The Deeper Fraud

[author note for posterity: this research was done before the Maduro and Walz international and domestic news events of the first weekend of January 2026. I think that gives this analysis an interesting point in time marker to test the extent to which ‘the fraud issue’ is tied to one person vs. being entrenched across the system and what happens as the national attention span moves on]

Now that we’re all experts on food, fraud, and the frozen tundra – that Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Great Whiteish North, the People’s Socialist Republic of Minnesota, West Norway, South Canada, Somaliopolis, and the MR AI chatbot’s personal favorite Scandimolia – it’s time for a deeper dive.

Obviously for regular TBPers, pointing out that our whole system is fake (while endlessly entertaining) isn’t particularly insightful. However, on the off chance that the 15 minutes of fame for the Somali Fraud Odyssey helps in raising broader awareness amongst both Rep-adjacent and Dem-adjacent folks, I am offering this as an introductory reference to the larger fraud of our system. Something that can hopefully age relatively gracefully as we transition to the next episode of Drug War: Venezuela or Iran: No Nukes II or Denmark: Fall of NATO or whatever airs next week.

 

After all, if you’re new to Questioning Your Betters, this system of ours can be a pretty confusing place. So if you’re a tad conspiracy-curious but not yet a full fledged theorist, this post is for you. Also if you have a large bag of popcorn, the MR AI chatbot’s #1 recommended prep supply for this Fourth Turning.

Personally, I like to use Tennessee for case studies in public policy since it’s a place with relatively open/transparent governance as well as serving as a non-coastal and non-‘blue’ state for those still stuck within the confines of the two party system. So bear with me as I explore new terrain for analysis in flyover country: Small Pop d/b/a Minnesota.

What exactly has happened with fraud in Minnesota?

First things first. If you’ve been living under a rock (or, you know, just being a normal person who doesn’t follow political economy closely), several dozen people have been prosecuted by the US Department of Justice in Minnesota for defrauding public programs designed to feed people. That is a multi-year story that for most of those years was followed by nerds interested in the exciting Venn diagram overlap of criminal justice and accounting.

Then in November 2025, the topic jumped into general alternative media consciousness, in particular because of City Journal (Manhattan Institute). Then in December, the topic became the national issue du jour, in particular due to Nick Shirley (Even NPR finally begrudgingly reported the mission of conservative independent journalism: “Here to entertain and bring the truth to all”. I think they mean it as an insult to Nick Shirley rather than an aspiration, but whatevs).

To oversimplify, what happened is that the federal government (USFG) through department of agriculture (USDA) tasked states with spending lots of money on meals for child and adult care centers in 2020. I’ll let you dear reader discern what was going on in 2020.

So USDA gave money to Minnesota’s education department who gave money to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who gave money to other NGOs who fed people. Or something.

It turned out the ‘or something’ was a huge part of the overall program. One NGO in particular – Feeding Our Future – became the center of a scandal exceeding $250 million in fraud. Not hyperbolic, sensationalist fraud. The actual illegal stuff that was so brazenly criminal real people ended up being prosecuted for it. Think about how bad it has to be to get to that point. More Americans have now been prosecuted for this fraud than all the banksters, war criminals, Epstein clients, Russia hoaxers, and Clinton emailers combined.

Feeding Our Future is the beginning of the underlying story

A lot of the framing has been to say that this is a story about one specific organization, Feeding Our Future. But what is far more revealing is to understand that this basic model of money and associated regulations flowing from DC to states/NGOs is not exceptional at all. It’s how almost all federal money flows outside of a handful of unique programs like Social Security’s Old Age and Survivor’s Insurance Program (OASI) and IRS tax credits (like the child tax credit).

That, in short, is the deeper fraud: federal programs that claim to help people yet give the money to organizations rather than the purported beneficiaries who, supposedly, are the whole reason for the program existing in the first place. The longer version is that it gets worse. A lot worse.

Wait, how does it get worse than a quarter of a billion dollars in fraud?

It’s a fair question, and entire books will end up written about this affair that fail to capture the details exhaustively. But there are four important themes that can be analyzed in fewer-ish words.

First, it gets worse because it turns out the fraud wasn’t just about the food programs. In an (almost) unbelievable level of greed and carelessness, some of the exact same fine folks defrauding food programs from the USDA also decided to defraud healthcare programs from the department of health and human services (HHS), particularly through Medicaid billings.

And then on top of that, it appears that some fine folks running daycares have been receiving federal funds for childcare assistance without having, shall we say, robust records of exactly what services they’ve been providing or the eligibility of the kiddos in attendance. Oops.

Second, it gets worse because it turns out the fraud wasn’t just in Minnesota. See, one of the early ways the narrative got framed amongst the ‘alternative’ media was to blame the State of Minnesota or Governor Tim Walz or something that could be geographically contained. But the more people started asking questions, the more activity in other states became suspicious, too. The common denominator, it turned out, wasn’t any localized state official but rather that these are federal programs.

Third, it gets worse because it turns out that the mainstream media has been intentionally un-curious about fraud in social services. Now again, that’s not newsworthy for TBPers. But it is worth pointing out if you’re unfamiliar with how bad the media is. It’s not just that legacy corporate media covered the story poorly. It’s that they actively protected the fraudsters. The act of asking questions and discussing facts was an affront to establishment journalism. And you can see how offended they are now that pranksters with YouTube channels are better at asking questions than overpaid media personalities play acting as journalists.

Fourth, it gets worse because it turns out Feeding Our Future isn’t the only big NGO involved.

No way, this is a scandal about Feeding Our Future. There can’t possibly be others?

Yes way. Set aside healthcare assistance and childcare assistance for a second, as well as national implications. Let’s go back to just food assistance solely in Minnesota. In that limited domain, just in one state, there’s another organization with the same basic program model. I realize that your brain may be resisting even entertaining that possibility, so let’s do some boring math [well, more honestly, let’s let some accounting nerds  do some basic math . I don’t have time for this]:

Government money paid to NGO #1 for food programs

$246,045,150

Government money paid to NGO #2 for food programs

$214,710,944

That’s right, a second NGO was paid over $200 million for food programs.

And that’s an example of the deeper fraud in operational terms. It’s not about specific illegal behavior. It’s an entire business model where federal programs from DC shove massive amounts of money and regulations at organizations whose financial incentive is for the problem to continue, not for the problem to be solved.

As curmudgeonly as the Millennial Rabble pseudonym (and MR AI chatbot character) is, I was unprepared for the next level of surprise. The top administrators of those two NGOs? They aren’t random executives in the wide world of nonprofits. Turns out that they know each other. NGO 1 is Feeding Our Future. NGO 2 is Partners in Nutrition d/b/a Partners in Quality Care (PIQC). Side note – interesting, isn’t it, how often an NGO that takes government money goes publicly by a name other than its legal name with the IRS? Perfectly legal way to make it more difficult to research the organization’s finances and conduct.

So there are two possibilities. One, PIQC is a good actor. Two, PIQC did similar things as Feeding Our Future. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a Congressional oversight committee interested in knowing which is which? But interestingly, even though the committee has sent letters to pretty low-level education department employees , they haven’t sent (or at least haven’t publicly posted) a similar letter requesting testimony from the woman who was head of Partners in Nutrition/Partners in Quality Care in 2020.

Take a look at compensation

This leads to another component of the deeper fraud. When you hear government bureaucrat, you probably think someone in charge. But the power dynamic is often flipped when state governments work with large charities, school districts, universities, hospitals, Fortune 1000 companies, and similar non-governmental bureaucracies. The state bureaucrats passing on the federal program monies and regulations almost always make lower wages than the NGO employees they are nominally overseeing. That’s a general statement. Let’s do some concrete math.

Partners in Quality Care had time in 2020 – remember, they are a charity desperately solving hunger among vulnerable children and adults during The Pandemic! – to pay their director, Kara Lomen, about $205,000. I say about because the IRS forms are vague regarding NGO reportable compensation, so the total figure ($232,000) likely includes a fair amount of non-wage benefits, primarily health insurance, that I deducted to get the $205K salary estimate. Make your own adjustments as you see fit.

For comparison, that is over twice as much money as Emily Honer made in 2020. Honer is one of the state bureaucrats who received a letter from the federal bureaucrats wondering how to do an oversight hearing without talking about the elephant in the room that is the highly compensated employees at NGOs that receive federal dollars. And of course, another one of those state bureaucrats (Jodi Harpstead, who, unlike Honer, was a high ranking official as a political appointee at another department, Human Services) came from Lutheran Social Services. Another big NGO that receives public funding.

Their website doesn’t list financial data from 2020, but check out 2022: four different administrators were paid over $200K, including the top dog with pay nearing $400K. Pretty sweet gig for overseeing “LGBTIA2S+ SUPPORT GROUPS”, “REFUGEE SERVICES”, “CAREGIVER & COMPANION SERVICES”, and other assorted activities which are all perfectly legal and all perfectly dependent on government money. But don’t worry, 

“THE ORGANIZATION’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS CONTRACTS WITH AN INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT ON A BIANNUAL BASIS FOR MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SERVICES RELATED TO EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION.”

Not to mention: 

“THE ORGANIZATION PROVIDES THE PRESIDENT A COUNTRY CLUB MEMBERSHIP FOR THE PURPOSE OF DONOR RELATIONS AND OTHER BUSINESS PURPOSES. THIS AMOUNT IS INCLUDED IN THE TAXABLE INCOME.”

Apparently there aren’t enough progressive Lutheran donors in the entire ‘blue’ state of Minnesota to pay for those invaluable services themselves. But without top management, society would collapse! So pony up taxpayers, it’s Christ’s work after all. Gotta love that separation of church and state.

If this is new terrain for you, pause for a second. Think about how fake, how inauthentic, that makes every conversation about every (supposedly) controversial issue nationwide. Even progressive Americans don’t want to donate money for things like gender ideology and refugee services. That’s not an ideological or partisan statement. It’s cold, hard math.

Beyond food programs

The last theme I want to address is looking beyond both Feeding Our Future and Partners in Quality Care. Food fraud is a big issue that deserves prosecution where criminal conduct can be proven (and lots of people have been prosecuted).

At the same time, they are small fish. Industrial agriculture is just one part of federal funding. The bulk of federal money and regulatory activity flows through the Big Four frauds:

Healthcare

National Security (defense/military/intelligence/etc.)

FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate)

Education

The model of sending money to organizations doesn’t work. Never mind criminal fraud. At a deeper level, it’s fundamentally dishonest and has warped our entire conversation about limited government. If a group of people are worth helping at a national level, then the federal government should send money directly to those people. If a group of people aren’t worth helping, then the federal government shouldn’t be spending money at all.

Either way, large, bureaucratic NGOs don’t add value. They add administrative inefficiency. This is one of the larger themes I have been offering since I stopped lurking. I argue that the marginal utility of scale, of central planning, has been decreasing broadly, possibly even already turned negative. And as awareness spreads about the deeper fraud of the entire concept of sending money to organizations rather than people, NGOs will be at the center of this Fourth Turning. Don’t know how it ends, and no guarantee that things get better, but I remain cautiously optimistic that the larger house of cards will disintegrate as more and more ordinary citizens continue to ask simple questions about what, exactly, the NGOs do that make them worthy of federal dollars in the first place.

But of course, we know why they need all that sweet, sweet fiat. It’s for the children, dontcha know?