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Under "In which we briefly return to Minnesota": > And I think journalism and civil society should do some genuine soul-searching on how we knew—knew—the state

Under "In which we briefly return to Minnesota": > And I think journalism and civil society should do some genuine soul-searching on how we knew—knew—the state of that pond, but didn’t consider it particularly important or newsworthy until someone started fishing on camera. In... the same section where he cites all of the evidence the government has put together against the fraudsters. What is the issue? That these investigations should have been more prominently featured in the mainstream news? Would that have helped or hurt investigations? > Of course, as the New York Times very carefully wordsmithed recently: >> Minnesota officials said in early January that the state conducted compliance checks at nine child-care centers after Mr. Shirley posted his video and found them “operating as expected,” although it had “ongoing investigations” at four of them. One of the centers, which Mr. Shirley singled out because it misspelled the word “Learning” on its sign, has since voluntarily closed. > An inattentive reader might conclude from this paragraph that the Times disputes Shirley’s reporting. The New York Times is literally quoting what the Minnesota officials said. What were they supposed to do, add on "but a kid on YouTube says differently"? I don't think the serious response to Nick Shirley's "journalism" is that there was no fraud; rather, it's that he came into the situation with a thinly veiled agenda and fed his audience exactly what they wanted to hear. Did his video make it more or less likely that we'll be able to investigate and resolve the fraud situation in MN? I guess that depends on how serious you think the laughably corrupt Trump administration is, but the fact that they seized on this as an excuse to send in 3000 ICE agents is not exactly promising.

danielvf 7mo ago
The report to the government about a more than 50% fraud rate was from six years ago. The Minnesota government was not serious about dealing with problem. Most businesses would not last that long with a 50% customer fraud rate. Yes, there were some investigations and convictions, but nothing to on a scale that would deal with problem, nor any systematic change to a level paying huge amounts of money to scammers.
- dispersed 7mo ago
  First: assuming your goal is to stop the fraud, does making deliberately inflammatory YouTube videos get you closer to that goal? I think the government's response clearly shows that they're more interested in the optics of "blue state full of scammer immigrants" than any actual resolution. Second: I think one of the points Patrick misses is that fraud did indisputably occur, but that doesn't mean we need to treat Shirley as a neutral observer who simply cares about fiscal responsibility. (If I'm wrong, I eagerly away his next video on red state fraud.)
  - tptacek 7mo ago
    He's not treating Shirley as a neutral observer; he's lamenting Shirley's involvement, which has impeded efforts to clean this up.
- cogman10 7mo ago
  5 years ago. And it looks like the state was actually taking pretty aggressive moves against the fraud including ongoing investigations and legislation to shut down the fraud. [1] There was active prosecution ongoing literally right up until Shirly's video. That's taking the matter seriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_Minnesota_fraud_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_Minnesota_fraud_scandals
  - joe_mamba 7mo ago
    >There was active prosecution ongoing literally right up until Shirly's video Oh yeah, the prosecution was sooo active that all the daycares listed as operational and receiving funding, had no kids in them, had blacked out or boarded up windows, misspelled signs, and if you went in to ask for enrollment 3 angry men would come out shouting at you. How many legit daycares have you seen that look like that?
    - cogman10 7mo ago
      Yes, because when I enroll a child in a daycare I start by wandering around the facilities with a camera man and then I demand to see the children. But sure is suspicious that this place has no kids in it when I visit it outside it's posted operation hours. Nick did a day worth of shooting, didn't follow up, and didn't check basic things like hours of operation.
      - tptacek 7mo ago
        Right, everybody, especially the author of this piece, agrees that what Shirley did was bad and stupid. And also unnecessary, because we had documentary evidence from the Minnesota government itself showing the scale of the fraud here.
        notahacker 7mo ago
        I doubt Patrick is the world's biggest Nick Shirley fan, but that's not really how it's conveyed in the article. Shirley gets acknowledged to have "poor epistemic standards" (which is an almost euphemistic way of describing his approach) but Patrick goes on to say that "the journalism develops one bit of evidence...." and even appears to insinuate the NYT erred in reporting it in the context of the Minnesota government's response that the state's own compliance checks had found them open shortly afterwards but that some of them were under investigation. There's an interesting point to be made that detailed, bipartisan evidence collected by suitably qualified officials that some daycenters were closed at times they were claimed to be open gets less attention than a YouTuber with an agenda rocking up at nurseries at what may or may not have been their opening times, but that's not how it's actually expressed. Rather it seems to be arguing for face value judgements of his video and against journalists that felt compelled to point out that whilst evidence of daycare fraud by Somalis in Minnesota definitely existed, Shirley's videos probably shouldn't be considered part of it.
- Brybry 7mo ago
  He cites the 50% number from Jay Swanson, a CCAP Investigations Unit manager, and then dismisses criticism of the number by saying the criticism requires an unreasonable standard (only criminal convictions). But if you read the cited source of how Swanson came up with that number he said it wasn't just for over-billing (claiming more kids than the places actually had). Instead, by his estimation, the employees working are not actually working because 'children are unsupervised, running from room to room while adult “employees” spend hours in hallways chatting with other adults' and so all of the funds to those providers are fraudulent. [1] I think it's pretty easy to criticize the logic for that 50% fraud rate number without requiring criminal convictions. [1] https://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/sreview/ccap.pdf#page=16 https://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/sreview/ccap.pdf#page=16
  - tptacek 7mo ago
    This is a great argument. I wish this is what we were discussing rather than Nick Shirley and the partisan politics of the issue.
    - plorkyeran 7mo ago
      Oddly enough starting an article with a defense of Nick Shirley leads to the comments on an article being about that.
      - tptacek 7mo ago
        I mean, I wouldn't have led off that way either, but I know what Patrick is talking about and I read the article. I genuinely believe the current administration is the worst in the history of the country, and I also believe that to oppose it effectively we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball, so it's really dispiriting to see people reflexively defend misconduct and incompetence. That shouldn't be a habit we share with the party we oppose. (I can't speak for Patrick's politics, only for mine.)
        themacguffinman 7mo ago
zahlman 7mo ago
> What is the issue? That these investigations should have been more prominently featured in the mainstream news? Important points throughout the article include: relatively little prosecution or enforcement occurred despite the awareness of rampant fraud; officials were naive to the common wisdom in fraud-prevention circles that people committing fraud in the past correlates strongly with the same individuals committing fraud in the future; "pay-and-chase" policies don't preempt funding flows to individuals suspected of fraud until it's established and feel the need to account for every fraudulent dollar instead of just blacklisting known bad actors the way that actual financial institutions do. FTA in particular, all emphasis FTA: > For example, the primary evidence of a child attending a day-care was a handwritten sign-in sheet of minimal probative value. Prosecutors referred to them as “almost comical” and “useless.” They were routinely fraudulently filled out by a 17 year old “signing” for dozens of parents sequentially in the same handwriting, excepting cases where they were simply empty. > To refute this “evidence”, the state forced itself to do weeks of stakeouts, producing hundreds of hours of video recording, after which it laboriously reconstructed exact counts of children seen entering/exiting a facility, compared it with the billing records, and then invoiced the centers only for proven overbilling. > On general industry knowledge, if you are selected for examination in e.g. your credit card processing account, and your submission of evidence is “Oh yeah, those transactions are ones we customarily paperwork with a 17 year old committing obvious fraud”, your account will be swiftly closed. The financial institution doesn’t have to reach a conclusion about every dollar which has ever flowed through your account. What actual purpose would there be in shutting the barn door after the horse has left? The only interesting question is what you’ll be doing tomorrow, and clearly what you intend to do tomorrow is fraud. Moving on, > I don't think the serious response to Nick Shirley's "journalism" is that there was no fraud; rather, it's that he came into the situation with a thinly veiled agenda and fed his audience exactly what they wanted to hear. My take is that there's no good reason to suspect that, except for holding an opposed thinly veiled agenda. And there is no serious dispute of the fact that billions of dollars of fraud occurred. > Did his video make it more or less likely that we'll be able to investigate and resolve the fraud situation in MN? It clearly made it more likely, as demonstrated by federal senate hearings that have extensively referenced the video (I've seen a segment where a senator literally had a prop photo of the "Quality Learing Center"). > the fact that they seized on this as an excuse to send in 3000 ICE agents is not exactly promising. Your premise is that a YouTube video published Dec 26, 2025 somehow motivated a federal law enforcement action that commenced on Dec 4, 2025. Also, this claim conflates ICE with CBP. Also, per Wikipedia, out of thousands of arrests, only 23 have been of Somalis; and it's been abundantly clear in all the press functions that the targets have overwhelmingly been Hispanic — because they're overwhelmingly represented among illegal immigrants in the US, including in MN.

danielvf 7mo ago

The report to the government about a more than 50% fraud rate was from six years ago. The Minnesota government was not serious about dealing with problem. Most businesses would not last that long with a 50% customer fraud rate. Yes, there were some investigations and convictions, but nothing to on a scale that would deal with problem, nor any systematic change to a level paying huge amounts of money to scammers.

dispersed 7mo ago
First: assuming your goal is to stop the fraud, does making deliberately inflammatory YouTube videos get you closer to that goal? I think the government's response clearly shows that they're more interested in the optics of "blue state full of scammer immigrants" than any actual resolution. Second: I think one of the points Patrick misses is that fraud did indisputably occur, but that doesn't mean we need to treat Shirley as a neutral observer who simply cares about fiscal responsibility. (If I'm wrong, I eagerly away his next video on red state fraud.)
- tptacek 7mo ago
  He's not treating Shirley as a neutral observer; he's lamenting Shirley's involvement, which has impeded efforts to clean this up.
cogman10 7mo ago
5 years ago. And it looks like the state was actually taking pretty aggressive moves against the fraud including ongoing investigations and legislation to shut down the fraud. [1] There was active prosecution ongoing literally right up until Shirly's video. That's taking the matter seriously. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_Minnesota_fraud_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_Minnesota_fraud_scandals
- joe_mamba 7mo ago
  >There was active prosecution ongoing literally right up until Shirly's video Oh yeah, the prosecution was sooo active that all the daycares listed as operational and receiving funding, had no kids in them, had blacked out or boarded up windows, misspelled signs, and if you went in to ask for enrollment 3 angry men would come out shouting at you. How many legit daycares have you seen that look like that?
  - cogman10 7mo ago
    Yes, because when I enroll a child in a daycare I start by wandering around the facilities with a camera man and then I demand to see the children. But sure is suspicious that this place has no kids in it when I visit it outside it's posted operation hours. Nick did a day worth of shooting, didn't follow up, and didn't check basic things like hours of operation.
    - tptacek 7mo ago
      Right, everybody, especially the author of this piece, agrees that what Shirley did was bad and stupid. And also unnecessary, because we had documentary evidence from the Minnesota government itself showing the scale of the fraud here.
      - notahacker 7mo ago
        I doubt Patrick is the world's biggest Nick Shirley fan, but that's not really how it's conveyed in the article. Shirley gets acknowledged to have "poor epistemic standards" (which is an almost euphemistic way of describing his approach) but Patrick goes on to say that "the journalism develops one bit of evidence...." and even appears to insinuate the NYT erred in reporting it in the context of the Minnesota government's response that the state's own compliance checks had found them open shortly afterwards but that some of them were under investigation. There's an interesting point to be made that detailed, bipartisan evidence collected by suitably qualified officials that some daycenters were closed at times they were claimed to be open gets less attention than a YouTuber with an agenda rocking up at nurseries at what may or may not have been their opening times, but that's not how it's actually expressed. Rather it seems to be arguing for face value judgements of his video and against journalists that felt compelled to point out that whilst evidence of daycare fraud by Somalis in Minnesota definitely existed, Shirley's videos probably shouldn't be considered part of it.
Brybry 7mo ago
He cites the 50% number from Jay Swanson, a CCAP Investigations Unit manager, and then dismisses criticism of the number by saying the criticism requires an unreasonable standard (only criminal convictions). But if you read the cited source of how Swanson came up with that number he said it wasn't just for over-billing (claiming more kids than the places actually had). Instead, by his estimation, the employees working are not actually working because 'children are unsupervised, running from room to room while adult “employees” spend hours in hallways chatting with other adults' and so all of the funds to those providers are fraudulent. [1] I think it's pretty easy to criticize the logic for that 50% fraud rate number without requiring criminal convictions. [1] https://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/sreview/ccap.pdf#page=16 https://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/sreview/ccap.pdf#page=16
- tptacek 7mo ago
  This is a great argument. I wish this is what we were discussing rather than Nick Shirley and the partisan politics of the issue.
  - plorkyeran 7mo ago
    Oddly enough starting an article with a defense of Nick Shirley leads to the comments on an article being about that.
    - tptacek 7mo ago
      I mean, I wouldn't have led off that way either, but I know what Patrick is talking about and I read the article. I genuinely believe the current administration is the worst in the history of the country, and I also believe that to oppose it effectively we need every government body we run to be completely on the ball, so it's really dispiriting to see people reflexively defend misconduct and incompetence. That shouldn't be a habit we share with the party we oppose. (I can't speak for Patrick's politics, only for mine.)
      - themacguffinman 7mo ago

zahlman 7mo ago

> What is the issue? That these investigations should have been more prominently featured in the mainstream news? Important points throughout the article include: relatively little prosecution or enforcement occurred despite the awareness of rampant fraud; officials were naive to the common wisdom in fraud-prevention circles that people committing fraud in the past correlates strongly with the same individuals committing fraud in the future; "pay-and-chase" policies don't preempt funding flows to individuals suspected of fraud until it's established and feel the need to account for every fraudulent dollar instead of just blacklisting known bad actors the way that actual financial institutions do. FTA in particular, all emphasis FTA: > For example, the primary evidence of a child attending a day-care was a handwritten sign-in sheet of minimal probative value. Prosecutors referred to them as “almost comical” and “useless.” They were routinely fraudulently filled out by a 17 year old “signing” for dozens of parents sequentially in the same handwriting, excepting cases where they were simply empty. > To refute this “evidence”, the state forced itself to do weeks of stakeouts, producing hundreds of hours of video recording, after which it laboriously reconstructed exact counts of children seen entering/exiting a facility, compared it with the billing records, and then invoiced the centers only for proven overbilling. > On general industry knowledge, if you are selected for examination in e.g. your credit card processing account, and your submission of evidence is “Oh yeah, those transactions are ones we customarily paperwork with a 17 year old committing obvious fraud”, your account will be swiftly closed. The financial institution doesn’t have to reach a conclusion about every dollar which has ever flowed through your account. What actual purpose would there be in shutting the barn door after the horse has left? The only interesting question is what you’ll be doing tomorrow, and clearly what you intend to do tomorrow is fraud. Moving on, > I don't think the serious response to Nick Shirley's "journalism" is that there was no fraud; rather, it's that he came into the situation with a thinly veiled agenda and fed his audience exactly what they wanted to hear. My take is that there's no good reason to suspect that, except for holding an opposed thinly veiled agenda. And there is no serious dispute of the fact that billions of dollars of fraud occurred. > Did his video make it more or less likely that we'll be able to investigate and resolve the fraud situation in MN? It clearly made it more likely, as demonstrated by federal senate hearings that have extensively referenced the video (I've seen a segment where a senator literally had a prop photo of the "Quality Learing Center"). > the fact that they seized on this as an excuse to send in 3000 ICE agents is not exactly promising. Your premise is that a YouTube video published Dec 26, 2025 somehow motivated a federal law enforcement action that commenced on Dec 4, 2025. Also, this claim conflates ICE with CBP. Also, per Wikipedia, out of thousands of arrests, only 23 have been of Somalis; and it's been abundantly clear in all the press functions that the targets have overwhelmingly been Hispanic — because they're overwhelmingly represented among illegal immigrants in the US, including in MN.