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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   33385 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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https://archive.ph/IHPLW

Tim Walz isn't seeking reelection.

It's been interesting watching the reaction in my various social circles as this plays out. It seems like it's rapidly coalescing into two distinct narratives depending on tribal alliance:

  1. Walz is hoping to get out of the spotlight before he's indicted in connection to the fraud scandal
  2. Walz fears for his life because insane ultra-MAGA instigators are trying to ruin him.

I don't know if either are actually true, but it's an interesting thing to watch develop in real time.

New Nick Shirley video just dropped and it's a banger: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LmIrwjKQQKc

This one is a long-form, extended interview with David, the older man from the previous video. Apparently he's been investigating this stuff for years, rather obsessively, to the point where he's lost friends and family because they just think he's some sort of crazy racist person for investigating.

It's a bit long and meandering, so it's hard to keep track of all the claims made in it. I think we'll need time to process this and investigate further. I'd like to see this written in text with sources, instead of just a long interview. But among the claims made:

  • That this is all organized by Somali gangs, with the gang leaders bringing retribution on any family that doesn't go along with it. Investigators like David also get threatened with violence.
  • Widespread voter fraud from families living in collective housing. One person collects the ballots, "vouches" for all the people living there with no proof, and then returns a massive ballot stack all voting the same way.
  • "This is the worst fraud in human history." He estimates that a total of $80-100 billion was stolen by fraud in Minnesota
  • "However bad you imagine it is, it's worse. He alledges that basically every social program in Minnesota is now heavily corrupted by fraud. Some of the biggest are schools that might have 10 students, but pretending to get 100 or more so that they can get massive amounts of state funding. Medical services do the same.
  • This is all protected by the government and judicial system of Minnesota. At one point, David did the work to prove that a Somali leader did $7.2 million of fraud. He was convicted unanimously by a jury, but the judge overturned the verdict and left him free to continue collecting more money. The judges are elected, probably with the help of fraudalent Somali votes.
  • This isn't just state money, it's also federal money. This increases the scale, but also increases the severity of the crimes.
  • That Somalians routinely travel back to Somali, taking large amounts of cash with them (well over the TSA limit of $10,000), and for some reason the TSA grants them an exception to this when any normal American would be arrested or stopped for questioning.

So... will this lead to anything further? Tim Walz already said he won't run for reelection, but at this point I no longer think that's enough. The feds need to come purge the entire state government of Minnesota on charges of racketeering and voter fraud.

  • This is all protected by the government and judicial system of Minnesota. At one point, David did the work to prove that a Somali leader did $7.2 million of fraud. He was convicted unanimously by a jury, but the judge overturned the verdict and left him free to continue collecting more money. The judges are elected, probably with the help of fraudalent Somali votes.
  • This isn't just state money, it's also federal money. This increases the scale, but also increases the severity of the crimes.
  • That Somalians routinely travel back to Somali, taking large amounts of cash with them (well over the TSA limit of $10,000), and for some reason the TSA grants them an exception to this when any normal American would be arrested or stopped for questioning.

I'm reminded of some quotes from things I've seen and read online recently, and some thoughts about them on which I've been building. First, from Malcolm Collins on the Based Camp episode about rising antisemitism (my transcription):

I actually think that a lot of the leftist anti-semitism comes from, when they are modeling what the future of humanity looks like, what the future of out existing geopolitical architecture looks like, they don’t actually plan on them existing in the future.

Like, I can talk to, like, gays and trans people, and I can be like, but really, you see if only people who hate you continue to have kids, in the future, only people who cannot allow your culture to exist are going to be the dominant cultures on Earth. I talk about this in terms of pro-natalism all the time, and they’re often just like, they don’t really see it as a problem. And I’ve always been very confused as to how they don’t see it as a problem.

And what I’m realizing, and you see the wokies in, what is it, Michigan, giving all the money to the Somalians, right? It was this big scam where, like, billions have — and it’s clear that a lot of wokies knew this was happening.— to Islamist groups in Somalia. They see the future of their movements, and the territories that they feel they de facto control, as something they want to hand to Muslim groups.

They believe in a Muslim future, and because of that, they see that future as incompatible with Jewish interests, because they’re, sort of, the Muslims within the top circles of their intellectual communities. And I find this very interesting. Trace the intellectual giants on the left right now, and many of them are tied to Islamism in some way or another. Especially the younger ones. Especially the younger ones. And this didn’t used to be the case.

Or then there's Andrew Gold in his debate with "Britain's Biggest RAC*ST" Steve Laws:

At some point unfortunately white people will become a minority and will probably go extinct.

We've talked here on the Motte about how the birthrate problem is unsolvable. @hydroacetylene repeatedly talks of how the Blue Tribe is demographically doomed (with unearned, unsupported confidence that this means inevitable victory for him and his).

An analogy has been forming in my mind to how people deal with a terminal diagnosis. Do you spend your final months in a hospital, pumped full of chemotherapy, surgery after surgery, plugged into more and more machines, and liquidating your net worth to fund it all, in the hopes of dragging out an increasingly miserable, pain-filled existence for every last hour you can? Or do you get some prescriptions for painkillers and palliatives, write up your will, go on a short trip to see a few of the sights you always wanted to visit, then come home to friends and family, pass on what stories and words of wisdom you can, and enjoy every day to its fullest as you embrace the inevitable?

Now consider that tribes, cultures, civilizations — they're mortal too. They can be terminal. And so, it becomes about maximizing the time you have… and deciding to whom you will be handing off everything you've built.

And isn't the choice really obvious, once you think about it? I mean, who should "inherit" Minnesota? A bunch of uneducated, uncultured, gay-bashing, women-oppressing, cousin-fucking, tribal religious fanatics…

…or some nice POC Muslim immigrants?

Well, as slatestarcodex mentioned a long time ago, liberals and gays don't necessarily grow their population by having kids- they grow by getting converts from other groups. Conservative christians (and some Jewish groups) have more kids, but those kids also tend to leave the religion at high rates.

Muslims are maybe unique in that, not only do they have a lot of kids, but those kids also stay muslim. In fact, they're bringing in a lot of converts. I guess because anyone who marries a Muslim or moves to a majority Muslim area is pretty much forced to convert. It's actually kind of fascinating that we live in a time where most religions are in decline, but this hard-core, old-school, repressive, fundamentalist religion is growing like gangbusters.

It grows because it uses coercion without facing any external censure. Converting to Islam is celebrated as diversity, apostates are killed and then "culture" is blamed while ignoring Islams culpability.

You can only gain converts to your cause when the prize makes it worth it and the liberals are handing out their seedcorn to tourists stopping by. The TQ+ of the rainbow coalition is uninvestigated and allowed in, just like every Nigerian or Caribbean warlords offspring gets to claim black solidarity to get a seat at the trough. White liberals at the roost want to destroy their own societies because they make the category error that impoverishing white institutions only harms the uneducated white hicks. That the white hicks are a bulwark against a Hamtrack style takeover by even worse conservatives just doesnt register.

White liberals may continue to get converts for a while, but whether that sustains is questionable. Their time at the top has been pretty bad and when the pie starts shrinking theres a free for all where everyone tries to get as much as they can before escaping. Rate of growth slowing is the first canary in the coal mine, once it flips it will be an exercise in statistical fudgery (we are likely here now) before raiding the pot for scraps.

Hamtrack style takeover

I'm not sure I follow- what is this referencing?

White liberals at the roost want to destroy their own societies because they make the category error that impoverishing white institutions only harms the uneducated white hicks.

Well, that and- because they're relatively rich (ironically, due to good institutions)- they're insulated from the consequences of destroying the institutions. Besides, they'll still be on top afterwards due to their Allyship(tm) that was definitely earned and not just appropriated.

Hamtrack style takeover

what is this referencing?

Hamtramck, Michigan, has been in the news a lot for having been taken over by Muslims. One article of many:

A Detroit-area community has banned LGBTQ+ flags from publicly owned flagpoles after a tense hourslong meeting that raised questions about discrimination, religion and the city’s reputation for welcoming newcomers.

Some members of the all-Muslim council said the pride flag clashes with the beliefs of some members of their faith. Businesses and residents aren’t prohibited from displaying a pride flag on their own property.

Hamtramck, population 27,000, is an enclave surrounded by Detroit. More than 40% of residents were born in other countries [and 70 percent speak a language other than English at home], according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a significant share are of Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent.

The council voted unanimously to display only five flags, including the American flag, the Michigan flag and one that represents the native countries of immigrant residents.

Its only residents of third world shitholes who insist on flying their flag as a mark of conquest on territories they conquer. No fucking Taiwanese or Korean or Japanese flag gets flown in Orange County, its only these muslim countries. The obvious hostile conquering attitude on display is a celebration that should be interpreted as the threat it is, yet the invasion is allowed to continue unmolested. The blind love of multiculturalism will end with Zimbabwe style disenfranchisement of whites followed by annihilation of anything of value as the scavengers pick off anything that made the communities viable to begin with.

Its only residents of third world shitholes who insist on flying their flag as a mark of conquest on territories they conquer.

Oh no, lots of First Worlders do this too; that's why they treat people removing or burning their "progress" flag as a war crime.

More comments

This. Travel through Germany and from the flags you'd think you were in Turkey or Albania. From the music you hear, no idea I don't actually know but "vaguely islamic" fits the bill. The spoken languages, ditto.

Like, I can talk to, like, gays and trans people, and I can be like, but really, you see if only people who hate you continue to have kids, in the future, only people who cannot allow your culture to exist are going to be the dominant cultures on Earth. I talk about this in terms of pro-natalism all the time, and they’re often just like, they don’t really see it as a problem. And I’ve always been very confused as to how they don’t see it as a problem.

Because the line is "there have always been gay and trans people". And that's correct, as far as it goes: we've had millennia of pro-heterosexual society, and yet even where they must hide in order to pass as part of mainstream society, LGBT people existed and formed sub-cultures of their own.

So there isn't any worry, because so what if the cishets are the ones having kids? Historically, and statistically, some of those kids will be gay and/or trans. Unless they're going to genetically engineer all embryos to be cishet, there's no getting rid of the LGBT (apart from the genocide solution). Even if persecuted, LGBT people will exist in secret, and some day that future society will be liberal enough to give them their rights.

Speaking of immigrant gangs and large scale fraud reminded me of the various fake colleges scams in the UK.

2014
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/02/students-private-higher-education-colleges-taxpayer-subsidy-benefits-nao-loans

A separate internal government inquiry found that 1,000 of these students, most of whom come from Bulgaria and Romania, were definitely fraudulent and had already claimed £5.4m in student loans before being found out. The government has been able to recover just 7% of that money so far, the NAO said.

In 2012 Willetts said he wanted to see alternative providers take on established universities and offer students even more choice. These colleges were allowed to charge £6,000 a year in fees, which their students could draw from the government-backed Student Loans Company.

But though they were in receipt of public money, Willetts was unable to get new parliamentary powers he needed to hold private colleges to proper account with inspection regimes or demands to see their books, after Lib Dems backed out of supporting a new education bill.

Tuesday’s report was prompted by a Guardian investigation into the sector which found that lectures were teaching to empty or near-empty classrooms. Students and staff alleged that bogus students who were barely literate were using colleges as a “cash point” to access loans they believed they would never pay back.

The NAO findings highlighted that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) lacked basic powers to monitor publicly funded students’ attendance and their progress, even as it relaxed the purse strings to fund private sector growth. It said the department had not defined “an expectation of what might constitute an acceptable dropout rate” for the sector, let alone scrutinised whether the rates were too high.

Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University College Union, which represents academic and other college staff, said the government failed to police the system it had created. “While we are pleased the misuse of public funds is finally being brought to light, we remain angry that it took so long to happen. We raised the issues of for-profit colleges’ access to taxpayers’ money time and again with ministers, but we were ignored at every turn.”

[My bolding]

2009
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/may/21/bogus-college-scam

A Home Office investigation is under way today into a Pakistani gang alleged to have pocketed millions of pounds enrolling hundreds of men from the militant heartland of al-Qaida into bogus UK colleges.

I had to dig in the sources section of Wikipedia to find those links - which I'm not sure were actually the scandal I was looking for - because using a search engine kept returning results of a new student loan scandal that came to light last year: https://aseannow.com/topic/1355961-the-uk-university-fraud-scandal-sham-students-and-fake-degrees/

Sir Humphrey Appleby: A tiny mistake. The sort that anyone can make.

Hacker: A tiny mistake?! [...] Give me an example of a big mistake.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Letting people find out about it.

Frankly, this is the kind of thing that would have resulted in pogroms at any other time in history. Same with the Pakistani rape gangs in the UK; the parallels are striking. Something very drastic needs to happen here, though Minnesotans are not capable of anything like an actual pogrom. Can there be some kind of polite and peaceful alternative that basically achieves the same goals without lots of violence? I can't really see a viable road back from here; the whole system is complicit, locked in, and ideologically committed to its own naivety because the alternative is too terrible to even contemplate.

The consequences for the pakistanis are miniscule compared to the personal satisfaction they enjoyed ruining the children of the enemy and getting paid to do so. So too will be the censure for the Somalians since the US is already a low punishment society that can barely punish the most easy criminals to indict, let alone anyone with a racism shield to deploy. The only way out is unspoken societal segregation, a hope that islands of sanity will be unmolested by the courts for the crime of being too prosperous and capable. As an overall polity there is no appetite to recognize the beast of racialized hate coming from foreign ethnics and less to address it.

Actually wait no there is one way out. Elect a capable non-scammy minority ethnic that is free to name the beast and act upon it. They will have a short but actionable runway to try and right the ship. A decisive window to act can arrest the decline. If the opportunity is squandered or fumbled (Obama capitulating to progressives after the 2nd midterms) then things get permanently worse. So, good luck with that.

The consequences for the pakistanis are miniscule

They got 10+ year jail terms, eventually. (The exceptions were minor players where the only crime they could prove was consensual-looking sex with a 13-16 year old, which normally gets 5 years in England). The rapists who were not British citizens (the vast majority were) have long since been deported.

The Pakistani rape gangs scandal that Musk and right-wing X poasters latched onto is about behaviour which was allowed to continue for far too long in the 1990-2008 period with minimal accountability for the political machines that protected the rapists, not behaviour that is tolerated in 2025. I don't know what is going on between 2nd-generation Pakistanis and chavettes in 2025, but the race/immigration/crime story that right wing media in the UK are pushing nowadays is about crimes committed by more recent humanitarian-route immigrants.

So too will be the censure for the Somalians since the US is already a low punishment society that can barely punish the most easy criminals to indict,

The US is not a low punishment society. You are the most punitive society in the rich world for the criminals who are actually caught and punished - the only countries with a higher incarceration rate are Bukele's El Salvador and countries in the middle of severe political repression. (The US is also one of a small number of countries which still execute people, although not many). You guys are also perfectly capable of punishing black criminals roughly proportionally to the number of crimes they commit. The problem is that the US is a capricious punishment society with third-world quality policing and a somewhat random judicial system such that most criminals (and particularly white-collar criminals) go unpunished. (We are still noticeably better off than you on this point in the UK, although moving in the wrong direction fast since the government decided that the criminal justice system would be shut down first as the welfare state for the old eats the economy).

But that isn't relevant here - the point in Minnesota, as in noughties Rotherham, is that the miscreants are protected by a powerful political machine. Tolerating this kind of thing was, and is, a choice.

The US is a low punishment society because crimes are underinvestigated and criminals are underprosecuted relative to the incidence rate of criminal activity. This is due to both capacity issues but also judicial and societal fiat putting the finger on every side of the scale as much as possible to keep black incarceration as low as possible. That blacks are still overrepresented is a function of how widespread minor criminality is within US society, not some grand conspiracy about blacks being unfairly victimized. FBI crime statistics regarding victim perpetrator filings show that black victimization actually is from black communities who are the first victims of criminal activity, and the clear majority of crime is intraracial. Punishment being proportional within a capacity strained carceral system means a higher absolute number of criminals, especially blacks, roaming free where they should be curtailed.

As for the Pakistani gangs it is for the UK to decide whether its still ok to keep uncovering new rape gangs and expose the sheer scale of predation that was ongoing. Europe and especially the UK are peak embodiment of institutional capture by the narratively invested, with zero appetite to acknowledge the uncomfortable facts of predatory behavioral origination.

Whether UK or US, its the same pathology: institutional narrative capture perpetuating for decades and zero pivot capability. Somalians, like Pakistanis, just learned to play the game on the path trodden by their black forebears. Ok Uk is a bit of a weird one where the predecessor is black caribbean and not African but the end result is the same: a race card played to the hilt.

The US is also one of a small number of countries which still execute people, although not many

Kinda irrelevant to your point, but most executions in the USA happen at the state level, and almost all of those are in southern red states. Federal executions are fairly rare, although Trump has often attempted to clear through the backlog, which makes it look more common.

Executions in the US are spread very unevenly, because it’s a culture wars issue(I suspect more to do with being the only western democracy that uses the death penalty rather than anything in particular about the punishment).

US executions are held up because there is a surprisingly unlimited appetite for judicial reviews and appeals to hold up the process with dubious procedural minutae introduced years after the fact being the reason for blocking. The threshold for evidence getting higher and higher even after sentencing is cause for lawyers to launch appeals nonstop, since there is free money for everyone involved to get in on the grift. Defense, state, judge, prisons, all get to feed at the trough for every death row inmate cycled through appeals. I think this raises the cost of legal+housing for lice without parole vs death row from 2m to 4m or something stupid like that for a 25 year period, and then costs spike if they hit old age.

the only western democracy that uses the death penalty

Some of this hinges on how you define "Western": Japan and Singapore are often counted as such in other areas, but get discounted here, for example.

And Singapore executes an order of magnitude more, per capita, than the US. It is a stretch to call Singapore a democracy, but it is clearly part of "the free world" or "Western Civilisation" in a way which most dictatorships are not.

If current trends continue, eventually a Mexican-American will get elected to major office while openly using the N-word and blaming the Jews for everything.

Rubio is CUBAN, not Mexican. Geez talk about latinx erasure.

I said 'elected to a major office' not 'appointed to every major office'.

Everyone remembers Metternich. Nobody remembers Ferdinand.

You've been warned before about low-effort boo posts, and "I want to kill all my enemies" is definitely not something we encourage here. If you have nothing else to say, better you say nothing.

You know, I opened up all the warnings on your mod record (five of them), prepared to link to them, and then realized the following:

  1. I do not believe you do not remember your previous warnings.
  2. I definitely do not believe that pointing out your previous warnings will lead to you saying "Oh, right."

Rather, I am absolutely certain that pointing out your previous warnings will lead to you arguing that (a) they were unjustified; (b) this warning is unjustified; (c) this situation is different.

You were warned in the past, you are being warned now, stop doing this.

You technically can do that on this page, but it would require a lot of scrolling.

That this is all organized by Somali gangs, with the gang leaders bringing retribution on any family that doesn't go along with it. Investigators like David also get threatened with violence.

Dang.

I might have to retract my this isn't a violent mafia statement.

The feds need to come purge the entire state government of Minnesota on charges of racketeering and voter fraud.

I'm genuinely wondering if its possible for that particular electorate, even if all elections are fair and accurately done, to muster up the anger that would be necessary to impose accountability, remove the bad actors (in government, I'm not even talking about the Somalis), and reshape things to mitigate fraud issues going forward.

My model of the modal Minnesotan would say they're not quite capable of that sort of drastic actions, they'd rather keep the stiff upper lip and make moderate adjustments and hope things get better.

Can "The Minnesotan begin to hate?" Seems unlikely.

I did a lot of digging in Washington State daycares the other week. Washington has better public-facing financial tools. There is a big database of all government payouts for the last 6 months. You can go down the list of DYCF payments, stop at every company with “Home Daycare” or “Family Child Care” in their name that gets a 5-figure payout each month, cross-reference the name with the Washington State Daycare registry, and see that every single one has a Somali name as the primary contact. I must have found at least a dozen places run out of a medium-sized suburban home licensed for 12 kids that were each raking in $40,000 a month. Even assuming these were legitimate businesses running at full capacity, that would be over $3000 per child per month, for daycare, run out of someone’s basement.

Hope you continue and expand posting on this work. We need more investigators and fewer Takes.

You can see the base payment rates for Licensed Centers from Washington's Working Connections Child Care here. Depending on exactly where you are (region map) that 40k is very possible. If you took care of 12 infants (<1 year old) for a full day, for 30 days, in King County, the state would pay you ~$41k for that month. The rates are fairly similar for licensed family homes. You can also get an increase above those base rates if your childcare entity is part of the Early Achievers program. Family Home and Center EA rates.

Here I am paying for daycare like a chump while illegals live on the dole and also get daycare for free for unlimited kids. Meanwhile actual hardworking parents have to pay their own way fully. This kind of thing is dysgenic as af.

It’s almost scarier if it turns out these are all technically legit businesses and the government was just this bad at not getting Dutch Booked.

Sure, you could take care of your own baby like a chump, or you could let your buddy take care of your baby and do him a $3000/month solid.

I don't know how it works in America, but you can mind children out of your own home in Ireland so long as you stick to the regulations (these have been tightened up recently, before that you could mind mind kids in your own home, say for a neighbour, and they could pay you what you both agreed on, which generally would not be declared as taxable income, hence the regulating):

A childminder is a person who runs a childminding service looking after other people’s children (under the age of 15 years) for at least 2 hours per day, in the childminder’s own home. This definition does not apply to people who care for children in the children’s own home (such as nannies and au pairs). Childminders work by themselves and do not employ any other people to assist them with the children they are caring for.

This now requires that childminders working out of their own home register with a local committee, undergo training, will have inspections carried out, and will need to keep records and make sure tax affairs are in order. There are small grants available, but you can't apply for government funding as such (that goes to professional and community childminding services and day cares).

Now, of course you could still pay a relative or neighbour to look after your kid with their own and nobody needs to register or undergo formal training, but if anyone is minding more than three kids not of their own family in their home for money, they have to comply with the new regulations.

What's being described in the links sounds like they were formally set up as businesses (even if de facto it's someone's home and they let the kids run around unsupervised), and of course there are always opportunities for scams and fraud, or even just "we charge parents full-whack fees, most of that goes into our pockets and what gets spent on the kids is buttons". I've heard that informally at second-hand where I work, allegedly passed on by one of the inspectors; one of the perks (for parents) of us being a community service which is not-for-profit and government-funded is that we do get inspected out the wazoo by several bodies and have to have paperwork backing up every last thing, so they keep track of what got spent where by whom on what. No real opportunity to shove 80% of funding into our own pockets, unlike private operators where (by what I was told the inspector says) you can see it when you go into the services even though they're charging parents market rates. Or to have fake kids enrolled and claim the funding, but no such kid exists (in fact, we could fill the spaces available twice over, such is demand, so no need for ghost enrolments unless you're scamming).

Several years back there was some right-wing woman that ran a blog and realized this particular (smaller-scale) fraud. Sign up with the other SAHM down the street, "officially" you take care of the other person's baby but the state never checked, and get a nice payout for doing what you were going to do for free.

Wish I could remember her name and track that down. Alas.

It’s almost scarier if it turns out these are all technically legit businesses and the government was just this bad at not getting Dutch Booked.

Some of them are technically legit, and the people who work in child sex crimes units will agree that it is scarier. Although, not so much because the government is getting bilked.

Some of them are technically legit, and the people who work in child sex crimes units will agree that it is scarier.

Yeah. Here's a lovely story that demonstrates that at least the Somalians are (allegedly) only screwing the state government, not the kids:

A tip from gardaí has led to the chief executive of a childcare company in California being arrested and charged with 16 counts of sexually exploiting six children in his care.

Miguel Adrian Gonzalez, a 28-year-old from west Los Angeles who is the chief executive of a childcare programme and a private babysitter, was charged with a series of child abuse offences on November 25.

Gonzalez was charged with two counts of obtaining custody of a minor with the intent to produce child sex abuse imagery, seven counts of production of child abuse material, two counts of distribution of child abuse material, three counts of receipt of child abuse material and two counts of possession of child abuse material.

According to a court filing from a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent based in LA, she received information from the HSI office in Kentucky in September that implicated Gonzalez in enticing an 11-year-old male victim, called MV-1 in the court filings, to produce child sexual abuse material on Snapchat.

The HSI Kentucky office received information leading to the identification of the victim from HSI’s cyber crimes centre, which had itself been notified of the existence of the material by the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau.

...While privately messaging PHOENIXV on Snapchat, the boy was instructed to send nude photos and videos or PHOENIXV “would come to MV-1’s home and harm him”.

The boy was sent his address by PHOENIXV as part of this threat. The PHOENIXV user then proceeded to instruct the boy to produce child sex abuse material while calling him “daddy”. The LA agent says investigators were able to establish that Gonzalez controlled the accounts using the PHOENIXV username.

A US attorney’s office statement issued in November said that its complaint against Gonzalez alleges that from 2021 to 2025 the childcare provider and CEO of Let’s Play LA LLC “produced sexually explicit images of children in his care or supervision”. It said Gonzalez also sexually abused at least one minor victim.

“In October 2023 and May 2024, Gonzalez texted the parents of two minor victims, each of them 6-year-old boys at the time, and offered to obtain custody or control of the two victims through his babysitting services, knowing that each victim would be portrayed in a visual depiction engaging in sexually explicit conduct. These requests led to two instances in which Gonzalez produced child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”

It is not uncommon at all. Other than the standard fare of boyfriends and stepdads, a very common scenario is that the son/brother/spouse of a woman running one of these "home child care" places just abuses several of the kids.

Well, you could let your friend take care of your baby while you take care of your hers and each make $3000... like a chump. Or 12 people could register 12 daycares and each "take care of" all 12 babies for $33000 each.

I guess one limitation is it does have to be your "buddy" (at least, non-relative). The page describing the program has an exception so that you cannot receive subsidized childcare payments for your children during hours when you yourself are providing childcare to a child you are related to that is paid for with subsidies but it is worded kind of confusingly:

Note: In-home providers who are relatives and are paid child care subsidies to care for children receiving WCCC benefits, may not receive those benefits for their children during the hours in which they provide subsidized child care.

On the same page they are specific that a child's "parent" cannot be a subsidized provider but it seems like other family members could be:

Someone other than the child's biological parent, step-parent, adoptive parent, legal guardian, in-loco parentis, or spouse of any of these individuals

Luckily the law doesn't recognize muslim polygamous marriages as "wives" !

I've seen speculation that the polygamous habits of Somalians are why this particular grift is so lucrative for them. One man with four wives worth of children could be raking in a middle-class lifestyle just watching the kids.

I don't know about the in-actuality familial habits of American Somalis to evaluate whether this is a good explaination or just made-up.

Realistically, i don't think that's the direct means of the fraud. It's just another way they form an insular, clannish community that trusts itself to do organized crime against the rest of us. Most of the daycares seem to be making up fake kids, and maybe occasionally bussing in some kids if they need evidence.

I'm confused. I have a friend that put his kid in one of these suburban daycares (it's legit) and as far as I'm aware it's costing him thousands per month. I looked it up and they are also getting thousands per kid from the government. I know childcare is expensive, but it's not double dip into government's pocket and regular person's pocket for something like $5k total per kid expensive, so what's going on?

Again, no idea how the USA works, but there are various subsidised childcare schemes under the Irish government. Depending on your circumstances (e.g. are you lone parent, low income, etc.) and the age of the child, some parents will pay full fees and some parents will get a subsidised place (i.e. government funding for the kid while parent pays some percentage of the fee). Pre-school children are eligible for free care for 3 hours per day x 5 days per week x 38 weeks in the year. If the child stays longer, then the parents have to pay for the extra hours.

It's confusing to work out, so I'm glad I don't handle it. Parents have to register their child online and all the associated paperwork then gets processed, and the childcare service then submits how many hours a day and days a week each particular child attends. There are also ratios of how many staff to children per room, depending on age of children and how many in the room.

At the same time, the government is also recently increasing pay rates for childcare workers. So there's the juggling act of "how much do I pay the qualified staff plus running costs, versus what I can charge parents and get under funding" for operators. For the less scrupulous, that makes it a temptation to understaff the premises or hire less qualified/unqualified staff or cut corners while, let us say, maximising revenue streams. We don't have anything like the Minnesota scandal here (as yet), but that doesn't mean that some mini-scandal can't happen in future.

At 20/days/month and 8/hrs/day, that comes out to about... $31.25/hr per kid.

I'm realizing that I genuinely have no idea what a price is for childcare.

Is that high or low?

Remember, out of that you are paying:

(1) Staff wages (including pension contributions, taxes, etc.)
(2) Running costs of the premises (heat/light/phone/insurance/maintenance, etc.) Rent as well if you don't own your own premises.
(3) Are you feeding the kids? Then the cost of buying in meals pre-cooked (if you don't prepare them on-site) or buying food to be cooked
(4) Equipment and materials for the rooms (everything from toys, mats, furniture, books, art supplies, etc.)
(5) Cleaning and hygiene supplies, anything else you can think of
(6) Unexpected expenses (oh crap, cold snap, we're running the heating all day long at full blast; yikes, the sinks in the bathrooms fell off the wall; hey, what's this leak in the roof?)
(7) Little treats: Easter eggs, Christmas presents, trips to the cinema etc.

Then after all that, if you're a private operator, make some profit.

Staffing requirements usually put 4 infants to 1 caretaker. At a legit facility rent admin and janitorial staff wipe out even a fully subsidized package, without accounting for incidentals and capex. Probably need to hit at least 12 infants to start breaking even, and then your capex soars too. Daycares are not automatic money printers because kids are delicate and staffing is difficult.

So the easy scam is to just put pretend kids in and unqualified staff in place with fake credentials if ever interrogated. No auditor will investigate on their own and the local vote boss just says ' I will take care of it'

When the govt was not a fat cow worth milking taking care of it meant having to offer a sacrificial scalp to the other local bosses. Now the govt is this depersonalized money printer far away, and its also run by whites who are not only the enemy but also one that are self declaring the nobility of self impoverishment. Why would you deny them the opportunity to feel good.

But aren’t these payments made to an in home daycare? That is, there is no rental cost. Sure there is some capex but that’s relatively minimal. And with 12 kids, the admin shouldn’t be too bad.

Let’s say you hire three people and you handle all of the admin. You pay each helper 6k a month (72k a year). Let’s say you spend 5k on capex / insurance a month. That’s still 10k left over.

And I think those expenses are being generous.

People complain about the cost of childcare but if it's properly licensed, employs qualified staff, and is a decent place for the kids, it's expensive to run.

If it's cheap, either it's Neighbour Sally looking after her two kids and your two for money under the table in her own home, or it's not someplace you want your kids to be for hours per day.

If it's 12 kids for in-home daycare, then they are supposed to be registered and all associated admin etc. should be performed. Doing it on the cheap means shoddiness all round. Don't state old age homes in the USA have terrible reputations, precisely because it is done on the cheap?

Looking it up online, for the USA it depends on which state the premises is located in, but:

In-Home Child Care Some states and territories may not require certain in-home child care programs to have a license if they meet the following criteria:

  • Are related to the children they care for
  • Care for only a few children, as defined by the state or territory
  • Provide care occasionally for only a few hours a day

In these instances, states may consider the in-home provider to be legally exempt from needing a child care license. As such, with the exception of in-home child care providers participating in the state or territory’s child care subsidy program, license-exempt in-home child care providers do not need to meet the following health and safety requirements to provide care:

  • Basic health and safety requirements, including comprehensive background checks and monitoring
  • Training standards, such as first aid and CPR training

In California, for example, you can have 14 children in your home if you have an assistant, but there are regulations around this. Paying cheap rates to unqualified staff and skimping on insurance etc. is not going to work unless you're doing all this under the table or are very, very sure you will never be inspected to make sure you're compliant, and that no parent is going to complain:

1597.531. (a) All family day care homes for children shall maintain in force either liability insurance covering injury to clients and guests in the amount of at least one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per occurrence and three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) in the total annual aggregate, sustained on account of the negligence of the licensee or its employees, or a bond in the aggregate amount of three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000). In lieu of the liability insurance or the bond, the family day care home may maintain a file of affidavits signed by each parent with a child enrolled in the home which meets the requirements of this subdivision. The affidavit shall state that the parent has been informed that the family day care home does not carry liability insurance or a bond according to standards established by the state. If the provider does not own the premises used as the family day care home, the affidavit shall also state that the parent has been informed that the liability insurance, if any, of the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association, as appropriate, may not provide coverage for losses arising out of, or in connection with, the operation of the family day care home, except to the extent that the losses are caused by, or result from, an action or omission by the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association, for which the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association would otherwise be liable under the law. These affidavits shall be on a form provided by the department and shall be reviewed at each licensing inspection.

So the easy scam is to just put pretend kids in and unqualified staff in place with fake credentials if ever interrogated. No auditor will investigate on their own and the local vote boss just says ' I will take care of it'

Checking staff genuinely have the paper qualifications they are supposed to have is very easy and the government does in fact do it if it isn't deliberately tolerating fraud. Part of the problem with non-fraudulent daycare costs is that the IQ floor for getting the paper qualifications is higher than the IQ floor for keeping a 1-year-old alive, so a system which tries to pay the going rate for keeping a 1-year old alive can't hire staff with the legally-required paper qualifications.

Depends on the age of the child and the market in question. For late preschoolers in red states(where there are few government subsidies to distort the market) thats very high; for younger kids- especially babies- it might be average, especially in a blue state where the government subsidizes demand.

AI is telling me that staff to kid ratio in my state and in the kid's age group is 1 to 12, so one staff generates $375/hr. Without looking it up, I know for a fact staff are not taking even third of that in their pocket. I know there's a lot more expenses going into this beyond just paying staff, but it's a home daycare for a few dozens of preschool kids that requires parents to even pack their lunch and its clearing $100k/m+ in revenue from both government and customers. Why are stay-at-home moms not coordinating setting up their own 'private daycares' and rack in thousands from the government? Sounds like an easy solution to the question of whether the mom should quit her job to raise the kid.

its clearing $100k/m+ in revenue from both government and customers

What insurance premiums are they paying? What is their average utility bill for electricity, for heating, for water, etc.? Are they paying rent on the premises? Staff are not getting one third of the $375/hr in take-home pay, but have you considered the gross pay not the net (which includes tax etc.)? Maybe US taxes work differently and there isn't the equivalent of PAYE, but employers must have to pay payroll taxes of some sort. That's the minimum staff ratio, but in practice you would want to have 2 to 12 (so e.g. if one staff member is dealing with taking kids to the bathroom, or on a break, there's someone in the room looking after the rest of the kids). Parents have to provide packed lunches, but does the daycare provide snacks and drinks (something that can be part of regulations, though if it really is run out of someone's home, maybe not required)?

It's not simply a matter of "aha, here is a sackful of money that I can just cream off" unless it's a scam. And as has been noted in different comments, you can't get money from the government for looking after your own kids in your own home. If Susie and Betty and Jane arrange that Susie minds Betty's kids, Betty minds Jane's kids, and Jane minds Susie's kids so they can apply for government funding, that may not work as they'll have to explain why Susie can't mind her own kids if she can mind Betty's kids etc. It's really not just as simple as "rack in thousands from the government". You have to apply for this funding and that can mean a lot of hoops to jump through, which is why cases like Minnesota do require co-ordination and corruption to succeed on the large scale.

I considered running a private daycare when I started motherhood but I didn't own my own home. Also the initial expenses to meet all regulations. Also 3k per kid seems off to me. Admittedly it was a few years ago but back then it was more like 2k per kid under 2 and 1k per kid above three.

Though looking at these numbers, it does sound like those would have been surmountable barriers. But I suspect there's some scamming to get to the 5k/month number.

I'm guessing the government only pays $5k/mo for special needs kids, even if they're not actually special needs.

Seems extremely high to me. Daycare for our toddler is $90 a day, and that isn’t some ghetto “Learing Center” full of Somalians either, which I expect would be substantially cheaper.

Which is about $1900 a month, and babies are more expensive than toddlers. Seems entirely consistent with the other numbers we are seeing.

Why would you expect it to be cheaper- I'd expect them to charge the government the highest rate it's willing to pay.

Thanks, that's a good resource. I tried searching Ohio but couldn't find anything, mostly because they didn't have clear public-facing info for this sort of thing (and admittedly I didn't look too hard).

I really wonder though, if it's just Daycare, or how many other industries are corrupted by this sort of fraud.

Does the “spotlight” really matter in this case? The Trump Train is going after him regardless of his job. If they can tie him to the ongoing fraud cases, they will.

Likewise for potential lone wolves. He’s going to be in the news whether or not he has a gubernatorial security detail. But I rate that risk pretty darn low, and I expect he does, too.

The real takeaway is that VP candidates don’t usually do much.

  • Kemp: made a Presidential bid and went back into business.
  • Lieberman: continued as senator for CT. Actually was primaried in 2006, but won on an independent ticket.
  • Edwards: made another failed run while cheating on his dying wife.
  • Palin: got <8 years of book deals and talk show appearances before Trump made her angle obsolete.
  • Ryan: continued as representative for WI for 7 more years; became Speaker of the House.
  • Kaine: continued as junior senator for VA.
  • Harris: lol

Hell, with one big, elderly exception, elected VPs don’t even do that much. You have to go back to Bush Sr. to find someone who actually advanced in their career after they were out of the Executive Branch.

I don't know, before all this blew up the impression I got was that Walz was returning to Minnesota after the crash-and-burn Harris campaign and planned to run for the third term because why not, he was generally popular as the governor, and everyone was supporting him online and saying he was the reason Minnesota was so wonderful a place to live in and so progressive and so well-run. Even if enthusiasm for a third term was tepid (and I don't know if it was or not), there was no big glaring reason he shouldn't run again.

Well, that escalated quickly, didn't it?

Trump Train is going after him regardless of his job. If they can tie him to the ongoing fraud cases, they will.

I'm not sure if I buy that. Trump has a terrible track record of actually using the force of law against his political opponents. Even if Walz is guilty of a crime, it seems more likely that his AG will show up and give a speech on Fox News rather than actually indict.

Conditional on Walz being guilty of something damning—something with genuine prison time, I’d expect him to get indicted. I’d expect that whether or not he was sitting governor.

If that condition isn’t met, and the case against Walz is weak or nonexistent, I wouldn’t expect an indictment. Governor or not, the cost/benefit isn’t that strong. I think Comey and James only got their cases railroaded because of personal animosity.

The thing about speechifying on Fox is that it works whether or not the case is strong. Hear name, trigger boo lights. So, again, I expect it to happen regardless of Walz’s position.

I don't get the impression that Walz is personally corrupt. I could well believe he never touched a cent of dirty money.

What he is, is weak. Kamala picked him precisely because he was biddable and wouldn't have opinions of his own to clash with her. I could well see that he just went along with what the advisors and civil servants told him to do. And if that meant "sign this, Governor, no don't worry, ignore the racist MAGA noise about bad things happening, ha ha you know everything is hunky-dory", then sure.

From "107 Days" (and boy, having just finished the book, I meant to finish giving my opinion of it but all this happened) re: her decision about who her running mate would be:

[Shapiro] peppered me with questions, trying to nail down, in detail, what role I saw for my VP. At one point, he mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision. I told him bluntly that was an unrealistic expectation. A vice president is not a copresident. I had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership. I had to be able to completely trust the person in that role. “Every day as president,” I said, “I’ll have ninety-nine problems, and my VP can’t be one.”

...It was quickly clear to me that Tim had walked into that room feeling he wouldn’t get the job. The first thing he said as he sat down—I don’t even know if the door had closed behind him—was: “Whether or not you pick me, I’m going to do everything I can to get you elected.” He was immediately self-critical. “I’m not a good debater.” “I’ve never used a teleprompter.” He was less polished than Josh. But he had an appealing authenticity and was genuinely self-deprecating. A lot of people in politics act self-deprecating, but it’s just that, an act. If anything, Tim over-indexed his own liabilities.

...[The debate with J.D. Vance where Walz was too civil for her liking] When Tim fell for it and started nodding and smiling at J.D.’s fake bipartisanship, I moaned to Doug, “What is happening?”

I told the television screen: “You’re not there to make friends with the guy who is attacking your running mate.”

“I’ll have ninety-nine problems, and my VP can’t be one.”

So as a presidential candidate she had ninety-nine problems and her running mate being a bitch was one.

It definitely comes across as she was scared any potential VP would outshine her (Shapiro or the former astronaut, Mark Kelly) so Walz was a godsend. No self-esteem/self-confidence, and happy to stand in the background and do what he was told.

Incidentally, based on your reading, would you agree with the pithy summary that someone else here posted/quoted a while back: “I [Kamala] didn’t not pick Buttigieg because he’s gay—I didn’t pick him because he’s gay and we only had 107 days”

Oh gosh, yes. As I slogged my way through the book, I was panting to get to the end and her Big Fat African-Asian-American Loss because I wanted to luxuriate in her tears.

I realise that sounds mean, and it is, but good God this woman is insufferable. Here's a taster of what she did when her staff threw her a surprise birthday party:

That afternoon, when I climbed the steps to the plane, I discovered it had been decorated in streamers. My team on board were wearing gold party hats and presented me with a deliciously rich German chocolate cake, my favorite birthday cake. They had red velvet cupcakes for the press. There was also a big helium balloon with fat numerals: 60. My team knew that I stopped counting birthdays a long time ago. So I looked at them with a big smile when I landed my stiletto heel in the middle of that balloon. Then I went to find my Uggs.

Now, I've had a joust with Sloot on here about me being middle-aged, and I've never worn stilettoes in my life, but I am not ashamed of being the age I am (a couple years older than the Cocoanut Queen here) and even I would never be so ungracious as to deliberately burst a balloon with my age on it. There's several little gems scattered throughout the book where you just know some poor staffer got screamed at for how very dare they! 😁

But not just some staffer, no, Hubby Darling comes in for a whack of the stick too for not being special enough about her big important birthday (I have no idea who the ghostwriter was, but I wouldn't have let her include this little anecdote. Or at least not this way. Though I guess Kamala wants things her way, so her way it is):

Throughout the flight, I was looking forward to a special evening with Doug. Though we were apart a lot those days, campaigning in different cities, for my birthday our staff conspired so that we’d meet up in Philadelphia. I was wondering what he’d planned for our evening.

The simple answer: Nothing. Not a thing.

Doug had been keeping to his own grueling schedule and had flown in from a campaign event in Michigan. He was tired and preoccupied. What I didn’t realize: the attacks on me and the many personal assaults he’d been experiencing were finally taking a toll.

He hadn’t put any thought into where we’d stay that night, so staff had picked a place for us that they thought would be a bit more special than the usual campaign hotel. It turned out to be a bland establishment whose red-and-black decor looked like it hadn’t been redone since the ’70s. The only distinguishing feature of the room was its larger size, but the curtains were broken.

Storm [Horncastle, my indispensable social secretary], knowing how much I love good food, had picked two possible restaurants from which to order dinner. She thought it would be nice if the meal was a bit of a surprise for me. So, on the plane, she knocked on Doug’s door to ask him to choose the menu. He’d shrugged and told her to ask me. So she picked the menu herself. Ordered a cake. Dressed the table with candles. My girlfriends had sent flowers.

Doug at least had thought to get a gift for me. It was a necklace by a designer I admired from Ojai, California, Jes MaHarry, the same designer who’d made the piece he’d chosen for my anniversary gift. This one featured a set of baroque pearls nestled in a gold setting. When I turned it over, I saw that the pearls’ backing had been engraved with the date. How thoughtful, to commemorate the milestone of my big birthday.

But then I looked closer. The date was not my birthday. It was the date of our wedding anniversary. He’d obviously intended to give me both pieces on our anniversary, until it occurred to him that by repurposing one piece, he could kill two birds with one stone. He could practice thrift and also save himself the bother of shopping for a birthday gift.

I went to take a bath. It’s one of the things I did at the end of those long days to help me slow down enough to get to sleep. In the warm steam, I managed to relax and get over my disappointment. I was about to climb out of the tub when I noticed that all the bath towels were hanging on the far side of the room, unreachable. I called to Doug to ask him to bring me one. No answer. He was in the other room, watching the Dodgers eliminate the Mets in the playoffs. He couldn’t hear me over the television. I called his phone.

His answer: a casual “What’s up?”

Really?! It was a bridge too far.

And then we got into it. The stress had finally gotten to both of us. It was one of those fights that every married couple has had.

But we weren’t every married couple.

Doug stopped the argument cold. As soon as his words were out, the truth of them landed on me like a bucket of ice water.

“We can’t turn on each other.”

With the hits coming from every direction, we had to stay united. Back-to-back, swords raised against all outside attacks. We had to protect each other, be each other’s pillar of strength, givers and receivers of patience and unconditional love.

I noted earlier that Storm speaks bluntly but always with correct protocol. The next day she told Doug, “Mr. Second Gentleman, you have to fix this.” She handed him a set of note cards. She’d numbered them one through five, for the nights we’d be apart through the end of the campaign. She instructed him to write a note on each one.

From then till the election, no matter what city each of us had landed in, at the end of the day I would find a note on my pillow, in Doug’s chicken scratch, telling me how much he loved me.

Now, I imagine that she thought this was a cute, candid, slice-of-life little story that showed how she's only human after all, she and her husband have tiffs just like you ordinary folks, but they are strong and united.

However. She covers his birthday in the book, too, but naturally she gets everything right and perfect. She isn't there because she's out campaigning, but she gets her staff to hang up a happy birthday banner, she arranges his favourite meal, she gets the perfect gift for him. We don't get what he thought about it all, or if he wanted to complain about "but you didn't do anything special" as well. Of course not.

The queen cannot be expected to get out of her damn bath and walk across the room to the towels. He doesn't love her! Her perfect social secretary, though, saves the day by lecturing the wayward Second Gentleman on how he has failed her majesty and what he must do to make up for it, complete with homework, which he then dutifully completes every night (and again you just know she's keeping tally of whether it's every night or he forgot one night).

Good Lord Almighty, imagine being married to this woman. Imagine working for her: you get a fun birthday balloon with her correct age on it and instead she stares at you with the cold-blooded reptilian gaze and tooth-baring 'smile' of an alligator as she deliberately bursts it with her sharp heel, leaving you sweating as you realise she is imagining it's your head not a balloon, and you have to wait for the screaming scolding later. Because You. Have. Failed. Her. Did you not remember, or did you just not care, that the queen does not count birthdays anymore? How could you be so insulting and so cavalier? Are you really cut out for this job, after all?

EDIT: Also, yikes. Hubby Darling is Jewish. And she plonks down a story making him look like a cheap huckster: hey, I can kill two birds with one stone, repurpose this present for anniversary and birthday, not have to buy two different gifts! Yeah, way not to lean into the stereotype of Jewish money-obsession. She is very tone-deaf this way, too centred on how she feels, what she thinks, what other people think about her. I know she's the candidate and this is her campaign, but she really talks about others as though they're just there to orbit her, the one and only sun. There's a way of describing "we were all stressed and tired after a long campaign, and I felt disappointed about my birthday" without making it "Because my husband is a selfish, cheapskate, jerk".

EDIT EDIT: Imagine making your staff address your husband as "Mr. Second Gentleman". Had she been elected, it would have been "Madam President and Mr. First Gentleman" like they were royalty! 😊 Yeah, that might be correct protocol, but in a "this shows how we're only human" anecdote, "Listen, Mr. Emhoff" (or even "Look, Doug") "you have to fix this" etc. works a lot better for that humanising insight than the "I am a robot, beep boop" tone here. That kind of formality shows what working on Kamala's staff was really like, what her expectations of behaviour were, how you were supposed to know your place.

Fascinating, thanks for the summary! I gather the book does little to combat the perception that Kamala is an entitled airhead with a princess complex from having failed upwards her entire career and having never been told “no” by anyone in the Dem machine thanks to her unassailable idpol trifecta (Black, Asian, female)

I went in not expecting the book to be heavy on the self-reflection, but it went even lower than my expectations. She really puts herself across as Practically Perfect In Every Way. She has all sorts of applicable little relevant experiences in her life so she can connect with everyone from shit-kicking clodhoppers to the crème de la crème.

What's funny, and stunning, and a little bit frightening, is her complete lack of self-awareness. That bit about smiling at her staff as she burst the balloon with her stiletto? That's not normal, Kamala. That's sociopath behaviour. "You know I don't track my age. You have displeased me. Be thankful this is only a substitute for your empty heads, and not your real heads under my heel, as I crush this in punishment."

Definitely once out of her comfortable little San Francisco bubble, she can't handle the larger stage. The part about Joe Rogan? She goes on and on about how it was all his fault and the show's fault and literally accuses him of lying in his account of how they couldn't make the interview happen. Meanwhile, the Call Me Daddy interview for which she threw over Rogan gets about one sentence along the lines of "I did this". I was expecting her to expand upon why she did it, why it was so important, how she was getting her message across, the big huge massive audience that podcast has so yah boo Rogan, and so on. Nope, but she was happy to spend a few pages about how unfair and mean Rogan had been.

Everything descends into bathos with her. The important decision about picking her running mate, and how her staff liked Walz, and others advised her this and that? This is how it ends:

It was always going to have to be my decision. I told my staff and family that I didn’t want any more input, and I went to do something practical: I made a tasty rub and seasoned a pork roast.

By the time I went to bed, I’d decided on Walz.

She certainly ended up roasting Walz's pork! The linking of "seasoning a pork roast" with "deciding on Walz" makes it sound like the train of association going on in her mind was "Mmm, what a succulent little white boy piggy, he'd be perfect with a tasty rub and trussed in the oven!" 🤣

it's amazing how catty and petty she comes across in that passage. I wonder if she realizes that those are both still very prominent Democratic politicians and that she's basically sabotaging them with her book?

I think this book was definitely settling scores, particularly after the post-mortems on just how the fribblin' heck the Dems had screwed the pooch on this election.

Nothing is ever her fault. She is perfect. She can relate to everyone, no matter who, no matter what (it gets funny after a while when she pulls out yet another example of "I, too, was X, Y or Z" - like telling the high school band about how she gave up French horn because too much spit).

Her team were great, and yet. Failure! How could this be? Well plainly she was sabotaged, backstabbed, didn't get enough support, and of course Satan and his demons were all on the side of Trump (she hates Vance, too, which again is very funny to read).

But the fight goes on!

I wasn't sure if she intended to try a second bite at the cherry for 2028 or if she wanted to run for governor of California instead after this book, and I'm still not sure what her intentions are. She seems to be on an extended book tour and maybe trying to work up momentum for some new campaign.

Ha. I don’t think you’re wrong. Even correcting for the autobiographical bias, he comes across as a real golden retriever.

My point is that 1. isn’t likely to motivate him. I figured your original explanation was more likely. He’s a loser, and he lost to the biggest bogeyman in the West. That’s career-limiting.

Walz is almost certainly guilty of nothing that he was responsible for. That's how modern political machines work - we have advanced beyond the need for brown envelopes.

That's how modern political machines work - we have advanced beyond the need for brown envelopes.

New Jersey begs to differ!

Arguably, Trump himself is living proof that the court of public opinion matters more to politicians than actual criminal processes: in that vein, the AG discrediting an opponent on Fox News is quite possibly more career-ending that finding, say, 37 felonies to charge and convict. I could imagine Walz continuing to campaign if indicted, but here he's been forced out of town.

Not endorsing, just observing.

I'm sure he would have won if he ran, but probably the party gave him the boot because he's not getting any good publicity, only bad. Democrats have nothing to lose shitcanning him and and they can get a fresh face in the house.

I don't think any prominent democrats have made it through primary season after getting solidly booted by the party, so he's probably just quitting now as they asked to get a graceful exit.

I think this is just the pragmatic move for him as a good party member. He's not resigning or admitting guilt, he's just saying he won't run for reelection. The election is still a year away, so there's plenty of time to find a new candidate. If he had stayed in the election it would draw (even more) national attention to the scandal and drag down the entire Democratic party. This way, the heat stays more contained to just Tim Walz personally, and I suspect the party will reward him with some sort of cushy job in the future (director of a nonprofit with a high salary and nebulous job duties is a common choice).

I wonder if this is downstream of the failed campaign with Kamala? Walz didn't achieve the kind of breakthroughs with white male rednecks they were hoping for, and failure is contagious: he was willing to abandon Minnesota for the big job but when that didn't pan out, now he's crawling back for a third term? Why re-elect a loser?

This feels like a strong contributor. Despite his earnest attempt at stealing the party's heart (and no doubt with few loyalists, he succeeded), it seems the Dems have not positioned him as a party leader in any respect. The scandals may be hurting him now, yes, but we can't underestimate the role that embarrassment is playing here.

After that debate performance and general Kamala of it all, his political career is pretty much dead. I don't think there's anywhere else for him to climb: he can either retire to the speaking circuit or tread water as the governor. No shame in choosing the former.

X to doubt. Walz isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows Somali fraud is an albatross around his neck and failed campaigns for higher office don’t normally make untouchable running mates. Paul Ryan and Tim Kaine remained politically important, after all.

Do you know anything about Minnesota state politics?

Who is likely to step in on the DNC side? Do the Republicans have anything that even resembles a functioning party up there?

Early noises that The Klob will run. Very, very unlikely that the Republicans will challenge, it would take an exceptional candidate.

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