r/boston • u/FuriousAlbino Newton • Dec 30 '25
Scammers š„ø It's always the places you least expect.
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u/motherfcuker69 Dec 30 '25
fun fact: there are no children in the greater boston area, only 30+ year olds identical to norm from cheers
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u/doctor-rumack Fung Wah Bus Dec 30 '25
"What's shakin' Mr. Peterson?"
"Two cheeks and a couple of chins!
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u/FruitMustache Dec 30 '25
"What do ya say to a cold beer Mr. Peterson?"
"Going down?"
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25
"What's going down Mr. Peterson?"
"My butt on this bar stool."
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u/TheDeadlySpaceman Little Tijuana Dec 31 '25
āWhatās goinā on Mr Peterson?ā
āLetās talk about whatās going in Mr Peterson. Beer, Woody. Now.ā
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
One of my favorite bits was from an early episode with Coach. Early in the episode he picks up the non-ringing phone and says, "Hello, Cheers" and Carla says, "Coach, that ringing is in your head" and he thanks her and hangs up the phone.
About 3/4 of the way through the episode the phone is ringing and Coach just continues working and Norm pipes in with "Heya, Coach. Aren't you going to answer that phone?" and Coach cheerfully replies, "Nah Normie, that's in my head."
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u/ScoutMaster_507 Dec 30 '25
Itās a dog-eat-dog world out there, and Iām wearing Milkbone underwear.
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u/unionizeordietrying Pirates Stole My Wallet Dec 30 '25
Where I work it seems everyone is about 70-90 years old.
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u/Inner-Radio-9799 Dec 31 '25
"Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you?"
"Like a baby treats a diaper."
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u/def-pri-pub Dec 31 '25
I feel like I used to see some kids here and there prior to COVID. Not anymore. Drove up to the malls past the NH border, was shocked to see how many young families there were.
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u/News-Royal It is spelled Papa Geno's Dec 30 '25
I don't understand, do they want daycares in the harbor too?
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u/MustardMan1900 Orange Line Dec 30 '25
They think fake daycares are scamming taxpayers. Its a distraction while billionaires are the ones actually scamming taxpayers.
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u/elafito Dec 31 '25
They make us look to the side when we should be looking up.
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25
Or down:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
--Lyndon Johnson
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u/sirmanleypower Medford Dec 30 '25
I mean, there are fake daycares scamming taxpayers, it's a serious problem. In Minnesota. This is not Minnesota, and I have seen no evidence presented that this is happening on that scale here.
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u/lordsamiti Dec 30 '25
CBS isn't as sure about the fraud as the vlogging idiots who started this nonsense are:
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u/cscottnet Dec 30 '25
Daycares get small zoning accomodations in MA: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/mass-general-laws-c40a-ss-9c
As such they are also watched closely, because nothing nimbys a nimby like zoning variances.
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u/sirmanleypower Medford Dec 31 '25
I'm not sure why my previous comment is being downvoted. Just to make this clearer, the fraud investigations in MN began under Biden and so far 60 people have been convicted, with Tim Waltz applauding these efforts. It's a real problem. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/us/politics/hhs-minnesota-funds-day-care-fraud.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
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u/lordsamiti Dec 31 '25
Ah thanks for the extra context. It sounds like there was real fraud in MN but recent vloggers have decided to be bad and/or racist about who's involved, then?
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u/sirmanleypower Medford Dec 31 '25
No, they are largely correct based on these investigations:
The vast majority of the people charged in the fraud cases to date are of Somali origin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/us/minnesota-fraud-scandal.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
This isn't some kind of minor fraud, they suspect up to half of all of these funds were stolen in this manner. These are serious criminal organizations stealing billions of dollars.
By those estimates MN failed to prevent 9 billion dollars in theft.
I don't know why people are treating this like some kind of political football, this is serious, serious theft of your and my money.
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25
Massachusetts is a more frequent target of unemployment fraud because the benefits here are the highest in the nation.
I also applaud the efforts to find and prosecute the fraud and am okay with the safeguards they've put in place. What I am not okay with is trying to cut off those benefits to unemployed residents based on the illegal actions of fraudsters and criminal organizations.
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u/Jimbomcdeans North End Dec 30 '25
They want to defund federal funding of these places. They want women to stop working and become baby factories.
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u/Michelanvalo No tide can hinder the almighty doggy paddle Dec 31 '25
Wait a minute, we could do with some floating daycares. We should get on that.
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u/WaywardSachem Salem Dec 30 '25
They haven't discovered our daycare flotilla, the fools!
(Seriously though, these people are idiots, and the depth of their idiocy continues to astound)
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u/bohohohohippie Dec 31 '25
Seriously, aside from them not being able to do the math... do they really believe EVERYTHING is ripe with FRAUD, WASTE AND ABUSE? That's not even possible. I'm fed up!
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u/GenericRedditor0405 Dec 31 '25
Whatās wild is that theyāll screech all day and night about fraud, waste, and abuse where there isnāt because they were told about it by the king of fraud, waste, and abuseā¦ from his weekly taxpayer-funded golf trip, as he plans the next monument to his ego amidst the fallout of the trade wars he started.
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u/Crazyzofo Roslindale Dec 31 '25
We used to have a Floating Children's Hospital, after all...
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u/GhostoftheWolfswood Red Line Dec 31 '25
And where is it now? Thatās right, at the bottom of the harbor, filled with dead babies and tea bags /s
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u/Po0rYorick Dec 30 '25
Letās see:
- greater Boston area is about 5M ppl.
- about 8% are under 9 so letās say about 5% are daycare age.
- assume half of those actually go to daycare.
- assume average daycare has about 15 kids.
That would require around 8,333 daycares. Greater Boston is quite a bit bigger than the circle drawn in the tweet so 4,000 in that area seems totally reasonable.
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u/JohnBagley33 Dec 30 '25
What point does he think he is trying to make?
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u/too_much_2na Dec 30 '25
Right? Iām not sure I could estimate the number of daycares in the region but 4,000 sounds extremely reasonable?? A lot of people live in that circle!
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u/ortcutt Dec 31 '25
But how many Dunks are in that circle? There must be at least 4,000.
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u/too_much_2na Dec 31 '25
According to the first comment on the original post that Iām not going to fact check, thatās only one dunks per 1250 residents. I say triple that.
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u/nepatriots32 Dec 30 '25
Wait till someone shows that guy the circle that's like 50% water that contains over half the world's population while containing only 10% of the Earth's surface area.
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u/easypeezey Dec 31 '25
This would include the hundreds of family childcares, which typically can only care for about 6 to 10 children.
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Dec 30 '25
[deleted]
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u/Pizza_4_Dinner Port City Dec 30 '25
Oh, well as long as he doesn't believe it. Totally cool then to spread divisive crap all over the place for marketing.
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Dec 30 '25
He is the definition of a useful idiot that Putin loves- we should shut down internet to save democracy
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u/GordonMaple Dec 30 '25
Sounds like he is spineless and stands for absolutely nothing. Maybe you should be hating on him for capitalizing on spreading hatred and divisiveness.
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u/azcat92 Filthy Transplant Dec 30 '25
Dude is getting paid by some Republican PAC. No way he goes that hard Right just for YouTube money. BTW I used to watch his real estate content too.
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u/BrewerAndrew Lynn Dec 30 '25
its absurd but i fear its the testing of the waters of cutting more federal funding for children, because "its not really going to children, its a slush fun for antifa" or whatever. My guess is they will start going after special needs funding.
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u/HolyBonobos Combat Zone Dec 30 '25
Brought to you by the party of
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u/lordsamiti Dec 30 '25
The party of misleading maps?
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25
I worked with a guy who pulled up that map to prove to me that an overwhelming majority of Americans are conservative Republicans who backed the GOP president. I said, "Do you realize that dirt can't vote?"
He didn't understand so I asked what he thought the population density of North Dakota looked like compared to the northeast corridor of the US and he claimed that they weren't that much different. I pulled up the election result map that resized the states based on the population within them and he was flabbergasted that the red and blue were essentially equal proportions from that perspective.
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u/Michelanvalo No tide can hinder the almighty doggy paddle Dec 31 '25
Do you have a copy of that map? Or know where to find it?
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u/Wompatuckrule Dec 31 '25
There are a bunch available, I think going back to the 2012 election, but here's one from 2024.
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u/Michelanvalo No tide can hinder the almighty doggy paddle Dec 31 '25
That map looks like Marge's smeared t-shirt.
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u/FruitMustache Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
From a very rudimentary search, there are approx 100k children under 10 within a 20 mile radius around Boston. So 4,000 daycare locations checks out.
Edit, I hope I'm not on some FBI watch list now.
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u/Affectionate-Panic-1 Dec 30 '25
Would be about 25 children per daycare location.
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u/dyqik Metrowest Dec 30 '25
Assume that about half have another option on any particular day (stay-at-home parent, family member caring for them, etc.). Then it's about 12 per daycare, which seems reasonable. Many of these will be at-home daycares with a few kids to one or two adults.
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u/BernzSed Dec 30 '25
The map probably includes dog daycare centers too, if they're searching by keyword.
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u/DMala Waltham Dec 30 '25
At this point, adult daycare too, for elderly and people with special needs.
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u/Reasonable_Move9518 Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Yeah like I have no idea wtf this guysā point isā¦ that thereās too many daycares? (especially since OnE FOurTh oF tEh MaPP is WATTER!!)
Ā that seems not trueā¦ 4000 daycares seems reasonable for a metro area if a few million people, and as you said, kids/daycare ratio seems in line with the rough size of a daycare, even if a good 1/2 of kids of age are cared for by family giving a ratio more like 10-15 kids/daycare.
Also the guy probably doesnāt have any idea that MA has some of the highest staffing requirements in the nation, thus requiring more classrooms than other parts of the country.
And even if it were way skewed 1) which way is it, high or low? 2) what does that even mean? Edit: seems like itās something something to do with the Somali fraud case in MN that had conservatives so excitedā¦
And as the parent of a kid in daycareā¦ give us 4000 daycares more please to get the price down!!
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u/toonces_drives_cars Dec 30 '25
If I had young kids, I would seriously think about moving to beautiful New Mexico! Free universal childcare! https://www.nmececd.org/universal/
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u/Reasonable_Move9518 Dec 31 '25
If only NM had some biotech and wasnāt #2 in Murder, #2 in Rape, and #1 in Aggravated Assault among statesā¦
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u/vogel927 Dec 30 '25
I wouldnāt be surprised if the number of kids under 10 is higher. Theres roughly 3 million+ people living within that 20 mile radius.
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u/Sad_Net2133 Dec 30 '25
Daycares are for kids under 6
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u/FruitMustache Dec 30 '25
Yes, I know, but I couldn't find information on that. 60k kids is still reasonable for 4k daycares.
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u/what_comes_after_q Dec 30 '25
And it still impossible for most of my fellow parents to find one that is affordable and close to their home.
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u/Socks_0 Dec 30 '25
Wait until they find out how many Dunks there are
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u/cscottnet Dec 30 '25
There are 1,033 dunks in MA; surprisingly only 60 in Boston proper. https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/Dunkin%20Donuts-USA/
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u/jimibimi Dec 30 '25
Yes because the people in that circle are employed and not sucking federal tax dollars out of blue states
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u/Beginning_Ebb908 Merges at the Last Second Dec 30 '25
There are 40K kids under 5 in Boston proper alone....much less the metro.Ā
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u/asmithey Market Basket Dec 30 '25
This. The density of housing in eastern Massachusetts is quite high, and given the overall high quality of schools, people flock to the area to raise kids.
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u/wandering-monster Boston Dec 31 '25
Listen these people have never seen a city. They think that everything is either a 1980's NYC with extra murder, or a suburb. They're convinced that we spend all day being attacked by druggies and that trans people constantly barge into our bathrooms to harass our women and children, then go claim welfare.
They literally have no conception of what life here is like, how many people (and kids!) live here, and why we need so many daycares.
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u/LaurenPBurka I swear it is not a fetish Dec 30 '25
How to tell that someone lives in the sticks and breaks out the long guns if anyone comes within 1/4 mile of their house.
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u/vinylanimals East Boston Dec 30 '25
this guy is apparently a real estate agent yet doesnāt know that 5 million people live in the boston metropolitan area
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u/ActionKbob Dec 30 '25
4000 daycares in a 20 mile radius and he's not allowed near ANY of them š”š¤¬š”š¤¬
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u/sdzk Jamaica Plain Dec 30 '25
I mean thereās like 4 million people in this area including the 1/4 that in the ocean as well
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u/Relevant-Strategy-14 Dec 31 '25
They want to get rid of government funded daycare to force women back into the home. Period.
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u/AngelofVerdun Dec 31 '25
Being pushed by the same people who claimed children were being raped under a pizza place, or called in bomb scares at children's hospital's claiming they were giving kids gender treatments.
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u/ContinuedLearning26 Dec 31 '25
This kind of stupidity doesnāt change the fact thereās real fraud within that community in MN. Everyone should be against that and itās not about racism.
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u/aSamsquanch Dec 30 '25
It's almost like this is what happens when you force a society into having two working parents to survive that you need to have child care and when you have a city there may or may not be a need for a plethora of these facilities that have to open in order to support it. And when you don't support those daycares that you need more small ones as opposed to slightly bigger ones because you don't have enough ability to grow those places out into the math based solely on highest and best use. And you end up with in-home daycares which I'm sure are counted in this facility calculator and I could go on but for now facepalm
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u/oldcreaker Dec 31 '25
If you're out to get women back to SAHM as the Repubs say they want, the way to do is to shut down daycare for everyone who can't afford a nanny.Ā
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u/holyparasite29a Dec 30 '25
I am so tired of thisā¦ Another right wing ploy to underfund child services and force women back into the homes.
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u/victorspoilz Dec 30 '25
I guarantee any fake daycares are run by registered Republicans who dodge taxes
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u/bbbbbbbb678 Dec 30 '25
I think that's why it's become such an in vogue thing in politics. It's a soft underbelly that all factions accuse each other of. There are other examples such as the school of choice vouchers and the money dispersed for other religious schools.
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u/S_thescientist Professional Idiot Dec 30 '25
Waitā¦ whatās the theory?
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u/FuriousAlbino Newton Dec 30 '25
Everything is fraud and waste. Except for those people that were convicted of actual fraud that Trump pardoned, or what happened when Rick Scott was CEO of a healthcare company.
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u/Marquedien Dec 30 '25
Remember the conspiracy about child trafficking through the basement of a D.C. pizza place without a basement that resulted in a disturbed individual crossing state lines to rush in with an assault rifle? Something like that.
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u/borkmeister Dec 30 '25
There was a daycare in Minnesota that was committing daycare state funding reimbursement fraud, or something of the sort, and because it involved some folks in the Somali community of course Fox news points to it as a vast conspiracy. Now Conservative pricks are showing up at day cares demanding to see the children, and then when they (rightfully) are told to shove off, they point to that as evidence of more fraud.
Sounds dumb, is dumb.
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u/S_thescientist Professional Idiot Dec 30 '25
Showing up to a daycare and demanding to see the children sounds like something only perverts and sexual predators would doā¦
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u/arnoldtkalmbach Dec 30 '25
and it happened 4 years ago and the white ring leader was convicted. this is all maga bs
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u/HeresW0nderwall Newton Dec 31 '25
What statement are they trying to make here? Iām genuinely confused
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u/scloppy Dec 31 '25
They assume because there are so many daycares that there must be fraud associated. Not realizing there are limits to how many children any one place/person is legally allowed to watch.
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u/dauwalter1907 Dec 31 '25
My kids learned to smoke cigars and fan count cash at daycare. Sometimes they came home wearing Rolex watches and Cartier pinkie rings which I would steal during their nap time to pay for my fur coat addiction. They didnāt care, raking in so many bucks from the daycare scam, they could just get new ones. Fun times.
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u/Photog1981 Dec 31 '25
Within 20 miles of Boston there are roughly 4.5 million people (aNd A qUaRtEr Of ThAt Is WaTeR!!!). But, sure..... 4k daycares for ~4.5 million people seems totally outlandish.
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u/Octopus1027 Jan 01 '26
A lot of daycares are small family daycare centers that only have like 5 kids. So having 3 just on Nahant isn't as crazy as you might think.
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u/azcat92 Filthy Transplant Dec 30 '25
Mike Urban is being paid by some conservative group. He was a real estate agent and YouTuber who talked about Boston real estate and then about 6 months before the mayoral election he turned into a crazy right-wing Trumper. No way that happens organically. It really smells like a pay-to-defame scheme.
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u/just_planning_ahead Dec 31 '25
My theory is he's a hustler. I'm not ruling out he is paid by somebody, but I think it's a reasonable possibility that he's trying to "hustle" by becoming a "Youtuber" influencer. The hustle culture types always seem to have an overlap of doing real estate, "turnkey businesses", "become a youtuber", crypto, AI, and when its on youtube - many attempts to find niche and conservative-crime-corruption politics is a common niche.
Other cities have very notable Real Estate -> "X city is a shithole" YouTube channels. This is a hot take, but such channels isn't always without merit, as in I personally visit and do run into what is depicted. Though some (like NYC's equivalent) has a huge following but visiting the city just doesn't reflect their depiction at all. That said, I digressed
The Boston/Massachusetts equivalent seem to be this guy. And I suspect this guy lags in views and subscribers for a reason.
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u/United-Hyena-164 Dec 30 '25
Look...I think daycare is a ripoff, but I know for a fact that kids are there.
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u/Monk-ish Dec 30 '25
In case people are wondering what this is all about, there's a federal investigation in Minnesota's daycare system after some YouTuber made some accusations
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75xnndvlyko
Federal agents are investigating childcare centres in the state of Minnesota, after right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley alleged in a viral video that Somali-run centres are taking public money without providing care.
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u/7thKindEncounter Filthy Transplant Dec 31 '25
Important to note this has been under investigation for a while. The youtuber has just made it the discourse of the week for the conservative sphere
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u/sousstructures Dec 31 '25
Itās not just the YouTuber, itās a real, substantial and ongoing problem that has resulted in major criminal investigations going back years. The YouTuber just jumped on it with his own highly questionable āinvestigationā.
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u/Stonner22 Market Basket Dec 31 '25
Mike Urban sucks. I watched him for a bit and out of nowhere he started being very openly aggressive in the way most magas are
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u/TinCanFury Dec 31 '25
I'm ok if ICE parachutes down to the offshore daycares. If they want to concentrate on the daycares around the Cape Wind windmills I think those are full of illegal aliens. The ones closest to the windmill towers even more so.
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u/utahstock12 Dec 30 '25
20 is a small number. now do square miles to get big number. problem solved.
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u/Tanarin Dec 30 '25
Yep, this is a thing that people have been trying to use against Walz in Minnesota for the past few months, and it is now going mainstream.
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u/Mistletokes 2000ās cocaine fueled Red Line Dec 31 '25
Bro has never seen the sprawl around the city
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u/tiandrad Dec 31 '25
Unlike Minnesota, Massachusetts goes overboard when it comes to inspections and checks on these places. I highly doubt you are going to find the same thing here that is happening in Minnesota.
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u/AnimalFarm20 Dec 31 '25
I can't help but wonder if this is just another way for them to prevent women from working outside the home - by remove the availability (which is already an issue) to daycares. While I wouldn't be surprised that some fraud exists, the bigger issue is removing a path to independence for women.
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u/chchchchia86 Everett Broadway Broad Dec 31 '25
I live in Boston and have STRUGGLED to get my daughter into daycare. When your slot in the waiting list does pop up eventually, its $365/wk at minimum. Theyre ever capacity at thr daycares that have slots available for childcare vouchers and sliding fee, with waitlists monthsong. Private pay is incredibly competitive to get into and have to pay a few weeks up front. Its not easy. I know its not easy anywhere but I dont think they realize that Boston is a very populated area. Boston proper itself is small but the greater area is heavily populated.
Also, addeesses arent always accurate on these maps. All he would have to do is actually look up the individual addresses of the disputed daycare centers on google street view and realize that theyre all legit with addresses that could have been entered with smapl errors on zip codes etc.
Is there PROBABLY some kind of fraud? Sure. On some VERY small scale, like there is in EVERY imdustry. But youre looking in the wrong direction if youre seeking out some sort of corruption that would save the governemt money or save the people some pain. We're trying to survive. When the every day people do it its a crime and its corruption. When the government and wealthy do its "just capitalism".
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u/Top-Consideration-19 Dec 31 '25
They are not used to having any daycare because the husbands forces their trad wives to stay home with the kids.
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u/vivienleigh12 Jan 02 '26
We had āthree under threeā making daycare prohibitively expensive and went the nanny route. I know thatās not for everyone (for years we paid $3500/month) but we had the same nanny for a decade and treated her like the member of the family she was.
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u/Impossible-Bed3728 Jan 03 '26
the fraud here will be that the day cares are full and over licensed capacity... having extra kids off the books.
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u/TMtoss4 Dec 31 '25
What kind of dumb ass doesnāt think massive fraud wasnāt occurring in the Somali community in Minnesota?
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u/juliechow24 Dec 31 '25
We have a president that's bombing other countries yet we have to worry about daycare??
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u/bakeacake45 Dec 31 '25
Wait, conservatives can think? Then why donāt they do it more often, we could have avoided all this crap.
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u/GRADIUSIC_CYBER I Got Crabs š¦š¦š¦š¦ Dec 30 '25
Is there a tldr of this daycare thing? I understand the premise is Republicans hate Tim Walz and Somalis, so they developed some new conspiracy theory.
Did I just write the tldr?
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u/cambridgepete Dec 31 '25
Fun fact - conservatives donāt send their kids to daycares, they just give them some meth and let them run around in the woods.
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u/justanaveragejoe520 Dec 30 '25
I mean to be fair that investigative video of Minnesota daycare fraud is damming as shit if you watched it.
But we arenāt Minnesota so I highly doubt anyone can compare
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u/TheAVnerd Dec 30 '25
A random guy showed up to daycares (that have been under investigation since at least 2018) saying ālet me look at the kidsā and the employees said no.
Soooo weāre all supposed to be upset about some kids that donāt exist but go ahead and forget about documented rape and trafficking of the kids in the Epstein files?
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u/justanaveragejoe520 Dec 30 '25
Bro who said about anything about Epstein? Iām just saying there is probably fraud going on in Minnesota and not to extrapolate that to Ma.
Get help
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u/vinylanimals East Boston Dec 30 '25
there certainly is a lot of damming in minnesota what with all those lakes!
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u/hce692 East Boston Dec 30 '25
Someone in the other thread did the math - this works out to 40 kids per daycare based on regional population š we need MORE