OMG...Stop the navel gazing and self flagellation!
This story ONLY has legs because the right-wing blogosphere and media (Fox, etc) have been amplifying it for weeks.
Dems do this all the time (See: Al Franken). They take something being hyped by the right wing, that has a hint of a problem, and immediately capitulate and throw the Dem in the middle over board. FFS. Fight back!
This "scandal" has been investigated and prosecuted for years. It started in the local DA/state level and they brought the Feds in...who filed charges in 2015 and ... in 2024 - under BIDEN. Only now when a Trumpian US Attorney starts hyping the problem ($9 Billion? Does anyone really believe this number?) and a blogger makes some shit up and puts it on YouTube, it's suddenly a crisis for Walz.
This is a joke. And yet...the Dems - and now the Bulwark - have to jump in and agree with the right wing (wittingly or not) that Walz is terrible and the Dems are the problem and need to be voted out.
Until the Dems start fighting back this is going to happen over and over and over again. Stop capitulating.
The right is going to find some topic - any topic really - and keep hyping it until it catches with their base. See: mass murder by immigrants, trans people grooming your kids to pee in cat litter boxes. It doesn't matter if its real or imagined, they're gonna push it.
Until and unless the rest of sane America figures out how to fight back this misinformation and propaganda were going to have to learn to fight back and support the politicians that become the focus of the smears.
Can you please do clearer coverage of this so-called fraud? Yes, there was a huge scandal. It was a $250 million food assistance fraud. The ring leader was a white woman. The arrests and trials happened over the Biden administration with the last case ending in conviction last year. The newer fraud allegations going viral are really grossly targeted at the Somali immigrant community. If you want "the Democrats" to take fraud seriously - please also debunk false accusations done specifically for political purposes. I do accounting services for small non-profits, some of which have daycare and schools attached. I can tell you that daycare security is extremely high because parents are protective of themselves and their children. If what happened in those viral videos had happened outside the preschool I know best, they would have locked down the facility, called the police, and informed the parents. The Bulwark expects more from itself and everyone else, so I expect more from you. I get that this take is a political one about Walz dropping out. But it's not ok to treat this whole subject as a horserace issue when child care workers are being harassed and intimidated because of their country of origin.
A correction to some of the comments, both in the podcast and in the viewers' remarks. Governor Walz has not resigned his office. He has decided not to run for a third term. These are not the same things.
IMO, Tim Walz would not have withstood this scandal, so he sensibly resigned. That's not particularly brave or self sacrificing. Just facing facts. Which is, however, as Sarah rightly notes, much more than Joe Biden did for the good of his party. All true. Amy will be a formidable candidate to take his place as governor, which can only be a net good for the Dems, assuming she is replaced by a Dem in the senate. On the idea of Kamala in 2028, dreadful. PTSD by association from 2024 cannot win. The most sensible and patriotic thing: please dear god, do not run. If you do, expecting automatic deference, you will be unhappily surprised. The bench has grown by leaps and bounds. No dutiful allegiance to you will be there, come primary time. Give us the peace to move on.
Not sure why everyone is so against Kamala Harris. She ran a heck of a race against extraordinary headwinds and almost won. She wasn't a great candidate but she was far from a bad candidate.
If only people cared as much about millions being wasted on a jet flight over the Gulf of Mexico to celebrate "renaming" it Gulf of Murica, or the millions wasted on mobilizing the NG to pick up litter and pose for photos, or the millions into billions we'll spend on behalf of the impoverished petroleum industry yet again after it has bequeathed us devastating storms on evaporation steroids and microplastics in our brain and reproductive systems, or the millions we'll spend bailing out (some) farmers due to 6-D tariffs.
Walz was a terrible VP candidate choice! Did Kamala’s team even vet the guy? Shouldn’t they have unearthed this stuff before she chose him as her running mate? His stolen valor embarrassment was bad enough.
Walz's best defense to massive embezzlement—on his watch—of public funds intended for the most needy: “I was napping the entire time.”
I think Walz was a terrible VP choice, though I doubt his selection made much of a difference. (VP selections rarely do.) I hated the performative every guy routine that seemed so fake.
One always prefers to shoot the messenger, and then blame the dead messenger for causing the thing the messenger was warning about.
In other words, when someone tells you the train is coming right at you, you shoot them, and then when you finally do see the train is about to run you over, you blame the dead messenger for causing the train to run you over, because if he hadn’t warned you about it, it never would have happened.
I like Tim Walz. He is in it for the right reasons, not to enrich himself. The COVID loans were as well managed as a program that large can be, especially with reduced (and remote) staffing at state levels. Remember, MN is a lot smaller than CA and staying on top of Federal grant guidelines is a nightmare but a necessary evil (I have been a government grants administrator).
These unserious pieces of trash are attacking in every direction because they know Epstein hurts them ALL. Why are they going after ridiculous real estate crap? Because they CAN'T FIND OTHER STUFF on Tish James that people with a 3rd grade comprehension can use to channel their bigotry and racism into. I think we need to stop blaming while looking backward as the fascists have the fucking nuclear football and whole government now and are way ahead of everyone, using the anti-American Project 2025 as their blueprint.
We just became international criminals but yes let's bitch about Walz and Harris while gazing at our navels.
As John Steinbeck probably did not say and Twain definitely did not, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
This is one of the lousiest Bulwark Takes ever. The only reaction to this news should be mourning that a good person is leaving politics, chased out by the rabid dogs of the right, including threats against his family and to the Somali community. Look around you. The monsters are winning!
No one wants to watch the Democrats have a reckoning over their immigration mistakes. Why are the Democrats the party that's suppose to act like whipped puppies for years after electoral loss? Have the Republicans ever come to grips with having tried to overturn an election? No. They leaned in.
I can't help but think that this was just an excuse to give Sarah Longwell an opportunity to dance on Walz's grave, and to throw shade at Harris, too. True, Sarah always preferred the chud lawyer Shapiro, but the Bulwark was happy enough to fluff itself by moderating the Harris-Liz Cheney event. The next time Sarah wants to crow about her political savvy, she might think about how THAT event played for the Democrats. They probably picked up ten votes--and lost thousands.
Sarah is wrong. Just let go of that fixation on Shapiro and bitterness about Dem picks not being Con picks. It's in the past. Walz has been an excellent governor. The fraud case is old, was prosecuted already. This is the right wing propaganda machine ending the career of one of our best public officials. What a sad waste. What a lane sad thing that media, even this independent media, follow their lead and adopt their arguments.
Probably trying to shield his family.
OMG...Stop the navel gazing and self flagellation!
This story ONLY has legs because the right-wing blogosphere and media (Fox, etc) have been amplifying it for weeks.
Dems do this all the time (See: Al Franken). They take something being hyped by the right wing, that has a hint of a problem, and immediately capitulate and throw the Dem in the middle over board. FFS. Fight back!
This "scandal" has been investigated and prosecuted for years. It started in the local DA/state level and they brought the Feds in...who filed charges in 2015 and ... in 2024 - under BIDEN. Only now when a Trumpian US Attorney starts hyping the problem ($9 Billion? Does anyone really believe this number?) and a blogger makes some shit up and puts it on YouTube, it's suddenly a crisis for Walz.
This is a joke. And yet...the Dems - and now the Bulwark - have to jump in and agree with the right wing (wittingly or not) that Walz is terrible and the Dems are the problem and need to be voted out.
Until the Dems start fighting back this is going to happen over and over and over again. Stop capitulating.
The right is going to find some topic - any topic really - and keep hyping it until it catches with their base. See: mass murder by immigrants, trans people grooming your kids to pee in cat litter boxes. It doesn't matter if its real or imagined, they're gonna push it.
Until and unless the rest of sane America figures out how to fight back this misinformation and propaganda were going to have to learn to fight back and support the politicians that become the focus of the smears.
Can you please do clearer coverage of this so-called fraud? Yes, there was a huge scandal. It was a $250 million food assistance fraud. The ring leader was a white woman. The arrests and trials happened over the Biden administration with the last case ending in conviction last year. The newer fraud allegations going viral are really grossly targeted at the Somali immigrant community. If you want "the Democrats" to take fraud seriously - please also debunk false accusations done specifically for political purposes. I do accounting services for small non-profits, some of which have daycare and schools attached. I can tell you that daycare security is extremely high because parents are protective of themselves and their children. If what happened in those viral videos had happened outside the preschool I know best, they would have locked down the facility, called the police, and informed the parents. The Bulwark expects more from itself and everyone else, so I expect more from you. I get that this take is a political one about Walz dropping out. But it's not ok to treat this whole subject as a horserace issue when child care workers are being harassed and intimidated because of their country of origin.
A correction to some of the comments, both in the podcast and in the viewers' remarks. Governor Walz has not resigned his office. He has decided not to run for a third term. These are not the same things.
IMO, Tim Walz would not have withstood this scandal, so he sensibly resigned. That's not particularly brave or self sacrificing. Just facing facts. Which is, however, as Sarah rightly notes, much more than Joe Biden did for the good of his party. All true. Amy will be a formidable candidate to take his place as governor, which can only be a net good for the Dems, assuming she is replaced by a Dem in the senate. On the idea of Kamala in 2028, dreadful. PTSD by association from 2024 cannot win. The most sensible and patriotic thing: please dear god, do not run. If you do, expecting automatic deference, you will be unhappily surprised. The bench has grown by leaps and bounds. No dutiful allegiance to you will be there, come primary time. Give us the peace to move on.
Not sure why everyone is so against Kamala Harris. She ran a heck of a race against extraordinary headwinds and almost won. She wasn't a great candidate but she was far from a bad candidate.
If only people cared as much about millions being wasted on a jet flight over the Gulf of Mexico to celebrate "renaming" it Gulf of Murica, or the millions wasted on mobilizing the NG to pick up litter and pose for photos, or the millions into billions we'll spend on behalf of the impoverished petroleum industry yet again after it has bequeathed us devastating storms on evaporation steroids and microplastics in our brain and reproductive systems, or the millions we'll spend bailing out (some) farmers due to 6-D tariffs.
Harris didn't let Walz get out much once the campaign got going. He might've been more of an asset if she'd let him.
Walz was a terrible VP candidate choice! Did Kamala’s team even vet the guy? Shouldn’t they have unearthed this stuff before she chose him as her running mate? His stolen valor embarrassment was bad enough.
Walz's best defense to massive embezzlement—on his watch—of public funds intended for the most needy: “I was napping the entire time.”
I betcha The Party Elders invited him to resign.
I think Walz was a terrible VP choice, though I doubt his selection made much of a difference. (VP selections rarely do.) I hated the performative every guy routine that seemed so fake.
This makes me so sad. He’s so great and done such a great job for the kids and women. 😢
Walz stepping down because it’s better for the party and Minnesota provides a huge ethical mirror to Trump’s grifting, abuse and illegal orders.
The people in this video make me question my decision to subscribe.
I just subscribed, and after a few podcasts this week, I am starting to wonder if I did the right thing.
Same.
Why?
If they will do what MSM is already good at then why should we support them?
One always prefers to shoot the messenger, and then blame the dead messenger for causing the thing the messenger was warning about.
In other words, when someone tells you the train is coming right at you, you shoot them, and then when you finally do see the train is about to run you over, you blame the dead messenger for causing the train to run you over, because if he hadn’t warned you about it, it never would have happened.
That is not what is happening here.
I like Tim Walz. He is in it for the right reasons, not to enrich himself. The COVID loans were as well managed as a program that large can be, especially with reduced (and remote) staffing at state levels. Remember, MN is a lot smaller than CA and staying on top of Federal grant guidelines is a nightmare but a necessary evil (I have been a government grants administrator).
These unserious pieces of trash are attacking in every direction because they know Epstein hurts them ALL. Why are they going after ridiculous real estate crap? Because they CAN'T FIND OTHER STUFF on Tish James that people with a 3rd grade comprehension can use to channel their bigotry and racism into. I think we need to stop blaming while looking backward as the fascists have the fucking nuclear football and whole government now and are way ahead of everyone, using the anti-American Project 2025 as their blueprint.
We just became international criminals but yes let's bitch about Walz and Harris while gazing at our navels.
Yea, GOP voters are happy to give money and have it taken by rich people. They get really upset if they have to give it to poor people.
As John Steinbeck probably did not say and Twain definitely did not, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
This is one of the lousiest Bulwark Takes ever. The only reaction to this news should be mourning that a good person is leaving politics, chased out by the rabid dogs of the right, including threats against his family and to the Somali community. Look around you. The monsters are winning!
No one wants to watch the Democrats have a reckoning over their immigration mistakes. Why are the Democrats the party that's suppose to act like whipped puppies for years after electoral loss? Have the Republicans ever come to grips with having tried to overturn an election? No. They leaned in.
I can't help but think that this was just an excuse to give Sarah Longwell an opportunity to dance on Walz's grave, and to throw shade at Harris, too. True, Sarah always preferred the chud lawyer Shapiro, but the Bulwark was happy enough to fluff itself by moderating the Harris-Liz Cheney event. The next time Sarah wants to crow about her political savvy, she might think about how THAT event played for the Democrats. They probably picked up ten votes--and lost thousands.
Shapiro, a volunteer to the IDF, ugh
Sarah is wrong. Just let go of that fixation on Shapiro and bitterness about Dem picks not being Con picks. It's in the past. Walz has been an excellent governor. The fraud case is old, was prosecuted already. This is the right wing propaganda machine ending the career of one of our best public officials. What a sad waste. What a lane sad thing that media, even this independent media, follow their lead and adopt their arguments.
Totally agree with Lauren. I forgot Walz was the VP nominee entirely.