[Powerline] Our local Fox affiliate has exposed or publicized what appears to be rampant fraud in the state daycare program for low income families. The story prominently features Somali daycare providers; they seem to have discovered how easy it is to rip off this particular welfare program among the panoply of such Minnesota welfare programs. Jeff Baillon’s original story (video and text) is posted here. It’s a hot story.
Over the weekend the Star Tribune reported the indignant response of Somali daycare providers here. The story refers to "[a] series of high-profile criminal prosecutions involving Somali-owned day cares" that have "put the industry on the defensive." The industry, however, apparently has more than one Minnesota minority childcare association to speak up on behalf of the Somali providers.
The Star Tribune also published an editorial that (among other things) tries to sort out facts from implications and bring the scope of the possible fraud into focus. The editorial is posted here. I found it useful.
Baillon’s story elicited a hearing over the state legislature before its adjournment on Sunday. It also prompted the state legislative auditor to undertake investigation into the program. Baillon reports that development here.
When the State Department first directed Somali refugees to Minnesota in the early 1990’s, I believe it had Minnesota’s social service welfare complex in mind. In February 2015 Kelly Riddell pointed out in the Washington Times that Somali refugees were to "take advantage of some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs." Riddell quoted Professor Ahmed Samatar of Macalester College in St. Paul: "Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state."
With the daycare fraud story, we have the emergence of the "Minnesota women" featured in the Star Tribune story linked above. It put me in mind of the "Minnesota men" charged and convicted of terrorism offenses in mid-2016 before Judge Michael Davis. Governor Mark Dayton has instructed us not to entertain guilty thoughts about immigration and assimilation in such cases. He has sought to retard public discussion of obvious issues, and you can see the same inhibition in the Star Tribune editorial.
My friends at City Journal invited me to write something about the daycare case. City Journal has published my column under the heading "Mogadishu, Minnesota." I confess to the guilty thought that what we may have here is assimilation, Minnesota style. Come and get me, Governor Dayton!
#1
Governor Mark Dayton has instructed us not to entertain guilty thoughts about immigration and assimilation in such cases. He has sought to retard public discussion of obvious issues, and you can see the same inhibition in the Star Tribune editorial.
But guns are a different matter. There the same people will broad brush entire sectors of the population in a nano-second.
#2
OK, so we shut down Mueller and use the money for Somali day care. It's a win-win.
Or we tell Mueller and his battalion-sized staff that from now on out they're working for free. "Bob, you don't have anything against Somali children getting good daycare, do you?"
Posted by: Matt ||
05/22/2018 10:49 Comments ||
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[Breitbart] "ABC News has learned President Trump will meet today at the White House with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The meeting is scheduled for 3pm. I’m told this "demand" will be a topic of discussion," ABC’s Jon Karl tweeted, referencing Trump’s demand that the Justice Department probe possible surveillance of his 2016 campaign ordered by federal law enforcement officials.
[DAWN] As temperatures soar, at least 65 people have died in different areas of Karachi from heatstroke, Faisal Edhi of the Edhi Foundation told DawnNews TV on Monday.
According to Faisal, 114 bodies were brought to the Edhi Foundation's morgues in Karachi's Korangi and Sohrab Goth areas in the past three days, out of which at least 65 had died from heatstroke. Most of the citizens who died from heatstroke were residents of Landhi and Korangi, Faisal said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#4
The elderly are particular vulnerable to heatstroke. They seem to lack awareness of being overheated. The large death toll in the Paris heat wave of years ago was high in the elderly, as was the death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
#5
Whenever I see stories like this, I always wonder is this a fresh new outrage or is it just part of an ongoing process, and if so, what is the trend or delta?
A bit of googling turns up this headline from 2015: Pakistan heatwave: Death toll crosses 800 people in Sindh
Apparently, summertime heatstroke deaths in Pakistan are totally unprecedented. At least in the modern sense of "unprecedented", meaning "since the last time it happened". Yes, it sucks to be dead, but this is why God invented air conditioning.
[AnNahar] U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... on Monday tightened financial sanctions against Venezuela following what the U.S. called a "sham" election, making it harder for the government to sell-off state assets.
The White House said Trump signed an executive order barring Americans from buying debt obligations from Venezuela, instruments officials said had been used to garner much-needed revenue for the cash-starved regime.
[PRESSTV] Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi calls on foreign sides to respect the vote of the Venezuelan people in the country's presidential election and support the establishment of political stability and economic development in Caracas.
"Holding the election and its result despite domestic pressure and foreign threats and sanctions is a big success and victory for democracy in Venezuela and the country's government and nation," Qassemi said on Monday.
He once again expressed the Islamic Theocratic Republic's solidarity with the Venezuelan government and nation and its full readiness to further strengthen mutual relations with the Latin American country.
Nicolas Maduro has been re-elected for a second term in office as Venezuela’s president after he took 68 percent of votes - more than three times as many as his main challenger, Henri Falcon.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like Pelosi should weigh in next and commend Maduro for his "Free and Fair" Election ? And if you can't trust Iran when it comes to "democracy" then Who can you trust?
#2
respect the vote of the Venezuelan people in the country's presidential election and support the establishment of political stability and economic development in Caracas.
Those are mutually exclusive
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2018 7:39 Comments ||
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[PRESSTV] At least three people were killed and nine others maimed in Ukraine's pro-Russia eastern region in the latest surge in violence between pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian army, the authorities from both sides said Monday.
The latest casualties brought the corpse count to nine people over the past five days, marking the sharpest spike in the long-running conflict in recent months.
The Ukrainian army reported two soldiers were killed and four maimed in fighting near the government-controlled village some 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the separatists' de facto capital of Donetsk.
Authorities in the eastern regions said one of their fighters was killed and another one maimed in the renewed festivities along the front line.
Four civilians in Gorlivka, an industrial town in one of the two separatist-held regions, were also maimed in mortar shelling, they said.
A series of periodic truce deals have helped lower the level of violence in Ukraine's east but have not fully ended bloodshed.
The situation has tanked again in recent days with two Ukrainian soldiers killed in fighting on Thursday and four people, including two civilians, dying on Friday.
"Last week was in many ways the worst we have seen so far this year," the mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... monitoring the conflict said Monday.
"In total, we recorded 7,700 ceasefire violations."
More than 10,000 people have been killed since the anti-government protests broke out in April 2014 following Russia's integration of Crimea.
Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of funneling troops and arms across the border to fan the flames of the conflict.
Moscow has denied the allegations. No, no! Certainly not! despite overwhelming evidence that it has been involved in the fighting and its explicit political support for the pro-Russia forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2018 00:00 ||
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Ukraine's pro-Russia eastern region
We generally condemn this behavior, but in the larger context hasn't Israel engaged in the same behavior on the West Bank?
I'm conflicted, to a point, about border hardlines. Many regions of south Texas are wholly Mexican, but I'm not willing to surrender the lands to another country any more than giving Minnesota to Somalia or DC to the communists...
[DAWN] China launched a relay satellite on Monday as part of a groundbreaking program to be the first to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon later this year.
The satellite, lofted into space aboard a Long March-4C rocket, will facilitate communication between controllers on Earth and the Chang'e 4 mission, the China National Space Administration said on its website.
China hopes to become the first country to soft-land a probe on the moon's far side, also known as the dark side because it faces away from Earth and is comparatively unknown.
The satellite, named Queqiao, or "Magpie Bridge," after an ancient Chinese folk tale, was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Space Administration said.
The launch is a "key step," but the satellite's mission must still overcome challenges including making multiple adjustments to its orbit, "braking" near the moon and using lunar gravity to its advantage, project manager Zhang Lihua was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
According to the administration and website space.com, Queqiao was expected to arrive shortly at the Earth-moon Lagrange point 2, a gravitationally stable spot located 64,000 kilometers beyond the far side of the moon.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
"Far side moon landing" sounds like a Garry Larson cartoon
#5
Interesting, the original headline and article said "dark side of the moon".
I guess someone finally caught and corrected the error.
Still, because of that, I ignored the original story as it is obvious that the writer and whomever wrote the press release had no clue what they were talking about!
[Guardian] The Swedish government has begun sending all 4.8m of the country’s households a public information leaflet telling the population, for the first time in more than half a century, what to do in the event of a war.
Om krisen eller kriget kommer (If crisis or war comes) explains how people can secure basic needs such as food, water and heat, what warning signals mean, where to find bomb shelters and how to contribute to Sweden’s "total defence".
The 20-page pamphlet, illustrated with pictures of sirens, warplanes and families fleeing their homes, also prepares the population for dangers such as cyber and terror attacks and climate change, and includes a page on identifying fake news.
[EurekAlert] Nanoparticles derived from tea leaves inhibit the growth of lung cancer cells, destroying up to 80% of them, new research by a joint Swansea University and Indian team has shown.
The team made the discovery while they were testing out a new method of producing a type of nanoparticle called quantum dots. These are tiny particles which measure less than 10 nanometres. A human hair is 40,000 nanometres thick.
Although nanoparticles are already used in healthcare, quantum dots have only recently attracted researchers' attention. Already they are showing promise for use in different applications, from computers and solar cells to tumour imaging and treating cancer.
Quantum dots can be made chemically, but this is complicated and expensive and has toxic side effects. The Swansea-led research team were therefore exploring a non-toxic plant-based alternative method of producing the dots, using tea leaf extract.
Tea leaves contain a wide variety of compounds, including polyphenols, amino acids, vitamins and antioxidants. The researchers mixed tea leaf extract with cadmium sulphate (CdSO4) and sodium sulphide (Na2S) and allowed the solution to incubate, a process which causes quantum dots to form. They then applied the dots to lung cancer cells.
#1
BP: Can you arrange a couple of modestly paid research positions for us on the Swansea team? In fact, a small cottage with a Rover Velar and I'll forgo the wages.
[Telegraph] Removing shoes when entering the house could help people stay slim, scientists claim.
Removing shoes when entering the house and swapping carpet for wooden floors could help people stay slim because it prevents environmental chemicals accumulating in the house, scientists have claimed.
According to new research presented at the European Society of Endocrinology in Barcelona, everyday products contain ‘obesogens’ which interfere with hormones and promote the build up of a fat in the body, Researchers at the Universities of Aveiro and Beira Interior in Portugal carried out a review into the current surveys and studies on obesogenic chemicals to see where people are most likely to come into contact with them.
They found that diet, house dust, and everyday products such as cleaning chemicals, kitchenware or cosmetics are the biggest sources of contaminants.
#5
All the researched links to chemicals may be true, but these do not suggest ways to ameliorate the situation of an ever increasing average body mass in the population with its associated ailments. "This is how it's done" is what I would like to read about.
#1
A spokeswoman for the nation's largest teachers union says it's no surprise these legislative efforts are failing.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/22/2018 10:38 Comments ||
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#2
Given that an entire sector of the education establishment is OK with drugging a portion of their classes cause they can't deal with them, I'm not overwhelmingly in support of giving those same teachers a gun.
h/t Instapundit
Exposure to common medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has increased by more than 60% in US children and adolescents, according to a new study.
The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, looked at all calls to US poison control centers for unintentional or intentional exposure to ADHD medications between 2000 and 2014 among children and adolescents. The researchers found that the number of calls increased from 7,018 in 2000 to 11,486 in 2014 -- a 64% increase. Why kill the potential opposition (intelligent, imaginative boys grow up to be men, and such men are dangerous), when you can drug them?
#1
Guess who disproportionately requests the drugging?
If males, were to dominate in an occupational proportion similar to primary teachers, had demanded females be drugged for their [insert your descriptive] activity, it would be denounced in the most strident terms.
[HudsonValley360] A woman was found guilty Monday of spraying fake blood on the steps of the Alexandria, Virginia, home of National Rifle Association lobbyist Chris Cox in January.
If she does not comply, she could owe another $500.
She is also under a temporary restraining order that bars her from Cox's wife's business and from NRA offices in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
And on Monday after court, Hill was served with a warrant for another vandalism charge, stemming from a similar incident in October. Nebraska? Seriously?! There is something very wrong in Americas colleges.
Melody Vaccaro, vice president of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, came to support Hill.
She said Cox was a hypocrite for demanding prosecution and a protective order over fake blood while lobbying for open carrying of deadly weapons across the country.
"We think this is the NRA using the criminal justice system to reign terror on regular people," Vaccaro said. And other (aligned) places too I guess.
#1
Once upon a time, college professor was a respectable occupation. Nowadays, they seem to fill the ecological niche formerly occupied by unmedicated lunatics.
#2
Research Assistant Professor = nontenured. People like her are: (a) desperate, and (b) know only one way (being a loud leftard - note the total absence of publications in her CV*) for academic advancement.
*I remember when you couldn't get PhD without publications.
#5
Does Virginia still have 'chain gangs'? Maybe a few hundred hours scrubbing graffiti off of walls might get the point across that defacing other people's property is a bad idea.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PRESSTV] Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi calls on foreign sides to respect the vote of the Venezuelan people in the country's presidential election and support the establishment of political stability and economic development in Caracas.
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
