Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:00 PM | September 20, 2026
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The most Minnesota story ever dropped this week. 

Hennepin County, where the City of Minneapolis is located, set aside a significant pile of cash to provide relief to businesses that saw significant declines during Operation Metro Surge. 

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I suppose it was only fair in their eyes, since the businesses suffered not so much because ICE was picking up illegal aliens; After all, probably 99 percent of the disruption was caused by activists organized and egged on by local and state political officials, who directed and coordinated the violence and disruption that disrupted commerce. 

The problem? Well, the program had to be shut down by another Minnesota government-related problem: massive fraud. Since everybody is looking these days, the country decided to actually check on whether the applicants were actually eligible to receive the funds — a novelty in this state — and it turns out that the vast majority of the applications were fraudulent. 

One has to wonder what percent of the applicants were illegal aliens whom the activists spent all that effort "saving" from the federal government. 

Federal authorities estimate that half or more of some federal program spending has been stolen through fraud, but I suspect that this is an underestimate. Every time you turn over a rock here in Minnesota you find some fraudster living high off the hog on government money. It's become a way of life for many people.

It's so rampant that even foreign government officials are getting in on the action. A Liberian government official who ran the ports in that country ran a nice side business as a manager of group homes in Minnesota, running a Medicaid fraud scheme.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services is suspending payments to all group home companies affiliated with a high-ranking government official in Liberia, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud,” following an MPR News and APM Reports investigation this week. The Department of Health says it will shut down three group homes he managed and will transfer their residents to other facilities.

The investigation published Monday found that Sekou Dukuly, the managing director of Liberia’s National Port Authority, had been the director at three Golden Touch Health Care group homes since 2025. Even though he lived thousands of miles away, Dukuly told a state licensing board he was personally in charge of day-to-day operations at the company’s facilities in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center — until a reporter contacted him last week.

The Human Services Department confirmed Thursday it had placed “payment withholds” on assisted living facilities affiliated with Dukuly. An agency spokesperson said the pause is used “to protect taxpayer dollars” during an investigation “when there are credible allegations of Medicaid fraud.”

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You do have to admire Hennepin County for actually looking for fraud before dropping the cash out of helicopters. Although the kudos should be muted, given that this was perhaps the first time in recorded history that they caught it before it actually cost us millions or billions of dollars and was exposed by a Gen Z guy with a smartphone. 

What makes this story so Minnesota is most certainly not that they caught the fraud; that's very un-Minnesotan in itself. 

It's that the do-gooders created the problem in the first place, created a government program to solve a government-caused problem, and the program failed because the people who put their hands out for the money were a bunch of grifters. 

And, of course, none of them will get prosecuted. No doubt they were required to make statements under oath declaring that they were eligible, but rather than going after them for fraud, the bureaucrats and the County government are just shrugging. 

I do have to give kudos to the local media, with caveats. The fraud problem has been around for years, but it wasn't until the federal government and eventually Nick Shirley kept exposing it that the locals picked it up and ran with it. Well, the local TV stations, at least. The Star Tribune, our local paper, still pretends there is nothing to see here. 

The local news stations are now dogs with a bone, though, and it has been having an effect. Minnesotans are well aware of the fraud, and it has dinged the Democrats politically. I have my doubts that it will harm them too much electorally, but the polls are much closer than usual because many people are angry about it. 

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Still, the smart money is on Amy Klobuchar winning the governor's race, although Peggy Flanagan, the Lieutenant Governor who is now running for Senate, is polling even with Michele Tafoya, the Republican. There is hope. 

And, most interestingly in some ways, the Democrats may lose the Attorney General's race for the first time in 60 years. In that time, the Republicans have sometimes held the Secretary of State's office, the governorship, and the State Auditor, but never the AG. 

But Keith Ellison may lose due to the fraud. 

That would be cool. He was my state representative for years, then my Congressman, and now the AG. It would be good to see him get booted. 














































BEST OF THE BABYLON BEE:


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THE CUTE STUFF...


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AND FINALLY...


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