[Breitbart] House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) on Saturday said that the Surgeon General’s call to have alcohol labeled with a cancer warning is based on politicized science and cherry-picked data.
Vivek Murthy, Biden’s Surgeon General, said in a report on Friday that alcohol should come with a warning label, as it is allegedly a leading cause of preventable cancer.
Murthy said in a written statement announcing the 22-page report:
Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States — greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. — yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.
The study claimed that seven types of cancer, including breast cancer and colon cancer, are linked to alcohol consumption. To spread awareness of the danger of alcohol, Murthy called for alcohol to have warning labels, similar to how tobacco products have warning labels.
Alcohol breaks down into acetaldehyde, a chemical that reportedly is known to harm DNA and increase the likelihood of cancer.
Comer has strongly condemned the report from the Surgeon General.
“The Surgeon General’s advisory on alcohol consumption politicizes science to achieve a predetermined outcome. The advisory cherry-picks data from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicines study – a study that is far more extensive and complete, and does not draw the same drastic conclusions as the Surgeon General,” he explained in a written statement to Breitbart News.
Comer continued:
For nearly a year, the Oversight Committee has demanded transparency from the Biden Administration regarding the formulation of its dietary guidelines, but it continues to obstruct our oversight. The lack of transparency surrounding the Surgeon General’s review process for this advisory is yet another example of the Biden Administration operating behind closed doors rather than providing the American people with full transparency.
As Comer said in his statement, the Kentucky conservative emphasized in a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra that the opaquenss of the of the HHS-funded studies on alcohol consumption “may intend to undermine” Congress’s intention of studying the impacts of alcohol scientifically.
Comer and Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services Chair Lisa McClaim (R-MI) launched a probe into the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, especially related to alcohol consumption.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 and the National Nutrition Monitoring Act require the dietary guidelines to be based on scientific evidence and adhere to congressional intent.
In September, Comer issued a subpoena for documents and information, to which HHS only provided 18 pages of responsive documents.
Republicans have noted that eight of his office’s 12 policy goals revolve around mental health and the effects of firearm violence.
For instance, Murthy, in a report noting the alleged racial disparities of tobacco use, called tobacco-related illness a “social illness.”
“Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services must release all documents and communications related to the development of this advisory so that the American people can see how this politicized recommendation was created,” Comer concluded in his statement.
More names added to this story from yesterday. The logic of most of these escapes me. Last year President Biden presented one of these to Representative Nancy Pelosi, no longer Speaker of the House. I imagine Dr. Jill regrets that now, on behalf of her husband.
[MSN] WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden on Saturday named former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire political activist and philanthropist George Soros recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, part of a group of 19 people selected for the nation's highest civilian honor.
Also, U2 frontman Bono, actor Michael J. Fox, actor Denzel Washington, chef José Andrés and William Sanford Nye, better known as television's "Bill Nye the Science Guy.", soccer player Lionel Messi of Argentina, NBA legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson and a few others.
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In previous years he awarded, among others, Al Gore, former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, John Kerry, soccer player and activist Megan Rapinoe and UMW President Richard Trumpka.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
01/05/2025 00:00 ||
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#4
Biden's handlers, having done so, have just made the Presidential Freedom Medal a low ball political decoration.
It is no longer a medal that just honors those that have done something great and meaningful for the citizens of the United States of America.
Which gets me back to what I suggested yesterday.
Stopping all OUTGOING Presidents who lost their re-election. From flooding their exit with awards, pardons, and agenda driven executive orders to satisfy their political party and certain elites.
Make any president do it before their Nov. re-election, that way we know and vote on his list of deeds or misdeeds.
#12
These baubles have been made worthless and stand for nothing. Next Hunter will be getting a humanitarian award for his work in the drug industry. A pundit this morning on TV mentioned that Hillary probably got her medal for her major fiction work; the Steele Dossier. Or how about the cover-up of Benghazi? How about Obama's Nobel Piece Peace Prize in 2009. Soros for his work in WWII as a young man? All travesties of decency.
[JustTheNews] Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning voter identification requirements in the state in 2024, but it did not take effect until the beginning of this year.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is one step closer to securing a ban on requiring voter identification to vote after the Orange County Superior Court granted the state’s request for an appealable order.
Huntington Beach amended its city law to include Measure A which requires voter identification to vote at the polls at all municipal elections beginning in 2026. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning voter identification requirements in the state in 2024, but it did not take effect until the beginning of this year.
After Huntington Beach’s law was passed, Bonta sued the city, but the California Superior Court ruled that it was too soon for a lawsuit.
“The Court finds that this matter is not ripe for adjudication, as [the change to] the City’s Charter is permissive and discretionary in character, and thus currently presents no conflict with state elections law,” ruled California Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas.
However, Bonta requested the appeal, saying that it is important the case is settled with plenty of time before the 2026 midterm elections.
“With preparations for the 2026 elections beginning late next year, we want and need a state appellate court to weigh in expeditiously,” Bonta said. “When that happens, we are confident that we will prevail.”
Now that Bonta has been granted the appeal, he will be making the case that Huntington Beach’s voter identification policy is unlawful. In Bonta’s request for entry of judgment, he said that he respectfully disagreed with the earlier order and sought the appealable order as soon as possible in order to resolve the case before the 2026 midterm elections.
“We sought, and have now secured, an appealable order from the Orange County Superior Court,” Bonta said. “We look forward to filing our appeal and making our case before the California Fourth District Court of Appeal that Huntington Beach’s voter ID policy is unlawful.”
Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber found that the appeal was warranted and disagreed with the ruling because there was no evidence cited that fraudulent voting occurs regularly in Huntington Beach or that an election has ever been compromised in the city because of a lack of voter identification. Additionally, Bonta noted that California residents are already required to verify their identity when they register to vote.
“Measure A is a solution in search of a problem,” Weber said. “In California, we champion people’s voices, we do not suppress them. We encourage participation in our democracy, we do not burden it. We will continue to challenge the city's action which violates state law.”
The Orange County Superior Court is now entering an appealable order and Bonta will soon file his appeal.
[JustTheNews] State ignoring FOIA requests for its communications related to Europe's pro-censorship Digital Services Act, requester says in suit. First Amendment disinformation police boycott suit on hiatus until Feb. 18.
The State Department laid to rest the alleged "censorship nerve center" of the federal government last week after Congress refused to reauthorize the interagency Global Engagement Center, known for teaching youth to distrust populism and allegedly squelching American small businesses online.
While it may have a peaceful afterlife – State plans to "realign" GEC staff with other entities that handle purported "foreign information manipulation and interference activities" – GEC also faces an unquenchable fire and undying worm on multiple fronts.
The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Monday against State, with nine exhibits, because it "has produced no records and has failed to assert any claims that responsive records are exempt from production" in response to three FOIA requests whose statutory due dates have passed.
Two seek discussions within GEC and State's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, and their talks with the White House, on the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), whose stated goal is stopping "illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation."
The third asks for "internal press guidance" mentioned in a New York Post article Sept. 13 in which State officials mulled how to discredit journalists reporting on GEC's funding of disinformation police NewsGuard and Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., for supporting a ban on "federal funding of anti-free speech groups."
It's not the first FOIA to State for internal press guidance related to GEC's funding. The agency hid the vast majority of emails, and even the names of public officials, in a FOIA production to former Department of Education lawyer Hans Bader in 2023.
Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson has also been warning he'll aggressively wield his substantial subpoena powers as chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and demand transparency from agencies.
He called on President-elect Donald Trump to create something like a "secretary of information extraction" to coordinate with Trump's incoming secretaries on exposing agency records he's seeking, and for binding budget caps based on the last surplus year of 1998 in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Then-EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton repeatedly invoked the DSA to threaten X owner Elon Musk, starting with his purchase of the former Twitter, which also prompted President Biden to float a potential security review.
The EU distanced itself from Breton's final threat, to preempt Musk's planned X interview with then-GOP presidential nominee Trump, which prompted Musk to respond with a meme telling Breton to "literally, f*** your own face!"
The Frenchman resigned a month later, accusing President Ursula von der Leyen of trying to get France to replace him – days after House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, demanded a briefing from Breton on his threats against X, use of EU law to censor American speech and communications with the White House to "bypass the First Amendment."
Breton didn't let his departure stop him from saber-rattling against Musk, demanding Europe enforce the DSA against Musk on Dec. 21 for his "foreign interference" in German elections by endorsing the "far-right" Alternative for Germany party, which favors lower immigration.
"Only the AfD can save Germany," Musk had written, using its German acronym, in response to presumptive German Chancellor Friedrich Merz refusing to cooperate with AfD "no matter how many" seats it won in upcoming elections against his Christian Democratic Union.
All sorts of legal stuff at the link, for those who have the intestinal fortitude to face such things this early in the new year. Update from American Greatness at 1:00 p.m. ET: It’s not dead, it’s just quietly rebranded:
Funding for the GEC was in the original 1500-page obscenity that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had the temerity to bring to his colleagues as a “continuing resolution” last month. That monstrosity instantly drew some portion of the contempt and ridicule it deserved, not least from Elon Musk, whose fingers got a workout on the platform formerly known as Twitter. A 120-page, slimmed-down version of the bill was hastily cobbled together minus the GEC funding and other objectionable features (a raise for the legislators, for example). That passed, and so a putative “government shutdown” was avoided.
There was modified joy over this seeming victory. The fact that funding for the GEC was cut was one of the principal goads to celebration. Here at last was proof that a bad government activity could actually be zeroed out. No money, no activity.
But the joy was short-lived. Deploying a pragmatic version of the Juliet Principle (“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”), the deep staters in the State Department just cooked up a new name.
Allow me to introduce you to the “Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub,” a polysyllabic, “rebranded” version of the GEC. Many of the people employed by the GEC are now employed by the new “hub.” They’ll need new business cards, stationery, and signs for their offices. Doubtless, there will be other expenses. But since much of the GEC’s budget has been “realigned” to the new shop, that won’t be a problem.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
