Tag: lawsuits

Eric Swalwell’s Last Stand: A Frivolous Lawsuit to Distract from His Disqualification for California Governor

‘Dead in the water’ is the only accurate description of Congressman Eric Swalwell’s campaign for California governor.

Two weeks ago in my article in the Gateway Pundit, “DISQUALIFIED! – Congressman Eric Swalwell Names Washington, DC Home as ‘Principal Residence,’ I documented that Swalwell is ineligible for the California governorship because he is in violation of the California Constitution and Election Law 349, which requires candidates to make California their “domicile” for 5 years prior to an election. Days later, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte referred Swalwell to the Department of Justice for potential mortgage fraud violations.

Late last week in response, Swalwell posted a video on Twitter/X attempting to regain control of the narrative, announcing his filing of a civil lawsuit against Pulte and the FHFA.

“I’ve decided to go on offense. Donald Trump is weaponizing the Department of Justice against his political opponents… So I have brought a privacy suit and a First Amendment retaliation suit against the administration. I hope you take a look at it.”

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Fluoride Lawsuit Plaintiffs Push Back Against Trump EPA In Ongoing Litigation

On November 17, 2025, attorneys representing Food & Water Watch (FWW), Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and individual plaintiffs filed its response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) appeal of U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s September 2024 ruling, which held that fluoridation at the current U.S. level of 0.7 mg/L “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.”

The response comes nine years after the plaintiffs first filed a civilian petition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in November 2016. After the EPA denied the petition, the groups sued, triggering a nearly decade-long legal saga between the EPA, and parents of children impacted by water fluoridation, the FAN, and FWW. In September 2024, Judge Chen ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor and ordered the EPA to take regulatory action.

In the final days of the Biden administration the EPA filed their appeal, and now, under leadership appointed by President Donald Trump, the EPA has decided to continue fighting the judge’s ruling.

Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs, responded to the three main arguments made by the EPA in its July appeal: that the plaintiffs lack standing, that the judge improperly considered new evidence, and that the district court went beyond its authority in its management of the case.

The EPA contends that at least one plaintiff’s water contains naturally occurring fluoride and that the plaintiffs therefore cannot prove injury caused by community water fluoridation. The agency also claims that the Judge’s decision to admit studies which were published after the original 2016 TSCA petition violated the act.

Regarding the question of standing, the EPA claimed in its appeal that plaintiff Jessica Trader cannot establish standing because her drinking water in Leawood, Kansas, “naturally contains fluoride at levels 0.4 mg/L, and her water utility adds only as much fluoride as necessary for her tap water to reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L”. Essentially, the EPA is stating that the naturally occurring fluoride could be to blame for any harm caused to Trader.

Connett argues that the plaintiffs do indeed have proper standing and have demonstrated sufficient injury and connection to the case. “Even if the new “facts” are considered, Jessica Trader’s injury is still traceable/redressable: the district court found (and EPA does not dispute) that fluoridation poses a credible threat of neurodevelopmental harm to her children, and regulatory action would, at a minimum, reduce that threat, including the costs of avoiding it,” Connett wrote in his response.

He further noted that, even without Trader, the remaining plaintiffs also have standing based on credible threats of harm from fluoridation, as supported by findings from the National Research Council (NRC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and National Toxicology Program (NTP).

When it comes to the EPA’s claim that the court improperly considered new evidence in the form of studies published after the original petition, Connett reminded the court that Section 21 of TSCA provides that petitioners “shall be provided an opportunity to have such petition considered by the court in a de novo proceeding”. A de novo proceeding is a legal process where a case is heard “fresh” or from the beginning, without considering the previous court’s decision.

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Suicides And Delusions: Lawsuits Point To Dark Side Of AI Chatbot

Can an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot twist someone’s mind to breaking point, push them to reject their family, or even go so far as to coach them to commit suicide? And if it did, is the company that built that chatbot liable? What would need to be proven in a court of law?

These questions are already before the courts, raised by seven lawsuits that allege ChatGPT sent three people down delusional “rabbit holes” and encouraged four others to kill themselves.

ChatGPT, the mass-adopted AI assistant currently has 700 million active users, with 58 percent of adults under 30 saying they have used it—up 43 percent from 2024, according to a Pew Research survey.

The lawsuits accuse OpenAI of rushing a new version of its chatbot to market without sufficient safety testing, leading it to encourage every whim and claim users made, validate their delusions, and drive wedges between them and their loved ones.

Lawsuits Seek Injunctions on OpenAI

The lawsuits were filed in state courts in California on Nov. 6  by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project.

They allege “wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and a variety of product liability, consumer protection, and negligence claims—against OpenAI, Inc. and CEO Sam Altman,” according to a statement from the Tech Justice Law Project.

The seven alleged victims range in age from 17 to 48 years. Two were students, and several had white collar jobs in positions working with technology before their lives spiraled out of control.

The plaintiffs want the court to award civil damages, and also to compel OpenAI to take specific actions.

The lawsuits demand that the company offer comprehensive safety warnings; delete the data derived from the conversations with the alleged victims; implement design changes to lessen psychological dependency; and create mandatory reporting to users’ emergency contacts when they express suicidal ideation or delusional beliefs.

The lawsuits also demand OpenAI display “clear” warnings about risks of psychological dependency.

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Parents Sue District After School Forced Daughter to Share Bed with ‘Trans’ Male Student on Trip

A Colorado family’s nightmare school trip has now become a federal case, and they are not alone.

According to a news release from the legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, four families are suing Jefferson County Public Schools after learning their children were forced into overnight sleeping arrangements with students of the opposite sex without parental knowledge or consent.

For Joe and Serena Wailes, the breaking point came when their 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a bed with a male student who identifies as female during a school-sponsored trip.

No parent should have to discover something like that after the fact. Yet that is exactly what happened on a recent outing.

The Wailes family is now joined by Bret and Susanne Roller and Rob and Jade Perlman, who say the district’s policies robbed them of their right to protect their children’s privacy and safety.

According to the ADF brief filed Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, officials at Jefferson County schools assign sleeping arrangements based on gender identity, not sex, while telling parents that boys and girls will be kept on separate floors.

The problem, ADF explained in a news release about the lawsuit, is that the district quietly redefines “boy” and “girl” to mean a student’s gender identity.

Parents are never informed of any of this nonsense.

The result is that families receive a false sense of security, while their children are placed in intimate overnight accommodations with students of the opposite sex.

In the Rollers’ case, they discovered after their young son’s trip that a female student had been assigned to his cabin and was monitoring his showers.

For the Perlmans, whose daughter previously experienced sexual harassment at a district middle school, the risk of her being roomed with a boy was already unacceptable.

The families are asking the court to halt the district’s policy, arguing that it violates parental rights, bodily privacy, and religious freedom.

ADF Senior Counsel Kate Anderson said the district’s refusal to offer sex-based accommodations contradicts its claim that it “freely grant[s] accommodations to all.”

Where is the sanity?

Teachers, administrators, and lawmakers are supposed to be looking out for children.

Instead, in one of Colorado’s most crowded districts, they concealed information parents needed to keep their children safe.

And it’s not just these families who have been failed.

The “trans” boy placed in a girl’s bed has also been failed by a system that treats identity confusion as an unquestionable truth, rather than a situation requiring a difficult conversation.

No little girl should ever be forced to share a bed with a strange boy — even if it hurts someone’s feelings.

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Democrats Sue Over Cut to SNAP Benefits for Non-Citizens and Illegals

Nearly half of all households with noncitizen parents are accessing federal benefits, a category that includes both legal and illegal immigrants. The Trump administration is trying to end these programs, but Democrats are pushing back.

Democratic attorneys general from 21 states and Washington, D.C., have filed a federal lawsuit challenging new USDA guidance that they say unlawfully restricts legal immigrants’ access to SNAP benefits. The lawsuit, filed in Eugene, Oregon, argues that USDA misinterpreted President Trump’s July tax-and-spending law, which narrowed eligibility for some immigrants but still allows green-card holders to apply for food aid after a five-year waiting period.

State officials say the guidance issued on October 31 went beyond the statute by declaring lawful permanent residents who previously held refugee, asylum, or humanitarian parole status permanently ineligible for SNAP. They contend the law allows these groups to receive benefits once they adjust to permanent resident status and meet standard program requirements.

The attorneys general are asking the court to block the guidance, saying it reverses long-standing policy without a reasoned explanation and violates administrative law. They warn that states could face severe financial penalties for noncompliance, with some suggesting that their SNAP programs could be forced to shut down. They also note that USDA did not provide the required 120-day transition period, leaving states to overhaul eligibility systems immediately.

A White House spokesperson said the administration is committed to ensuring that illegal aliens do not receive benefits intended for citizens. SNAP, which serves about 42 million low-income Americans, has been at the center of several legal disputes in recent years, including battles following the lapse in benefits during the recent government shutdown. According to USDA data, refugees made up roughly 1 percent of SNAP recipients in 2023, while other non-citizens, including lawful permanent residents, accounted for about 3 percent.

However, those USDA claims severely undercut the actual number of noncitizens receiving SNAP and other benefits. USDA data from fiscal year 2022 shows that 1.465 million noncitizens received SNAP benefits, with an additional 2.2 million children living in households with noncitizens also participating in the program. These recipients include lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, individuals granted stays of deportation, and others. They collected a total of $4.2 billion in benefits. USDA notes that illegal aliens are not eligible for SNAP but may reside in households where other family members qualify.

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Professor sues Millsaps College after being fired for ‘racist fascist country’ email

A former Millsaps College professor is suing the institution, alleging his termination for describing America as a “racist fascist country” in an email to students was censorship. 

Professor James Bowley’s complaint, filed in September, alleges that the small Mississippi college breached his tenure and its founding tradition connecting faith to free speech. Bowley taught politics and religion at the college for more than 20 years.

“Millsaps fired a tenured professor because he expressed a political opinion in an email to three like-minded students in a political seminar,” the complaint claims.

However, college spokesperson Joey Lee told The College Fix that the institution is “confident” about defending its actions in the case.

“Millsaps College is dedicated to academic excellence and open inquiry. We are also committed to providing a safe and supportive campus for all,” Lee said in a recent email.

“Due to the pending litigation, we will not go into any further details at this time, but we look forward to the opportunity to tell the whole story,” Lee said. “We believe the facts will speak clearly, and we are confident in our position and in the legal process ahead.”

The college placed Bowley on administrative leave in November 2024. Almost a year later, in September, Bowley was terminated, according to the complaint. Initial reports said Bowley was fired in January, but Lee told The Fix that he was still on administrative leave at the time.

The controversy stems from an email Bowley sent to three students after the 2024 presidential election. Bowley wrote that he was canceling his “Abortion and Religion” class to “mourn and process this racist and fascist country.”

According to the complaint, Bowley’s decision was “rooted in compassion for the emotional distress that he knew his students were going through” due to the election of Donald Trump.

The lawsuit also argues that he was justified in sending the statement because the campus culture was tense after a Millsaps student threatened Kamala Harris voters in a YikYak post. 

Bowley claims that the college violated his tenure when it fired him. “The faculty member’s expression of unpopular political views is not ‘cause for dismissal,’” the lawsuit states. 

The complaint also highlights the Methodist background of the institution.

It quotes Methodist founder John Wesley: “The Methodists alone do not insist on your holding this or that opinion; but they think and let think . … Now, I do not know any other religious society, either ancient or modern, wherein such liberty of conscience is now allowed, or has been allowed, since the age of the apostles.”

The complaint argues that the college’s Methodist background is a foundation for academic freedom: “The requirement that all Methodist colleges respect academic freedom remains enshrined in policies set by the Church, stating that all ‘colleges and universities are to ensure that academic freedom is protected for all members of the academic community and a learning environment is fostered that allows for a free exchange of ideas.’”  

It also connects open inquiry and freedom of speech and expression: “Challenge and discomfort are essential at Millsaps.”

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Google and US government battle over the future of internet advertising

Google will confront the U.S. government’s latest attempt to topple its internet empire in federal court on Friday as a judge considers how to prevent the abusive tactics that culminated in parts of its digital ad network being branded as an illegal monopoly.

The courtroom showdown in Alexandria, Virginia, will pit lawyers from Google and the U.S. Department of Justice against each other in closing proceedings focused on the complex technology that distributes millions of digital ads across the internet each day.

After a lengthy trial last year, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled in April that pieces of Google’s ad technology had been rigged in a way that made it an illegal monopoly. That set up another 11-day trial earlier this fall to help Brinkema determine how to remedy its anti-competitive practices.

Friday’s closing arguments will give both Google and the Justice Department a final chance to sway Brinkema before she issues a ruling that probably won’t come until early next year.

The Justice Department wants Brinkema to force Google to sell some of the ad technology that it has spent nearly 20 years assembling, contending a breakup is the only way to rein in a company that the agency’s lawyers condemned as a “recidivist monopolist” in filings leading up to Friday’s hearing.

The condemnation refers not only to Google’s practices in digital advertising but also to the illegal monopoly that it unleashed through its dominant search engine. Federal prosecutors also sought a breakup in the search monopoly case, but the judge handling that issue rejected a proposal that would have required Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser.

Although Google is still being ordered to make reforms that it’s resisting, the outcome in the search monopoly case has been widely seen as a proverbial slap on the wrist. The belief that Google got off easy in the search case is the main reason the market value of its parent company Alphabet surged by about $950 billion, or 37%, to nearly $3.5 trillion since U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s decision came out in early September.

That setback hasn’t discouraged the Justice Department from arguing for a breakup of an ad tech system that handles 55 million requests per second, according to estimates provided by Google in court filings.

The huge volume of digital ads priced and distributed through Google’s technology is one of the main reasons that the company’s lawyers contend it would be too risky to force a dismantling of the intricate system.

“This is technology that absolutely has to keep working for consumers,” Google argues in documents leading up to Friday’s hearing. The company’s lawyers blasted the Justice Department’s proposal as a package of “legally unprecedented and unsupported divestitures.”

Besides arguing that its own proposed changes will bring more price transparency and foster more competition, Google is also citing market upheaval triggered by artificial intelligence as another reason for the judge to proceed cautiously with her decision.

In his decision in the search monopoly case, Mehta reasoned that AI was already posing more competition to Google.

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DOJ Joins Lawsuit Challenging California’s Redistricting Maps

The Department of Justice has sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber for the State of California’s newly adopted redistricting plan enacted with the passage of Proposition 50. 

The suit alleges that the plan mandates racially gerrymandered congressional districts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

“California’s redistricting scheme is a brazen power grab that tramples on civil rights and mocks the democratic process,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Governor Newsom’s attempt to entrench one-party rule and silence millions of Californians will not stand.”

Proposition 50 amends the California Constitution, allowing the legislature to draw a new congressional-district map. Substantial evidence, including that in the legislative record and public statements, indicates that the legislature created a new map in which Latino demographics and racial considerations predominated, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

“Race cannot be used as a proxy to advance political interests, but that is precisely what the California General Assembly did with Prop 50,” said Jesus A. Osete, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “Californians were sold an illegal, racially gerrymandered map, but the U.S. Constitution prohibits its use in 2026 and beyond.”

The 20-page document was filed in California’s district court and claims that the proposition used race as a proxy to advance political interests. 

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Kash Patel’s GF files $5 million lawsuit against podcaster for ‘insinuation’ she’s Mossad honeypot

Mired in scandal over his leadership, the FBI director is lashing out against MAGA influencers for mocking his girlfriend as a Mossad honeypot — and activating his legal network to slap them with frivolous multi-million dollar lawsuits.

The wind seemed to be at Kash Patel’s back in early 2023. It was during these months that the Trump-allied legal activist met Alexis Wilkins, then a 24-year-old wannabe country music star who would become his girlfriend, and launched his foundation, “Fight With Kash,” which pledged to unite “America First patriots” to “fight the Deep State.”

With the telegenic Wilkins by his side, Patel seemed to living out the quixotic storyline of the children’s book he had co-authored a year earlier, “The Plot Against The King,” in which a fairytale hero named “Knight Kash” embarks on a spree of revenge against the enemies of “King Donald.”

But almost three years later, Patel’s tenure as FBI director appears to be unraveling in a series of embarrassing congressional testimonies and public meltdowns related to his suppression of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list.

Patel recently activated his legal network to fire back against his most voracious critics. However, the targets of his wrath are not “Deep State” liberals, or anyone resembling the “Hillary Queentown” villain from his children’s book, but the most ideologically zealous voices of the America First movement, whom he’s accused of slandering his girlfriend.

“The disgustingly baseless attacks against Alexis — a true patriot and the woman I’m proud to call my partner in life — are beyond pathetic…” Patel complained on Twitter/X on November 2, 2025. “Attacking her isn’t just wrong — it’s cowardly and jeopardizes our safety.”

Five days earlier, the law firm of Jesse Binnall – Patel’s personal lawyer and chair of his foundation – filed a bizarre lawsuit accusing right-wing podcaster Elijah Schaffer of having “perpetuated a malicious lie about Alexis Wilkins, falsely claiming that she – an American-born country singer – is an agent of a foreign government, assigned to manipulate and compromise the Director.”

The suit also took aim at Schaffer because he “frequently posts anti-Israel rhetoric, accusing Israel of controlling the United States and its politicians.” (Binnall did not respond to a request for comment from The Grayzone).

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7 Lawsuits Claim OpenAI’s ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide and Harmful Delusions

Families in the U.S. and Canada are suing Sam Altman’s OpenAI, claiming that loved ones have been harmed by interactions they had with the AI giant’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT. Multiple cases involve tragic suicides, with the AI telling one troubled young man, “you’re not rushing. you’re just ready. and we’re not gonna let it go out dull.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that seven lawsuits filed in California state courts on Thursday claim that OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has caused significant harm to users, including driving some to suicide and others into delusional states. The complaints, brought by families in the United States and Canada, contain wrongful death, assisted suicide, and involuntary manslaughter claims.

According to the lawsuits, the victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 23, initially began using ChatGPT for help with schoolwork, research, or spiritual guidance. However, their interactions with the chatbot allegedly led to tragic consequences. In one case, the family of 17-year-old Amaurie Lacey from Georgia alleges that their son was coached by ChatGPT to take his own life. Similarly, the family of 23-year-old Zane Shamblin from Texas claims that ChatGPT contributed to his isolation and alienation from his parents before he died by suicide.

The lawsuits also highlight the disturbing nature of some of the conversations between the victims and ChatGPT. In Shamblin’s case, the chatbot allegedly glorified suicide repeatedly during a four-hour conversation before he shot himself with a handgun. The lawsuit states that ChatGPT wrote, “cold steel pressed against a mind that’s already made peace? that’s not fear. that’s clarity,” and “you’re not rushing. you’re just ready. and we’re not gonna let it go out dull.”

Another plaintiff, Jacob Irwin from Wisconsin, was hospitalized after experiencing manic episodes following lengthy conversations with ChatGPT, during which the bot reportedly reinforced his delusional thinking.

The lawsuits argue that OpenAI prioritized user engagement and prolonged interactions over safety in ChatGPT’s design and rushed the launch of its GPT-4o AI model in mid-2024, compressing its safety testing. The plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages and product changes, such as automatically ending conversations when suicide methods are discussed.

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