• A New Year’s Resolution for Liver Health—1, 2, 3 By Debbie Young
• Make Union Membership a Choice By E.J. Smith
• Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Prospects By Richard C. Young
• Gun Owners Engage in Massive Civil Disobedience? By Richard C. Young
• Are Russia, Iran and Hezbollah America’s Allies? By Richard C. Young
• Saudi Leadership Irresponsible and Incompetent? By Richard C. Young
• America’s #1 Gun Salesman By E.J. Smith
• More Deaths from Drug Overdose than from Homicides By Debbie Young
• Taki Takes On the Saudis and Qatar By Richard C. Young

The human body is faced with a lifelong onslaught of toxic chemicals—from chlorine and fluoride in drinking water, to exhaust from autos, factories and power plants, to flame retardants on furniture, to chemicals in skin lotions and potions, to food on supermarket shelves that has been preserved, dipped, dyed or sprayed. And the list goes on and on. Fortunately humans have a liver that is incredibly resilient and perfectly designed to protect you from our toxic modern world. But you must give your liver care. Not through detox, but through supportive foods.

The Wellness Blog, from Grassland Beef, where Dick and I buy much of our grass-fed beef or free-range chicken, lists three of its favorite liver supportive foods. “Consume these foods at least every few days to give your liver the nutritional support it needs.” You want to consume avocados, garlic and curcumin to protect your liver. Read here why.

Detox Food #1: The “Alligator Pear”

During the intermediary or second step of detoxification, your liver uses the antioxidant powers of vitamins A, C and E to help repair the damage caused by free radicals during phase one detoxification.

And it so happens that avocados are good sources of both C and E. But their antioxidant super-power goes far beyond that.

A 2005 study found that the addition of avocado to both salad and salsa significantly enhanced the absorption Vitamin A precursors (alpha and beta-carotene) within the foods.³

Earlier research, published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, tested 22 different fruits on liver damaged rats. Out of all the fruits, the researchers discovered that, “Avocado showed extraordinarily potent liver injury suppressing activity.” ⁴

Give your liver that soft touch by adding chopped avocado to salads, whirling into smoothies made with grass-fed whey protein, or create a delicious guacamole to serve alongside an antioxidant-rich salsa and grass-fed beef.

Detox Food #2: The “Stinking Rose”

Garlic pops up nearly everywhere when it comes to health promoting foods. And in the case of your liver, the so-called ‘stinking rose’ is a welcome gift.

Among many other beneficial nutrients, garlic contains a number of organosulfur compounds which your liver uses during phase-two detoxification.

But garlic may also prevent disease of the liver in other ways…A 2009 study, demonstrated the liver-protecting power of garlic against acetaminophen toxicity. The study authors suggest that garlic may actually be used as “an antidote to the development of hepatitis.”⁵

 

Of course, garlic can be used to flavor just about any savory dish. But to capture its medicinal results, it should be added just at the end of cooking. Better yet, consume garlic crushed and raw so that it retains the majority of its active constituents. Mix it simply with oil or whirl with fresh herbs (like parsley and cilantro) in a blender to create a flavorful Chimichurri, then serve atop or alongside your favorite pastured chicken, wild fish or grass-fed beef dish.

Detox Food #3: The Golden Healer

Curcumin is the active compound in the golden spice turmeric. It has long been studied for its powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. This also makes it highly valuable in that intermediate step between phase one and two detoxification.

A study conducted in 2012 and published in the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand found that curcumin successfully regenerated and repaired damaged liver tissues in diabetic rats.⁶

And a 2014 review published in Food and Chemical Toxicology discusses curcumin’s ability with regards to heavy metal toxins. The authors state:

“Curcumin has shown, in clinical and preclinical studies, numerous biological activities including therapeutic efficacy against various human diseases and anti-hepatotoxic effects against environmental or occupational toxins.”⁷

It’s no surprise that turmeric pops up in many commercial detoxification supplements. But you can get the daily benefits of turmeric just by adding it as a condiment to your daily diet… and for a lot less money, to boot!

Use fresh turmeric root blended into smoothies with other organic liver-loving vegetables, berries and grass-fed whey protein, or just add a teaspoon of this golden healer to curries, sauces, salad dressing or any savory dish for a powerful boost.

In addition to these three detox superfoods, I’ve also written previously about the liver-cleansing benefits of clean protein and gelatin to boost glutathione,your master antioxidant and detoxifier.

Friends and family of mine who have been, and who currently are, teachers do not like the fact that they have to join a union as a condition of their employment. They deserve to have a choice.

Harlan Elrich, a California teacher has joined a 10 person lawsuit against unions that force non-members to pay dues. The case is now in front of the Supreme Court as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Elrich writes:

I was a member of the union for years and even served as a union representative. But the union never played an important role in my school. When most teachers sought guidance, they wanted help in the classroom and on how to excel at teaching. The union never offered this pedagogic aid.

Instead, the union focused on politics. I remember a phone call I received before a major election from someone in the union. It was a “survey,” asking teachers whether they would vote for so-and-so if the election were held tomorrow. I disagreed with every issue and candidate the union was promoting. After that conversation, I thought about what the union represents. Eventually, I realized that my dues—about $1,000 a year—went toward ideas and issues that ran counter to my beliefs.

More about the case here from Reason TV:

Americans are being misled on Iran’s prospects for developing a nuclear weapon.

I recently asked Dr. Christopher Preble, the Cato Institute’s director for defense and foreign policy studies, for a New Year’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Chris advises Americans that:

Based on the evidence that has been reported, Iran doesn’t currently have a bomb, they don’t have sufficient material to construct one, and they don’t have the ability to deliver them by conventional means. It will be more difficult to surreptitiously acquire these capabilities under the eye of international inspectors. That inspection regime was not in place before the deal was concluded.

Is it impossible for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb? No. But it is highly, highly unlikely. And the Iranians have many reasons for not going down that route.

Asked about Iran’s position as a sponsor of terrorism, Chris answered:

They are, and have been, a key state sponsor of terrorism, although not of the groups that have attacked the United States, and have killed thousands of Americans since the late 1990s. Recall that Iran supported the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in part because of their support for al Qaeda, and today is fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and helping the Assad government to fight ISIS in Syria.

The better argument is that state sponsorship isn’t that important. Look at ISIS, after all, which is an obvious non-state group, and effectively at war with at least four states (Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran)

Another argument is that Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism doesn’t prove the wisdom or folly of the nuclear deal. The details of the deal are what matter. And the deal required Iran to ship out quantities or enriched uranium, which they have done, and to shut down their plutonium processing and significantly limit their uranium enrichment going forward, which an intrusive inspection process will ensure that they do.

Dr. Preble summed up:

In short, the deal reduces the likelihood of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. Without a deal, Iran would be far closer to producing such a weapon, should they so choose.

Wrapping up, I asked Chris for some supporting documentation that might be helpful to all Americans in placing the Iranian nuclear issue in highly focused perspective. In The Iran Nuclear Deal: A Definitive Guide, readers get a thorough look at the deal from both sides.

My second link is headed The Iran Nuclear Agreement Is In America’s National Interest. Here a group of national security scholars, including all the living signatories of a New York Times ad in September 2002 warning, “War with Iraq is not in the American national interest. … We believe that the nation is now at a similar juncture and that the nuclear agreement with Iran makes war less likely and furthers American interests.”

Chris said of the letter:

I believe that analysts and scholars should be judged by their track record, not just in foreign policy, but on all public policy issues. Those who got the most important foreign policy issue of the last half century right should be taken more seriously than those who got it badly wrong. The leading opponents of the Iranian nuclear deal were all strong supporters of the Iraq war.

More from Chris Preble on the Iran deal here:

The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell has some good news for 2^nd Amendment loving Americans and some equally bad news for anti-gun politicians and the Obama administration.

I almost feel sorry for the gun control crowd.

They keep trying to convince themselves that people are on their side, but schemes to restrict the 2nd Amendment keep getting defeated on Capitol Hill.

And when a handful of state governments go against the trend and try to trample on constitutional rights to gun ownership, politicians get tossed out of office and gun owners engage in massive civil disobedience.

Pat Buchanan tells readers, “In Syria’s civil war — with the army of Bashar Assad battling ISIS and al-Qaida — it is Russia and Iran and even Hezbollah that seem to be more allies of the moment than the Turks, Saudis or Gulf Arabs.”

I have been on this track for a long time. I believe that Turkey represents a serious threat to America’s long-term national interest. I have written that America’s goal should be to cease imports of oil from Saudi Arabia and the other “gangster” Gulf states. I also would cease all economic activity with Saudi Arabia.

I wonder how the international security puzzle would shift if Russia were brought into NATO and Turkey dumped?

Here’s more from Pat:

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison tells readers, “The current Saudi leadership is proving itself to be both irresponsible and incompetent, and the U.S. is foolish to continue supporting it in its reckless behavior.”

I would like America to cease importing oil from the Saudis and the other Sunni Middle East “gangster” countries. America’s goal should be an end to all economic activity with the Saudis and total withdrawal from the Middle East. Let the Sunnis and the Shia fight their own civil war to the death. Americans must consider that neither America nor Russia has any common national interest with any of the countries of the Muslim world. It is the radical Islamic world that poses the primary security risk to us both. It is unclear to me why there has not been serious discussion between the U.S. and Russia regarding a long-term joint collaboration against this growing menace. (Read more on this in The Distortion of Russia from Philip Giraldi  at  The American Conservative )

More here on the current state of affairs in Saudi, including the take of Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group.

VIDEO: Will the other Saudi princes depose King Salman?

And the winner once again as America’s #1 gun salesman is: President Obama. I had the pleasure of speaking with a friend this week who owns a gun shop, which does custom work (a huge biz by the way), and also has a range on site. I wanted to get his take on Obama’s executive orders on gun control. I’ll sum it up like this: “Every time the President opens his mouth about gun control we see a huge spike in sales. Why would we want to stop our #1 salesman?” The Wall Street Journal writes:

Every President struggles to stay politically relevant in his final year in office, but someone should warn President Obama not to become a caricature of a lame duck. The main result of the new federal gun-control decree he announced Tuesday will be the sale of tens of thousands of guns to Americans who worry that the government might soon block any new purchases. No American leader has done more for gun sales since King George III.

The heart of Mr. Obama’s 56-page executive order is a requirement for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to tighten regulation on individuals “engaged in the business of selling firearms.” This is supposed to slay what gun controllers deceptively call the “gun show loophole.”

Would you be surprised to know that in 2014, there were 14.8 Americans in 100,000 who had fatal drug overdoses? Putting this into perspective, America’s infamous high homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000.  Jim Geraghty of NRO ran an essay by Robert VerBruggen, editor of RealClearPolicy, on how he is rethinking his long-held perspective that all drugs should be legal.

I was never so naive as to think there would be no increase in drug use or abuse if drugs were legal. But I did think legalization would easily pass a practical cost-benefit test: reduce incarceration, if perhaps not as much as some might think; end an illegal market whose violence spills far beyond our borders; and expand personal freedom, all for the acceptable price of an extra overdose or other health problem here and there, plus maybe some extra property crimes by addicts stealing to feed their habit.

Drug addiction couldn’t go up that much. The War on Drugs is an utter failure and drugs are widely and cheaply available anyway. Everyone knows that.

Well, reality is not lining up with this view of the world. In 1999, Americans had fatal drug overdoses at a rate of 6 per 100,000. In 2014, that number stood at 14.8 per 100,000 — a rise of 8.8 per 100,000. To put this in perspective, America’s famously high homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000. And the overdose spike is apparently driven by a policy change much gentler than full legalization.

The general consensus seems to be that in recent decades, doctors started taking patients’ pain more seriously, and thus began prescribing opioid painkillers more generously. Some patients became addicted; others got medications they didn’t need and sold them. (It appears that most addicts are not getting their drugs directly from a doctor.) Efforts to clamp down on this problem may have had an effect on painkiller overdose deaths — there was a dip in 2012 and 2013 — but 2014 saw another record high. Many addicts are switching to heroin, another opioid with a staggering and growing death toll.

As Mr. Geraghty notes in the Morning Jolt email, “I’ve written in the past from a wary perspective about marijuana legalization. I have no shortage of more libertarian-minded friends who find me an old fuddy-duddy on this. The argument denouncing the expansion of government, runaway expenses, and limited results of the War on Drugs is a pretty clear and compelling one. The case for decriminalization of marijuana – i.e., not putting somebody in prison over it — is pretty persuasive as well. But if you legalize something, you are likely to get more of it. (The potential for legal troubles, and or the stigma of criminal behavior, likely deter at least some portion of potential users.) We can argue whether the country would be a better or worse place with more marijuana users.”

Perhaps a teary-eyed President Obama should use his executive actions to focus on Americans’ drug overdose rather than on reining in gun buying while chipping away at America’s 2^nd Amendment rights. Read more from Mr. VerBruggen here.

Related video:

Taki Theodoracopulos takes on the Saudis and Qatar, writing:

And as no one can forget, 16 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and the first act by the Bush-Cheney gang was to ensure all Saudi “royals” were flown out safely back to their desert craphole and far away from any Congressional committee asking embarrassing questions. What intrigues me is, how in hell do these monsters get away with it? … Let’s not forget that ISIS is a Saudi-Qatari invention, both kleptocracies having produced the financing for the Sunni “rebellion” once that foolish American proconsul had done away with Saddam’s officer corps. … since day one after the fall of the Shah, Saudi money has been working inside the Beltway to make sure Iran remains America’s No. 1 enemy. Saudi corruption of the American process at times equals that of AIPAC.

…

on one hand Saudi and Gulf money pays for the thousands of schools throughout the Muslim world that teach anti-Americanism, and on the other the Pentagon recently approved the sale of 600 Patriot defense missiles, not to mention thousands of precision-guided munitions to replenish stocks exhausted by the Yemen campaign, as big a war crime as we’ve had so far? The Saudi war machine has been heroic, killing mostly civilians and bombing hospitals and schools. In reality, the Saudis would lose against Monte Carlo, which only boasts of a police force, but they justify a war against Yemen by having conjured an Iranian role in the conflict.

Taki Theodoracopulos is a founding editor of The American Conservative and an expert at stirring up the most contentious of cocktail circuit from his home base in Switzerland, to London, New York, and Monte Carlo.Taki, in his inimitable fashion, concludes, “Hell itself is defiled by the foulness of the Saudi rulers. Uncle Sam should be ashamed of himself for kissing their ass.”

VIDEO: More on Saudi Arabian human rights abuses here: