FARMINGTON, Utah — A 42-minute video by independent journalist Nick Shirley went live with his claim of having unearthed $110 million in fraud in government aid to Minnesota childcare providers. The video went viral, first on the platform X, then on YouTube. Shirley recorded visits to 10 childcare businesses at Minneapolis and found no children — not one: Just sparse rented space mostly in shabby industrial zones. He banged on locked doors, rang door bells, and tried peeking through blacked-out windows. These places had signs purporting to be state-licensed daycare centers but, as Shirley repeatedly notes in the video, there were no children around — even any playground equipment. At a few places Shirley found lone persons appearing to be clerks. He used a ruse that he was looking for a place to enroll his son Little Joey. To his persistent question “Where are the kids,” he got no answer.
Michael Moore redux
While the video is convincing in the jagged authentic style of Mihael Moore’s 1989 “Roger and Me” documentary, it raises collateral questions. For sourcing, Shirley relies solely on a self-styled citizen researcher identified only as “Dave,” who claims to have scoured state licensing documents on childcare facilities and on state payments on reimbursement claims. Who is “Dave”? Shirley never says.
Unaddressed, unsettling omissions
Shirley. At a childcare site with his Minneapolis informant and and tour guide “Dave” in red.
Video: Youtube video
> Is “Dave” a Republican dupe set up to embarrass the Democratic administration of Governor Walz, a Democrat? It’s a question neither asked not addressed.
> Shirley conflates fraudsters with governmental policy-makers. While he makes a plausible case that fraud has occurred, he goes too far with indictments like: “It’s time to hold these corrupt politicians and fraudsters accountable.” But he falls way short of demonstrating bribery or favortism suggested by his word word “corruption.”
> How legitimate are that documents that “Dave” and Shirley repeatedly wave at his camera? Convincing authentication is missing. “Dave” says a friend in state government assisted hs research. A whistle-blower? A disgrunted state employee? If so, the why djdn’t “Dave” take sitat least two years on the information? He could have gone to investigative agencies. He could have gone to the highly competitive and scoop-hungry Mjnneapolis news media? The Star Tribune craves scandals. So too the Pioneer Press, WCCO and KARE and the Minnesota Reformer, the Minnesota Post and MPR? Something seems too calculated in waiting until December 26 — a famously slow news day just after Christmas — to drop the documentary online and thus maximizing chances of its being noticed.
.> How did “Dave” find Shirley for his revelations? Shirley was an a relatively obscure blogger in Utah. Although 23 and blogging since high school, his work wan’t known widely Also: He lives in Utah, 1,200 miles from Minneapolis. How did “Dave” and Shirley hook up?
> Did Minnesota Republicans have a role in the documentary in their search fto generate a 2026 campaign theme against Walz? Was there a tie to underscore President Trimp’s hatred for Walz in more broadly and alsoMinnesita as a Democrat-governed state?
> Was Shirley paid to produce the video? If so, by whom?
Endangered inquiry?
“Dave” says in the video he has been threatened twice while pursuing childcare information, once with a knife and once being jumped by three men he described as Somalis. The video’s release coincides with Trump’s project to deport all 70,000 Somali immigrants in Minnesota. “Dav” makes repeated reference in the video to Somalis as a secretive and closed community and inclined to violence. Although not visible in the edited video, there are private security agents with “Dave” and Shirley as they visit childcare sites and encounter Somali women in distinctive head scarves ad long dresses. The most tense moment in the video is when Minneapolis escort “Dave” and Shirley out of a building based on an overstated complaint that they were intrusive and harassing and instilling fear for asking “Where are the kids?” In the video Shirley asked viewers to donate to help him hm pay for his security adetail provided by Los Angeles-based BlackLine Guardian Security Operations.
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