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Kash Patel Exposed for Pretending to Clear the FBI’s Most Wanted List

Patel has reportedly been putting people on the list right before he knows his agency is about to arrest them.

FBI Director Kash Patel squints one eye during a Senate committee hearing
FBI Director Kash Patel
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
FBI Director Kash Patel

Kash Patel’s FBI has been fudging the numbers to boost the agency’s success rate on apprehending fugitives from its Top 10 Most Wanted List.

Patel announced the addition of a new name to the agency’s Top 10 Most Wanted List on Tuesday, and bragged about the agency’s rate of successful captures under his leadership.

“This FBI has had historic success manhunting Ten Most Wanted fugitives—since the start of the Trump administration, we’ve captured TEN of the Top Ten Most Wanted, 2.5 times the number of TMW fugitives captured during the previous four years combined,” Patel wrote on X.

However, Patel’s FBI has imposed new policies that manipulate that data by adding the names of fugitives who are expected to be imminently captured, according to MS NOW.

Those aren’t the only statistics that Patel is padding: The director also instructed FBI field offices to include any suspects arrested in the presence of agency personnel to be included in official arrest counts, MS NOW reported.

So when Patel claims that his agency had “forty-five thousand violent offenders arrested last year, twice as many as 2024,” that includes suspects in cases led by local police departments and other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

The double counting didn’t help to remove more alleged criminals from the streets, but it did give Patel a handy statistic to cite when he’s dodging questions about his alleged excessive drinking, unexplained absences, and other erratic behavior.

RFK Jr. Wants You to Give Your Health Data to the Government—and AI

The health secretary laid out his chilling vision at a MAHA summit.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a podium and splays his arms outward.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants Americans to hand over their health data to the government, so it can then be searched by artificial intelligence.

At an event held by the MAHA Institute, run by anti-vaccine activist Mark Gorton, Kennedy said he wanted the federal government to collect Americans’ health data, including doctor’s visits, so it could be shared with independent researchers and be searchable by AI, The Guardian reports.

RFK Jr. seemed to believe the data could help AI prove the long-debunked connection between vaccines and autism.

“We need to use America’s health data to determine whether the food we eat, the chemicals we encounter, the vaccines that we’re administering, the other environmental and lifestyle exposures are contributing in one way or another to the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said at the event Monday.

“Your health information should follow you wherever you go,” Kennedy added, noting that tech companies, insurance companies, and health care providers are already doing that through apps, and that health records are easier to access for the government as a result. Kennedy is already collecting data from the agencies in his department, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Medicaid is a really useful vehicle for studying … because there are hundreds of millions of lives in there, including tens of millions of children who’ve been in that program for 10 or 20 years,” Kennedy said. “Medicare gives us enormous amounts of information on older Americans and people with disabilities.”

Regarding AI, Kennedy said that it has been a boon to his efforts.

“Studies that used to take years, you can do them literally in seconds. You can ask questions and you can get immediate answers, and that’s what we’re doing today,” Kennedy said. “[AI] can help researchers find patterns across millions of health histories that human beings could never find by reading those records one at a time.”

Throughout his remarks, Kennedy kept bringing up vaccines as a major, if not the main, reason for his initiative, mentioning that the CDC has a Vaccine Safety Datalink that compares health outcomes for unvaccinated and vaccinated people and is looking at vaccine ingredients, their timing for infants, and other factors.

The whole thing has alarming implications. Kennedy already has faced criticism for proposing an autism registry and been lambasted by a federal judge for using fake studies created by AI. Kennedy didn’t mention any safeguards for Americans’ health data in his remarks, and his entire vision seems to be based on his anti-vaccine agenda. Despite, or even because of this, he still has a job in the Trump administration.

GOP Senator Tries to Trap Jack Smith—and Gets Every Detail Wrong

Senator Eric Schmitt accused Smith of having shady meetings while in Atlanta for a professional basketball game. In reality, Smith was in Maryland on the date in question for a college basketball game.

Senator John Kennedy helps hold up a poster behind Senator Eric Schmitt displaying supposed text messages between former special counsel Jack Smith's staffers
Senator John Kennedy displays supposed text messages between former special counsel Jack Smith’s staffers.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Senator John Kennedy displays supposed text messages between former special counsel Jack Smith’s staffers.

In case you needed any evidence that Republicans have absolutely no dirt on former special counsel Jack Smith, look no further.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Senator Eric Schmitt asked Smith whether he had attended an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks on February 3, 2024, in Atlanta. For context, Schmitt added, that was the day after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis revealed her affair with prosecutor Nathan Wade. 

“I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” Smith answered, and suggested that he hadn’t spent any time in Atlanta, and had never met with Willis or Wade. 

Then Schmitt accused the former special counsel of perjury. 

The Missouri Republican’s staff displayed a poster board that the senator claimed showed a series of text messages from Smith’s team that allegedly discussed his plans to attend the Hawks game. Almost as soon as it was put up, it was pulled down again. 

Smith was unable to offer a response to the accusation, noting, “You just took it down really quick.” Schmitt refused to hold the board up again, instead calling Smith a “dirtbag.”

Later, Smith circled back to clarify that he remembered attending a college basketball game in February 2024 between the University of Maryland and the University of Iowa during which Caitlin Clark had played.  

Senator Amy Klobuchar then offered a possibility: “Could it then be that University of Iowa was the Hawkeyes?” she said. 

Schmitt interjected that Klobuchar was trying to “rehabilitate the witness.” He insisted that the text messages—which again, he’d not allowed anyone to review—“could have obviously been related to the prosecution that was coordinated in his office in Atlanta.”

“I think people should have their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag, and not get the teams wrong,” Klobuchar said. 

Shortly after, Klobuchar was able to confirm Smith’s story. 

“The game was in fact in Maryland, Mr. Smith,” she said. “And I would just say, for a U.S. senator to have false information and imply, based on a confusion about the name of a team, which I knew knowing my Midwestern sports, and imply that you were in another city, that you were somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia and then call you a dirtbag is something that deserves an apology.”

A closer look at the supposedly damning text messages Schmitt attempted to display showed that they made no mention of the “Hawks”—failing further to back up his far-flung line of questioning.

Republicans appear so desperate to attack the former official, who says he found proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump committed “serious crimes” related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and steal classified documents to advance his own career, that they are willing to resort to absurd antics and allege ill-informed conspiracy theories.

Later Tuesday afternoon, Schmitt attempted to defend his face-plant moment in an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show. 

“It was the only NBA or NCAA’s Men’s game going on that time in Atlanta. He claimed later that he was at another game,” Schmitt said. “My job is to ask the questions, he’s already—and if that’s what his answer is, then that’s what his answer is.”

Schmitt admitted that he wasn’t really asking fact-finding questions, but was looking for a gotcha moment. 

“Jack Smith has lied under oath time and time again, and so the purpose of today is just to get him to answer a bunch of questions and to see if he ensnares himself in more lies because he’s done that before,” Schmitt said. 

But it seems that the lawmaker’s lazy research—and conservatives’ total dismissal of women’s sports—got in the way.

This story has been updated.

Trump Says His New AI Tool Can Probably Be Hacked

Donald Trump unveiled a new AI chatbot that supposedly helps people understand the federal government.

Donald Trump holds out his hands and leans slightly to the side while standing next to a podium
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The Trump administration’s brand new, ultra-secure, “damn good” artificial intelligence chatbot can’t be hacked—yet.

The new technology, hosted on America.gov, was unveiled during a summit Tuesday morning. It’s supposed to act as the new face of the federal government, a way for the general public to access publicly available government information in a familiar chatbot format.

In relatively brief remarks, Donald Trump pledged that the access point was built with cutting-edge technology that would not save or risk user data.

“With America.gov, for the first time in history, the government is offering an experience that matches and in some ways even exceeds the state of the art,” Trump said.

“It’s built from the ground up with your privacy and security in mind,” Trump said. “They’ve used a brand new technology—it’s absolutely brand new. It’s amazing, people don’t even have access to it for the most part, to ensure that your personal information is not collected or stored and your conversation disappears when you leave and everything stays totally private.”

But his confidence in the burgeoning portal only extended so far.

“Cannot, in theory, be hacked into,” Trump continued, ad-libbing that when “they figure a way to do that, we’ll end it.”

“Because they always figure a way, right?” Trump said. “If anything does happen. We think it might not happen.”

The site was created by Airbnb co-founder and U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia with the intention of centralizing numerous government databases and websites for easier public consumption, creating a pathway for users to access federal information without needing to navigate the “maze” of government websites.

The administration said that the platform could eventually be used as a waypoint for passport applications, name changes, campsite reservations, and even Medicare plans.

MAGA Furious Over Republican Ad Featuring White Man as Face of Welfare

Conservatives are pissed at Sarah Huckabee Sanders for choosing a young white man to portray welfare recipients.

A young white man plays video games in the dark while wearing a gray hoodie
Screenshot/Sarah Huckabee Sanders/X

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is facing right-wing backlash over an ad featuring a white man playing video games who got off welfare thanks to the state’s work requirement. 

Several conservative personalities lashed out against the ad on social media for depicting “Brad,” who chooses not to work and plays video games on his couch instead, over the right-wing stereotypes of women and people of color living off of government assistance.  

“This Republican ad calling out welfare leeches uses a young white male named ‘Brad’ as the villain. Meanwhile, back in reality, women are significantly more likely to be on welfare than men. And black people are astronomically more likely to be on welfare than white people. So the number of single young white male ‘Brads’ abusing the welfare system is minuscule,” posted Matt Walsh. “Practically non-existent. But of course Republicans don’t have the balls to do this ad with ‘Shaniqua’ as the villain. Even though that would actually be an accurate portrayal of the problem at hand.” 

Failed far-right Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback also disliked the ad and threw in some misogyny with his racism. 

“White men named Brad don’t typically commit welfare fraud,” Fishback wrote. “I’d recommend you start with the baby-momma with a BMW who just got back from her Carnival Cruise.”

“Almost zero white men under the age of 62 are on welfare. 69% of all immigrant classes are on welfare. The GOP is filled with anti White leftist,” wrote right-wing poster Paul (@WomanDefiner). 

Right-wing influencer RAMZPAUL said Sanders “needs to apologize for her blood libel.”

“Sarah Huckabee never had a real job. Her daddy was a two-time governor. She never worked in the private sector. She never served in the military. Her entire qualification was her daddy,” the influencer added. “Maybe she should be cut off the taxpayer funds and get a job as a waitress. She may also want to cut down on the Cheetos.”

Sanders doubled down on the post on Tuesday, posting, “Some critics online don’t like my welfare work requirement ad. Next thing you know they’ll say I should have used cookies instead of cheese balls. If you are able-bodied you should not collect welfare simply because you choose not to work. Period.” 

Despite MAGA’s outrage, statistically in Arkansas, between 52 and 54 percent of food stamps, or SNAP, recipients in the state are white, as are 57.8 percent of those on Medicaid. But Sanders’s program won’t solve any problems, as adding work requirements doesn’t reduce poverty, and in some cases, makes people poorer. Regarding programs like health care assistance, most recipients are already working. 

And, as one commentator pointed out, Sanders has only ever held political jobs thanks to her father, former Arkansas Governor and current U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and has never had to apply for a real job herself.