Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari confirmed Monday that his office was investigating FEMA over concerns that disaster relief was withheld from Trump supporters, according to a letter shared with The Daily Wire.  Cuffari confirmed the investigation in a letter to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-MO) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), who requested on December 3 a probe into whether FEMA supervisor Marn’i Washington’s instructions to “avoid homes advertising Trump” in Lake Placid, Florida, may have been part of a broader agency policy. Washington was fired after The Daily Wire first reported that at least 20 homes were skipped to her directive.  “I share your sentiments that any disaster funding provided by Congress must be made available to all affected and that it cannot be conditioned or delayed based on political views,” Cuffari wrote on Monday.  “On December 17, 2024, my office initiated an audit of FEMA’s Assessment of Community Trends,” he added. “The objective is to determine how well FEMA followed its policies and procedures when addressing safety concerns and determining community trends that impact disaster survivor assistance in response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.” Washington claimed that her directive to skip Trump homes was based on FEMA’s “community trends” policies. In their December 3 letter, Graves and Perry wrote that they were aware of reports out of North Carolina “of FEMA employees skipping any home that displayed a ‘Make America Great Again,’ ‘Drain the Swamp,’ ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ or Trump campaign sign. If the FEMA field team encountered three or more of these signs, the field team could abandon the entire neighborhood without notifying hurricane victims of assistance available to them.” JOIN THE MOVEMENT IN ’25 WITH 25% OFF DAILYWIRE+ ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS WITH CODE DW25 Cuffari said that he was thankful for the information provided by the Republican lawmakers and that he would be happy to schedule a briefing with them on the findings.  “We greatly appreciate the information you provided, as it aided our decision-making process. I will be glad to share the results of this audit, future reports on this topic, or any of our numerous projects, with you if you would like to schedule a briefing with me,” he wrote.  FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said that the incident in Lake Placid was “isolated,” and confirmed last month that there are multiple ongoing federal investigations into potential discrimination by the agency.

Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary has died at the age of 86 following a four-year battle with bladder cancer, his publicist Ken Sunshine confirmed. The singer-songwriter — best known for writing hit songs for the musical group like “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “Light One Candle” — passed away at his home in New York City on Tuesday, People magazine reported. “Our fearless dragon is tired and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life,” Yarrow’s daughter Bethany said in a statement to the Associated Press. “The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest.” In a recent post on Instagram from both Yarrow’s kids, Christopher and Bethany, the two noted that the end of his life was near. “He has kept his doctors in awe at his resilience as he has continued to perform and live life in his own generous and cause-driven way,” the statement in December read. “It has been a long road and he has been a strong dragon, but right now he is very weak, and, at 86, his dragon days are numbered,” it added. “There is Peter Yarrow the folk activist legend, and then there is the man, a deeply compassionate man, who changed the lives of so many people in very personal ways.” Peter Yarrow, legendary Peter, Paul and Mary singer, dead at 86 https://t.co/zv64Qk1yDy pic.twitter.com/tYv6yXz6Z0 — New York Post (@nypost) January 7, 2025 In the 1960s Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers formed the trio band and over the next decade had numerous top ten hits, like their cover of John Denver’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane” that hit number one, two number one albums and took home five Grammy Awards, the AP noted. Born in Manhattan, Yarrow recalled first hearing purpose-driven music in high school which would eventually lead him to New York City where he met the Stookey and Travers. “When I was in high school,” he wrote. “I heard The Weavers at Carnegie Hall singing songs like ‘If I Had a Hammer’ ‘Follow The Drinking Gourd’ and ‘Wasn’t That a Time.’ I was stunned by the extraordinary effect that music of conscience can have on people, particularly when they sing songs of conscience together.” The trio formed their group in 1961 and a year later their self-titled debut album topped the charts with hits like “Lemon Tree” and “If I Had a Hammer,” People magazine noted. That music of conscience would lead the group to perform during such civil rights movements as the March on Washington in 1963 led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Selma-Montgomery March two years later.  In 1970, the group split after a 14-year-old girl accused Yarrow of making sexual advances towards her, the New York Times reported. He pleaded guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with the girl who had come to his dressing room to get an autograph. He ended up serving 3 months of his one-to-three-year prison sentence. The band would later reunite and continue performing together. He is survived by his wife Marybeth McCarthy along with his two kids and a granddaughter.

A leftist protester was sentenced to five years in prison after he attempted to disrupt a 2023 event featuring Daily Wire host Michael Knowles at the University of Pittsburgh by setting off multiple homemade smoke bombs and launching a firework explosive into a crowd of police officers, seriously injuring one.   Brian DiPippa, 37, and his wife Krystal DiPippa, 42, were both sentenced over their convictions of obstructing law enforcement after they attempted to disrupt a debate on transgenderism that Knowles was having at the University of Pittsburgh in April 2023. Brian was given five years in prison and Krystal was given three years of probation while they were both ordered to pay $1,400 to the university and $47,284 to the injured officer.  “The DiPippas conspired to injure law enforcement officers and cause chaos at a college campus protest,” said U.S. Attorney Nicholas Olshan. “They attacked brave men and women who were trying to maintain order and protect the attendees. Today’s sentencings — and particularly the years of incarceration imposed on Brian DiPippa — should serve as a deterrent for anyone who would consider engaging in such outrageous and dangerous conduct in the future.” One officer was seriously injured during the attack as she deflected the firework as it headed toward her face and fell backward. Her legs were burnt, she needed back surgery for a fusion and a cadaver disc, and she had hearing loss, TRIBLIVE reported.  “Brian DiPippa is a homegrown terrorist who had every intention of hurting someone that day,” she said in court on Monday. “I will never be the same.” Knowles responded to the news by thanking the prosecutors and law enforcement for their work, but criticized U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan for the sentencing.  “Many thanks to the law enforcement officers and prosecutors who forced these left-wing terrorists to face at least some consequences for their actions,” he said. “The judge was far too lenient, but it’s something.” JOIN THE MOVEMENT IN ’25 WITH 25% OFF DAILYWIRE+ ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS WITH CODE DW25 On his Tuesday podcast, Knowles praised the federal officer who “pursued the case” and worked to bring justice over the attack. He added that the judge “basically” let the couple “off the hook.”  FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek said he hoped the sentencing would deter future similar attacks.  “These sentencings send a clear message that the FBI and our partners will use all available tools to bring to justice those who seek to injure, maim, or attack law enforcement officers,” he said. “The FBI and our Joint Terrorism Task Force partners across the country stand committed to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.”

You may have noticed that there has been, in recent months, in the media and among our sainted “public health experts,” a full court press against booze. We constantly hear, now, about how incredibly dangerous alcohol is — in any amount. Of course, we’ve always known that alcohol consumed immoderately — consumed in too great a volume, or too quickly — can be very dangerous. But the idea that alcohol is significantly dangerous in any amount, no matter how you drink it, or how much of it you drink, is rather new. It is the latest narrative from our self-appointed public health authorities. And it is the opposite of the narrative they were spreading up until approximately five seconds ago. Now, I know that some people will say that it’s not worth questioning this narrative. After all, if fewer people end up drinking alcohol because of it, that’s seemingly not a bad thing. Maybe they’re overstating the dangers, or even lying about them, but it’s for the greater good. Let’s just go with it. But I happen to think it’s always worth questioning the official narrative. Also, I think that false narratives from “health experts” for the sake of the greater good always lead to bad things. I would like to think we all understand that by now. So let’s take an honest look at this issue. Just a few days ago, the Surgeon General issued an advisory that blames alcohol, in all its forms, for causing cancer. Watch: The upshot of this advisory is that the Surgeon General wants new, prominent warning labels on alcohol products, just like we see on tobacco products. He also wants to, “incorporate proven alcohol reduction strategies into population-level cancer prevention initiatives and plans.” In other words, the Biden administration wants to set the stage for more regulations, bans, and maybe even prohibition, at some point in the future. As the Surgeon General puts it in his advisory, “Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity.” He goes on to say, “For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day.” Yes, drinking less than one alcoholic drink per day is now dangerous, apparently. A sip of wine “may” be fatal, we’re told. If you’re keeping track, this is the opposite of what we were told for decades. Just a couple of years ago, for example, we were informed that drinking wine in moderation is a great way to live longer. Watch: We went from “pop those corks” to “wine is basically cyanide” in record time. So, what exactly explains this sudden reversal in public health guidance? From the Surgeon General’s advisory, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of new data. Pretty much every study he cites is from several years ago. That’s why I went looking at some other news reports. As far as I can tell, only one local anchor has bothered to ask this question. Here’s how it went:   Apparently, during the lockdowns, people drank a lot and bad things happened to them. Therefore, in just the span of a couple of years, we can apparently now conclude that drinking extremely small amounts of alcohol can increase your risk of throat cancer. People drinking large amounts of alcohol while they were locked in their homes, alone and depressed, apparently also tells us that it’s bad to drink small amounts of alcohol socially. That logic of course doesn’t make any sense, so I pulled up the studies from 2019 (and earlier) that the Surgeon General cites in his advisory. And what I found is that the COVID lockdowns, of course, have nothing to do with this, because they happened a year after these studies were even conducted. And when I read the fine print in these studies, I realized very quickly that they don’t actually support what the Surgeon General is claiming. Most of them are “meta studies” that collect a bunch of other studies that supposedly link moderate alcohol consumption to cancer. WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show But when you pull up those underlying studies, here’s what you find. There’s one paper from 2018 entitled, “Colorectal Cancer and Alcohol Consumption.” It’s from the peer-reviewed journal “Cancers.” It doesn’t say anything about “less than one drink” causing cancer, or anything like that. Instead, the researchers state that, when it’s broken down in the body, alcohol does release a substance that can potentially damage DNA. But then they include this very important disclaimer: Alcoholics themselves are predisposed to a poor diet, low in folate and fiber, and circadian disruption, which could further augment alcohol-induced colon carcinogenesis. In other words, it’s difficult to isolate the specific effects of alcohol on cancer development, because people who drink a lot of alcohol tend to have many other health-related issues — and it’s basically impossible to fully control for all of those variables. Several other studies that have looked into the link between alcohol and cancer have said the same thing. Here’s another one, from the peer-reviewed journal “Alcohol Research & Health.” Alcohol intake may appear to be positively associated with lung cancer but the actual association may be confounded by cigarette smoking, which is related with both alcohol intake (because people who smoke also tend to drink) and the risk of lung cancer. Again, they’re admitting that there are “confounding factors” that they aren’t able to fully control for. Someone who drinks a lot is more likely to smoke a lot of cigarettes. That’s why it’s difficult to say the alcohol is responsible form them developing cancer. That’s especially true since all of this information is self-reported, and people often aren’t honest about what they’re drinking or smoking. This is all a pretty big problem for the Surgeon General’s claim that drinking even small amounts of alcohol can cause cancer, or that alcohol is directly causing tens of thousands of cancer deaths. He simply doesn’t have the evidence to support what he’s saying. It’s true that alcohol does release a substance that’s been shown to damage DNA, but by itself, that fact doesn’t tell us much. A lot of everyday substances can damage DNA. Sunlight, for example, damages DNA. That doesn’t mean we should never go outside. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ There was also a study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013 that demonstrated that pretty much everything we eat can, in some way, increase our cancer risk. From the study: We selected 50 common ingredients from random recipes in a cookbook. … Forty ingredients (80%) had articles reporting on their cancer risk. … 72 percent [of these articles] concluded that the tested food was associated with an increased or a decreased risk … Associations with cancer risk or benefits have been claimed for most food ingredients. Just to reiterate: nearly everything you eat supposedly impacts your cancer risk. The Surgeon General knows all of this, but he’s decided to push a political agenda instead of actual science. And it’s not the first time he’s done that. There was a recent deep-dive in the Wall Street Journal op-ed into this Surgeon General, whose name is Vivek Murthy. He’s a pro-censorship activist who says that “gun violence” is a public health issue that needs to be regulated like a virus. And his timing with this alcohol advisory couldn’t be worse. Just a few weeks ago — in December — there was a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. And it found that moderate drinkers actually have a lower risk of premature death from a number of ailments than non-drinkers — which again, is what they’ve been saying for years. This whole episode is yet more evidence that health and dietary guidelines from our “trusted” health authorities are constantly changing, backtracking, and contradicting themselves. The truth is that nobody has the elixir for immortality. Nobody knows or will ever know the precise recipe to avoid disease and live a long life. There is no such recipe. Everyone will die. And almost everyone, if they live long enough, will get cancer. Almost anything can therefore be linked to cancer. Public health “experts” are able to use this uncertainty and anxiety to herd the public in one direction and then another and then back in the other direction again. JOIN THE MOVEMENT IN ’25 WITH 25% OFF DAILYWIRE+ ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS WITH CODE DW25 The other thing to keep in mind is the actual level of risk we’re talking about here. Public health “experts” have been able to manipulate mass amounts of people in all kinds of ways by exploiting the fact that most people don’t understand or conceptualize relative risk. They just hear the word “risk” and get scared, not differentiating in their head between a 0.01% risk and a 99% risk. All that to say, even if moderate alcohol consumption does increase your cancer risk — and that’s still a big if — the percentage increase is likely to be very, very small. A few years ago, a professor of pediatrics wrote an article for the New York Times reacting to an announcement from the American Society of Clinical Oncology claiming that moderate alcohol consumption increases your risk of cancer. He tried to put that increase into perspective: Let’s stipulate that there may be a correlation between light or moderate drinking and some cancers. We still don’t know if the relationship is causal, but let’s accept that there’s at least an association. For breast cancer — which is the cancer that seems to be garnering the most headlines — light drinking was associated with a relative risk of 1.04 in the announcement… A 40-year-old woman has an absolute risk of 1.45 percent of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years. This announcement would argue that if she’s a light drinker, that risk would become 1.51 percent. This is an absolute risk increase of 0.06 percent. Using what’s known as the Number Needed to Harm, this could be interpreted such that if 1,667 40-year-old women became light drinkers, one additional person might develop breast cancer. The other 1,666 would see no difference. Now you might say that 1 out of 1,667 is still a risk not worth taking. That’s fine. It’s your prerogative. Although, I will say, you have to be willing to take that level of risk in order to live a functional human existence. You can cut out alcohol, but nearly everything else you eat, drink, or do carries some kind of risk. And in many cases, the risk is greater than 1 out of 1,667. But that’s fine. I’m not trying to convince anyone to drink alcohol, or to continue drinking it if they want to stop. But I’m still sick of “public health experts” getting everyone panicked on flimsy or fraudulent grounds. We should always question them when they do that. And we should always wonder about their real motivations. Especially when their “guidance” constantly changes and contradicts. Of course they never show any humility about it. They always have supreme confidence in their recommendations, no matter how often their recommendations turn out to be terrible, and no matter how often their recommendations directly refute the recommendations these same people were making 15 seconds earlier. What they should say about alcohol is something like this: Booze definitely isn’t good for you if you drink it immoderately. But if you can control yourself, you’re probably fine. Then again, you might not be. It might help you ward off heart disease, or if you’re the rare unlucky person, it might be one factor among dozens that triggers some form of cancer. We don’t know exactly how it will work out for you and we never will. Just make your choice and accept the consequences either way. Nearly everyone currently living on Earth will be dead in the next six or seven decades anyway, no matter how much booze they drank or how many booster shots they got. Just go ahead and print that warning label on every food and beverage product on Earth and be done with it. But the larger issue here is our government’s priorities. They relentlessly demonize alcohol, just like they have with tobacco for decades. Meanwhile Americans are getting hooked on marijuana in numbers never before seen. A recent study showed that, for the first time ever, daily use of marijuana has surpassed daily use of alcohol. There are always trade offs, and this is the trade off with the reduction in alcohol consumption. We often see celebratory headlines about how younger Americans in particular are drinking far less booze. But the headlines are rarely interested in why that’s happening, and even less interested in the question of whether the trade off is an improvement. As it happens, young people are drinking less because they’re getting stoned a whole lot more. And guess what: there are plenty of studies claiming a potential link between cancer and marijuana. So why are we seeing this war against alcohol and not weed? At the same time, fentanyl and other lethal drugs pour across the border with little being done to stop it. It would seem that the powers that be prefer to have us high and stoned. That’s also why the tax on cannabis in New York is many times lower than the tax on tobacco products. That should tell us something. Strictly speaking, I don’t think any of this stuff is healthy. I do know, however, that booze and tobacco were heavily consumed by many of the most advanced and successful civilizations on Earth, including our own until recently. That doesn’t mean you need tobacco and booze for society to flourish. But history clearly shows that those two substances do not prevent society from flourishing. On the other hand, I’m not aware of any society of stoners or hard drug addicts that built anything but mud huts and teepees. So, if this advisory from Joe Biden’s Surgeon General tells us anything, it’s that the field of “public health” hasn’t changed at all since COVID. They’re still interested in weakening and ultimately remaking this country, so that we’re all subservient to their edicts. They still believe that they can terrify Americans into submission by raising the mere prospect of death, even though death is unavoidable for all of us. What they don’t seem to realize is that, five years after COVID, some of us just aren’t listening to them anymore.

'It is vital the senate confirms President Elect Trump's national security nominees swiftly'

What else would you expect from an ESPN reporter

HERE ARE THE NAMES

Donald Trump’s election to the presidency was formally certified on Monday, but he still faces “Trump-proofing” efforts in Washington and in the states—and in some cases, from familiar foes.  Democrat governors and attorneys general in California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York declared their intentions to challenge Trump’s efforts on multiple fronts, from enforcing immigration laws to protecting minors from so-called transgender treatments.  Governing magazine noted, “We might well see the most direct confrontation between federal and state power since the 1963 crisis when President John F. Kennedy’s deputy attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach, challenged Gov. George Wallace over desegregating the University of Alabama.”  Blue State Rebellion Specifically, in light of Trump’s election, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker founded and became co-chairmen of Governors Safeguarding Democracy, a coalition of Democrat governors opposing Trump’s agenda.  The Daily Signal contacted Governors Safeguarding Democracy on Monday for this story, but the organization did not respond by time of publication.  Pritzker has warned Trump against deporting illegal immigrants in Illinois, saying, “You come for my people, you come through me.” Shortly after Trump’s decisive November election, California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the state Legislature to call a special session in early December to “Trump-proof” the state. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond,” Newsom said.  California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters, a state policy news site, his office has test arguments already drafted on matters such as abortion, gun laws, and “transgender” issues.  “The best way to protect California, its values, the rights of our people, is to be prepared, so we won’t be flat-footed,” Bonta told the outlet. “We will fight as we did in the past if that scenario unfolds.” California is already a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants and has refused to help federal officials enforce immigration laws. The state has abortion protections in its constitution. And during Trump’s first term, California filed more than 120 lawsuits against the administration to fight its policies.  “Every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told MSNBC, referring to plans to protect illegal immigrants from deportation.  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy vowed to “fight to the death” if the incoming Trump administration acts “contrary to our values.” “If there is any attack on the Garden State or any of its communities from Washington, I will fight back with every fiber of my being,” Murphy said. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced what she dubbed an “Empire State Freedom Initiative” to develop “comprehensive plans to address any policy and regulatory threats that may emerge from a Trump administration.” A day after Trump’s election, New York Attorney General Letitia James said, “We did not expect this result but we are prepared to respond to this result. We faced this challenge before and we used the rule of law to fight back.” Among cities, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said their cities would not assist federal officials in enforcing immigration laws.  Outgoing Biden and Deep State Bureaucrats Outgoing President Joe Biden and his administration have acted to undermine Trump as well.  Hours before a joint session of Congress certified Trump’s election on Monday, Biden issued an executive order to ban offshore drilling for oil and natural gas that covers about 625 million acres. This comes in contrast to Trump’s plans for increased domestic drilling and U.S. energy independence.  “I am taking action to protect the East and West Coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea from oil and natural gas drilling and the harm it can cause,” Biden said in a public statement Monday. He added, “As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.” Politico quoted one anonymous federal official as saying, “You really can’t ‘Trump-proof.’ You can ‘Trump-delay,’ you can throw sand in the gears, but there is no way short of legislation to ‘Trump-proof.’” The Biden administration has also moved to send $6 billion in military weapons to Ukraine to defend itself in the war against Russia, though the assistance was approved by Congress.  On other fronts, the current administration has been auctioning off border wall building materials that were dormant since Biden stopped construction of the wall in 2021. The states of Texas and Missouri recently sued to prevent the administration from selling the material.  Even Biden’s broad pardon of son Hunter Biden—convicted on federal gun and tax charges—encompassed any possible crimes that he may have committed over the past decade. Many critics of the pardon argued it was to shield Hunter Biden from prosecution under a future Trump administration.  Additionally, outgoing Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she wants to “leave no cash for Trump” in a $50 billion microchip subsidy program.  “I’d like to have really almost all of the money obligated by the time we leave,” she told Politico. “That’s the goal, and I certainly want to have all the major announcements done as it relates to the big, leading-edge companies.” Federal bureaucrats were a significant challenge for Trump during his first term, and well before the 2024 election, these employees got extra protections to stay on the job.  The Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule in April that would make it tougher for a future administration to re-categorize employees under “Schedule F” to make it easier to fire certain employees. The current system shouldn’t be changed to re-categorize employees, contends Jacqueline Simon, policy director of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union.  “I wouldn’t use the term ‘Trump-proofing,’ I would say we are working to uphold an apolitical civil service,” Simon told The Daily Signal Tuesday.  Trump has blamed career employees in the FBI and other agencies for having political agendas, frequently using the terms “deep state” or “swamp” to describe bureacrats protected by the civil service system from being replaced.  Simon insisted the civil service isn’t politicized.  “The current system has many safeguards to prevent politicization,” Simon said. “We want to prevent politics from interfering with employees’ jobs. Schedule F introduces the use of politics into the civil service.” In May, staff at the Environmental Protection Agency signed a collective bargaining agreement that created mechanisms for employees to report any other employee who they deemed to have had “improper influence” on a scientific study. This is primarily aimed at promoting climate change policies, which Trump has been skeptical of in the past. Also in May, Politico reported the National Institutes of Health established a scientific integrity council to police accusations of “political meddling” in scientific work. Political meddling could be a relative term based on who is on the council and how they choose to define it.  The National Institutes of Health has come under considerable scrutiny for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the agency’s top officials insisted the coronavirus did not come from a lab leak in China. Now, most federal agencies contend COVID-19 was a lab leak. The NIH was also criticized for lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic. Tyler O’Neil contributed to this story. The post Left Launches Multi-Front ‘Trump-Proofing’ Effort at Federal, State Levels appeared first on The Daily Signal.