💘DOG THE FRAUD HUNTER ☙ Saturday, February 14, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS💘

DOGE open-sources Medicaid data, and Treasury offers fraud bounties— the vaccine hunt is on; Epstein files sink Hollywood agency and nab more Dem donors; inflation hits 5-year low, wages grow; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! And, Happy Valentine’s Day! Time for the Weekend Edition roundup, including: DOGE and HHS just open-sourced the entire Medicaid claims database — and Treasury is paying bounties to find the fraud; alert citizens already dissecting fraudulent medical providers; the hunt for vaccine injuries just got rocket-fueled; the Epstein files claim another Hollywood scalps and catch Democrats soliciting a convicted pedophile for donations; and inflation just hit a five-year low while the New York Times tries to explain why that’s really bad news.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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Beyond all reckoning, the goofy DOGE geniuses did it! It’s done. For six years, they guarded this data like the nuclear codes. Yesterday, DOGE slapped it on the internet, ribbon-wrapped for Valentine’s Day. DOGE —whose death was obviously slightly exaggerated— just dropped a tactical nuke on both the vaccine debate and welfare fraud— and launched the biggest crowdsourcing project in human history. Yesterday, Axios ran the story headlined, “Elon Musk declares victory with Medicaid data release.”

He should declare victory. DOGE teams originally accessed the HHS data in February, over the backs of hysterical Democrats and enough lawsuits to keep a medium-sized law firm busy for a decade. Since then— crickets. Until now. And it was the most Elon solution ever. They open-sourced HHS’s top-secret Medicaid claims database —11 gigabytes worth— and dumped it on the internet before Democrats could even say “injunction.”

The release was framed as an anti-fraud move, surfing a wave of public outrage washing out of Minneapolis and Nick Shirley’s viral video. In making the announcement (on X, of course), DOGE-HHS pointed out, “For example, using this dataset, it would have been possible to easily detect the large-scale autism diagnosis fraud seen in Minnesota.” The space billionaire quickly chimed in. “Medicaid data has been open-sourced, so the level of fraud is easy to identify,” Musk wrote. “DOGE is not a department, it’s a state of mind,” he added. 🎶 Wastin’ away again in DOGE-eritaville. 🎶

The 11GB file can be searched or downloaded at OpenData HHS, and includes aggregated provider-level claims data, by billing code, by month, between 2018 and 2024— bookending the whole pandemic period. (Note— It does not contain patient-level data.) It includes records from all Medicaid claims submitted by providers for reimbursement during that period.

This is clearly not just a DOGE project. It is a coordinated effort across the Trump Administration. For example, timed with the release of the data, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a related new program. Not only have they open-sourced the research, but they have gamified it. Bessent said Treasury was setting up a website for people to report Medicare fraud— and they’ll get up to 30% of whatever’s fined and recovered.

CLIP: Bessent on CNBC: “We’re setting up a website and we will be giving rewards up to 10% to 30% of the fines that we levy.”

If the $1 trillion fraud estimate is even half right, the government just turned fraud detection into the world’s largest treasure hunt. Some kid in a bedroom with a laptop, a chatbot, and a case of energy drinks might make more money this year than most hedge fund managers. Dog the Bounty Hunter: Fraud Edition is coming soon, to a laptop near you.

Social media quickly began lighting up across the board. Within hours of the data release, citizen analysts had started flagging facilities billing for physically impossible numbers of procedures, clinics with addresses at residential apartments diagnosing hundreds of children with autism per month, and at least one provider that seems to have performed more Medicaid services than there are actual humans in its zip code.

At least one intrepid nerd has already put up his own website with enhanced searches, graphs, and plots. For another example, informatic superheroine DataRepublican quickly noted a bizarre coincidence:

What she was signaling was that HHS lists 184 active Medicaid providers supposedly operating in a small (11,000 sq ft), rundown commercial building at 2614 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, not even including fake daycare centers. That’s bad enough, but it’s not even close to the whole story. This next part will blow your mind.

In a fabulously Fortean coincidence, the Nicollet Avenue building was also the same spot where Alex Pretti got himself shot by CBP agents. Sit with that for a moment. Take it in. Were ICE agents at the little building to round up immigrants … or something else? Something fraud-related?

Who knows. But it makes you think. In the meantime, in less than 24 hours, here’s what we’ve learned:

1. It’s easy to find fraud flags if you are looking for them.

2. Simple cross-checking against other publicly available data helps a lot.

3. The hardworking federal employees at the big government agencies have been unable to accomplish these trivial tasks, and it’s costing us up to a trillion dollars a year.

4. Thanks to Treasury’s bounty, fraud finding is now a well-paying job that anybody can take.

The fraud hunt is on! Uncover a single fraudulent provider, and possibly earn millions! It’s even better than Bitcoin. Stop learning to code right now, and get out there and find Jimmy Buffett’s lost shaker of salt.

The $1 trillion fraud story is big; and sufficient to justify HHS releasing these records. But somehow I don’t think welfare fraud is even the biggest story in this data.

💉 Unaccountably, the CDC stopped updating cancer incidence data in 2022. Not a peep since, except excuses about how difficult the pandemic made data collection. No government agency has ever plotted vaccinations against various adverse diagnoses, even though —maddeningly— that data has been available in the vast Medicaid database the whole time. To give you an idea, 70% of most hospitals’ revenue comes from Medicaid/Medicare, for everything from the initial jab, your colonoscopy, the MRI, chemo, radiation, and then evaluating you for hospice care.

For years, we’ve begged them: If they won’t do it, give the data to us! Scrub the patient identifiers and let us try to find links between vaccines and adverse events. I’ve written about it many times over the difficult pandemic years. We’ve tried begging state agencies that pass the claims through to the federal government. Fifty states, and not one cracked, not even Florida. Never.

Until now.

While most folks were off and running hunting for fraud bounties, the covid warriors instantly saw the other, riper fruit hanging higher up in the HHS data’s branches. For example, optical mouse inventor and anti-vaxxer Steve Kirsch was, apparently, up till midnight last night, crunching numbers:

Independent VAERS researcher and published biologist Jessica Rose was also busily digging:

There are many more; and it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours yet. Just wait till Jessica figures out how medical billing works. And now they have AI to help crunch the numbers, build spreadsheets, put up websites, and suggest, “Would you like me to draft the lawsuit?”

Since the agency was birthed by progressive geniuses in the Carter Administration, HHS has diligently protected the privacy of Big Pharma by keeping a death-grip on Americans’ health data. Even though, during the exact same period, we got fatter by the minute, our health got worse and worse, and we spent more and more trillions on healthcare. It’s none of your business because privacy. Science! Trust the experts! Shut up!

Now, taking the corporate media, pharma, and the political establishment completely by surprise, the data is suddenly out there. The VAERS data looked awful, but they wriggled out of that trap by sneering that the adverse event-reporting system —the system they created— was unreliable. But now we have a second data set— and it includes vaccination records.

What happens when the HHS data confirms the VAERS data? What will they say then?

I don’t say this lightly: this historic HHS data release could be even bigger than the Epstein files.

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Speaking of Jeffrey, more fallout blossomed from his scandal in the headlines yesterday, this time landing on Hollywood. The Epstein files are a gift that keeps on giving, and they keep squashing Democrats and Democrat-adjacent elites. The New York Times reported the latest victim: “Casey Wasserman Will Sell Entertainment Agency Amid Epstein Files Fallout.”

Casey Wasserman founded the eponymous Wasserman Agency in 2002. It quickly grew into one of the most influential sports, entertainment, and lifestyle marketing and talent management firms worldwide. Wasserman represents athletes, musicians, brands, and properties across sports and entertainment, with offices around the globe. Casey currently serves as chairman and CEO of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympics.

Unfortunately, Casey has a little Jeffrey Epstein problem. “The move was a major reputational blow to Mr. Wasserman, 51,” the Times reported, “a scion of Hollywood royalty and a major Democratic donor.” So.

Late yesterday, Casey Wasserman suddenly announced he’d started selling his entertainment empire and has stepped down from day-to-day management. He’s getting out before it hits rock bottom. The Times observed, “the announcement followed a wave of defections of dozens of musicians and performers from the agency after flirtatious emails he sent years ago to Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein, became public.”

How many defections? At least two dozen so far. One supposes that you can’t afford to lose too many celebrities before the cash crunch starts to sting (and eat up the company’s value). All those glitzy worldwide offices must carry an impressive amount of overhead. In any case, the Wasserman Agency ripped down its client roster webpage yesterday, presumably because its client list was shrinking faster than they could update, and they were like, oh, the hell with it.

Here are two examples from X, as celebrities rushed to distance themselves from the Epstein-tainted agency. John Summit, 31, is a hit DJ with 11 million listeners on Spotify. Chappell Roan is a Grammy-winning breakout pop star (35 million listeners). They both pulled the plug:

“This decision,” Ms. Roan wrote, “reflects my belief that meaningful change in our industry requires accountability and leadership that earns trust.” Good for her. Statements of regret without accountability are just damage control.

I’ll give you an idea what caused his empire to suddenly collapse. In a 2003 email, Wasserman —then married and in his late 20’s— wrote to Ghislaine Maxwell. “I think of you all the time,” he gushed, wondering, “So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” A month later, he told Maxwell he was visiting New York and earnestly asked, “Can we book that massage now?” Maxwell replied, “There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not?”

Oh, they worked, all right, at least in the sense that Wasserman’s 23-year-old happy ending ended two decades later with an unhappy sequel. Wasserman survived being exposed as a serial adulterer in 2024, followed by a messy public divorce. But he couldn’t survive his 2003 connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Makes you think, what?

🔥 In another budding branch on the Epstein tree, this one back on the East Coast, yesterday the Times also reported, “Consultants Offered Epstein Access to Top N.Y. Democrats if He Donated.” This one’s a little less salacious. But only a little. The sub-headline explained, “Dynamic SRG repeatedly, and apparently unsuccessfully, asked the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to donate to House races, Justice Department records show.”

Dynamic SRG is a New York–based, boutique political consulting and fundraising firm that works primarily for Democratic candidates and progressive causes at the city, state, and federal levels. It markets itself as a top political fundraising and public affairs firm that designs and runs development strategies for progressive candidates, PACs, party committees, and nonprofits, and also advises major donors on how to “leverage their support for maximum impact.”

That “leverage” appears to include, at least partly, notorious pedophiles. Since 2012 —well after his 2008 conviction— the SRG firm repeatedly and consistently solicited donations for Democrat candidates from the convicted child-molester. (There’s no evidence yet that Epstein responded in any traceable way.) “The roster of current and former clients on Dynamic SRG’s website lists many of the biggest names in New York Democratic politics,” the article explained.

The SRG firm issued a statement claiming that the emails were just bulk emails designed to look personal, like a Groupon or something. But in a laudably workmanlike effort, the Times rounded up a series of emails that were obviously not bulk emails, contradicting SRG. For instance, one SRG email forwarded to Epstein by his longtime accountant, noted that the request was “from the Congressman who I believe called earlier.” Called. Not bulk-mailed. Um.

The lack of traceable evidence of donations is inconclusive. Since the Palm Beach affair, it was well-known that Epstein could not donate openly. “Mr. Epstein was once a prominent donor to Democratic politicians,” the Times said, “but his contributions were treated as a political liability after his 2006 arrest on prostitution charges.” So, if they kept calling him for donations behind the scenes long after his conviction, it stands to reason they had a way to get money indirectly and keep Epstein’s name out of it. It’s speculative, but it seems likely.

The deepest irony of all, that one that really stings, is the double standard. If it weren’t for double standards, then Democrats… oh heck, you know the rest. But the Democrat brand includes its earnest claim to stand up for women, and their rights, and their justice. Believe all women, Democrats always say (except whenever the accused’s last name rhymes with “Frinton”).

So here we have the party of women soliciting donations from, not just some random abuser like Harvey Weinstein, but the world’s most notorious abuser and trafficker of underaged girls. It should make you go, hmmm. It definitely won’t help Democrat fund-raising.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! In terrific economic news, yesterday, a glum New York Times was forced to sullenly report, “White House Sees Win After 2 Strong Economic Reports.” In other words, it’s working! And right on schedule.

“On Wednesday,” the Times snippily admitted, “employment growth in January came in at more than twice the rate economists had expected.” But that wasn’t all! “And on Friday,” it said, choking on the words like a bulldog coughing up a peach pit, “inflation for that month was surprisingly soft, indicating that price pressures aren’t accelerating.”

The paper of record reported yesterday that inflation plunged to 2.4% in January —a nearly five-year low— beating even the most optimistic forecasts, which had called for 2.5%. Gas prices are down over 7% from last year. Rents are cooling. Used car prices just had their biggest monthly drop in two years. In a muscular announcement, the White House stated that “President Trump has defeated Joe Biden’s inflation crisis.”

“Those readings were undeniably positive,” the paper painfully confirmed. It even allowed that there might be reasons for optimism about the country’s long-term prospects. “In the coming years, the spread of A.I. could increase productivity and wages,” the Times surrendered, gritting its teeth. “And AI is currently employing a lot of construction workers and engineers. And demand for health care is increasing as the baby boom generation retires.”

Not only that, but “average hourly earnings are still increasing around 3.7% annually, well ahead of the Consumer Price Index.” Wage growth with low inflation. It’s the key to prosperity.

But leave it to the Times to find the lead lining. The Grey Lady immediately pivoted to polls showing voters (i.e., Democrats) are “souring” on Trump’s economic record. Why? Maybe cars and gas and rents are getting more affordable, but the people the Times polled complain they can’t afford to fly private. “Americans feel deeply pessimistic about their ability to afford life’s big ticket items.”

Still, the UK Guardian won the Eeyore prize. It dutifully noted that “economists anticipated prices would ease slightly” and then spent the next twelve paragraphs grumbling about why good economic data is actually terrifying if you think about it long enough. Somewhere in paragraph nine, the article mentioned a Fed study that supposedly found Americans are paying 90% of tariff costs— the same tariffs that apparently didn’t prevent inflation from dropping to levels not seen since 2021. That, my friends, is progressive logic.

(Ed. Note: They remain in total denial about tariffs. Corporate media has invented a religious myth with no evidence, that all companies pre-purchased a year’s worth of inventory before tariffs went into effect, so tariff inflation will soon strike us like a two-by-four, any minute. Just you wait. It’s laughably childish logic, barely enough to keep the anti-tariff brigades fed.)

The economy gave Americans the one Valentine’s gift they really wanted — cheaper gas and falling rent. Even the Hallmark channel’s soupy Valentine’s romance comedies can’t compete with this story.

Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the warmer weather and the romantic holiday, and then head on back here Monday morning, for another delicious roundup of essential news and commentary.

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