Column By Mike Bibb
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the commotion in Minnesota — civil disobedience, rioting, church invasions — is a deliberately contrived stunt designed to draw the public’s attention away from the real problem: the gargantuan state government fraud scam involving billions of dollars that’s been going on for years.
Allegedly, with the knowledge of the governor. This may be one of the reasons the governor recently announced he will no longer be seeking reelection.
Likely, he will be devoting more of his time to “lawyering up” than paling around with the voters. His defense team won’t come cheap.
In politics, maybe more than any other profession, things can change in an instant. One day, a fancy-talking officeholder walks tall, boasting of accomplishments and good deeds to make life easier for everyone.
The following day, his pledged assurances can quickly turn into a murky mist of evaporating promises, especially if it’s discovered that much of his time on the job was involved in some nefarious scheme, or that he was aware of it but ignored the problem.
Either way, it’s about the same thing.
In this case, a sham amounting to billions of federal dollars going to fake Somalian businesses within the Minneapolis community was revealed by a YouTube dude with a cell phone camera.
The guy walked around the neighborhood, filming, interviewing folks, and documenting dozens of bogus storefronts — nearly all of them closed during business hours — and posted his findings on the video-sharing platform.
It went viral. Thousands of flabbergasted individuals couldn’t believe what they were seeing and hearing. The video must be some contrived joke; sort of a TikTok prank.
Except, it wasn’t a laughing matter.
Soon, federal investigators began looking into these seemingly suspicious commercial arrangements and discovered that a great many of them were fake, artificially designed to
apply for and receive government funding.
Phony child care centers, health care transportation services, and home care businesses were among the counterfeit enterprises unlawfully receiving money from the government.
To the tune of millions of your tax dollars over the years. Later, the sums rose to billions of dollars as the fraud’s size was shown to be swelling with each passing day.
Amazing! Was there anyone in the Somali society or state government who wasn’t involved in the con?
More importantly, why did it take a YouTube guy with a camera phone to bring the situation to the public’s attention?
Where were federal and state oversight and regulatory agencies — the very people who were disbursing and keeping an eye on the funds?
What were they doing all of this time?
Circumstances went from bad to worse. Making the problem more unpleasant, the Feds were closing in, asking questions and taking names.
Minnesota U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (MN-D) — originally a Somali citizen — has seen her wealth increase substantially over the last few years.
Scant records exist about Omar’s sudden rags-to-riches success story, aside from the fact that it coincided with an era of fraud, corruption, and deception in Minnesota government.
More than a coincidence?
Then, suddenly, Gov. Tim Walz (MN-D) decided he didn’t want to run for governor anymore. At the same time, Minnesota is scrutinizing ICE agents for their conduct in arresting dangerous undocumented aliens.
Normally, not an unusual occurrence. ICE is presently apprehending alien suspects in many areas of the country without the difficulty they are experiencing in Minneapolis.
Why? What’s the difference between Minneapolis, Phoenix, Austin, Tampa, or just about any other city?
For one thing, there hasn’t been massive government fraud involving trainloads of federal dollars.
Also, the Minnesota governor and other state officials may be involved in the scandal.
Consequently, creating a distraction to draw public attention from those incriminating issues was needed.
With the assistance of a compliant press, Minneapolis has become the epicenter of ICE’s alleged “unconstitutional and brutal behavior,” resulting in riots, shootings, and killings.
The real culprit in all this upheaval — it appears — is the deliberately ignored criminal behavior of the people believed to be involved in the largest fraud scheme in Minnesota’s history.
Not even deceptive theatrics can conceal the truth: Someone is going to jail. A crime of this magnitude cannot be explained away in a courtroom or masked forever.
The crime actually happened, and multiple individuals facilitated its creation and perpetration.
I’m sure that unpleasant thought has crossed Tim’s mind more than once or twice. Ilhan is probably pondering the same thing, thinking even prison food in America beats a “bananas and rice” diet in Somalia!
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
