You Make That Deal? I'd Make That Deal!

A Somali has culturally enriched Minnesota by stealing at least $11 million dollars from the state's Medicaid program and was caught doing so.

He was given a choice at his arraignment:  

1. Pay $50k in bail money and surrender his passport; or

2.  Pay $150k and keep his passport.

Being a criminal but not a complete idiot, Abdirashid Ismail Said chose option #2, and promptly took his passport and fled with the country with the stolen $11 million dollars.

American Wire: $11M Medicaid fraud suspect flees US after judge lets him post bail, keep passport

I'd make that deal, how about you, you make that deal? I don't blame ya! Damn good deal!

That he was given such a deal is a sad commentary on the state of the justice system and judges in Minessota.   I mean, they clearly cannot do math, and have never heard of game theory at all.

How Much Fraud Is In The US Economy?

Mr. B. looked with some dread at the question: How much of the US economy is fake?

If you consider US state and federal government going to waste and fraud, the answer is a heckuva lot. 

US Government Accountability Office puts annual fraud in US government programs at 233 Billion to 521 billion per year.

Elon Musk had an estimate of annual fraud in US federal government spending at 1.5 trillion – equivalent to slightly over half of all the 2.5 trillion dollars in taxes collected from American individual taxpayers per year.

In other words, if we got rid of the fraud at the federal level, we could pay half the federal income taxes we pay now with the exact same results.

This isn't even touching wasteful government spending at the Federal and State level.

At the State level, there's quite a lot going on as we saw in Minnesota and California which ranges into the billions of dollars.

We've got some of that here in Michigan, such as the billion dollars  spent on increasing student reading scores, only to have the effect be minimal and barely measurable:

 

The Detroit News: Michigan falls short of reading goal despite $1 billion in spending

 

Any bets that some of that spending went straight to waste and fraud at the Michigan variation of Learing centers? 

 

Nor does it cover the golden parachutes politicians prepared for their cronies in Dearborn Heights, to the tune of millions of taxpayer money spent 

 

The Detroit News: Former Dearborn Heights mayor inked severance contracts worth over $1M, records show 

 

Nor even the $20 million that went from Gov Whitmer's MEDC diect to embezzler Fey Beydoun.  Small potatoes in the world of government spending fraud, but $20 million is $20 million, after all.

 

Nor does this cover the nominally non-fraudulent but inefficient government spending such as on internet broadband connectivity and EV chargers and California high-speed rail to nowhere (which may indeed have fraudulent spending as a part of it).

 

Nor does it count the wasteful spending of billions of dollars by businesses at government directive or urging such as the spending on trying to wholesale replace internal combustion vehicles with electric ones. 

 

Fraud and wasteful spending combined at the federal and state levels easily exceeds a couple trillion dollars each year and every year. 

 

Perhaps it is time that stops? 

It Is Not Just That Politicians Can Be Bought

But how cheaply they can be bought.

The extensive Somali fraud that is now estimated at over $9 Billion dollars, while remarkable for the amount of the funds misappropriated, is unremarkable for the number  of kickbacks and donations the perpetrators were making to Democrat politicians.

Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz apparently received all of $10,000 in donations from Somali fraudsters: Washington Examiner: Walz received $10,000 from donors tied to Somali-run day care centers.

$10k in return for billions stolen with the state being remarkably, if not deliberately, incurious of the ongoing thefts and operations. 

The Feeding our Future scandal that bilked the state and feds of $250 million alone donated $50,000 to Minnesota Democrats.

A $50k payoff to the Dems in return for pocketing $250 million is not a bad investment at all for the fraudsters. 

The Sopranos Must Be Regretting Their Life Choices

All the drama, all the deaths, and all the hardship involved in racketeering, theft and garbage schemes -- and for what? A pretty mid take and most of their crew ending up in prison or in the ground.

Instead, they could have just opened some daycare centers and did some medicaid fraud in Minneapolis and stole billions the easy way.

MSN:  Somali scammers allegedly stole almost as much in Minnesota as entire Somalia GDP

Tax Day 2025

This is the day where the IRS demonstrates it's got what it takes to take what you got.

I wish today was also Election Day so people could reflect and vote on whether they were getting their money's worth from the taxes they pay. Politicians are too smart to do that.

I've already completed my taxes and filed my business and personal returns. Not enjoying the, in my view, rather excessive amount I'm paying to both the state and the feds, that's for sure.

For those of you who haven't, it's time to get it done or file an extension quickly.

For those of you who think there's some magical incantation in the tax code that can let you out of filing, you're sadly wrong.

Anybody who tells you not to file on the basis that: the tax system is "voluntary"; that you're a state citizen and not a United States citizen; that you're not an "individual"; that wages are not income; or that Section 869 of the tax code says you don't have to pay taxes is setting you up for a really bad fall.

This fall can include not just penalties and interest on top of the taxes you owe, but also possible misdemeanor and felony convictions for being a dumb-ass and willfully failing to pay your taxes and/or filing false returns.

There is no magical incantation or distorted, partial, and out-of-context reading of the tax code or portion of a case that lets you out of filing and paying taxes on income. It doth not work that way.

The IRS has pages and pages devoted to taking apart these scams, along with the cites to the court cases demolishing them: The Truth About Frivolous Arguments.

It's a very extensive series, as it's impressive as to how many dumb arguments are out there and how they've been shot down.

Short of permanently moving out of the United States and renouncing your citizenship while doing so and never working in the USA again, which I wouldn't recommend, you're going to have a very hard time coming up with a valid argument as to how income you receive is somehow not subject to income taxation.

If you want to stop filing taxes and paying income tax then stop having an income --  which is kinda hard. 

 Or, you can spend your time working on campaigning and voting for politicians who will end the income tax, which is also rather hard if not well nigh impossible. Indeed it is much harder than simply falling for a fake don't-pay-your-taxes scheme, but at least it doesn't result in interest, penalties, and a criminal conviction, so it has got that going for it, at least.

Corruption And The Problem Of Scale

DOGE is finding an impressive amount of government corruption, fraud, and featherbedding networks in US Treasury payments.  Verily they are uncovering the Democrat-Progressive-NGO complex with their probe into USAID and Treasury spending.

In a single area of government spending, DOGE learned that $100 Billion (with a B) in entitlement payments were going out to people with no social security number or other identifiers attached to the payments. Treasury officials apparently stated that $50 Billion of that was outright fraud.  Yet the payments were made year after year. It is likely even more programs will show outright fraudulent transfers.

Now $50 Billion in fraud in a single program could be dismissed as just a rounding error in the US Treasury's annual spending of over 6 Trillion dollars. 

And therein lies the problem.  When $50 Billion in fraudulent spending in entitlement programs is just considered a rounding error, you've lost the plot.

 $50 billion is the equivalent of a an entire lifetime of income tax payments by 153,581 Americans. Every dollar in income taxes paid for their entire lives, wasted on fraud in a single program - in one year - every year.

This $50 Billion in spending isn't just a political disagreement over priorities or funding Democrat's friends and buddies in NGOs or throwing money at SPPL (Stuff Progressive People Like). It is an outright transfer of payments to fraudulent recipients.

One should note that $50 Billion is higher than the entire GDP in 112 countries!  

If the fraudulent payments were a country's GDP, the Country of Entitlement Fraudlandia with a GDP of $50 Billion has a GDP equivalent to 14 Haitis, and handily would beat out Bangladesh, Romania, Nigeria, Ukraine, and Morrocco in world rankings at 51st in the world.

The $50 Billion received by Entitlement Fraudlandia is far more than the amount of aid sent so far to North Carolina after Hurricane Helena, which is, depending on what source you look at as a clear answer is interestingly hard to find, anywhere from 3 billion to up to 9 billion total in the latest round of aid.

Even worse, a General Accounting Office report from late April estimated outright fraudulent spending by the Federal Government to be  233 Billion to $521 Billion each year.

That would make The Nation of US Spending Fraudlandia have a greater GDP than India and it would be a Country with the 11th highest GDP in the entire World.

Again, that's just from outright fraud, not even touching cutting what are arguably legitimate, while still being  rather objectionable, payments that are being made on rather questionable spending priorities and to reinforce the Democrat-Progressive NGO complex.

Dear Michigan UIA: Maybe You Could Stop Making Fraud So Damn Easy?

Yet another Stupid Criminal busted for stealing over $700,000 from Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency. Stupid because he was dumb enough to post about it on social media.

The Detroit News:  Farmington Hills man who flaunted wealth sentenced in fraud scheme

Too bad he didn't claim the fraud was just reparations payments, maybe he would have walked then.

He apparently also had inside help at the Post Office for stealing mail and debit cards and then decided to go direct to UIA to ply his fraud directly.

The problem is Michigan's UIA among many other insanely open security holes, pays out benefits on debit cards - cards which are ridiculously easy to use without needing to show any identification and sent by mail apparently to any damn address a fraudster may desire.

At least with  a check or payments direct to a bank account there's at least some paper trail to ascertain the identity of the recipient and match the payment to the name of the actual recipient.   Not so much with a debit card.

UIA just doesn't seem to care much if it as an agency is enabling fraud by passing out debit cards to just about any claimant created online without even verifying their address and comparing it to wage reports of the actual worker.

That's hundreds of millions lost to fraud from the Unemployment Insurance Agency in Michigan alone, and over $300 Billion nationally in fraudulent UI payments - enough to send every American citizen a whole other payment of $1,400 or more and instead it went to fraudsters like this idiot and to scammers in Russia, China and Africa.

Quit making it so easy for criminals to commit this type of fraud.

Tax Fraud Season

Yes, it's the season for tax fraud yet again.

 The Detroit Free Press: Scammers go after lucrative tax credits, use new tricks to file fake tax returns

As noted in the article, the IRS has unfortunately made it even easier for fraudsters this year.

They did so by removing one safeguard:  if you're one of those whose 2020 return is still not processed by the IRS you can place a  0 on your return for the prior year to prov e you identity.  Unfortunately,  anyone else can do that just as easily rather than a fraudster actually having to know your last year's income to use your ID to steal a tax refund under your name.  Nice way to open the door wide open there.

Add lots of refundable credits including for people who don't need to show any income at all, and you get some of the scams in the article, such as someone stealing an identity and then claiming to have 13 kids to get thousands of dollars in unearned tax credits sent right to them.

Of course, the IRS keeps it easy by allowing fraudsters to get money in an easy and untraceable way:

Many times, the refund cash is to be deposited onto a prepaid debit card so that crooks have easy access to the money. 

Allowing refunds on anonymous debit cards rather than to only the actual bank accounts or a check made out in the name of the filer is ridiculous.   I'm almost surprised the IRS doesn't allow a refund to go to an anonymous digital coin account.

I guess the IRS has gotta allow the "unbanked" and illegals and of course the legion of fraudsters to get their (and other's) refunds without any need to prove their identity, right? Of course, this is at the expense of much easier fraud against the rest of us and the Treasury itself.

Maybe the IRS should take a real step to cut down on fraud and stop issue tax refunds on debit cards, and require it to go to bank accounts where the name on the account at least matches the filer's name.

More Unemployment Fraud Uncovered In Michigan

The Detroit News: Investigators: State worker got unemployment while still employed, hijacked other legitimate accounts

Federal authorities believe thousands of dollars in fraudulent pandemic unemployment assistance was processed through the scheme, including nearly $15,000 under Mims' own name and about $40,000 under the names of two legitimate claimants who knew nothing of the scheme.

Mims was collecting unemployment before she started working for the state in August, investigators said, but continued to collect it "while gainfully employed by the very agency responsible for administering the benefit."

Federal and state investigators began looking into Mims' activity in June and issued a search warrant on June 30 at a Birmingham home where they seized "significant evidence of UI fraud." At the time of the July 1 complaint, Mims was still employed by the agency. 

Fraud is always easier when it's an inside job.

The agency said Thursday that Mims is no longer employed by the state.

Well, that's a relief.  

One would hope she is not now collecting unemployment  .  .  .  .

In another case, using an insider yet again, criminals took Michigan's UIA for at least $2.5 Million.

The Detroit News: Detroit man pleads guilty in COVID-19 unemployment fraud scheme

Unemployment Fraud during Covid in the USA has been estimated to be between $63 billion dollars and $400 Billion Dollars - half of all UI money distributed.

$400 Billion dollars lost due to fraud and lack of adequate anti-fraud measures and indeed complete disregard for fraud prevention in an attempt to shovel money out into the economy with no accountability - with predictable results and it is pretty much assured no bureaucrats' head will roll for this massive malfeasance.

Let's put it this way - that $400 Billion fraudulently taken could have funded an entire new round of $1,400 checks going out to every legitimate American rather than to fraudsters.

What Good Is Reporting Unemployment Fraud if They Don't Act On It?

Back in June 2020 someone placed a false unemployment insurance request under Tash's name.  They got the home address right, but interestingly enough the fraudster changed her middle initial.

On June 6 we received a letter about the unemployment request from UIA asking for verification.  That very same day we reported it as identity theft to UIA on their online system for fraud reporting as she never has made an unemployment claim.

Nothing further came of it, until yesterday when we got another notice from UIA that her benefits are apparently being extended and she will now get even more unemployment money under the .

Again, she never applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, and we've never received any of the money, but it seems someone else sure has gotten it likely for over a year.

So let's see, UIA apparently ignored the need for a response to their verification of claim form, then they ignored the fraud report, and they still apparently seem to have allowed the false claim and are sending the funds off to somewhere.

Given the extensive fraud going on, including over $1 Million in false claims by a UIA state employee, and over 100,000 false claims one would think they would quickly handle a report of fraud, but apparently not.

Oh, and who is going to pay for this fraud - why the businesses that employ people in Michigan of course!

As seen on the UIA's website: 

The Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance is below $2.5 billion. As a result, the taxable wage base for the 2021 calendar year is $9,500 for all contributing employers. 

 (That's a nice increase of 5.55% in the base amount from last year).

Yep, a lot of that trust fund is being drained by this fraud and government inefficiency if not outright corruption.  So of course, businesses not responsible for the fraud (not to mention our Governor's lockdown policy that also led to massive unemployment) will now have to pay a higher rate to make up for it.

On top of it all, their fax number for reporting fraud is not working today.  Perfect. Just sent it in via their electronic reporting system, same as in June, but since that didn't get anywhere then, so I doubt this repeated fraud report will either.

Interesting if True About the Spike For Biden in Michigan

While I'd like to see further confirmation of this claim,  waiting on the MSM to do it would be a fool's errand.  If true, it's statistical proof of tomfoolery in Wayne County's ballot counting that pushed Biden over the top in this state.

American Thinker: What a computer expert said about voting results in Michigan

Here's Ramsland's explanation: "The several spikes cast solely for Biden could easily be produced in the Dominion system by preloading batches of blank ballots in files such as Write-Ins, then casting them all for Biden using the Override Procedure ... that is available to the operator of the system."

"There were 289,866 more ballots processed in the time available for processing in four precincts/townships, than there was capacity," said Ramsland.

In plain English, that means they counted almost 300,000 more ballots than physically possible.

"This is not surprising because the system is highly vulnerable to a manual change in the ballot totals as observed[,]" said Ramsland. "[W]e believe that these statistical anomalies and impossibilities together create a wholly unacceptable level of doubt as to the validity of the vote count in Michigan, and in Wayne County, in particular."

In short, based on this expert's calculations, it would have been impossible to process that many ballots in those precincts without cheating and manually over-ridding and entering results as the counting machines simply could not process that many ballots in the time allotted. In short - there were statistically too many ballots to process in the time it was stated it took to process them - by a lot.

Or, in the most charitable light, this potentially means that Wayne County government workers were able to work faster, harder, and more efficiently than Wayne County government workers have ever worked in both living and recorded history.

That charitable explanation is most unlikely.

This Election, Trump Is Just Not Beyond The Dem's Margin of Fraud And "Mistakes".

I fear Trump will not make it over the margin of fraud in this election. And lots of fraud there is.

Let's take Antrim County, Michigan for instance:

The Detroit Free Press: Antrim County election results investigated after red Michigan county turns blue

Officials are investigating wonky election results in Antrim County in northern Michigan that could add a few thousand votes to the tallies for President Donald Trump and Republican Senate candidate John James.

Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican who ran unopposed and won a third four-year term Tuesday in the strongly GOP county, said results on electronic tapes and a computer card were accurate but it appeared that some of the results were somehow scrambled after the cards were transported in sealed bags from township precincts to county offices and downloaded onto a computer.

Why these "mistakes" seem rather one-sided and manage to scramble in favor of the Dems is always interesting.   Since multiple Michigan counties are using this same software, they likely all need to be checked over for a similar happy coincidental scrambling  error that just manages to erase Republican votes.

On top of that, the dead are apparently voting in Michigan: The Daily Telegraph: Dead Devoted to Democracy

Apparently, in one example given, and I'd like to see further verification, William Bradley of Wayne County (home of Detroit and an amazing 36,000 more registered than eligible voters) applied for an absentee ballot on 9/11/2020 and  it was received on 10/2/2020.  One minor problem with that vote is that the 118 year-old William Bradley died on June 1, 1984, so his voting from beyond the grave is rather a neat trick.

Add the shenanigans game is well and truly afoot where they are counting the absentee ballots in Detroit :

Republican counters shouted that they were unfairly being kept out, but Democratic challengers countered that it was not true because they were also being kept outside.

Yep, read that one over again, with feeling, especially when you realize the counters inside are Democrats.

Add to that the report int he Detroit news that "early Wednesday morning before 4 a.m., a new batch of 38,000 ballots were brought in for counting from an unknown location."  and the Detroit fix appears well and truly in.

There also appears to be a lot of shenanigans over in Wisconsin: Powerline: Massive Voter Fraud In Wisconsin?

This election points out yet again the absolute insecurity of our election system. That needs to change if anyone is going to believe in and abide by the result and truly believe it is both a free and a fair election.