The Walz Are Caving in on Minnesota's Somali Community

The fact that Tim Walz, a man who could have been Vice-President of the United States, has abruptly abandoned seeking a third term as Governor of Minnesota is certainly an indication that his administration dropped the ball and did not meaningfully address alleged daycare fraud with the state's large Somali community.

Yet I suspect the breadth and depth of this fraud is not large enough to warrant the Trump Administration to freeze childcare payments to Minnesota and several other states. No doubt the Trump Administration was looking for a reason to freeze these funds, and they found it with little Nick Shirley's viral video of empty daycare centers though the claims have not been independently verified. VP Vance might think Shirley's "journalism" more worthy of a Pulitzer Prize than any of its winners. Yet let us never forget that Vance is the man who bragged about creating stories about Haitians in Ohio eating cats and dogs.

Nevertheless, this particular story has been lingering for a number of years. I suspect that it's catching fire now because the Trump Administration doesn't care much for Somalis whether they commit fraud or not with the President himself characterizing the community at large as "garbage." A story like this gives Trump and his acolytes an opportunity to pour fuel on the fire and promote hatred and contempt against Somalis. Some have gone as far as to accuse Somalis of using the fraudulently obtained money to fund terrorist groups like al-Shabaab. One of those making those accusations is Christopher Rufo who, last I checked, was peddling the "Haitians eat cats and dogs" bullshit.

When I attended Carleton University in Ottawa in the early 1990's, there was a sizable Somali community amid the civil war which had begun several years earlier. There were stories of welfare fraud and the Somali community tended to find itself singled out though it was truly no more guilty of welfare fraud than any other community. As with what is going on in Minnesota, there were undoubtedly kernels of truth, yet the community at large was being vilified. There have been large scale welfare fraud schemes by segments of the Mormon community in Utah and rightly so, but no one would entertain the idea of casting aspersions on the Mormon community at large and rightly so. Yet critical masses of society exercise no such discretion when it comes to non-white communities like Somalians.

With Walz not seeking a third term, there is speculation that longtime Minnesota Democratic Senator and former presidential aspirant Amy Klobuchar might run in his stead. The state has elected Klobuchar to the Senate five times, so it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility that Minnesota voters would elect her to statewide office as well as federal office. If Minnesotans do elect Klobuchar governor, I wonder if Klobuchar would appoint Walz to the Senate to serve out her term which would end in 2031?

Yet a story like this can linger in the ugliest way imaginable. Given the domination by Democrats in Minnesota in recent years, I could see a backlash against Klobuchar resulting in the election of an anti-Somali, anti-immigrant Republican Governor.

One Bad Man Removes Another Bad Man from Power So He Can Install a New Bad Man in His Place

 

The best way I can sum up President Trump's order to have U.S. military forces capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is that one bad man removed another bad man from power so he can install a new bad man in his place.

Trump basically said so himself:

We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. It has to be judicious. We can't take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind.

What Trump really means is that Maduro's successor has to have the good of Trump in mind.

For her part, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi proclaimed that Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores "will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts." Bondi characterized the pair as "alleged international drug traffickers."

Well, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was a convicted international drug trafficker sentenced to 45 years in prison and yet Trump saw fit to issue him with a presidential pardon.

All of which means Trump doesn't give a shit about international drug trafficking. This is all about rewarding his loyal friends and punishing his enemies. Maduro has long been on Trump's shit list going back to his first term in office when he raised the possibility of military action against him.

Yet it must be said that Maduro is a bad man. Consider this analysis from the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect as of last month:

On 10 January 2025 Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a third presidential term following elections on 28 July 2024, which were widely condemned as fraudulent. Independent tallies from polling centers showed an estimated 67 percent of votes for the leading opposition candidate. Throughout the electoral process and continuing to the present, the government has intensified its persecution of actual or alleged opponents, including ordinary citizens, opposition members, journalists and human rights defenders, to silence dissent and maintain power. Presidential elections were viewed by many Venezuelans as a vital opportunity for a long-term democratic transition and an end to the country’s decade-long multidimensional crisis. Following years of endemic corruption and the gradual erosion of the rule of law, in 2014 mass protests erupted in response to insecurity, hyperinflation and a lack of essential services. Security forces reacted with disproportionate force, torture and sexual violence.

Since then, the Venezuelan government, including the security and intelligence apparatus, has perpetrated systematic arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence and short-term enforced disappearances targeting actual and perceived opponents. Various security forces have also allegedly perpetrated tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings in the name of combating crime, predominantly targeting men between 18 and 30 years-old living in low-income neighborhoods. Over the past decade, an estimated 8 million Venezuelans have left the country in what is considered the largest migration crisis in recent Latin American history.

But what does Trump care about arbitrary detention, torture and il-treatment much less sexual and gender-based violence? Forget about extrajudicial killings. Where it concerns Venezuela, Trump has proven more than willing to engage in extrajudicial killings of his own. I fear that Trump could very well succeed in turning Maduro and his wife into sympathetic figures. 

For now, I have two questions.

First, how will the Venezuelan people react? Will they be initially pleased with Maduro's removal only to grow discontent when life is no better in the next few months than it was under Maduro's regime leading to civil unrest? In which case, how long will it be before Trump order American troops to shoot Venezuelan civilians? Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about the Venezuelan people. He simply wants to install a leader who will do his bidding. If Venezuelan voters do not give the result he wants, then he will simply cry fraud and not allow the will of the people to stand.

Second, how will MAGA react? Will they rally around him? Perhaps in the short term. But how long will it be before the conversation returns to the Epstein files or to Jews in America? And what of Trump's pledge of "no new wars"? However awful Maduro might be, ousting him from power is an act of war.