Latest / Never Post / What Is Going On In Minnesota

Transcript

What Is Going On In Minnesota · Never Post

0:10
Hans Buetow: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a show
0:14
for and about the Internet. I am your senior producer and today's
0:18
host of the show Hans Buto. I am also a resident of Minnesota,
0:24
born and raised in the Twin Cities. I am sixth generation
0:27
Saint Paul, and I'm coming to you now in your ears with a
0:33
sudden unexpected off publish day episode because my state,
0:37
Minnesota, is at the epicenter of a few things that are
0:40
happening right now in politics. I'm realizing that I don't
0:45
really fully understand all of it and I need some help.
0:47
If I'm a local who's having trouble I can only imagine how
0:50
confusing it is if you have questions about Minnesota and
0:54
what on earth is happening but you don't live here. So today, I
0:59
am hoping to get some perspective with the help of one
1:02
of my favorite local reporters in the Twin Cities to help me
1:06
understand because local reporting, if you don't know,
1:10
helps us understand ourselves. We're gonna understand a little
1:15
bit about how this what this has to do with the Internet, which
1:17
is spoiler alert quite a bit because of just, you know, how
1:20
the world is, what the administration is. But I have
1:23
with me to help me understand M Castle. Hello.
1:27
Hello, M. I'm so happy I'm to see so happy to see you. You are
1:32
the co owner and founder of the excellent local independent
1:36
journalism powerhouse Racket, which covers arts, culture,
1:41
restaurants, politics, kind of everything else relevant to
1:45
living here in the Twin Cities. I redo every day, and I'm so
1:47
happy to be talking to you.
1:49
Em Cassel: It is such an honor to be here, Hans. Thank you so
1:51
much. We have a lot of fun doing what we do.
1:53
Hans Buetow: Yeah. I can tell and I love having fun alongside
1:56
you and with you, and you helped me have more fun in the cities
1:59
by far.
2:00
Em Cassel: I hope that's true. Yeah.
2:02
Hans Buetow: So, Em, you have been out in the streets, in the
2:06
courtrooms, in the press conferences for Racket, and just
2:10
generally reporting on all things that are happening in
2:13
Minnesota. Right now, that's a lot of fraud and a lot of ICE
2:17
And in I bring both of these together side by side because
2:22
with the congressional hearings on fraud, all of the comments
2:25
that are happening about fraud all over the place, and now with
2:28
the surge that's happening in Minnesota with the killing of
2:30
Renee Goode earlier this week by ICE, I think there's reasons
2:36
that everyone is looking at our state.
2:39
Em Cassel: Yeah, Minnesota and the twin cities specifically
2:42
like once again finds itself at kind of the epicenter of the
2:44
national attention, which is unusual. It's another, just a
2:49
weird thing from the last couple of years.
2:51
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Once again, and I want to get to that
2:53
because I have a lot of questions about why once again,
2:56
but I want to walk up to it because I think that these
2:58
stories of fraud, which some people may or may not have heard
3:03
of, and the ICE surge and killing that most people
3:07
probably have heard of, I think they're deeply related and
3:10
connected to each other, and I think the through line to them
3:13
is the internet. And I'm really curious to step through them all
3:18
to better just have a sense of what they are so that I just
3:22
know what they are, and then to map them against the Internet.
3:25
And I want to do that by looking at three moments in recent
3:28
history, if that works for you.
3:30
Em Cassel: I love it.
3:30
Hans Buetow: Great. So let's take a quick pause, and unless
3:32
you're a member, you're gonna hear a quick break. And then
3:35
let's start with fraud in Minnesota. Okay. Let's start
3:53
ourselves off in Minnesota in June 2024.
3:57
So two big things happen with fraud in June 2024. And the
4:02
first of those is a 200 or so page report comes out from the
4:08
Minnesota Department of Legislative Auditor, which is
4:11
looking into the Minnesota Department of Education and
4:15
their oversight of the Minnesota nonprofit. That's a lot of
4:18
layers. So Department of Legislative Auditor reports on
4:21
the Department of Education who's been giving money to a
4:23
nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. So Em, can you walk us
4:26
through what is this report?
4:29
Why is this being done about Feeding Our Future?
4:31
Em Cassel: Certainly, yes. So the broadest strokes answer is
4:35
that Feeding Our Future and the people associated with Feeding
4:38
Our Future have been perpetrating massive fraud. They
4:42
have referred to it you know, since looking back as sort of
4:45
the the biggest pandemic program fraud in the country. Wow. In
4:51
the end, you're gonna have more than 50 people so far Yeah.
4:54
Convicted of stealing so far, dollars 250,000,000 through this
4:58
fraud, which is, I don't need to tell you, Hans, a tremendous
5:02
amount of money. The start of the story is actually really
5:07
back in 2020 when the pandemic hits, schools are closed,
5:11
schools are not feeding lunches to children. And as a reaction
5:16
to that, the federal government kind of lowers the requirements
5:19
for states to access, what's called federal child nutrition
5:23
programs money. So this is what feeds underprivileged children,
5:26
and these funds are distributed by the Minnesota Department of
5:30
Education. So that's kind of like the, like, just laying the
5:33
very basic groundwork for, like, what will become this massive
5:36
fraud.
5:37
Feeding Our Future, in response, starts working with a ton of
5:42
other vendors. Like, they're kind of this this broader
5:45
nonprofit that works with, vendors. They also call them
5:49
food sites, I think, on the ground. And they start upping
5:54
the number of vendors they're working with. I think it ends up
5:56
being around 70 at one point.
5:59
And the vendors who they're working with are saying that
6:03
they're feeding a tremendous number of meals to local
6:07
children. Like, there's one restaurant, it's a small
6:10
restaurant that says it's feeding lunch to 6,000 kids a
6:14
day. There's another site in Wilmar, Minnesota that says it's
6:18
feeding 2,000 kids a week, which would be like half of the school
6:21
district's population.
6:22
Hans Buetow: Oh my goodness.
6:23
Em Cassel: The math does not math to use the nuance of our
6:26
times. So and so, you know, fairly quickly, actually, people
6:31
are raising alarm bells about these figures. As early as, I
6:36
think, October 2020, people are are reaching out to the
6:39
Department of Education and saying, like, this doesn't seem
6:42
quite right.
6:42
Hans Buetow: How can you actually feed? How are there
6:44
that many kids in the first place? But how do you feed all
6:47
of them? Can you feed 12,000 kids? Practically,
6:50
Em Cassel: You cannot feed this many children this many meals.
6:53
Like, it just it doesn't add up. The end result is that by May
6:57
2021, the FBI is now involved. They are investigating the
7:01
claims that Feeding Our Future and Feeding Our Future's vendors
7:04
have been filing false claims. It all eventually snowballs.
7:09
By 2022, the FBI is raiding the the businesses and individuals
7:15
who are, sort of associated with this fraud. And then finally, by
7:20
September 2022, charges are brought against 48 total people,
7:25
I think, as the first time for around $250,000,000 in this
7:29
money, which has been spent on things like personal trips. Amy
7:35
Bach, who's kind of widely referred to as the ringleader in
7:38
air Yeah. Quotes
7:39
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Of this,
7:39
Em Cassel: yes, of this fraud. She is accused of spending tens
7:44
of thousands of dollars on things like trips to Vegas. I
7:48
think her boyfriend took, like, a huge trip to Vegas. And, like,
7:51
spent a bunch of, like Cartier or whatever. Like, don't know.
7:54
Yeah. It's, like, really, like, like, extravagant fraud. Like,
7:58
not even this is not, like, super sneaky. It's, like, it's,
8:02
like, pretty bold. Yeah.
8:04
Brazen, I think, is a word that comes up a lot in media
8:07
reportage around this fraud is, like, it was really brazen.
8:13
Hans Buetow: And I think that's kind of like, I it's weird to
8:15
laugh at fraud and be like, these people stealing millions
8:19
of dollars from us. Doesn't that suck? But I think when
8:23
something's that brazen, that's You do kinda have to laugh.
8:26
Yeah. There's like element of like, what?
8:29
Em Cassel: Yeah. Like, this is like cartoonish levels of fraud.
8:32
Like, you like, I guess how did they think they would get away
8:36
with it? And then, like, second, how did they get away with it
8:39
for as long as they did?
8:40
Hans Buetow: As long as they did. And we're under
8:42
investigation and still doing it and spending the money. And I
8:45
remember one of the things that sticks in my mind about the
8:48
whole process was there was one point where they were going on
8:51
trials after the charges got brought, they were going on
8:53
trial and they tried they gave one of the jurors a $150,000 or
8:58
something.
8:59
Em Cassel: Yeah. There was a really weird situation where
9:01
they, like, dropped off a little, like, gift bag full of
9:04
cash on one of the jurors' doorsteps.
9:07
Hans Buetow: I
9:07
Em Cassel: mean, really, like, there are weird layers to this,
9:12
the way this fraud was perpetrated. And then and truly,
9:15
like, the way that they still thought, like, maybe we can get
9:18
away with this. Like, maybe we'll bribe a juror. Yeah. Let's
9:22
do it.
9:23
Hans Buetow: So so in 2024, this report comes out about the
9:27
Department of Education and how they handled it. So what did
9:29
this report in 2024 tell us about how all of this stuff over
9:33
those couple years was handled?
9:34
Em Cassel: Yeah. The report, I would say, is kind of damning.
9:38
It it's long. It's like a 100 page report. But the upshot is
9:41
that, like, the Minnesota Department of Education failed
9:44
on several fronts.
9:46
So for one, they failed to act on the warning signs, like,
9:50
before the COVID nineteen pandemic had even set in that,
9:53
like, there are not the right guardrails in place. Like, we
9:55
don't have the right systems in place to begin identifying this
9:58
kind of fraud. Then after that, that the department did not
10:01
effectively exercise its authority, I think is the phrase
10:05
that they used to basically, like, hold Feeding Our Future
10:07
accountable. Like, they have ways that they could have
10:12
stopped this fraud from happening, and they did not have
10:14
it. You know, they had people contacting them and saying, hey,
10:17
this fraud is happening and continued to pay out money to
10:21
Feeding Our Future and and therefore to its, you know,
10:25
vendor sites.
10:26
And then thirdly, that the department was ill prepared to
10:30
respond then. So, like, they were alerted to the fraud. They
10:34
kind of knew that it was happening, and yet they're they
10:37
did not respond in any kind of way. I mean, truly, until kind
10:40
of the FBI gets involved, like Yeah. You are a government
10:44
agency.
10:44
Get it together.
10:45
Hans Buetow: So and they're not the only government agency. So
10:47
this is what the other thing that happens in June 2024, this
10:50
report comes out, and at the same moment is the FBI starts
10:55
investigating for Medicaid fraud in autism centers, because
11:01
suddenly autism centers around the state have increased
11:04
spending 700% in five years, and a whole bunch of other metrics
11:08
are just suddenly there's all of this money going into these
11:11
autism centers without any related rise in the need for
11:15
them. Since then, seven people have been charged, some of those
11:19
people with connections to Feeding Our Future. And then in
11:23
2025, the next year, the Minnesota Department of Human
11:26
Services suspended the housing stabilization benefit, which
11:32
they did because they said there were credible allegations of
11:35
fraud from 77 providers, and 13 people have been charged since
11:41
then. All told, with all of these different avenues of fraud
11:46
in Minnesota in these government situations, 98 people have been
11:51
charged with various fraud schemes in various sectors since
11:54
2022, totaling, prosecutors say, a possible $9,000,000,000 of
12:01
stolen money.
12:01
Em Cassel: It's a huge amount of money. Billion with a b.
12:05
Hans Buetow: When we see these congressional meetings and we
12:09
hear people talking about fraud, there is a legitimate thing to
12:11
say. There was fraud committed. Yeah, and it was rampant. So I
12:19
think it's important then for the rest of this story to say,
12:22
who are those people of those 98 who was accused of perpetrating
12:27
this fraud?
12:28
Em Cassel: Yeah. So the kind of wild thing is, you know,
12:30
obviously there is Amy Bach, the sort of the CEO of Feeding Our
12:33
Future, the ringleader. She is a white woman, but all but eight,
12:38
I think, is the total of the people who are accused in this
12:41
fraud are Somali Americans, and the vast majority of them are
12:45
American citizens.
12:47
Hans Buetow: This is a big thing in the Twin Cities, especially
12:50
because we are one of the largest populations of Somali
12:55
folks, most of them American citizens. There's big parts,
13:00
especially of Minneapolis, that are very Somali oriented to And
13:04
that so that's already a thing that there are certain members
13:10
of the community and then especially of the wider
13:13
community, especially of the administration who are already
13:16
against African and East African people in the first place, much
13:19
less people who have come here despite them being citizens or
13:22
not. So when this starts to come out, who really gets the blame
13:26
for all of this fraud?
13:28
Em Cassel: I would say the blame kind of falls in two places. One
13:31
is on Minnesota governor Tim Walls and his administration,
13:34
like, basically, the the failure to do anything to stop the fraud
13:39
and to just kind of let it proliferate, under under his
13:42
watch and his administration's watch. But then, yeah, to your
13:45
point, Hans, the other place that it falls is on the broader
13:48
Somali community, you know, people who I think maybe already
13:52
have preexisting prejudices definitely use this as a way to
13:56
say, look at this community, like, look at this community of
13:59
immigrants and and and how they are acting basically, which is
14:03
just not I mean, it's it's still a very small fraction of the, as
14:07
you mentioned, very large Somali American population here in the
14:11
Twin Cities.
14:12
Hans Buetow: Absolute. But it's such an easy thing, I think, to
14:15
target now when you say, look all of this massive, we can call
14:20
it massive fraud, and look at how disproportionate it was
14:24
coming from this one particular community. You can imagine the
14:27
therefore that start to emerge. And I think this moves us into
14:31
our second moment that I want to talk about, which is jumping us
14:35
ahead to Thanksgiving of this past year, which involves the
14:39
escalation of rhetoric that leads to the deployment of ice
14:44
in the Twin Cities. So I want to move us to 11/19/2025, just a
14:50
month and a half ago.
14:51
There was an article that was published, I'm not sure if
14:53
you've read this article, it's a wild article. Woah. It's by this
14:59
group called City Journal, which is not in Minnesota, it's not
15:04
really affiliated, Independent Journalism, which I say that in
15:08
quote Marks, even though both of us are independent journalism.
15:10
Em Cassel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not like those guys. We're
15:14
not like we're not
15:14
Hans Buetow: because they go on, they claim in this article that
15:17
the Minnesota childcare program funds, so this is childcare now
15:22
that we're moving into, the childcare program funds are
15:25
being sent back to Somalia to Al Shabaab, which is the terrorist
15:30
organization in Somalia, a lot of them responsible for the
15:34
Somali civil war in the early nineties that led to the
15:37
diaspora. So that they're taking government money, taxpayer
15:41
money, and shoveling it back to terrorist organizations in
15:45
Somalia. The problem is the source for this, who they quote
15:50
in it, comes out afterwards and it's like, woah, woah, woah,
15:53
they took me out of context. I didn't say that. So that is not
15:55
true.
15:56
Yep. That's not what's happening.
15:58
Em Cassel: But it's kind of like too late.
16:00
Hans Buetow: It's too late. The posts are made. The cat is out
16:04
of the bag and I think that this is a theme we're going to see a
16:07
lot coming from this point because Trump elevates this
16:12
claim almost immediately on Truth Social, he says, quote,
16:16
Minnesota under governor Walls is a hub of fraudulent money
16:19
laundering activity, end quote, which again, there is fraud.
16:24
Like, let's not lose sight of there is fraud. But this is
16:28
saying that it's laundering when there's no evidence for that,
16:31
but he takes a real world step and he cancels temporary
16:34
protected status for Somali folks in Minnesota.
16:38
Em Cassel: Yeah. Do you have a
16:39
Hans Buetow: sense, Em, of what that meant around here?
16:41
Em Cassel: There were only a couple 100 immigrants, I think,
16:43
who were immediately affected by that. I think it's like that
16:46
that's just like the first, like, the opening volley in his
16:50
escalation.
16:50
Hans Buetow: Yeah. That's interesting because most of the
16:53
Somali folks in Minnesota are citizens. They're not.
16:56
Em Cassel: They are. Exactly. So, yeah, it was just kind of
16:57
like a here's what I'm gonna do first, and then I'm gonna
17:00
Hans Buetow: Yeah. So then very shortly after that, on
17:03
Thanksgiving, the day after an Afghan asylee shoots two
17:09
National Guard soldiers near the White House, killing one of
17:12
them. Trump's in an interview, and he responds to reporters by
17:16
saying that there is nothing linking, that's in quotes,
17:19
nothing linking the shooting that happened with Somalia, and
17:23
then immediately goes on truth social and posts, quote,
17:29
hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are
17:31
completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota.
17:34
Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for prey as our
17:38
wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses
17:41
hoping against hope that they will be left alone. Did you feel
17:46
that way, M?
17:51
You hoping against hope clutching a picture of him. Oh,
17:55
please come help us.
17:57
Em Cassel: Oh god. This is the most bizarre thing. Like, it
18:00
truly is just like I mean, the way this administration will
18:04
just say stuff. Right? Like, way that they will just say say
18:07
anything in the way that Trump specifically will just, like,
18:10
make something up, like, just to, like, state the obvious,
18:13
there are not Somali gangs roving No.
18:16
The streets looking for, quote, prey. Yeah. That has, like,
18:20
never happened in my experience. I mean, it's like, again, it's
18:23
not really funny, but, like, all you can do is laugh. Like, it is
18:26
such an out outlandish claim.
18:28
Like, truly just, like, beyond the pale in terms of just, like,
18:32
making up a a really, really, really crazy, like, set of
18:38
facts, alternative facts.
18:41
Hans Buetow: And this is really the indication that we get that
18:42
he's seizing on Somalia and Somali Minnesotans as a way to
18:47
attack because then he immediately pivots, uses a super
18:50
gross epithet about governor Waltz saying that he and the
18:54
democrats are doing nothing. And then it's later that weekend
18:58
that the administration announces operation metro surge.
19:02
So what is Operation Metro Surge?
19:05
Em Cassel: Operation Metro Surge is mirrors the previous actions
19:10
in Portland or what we saw in Chicago, where the Trump
19:13
administration deploys just a bunch of Department of Homeland
19:17
Security agents to the Twin Cities, kind of using the Somali
19:21
community, right, as a scapegoat of, like, we're gonna I mean,
19:24
they basically say, like, this is gonna stop fraud somehow.
19:27
Like, they this is gonna stop fraud, and also, we're gonna go
19:30
after these these criminals who are running wild in the streets,
19:34
again, in this, like, totally alternate universe that no one
19:37
is living in where there's, like, just just rampant crime.
19:42
So I think initially, the idea was like, we're going to send
19:45
all these agents and we're going to round up the bad guys. Think
19:48
the worst of the worst or whatever is the language that
19:51
the administration uses. Like, we're going to come get the
19:54
baddies from the Twin Cities.
19:57
Hans Buetow: Which they're using the fraud stuff in that case to
19:59
be like, look at how many of these bad people. Look what
20:02
they're doing. Look at the scale of things that they're doing,
20:04
and look at how many of them there are. The the white folks
20:07
in Minnesota aren't doing this fraud. It's all like, we gotta
20:10
go in there because the Democrats aren't doing anything.
20:13
Now you did some reporting on the surge in what's happening.
20:18
So talk us through a little bit because did you go to Carmel
20:20
Mall?
20:21
Em Cassel: I didn't report from Carmel Mall. The Minnesota
20:24
reformer had a great story where basically they were like, it's
20:28
empty here. Carmel Mall, for those who don't know, is kind of
20:30
like a Somali hub here in the Twin Cities. It's on Lake
20:34
Street. It's a big market and there are shops and there are
20:37
restaurants.
20:38
And within a few days really of the surge starting of this
20:43
Operation Metro surge, like, the streets were kind of empty. And
20:47
you could see that playing out on other businesses on Lake
20:50
Street, which is a huge immigrant corridor here. There's
20:52
a lot of Mexican owned businesses, a lot of businesses
20:54
owned by people of color in general, and they were pretty
20:59
quickly struggling. Yeah. Struggling to get their workers
21:05
here safely to have the people who would generally patronize
21:08
those businesses feeling safe.
21:10
Lake Street in general really kind of cleared out and so did
21:13
other immigrant hubs in the Twin Cities area.
21:15
Hans Buetow: Mhmm. There were efforts to to get people to shop
21:18
at immigrant shops because their regular clientele couldn't go
21:21
in, like spend the hubs, spend your money going to support some
21:25
of these places with who haven't seen customers in days
21:28
sometimes. Everybody's running scared.
21:30
Em Cassel: Yeah. Yeah. People are locking their doors. I mean,
21:32
there are restaurants that you'll go to on Lake Street now
21:34
and the door will be locked. You'll have to knock to get in.
21:37
They're still technically open, but they're they're trying to
21:39
protect themselves and their their coworkers and their loved
21:42
ones. For most of December,
21:44
Hans Buetow: it felt like it wasn't it sucked and it was
21:47
scary, but it wasn't any more remarkable than in other big
21:51
blue cities where this was happening. Am I right on that?
21:55
Yeah. I think
21:55
Em Cassel: that's fair to say. I think if anything, you know, you
21:58
could kind of look around and be like, well, it's actually not as
22:01
bad, again, through December as it has been in Chicago and other
22:04
cities. Not seeing Just these numbers wise. Simply in a
22:07
numbers game, you know, it's bad and it's scary. But it was, you
22:12
know, relatively small in scale to what we've seen here at the
22:16
start of 2026, which is, I don't have to tell you, really bad.
22:20
Really bad. Really bad. Yeah.
22:22
Hans Buetow: So what was the local reaction that you felt
22:25
happened when Operation Metro Search started?
22:28
Em Cassel: It's been like actually very impressive to see
22:31
the local reaction and see how the community has banded
22:34
together to try to protect the the vulnerable members of the
22:38
community. People signing up to deliver groceries to people who
22:42
don't feel safe leaving their homes.
22:43
Hans Buetow: Their homes. That's right.
22:44
Em Cassel: That's right. Or or escorting children from their
22:46
bus stop to their house or from the bus into their schools.
22:50
Hans Buetow: Going like putting on a bib and going to stand in
22:52
front of a mosque. Yep. Like, know, just to be a presence.
22:55
Em Cassel: Yeah. There has really been a tremendous
22:57
outpouring of support, would say. And I I think going back
23:02
even further, like, this almost ties into 2020 and in earlier
23:06
where the Twin Cities kind of rallied together in the wake of
23:10
George Floyd's murder. And, like, there are sort of these
23:12
networks that already exist in the Twin Cities where people
23:16
have have done this before, unfortunately. And and so a lot
23:22
of those people have really stepped up to try to protect
23:25
their neighbors.
23:26
So of course, there's only so much you can do.
23:28
Hans Buetow: Right. Because, you know, we have we have armed
23:30
forces patrolling
23:32
Em Cassel: Yeah. The
23:33
Hans Buetow: And this reaction of at least a lot of folks
23:37
around here was markedly different from the federal
23:41
reaction and the reaction of the administration. So how did they
23:43
talk about it?
23:45
Em Cassel: I guess you could say they posted through it. Like
23:51
like, truly truly, like, posting through it. Like, early
23:56
December, you have that really bizarre video where Trump is
24:02
hurling horrific insults at Somali just like blatant racism
24:05
at Somali people calling them garbage. He's at a cabinet
24:09
meeting and, like, JD Vance is, like, banging on the table. You
24:13
hear that weird audio recording where he's banging his fists on
24:15
the table.
24:17
He, of course, targets Ilhan Omar.
24:19
Hans Buetow: Who is Somali?
24:20
Em Cassel: Who is Somali. Yes. Our representative. And I am not
24:25
personally on Truth Social, but you would see, you know, people
24:28
sharing screenshots of these posts where it's just like,
24:31
again, it feels like an alternate reality from the one
24:33
that we all live in where our Somali neighbors are wonderful.
24:37
It feels insane to even have to say it, but like, it's just such
24:41
a strange thing to watch an entire community be smeared like
24:46
this by the president of The United States.
24:48
Like
24:48
Hans Buetow: And then when he does it, like, it wasn't just it
24:51
was Vance, it was Cash Patel, it was the podcaster leader of the
24:56
FBI, it was Kristi Noem, like everybody would would echo in
25:01
posts a similar thing as they ramped up and escalated.
25:06
Em Cassel: Yeah. You'd sort of see the groundwork being laid
25:10
for, like, increased hatred, like, on Twitter, like, in
25:14
tweets. Like Yeah. Like, I don't know how often Kirsty Noem was
25:17
posting about Somali people before this December, but all of
25:20
a sudden All of a sudden. She has a lot to say about them.
25:24
Hans Buetow: Yeah. And so this pattern emerges of something
25:27
being posted, officials immediately reacting in posts to
25:31
each other, and then this severe disproportionate policy or real
25:36
world action or something emerges or gets generated from
25:40
that flurry of posts. So let's take a quick break, and when we
25:45
come back I want to talk about how this pattern escalates into
25:49
the death of Renee Goode earlier this week. So our final moment
26:07
that we're gonna examine here is the Internet of it all. And this
26:12
happens in late December.
26:14
So we're almost a month at this point into Operation Metro
26:18
Surge, and the day after Christmas, a video drops from a
26:23
23 year old, very MAGA friendly influencer sort named Nick
26:29
Shirley. Nick Shirley releases this forty three minute video
26:33
where he comes to Minnesota. They go to what he says is 11
26:38
different Somali childcare centers, and he just starts
26:43
demanding whoever opens the door show him the kids. Hello. We'd
26:47
like to ask where the money's going.
26:50
What do you guys think about the fraud that's taking place here
26:52
in Minnesota?
26:53
Em Cassel: Sorry. I don't think anybody is enabling that to
26:55
happen.
26:56
Hans Buetow: Hold governor Walls accountable for this. What was
26:58
this money spent on? 1,260,000.00. What was that
27:02
money
27:03
Em Cassel: spent on? If there aren't any kids.
27:04
Hans Buetow: Answer the question. Are there children?
27:06
There's no children inside this building. I'm not sure why they
27:10
didn't show him the kids when no random young person just starts
27:13
aggressively demanding that, you bring the kids out to me or let
27:17
me go in and see the kids. But he isn't shown any children in
27:21
these 11, and so then he turns around in the video and claims
27:24
this as evidence of a 110,000,000 more dollars in
27:29
widespread fraud by the Somali community.
27:32
Did you watch this video by Nick Shirley?
27:34
Em Cassel: I saw clips and I was kind of, like, again, talking
27:38
about, like, brazenness. Like, this guy really, really just
27:42
goes for it.
27:43
Hans Buetow: Which like a forty three minute YouTube video of a
27:46
guy doing kind of stunt journalism without research.
27:50
Like, okay. Yeah. This sort of stuff happens. Like, it's not
27:53
weird that you wouldn't have seen it, but there are some
27:56
people who definitely saw it and had this wildly outsized huge
28:03
reaction to it.
28:04
So almost immediately, the vice president of The United States
28:07
Of America, JD Vance, emphatically reposted on X
28:11
saying this is some great better journalism than any of the
28:14
people who want a Pulitzer this year. Elon Musk engages with it.
28:17
Kash Patel, again, from the FBI. Kristi Noem, head of DHS, they
28:22
all post. Kristi Noem says, oh, we're we're because of this,
28:25
we're gonna start investigating this immediately.
28:28
In a statement from the White House, Abigail Jackson, who's a
28:32
spokeswoman for it, said that, and this is a quote, quote, the
28:35
country should be deeply appreciative to Shirley for
28:38
shining a light on this issue. The legacy media should take
28:41
notes, end quote.
28:43
Em Cassel: Yeah. I think what we need is actually for Star
28:44
Tribune reporters to just start banging on day care centers.
28:48
Hans Buetow: Just demanding. Like it's everybody in the
28:53
cabinet seems to just immediately glom onto this, make
28:56
their own series of posts about it. Within the week, the video
29:00
has a 131,000,000 views on X, which who knows what that means.
29:04
2,500,000 views on YouTube. But it's also got Trump's attention
29:08
because Trump then does this thing after this flurry of posts
29:11
from everybody in the cabinet.
29:12
He orders the health department to freeze $185,000,000 in child
29:19
care payments to the state of Minnesota day care centers
29:22
directly in response to this video, which is the pattern that
29:27
we've been outlining.
29:28
Em Cassel: You manufacture a scenario and you post about it a
29:33
lot, which makes it true.
29:34
Hans Buetow: Yep. And then the posting begets posting.
29:36
Em Cassel: Yep. There's a whole like weird web ecosystem of
29:40
posts and they all relate to each other. Yep. And then you
29:43
use that web of posts to say like, this is fact now, and now
29:47
we are going to, for example, withhold these funds as a
29:51
reaction to the posts that we ourselves made.
29:55
Hans Buetow: It's early January when the Minnesota Department of
29:58
Children, Youth, and Families did compliance checks in all of
30:01
those places on nine of the 11 from the Shirley video and they
30:05
concluded definitively that no, they're operating exactly as
30:09
expected. There's no issue here. But that's like, it's what, two
30:14
weeks after? Well, right.
30:16
Em Cassel: It's too late. It's almost like the the outrage has
30:19
been created. We have our followers now, the people who
30:23
are MAGA, Jason, like they all believe what we have said. And
30:27
so actually, it kind of doesn't matter.
30:29
Hans Buetow: There's It something really
30:30
Em Cassel: doesn't. They're not gonna post again. Like, you're
30:32
not gonna get a sign off from JD Vance that's like, oh, good. The
30:36
Department of Children, Youth and Families said actually these
30:38
daycare centers are great.
30:39
Hans Buetow: You know, guys, I'm gonna delete those old posts.
30:42
I'm gonna issue a correction.
30:44
Em Cassel: Like, no, that's not gonna fucking happen. So
30:48
Hans Buetow: And instead, in the meantime, they used that as a
30:54
catapult, as a jumping off point, as a springboard to
30:58
launch, I don't even know if it's got a name, but the latest
31:01
assault, sending the largest force of DHS personnel into
31:05
Minnesota that I think has ever been assembled. I think those
31:08
are the latest. 2,000 DHS agents showed up in Minnesota in that
31:14
gap before they came in. Were like, no, no, this video isn't
31:17
accurate. This is not what's happening.
31:18
They came there like there's widespread fraud. Again, this
31:20
fraud. Let's go. We gotta go do something because the Democrats
31:23
aren't doing anything. So then 2,000 DHS agents show up, And,
31:28
of course, end this week.
31:30
Em Cassel: Yeah. I mean, it's been hell out there. December
31:35
pales in comparison. It feels like they're the city is
31:37
crawling with federal agents, ICE agents, DHS agents, border
31:41
patrol agents. Yep.
31:43
They are kidnapping people, leaving school. They are
31:47
flooding into local businesses. They are tackling workers at
31:52
Target. I mean, it's just like a really you definitely get the
31:56
sense that, like, maybe what they wanted the first time
31:58
around was a shock and awe that they didn't get. And now there
32:01
are these 2,000 additional agents and they are they are
32:05
doing the shock and awe.
32:06
They are getting the visuals that they want of grown men
32:10
tackling people to the ground and arresting bystanders and
32:17
arresting legal observers, detaining people.
32:20
Hans Buetow: And as of Wednesday, killing somebody who
32:23
was at one of the sites where they were without warrants,
32:27
without a reason to be there, without anything, as JD Venn
32:30
says, just going door to door, which is fundamentally
32:33
unconstitutional. You need a warrant to go door. You don't
32:36
just go door to door looking for crimes. It's awful. It's been an
32:39
awful few days since Renee Goode has been killed by an ICE agent
32:46
in her car on Wednesday.
32:48
We're not going to get too deep into that because I think that
32:50
part has been pretty well covered and folks should look it
32:52
up because it's heartbreaking and devastating. But I want to
32:55
focus in on another thing that happened earlier this week when
32:59
some really interesting writing came out from some really
33:03
interesting internet thinkers. So earlier this week Charlie
33:06
Warzel in the Atlantic, Don Moynihan and Cooper Lund, who
33:10
each have their own blogs, and Ryan Broderick in garbage day,
33:14
all of them thinkers about the internet independently of each
33:16
other came to and simultaneously came to roughly the same theory
33:22
and conclusion. That is that the people in the highest leadership
33:27
positions in government think about their primary job as
33:33
creating content. So power, as it exists now in that group, has
33:38
changed to be centered around and wielded by people who get
33:42
attention online.
33:44
So for a portion of the political ruling class right
33:47
now, it's the only thing they literally know how to do or
33:51
respect. I mean, we've got these podcasters. The head of the DOD
33:54
is a news presenter. That's his qualification. It's how they got
33:58
their jobs.
33:58
It's how their successors are gonna get their jobs. Creating
34:02
content is the currency of power that's happening right now. And
34:07
all four of these writers identified this in reaction to
34:10
Venezuela and the invasion that we did of them watching the
34:14
Twitter reaction in the quote unquote situation room at Mar A
34:19
Lago. But I think this applies to everything that's been
34:23
happening in Minnesota right now. Don Moynihan, one of these
34:27
thinkers on his blog, and we'll link to all of these in the show
34:30
notes, used the term click tatorship to define this.
34:36
He said that this behavior, that this thing leads to really big
34:41
changes in behavior. He outlines that it incentivizes conflict
34:45
between professional and online identities, which also leads to
34:49
degrading professional norms and work practices. Recruiting
34:52
others high on the meme supply to working government, you can
34:56
see a way where Shirley, who posted this video, is job
35:01
interviewing by posting this. Critically, think Don Moynihan
35:06
says that it alters decision making to be responsive to
35:10
social media. Charlie Warzel, one of the other writers, talks
35:14
about it in this way that I think is helpful, which is as a
35:17
culture of reaction videos.
35:19
So the memes and the reactions that happen to any piece of news
35:23
event happen now simultaneously with the news event. There is no
35:28
before and after anymore. So when respond to something,
35:32
you're not just responding to facts, you're not just
35:35
responding to news, you're responding to memes, in memes,
35:39
with memes, about memes. It's already too far down that line.
35:45
And this content mix of content fueling content, it creates
35:49
opportunities for itself, which is in itself a way to kind of
35:53
distance the audience from taking any sort of direct action
35:56
because it abstracts things.
35:57
So Charla Warzel says, quote, this process is nihilistic, and
36:00
it has a dehumanizing effect. Stories about people or
36:04
countries in conflict become abstract, buried under a pile of
36:07
memes and recursive references that exist for little more than
36:11
scroll by entertainment. So I read all of this and I was like,
36:16
wait a second, and then started mapping it against everything
36:20
that we've just talked about. All the fraud and all the
36:22
accusations of fraud and all the realities of fraud, and then
36:25
what the fraud then means and how the fraud led to this
36:29
invasion from ICE. And I'm just wondering, like, when you hear
36:32
all of this now, how does a clicktatorship map onto that for
36:37
you?
36:38
Em Cassel: Well, it does feel like the nothing happens anymore
36:42
without the sort of right wing blogger poster ecosystem, like,
36:48
descending on that either physically or or online only.
36:51
But we're seeing it this week in Minnesota, like, are right wing
36:56
content creators who have sort of flown into town for this
37:00
surge, for this, you know, increased number of troops that
37:05
are here. Ryan Broderick, who's very excellent, Newsletter
37:08
Garbage Day, you mentioned, like, is also in town right now.
37:11
And he has a video from the Whipple Building this morning,
37:14
which is the Federal building where sort of the ICE operations
37:17
are, like, centered
37:17
Hans Buetow: and where they're the corridors.
37:18
Em Cassel: Yeah. Where they're taking people who are detained
37:21
and everything else.
37:22
Hans Buetow: And they're doing daily protests, morning
37:23
protests.
37:24
Em Cassel: Yes. Yes. So people people have been protesting
37:26
outside the Whipple Building most mornings and and all day
37:29
long. Ryan has a a video of an ICE agent sort of fist bumping
37:34
with a right wing pro Trump content creator. And then, like,
37:40
that content creator is allowed to cross the line that the ICE
37:44
agents have formed while everyone else protesting or even
37:47
covering the event.
37:48
Like, other journalists are pushed back. So you can really
37:52
see the way that these right wing creator like, you can
37:55
visually see with your eyes the way that these right wing
37:58
creators have been given this sort of privileged place in the
38:01
administration while everyone else is kind of left on the
38:04
outside. It's like really worrying. It's really worrying.
38:10
Hans Buetow: I know. I think that it is really worrying, and
38:12
it it's I think it's a little clarifying to have this theory
38:15
kind of coalesce in the minds of a few different people who are
38:18
really watching closely. And as soon as I read it, I was like,
38:20
of course, that's what's happening. That makes it's one
38:23
of those things that you're like, why didn't we see this
38:24
before? I think we did see this before.
38:26
We saw how much they're addicted to Twitter and addiction is a
38:29
big part of this. We saw how much they are addicted to the
38:34
audience that they perceive, and this is a thing we come back to
38:37
in the show a lot, especially in our editorial meetings, is the
38:40
imaginary internet points that you think that you get from any
38:43
action that you take online. They have created an ecosystem
38:47
where those imaginary internet points actually have a orange
38:51
face and actually like a bad haircut. This is an ecosystem
38:59
that feels scary because it's so untethered from the realities
39:06
that it creates, because that's what we're seeing. This is the
39:09
pattern we're seeing over and over again, is it creates these
39:11
real actions where people die, their lives are ruined, where
39:15
people are deported, where people are harassed, where who
39:18
knows what's happening.
39:19
People are losing funding, people are not able to feed
39:22
themselves. That's real, but that's not considered or
39:26
important in this. And it feels like sometimes posts are the
39:30
only thing that matters. Like this group's only way to engage
39:34
with the world is a post and using everything as an
39:38
opportunity to generate more content. The ice surge as a
39:42
content generating mechanism is such a depressing thing to say.
39:47
Em Cassel: I know.
39:48
Hans Buetow: And yet And yet here we are mourning Renee Goode
39:52
and trying to protest and trying to like have a voice in it. And
39:56
it feels like that's a shocking thing to have to reconcile.
40:01
Em Cassel: And to your point about Renee Goode, I mean, the
40:05
folks in the presidential administration were were posting
40:09
about her death before we had basically any information. You
40:14
know, like, I think, like, the the sort of post first ask
40:17
questions later of it all is really, really damaging.
40:21
Hans Buetow: Like Yeah.
40:22
Em Cassel: Calling her, you know, whatever they call her a
40:24
professional agitator or the language they use, domestic
40:26
terrorist, When, I like, we had basically no information about
40:31
who this woman was, why she was there. We have a lot greater
40:34
clarity now, but she had only been dead for a few hours when
40:37
Yeah. When people in the administration were posting
40:40
about her as a person and her character and what she was doing
40:43
there and everything else. Just creating the narrative that, you
40:48
know, that we would have to then go on to debunk. It, like, puts
40:51
you as someone who wants to tell the truth on your back foot
40:54
because now you're in a position of having to react to the lies
40:57
that have already started to proliferate throughout these
41:00
online spaces.
41:01
Hans Buetow: That's right.
41:02
Em Cassel: It's it's really damaging.
41:04
Hans Buetow: I've been thinking a lot about the raid that
41:07
happened at Roosevelt High School on Wednesday. So just
41:15
literally hours after the killing of Renee Goode, ICE
41:21
agents stormed the grounds of Roosevelt High School, which is
41:26
fairly nearby to that, and started tackling people. They
41:31
punched out windows, they were shooting chemical weapons at
41:35
people, they arrested two faculty members. And there's
41:39
these videos that these students, these high schoolers
41:42
are taking of this where they're just screaming and like it's
41:47
just whistles everywhere. It's just this chaotic horrible thing
41:51
and you're watching them body slam students into the ground on
41:55
school property, which has been outlawed by the city of
41:59
Minneapolis and the city of Saint Paul.
42:01
They are not allowed to legally do that sort of thing. And it's
42:06
shocking in the way that you would expect a post like that.
42:09
Like it feels like it's made for the gram in a way, like it's
42:12
made to be posted about. And the casualness of it being mere
42:17
hours after they shot and killed Renee Goode is really sticking
42:24
with me as being an indication of like, okay, yep, we got that
42:28
one. Immediately, what's our next viral clip gonna be?
42:32
Let's tackle some kids.
42:34
Em Cassel: Yeah. It does make you wonder like, is there a
42:39
bottom? Is there a depth that we can yet reach? Like, I have
42:44
thought about those those videos and those photos from Roosevelt
42:48
so much over the last few days because it really is like, you
42:53
know, if I if my agency had killed a person in the street,
42:58
I'd pack it up and call it a day. And I guess that's just,
43:02
you know, they just keep right on going.
43:04
Hans Buetow: Yeah. You pause for a moment just to be like, hey,
43:07
let's slow down. Yeah. No, that was an escalation, right? And so
43:12
speaking of escalations like Philando Castile, Ja'Marr Clark,
43:17
George Floyd, now Renee Goode.
43:21
Are we really about to do all this again? Like it's still
43:23
tense here in the cities. There's protests happening in
43:27
other cities around the country. The governor's getting mad. The
43:31
National Guard has been activated.
43:33
Like this, it feels like 2020 all of a sudden. Like, we doing
43:38
this again?
43:39
Em Cassel: Yeah. It really feels strikingly similar. I on a
43:43
personal level, I live basically equidistant between George Floyd
43:47
Square and the intersection where Renee Goode was killed.
43:50
And just the reaction from community members feels very
43:54
much the same. The constantly circling helicopters overhead,
43:58
that feels the same.
43:59
Yeah. This feeling from the community of being
44:02
simultaneously activated and wanting to help, but also
44:07
feeling like, what do I do with this energy? How do I be
44:10
productive? And also this kind of feeling of helplessness, like
44:16
Philando, Jamar, George, Renee, they are dead. They have been
44:19
taken from us by, you know, agents of the state.
44:24
Yeah. This sort of feeling of like, does it ever stop? What
44:27
would stop it? I don't know.
44:31
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Why do you think Minnesota, so many of
44:34
these things have happened? Why what is it about Minnesota that
44:37
makes it a hotspot for these sorts of videos and then the
44:41
reactions they generate?
44:43
Em Cassel: I've thought about this a lot and I have seen other
44:46
people sort of working through this a lot online over the last
44:49
few days. I think it's kind of twofold. I think one is that
44:54
Minnesotans and people in the Twin Cities specifically really
44:57
do show up for their communities in a way that I I'm not trying
45:00
to be like a Minnesota exceptionalism about this. Other
45:03
people don't. Yeah.
45:03
Not really. Yeah. I but I really do think that, like, people here
45:07
show up for their neighbors and and get involved. And when there
45:10
is a chance to protest, they protest. And when there is a
45:12
vigil, they go.
45:13
And when, you know, so so it kind of creates these scenes
45:18
that are very striking. At the same time, I think we talked a
45:23
little bit about the media ecosystem component of this. And
45:26
actually, unlike some other major American cities, the Twin
45:30
Cities does still have a pretty robust media ecosystem. We have
45:33
phenomenal journalists and photojournalists over at NPR,
45:36
Minnesota Public Radio. We have a phenomenal daily newspaper in
45:40
the Star Tribune.
45:42
We have lots of other, you know, the Minnesota Reformer, Hunt
45:45
Journal. So we have like, are a tremendous number of local
45:50
journalists There's
45:51
Hans Buetow: one called Racket?
45:52
Em Cassel: Have you heard of it? Have you heard? Yeah.
45:55
Hans Buetow: But it's true. Like, you're a part of this
45:57
ecosystem. Absolutely.
45:58
Em Cassel: Yeah. So I think the kind of like getting the story
46:02
out to the broader news media starts with that really robust
46:07
media ecosystem that we have in the Twin Cities, where when
46:11
something happens, when a woman is killed by ICE you know, a man
46:13
was killed by ICE in Chicago, not not too long ago.
46:17
Hans Buetow: Like week or something ago?
46:18
Em Cassel: Yes. And it just didn't feel like that kind of
46:22
like got out beyond its immediate bubble unless you were
46:25
really paying attention to this stuff. And with Renee Goode, I
46:28
think several things that are different about it are there
46:30
were multiple other observers, everyday citizens, who were
46:34
there filming the incident at the time, and that sort of falls
46:37
into the first point of, like, people show up here. Yeah. And
46:39
then the second part of it being the local media ecosystem sprang
46:43
into action immediately following that.
46:46
And I think that helps then get the story out and then it
46:50
spreads online and it, you know, it becomes then a national and
46:52
an international story in a way that it might not in other
46:55
cities.
47:03
Hans Buetow: Well, Em, I don't really know what's gonna happen
47:07
Me either.
47:08
Em Cassel: Over the weekend.
47:11
Hans Buetow: A lot of people have been asking me. I go into
47:13
meetings and stuff and a lot of people are asking me like, how's
47:15
it feel there? How's it feel there? And I'd say it feels
47:17
scary right now. And I think it's going to be a tough
47:20
weekend.
47:20
There's a big protest planned for Saturday afternoon. We're
47:24
going see what happens there over in Powderhorn Park. And
47:29
they're not stopping. They're not pulling back. In fact,
47:32
they've just sent more agents in to add to the 2,000 plus that
47:36
are already here.
47:38
Are you going back out in the field?
47:40
Em Cassel: Yeah. I'll be out again today. I've been returning
47:43
to thirty fourth in Portland a few times over the last couple
47:46
of days. I will be at the protest this weekend and, yeah,
47:50
plan to
47:50
Hans Buetow: keep showing up. Thanks for showing up, both in a
47:54
wider sense and then in a direct sense of like, thanks for
47:56
showing up on my screen and like hanging out with me and helping
47:59
me understand all this stuff. It's been really helpful to talk
48:02
through the full ecology of these things or a little bit
48:05
more of the full ecology of these things.
48:07
Em Cassel: So thanks for taking the time today. Yeah. I hope
48:09
that it was helpful. I know it's it's difficult even here in the
48:11
Twin Cities to kind of keep track of everything that's
48:13
happening. So if you're trying to keep track of it from beyond,
48:15
I can't even imagine.
48:17
Hans Buetow: So, Em, where can people follow you if they want
48:19
to follow more of this coverage and the stuff that you're doing?
48:22
How can people find you?
48:23
Em Cassel: Absolutely. You can find Racket at racketmn.com. And
48:28
if you're interested in following along with me, my
48:30
social handle is bike trouble on most platforms.
48:33
Hans Buetow: Yeah, it is. M Castle from Racket. Thank you so
48:39
much.
48:40
Em Cassel: Thanks, Hans.
48:47
Hans Buetow: So that is the show we have for you this week. We
48:53
will be back here next Wednesday once more in your feed, and we
48:57
have an update for you on what's happening with the show, some
49:01
big big moves, and some fun moves. So make sure to tune in.
49:05
Please go follow m Castle and Racket. And if you wanna follow
49:10
more independent news in Minnesota, the Sahan Journal, S
49:14
A H a n, or the Minnesota reformer are always worth
49:18
checking out.
49:19
Citycast Twin Cities is another one that both m and I are
49:23
contributors for. And, of course, if you have independent
49:26
media in your town who covers your local space, please find
49:30
them, read, and listen. And if you can, give them a little bit
49:34
of cash. Never post producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia
49:39
Hampton, and the mysterious doctor. First name, last name.
49:42
Our senior producer is Hans Buto. That's me. Our executive
49:46
producer is Jason Oberholzer. The show's host most weeks is
49:51
Mike Rignan. Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure
49:55
and distributed by Radiotopia.