State of Monday: ALL AT ONCE
The story has since metastasized. Independent sleuths have identified similar fraudulent entities in Washington, Ohio and California.
Greetings, Dear Reader,
Welp, hope you had a happy Christmastime. Hope the kids had fun. Hope the parents had a little downtime. Hope the grandparents had some twinkling in their eyes.
It’s not good news today, I’m afraid.
Let’s get to it.
ALL AT ONCE
We’re faced with a choice.
One would be swift, decisive action. The other giving in to a mix of apathy, incompetence, and rank doomerism.
Until recently, independent YouTuber Nick Shirley was most well-known for doing man-on-the-street interviews. His typical target was unhinged lefties. His typical posture was to ask a series of simple questions and exude calm as these lefties became ever more triggered.
To mix it up, Shirley also did “on-location” reporting, where he’d tour fentanyl or gang-infested neighborhoods, or he’d out open-air scam markets. One of those markets recently got hit with an ICE raid early this year.
Shirley’s most recent on on-location report on daycare and healthcare fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community has rapidly become one of the most-watched videos in the history of X. In it, he enlists an independent researcher and whistleblower who has identified a vast web of fraudulent front companies that are essentially just cashing government checks.
The video shows Shirley walking block to block, door to door, sometimes no farther than a few feet, from one bogus business to the next. Often, Somali women in hijab answer these doors and, in what English they know, refuse to speak.
Shirley says they essentially identified “$100 million” in fraud in just a day’s work.
The video blew up. JD Vance reposted it, so did Don Jr.
Some conservatives pointed out the obvious: Why did this take the work of a 23-year-old YouTuber? Where’s the multibillion-dollar journalism industry been on this?
The short answer is: Totally absent, if not defending Dems and their Somali constituency.
What about the government? If Minnesota Dems are on the take, which they are, can’t the feds just step in?
FBI Director Kash Patel felt compelled to address Shirley’s video in a tweet. In it was a boast that instantly sapped my confidence.
$250 million? That’s it?
You mean to tell me a YouTuber and some motivated boomer identified only as “David” managed to do about half the FBI’s work “to date” in a single day?
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The story has since metastasized. Independent sleuths have identified similar fraudulent entities in Washington, Ohio and California. A few weeks ago, a Minnesota U.S. attorney caused shockwaves by reporting he’d estimate just Medicare alone had been defrauded by somewhere between $9 and $18 billion.
Now it’s looking like if you zoomed out a bit, you might have to add some substantial zeros to that number.
And where is the response? What exactly are we doing?
As you can imagine, Dear Reader, I’m fairly well connected in conservative circles in and out of D.C. These people work in media, politics, polling, campaigns, etc. I’m also in routine touch with folks who are just rank-and-file Republicans.
The general consensus in these circles so far is that Trump hasn’t gone hard enough. There’s a growing disdain for every incremental announcement. Just a few weeks ago, it was that “1.9 million” people had self-deported. So what? Wake me when you hit 20, goes the thinking.
The Shirley video was shocking for two reasons. One was the most obvious: How someone with so few resources could so easily identify massive amounts of fraud done in plain view of the public. Which begs the question: Why the heck aren’t these people being rounded up immediately?
They are very clearly either illegal immigrants, or immigrants with some kind of asylum claim. They’re just as clearly breaking the law. If Nick Shirley can go door to door, why can’t the feds?
Get on the bus, get on the plane, you’re going back to Somalia. Arrested, immediately, stripped of status, denaturalized if necessary. All of you. I don’t care if you’re fleeing civil war. Back to it with you.
I understand there’s a process, but I’d be shocked if the process is the actual problem. Not when our main guy feels comfortable boasting about $250 million in work done on what’s probably a half-trillion-dollar problem. Not when the Trump administration thinks I should be doing backflips just because 2 million people up and left of their own volition.
No, the problem is the elites still aren’t motivated enough.
The next problem is the breaking point. The debt, the fraud, the culture shock of rapidly changing demographics.
At some point the bottom falls out. Chaos often cracks off like water reaching its boiling point. Everywhere all at once.
Will Shirley’s video sink into the incomprehensible ether of other memetic moments? Will Patel actually rally the troops and start kicking in doors?
If this makes sense: I’m holding out hope, but I won’t be holding my breath.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
What Is Brilyn Hollyhand?
That’s it for the free portion of today’s State of the Day.
The full subscriber edition continues below with expanded analysis and additional context.