There was real fraud in Minnesota with a lot of it by Somalis, but Shirley’s “investigation” falsely accused day care centers of being fake without proper evidence, resulting in vandalism and threats to apparently innocent people.
He went to these places with a group of men, some of them wearing masks. His group didn’t look like a parent looking to sign up a child, but a group of thugs.
Lots of people got duped by this incompetent investigation, including Elon Musk and JD Vance who shared the video to their huge audiences. And, the administration began withholding all childcare funding to Minnesota.
“The Minnesota Star Tribune also visited all 10 facilities, and found children inside four of them when invited inside. Six other facilities were either closed or employees did not open their doors.
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Osman said the doors are always locked for safety, and the staff was on high alert following the president’s threats to deport Somali people and escalation of federal immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities.
He said Shirley’s unannounced drop-in was “not intended to be a sincere approach.””
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Director Ahmed Hasan said they’ve had similar visits from other “content creators,” but the others didn’t have enough followers to create the kind of chaos that Shirley did.
Hasan said Shirley, a man identified as “David” and a third man came to the front door while five more men waited in a van and car, some of them wearing masks.
Hasan said there were children inside, but they weren’t about to let strangers inside, given the recent immigration crackdown. They thought the masked men in the vehicles might be ICE agents.
Hasan said Shirley left soon after Hasan arrived, entering through a back door.
On Dec. 30, Hasan invited the Star Tribune and other media outlets into the facility, where about 30 children of varying ages were visible.
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A woman from a neighboring home health care agency showed the Star Tribune video footage of children coming and going on Dec. 16.
Kevin Brown, who lives two blocks away and owns a business next door to ABC Learning Center, said he often sees kids at the center.
He saw Shirley’s video and came over to the daycare Dec. 30 when he saw TV cameras there.
“I don’t like the idea of people coming from out of town, coming into our neighborhood and making assumptions without talking to people and getting the facts,” he said. “That’s the definition of fake news.”
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Part-owner Umi Hassan said she lived here right after 9/11 and didn’t feel as marginalized and fearful as she does today. She’s unable to sleep at night and carries her passport everywhere.
Tears running down her face, she asked, “What else can I do to be an American?””
Shirley posted videos of childcare centers than he claimed showed they were fraudulent because no one answered when he visited them, but many of them were active daycares, which don’t answer the doors to groups of men for security concerns. Both government investigations and real reporters who followed up on Shirley’s shoddy work found the daycare centers to be active centers taking care of kids.
Donald Trump said he lied about public health during Covid in order to prevent a panic. He said he played down the deadliness of Covid in order to not create a panic.
“Affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody,” said President Donald Trump during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting at the White House, saying it’s a “fake narrative” and “con job” that Democrats manufactured to hoodwink the public.
“They just say the word,” Trump added. “It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. They just say it—affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything.”
In classic Trump fashion, this is an about-face. Just a few days prior, he declared on Truth Social, “I AM THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT” when touting falling drug prices.”
“The word affordability is a Democrat scam,” he said. “They say it, and then they go on to the next subject. And everyone thinks, ‘Oh, they had lower prices.'”
The MAGA right is really good at bullshiting. They don’t express the same principles or beliefs from topic to topic. They claim that Democrats did it first when what a Democrat did was different or not as bad, and when two wrongs don’t make a right. When confronted on a specific and important event, they claim ignorance.
Mainstream media is often biased to the right because they are so concerned about not being considered biased to the left that they overcorrect, and because the right is more likely to repeatedly lie and the mainstream isn’t good at holding their feet to the fire; while they will come hard at a liberal for a softer or/and less misleading actions.
The administration says they are targeting the worst of the worst in their illegal immigration crackdown, but the facts are, they are sweeping up lots of people whose only crime was illegally immigrating.
Much of politics and punditry is performative lies. I’m not sure why these people think their falsity is okay, but they gain money, fame, and power with their bullshit.
“”Walmart just announced that the cost of their standard Thanksgiving meal is reduced by 25 percent this year from last year,” Trump said recently, failing to account for the fact that the price change is due to Walmart…changing the goods offered via their Thanksgiving meal bundle (and drastically shrinking its size) to get prices lower for cost-burdened consumers.”
Bari Weiss is now the editor-in-chief at CBS news. She doesn’t have a background in reporting, but opinion. Many claims she and her, now-purchased, organization have made, have been found to be false or misleading by multiple other investigations.