Stu Bashes France's New Ban on Unlimited Soda Refills

January 30, 2017

WRITER

What's the most important thing going on in the world right now? It involves a ban --- but not the one about traveling to America.

The media have glossed over this one, but the soda-obsessed hosts at The Glenn Beck Program would never miss an opportunity to keep their audience informed.

"France has banned unlimited soft drinks and refills. Now, this is the sort of thing that concerns me and will actually affect my life," co-host Stu Burguiere said Monday on radio.

It is now illegal to sell unlimited soft drinks at a fixed price or offer them for free in France. Just another example of a progressive government run amok.

"They've taken something that a business has done to help their customer have a better experience, and because they think the customer is using it incorrectly . . . they are taking it away," Stu said.

Vive la France!

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: I say to Stu, so what's been on your mind on the news? He says, well, I've got a good soda story.

Of course, you do.

STU: Well, it's the most important thing going on in the world right now.

GLENN: Yes.

JEFFY: Hello.

STU: And, again, you want to talk about bans, bans that are damaging to our world.

JEFFY: Particularly unacceptable bans.

STU: Yeah. How about France? France has banned unlimited soft drinks and refills. Now, this is the sort of thing that concerns me and will actually affect my life. It is now illegal to sell unlimited soft drinks at a fixed price or offer them unlimited for free in France.

Number of overweight or obese people in France is below the EU average, but is on the rise. The World Health Organization recommends taxing sugary drinks. Oh, well, that's a good reason for it. Linking them to obesity and diabetes, which is so stupid.

You know, we've gone over these arguments before. But it's like -- it's not just drink -- they just picture -- they take one little category that they want to vilify. It's the old Saul Alinsky thing. They separate it, and then they just vilify it. They target it, and they try to make it into a big thing. For whatever reason, soda is the example here.

But this is another example of progressive governments around the world in this case, but it's happened many times, that decide they know what's better for you than you.

This is a customer benefit. Remember, this is somewhat new in the United States. I mean, as a kid, I remember growing up, you had to pay every time you wanted a soda. Now there is the availability to walk up to the little soda machine and fill it back up, as I do every time I go wherever I go and get extra sodas and enjoy them. And they've taken something that a business has done to help their customer have a better experience, and because they think the customer is using it incorrectly, their choice, the government's choice -- not the consumer's choice. They are taking it away.

In this case, in France. But this will come here, obviously. And it has come here in the form of taxes and other things.

JEFFY: Oh, yeah.

STU: And it's the same thing with net neutrality. Net neutrality technically would ban what I think T-Mobile has done, which is give you free streaming of Hulu and Netflix and Amazon Video and all these things. A great benefit to the consumer.

However, net neutrality says, "Well, you're not treating all companies equally when it comes to data, so you can't do that."

And the activists have fought to try to get that overturned, so far unsuccessfully.

But, I mean, these are benefits. These are making your life better. You're getting more for your money, and yet government wants to come out and take these things away from you.

And while, yes, sure, all I care about is soda, it is a much larger problem than that. And we see this in every aspect of our lives right now.

GLENN: And already, tastes are changing.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: The traditional soda is going the way of sarsaparilla. Slowly.

STU: Very slowly.

JEFFY: Eh.

STU: You're right, this is what a lot of people are talking about in the beverage world, if I may.

GLENN: Right.

STU: However, I think what you're doing is getting more choices more than soda, right?

GLENN: That's what I'm saying.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: The traditional soda choice is going to Little Ponies, which I hate.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And getting fragmented so much. It's a thing of the past. So as they go after soda, well, what about all the other drinks that are coming out now? I mean, you look at Coca-Cola --

STU: For example, energy drinks, which are just soda with more caffeine in it, theoretically, they complain about even more than soda.

GLENN: Burst your heart.

STU: But, oh, well, people are moving from soda to energy drinks.

What the hell do you think a Monster is? It's just a soda. It's a soda with more caffeine in it than old-timey sodas. That's the same product.

GLENN: No, they've done something no man has ever done before.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: They have made some -- they have made the worst taking product into a successful product.

STU: Well, I think you're more focusing on Red Bull with that analysis.

JEFFY: Yeah, because some of the other Monsters are not bad.

GLENN: Really? Are there any of them that are good?

STU: Yeah. A lot of the Monster drinks -- I would say, yeah. I mean, the Monster -- they have a Monster Absolute Zero line, including the orange one, Sunrise, which I absolutely adore.

JEFFY: Yeah, that's really good. That is really good.

STU: That's really good. There's a lemonade one. The citrus one is really delicious --

GLENN: I need to try one. Because I had Red Bull, oh, my Gosh.

STU: That whole line is good.

JEFFY: No. Red Bull is -- is distinctly different than the Monster Zero line.

STU: Yes, the Monster Zero line --

GLENN: How was Red Bull ever successful?

STU: I don't know. My theory on this -- because you're right. It tastes like antifreeze.

GLENN: Oh, yeah, it does. It tastes like jet fuel or something.

STU: And you can get to a point where you get used to it, but why would you need to? There's no reason for that.

GLENN: Why? Right.

STU: I honestly thought maybe they marketed it as --

JEFFY: I think they do --

STU: They market it -- they actually intentionally made it taste bad so you thought you were doing something like, wow. Like, I am really downing some caffeine here. Like, it's almost to stand out, they made it taste a little strange. Because they just had --

JEFFY: Right.

GLENN: It would be interesting to find out if that's what they did.

STU: Yeah.

JEFFY: Because whatever they did, it worked.

GLENN: Because there's no way -- you can make soap taste better than that.

STU: Right.

And now, they've gone -- Red Bull has released several other flavors. And they're much better tasting, though still not as good as like the Monster or the Amps or Venoms of the world. I mean, but we could talk about this all day. Is that what you want?

GLENN: The Venoms. Not really.

STU: Because the Venoms, they're only 99 cents, which is really what gives you the big benefit there.

GLENN: The cost.

JEFFY: Yeah, cost-effective.

STU: They're very strong though, if you don't like sweet flavors. Because they're almost Jolly Rancher-ish at times. So they're pretty strong, but if you can deal with that, cost-effective. And delicious.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Well, good thing I can't get a refill. But on the way home, I can stop by my 7-Eleven and get a Monster. Twice the caffeine. Twice the sugar --

STU: Oh, much more than twice.

GLENN: Twice everything that's bad for you.

STU: Let's talk about Amp and Rock Star.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

Chicago Tribune / Contributor | Getty Images

Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

POLL: Are foreign hackers behind 2025 bridge crash?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

A Mexican Navy ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge has left the nation stunned, and Glenn is demanding answers.

Are recent devastating ship collisions—first Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, now Brooklyn in 2025—really just accidents, or is something far more sinister at play? Glenn recently warned that these incidents, both involving foreign vessels losing power near critical U.S. infrastructure, could be “shark bumps” by foreign adversaries testing our defenses through cyber sabotage. With the government and media quick to dismiss concerns, Glenn is calling for urgent investigations into possible hacking, independent audits of our ports and bridges, and a serious look at whether our enemies are exploiting vulnerabilities in our digitized systems.

Glenn wants to know what you think: Are these crashes coincidental, or are we under attack? Let us know in the poll below:

Could the recent ship crashes into American bridges be the result of cyber attacks by foreign adversaries?

Should the US government investigate these incidents for possible foreign interference?

Is our critical infrastructure adequately protected from cyber threats?

Are you concerned that foreign adversaries might be targeting US infrastructure through cyber means?

Do you think the media and government are properly addressing the security concerns raised by these incidents?

Glenn: Tapper reveals Dems’ Biden health fraud

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Top Democrats knew Biden’s health was deteriorating but covered it up to keep power. Jake Tapper’s book finally lifts the lid on their deception.

Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book confirms what we suspected all along: Joe Biden’s health was rapidly declining, and the Democratic Party establishment knew it. Rather than be honest with the American people, they chose to cover it up, to prop up Biden just long enough to survive the election cycle. And the media helped them do it.

For years, any mention of Biden’s cognitive decline was framed as a “right-wing smear,” a baseless conspiracy theory. But now, Tapper and Thompson reveal that Biden’s top aides privately discussed the need for a wheelchair after the election — because the man can hardly walk.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

And while Biden’s closest aides were planning that, they and their allies in the press were publicly spinning the fantasy that Joe Biden’s halting gait was due to a heroic foot fracture from a dog-related incident four years ago. They said his frailty was due to his “vigor.” That’s not a joke. That’s a quote.

And while they said this, they were having special shoes made for him with custom-made soles to help him stand. They weren’t planning for a second term. They were planning how to prop him up — literally — just long enough to survive the election. That is a cover-up.

It doesn’t bother me that Biden might need a wheelchair. What bothers me — what should bother every American — is that his aides talked about hiding it until after the election.

Biden wasn’t leading

Needing a wheelchair in your 80s is not a moral failing. It’s human. I own President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair — it sits in my museum. That chair represents the strength and resilience of a man who, despite paralysis, led this nation through World War II against a dictator who was gassing the disabled and infirm. He hid his disability out of fear the public wouldn’t accept a leader who couldn’t walk. But he led.

Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But Joe Biden wasn’t leading. He was a puppet played by faceless swamp creatures whose only concern was maintaining their iron grip on power.

Whatever you think of Tapper, the book reveals the chilling reality that we had no functioning president for much of Biden’s administration. Our commander-in-chief wasn’t just aging — he was declining. And the people around him — government employees, funded by your tax dollars — weren’t honest with you. They lied to you repeatedly and willfully because the truth would have guaranteed a second Trump term. That’s what this was all about.

Who signed the pardons?

Consider the implications of this revelation. We had a president signing documents he didn’t read — or even know about. We had an autopen affixing his name to executive actions. Who operated that autopen? Who decided what got signed or who got pardoned? Who was in charge while the president didn’t even know what he was doing?

Those are not minor questions. That is the stuff of a constitutional crisis.

The problem isn’t Biden’s age. The problem is that the people you elected didn’t run the country. You were governed by unelected aides covering up your elected president’s rapid cognitive decline. You were fed a lie — over and over again. And if anyone tried to blow the whistle, they got buried.

Don’t get distracted by the wheelchair. The chair itself is not the scandal. The scandal is that people inside your government didn’t want you to know about it.

They made a bet: Lie until November, and deal with the fallout later. That is an insult to the American people — and a threat to the republic itself. Because if your government can lie about who’s running the country, what else are they lying about?

We need further investigation and to hold these crooks accountable. If we don’t, it will happen over and over again.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn's Show Prep

Stu Bashes France's New Ban on Unlimited Soda Refills

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Weaponizing due process

Abandon the Constitution?

The path forward

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

The Kickback Conspiracy

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

Sponsored Message

POLL: Are foreign hackers behind 2025 bridge crash?

Could the recent ship crashes into American bridges be the result of cyber attacks by foreign adversaries?

Should the US government investigate these incidents for possible foreign interference?

Is our critical infrastructure adequately protected from cyber threats?

Are you concerned that foreign adversaries might be targeting US infrastructure through cyber means?

Do you think the media and government are properly addressing the security concerns raised by these incidents?

Glenn: Tapper reveals Dems’ Biden health fraud

Top Democrats knew Biden’s health was deteriorating but covered it up to keep power. Jake Tapper’s book finally lifts the lid on their deception.

We had no functioning president for much of the past administration.

Biden wasn’t leading

Who signed the pardons?