at talks to friends of the show Holly Hart and Katrina Walters about the emerging trend of social media influencers being influenced by dark money media groups.

Pat talks to friends of the show Zac Brooks and Nick Saverino about the questionable legal status and murky outcomes that occur when professional athletes gamble on sports. They cover current scandals such as Shohei Ohtani as well as the granddaddy of them all: the 1919 World Series.

Kath tells Pat about a crypto criminal who's corruption caused (yet another) scandal in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Pat brings Kath a rundown of the year in scams, including some superlative awards for the finest scammers. This one was going to be a bonus but we decided to make it free in honor of the new year!

This week, Pat tells Kath about a big name in the world of true crime that turned out to be a fraud himself.

Kath tells Pat about Pageturner Press and Media, one of many fraudulent "author services" companies based in the Philippines and targeting self published authors.

Most of the info in this episode comes from the July 2025 Bloomberg article by Brent Crane titled "Pageturner's 44 million dollar fraud casts a spotlight on author services". You can read it here.

Kath and Pat discuss "Chatfishing", the name The Guardian has coined for people who use Chat GPT to help with (deceive?) their matches on dating apps.

The information in this episode comes from the Guardian article on Chatfishing, by Alexandra Jones, which you can read here: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/oct/12/chatgpt-ed-into-bed-chatfishing-on-dating-apps

Pat tells Kath about the pseudoscientific history of the IQ test, and how eugenicists used the idea of innate genius to justify their racist aims.

Kath tells Pat about a political corruption story from a simpler time: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich follows in a long line of Illinois politicians in his efforts to enrich himself off the spoils of his political office, including his ability to appoint Obama's successor in the senate.

Pat tells Kath about the strange life of Robert F. Kennedy Jr - chronicling his bizarre childhood, his years as a functioning drug addict practicing environmental law, and finally his descent into vaccine skepticism and his ascent to the top of Trump's DHS.