wouldn't get offended by this, and until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye, bye,

Jason  
goodbye everyone, and God bless 

Stoney   
every generation faces a moment where the question isn't what's legal, it's what's true. Fraud doesn't survive because it's clever. It survives because too many people decide it's not their problem. Faith tells us something different. It tells us truth matters even when it's inconvenient. It tells us stewardship isn't optional. It tells us silence is never neutral. We didn't come here to declare verdicts. We came here to follow the trail honestly, and if the truth holds, it, won't need spin to stand. Stay curious, stay grounded, and don't let anyone tell you that asking real questions is somehow wrong. You guys are our friends here at the retrospect podcast. And I appreciate all of y'all. And I just wanted to say something going into this new year, the downside of being my friend is that I will say shit with no filter at any given time. However, the upside of being my friend is that sometimes that shit is funny. Have a great day. Thanks for joining us. You're the best. Peace.