Embattled Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, when announcing his decision not to run for reelection, said Monday that he has fired people for failing to combat his state’s many fraud scandals, but his office has declined to list the bureaucrats fired. “We’ve fired people who weren’t doing their jobs,” he wrote in a statement Monday, in the context of combatting fraud. The Daily Signal reached out to Walz’s office for a list of bureaucrats fired amid the fraud scandals, but the governor did not respond by publication time. State Rep. Patti Anderson, a Republican and vice chair of the Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, told The Daily Signal she is “unaware of anyone who has been fired in regard to the ongoing fraud.” Of Walz, she said, “I think he’s assuming that people are going to take his statement at face value and not look and see the fact that he hasn’t terminated a single person that allowed the fraud to happen.” Anderson served as state auditor from 2003 to 2007, and then as commissioner of employee relations under the state’s last Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty. She told The Daily Signal, “It’s impossible that Walz himself wasn’t aware” of the fraud and alleged attempts to enable it. “These things don’t just happen,” she said.Walz’s tenure has been tainted with several fraud scandals, most notably a $250 million fraud scheme where the Minneapolis nonprofit Feeding Our Future reported fake food distribution sites while collecting federal child nutrition assistance. The office of U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen has charged at least 78 defendants connected to the scheme, and 56 of them have pleaded guilty. Authorities have also filed charges in a $14 million fraud case involving an autism program and a multi-million dollar fraud case involving housing stabilization services.One federal prosecutor has estimated Medicaid fraud in the state to have exceeded $9 billion. Anderson said that whistleblowers, who have spoken with her committee, approached bureaucrats at many levels of Walz’s administration but were rebuffed. In a previous statement to The Daily Signal, the state’s Department of Human Services denied claims of retaliation against whistleblowers. Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with the conservative-leaning Center of the American Experiment, noted that many staff have left Walz’s administration since the first indictments in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal in 2022, but added that Walz did not fire them; he instead allowed their appointments to expire. “The governor now claims credit, well after the fact, for holding his appointees accountable for not stopping the fraud,” Glahn told The Daily Signal. “However, that’s not how these events were portrayed at the time.” With Glahn’s help, The Daily Signal identified three bureaucrats who left Walz’s administration after the first indictments in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal were issued in September 2022. Walz did not state that fraud had anything to do with their departures. 1. Heather Mueller Heather Mueller, former commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, claimed before a state Senate committee that a judge ordered the department to resume payments to Feeding Our Future despite serious fraud concerns. The judge released a rare public statement emphatically denying any such order. Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller, a Republican, publicly called on Mueller to resign in September 2022. Two months later, Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Petty Flanagan announced that Mueller had “chosen not to seek reappointment” in Walz’s second term. In a press release thanking Walz’s cabinet for their service, the governor’s office gave Mueller a glowing endorsement. “The governor and lieutenant governor are grateful for Dr. Mueller’s continued focus on helping all Minnesota students have access to a world-class education,” the release states. 2. Jodi Harpstead Jodi Harpstead, commissioner of the Department of Human Services, also left Walz’s office amid the Feeding Our Future scandal, but Walz made no mention of fraud related to her departure. “I want to extend my deepest thanks to Commissioner Harpstead for answering the call of public service five and a half years ago,” Walz said in a Jan. 13, 2025, press release. “I am proud of her work running the most complex and wide-ranging agency in state government.” 3. Eric Grumdahl On Sept. 17, ahead of a hearing before the fraud prevention committee in which top housing regulator Eric Grumdahl was scheduled to testify, the agency notified the committee that Grumdahl had been terminated. The Department of Justice has brought fraud charges in housing cases.  A spokesperson for Grumdahl’s former office confirmed his ouster to CBS News, and cited a law stating the reasons for an employee’s separation are not public data.  According to Minnesota statutes, disciplinary action against a bureaucrat is considered public information if the bureaucrat resigns or is fired amid charges.  Rep. Kristin Robbins, a Republican and chair of the fraud committee, said at the time that she was “stunned” to hear the news.  “This is yet another example of DHS and the Walz administration dodging accountability for their failures,” Robbins said.  The post Tim Walz Claims He Fired People Amid Fraud Scandals—But Won’t Name Names appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The U.S. arrest and removal of Socialist Narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela opens the door for several positive outcomes for the U.S., Americans, Venezuela, and our western hemisphere. Assuming new, democratic leadership emerges in Venezuela and any remnants of Maduro’s regime are shut out of power, U.S. national interests will be enhanced by fewer drugs—including fentanyl—pouring into the U.S. and the destabilization of U.S. adversaries in our hemisphere, including Cuba, China, Russia, and Iran. U.S. national interests also greatly benefit from the departure and removal of Venezuelan nationals—the good and the bad—who came to the U.S. With respect to immigration, we could see Venezuela become the model for concluding temporary immigration to the U.S. Let’s start with the undesirables who came here from Venezuela. Declassified reports state the Maduro regime facilitated the illegal immigration of dangerous gang members into the U.S., including Tren de Aragua (TdA)—a Venezuelan prison gang—to destabilize American governments and undermine public safety. The Venezuelan convicted of murdering Laken Riley—a Georgia nursing student—appears to have been affiliated with Tren de Aragua. So were the two killers of Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year old girl from Houston. These Venezuelan murderers Illegally entered the U.S. during the Biden administration, which encountered them and released them, along with millions of other inadmissible aliens, into our country. The Tren de Aragua gang took over hotels and apartment buildings in New York City and Aurora, Colo., terrorizing American citizens. The Trump administration has worked to deport Venezuelan criminals, including designating TdA and Maduro’s Cartel de los Soles as foreign terrorist organizations,  invoking the Alien Enemies Act regarding the “invasion of the U.S. by TdA.”   Maduro periodically rejected accepting U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela. When a foreign government rejects receipt of their own nationals, the U.S. must either find a third country to accept them or keep them in the U.S., undetained after a possible short detention. With Maduro ousted, the Trump administration can consistently return Venezuelan deportees to their home country with a cooperating Venezuelan leadership. This would keep Americans safe from additional, preventable crimes committed by Venezuelan cartel and gang members. In allowing millions of illegal aliens into the U.S., including over 907,000 Venezuelans, the Biden administration issued mass immigration parole based on nationality in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also unlawfully granted parolees work authorization. The Trump administration terminated the unlawful Venezuelan immigration parole and work authorization, returning the recipients to their prior inadmissible and deportable status. ICE can likewise deport this population of inadmissible Venezuelans more easily without Maduro in power. The Biden administration also designated Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in 2021, based on its political instability, human rights abuses, and economic crisis. This allowed Venezuelans residing in the U.S. since March 2021 to apply for TPS and a work authorization. Biden extended TPS for another 18 months in 2022. In 2023, the Biden administration both extended the 2021 TPS designation again and, in clear violation of the TPS statute, “redesignated” TPS for Venezuelans who had resided in the U.S. since July 2023.  Redesignation is found nowhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act, yet many administrations—excluding either of the Trump administrations—redesignated TPS for multiple countries to allow larger populations of illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. In its final days, the Biden administration published a Federal Register notice to extend its 2023 Venezuela TPS designation. In 2025, however, the Trump administration announced the vacatur (court-ordered invalidation) of the Biden January 2025 extension decision for the 2023 designation. Trump’s DHS also terminated Biden’s 2021 TPS designation. Terminations of TPS have been the exception rather than the norm for decades. Most country designations were extended as a default. Somalia has been designated and “redesignated” for over 34 years. This is just one example of how permanent “temporary” TPS has become. It is a de facto amnesty in desperate need of congressional reform. In the meantime, Venezuela’s TPS designation has rightly been terminated and, unless they have obtained other lawful immigration status, prior TPS holders should return to Venezuela. With respect to asylum, it too can be temporary and terminated for a number of reasons, including changed (improved) country conditions. Asylum may be granted when an alien has suffered past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution by their government on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. While Venezuelans could claim fear of persecution by the Maduro regime based on political opinion, if his ouster is followed by removing his fellow regime from power and a democratically elected leader takes over, such changed country conditions warrant termination of asylum and Venezuelans returning home to help rebuild their country and economy. This is the exact goal of temporary immigration protection: For recipients to go home when their country conditions improve, which many Venezuelans seem eager to do. The Trump administration and the Venezuelan people have the opportunity to be the model for concluding temporary immigration in the U.S. and throughout the world, which strengthens both the sending and receiving countries, alike. The post Venezuela Can Be a Model for Concluding Temporary Immigration in the U.S. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Uganda’s government is signaling it may move to block Bitchat, a peer-to-peer messaging platform, just days before voters go to the polls. The warning came from Nyombi Thembo, the executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), who said the state’s technical units were prepared to disable the service if ordered. Speaking to reporters, Thembo claimed Uganda had the capacity to take such action, telling NilePost: “We have the highest concentration of software engineers and developers in this country. It is very easy for us to switch off such platforms if the need arises.” He also cautioned that Bitchat should not be viewed as a reliable workaround for potential communication limits. One of Bitchat’s open-source developers, known online as “Calle,” doubted the government could follow through, saying the platform’s design makes blocking it nearly impossible. Bitchat connects users through a Bluetooth mesh network rather than the internet or phone signal. No account setup is needed, and messages move directly between nearby devices. This architecture allows communication to continue even when authorities restrict online access, as no central servers can be targeted. The app’s user base has expanded rapidly in the past week. Calle reported that installations in Uganda have jumped by several hundred thousand, about one percent of the country’s population. The growth reflects public anxiety over a repeat of earlier information blackouts. In 2021, the Ugandan government cut internet access nationwide the day before the election, an outage that lasted more than four days. Social media and mobile payments were also periodically restricted around politically sensitive events. The unease has deepened after Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, suspended operations in Uganda following a government request. Officials said the company lacked a local license, but many citizens saw the move as an early warning of wider controls. Authorities insist there will be no internet shutdown this time. Thembo called reports of an impending blackout “mere rumors,” while the Ministry of ICT’s Permanent Secretary, Aminah Zawedde, maintained that the government “has not announced, directed, or implemented any decision to shut down the internet during the election period,” describing claims to the contrary as “false and misleading.” Officials said Starlink’s suspension was a matter of compliance rather than censorship. Still, the sequence of government interventions has left many skeptical. President Yoweri Museveni, who has led Uganda for 40 years, is again facing a challenge from opposition figure Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as musician Bobi Wine. After the 2021 shutdown, Wine alleged that the blackout concealed irregularities in the vote. This election season, he is urging citizens to install Bitchat while they still can, warning in December that the “regime is plotting an internet shutdown in the coming days.” The renewed confrontation over communications technology exposes a deeper struggle over who controls information in Uganda. Bitchat’s decentralized model, which relies on direct device-to-device links, makes censorship costly and inefficient, if not impossible. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Bitchat Rises as Uganda Threatens Another Digital Blackout appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

A wave of online outrage has led Hilton Hotels to cut off an independently owned hotel location in Minnesota that was refusing to allow federal immigration agents to book rooms.The Department of Homeland Security called out the famous hotel chain in a social media post on Monday, claiming that federal agents were denied service at the Hampton Inn by Hilton in the Minneapolis suburb of Lakeville.'A recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values. As such, we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems.'"[Hilton Hotels] has launched a coordinated campaign in Minneapolis to REFUSE service to DHS law enforcement," the agency said in a statement. "When officers attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates, Hilton Hotels maliciously CANCELLED their reservations. This is UNACCEPTABLE."Hilton was immediately lambasted by many who threatened to cancel their reservations over the alleged incident.Very soon afterward, an investigation from the company led to an initial apology from the offending hotel."Everpeak Hospitality has moved swiftly to address this matter as it was inconsistent with our policy of being a welcoming place for all," the statement reads. "We are in touch with the impacted guests to ensure they are accommodated."The controversy dragged on into Tuesday, however, when evidence on social media showed that the hotel location continued refusing service to ICE.Hilton responded with a definitive action against the Lakeville hotel."The independent hotel owner had assured us that they had fixed this problem and published a message confirming this," reads a statement on social media.RELATED: Anti-ICE activists hold Home Depot operations hostage with disruptive ice-scraper stunt "A recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values. As such, we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems," the company said. "Hilton is — and has always been — a welcoming place for all. We are also engaging with all of our franchisees to reinforce the standards we hold them to across our system to help ensure this does not happen again."DHS Secretary Kristi Noem previously said the agency was sending an influx of agents to investigate fraud schemes in Minneapolis. Critics of the action have said the administration's rhetoric has led to hate speech against people in the Somali community who had nothing to do with the scams.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Republican Rep. Jim Baird of Indiana and his wife, Danise Baird, have been hospitalized following a car crash.The couple's vehicle "was struck in an accident," according to a statement from Baird's office, and Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly indicated that Baird may have suffered a spinal injury.'They’re going to be okay, but they had a pretty bad accident.'Nevertheless, Baird, 80, "is expected to make a full recovery," his office said. "He is extraordinarily grateful for everyone’s prayers during this time."Fox News reported that Baird is "responsive and in stable condition." Details of when and where the crash took place remain unclear.RELATED: California Republican suddenly dies at age 65 Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump expressed wishes for the Bairds' speedy recovery during an address to a House GOP legislative retreat at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday."I also want to send our best wishes to Congressman Jim Baird and his wife, who are recovering from a car accident," Trump said. "They’re going to be okay, but they had a pretty bad accident, and we’re praying that they get out of that hospital very quickly."Reports about the car accident involving the Bairds came shortly after news broke that Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) died suddenly earlier this week after reportedly suffering an aneurysm and later a heart attack during surgery. He was 65.LaMalfa's death and the resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) now leave Republicans with a slim 218-213 majority in the House.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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