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HEH: Venezuela May Be Forced To Sell Off Its Oil Company… To Russia. “They’re so broke that they’re looking to sell their nationalized oil company to the private sector.”

GOOD: A Cheap Medication Could Help The Social Symptoms in Children With Autism. “The drug, bumetanide, is widely used to treat high blood pressure and swelling, and it costs no more than £10 (US$13) for a month’s supply of pills.”

INTERESTING: Can Lithium Halt Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease? “A team of researchers at McGill University led by Dr. Claudio Cuello of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, has shown that, when given in a formulation that facilitates passage to the brain, lithium in doses up to 400 times lower than what is currently being prescribed for mood disorders is capable of both halting signs of advanced Alzheimer’s pathology such as amyloid plaques and of recovering lost cognitive abilities. The findings are published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.”

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Guess How Much San Antonio Has Spent To Keep Chick-Fil-A Out Of The Airport? “$315K in legal fees alone and there are still several investigations ongoing with other invoices yet to be received.”

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A MEMBER OF THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY?: The Wall Street Journal reports that the Judicial Conference is thinking of prohibiting judges from being members of the Federalist Society. It’s too political—or so the Judicial Conference believes.

If the Judicial Conference does ban judges from being members of the Federalist Society, it will need to do the same for the ABA. Unlike the Federalist Society, which takes no stand on any legal or political issue, the ABA weighs in on countless issues, always taking the leftward leaning side of things. The ABA files amicus curiae briefs before the Supreme Court, again with a consistent slant to the left. The long march through the institutions infiltrated the ABA long ago.

Similarly, membership in “affinity bar associations” like the National Hispanic Bar Association and the National Bar Association (which is for African American lawyers), and the National Association of Women Lawyers will need to be prohibited. Those left-leaning organizations routinely take stands on controversial issues and file amicus briefs. The Federalist Society never does and never will.

I can’t tell you how proud I am to be a member of the Federalist Society. It’s true that its members are overwhelmingly conservative or libertarian. But to say that it is not monolithic understates it. Lawyers actually engage in civil debate at the Federalist Society. It always attempts to present all sides of legal and public policy debates at its functions (including different strands of conservatism and libertarianism as well as left-of-center views). That does not happen at law schools these days. There is far less ideological diversity on campuses than you routinely find at the Federal Society’s Annual Lawyers Conference.

Two personal anecdotes are worth mentioning here.

1. In 1996, I co-chaired the Yes on Proposition 209 Campaign here in California. That measure, which passed with a strong majority, prohibited the State of California (including its universities) from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based or race, color, sex or ethnicity in the operation of public education, public employment or public contacting. Needless to say, the Left hated it.

At the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in January of 1997, a panel with OVER TWENTY speakers was presented. All of them opposed Proposition 209. Despite being both a law professor present at the conference and the second ranking person in the 209 campaign, I was not invited to speak. (That’s okay.  I’m not exactly Cicero, so maybe the AALS didn’t think I was a good enough speaker.) But there were at least three other law professors who had worked on the campaign who were also ignored

Meanwhile, the Federalist Society put on its own Proposition 209 panel at a nearby hotel to which all law professors were invited. If I remember correctly, the panel had five speakers. Three of them opposed Proposition 209 and two supported it (including me). Yet the Federalist Society is the organization that that Judicial Conference thinks is too political.

2. A few years later, I was on a panel at the Federalist Society’s Annual Lawyers’ Convention. The topic was again affirmative action. The staff had worked to get speakers on both sides of the issue. But for some reason the left-of-center speaker did not show up. Much to the Federalist Society’s embarrassment, all it had was an empty chair. To remedy the problem, after I and the other panelists had given our prepared remarks, I stood up again and argued the other side of the issue the best I could. (I’m a lawyer. That’s what lawyers are supposed to be able to do.) The crowd appreciated it. I was later told that I was persuasive to at least one person in the audience.

The Judicial Conference tries to sound evenhanded by putting the American Constitutional Society in the same category as the Federalist Society. I should point out that the American Constitutional Society is (so far) a pale imitation of what the Left imagines the Federalist Society to be. It has far fewer active members and (weirdly) is far more political than the Federalist Society. Unlike the Federalist Society, it does take stands on issues and files amicus briefs in cases. But membership in the ACS shouldn’t be prohibited either—not unless membership in organizations like the ABA are prohibited too.

The Judicial Conference can argue that it isn’t preventing judges from being members of the Federalist Society prior to becoming judges. Nor is it preventing judges from attending Federalist Society events. But invariably a prohibition on membership will be taken as a sign that the Federalist Society is something bad … something that lawyers with a judicial temperament will avoid.  The truth is more like the opposite. Lawyers who are interested in hearing all sides of an issue gravitate towards the Federalist Society, not away from it.   The Judicial Conference should be pleased that to have judges who are members.

YOU GOT TO KNOW WHEN TO FOLD ‘EM: Jerry Nadler Suggests Having No Impeachment Witnesses Preferable to Hunter Biden Testifying.

BUT NOT FOR LACK OF INCLINATION AMONG THE VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS: Cam Edwards: No, Virginia Hasn’t Descended Into Tyranny.

And if it doesn’t you can thank the protesters who showed up today, as in this shot from the Pocahontas building, from a Virginia friend on Facebook.

STICK WITH OLIVE OIL AND LARD: Soybean oil, America’s most widely consumed oil, causes genetic changes in the brain. “Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.”

SHOULD BUT WON’T: The US government should stop demanding tech companies compromise on encryption.

Related: FBI reportedly accessed locked iPhone 11 Pro Max with GrayKey third party tool.

The Feds don’t seem to have much trouble breaking into devices when they have a warrant. So I’m forced to conclude that they want official backdoors built in — which opens everyone up to all kinds of easy attacks — to easily get into devices when they don’t have a warrant.

I DO LIKE THAT IT CAN BE BOTH A DESSERT TOPPING AND A FLOOR WAX: Chemists report a new use for the waste product of nuclear power generation.

REMEMBER: You are not really Black, Gay or a Woman unless you toe the Party Line. Gay conservative and thoughtful writer Chadwick Moore gets the gulag treatment from Facebook:

“In October, I received a 30-day ban for ‘hate speech,’ after I shared a link to my Spectator column titled ‘Rednecks are the least racist people in America.’ The column pulled heavily on research from philosopher Thomas Sowell and historian Colin Woodard and my own self-deprecating stories about growing up in cracker culture in Greater Appalachia…I appealed that ban a whopping six times and each time, sometimes within seconds, I was notified by Facebook that, upon studied and serious review from a Facebook speech agent, sharing my own column published in a well-respected magazine about how rednecks aren’t racist is, inarguably, hate speech.”

Time to re-write Section 230.

What’s sweet, red, sticky, and deadly?

Blood sugar. (I’m sure there are other things that qualify, but most of them contain sugar of some sort so I’m sticking with it.)

Too little of it, and you go into hypoglycemic shock. That can kill you if left untreated.

Too much of it, and you waste away slowly. Chronic overexposure to sugar will degenerate your tissues and organs.

Yes, getting blood sugar right is extremely important. Vital, even.

Today, I’m going to explain how and why we measure blood sugar, what the numbers mean, why we need to control it, and how to maintain that control.

What is Blood Sugar?

First, blood sugar is tightly controlled in the body. The average person has between 4-7 grams of sugar circulating throughout their body in a fasted state—that’s around a teaspoon’s worth. How does that work when the average person consumes dozens of teaspoons in a single day?

Again, it’s tightly controlled.

The majority of the sugar “in our system” is quickly whisked away for safekeeping, burning, or conversion. We store as much of it as glycogen in our liver and muscle as we can. We burn some for energy. And, if there’s any left over, we can convert it to fat in the liver.

But sometimes, sugar lingers. In diabetics, for example, blood sugar runs higher than normal. That’s actually how you identify and diagnose a person with diabetes: they have elevated blood sugar.

How to Measure Blood Sugar

There are several ways to measure blood sugar.

• The basic finger prick: Prick your finger, produce a few drops of blood, place blood on test insert, test blood sugar level. It’s the most common method.
• Fasting blood sugar: Your blood sugar level when fasted. These tests are usually taken first thing in the morning, because that’s the only time most people haven’t eaten in the last few hours. “Normal” is under 100.
• Postprandial blood sugar: Your blood sugar after eating. These tests measure your blood sugar response to food; they also measure your ability to dispose of blood glucose.
• HbA1C: Average blood sugar over 2/3 months. HbA1c measures the degree of glycation of your red blood cells’ hemoglobin; this is an indirect measure of how much blood sugar your cells are exposed to over time, since a red blood cell that’s exposed to more sugar in the blood over its life cycle—2-3 months—will have more glycation. Thus, A1c seeks to establish the average level of blood sugar circulating through your body over the red blood cell’s life cycle, rather than track blood sugar numbers that rapidly fluctuate through the day, week, and month. It’s a measurement of chronic blood sugar levels, not acute.
• The continuous glucose monitor: A wearable device that measures your blood sugar at regular intervals throughout the day and night. This is becoming more common. The beauty of the CGM is that you get a visual display of blood sugar’s rise and fall throughout the day in response to meals, workouts, fasts, stress, etc. Since elevated blood sugar does its damage over the long term, seeing the entire daily trend is more illuminating than taking single snapshots with a finger prick. It’s similar in power to HbA1c, only with greater accuracy.

What’s “Normal” Blood Sugar?

According to the American Diabetes Association, any fasting blood sugar (FBG) under 100 mg/dl is completely normal. It’s safe. It’s fine. Don’t worry, just keep eating your regular diet, and did you get a chance to try the donuts in the waiting room? They only start to worry at 110-125 (pre-diabetic) and above 125 (diabetic).

This may be unwise. Healthy people subjected to continuous glucose monitoring have much lower average blood glucose—89 mg/dl. A 2008 study found that people with a FBG of 95-99—still “normal”—were 2.33 times more likely to develop diabetes in the future than people on the low-normal end of the scale.⁵⁸

As for postprandial blood glucose, the ADA likes anything under 140 mg/dl.

How about HbA1c? A “normal” HbA1c is anything under 5.7. And 6.0 is diabetic. That’s what the reference ranges, which mostly focuses on diabetes. What does the research say? In this study, under 5 was best for heart disease.⁵⁹ In this study, anything over 4.6 was associated with an increased risk of heart disease.⁶⁰

That 5.7 HbA1c isn’t looking so great.

Why Normal isn’t Necessarily Normal

What’s “normal” also depends on your baseline state.

Healthy FBG depends on your BMI. At higher FBG levels, higher BMIs are protective. A recent study showed that optimal fasting blood glucose for mortality gradually increased with bodyweight.⁶¹ Low-normal BMIs had the lowest mortality at normal FBG (under 100), moderately overweight BMIs had the lowest mortality at somewhat impaired FBG (100-125), and the highest BMIs had the lowest mortality at diabetic FBG levels (over 125).

If you’re very low-carb, postprandial blood glucose will be elevated after a meal containing carbs. This is because very low-carb, high-fat diets produce physiological insulin resistance to preserve what little glucose you have for the tissues that depend on it, like certain parts of the brain. The more resistant you are to insulin, the higher your blood glucose response to dietary glucose.

HbA1c depends on a static red blood cell lifespan. A1c seeks to establish the average level of blood sugar circulating through your body over the red blood cell’s life cycle, rather than track blood sugar numbers that rapidly fluctuate through the day, week, and month. If we know how long a red blood cell lives, we have an accurate measurement of chronic blood sugar levels. The clinical consensus assumes the lifespan is three months. Is it?

Not always. The life cycle of an actual red blood cell differs between and even within individuals, and it’s enough to throw off the results by as much as 15 mg/dl.⁶²

Ironically, people with healthy blood sugar control might have inflated HbA1c levels. One study found that folks with normal blood sugar had red blood cells that lived up to 146 days, and RBCs in folks with high blood sugar had life cycles as low as 81 days.⁶³ For every 1% rise in blood sugar, red blood cell lifespan fell by 6.9 days.

What does this mean?

• In those with better blood sugar control, RBCs lived longer and thus had more time to accumulate sugar and give a “worse” HbA1c reading.
• In people with poorer blood sugar control, red blood cells live shorter lives and have less time to accumulate sugar, potentially giving them “better” HbA1c numbers.

Anemia can inflate HbA1c. Anemia depresses the production of red blood cells. If you have fewer red blood cells in circulation, the ones you do have accumulate more sugar since there are fewer cells “competing” for it. Anemia isn’t anything to sniff at, but it does throw off HbA1c.

Health Effects of High Blood Sugar

Okay, is hyperglycemia actually a problem? I’ve heard some suggest that hyperglycemia is a marker of poor metabolic health, but it’s not actually causing anything bad itself. I agree with the first part—hyperglycemia indicates poor metabolic health and is a risk factor for things like heart disease and early mortality—but not the last. Indeed, hyperglycemia is both an effect and direct cause of multiple health issues.

Most cell types, when faced with systemic hyperglycemia, have mechanisms in place to regulate the passage of glucose through their membranes. They can avoid hyperglycemic toxicity by keeping excess sugar out. Other cell types, namely pancreatic beta-cells, neurons, and the cells lining the blood and lymphatic vessels, do not have these mechanisms. In the presence of high blood sugar, they’re unable to keep excess sugar out. It’s to these three types of cells that hyperglycemia is especially dangerous.

Unfortunately, these are all pretty important cells.

What happens when too much glucose makes it into one of these cells?

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation is a normal byproduct of glucose metabolism by the cell’s mitochondria. If the stream of glucose into the cell is unregulated, bad things begin to happen: excessive ROS, a mediator of increased oxidative stress; depletion of glutathione, the prime antioxidant in our bodies; advanced glycation endproduct (AGE) formation; and activation of protein kinase C, a family of enzymes involved in many diabetes-related complications.⁶⁴ It’s messy stuff.

How does this play out in the specific cell types that are susceptible, and what does it mean for you?

Pancreatic beta-cells: These cells are responsible for secreting insulin in response to blood glucose. They essentially are the first line of defense against hyperglycemia. If maintained for too long or too often, hyperglycemia inhibits the ability of pancreatic beta-cells to do their job. For instance, type 2 diabetics have reduced pancreatic beta-cell mass; smaller cells have lower functionality.⁶⁵ Mitochondrial ROS (often caused by hyperglycemia) also reduce the insulin secreted by the cells, thereby reducing their ability to deal with the hyperglycemia and compounding the initial problem.⁶⁶

Neurons: The brain’s unique affinity for glucose makes its glucose receptor-laden neuronal cells susceptible to hyperglycemia. It simply soaks up glucose, and if there’s excessive amounts floating around, problems arise. Hyperglycemia is consistently linked to cognitive impairment, causes the shrinking of neurons and the inducement of spatial memory loss, and induces neuronal oxidative stress.⁶⁷⁶⁸⁶⁹ It also impairs the production of nitric oxide, which is involved in the hippocampus’ regulation of food intake.⁷⁰

Endothelial cells: Flow mediated dilation (FMD) is the measure of a blood vessels’ ability to dilate in response to increased flow demands.⁷¹ Under normal conditions, the endothelial cells release nitric oxide, a vasodilator, in response to increased shear stress. Under hyperglycemic conditions, nitric oxide release is inhibited and FMD reduced.⁷² Lower FMD means your endothelial function is compromised and may cause atherosclerosis.

Electrolyte depletion: Persistent hyperglycemia can cause the body to shed glucose by urinating it out. In doing so, you also end up shedding electrolytes.

Okay, okay. Controlling your blood sugar is important. Avoiding hyperglycemia is one of the most important things you can do for your health and longevity. How do I do it?

How to Improve Blood Sugar

• Go for a walk. A short walk after eating will reduce blood sugar. Fifteen minutes is probably enough (although more is always better).
• Eat vinegar before. Eating vinegar before a meal that contains carbohydrates will improve the blood glucose response to that meal.
• Exercise. Exercise depletes muscle glycogen, which opens up storage depots for incoming glucose. If glucose is converted to glycogen and deposited in your muscles, your blood glucose will normalize. Pretty much any kind of exercise works.
• • Sprint and/or intervals. A review looked at the blood glucose responses of diabetics (type 1 and type 2) to “brief high intensity exercise,” as which sprinting definitely qualifies, finding that although glucose was elevated immediately post workout, blood glucose control is improved for one to three days following a sprint session.⁷³ Research finds that endurance training works, too, but sprinting may work faster and better.⁷⁴
  • Steady state endurance. Then again, steady state endurance training was just as effective as sprinting at reducing glucose variability and improving glucose spikes in overweight women.⁷⁵ There was no difference between the two—both beat doing nothing.
  • Resistance training.
  • All of the above. As different types of training target different tissues, deplete glycogen at different rates, and induce different metabolic effects, doing sprints, weights, and low level aerobic activity is your best bet for improving glucose control.

When I take a bird’s eye view of all this, the best glucose-lowering exercise is the one you’ll do on a regular basis. It’s all good.

• Avoid unnecessary carbohydrates. Carbs you earn through glycogen-depleting exercise will not contribute to hyperglycemia. Those are “necessary,” or at least “earned.” Carbs you didn’t earn will contribute to hyperglycemia. A surefire way to avoid hyperglycemia is to avoid the foods that induce it—carbs.
• Eat more protein and fat, fewer carbs. This is a simple one for most of you guys, but many people never consider it. A basic swap of whole eggs (or egg whites) for carbs reduces not just postprandial glycemia but also endothelial dysfunction.⁷⁶
• Get enough sleep. Sleep deprivation increases blood glucose variability and impairs regulation.⁷⁷
• Eat fermented dairy. Kefir improves glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes.⁷⁸ Yogurt does too.⁷⁹ Cheese is also associated with better glucose control.⁸⁰
• Use spices. Spices can have profound anti-hyperglycemic effects.⁸¹

If you’re low-carb or keto and need to pass a glucose tolerance test, eat 150-250 grams of carbs per day in the week leading up to the test. This will give you a chance to shift back into sugar-burning mode.

For long-term glucose control, consistency is everything. Consistently doing all the little tips and hacks we just went over that lower blood sugar in the moment will lead to long term blood sugar control. If you take vinegar before and walk after every single meal for the rest of your life, you will control postprandial blood sugar for life. If you avoid excess carbohydrates, you will exert long-term control over blood sugar levels. If you exercise 3-4 times a week and get plenty of low-level activity, you’ll be much less likely to have hyperglycemia.

Thus concludes the Definitive Guide to Blood Sugar. If you have any questions or comments, drop them in down below. Thanks for reading!

The post The Definitive Guide to Blood Sugar appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

SUE THE BASTARDS: California’s State Controller Betty Yee says she “can’t find” any of the 49 million bills she paid last year. So fiscal watchdog OpenTheBooks has filed suit under the state’s Freedom of Information law. Here’s a link to the lawsuit.

As The Good Professor says: “we’re in the very best of hands!”

FRESH FROM BEATING AND MURDERING HONG KONGERS, CHINA WEIGHS IN ON VIOLENCE: Communist China: ‘Private Ownership Of Guns’ In U.S. ‘Serious Problem,’ Must ‘Change,’ Tell you what, though, I’m willing to donate a couple of my guns to Hong Kong protesters. Would that help?

WHEN THE TRUTH IS A CRIME: Person who posted video of missile striking Ukrainian airliner has been taken into custody.

SHARYL ATTKISSON: Former federal agent blows the whistle on illegal surveillance operation during Obama administration. “And it was run by none other than Rod Rosenstein.”

ISSUES & INSIGHTS: Hillary Clinton Vindicated On Corruption Charges? Hardly. “As soon as political access to the Clintons became worthless, so did the foundation.”

Before you read the story, see the chart:

Follow the money — she certainly did.

TIM BLAIR: Controlled burning could have protected Australia.

Heed the warning from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Central West area manager Fiona Buchanan, in April last year: ‘We are getting the message out there that removing firewood, including deadwood and fallen trees, is not permitted in national parks. We want people to know the rules around firewood collection…it’s important people are aware that on-the-spot fines apply but also very large fines can be handed out by the courts.’

She wasn’t bluffing. A man had earlier been fined $30,000 ($20,000 US) for illegally collecting firewood in the Murrumbidgee Valley National Park. Why? Because, as Buchanan explained: ‘Many ground-dwelling animals and threatened species use tree hollows for nesting, so when fallen trees and deadwood is taken illegally, it destroys their habitat. This fallen timber is part of these animals’ natural ecosystem.’

Those natural ecosystems are now, across thousands of hectares of national parks in New South Wales, nothing but cinders and ash. Enjoy your protected habitat, little ground-dwellers.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

FLASHBACK: Documents: ATF used “Fast and Furious” to make the case for gun regulations. “ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called ‘Demand Letter 3.’ That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or ‘long guns.’ Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.”

LIFE IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF NEW ZEALAND: My House Was Raided Over A .22LR Lever Action Rifle. “I’ve been vocal about the amnesty being a disaster, and the police were rather open about the failure of the whole process. Maybe if they stopped raiding innocent people’s houses there might have been some more good will? They implied that they’d keep having to raid the houses of people I knew until the firearm turned up. This is for an A-Category firearm, which I have no reason to believe is fitted with a prohibited magazine! Are these the kind of intimidation tactics now the norm in New Zealand? Are we going to accept this in a first-world democracy?” Maybe you’re not a first-world democracy anymore.

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Glacier National Park is replacing signs that predicted its glaciers would be gone by 2020.

(Classical reference in headline.)

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, DARTMOUTH IS EVIL EDITION: Dartmouth refused to let an accused professor defend himself publicly. He committed suicide. “Three of his accusers showed up to his memorial reception, according to several people there. They aren’t named, but six of the seven women who filed the initial suit identified themselves: Kristina Rapuano, Vassiki Chauhan, Sasha Brietzke, Annemarie Brown, Andrea Courtney and Marissa Evans. Dartmouth’s notice of Bucci’s passing does not mention his suicide or the college’s role in it.”

LESS-THAN-SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MEDICINE: More than a third of U.S. healthcare costs go to bureaucracy. But most bureaucrats vote Democratic, so it’s all good.

HEH: CNN Attacks Babylon Bee: ‘The Internet Is Only Big Enough For One Fake News Site.’

HMM: Tuberculosis Vaccine Found To Inadvertently Counter Alzheimer’s Disease.

I wonder if an intravenous instead of subcutaneous injection — which has been shown to be vastly more effective against TB — would amplify this effect.

Jeffrey A. Singer

A just-published National Bureau of Economic Research working paper provides empiric evidence that the new “war on vaping” runs at cross-purposes with public health efforts aimed at getting tobacco smokers to quit.

Nicotine e-cigarettes are twice as effective as nicotine patches, gum, or other nicotine replacements in achieving smoking cessation according to a 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the NBER working paper the researchers studied the impact of the 95 percent tax on the wholesale price of e-cigarettes that was enacted in Minnesota, the first of the states to tax e-cigarettes. (There is no federal tax on e-cigarettes.) They used the National Cancer Institute Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey from 1992-2015 in conjunction with a synthetic control difference-in-differences approach and concluded:

Our results suggest that in the sample period about 32,400 additional adult smokers would have quit smoking in Minnesota in the absence of the tax. If this tax were imposed on a national level about 1.8 million smokers would be deterred from quitting in a ten year period. The taxation of e-cigarettes at the same rate as cigarettes could deter more than 2.75 million smokers nationally from quitting in the same period.

On New Year’s Eve the Washington Post reported the Trump administration plans to announce a ban on flavored vaping pods while sparing refillable open-tank systems commonly sold in vaping shops. Menthol and tobacco flavored vaping pods will still be permitted. This is seen as a compromise between a complete ban on flavored vaping and the status quo. President Trump was concerned that a complete ban will irreparably harm vaping retailers.

While this proposal is not as damaging as a complete ban, it still stands to interfere with efforts by adults to quit smoking. Multiple surveys show they prefer the flavored variety to quit tobacco and the flavored pod ban makes that more inconvenient. And if the goal is to reduce teen vaping (which has increased as teen tobacco smoking has plunged), it is unclear if the ban of all flavored pods except menthol and tobacco will have much impact, given survey reports that menthol is one of the most popular flavors among teens.

This proposal will likely cause many teen and adult vapers to shift to the menthol flavor, but it may also cause some to look to the black market for flavored pods, with all of the health risks that entails. It also risks disrupting the continued decline in adult tobacco smoking. 

SWAMP ALERT: The Department of Justice is Full of Liberals, According to FEC Data.

There’s nothing liberal about today’s “liberals.” They’re left-statists.

EVEN THE IG MISSED THIS LIE BY DOJ/FBI TO THE FISA COURT: Margot Cleveland explains why Christopher Steele’s dossier source(s) were NOT developed during his tenure with British intelligence. This is highly significant, as it puts the dossier yet further from the realm of credibility. (I know, who would have thought that possible?)

I FEEL LIKE THIS GOES WITH THE QUANTUM HEAT ENGINE STORY SOMEHOW: Turning an A/C Compressor Into a Gas-Burning Internal Combustion Engine.