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Texas AG Paxton sues Gerber, Nestlé over arsenic and lead found in baby foods
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Gerber Products Company (“Gerber”) and Nestlé USA, Inc. (“Nestle”) for allegedly deceiving parents and other consumers regarding “toxic heavy metals” in their baby foods.
Paxton, who is running as President Donald Trump’s top pick for the U.S. Senate in Texas, announced the lawsuit on Wednesday, contending that Gerber advertised its food as safe, well-tested and recommended by pediatricians, despite its own test results finding “dangerous levels of arsenic and lead.”
In a press release, the attorney general stated that the company “used 67 batches of rice flour with more than nine times the arsenic that the federal government allows in bottled water” between 2017 and 2019. Additionally, its carrots had up to 17 times the limit for cadmium and its sweet potatoes had nearly 10 times the limit for lead. It also seldom tested positive for mercury.
These metals — known as neurotoxins — are listed by federal health agencies as the top substances posing “significant potential threat to human health.” Arsenic is first, lead is second, mercury is third and cadmium is seventh, according to the lawsuit.
Despite Gerber’s findings, it issued no recall or warning about the offending products, according to Paxton’s office. According to the 68-page filing against Gerber, its “marketing has not changed,” and it even tells parents that each jar of food passes “over 100 quality checks.”
“Gerber promised parents its food was safe and rigorously tested. Its own tests showed toxic metals in the food. When a company makes promises about what parents feed their babies, I will hold it accountable to ensure those promises are kept,” Paxton asserted.
Texas’s Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s office notified the defendants of the unlawful conduct, which it said violated the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), at least seven days before filing suit, in compliance with Texas law.
The filing noted that beginning in 1867, the baby food industry was built on consumer trust that companies could replace breast milk, which infants relied on until nine to 12 months of age throughout history.
“From its origin, manufactured infant food has been sold on the proposition that a company can be trusted to feed a baby. Nestlé, which began the industry in 1967, acquired Gerber, which has led the American market since 1928,” the lawsuit read. “Gerber and Nestlé USA … violated that trust with Texas consumers.”
Paxton pointed out that though Gerber includes a pathway for parents to find nutrition information about their food, it’s concealed by a QR code and does not provide full transparency.
“Gerber now posts test results behind a QR code on its labels. But the heavy metals in the food did not change, and neither did the safety claims on the front of the package. A code on the back of the jar does not cure a false promise on the front,” Paxton’s office asserted.
Got H2O? Technocracy’s Control Over Water
Water is the most basic resource there is. Every person, farm, factory, and city depends on it, and nothing replaces it. Whoever controls water controls everything downstream of it, including food, energy, housing, and population settlement. That is why water has been in Technocracy’s crosshairs since 1932.
Technocracy is a resource-based economic system. It replaces the free market’s price mechanism with the scientific management of resources by unelected experts. The original Technocrats of the 1930s said so openly. Their modern heirs are more careful. They speak of “sustainable development,” “integrated water resources management,” “full-cost pricing,” and “natural asset” valuation. The goal has not changed. They want an inventory of every resource on the planet, a meter on every faucet or pipe, and a central authority deciding who gets what and at what price.
This paper follows that goal in the documents from 1987 to today. It ends with the price shock American households are now absorbing. A 62 percent rise in water bills over ten years is not a random market event. It is what policy produces when it was designed for exactly that result.
The Technocratic Blueprint: Water as an Engineered Flow
The Technocracy Study Course, first published by Technocracy Inc. between 1934 and 1936, set out the intellectual foundation.10 In its analysis of the Price System, it explained that value has nothing to do with how important a thing is to human life. It comes only from scarcity:
“Both air and water are completely indispensable for the maintenance of life. Air is so abundant that one need not exchange any commodity for its use. It is accordingly without value… In a region of heavy rainfall and abundant water supply… water has no value; it cannot be bought or sold. In arid regions, however… due to its scarcity, [water] is bought and sold or traded in, and accordingly has value.”11
The Technocrats of that day understood that you can only control and monetize water by making it scarce. Water that is plentiful cannot be managed through price. Scarce water can be. The policy implication follows: declare scarcity, real or manufactured, and control follows.
The Study Course also treated water as one of the engineered systems of the planned city. Its list of design requirements includes “a system of water supply, of heat, gas and electric power” and “trunk connections for traffic, supplies, water, energy, and so on, between the city and the world outside.”12 In the Technate, water is not owned. It is routed.
The same document demanded total registration of all assets, continuous inventory and the specific registration of each individual’s consumption.13 In the 1930s, the technology to do that did not exist. It does now.
1987: Trilateral Commission’s Gro Harlem Brundtland Reframed Water
The modern revival of Technocracy came through the doctrine of sustainable development. Its founding document is Our Common Future, published in 1987 by the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development. The Commission was chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a member of the Trilateral Commission. In 1991, James MacNeill wrote Beyond Interdependence for the Trilateral Commission, a book that “extends the Commission’s analysis of the issues of global change” in support of the Brundtland report.14
Brundtland set three things in motion on water that still govern policy today.
First, it took away water’s status as a free good. In the report’s words, air and water “are not free,” and “the policy question is how and by whom they will be paid, not whether.”15 It said costs can be “internalized” by enterprises, which may then “pass the costs along to the consumer.”
Second, it called for regulatory and fiscal controls. Where groundwater use exceeds recharge, “regulatory or fiscal controls become essential.”16 For agriculture, it prescribed “the regulation of water quantities, and more rational water charges.”17
Third, it tied water pricing to energy pricing. The report praised “energy pricing policies” after the 1970s oil shocks and noted “the potential of similar pricing policies for other raw materials.”18 It urged countries to see “how far real energy costs can be passed on to the consumer.”19
The report also cast water as a source of international conflict. It cataloged river disputes from the Rio Grande to the Nile and the Euphrates.21 That framing laid the groundwork for “transboundary” management. Once a resource is defined as a cross-border problem, national control can be called inadequate.
Telecom Company in Africa Gets $100 Million U.S. Loan to Compete with China’s Huawei
The Trump administration announced on Friday that Africell, the only American-owned telecommunications company in Africa, will receive a $99.6 million loan from the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) to help it compete with Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
The loan from EXIM was intended to “boost the telecommunications sector in Angola and strengthen American technology leadership abroad” by helping Africell acquire the latest American and European mobile phone technology.
“Africell’s fast growth in Angola and DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), and our long-term market leadership in Sierra Leone and The Gambia demonstrate the unique benefits that high-class American technology, skills and investment can bring to Africa,” said Africell CEO Ziad Dalloul.
“We are pleased to be working with EXIM to introduce more trusted communications infrastructure to our operating markets,” he said. “In doing so, we are flying the flag for American technology leadership and creating secure pathways for future American and allied digital technologies to be deployed in sub-Saharan Africa, including in the Lobito Corridor region.”
“The quality and results achieved through partnerships with the United States and American companies speak for themselves. This is a win for both our countries: American technology and a more prosperous, more connected Angola,” said Shannon Nagy Cazeau, charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy to Angola and Sao Tome and Principe.
While these statements did not directly mention China, Reuters noted on Friday that the Trump administration has been working on a “clean network” initiative to get security-threatening Chinese telecom and network equipment out of the U.S. and allied nations, particularly equipment from Huawei.
The U.S. government has slapped Huawei with heavy sanctions for allegedly spying on users, a charge the company denies, even though Chinese law explicitly requires all companies to hand over information about their customers upon demand from Chinese Communist intelligence services. Huawei has also been implicated in Communist China’s human rights abuses, such as the surveillance and oppression of the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province.
Huawei currently has about 52% of the 5G mobile data market in Africa, a grip the Trump administration seeks to loosen. Africell, a company that started up in 2001 with a data center in Angola, received a $100 million loan in 2018 from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which has since been renamed to the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Africell used the funds to expand into the DRC, Gambia, and Sierra Leone. Africell repaid the loan three years ahead of schedule.
ANOTHER PAXTON WIN: Ken Paxton Announces 7 MILLION FREE EGGS Will Be Distributed to Struggling Texas Families Following Trump DOJ and State’s Antitrust Crackdown
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that more than seven million free eggs secured through antitrust settlements with three major producers are being distributed to food banks across the Lone Star State.
More than 1.7 million eggs have already reached Texas food banks, while another 5.322 million are scheduled for delivery in the coming weeks, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
“BIG NEWS: After securing 7 million eggs for the people of Texas, I am excited to announce that Texans will now have an opportunity to receive cartons of free eggs in communities across the state,” Paxton announced on X.
The massive food distribution resulted from settlements Paxton secured in June with Cal-Maine Foods, Centrum/Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch.
The agreements resolved claims brought by President Trump’s Justice Department and 17 state attorneys general over an alleged scheme to manipulate an influential egg-price benchmark between 2022 and 2025.
Billionaires Are Buying Into Psychedelic Companies
Putting aside my skepticism of SpaceX for a moment, there is something worth paying attention to in the latest report about the people who made fortunes backing the company: they are now putting serious money into psychedelics.
And while I can’t necessarily get behind backing Elon Musk’s idea of elephants performing Les Miserables on the moon, or whatever other “lofty” goals are in the SpaceX S-1, I can get behind these follow up investment ideas.
Back in January when absolutely no one was talking about the sector, I officially hung my balls out there and name it my “Best Idea” sector for 2026. I was writing about these stocks years ago ago, first in January 2025, calling the psychedelic names “stocks to watch” for the year. Then, in July 2025, urging patience in these positions.
In April, after the administration’s executive order supporting psychedelic research, I reiterated my bullish stance and argued that we were moving from the phase where these therapies were ignored into the phase where institutions would be forced to engage with them seriously. That transition appears to be underway.
So far, the group has wildly outperformed the market, with the AdvisorShares Psychedelic ETF (PSIL) beating the S&P 500 by about +32% this year. Other individual companies I pointed out at the beginning of this year are beating the market by about +79% and +171%.
That doesn’t mean every name is going to work, or that the easy money hasn’t already been made in some of them. But the broader thesis continues to get validation, and the latest evidence suggests that capital is still finding its way into the space.
The biggest validation came in July, when Eli Lilly agreed to acquire AtaiBeckley for approximately $2.8 billion upfront, with another $1 billion contingent on development and regulatory milestones.
That is not a small biotech taking a flyer on an experimental treatment. That is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world committing billions of dollars to a psychedelic-derived drug pipeline. Lilly’s interest is centered on BPL-003, a treatment being developed for treatment-resistant depression.
Thomas Jefferson Warned Us About the Media
We all know that the American “mainstream,” “corporate” media cannot be trusted. Well, they can be trusted to always Polly-parrot the Democratic Party’s talking points, thus they can be trusted to lie, be dishonest, corrupt, and always wrong. They are the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, just as Joseph Goebbels’ media was the propaganda wing of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. It is unfailingly the case that today’s media never supports the conservative, Christian, godly, pro-traditional American perspective. They are as evil as Democrats, because they are Democrats, and religiously so.
Apparently, in American history, media bias has always been a problem. Thomas Jefferson wrote that, in his day:
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” (Letter to John Norvell on June 11, 1807)
Nothing the media says can be trusted. Even on the rare occasions when they tell the truth, Jefferson said, we can’t trust that they are speaking the truth because they lie so much that anything they say must be viewed with suspicion. The best approach, and the one most conservatives and patriotic Americans take, is just to assume that anything the media reports is wrong, or incomplete in its reporting (especially if the event has an element contrary to their left-wing narrative, like any murder not committed by a white, male, MAGA Christian).
Jefferson also wrote:
“I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them.” (Works of Thomas Jefferson)
Best thing to do is not bother watching ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, et al., or reading The New York Times or any other liberal rag. Truth can be found, but you’ve got to dig a little to find it now. Townhall is a good source, of course, as is X. But to most Americans, I would simply advise not wasting time watching or reading any of the “corporate” media outlets. As Jefferson implies, you’ll be dumber if you do.
Now we do need some good, courageous, well-grounded conservatives scouring the mainstream media sites to expose their errors. Many Townhall writers do this, and we appreciate them. But for most Americans, the mainstream media is nothing but a lying, dangerous nuisance. No sense in getting close to a cobra and slapping it in the face.
Trump Declares an End to Selling Canada’s Bombardier Planes in the US Unless They Build in the US as Trade War Escalates
President Trump on Monday escalated the trade war with Canada, announcing that Bombardier, a Canadian airplane manufacturer, will no longer be allowed to sell its jets in the United States unless they build in the US.
Last month, Trump slapped 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods. Canada’s Mark Carney, in response, reportedly announced plans to impose tariffs of 15% to 50% on American goods.
Now, Trump is threatening to decertify Canadian business jets if manufacturing isn’t moved to the United States.
“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump said, accusing the company of “treating America like a piggybank.”
“Over 50% of their revenue comes from the United States — They live off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service — All while Canada blocks our GREAT American Banks, and Companies, throughout the U.S.A.”
“BUY AMERICAN. FLY ON AMERICAN AIRLINERS. ENJOY AMERICAN LIQUOR AND BEVERAGES. SAIL ON LAKE AMERICA. AMERICA FIRST!” Trump added.
NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough! Over 50% of their revenue comes from the United States — They live off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service — All while Canada blocks our GREAT American Banks, and Companies, throughout the U.S.A.
They even blocked Gulfstream Aerospace from doing business in Canada — Completely unjust and unfair! That Era is OVER! If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a “piggybank.”
BUY AMERICAN. FLY ON AMERICAN AIRLINERS. ENJOY AMERICAN LIQUOR AND BEVERAGES. SAIL ON LAKE AMERICA. AMERICA FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
How Big Ag Seized Control Over Media, Research, Policy and the Marketplace
Industrial agriculture is increasingly adopting the same public relations, lobbying and information tactics long used by Big Oil, investigative journalist Amy Westervelt said on the “Real Organic Podcast.” Those strategies help corporations influence research, media and policy, making it easier to “shape the information that voters are getting,” she said.
Journalist Amy Westervelt has spent years documenting how the oil industry used public relations, think tanks and university partnerships to shape public opinion and influence public policy.
But in a recent interview on the “Real Organic Podcast,” Westervelt said she increasingly sees many of those same tactics in industrial agriculture.
“I am finding so many parallels in the agriculture space,” said Westervelt, host of the investigative podcast “Drilled” and author of the forthcoming book, “Brought to You By: Inside Big Oil’s Total Information War.”
She said large agricultural companies, like their counterparts in the fossil fuel industry, have established research centers that help generate academic support for policies that benefit industry.
“It’s like they need a certain amount of … credible information from academics to be able to make the policy argument for certain things,” she said.
Throughout the interview, Westervelt suggested these efforts are part of a broader corporate strategy designed not simply to influence markets, but to shape public debate before policy decisions are ever made.
‘Corporations start to have multiple problems with democracy’
Westervelt traced the origins of modern corporate public relations to the early 20th century, arguing that growing public scrutiny prompted businesses to rethink how they protected their interests.
“Corporations start to have multiple problems with democracy” as new laws, investigative reporting and broader voting rights threatened business interests, she said. That’s when you see “the birth of corporate PR.”
Rather than simply selling products, corporations sought to mold public opinion before voters could demand greater oversight, according to Westervelt.
“These companies need a way to shape the information that voters are getting in a way that will make them more likely to vote against their own interests and in the interests of the corporations that have a lot at stake,” she said.
Over time, industries refined those tactics, using increasingly sophisticated methods “to try to shape the context that they’re operating in and to deal with … ‘creeping democracy,’” Westervelt said.
Media ‘not doing its job’ of holding powerful corporations to account
Think tanks have become one of industry’s most effective policy tools, according to Westervelt.
“They train the people who work there to go on TV shows and radio shows to get these particular talking points out,” she said.
Unlike registered lobbyists, many think tanks operate with little transparency, she added.
“These organizations have loads of money. They have a lot of influence, and they’re not really regulated in any way,” Westervelt said. “They’re pretty good at hiding who funds them.”
She said corporate influence doesn’t stop with think tanks. It also extends into universities, where industry funding can help shape the research that later informs public policy.
While much of her reporting has focused on fossil fuel companies, Westervelt said she increasingly sees similar patterns in industrial agriculture. She described the practice as a form of “pre-lobbying,” in which corporations cultivate the evidence needed to support future policy arguments.
As one example, Westervelt described speaking with a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after an oil company funded carbon capture research.
Researchers were invited to submit project proposals, but one scientist wanted to study “the potential health impacts” of carbon capture pipelines, including “what might happen if it leaks,” she said.
According to Westervelt, the principal investigator instead encouraged him to “look for a more positive project.”
Seemingly small decisions like these can gradually shape which questions get asked — and which never reach the public, she said.
“There’s so many little things like that happening all the time that are keeping … really important ideas just out of the … public square,” she said.
Westervelt said those information gaps are reinforced by powerful technology platforms and a media landscape that often fails to challenge corporate influence.
“You do have now tech companies working really in lock step with these big corporations, helping them to drown out everybody else,” she said. “Letting them juice the algorithm, spend a fortune on … advertising, and really drown out kind of anyone that doesn’t agree with them.”
Meanwhile, she added, “the media is not doing its job kind of holding the powerful to account. That’s just not a thing that is rewarded by newsrooms at this time.”
DOJ Announces Walmart, Costco, Amazon Are Under Investigation in Beef Affordability Probe
The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it’s investigating several major American grocers concerning massive spikes in beef prices.
“@JusticeATR has expanded its investigation to include 8 of the largest grocers when it comes to beef affordability,” the DOJ posted on X.
“@ASGWoodward sent letters to the following regarding the recent increases in the retail price for beef: Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize USA, Costco, Amazon.”
“Beef prices are a critical concern to Americans, and a priority for this Justice Department.”
This news comes nearly four months after the DOJ launched a probe against top meatpackers JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef to investigate possible antitrust violations, Fox Business reported.
Attorney General Todd Blanche held a press conference back in May, revealing that federal officials have been examining three million pertinent documents while contacting “industry participants, including ranchers, cattlemen, producers, and processors,” for potential interviews.
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