Comment by poplarsol

8 hours ago

Patrick is too polite to mention it, but frauds work much better if the fraudsters are also fully integrated into the political machine of the people nominally investigating the fraud.

I don't think that's in evidence. Institutionalized and ideologically-driven apathy towards the fraud, sure, but that's not uncommon (see: the defense industry; the finance industry).

  • A distinction without a difference imo. I think most people rightfully surmise the defense and financial industries are rife with, if not outright fraud, at least waste and abuse. We could use better language perhaps.

Its hilarious how short human memory is. To me Minnesota just seems like a replay of Tammany Hall in NYC

  • Then I think you need to read more about Tammany Hall, because it was not simply a widespread pattern of fraud in social services.

    • There was few social services at the time. It was a patronage system. Different rewards but buying votes all the same. My point is that patronage is a long storied American tradition so I don’t know why people are al shocked that such schemes are still ongoing. Republican and anti castro cubans is or was a similar patronage system.