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Analyzing That Bandied-About $9B Fraud Figure
Over the next couple months, as midterm elections loom, the Minnesota GOP will be thudding the living crap outta the Democrats-allowed-rampant-fraud drum. And while the issue is valid, fact-averse Republicans might be overblowing the scale of it. By a lot.
"I’m hearing it’s [$]19 [billion], and it’s probably much more," President Donald Trump said with his trademark attention to detail. But most conservatives—including Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Michele Tafoya, this trio of lawmakers, and various online dolts—are trumpeting a very specific claim of $9 billion in fraud.
In a story published Tuesday, KSTP reporter Tom Hauser sought documentation to verify that claim. He found that now-former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson originated the $9 billion fraud estimate late last year, and media outlets ran with it. After crunching the numbers, however, the KSTP instigative team only managed to account for $500 million in statewide fraud schemes—that's a much smaller number! And $250-$300 million of it represents the Feeding Our Future tally. Hauser notes that it would take another 30+ Feeding Our Future-scale scandals to crack $9 billion.
Did the people parroting this debunked figure offer mea culpas? They did not.
“I was generalizing and giving a sense of the magnitude of the fraud, the scope of it,” Thompson tells KSTP, refusing to back down from his $9 billion estimate. "We will get to $9 billion," Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-Maple Grove) says, almost hopefully.
As a high-functioning adult, you've already diagnosed the disconnect: Politicians lie constantly. But for some credentialed expertise, Hauser enlisted professor Paul M. Vaaler of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. “Hype and hyperbole have always been part of partisan politics,” he says. "That’s not going to go away.”
And, unfortunately, neither is fraud. On Monday, KSTP reported on the 29,000 "ghost students" who've fraudulently attempted matriculation to Bloomington's Normandale Community College. Scary stuff.
Another Multi-Million Dollar Oopsie for MPS
“Minneapolis Public Schools lost out on $4.1 million in state and federal special education aid during the 2025-26 school year due to a district accounting mistake,” Melissa Whitler reports for Minnesota Reformer. This is one of several multi-million dollar screwups from the cash-strapped school district’s finance department over the last couple of years, which at this point we must assume is being run by feral cats. “The lost funding is roughly enough to pay 35 teachers for a school year,” Whitler continues.
Other mishaps include at least $25 million in underreported special education expenses, $3 million in improperly withheld funds from an employee healthcare trust, and failing to file federal tax forms, which resulted in a $5.3 million fine.
And then there’s the assessment costs. Multiple outside investigators were hired to figure out what exactly was going on—a huge undertaking that will cost over $1 million. What they found included staff who didn’t understand how to file paperwork, technology systems that didn’t work, and high staff turnover with little training.
Dressing up for What Comes Next
From Katrina Pross at Sahan Journal comes a nice profile of Billy Vang, who owns a shop at Maplewood Mall that specializes in traditional Hmong funeral garments.
Vang talks about how his space at the mall has made him an educator; people walking past with no knowledge of Hmong customs are drawn in by his brightly colored wares. He also discusses his partnership with North Memorial Health, which provides those who die unexpectedly with culturally suitable funeral garb. There are also some great photos of Vang’s work.
As for the purpose of that work, Vang states it simply: “[Families] don’t want their loved ones to wear a hospital gown into the next life.”
RIP Dolly Parton, Tim Curry
Jeez, Death, can you chill out for a second? As if Monday's loss of Dolly Parton wasn't enough, Tuesday followed with the death of another weird, funny, and singular talent: Tim Curry.
On Facebook, 89.3 the Current shared a gorgeous Dolly portrait taken by photographer Pete Hohn before her August 26, 1975, Minnesota State Fair appearance—kinda funny that it came across my feed on August 26 of this year. She played the State Fair four times over the years, and the comments on that Current post are full of folks remembering how it felt to watch a performer like Dolly belt it out at the Grandstand.
As for Curry local angles? Well, because you read Keith's movie listings, we don't need to tell you that you can still catch regular Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings at the Parkway, a tradition that previously took place at the Uptown Theatre. You can revisit Strib reporter Neal Justin's 2016 story about those Uptown screenings—the costumes, the singalongs, the throwing stuff at the screen—via this gift link. They took place weekly all the way through 1996!
