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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   15633 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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