MAGA hypocrisy is staggering

On December 18th, a top prosecutor in Trump's U.S. Attorney's Office claimed that "at least $9 billion across 14 Medicaid services in Minnesota may be fraudulent." That "may be" is carrying a lot of weight because the best this prosecutor can come up with is that he sees a lot of "red flags." In other words, this is an allegation - but that hasn't stopped MAGA influencers from running with it. 

The hypocrisy of these folks is staggering. Other than the 1,500 people convicted of storming the Capitol of January 6th, Trump has pardoned 89 individuals during his second term. Here are just a few who were convicted of fraud:

1. Philip Esformes - convicted of $1.3 billion in Medicaid fraud.
2. Lawrence Duran - pleaded guilty to $87 million in Medicare fraud.
3. David Gentile - convicted of defrauding 17,000 investors of $1.6 billion.
4. Paul Walczak - owner of Florida nursing homes that pleaded guilty to $7 million in tax fraud.

Again, that's just a few that stood out - and we're talking about more than $3 billion in fraud for defendants who either pleaded guilty or were found guilty by a jury of their peers. But Trump let them off the hook for both jail time and restitution to their victims. 

But it gets worse. According to the Wall Street Journal, the going rate for a Trump pardon is upwards of $1 million. 

So MAGA influencers are lighting their hair on fire over "alleged fraud" in Minnesota while their leader extorts criminal fraudsters to grant them a pardon. 

The lies Nick Shirley is telling about fraud in Minnesota

The first fraud charges against 47 defendants in Minnesota were filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in September 2022 (during the Biden administration). Since then, a total of 92 people have been charged, while 62 have been found or pleaded guilty. The latest charges were filed a week ago.

At first, the whole scandal was mentioned in the national press, but nobody except Minnesotan's paid much attention. Even during the 2024 presidential race, when the state's governor was on the ballot, MAGA folks were more into the lie about "Tampon Tim" than they were about the fraud allegations. 

All of that changed when Donald Trump decided to focus on the fraud as a way to go after Somali immigrants - calling them "garbage." 

Given that this whole scandal is now over three years old, it's been fascinating to watch MAGA influencers line up behind their leader and act like they've just uncovered some kind of bombshell. The latest to do so is a guy named Nick Shirley -  a YouTuber with over 1 million followers.

Last week Shirley posted a video of himself (and fellow sleuth David) traveling around to several Somali-run daycare centers pointing out that there were no children at any of them. It has gone viral on social media platforms like YouTube and X, garnering millions of views. Vice-President Vance reposted it, commenting that Shirley had "done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 [Pulitzer] prizes." And of course, Nick's efforts won him a spot of Fox News.

I doubt that it will come as a surprise to anyone who's actually been paying attention, but the whole video is nothing but lies. It only took me a couple of hours digging into the facts to uncover them. 

The funding Shirley focused on comes from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and goes to states as a block grant. Fifteen years ago, the Government Accountability Office investigated its use in five states that each received more than $100 million in CCDF funding (Illinois, Michigan, New York, Texas, and Washington). They found that "the five states GAO tested lacked controls over child care assistance application and billing processes...leaving the program vulnerable to fraud and abuse." I'm sure HHS Secretary Kennedy will get right on that one...not!

Back in 2019, the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor published a report assessing fraud allegations in the state's CCDF program. Going back five years, they chronicled two federal and thirteen state prosecutions of fraud. 

In January 2025, local news reported that 62 state investigations were underway involving federally funded Minnesota childcare centers. At least one of the centers Shirley visited is highlighted in that report. Care to guess why he found no children? The state pulled its license back in 2024. 

MAGA-world is so consumed with this story that FBI Director Kash Patel felt the need to weigh in on X with this:

As noted above, the charges against Feeding Our Future were brought during the Biden administration, when the so-called "deep state" was still in charge. Patel conveniently left out one defendant - Aimee Bock - the white woman who oversaw the entire fraud scheme. Finally, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur pleaded guilty to the bribery charges in July 2024, during the Biden administration. 

Fox News claims that Shirley "exposed fraud in Minnesota," and the Vice President of the United States called his lies ""useful journalism" on par with Pulitzer Prize winners. Dave Weigel calls this a perfect example of "attention hacking." If you consume right wing media, you're being told that "Democrats bought off Somali votes with billions of dollars of fraud, it would never have been uncovered but for citizen journalism and Trump's DOJ, Tim Walz may go to prison." Not a scintilla of that is true.

While embracing both racism and sexism, MAGA influencers are arguing about what it means to be anti-semitic

Last week Pete Hegseth hosted a "Christmas Worship Service" at the Pentagon. The speaker he invited was Franklin Graham, who said: "We know that God loves. But did you know that God also hates? Do you know that God also is a God of war?"

Graham went on to use an Old Testament story from I Samuel 15 to justify that claim. 

“Samuel said, ‘Now, go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. … Don’t spare them, but kill them, both man and woman, infant, nursing child, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey.’ So Samuel gave the instructions for the mission. Now, people will say, ‘But, Franklin, that is so hard; that’s not the God I believe in.’ Well, you had better believe in him.”

Preaching to Donald Trump's "Department of War," Graham used God to affirm the hatred espoused by this administration and in doing so, quoted a scripture that has been repeatedly used throughout history to justify genocide.

It's worth noting that the most recent use of that scripture came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a way to justify the genocide Israel has been committing in Gaza.  I suspect that Graham (who has been a major cheerleader for the Israeli government) was aware of that - and meant this reference as a signal of his support. 

In the current battle between MAGA extremists, that puts Franklin Graham firmly on the side of people like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin  - who claim that anything short of 100% support for Israel is the equivalent of anti-semitism. 

On the other side of that battle are people like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes who aren't simply opposed to the Israeli government's actions in Gaza, but are openly and forcefully anti-semitic. As an example, take a look at some of the things Owens said in response to Ben Shaprio's speech at Truning Point's Amerifest.

“F*ck you Ben Shapiro and the midget horse you rode in on.”

Candace Owens, responding to Ben Shapiro’s speech at Turning Point USA, mainlines unquestionable Neo-Nazi propaganda, including dangerous Talmudic conspiracies.

Keep in mind that every episode of Candace’s show is… pic.twitter.com/9Dn5gjUINu

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 20, 2025

Amidst the foul language, Owens showcases a book titled "The Talmudic Jew" by August Rohling, a notorious anti-semite whose work relies on mistranslations, selective quotation, and outright fabrication to portray Judaism and the Talmud as inherently immoral and hostile toward non-Jews. She also claims that slavery wasn't a "white men sport." Instead, "Jewish people were in control of the slave trade." 

What I find most interesting about all of this is that, while this entire group of right wing influencers fully support both racism and sexism, they've drawn the line at what it means to be anti-semitic. The choice they're offering MAGA is to either support outright genocide or blatant anti-semitism. It seems that a lot of young Republicans are going with the latter.

Meanwhile, the man who is most likely to be the next Republican candidate for president refers to all of this as some kind of "purity test" while claiming that Democrats simply take orders from our Jewish overlord - George Soros. 

What scares Donald Trump and his enablers about so-called "shithole countries"

For almost a year now we've been subjected to outrageous actions from the Trump administration. It can be hard to comprehend it all and attempting to do so is exhausting. That's why I appreciated an article by Thomas Zimmer where he connected the dots on several of the most deplorable items, including that:

• Trump called Somali immigrants "garbage."
• Trump permanently paused migration from what he called "shithole countries."
• The administration has attempted to overturn birthright citizenship.
• The administration published a National Security Strategy stating that European countries face "civilizational erasure" as a result of their immigration policies.
• VP Vance and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) made speeches spelling out a "blood and soil" definition of what it means to be American.
• Vance/neo-Nazis spread a lie that Haitians were eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio.

By now the common theme of these items is perhaps obvious. Here's how Zimmer connects the dots:

[The president] is not just a grumpy old man indulging in racist stereotypes, but a politician committed to a worldview shaped and organized by racism and white supremacy. What is on display here is not just personal bigotry. Donald Trump pursues a political project for which white nationalism serves as an organizing principle...

Donald Trump is deeply convinced that powerful white men like him have a right to be at the top, that it is their prerogative to exert power over others. And how dare anyone object, complain, have the audacity to curtail the ability of men like him to do as they please.

To say that race is an organizing principle that structures the way Donald Trump perceives of the world is not to claim it is the only one. Gender is crucially important, as is wealth. What Donald Trump believes in is a political and societal order of sharp, brutal hierarchies. That’s why Trump is so perfect as an avatar for today’s Right and their anti-egalitarian, anti-pluralistic project that runs on radicalizing grievance. The white nationalism, the patriarchal domination, the oligarchic control, the Christian supremacism: They are all tied together.

As Zimmer points out, this is not just about Donald Trump. These "sharp, brutal hierarchies" are what is animating the right wing today. As one former Republican official put it, "I’m hoping these new conservatives are mutants, but I’m not so sure about that anymore."

Of course, most of this has been evident since Trump's first term. The new piece is the administration's National Security Strategy (NSS), which applies the so-called "great replacement theory" beyond the borders of the United States and onto the rest of the globe. Much as the changing demographics in this country became the impetus for electing Trump the first time, right wingers are now fear-mongering about a global threat to "Western civilization" (ie, white people).

For example, Nick Fuentes reacted to the NSS by calling it "an explicit acknowledgement of white genocide from the highest level." Perhaps you've noticed that there is no mass movement to kill white people, so WTH is he talking about? 

By way of explanation, Elon Musk retweeted this with the comment: "If current trends continue, Whites will go from being a small minority of world population today to virtually extinct!"

White people are on the verge of extinction

Global population of white people:

100 years ago roughly 35%
50 years ago roughly 20%
25 years ago 15%
Today just 8%

White people are the minorities and must take their countries back. No more tolerance. No more suicidal empathy pic.twitter.com/uYLgEEHnTU

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) December 2, 2025

It's not that there is a mass movement to kill white people, it's the old white supremacist trope that "they are replacing us." So let's unpack that one for a moment.

The first problem with those numbers becomes obvious if you do an internet search asking for the percentage of the global population that is white. Other than white nationalists like Musk, you'll find that no one really knows because there is no consistent definition of what it means to be "white." As an example, up until last year, the U.S. census counted people from the Middle East and North Africa as "white."  

On a somewhat more humorous note, this is how one person responded to Musk:

The black figures on that map from WallStreetApes represent what Trump refers to as "shithole" countries. They are concentrated in what is sometimes referred to as the "global south." It is true that these countries have been wracked with extreme poverty. But over the last three decades, that has started to change.

Notice the dramatic decreases in Asia, but not a lot of change in Africa. However, when we look at the 20 countries with the highest GDP growth in 2025, twelve of them are in Africa, seven are in Asia, and one is in South America. Here's the big picture:

It is also true that, due to higher birth rates, the population of the global south is expected to grow much faster than the rest of the world.

The pretty gruesome truth is that all of this helps explain why Elon Musk and his DOGE boys began their destruction by eliminating USAID. As noted by George Ingram, that agency was at least partially responsible for:

• Reducing extreme poverty from 1.9 billion people to 736 million.
• Cutting maternal, infant, and child mortality rates in half.
• Raising global life expectancy from 65 years to 72.

We now know that those DOGE cuts have led to the "public man-made death" of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of whom are children. 

As I wrote back in 2017, the gains against extreme poverty were also attributed in large part to globalization and the advent of free trade. So there is a strong connection between Trump's tariffs and white nationalism.

In the end, what is scaring these white supremacists is that black and brown people are just beginning to threaten white Western European dominance - and they'll do almost anything to stop that from happening.

One of Trump's enablers, Christopher Caldwell, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times lauding the NSS. He blamed the United States for the so-called "threat to Western Civilization" and in doing so, might have given us the antidote. He referred to the "three and a half decades of American-style liberal international order, under the banner of 'C’mon, people now, smile on your brother.'”

So perhaps we should be paying more attention to this Youngbloods tune from 1967 and the choice we currently face between love and fear. 

"Ungrateful" is the new "uppity"

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Republican Speaker Mike Johnson is having some trouble with the female members of his caucus. Here's what Annie Karni reported in the New York Times (emphasis mine): 

Some of [the Republican women] said privately that the speaker had failed to listen to them or engage in direct conversations on major political and policy issues, suggesting that doing so was a cultural challenge for Mr. Johnson — an evangelical Christian who has often voiced firm views about the distinct roles men and women should play in society.

"Cultural challenge" is an interesting euphemism for sexism. But there you have it.

One of the Republican women in Congress who has been feuding with Johnson is Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who called the speaker a "habitual liar." Here is how an anonymous Republican congressional aide (probably coached by Johnson) responded:

...after Mr. Johnson had provided Ms. Stefanik with office space and a budget for what the aide described as “a fake job and a fake title,” he would have expected her to be more gracious.

"How dare you not bow in gratitude to the man in charge who patronizingly gave you a fake position?!"

I was immediately reminded of all the times VP Vance has demanded gratitude (or bemoaned the lack thereof).

1. Former VP Kamala Harris wasn’t fit to lead the country because she wasn’t “grateful for it.”  
2. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn't say "thank you" to Trump often enough 
3. Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, Zohran Mamdani didn't feel gratitude to this country 
4. Joy Reid was advised to "show a little gratitude."

It's no coincidence that - other than Zelensky - all of these people are women and/or people of color. Of course, the Black woman who is most likely to be accused of being ungrateful is Michelle Obama.

Just like all of the other forms of racism/sexism we're seeing from MAGA these days, this one is nothing new. The trope dates back to our founding, as was pointed out by George Boulukos in "The Grateful Slave."

Slaves in the Americas had much to be angry about. One thing that must have particularly annoyed them was that masters and mistresses expected the enslaved to appreciate all that was done on their behalf. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century...the sentimental notion of the grateful slave had so permeated the minds of slave owners that the latter imagined that those they oppressed thanked them for the various indignities forced upon them.

Diana Butler Bass calls this "malignant gratitude."

In American history, the most vicious use of malignant gratitude was in the slave system. Slaveholders believed that those they enslaved “owed” them gratitude — for the “gifts” of food, clothing, housing, and work that the “benevolent” masters had given them. The greatest of all the gifts bestowed by masters on the enslaved was Christianity — and white southern preachers regularly regaled those held in captivity to appreciate the goodness of their overlords. For the enslaved, if you failed to be sufficiently grateful in your attitude and your hard work you were an ingrate. And ingratitude...resulted in punishment by both the whip and the law.

In a twisted way, this kind of malignant gratitude presupposes that it is the oppressed who are indebted to their oppressor.

What is being asked of marginalized people is not gratitude. It is debt. We are being asked to feel indebted, because debt is what maintains racial and social hierarchies in the US. 

That is the assumption behind the state of Florida's history standards claiming that enslaved Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their benefit.” It is a lie meant to imply that Black Americans should have some level of gratitude for their enslavement.

I have nothing against gratitude, if for no other reason than I have an awful lot to be thankful for in my life. But that is gratitude freely given. It is a whole other thing for someone to demand, or even expect gratitude. 

White men like J.D. Vance and Mike Johnson play identify politics by assuming that they are in charge and the rest of us should not only shut up about how they exclude us, we should be grateful for their dominance. They are only a hair's breadth away from calling us "uppity" if we do otherwise.