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EPA Getting Sued By Scientists Mad They Aren’t Getting Tax Payer $$$

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(Via The Daily Caller)

Two environmental groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its new policy of not allowing scientists benefiting from agency funding to also serve on advisory boards.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the new policy in October to “ensure independence” and “geographical representation” on scientific advisory boards.

“Whatever science comes out of EPA, shouldn’t be political science,” Pruitt said in October. “From this day forward, EPA advisory committee members will be financially independent from the agency.”

The idea is to keep EPA science boards free of potential conflicts of interest by excluding researchers getting taxpayer funding. EPA has 22 scientific boards, but the order currently only applies to three of them.

Environmentalists and some scientists were livid. Now, Columbia University’s Environmental Law Clinic and Earthjustice are suing the EPA on behalf current and former advisory board researchers, according to The Washington Post on Thursday.

The lawsuit argues Pruitt lacked the authority to change EPA’s science advisory board policies. Activists also allege Pruitt’s order violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act that allows federal grant recipients to serve on advisory boards, but only if those boards are not closely related to their funding.

But there’s the rub. EPA said members of three boards the order applies to have gotten $77 million in EPA grants in the last three years while they weighed in on agency regulations.

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute sued EPA in 2016 to prevent its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) from meeting after finding that 24 of its 26 members had received more than $190 million from EPA.

Seventeen of the 20 scientific advisers sitting on EPA’s ozone panel also benefited from $192 million in EPA grants, according to E&E Legal.

Despite this, one board member caught up in the policy refused to step down. She’s joined the lawsuit against EPA, calling Pruitt’s order “morally reprehensible.”

“It all sounds very well intentioned, wanting more diversity on the boards, wanting more voices to be heard. Who is going to disagree with that?” Robyn Wilson of Ohio State University told WaPo.

“I think it is an attempt to get rid of people who they assume are not on board with the current administration’s goals, which are deregulatory,” she said.

Environmentalists charge Pruitt used the order to fill EPA committees with voices friendly to industry and state interests. Pruitt named 66 experts to sit on three committees, but all of these appointees — no matter their ties — are experts in their fields.

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Politics

Rob Sand Must Be Audited Along with LGI

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Rob Sand won the Iowa governor’s race as the state’s auditor. That dual role demands immediate scrutiny of his own office and of LGI, the family business run by his wife, Christine Lauridsen Sand. Taxpayers have a right to know whether any public contracts, grants, or favorable treatment flowed between the auditor’s office and the company while he held statewide power. Iowa does not get a free pass on conflicts simply because the winner is a Democrat.

America First means accountability for officials who oversee public money. Sand built his career on auditing others. The same standard now applies to him and to LGI. Any overlap in finances, vendor relationships, or use of state resources must be examined by independent review before he takes the governor’s office. Working families in Iowa already face water-quality issues, budget pressures, and education concerns. They should not also wonder whether family business interests influenced decisions made in the auditor’s office.

An audit of Sand’s tenure and of LGI is the minimum required for confidence in the transition. If irregularities appear, they must be referred for further investigation. Sovereignty and basic fairness require that the next governor faces the same transparency he once claimed to enforce. Iowa voters deserve nothing less before he is sworn in.

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Politics

2028: America First Dark Horse Must Rise

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The 2026 midterms cleared the field. Democrats took Congress after voters punished high gas prices and the Iran war. Establishment heirs now carry that baggage. JD Vance’s odds slipped overnight. Marco Rubio remains tied to the same foreign-policy circle that produced the conflict. Neither can lead a clean America First recovery. The candidate must be anyone but Vance or Rubio.

That dark horse must run on sealed borders, an end to forever wars, energy independence, and trade that puts American workers first. Traditional values and biological reality in policy cannot be treated as optional. The midterms showed the cost of foreign entanglements and elite priorities. Working families want their government focused on home, not distant conflicts or cultural experiments. Only a figure free of prior establishment ties—and free of Vance or Rubio—can make that case without apology.

The next two years will decide whether the movement stays pure or dilutes into another round of managed decline. A dark horse who rejects globalist deals, defends sovereignty, and speaks plainly to the base can consolidate the realignment before 2028. The country does not need another caretaker from the current circle. It needs someone new who will finish what America First started.

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President Trump Must Audit the 2026 Midterms & Force Redo

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The results landed with unusual force. Democrats took the House and Senate, flipping seats in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, Iowa, and South Carolina. In several states Trump carried by wide margins in 2024, the same electorate is said to have swung sharply the other way. Midterms normally punish the party in power, yet the depth and location of these flips raise basic questions about whether the tallies fully reflect legal votes. When outcomes move this far, this fast, and this consistently in historically one-sided places, the burden of proof should not rest solely on the public’s willingness to accept the certified numbers.

Mail-in ballots, same-day registration, and uneven chain-of-custody rules have left large portions of the process opaque for years. Technical problems appeared in multiple states on Election Day. Voter rolls in high-volume jurisdictions have long contained outdated and duplicate entries. None of these facts alone prove fraud, but together they make blanket claims of a clean result harder to accept at face value. The scale of the shift, the speed of the calls, and the absence of a full forensic review leave the outcome open to legitimate doubt. America First requires that only citizens cast the deciding ballots; anything less undermines the republic.

President Trump should order an immediate audit of the closest and most anomalous races. If that review finds material irregularities capable of changing results, the affected contests should be re-run under military supervision of polling places, ballot transport, and counting. Civilian administrators have lost the confidence of millions of voters. A transparent, secured re-election is the only practical way to settle the question and restore trust. Until then, the validity of these midterms remains open to serious challenge.

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