Tag: corruption

California Governor Vetoes Ban on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Cookware

California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom halted legislation that would have banned “forever chemicals,” known as PFAS, from several products in his state. 

The legislation, which Newsom vetoed on Oct. 13, would have prevented the sale of cookware, cleaning products, dental floss, children’s products, food packaging, and ski wax containing the chemicals. 

Cookware with harmful substances would have been banned starting in 2030, and the other products in 2028. 

“Forever chemicals” is the nickname given to the group of chemicals called PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are synthetic and used widely in products, including non-stick, waterproof, or heat and stain-resistant items.

When announcing the veto, Newsom voiced concern about the availability of cookware if the ban were put in place.

“The broad range of products that would be impacted by this bill would result in a sizable and rapid shift in cooking products available to Californians,” he said.

“I appreciate efforts to protect the health and safety of consumers, and while this bill is well-intentioned, I am deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options,” he added.

Dr. Anna Reade, director of PFAS advocacy with Natural Resources Defense Council, criticized Newsom for his decision in an Oct. 13 statement, saying, “By vetoing SB 682, Governor Newsom failed to protect Californians and our drinking water from toxic forever chemicals.”

According to Reade, the policy would have aligned with California with other states that have decided to phase out PFAS from these consumer products.

“Now, California is a laggard. It’s unfortunate that misinformation and greed by some in the cookware industry tanked this policy.

“But people are increasingly aware of the health and pollution risks associated with forever chemicals and are demanding PFAS-free alternatives for their homes and families.”

PFAS can stay in soil and water for centuries, and there has been a link found between the chemicals and health problems, including some cancers, and changes in immune and hormone systems.

However, those in opposition to the legislation said it wasn’t a clear-cut support of PFAS. 

The California Manufacturers and Technology Association stood against the legislation, saying, “We support targeted efforts to address harmful PFAS chemicals.”

However, the association said, the bill “continues an overreach by banning broad categories of PFAS used safely in cookware and by establishing unworkable standards for sectors like cleaning products.”

“SB 682 fails to distinguish between harmful PFAS and inert, stable fluoropolymers like PTFE, which are FDA-approved for food contact and used in medical devices,” it said.

“These materials do not pose environmental or health risks and have been safely used for decades.”

The association continued, saying that because the bill bans the distribution of affected products, it could push manufacturers to relocate logistics operations out of state, “costing California jobs.”

Similarly, the Cookware Sustainability Alliance said, “The fluoropolymers used by our industry, primarily polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), do not have the same characteristics of nonpolymeric PFAS of concern, which should be the focus of environmental and public health policy.”

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Wrist Slaps For Left-Wing Violence Invite More Attacks On Conservatives

wo teenagers who brutally assaulted former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer Edward “Big Balls” Coristine did not receive any jail time in yet another instance of left-wing judges protecting militant thugs from being held accountable in any meaningful way.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Kendra Davis Briggs, a nominee of former President Joe Biden, sentenced two 15-year-olds from Hyattsville, Maryland, to probation after they were arrested for an Aug. 3 attack on 19-year-old Coristine that left him bloody and battered.

The two sentenced to probation — a male and female — were among a “group of 10 guys,” Coristine said, many of whom apparently remain at-large. Coristine suffered a concussion and a broken nose after he and a female companion were jumped by the group.

The slap-on-the-wrist from Briggs comes after another Biden judge gave the would-be assassin of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh a laughably light sentence, citing the assassin’s claim of being a “transgender” woman, despite his being a male.

While prosecutors sought a 30-year sentence for would-be assassin Nicholas Roske (who now says he goes by the name “Sophie”), Maryland U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman instead gave him eight years.

“Though she got far too close to executing her plans, the fact of the matter is she abandoned them,” Boardman said, using female pronouns to refer to Roske, a male. “I take into consideration the conditions of pre-trial confinement and the fact that she is a transgender woman and will be sent to a male-only [Bureau of Prisons] facility.”

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DEVELOPING: Incoming Indictment…Grand Jury Considers Charges Against John Bolton

A grand jury on Wednesday convened to consider charges against John Bolton over his mishandling of classified materials.

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by a hostile foreign country’s spy service, according to a recent leak to The New York Times.

John Bolton is reportedly under investigation for violating the Espionage Act.

The New York Post reported:

A grand jury is convening Wednesday afternoon to consider charges against former national security adviser John Bolton over his alleged sharing of highly sensitive classified materials on a private email server, The Post has learned.

The proceeding comes two months after federal investigators raided Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, DC, office in search of evidence in the Trump critic’s alleged theft of “highly sensitive national security” information.

Justice Department officials expect an indictment to be handed up either Wednesday or Thursday, with one telling The Post that the case against the 76-year-old is “airtight.”

Bolton is accused of using his private email account to remove sensitive information and record diary-like notes of his daily activities and assessments throughout his time in office, sources told The Post.

New John Bolton documents with classified markings were released after the FBI raided his home in August.

The FBI raided John Bolton’s home over the summer.

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Grand Jury reportedly meeting this week in Hope Florida investigation

Florida’s Hope Florida program, once celebrated by the governor and First Lady as a compassionate outreach effort, is now under a grand jury’s microscope. Prosecutors in the capital are reportedly meeting this week to decide whether criminal charges are warranted in a growing scandal that’s shaken the state’s political establishment.

The proceedings are happening behind closed doors inside Leon County’s 2nd Judicial Circuit courthouse, where prosecutors are taking evidence in the Hope Florida investigation.

At issue: whether anyone broke the law after $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement moved through the Hope Florida Foundation to other nonprofits, and then to a political committee once controlled by now–Attorney General James Uthmeier. That committee later helped defeat a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana.

State Attorney Jack Campbell, who is overseeing the process, declined to provide details.

“No, there’s no comment on that at all. Everything that the grand jury does is, in fact, confidential,” Campbell said when asked about the case last week.

Legal experts say the secrecy is standard procedure. Mario Gallucci of the Gallucci Law Firm is a former New York assistant district attorney and was a principal attorney in its major felony unit. He said these proceedings can take weeks to complete.

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Letitia James’ ‘fugitive’ relative who lives in her Virginia home was arrested twice for assaulting cops: docs

New York’s top law enforcer is housing a cop-hating fugitive relative with a lengthy felony rap sheet — who was twice arrested for assaulting police officers — at one of her Virginia homes, according to court documents.

State Attorney General Letitia James’ grandniece, Nakia Thompson, 36, is wanted for “absconding” from North Carolina after failing to complete the terms of her parole following a 2011 arrest in Winston-Salem, authorities said.

In that case, she was charged with malicious conduct by a prisoner, a felony, along with assault of a government official and resisting a public officer, court records show.

But Thompson has also been repeatedly arrested and cited in Virginia, since moving there — with charges including possession of burglary tools, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and grand larceny.

Since 2020, Thompson has been living at a house owned by James in Norfolk, which is now at the center of a criminal indictment against the AG.

That same year, Thompson was given two years’ probation and ordered to pay $2,020 in fees after she pleaded guilty to petit and grand larceny charges — both felonies, according to court records.

She also had a handful of misdemeanor charges dropped, as well as the felony burglary tools possession charge. 

She has also racked up nine separate vehicle offenses, including as recently as this summer.

In July, Thompson was hit with four citations in a single day, including driving 80 mph in a 55 zone and stopping her vehicle improperly on a highway.

The year before she was once again ticketed for going 80 in a 55, and got a summons for improper child restraint, for which she was later found guilty in absentia and fined $50.

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Deep State Prosecutors Attack DOJ’s Investigation Into Whether Biden’s FBI Secretly Destroyed Classified Documents in “Burn Bags” to Protect Comey

Deep State ‘career’ prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia are attacking the DOJ’s investigation into whether Biden’s FBI secretly destroyed classified documents in ‘burn bags’ to protect James Comey with leaks to the New York Times.

As previously reported, the DOJ is investigating whether the FBI, during Joe Biden’s presidency, secretly destroyed documents to protect James Comey and John Brennan.

James Comey served as the Director of the FBI from 2013 to May 2017, when Trump fired him.

John Brennan served as the Director of the CIA from 2013 to 2017.

According to The Times, the investigation is related to a report that revealed that Kash Patel found thousands of Russia Hoax documents in “burn bags” in a secret room at the FBI.

Over the summer, Fox News reported that FBI Director Kash Patel found thousands of Russia collusion hoax documents in “burn bags” in a secret room at the FBI.

One of the documents in the burn bags included the classified annex to the John Durham report that includes the underlying intelligence he investigated.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently declassified the annex to Durham’s final report and sent it to Senator Grassley, who released it to the public.

Fox News also reported that Kash Patel and his team of investigators discovered a “previously undisclosed” SCIF at the FBI headquarters.

The Times reported that senior FBI officials who worked at the headquarters are also being investigated.

In August, Trump-appointed Interim US Attorney Todd Gilbert, who was overseeing the ‘burn bags’ case in the Western District of Virginia, was forced out after he reportedly refused to remove a high-ranking prosecutor who claimed the evidence in the case was flimsy, according to The Times.

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Records: Blue States Can’t Provide Any Evidence To Defend Anchor Baby Citizenship

Four states suing the Trump administration to defend the citizenship of illegal aliens and a nonsense definition of “birthright citizenship” do no have any evidence to prove the “harm” they claim in the lawsuit, according to records obtained by America First Legal (AFL).

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which recognizes the only sane understanding of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause: that it does not apply to the entire globe’s worth of people just because they happen to be born on American soil. Put simply, a child born to aliens within the United States does not automatically become a citizen of the United States.

According to the states’ lawsuit, Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon are concerned that if anchor babies’ citizenships are no longer recognized, they will be “harmed” by the loss of “federal funding or reimbursements to programs that the Plaintiff States administer, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), foster care and adoption assistance programs, and programs to facilitate streamlined issuances of SSNs [Social Security Numbers] to eligible babies — among others.”

In other words, they are concerned that they will lose federal funding to give tax dollars meant for American citizens to individuals who should never have been considered citizens in the first place, and who must be returned to their noncitizen status.

AFL filed public records requests with the plaintiff states to see if they had the data or records to prove their own claims. Not one did.

“America First Legal tested whether several plaintiff states challenging the President’s birthright citizenship executive order actually suffered the harm they alleged: that they would have to spend more money on children deemed noncitizens because the federal government would no longer be covering costs,” AFL Vice President Dan Epstein said in a statement. “The evidence either did not exist or was simply not something the states monitored. Suing a presidential Administration without a concrete injury is an abuse of the courts and the justice system. States must do their homework before running to court with allegations lacking evidentiary support.”

When AFL reached out via public records request to prove their claims with actual data, Arizona’s Department of Education replied, saying it “does not compile or aggregate data in a manner that can fulfill your request. We conducted a thorough search of our database and did not find any relevant information.”

Oregon’s Health Authority said, “There are no responsive records to your request for records reflecting ‘all expenditures from January 1, 2022, through August 1, 2025, used to provide services to children born to mothers who lacked a lawful immigration status in the United States or children where both parents lacked a lawful immigration status in the United States.’”

The Department of Human Services in Illinois said, “The Department does not independently track the requested information for the Home Visiting Program, the Early Intervention (EI) Program, or the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP),” adding, “there are no responsive records showing total payouts to undocumented persons . . . for Cash or SNAP benefits . . . [and that] immigration status for the parent is not part of the eligibility determination and is therefore not collected on the application” for the state’s summer electronic benefits transfter program.

Illinois’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services similarly replied that it has no records, and Washington’s Healthcare Authority said it also has no records.

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INSANITY: Los Angeles County Declares “State of Emergency” Over ICE Raids — Mobilizes Taxpayer-Funded “Relief Efforts”

Los Angeles County officials have once again made their priorities crystal clear, and it’s not the safety or well-being of American citizens.

On Tuesday, the far-left Board of Supervisors declared a “state of emergency” in a 4–1 vote in response to the Trump administration’s coordinated ICE raids targeting criminal illegal aliens across Southern California.

Instead of cooperating with federal law enforcement, Los Angeles leaders are mobilizing taxpayer-funded “relief efforts,” funneling state funds into legal aid, and possibly paving the way for a temporary moratorium on evictions, all justified by claims that federal enforcement “created a climate of fear” and “widespread disruption.”

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Rules for Thee, Fraud for Me: Letitia James Prosecuted Mortgage Fraud Case Mirroring the Charges Against Her

Attorney General Letitia James, the architect of New York state’s mortgage-fraud crackdowns, now finds herself in the position of her former defendants, accused of exploiting the very system she once claimed to defend. The hypocrisy is undeniable.

Any attempt by Letitia James to claim ignorance of the law as a defense in her mortgage fraud indictment is all but gone.

In June 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James stood before the cameras to hail a conviction she called a triumph against mortgage fraud.

The case involved a $1.3 million scheme by Brooklyn couple John F. Iacono and Shpresa Gjekovic, whom James accused of “a deliberate scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers.”

At the time, she declared the prosecution was proof that “no one is above the law”.

But today, now under indictment for mortgage fraud herself, that speech reads less like a moment of triumph and more like an act of projection.

The accompanying quote from Attorney General James remains striking for its tone of moral absolutism.

“Iacono and Gjekovic falsified document after document in order to pad their own pockets,” James said. “Let this serve as a warning to all of those who try to carry out such deliberate schemes: There is no place in this state for individuals who try to cash in at the expense of hardworking New Yorkers.”

Those words, “no place in this state,” once echoed across newsrooms as the declaration of a moral crusader.

Her CUFFS Initiative (Combatting Upstate Financial Frauds and Schemes) was marketed as a model for restoring faith in financial integrity, pairing state police with prosecutors to “expose deceitful plots” and reinforce public trust.

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NJ Gubernatorial Candidate Needs To Tell The Truth About Her Cheating Scandal

Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat congresswoman and candidate in the competitive race for the New Jersey governorship, is under fire for serious ethical lapses. One of those is her still unexplained but suspicious involvement in a widespread cheating scandal at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). She still refuses to provide a full public accounting by stonewalling any release of USNA’s disciplinary records that would show the nature and extent of both her and her husband’s involvement in the cheating scandal.

Sherrill’s continued cover-up raises even more questions that only she can clear up.

A Stolen Exam and the Investigation

The cheating in which Sherrill was implicated occurred in December 1992. As The Baltimore Sun has reported, a master copy of the final exam for the electrical engineering course (EE 311) was stolen days before the exam was scheduled. Copies of the stolen exam were then circulated and even sold to some midshipmen, not all of whom have ever been identified. According to The Sun, “more than 130 midshipmen were implicated by the Navy’s inspector general in the theft and distribution of the exam.”

After several midshipmen sent emails to faculty the day of the exam, telling them that the exam had been compromised, the Navy inspector general launched a formal investigation.

The investigation was complicated and lengthened by the decisions of many midshipmen not to cooperate and even to lie to investigators. It concluded on Jan. 20, 1994, with a 30-page report of investigation. The report notes numerous instances where midshipmen refused to answer questions either because they wanted to protect themselves or because they did not want to “bilge” their classmates by giving truthful answers about the cheating.

Sherrill was interviewed, but the record of her interview is still being withheld.

The IG’s report details how some midshipmen lied repeatedly to investigators, even when under oath. Others retained attorneys who advised them to “plead the Fifth” by refusing to answer questions, even after the academy superintendent dropped a criminal investigation and granted them immunity from criminal charges. The IG also found “much evidence that midshipmen conspired to conceal their involvement” in the cheating scandal, including efforts “to coordinate and perfect the testimony they would give.”

All of this hindered the search for the truth.

The report was finalized and approved by the secretary of the Navy just weeks before the 1994 graduation. His final disciplinary decisions included 29 expulsions and other punishments for 42 others.

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