HEALTH: Extra virgin olive oil staves off Alzheimer’s, preserves memory, new study shows.

It’s important to know that there’s been confusion about which extra-virgin olive oils are actually extra virgin, and which ones are cut by the mob with lesser oils. My wife Melissa researched and found three brands which are believed to be the genuine article, one in each price category of low(ish), medium, and high.

For everyday use, Kirkland’s (yes, the Costco house label) extra virgin is supposedly just that, and it’s what we use for non-fancy salad dressings, frying croutons, adding depth to red sauces — anywhere you want good olive oil but don’t need to break the bank. The next step up is from California Olive Ranch. It’s great for Caesars, dipping bread, tossed pasta, and the like. And for when the tomatoes are in peak ripeness for making Caprese, we have a bottle of Bariani stashed away in the back of the pantry. The three bottles all cost about $20-$25 but vary greatly in size. Mostly what you’re paying for is the greater concentration of grassy/fruity/buttery flavor as you step up the scale.

Flavor-wise though, even the Kirkland stands head and shoulders above typical supermarket fare, and I suspect that the same is true of the health benefits.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Man Charged with Threatening Ohio Rep: ‘We’re Coming to Get’ Every Go**amn One of You.’

I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN DEMOCRATS WERE CONSIDERED “THE PARTY OF YOUTH:” “We no longer have a party caucus capable of riding this wave. We have 80-year-old leaders and 90-year-old ranking members. This isn’t a party. It’s a giant assisted living center. Complete with field trips, gym, dining room and attendants.”

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OH: Ann Arbor Teacher Making $77k Complains His Salary Is ‘Embarrassing’

NO. WAY. Germany spied on the White House over years.

Other monitoring targets ranged from military institutions including the US Air Force or the Marine Corps, space agency NASA to civic group Human Rights Watch.

Hundreds of foreign embassies as well as international organisation like the International Monetary Fund were not spared, Spiegel said.

The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s intelligence service] declined comment in the Spiegel report.

Germany had reacted with outrage when information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that US agents were carrying out widespread tapping worldwide, including of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany where state spying on citizens was rampant, declared repeatedly that “spying among friends is not on” while acknowledging Germany’s reliance on the US in security matters.

But to the great embarrassment of Germany, it later emerged that the BND helped the NSA spy on European allies.

I’m not sure Merkel embarrasses.

GOOD LORD: Trump Supporter Stabbed Nine Times Following Political Rally.

TAKE MY MONEY! Arrow Video Has Begun a 4K Restoration of ‘The Thing’

Not merely an effective fright-fest, The Thing might also be the most impressive achievement in practical horror effects before the computers took over.

SOCIAL JUSTICE MEDIA: British Police Just Imprisoned A Man For Posting Mean Things About Muslims On Facebook.

A man who posted what authorities deemed “hateful” things about Muslims on Facebook is facing eight counts more than a year in prison in Sussex, a coastal county in southeast England, United Kingdom.

“The charges brought in this case are extremely serious and were only brought against four people in England and Wales during 2016,” said Sussex Police Hate Crime Sergeant Peter Allan (because apparently “Hate Crime Sergeant” is a real, taxpayer-funded, paid position in 2017 Great Britain). “Nigel Pelham used Facebook to express some truly offensive views, with no understanding of how serious his actions were.”

The Orwellian officer continued, threatening anyone and everyone who dared to express a racist, offensive, or even cheeky opinion on their own personal social media accounts.

I wonder what might happen if British authorities investigated and prosecuted all those “known wolves” with the same vigor.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Customers share stories after $12 billion lawsuit accuses CenturyLink of defrauding them.

It is being brought by a former employee, who is describing herself as a whistleblower.

Attorney Mark Geragos is representing the plaintiff in the case. The lawsuit calls it “frighteningly” similar to the Wells Fargo Bank scandal.

Experts say to check statements to see if anything looks out of the ordinary. If it does, contact the Denver Better Business Bureau or the firm that filed the lawsuit.

In January, the Denver Better Business Bureau issued a warning about CenturyLink, saying it had identified a pattern of complaints against the company.

The BBB said some customers claimed they are charged more than the price they agreed to pay when signing up for service, and that they don’t receive the speed and quality that is promised by sales representatives.

“Really take a look at those line items and really understand what you are being charged for,” said Krista Ferndelli, a spokeswoman with the Denver’s Better Business Bureau.

I can’t speak to the merits of this particular case, however…

My personal experience with CenturyLink was so bad that it was the deciding factor in getting rid of our land line — which by that point hadn’t had a phone plugged into it for years, and was kept live only in case of emergency.

VIDEO: Democrats Are Blaming Donald Trump for Obama Admin’s Failure to Notify Public About Russian Interference.

I wish I could afford to live rent-free the way the President does.

STOP MAKING SENSE: ABC News featuring interview with Mike Bloomberg, saying “Bloomberg says America should ‘get behind’ Trump because ‘the public has spoken‘.

“He’s our president, and we need this country to be run well. I didn’t vote for him,” Bloomberg added. “Let’s just all hope that Donald Trump is a good president of the United States.” Also a businessman and philanthropist, Bloomberg said Americans should direct their energy toward changing the outcome of the next election rather than fighting the current administration.

All that “being reasonable” stuff is not going to play well in the #Resistance parlors on the Upper West Side and Georgetown.

**Disclosure: I worked for his company as Global Media Counsel for more than 13 years.**

CANADIAN SPECIAL FORCES SNIPER KILLS AN ISIS FIGHTER FROM TWO MILES AWAY IN THE LONGEST CONFIRMED KILL SHOT IN HISTORY.

As one of Ace of Spades’ co-bloggers notes, “It must be a tremendously demoralizing circumstance when every now and then somebody around you gets shot, and you have no idea where the bullet came from, and probably didn’t even hear it.”

Meanwhile, in a very different Canadian universe, “Justin Trudeau Hugs a Puppet Unicorn in a Beautiful Universe Much Like Our Own.”

Found via Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals, who notes, “This is a real headline.”

What is this “real” you speak of?

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KURT SCHLICHTER: Spare Me The Principles Lecture.

If our principles are worth having, they are worth fighting for in a way that might conceivably lead to success. One of the folks telling me how wrong and unconservative I am for finding it amusing – a patriot, though wrong – also mentioned that he had been fighting for free speech on campus and in the culture for 20 years. Hmmm. I’ve been fighting for them for 30 years, ever since my dean at UCSD called me in to yell at me because I wrote that the student government was composed of leftist dweebs. Shouldn’t the fact that we have spent decades using the same tactics and losing indicate that maybe we ought to try something new?

Are we going to reason the left out of its ruthless quest for absolute power? Are we going to talk them into civility? Is our sterling example of high principles – which apparently include never, ever, for even a moment, annoying leftists by interrupting their bloody assassination festivals – leading to anything but defeat?

At Fort Benning, they didn’t teach us to lose.

Read the whole thing.

CHANGE: Wisconsin lawmakers advance bill to suspend or expel students who disrupt campus speakers.

“Students” with no interest in learning and who make it impossible for others to learn have no business on a college campus.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT FROM DENNIS PRAGER: How would the DNC-MSM report the news if a Trump supporter had shot Democratic congressmen?

BREAKING NEWS FROM 1968: Democrat Rep. Says Identity Politics Have Hijacked Her Party.

QUESTION ASKED: How much do Democrats really want to defeat Donald Trump?

Rich Lowry:

There’s no doubt that Democrats want to watch TV programs that excoriate the president. They want to give money to candidates opposing him. They want to fantasize about frog-marching him straight from his impeachment proceedings to the nearest federal penitentiary. But do they want to do the one thing that would make it easier to win tough races in marginal areas, namely moderate on the cultural issue? Not so much.

In retrospect, Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District was overdetermined. He didn’t live in the district. He had no record of public service. Youthful to a fault, he looked like he should have been running for class president. Yet it didn’t help that he was an orthodox liberal who conceded nothing on cultural issues, even though he was running in a Republican district in the South.

In this, Ossoff merely reflected his party’s attitude. Stopping Trump is imperative, so long as it doesn’t require the party rethinking its uncompromising stance on abortion, guns or immigration. Every old rule should be thrown out in the cause of the resistance—except the tried-and-true orthodoxies on social issues.

It’s the endgame after eight years of choosing “community organizing” over politicking.

WINNING? DNC Has Worst Fundraising May Since 2003.

The party’s appeal has become more selective.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: The FBI’s Briefing On The GOP Baseball Shooting Couldn’t Have Been More Bizarre.

The FBI admits that Hodgkinson:

•vociferously raged against Republicans in online forums,
•had a piece of paper bearing the names of six members of Congress,
•was reported for doing target practice outside his home in recent months before moving to Alexandria,
•had mapped out a trip to the DC area,
•took multiple photos of the baseball field he would later shoot up, three days after the New York Times mentioned that Republicans practiced baseball at an Alexandria baseball field with little security,
•lived out of his van at the YMCA directly next door to the baseball field he shot up,
•legally purchased a rifle in March 2003 and 9 mm handgun “in November 2016,”
•modified the rifle at some point to accept a detachable magazine and replaced the original stock with a folding stock,
•rented a storage facility to hide hundreds of rounds of ammunition and additional rifle components,
asked “Is this the Republican or Democrat baseball team?” before firing on the Republicans,
ran a Google search for information on the “2017 Republican Convention” hours before the shooting,
and took photos at high-profile Washington locations, including the east front plaza of the U.S. Capitol and the Dirksen Senate Office.
•We know from other reporting that the list was of six Republican Freedom Caucus members, including Rep. Mo Brooks, who was present at the practice.

So what does the FBI decide this information means? Well, the takeaway of the briefing was characterized well by the Associated Press headline about it: “FBI: Gunman who shot congressman had no target in mind.”

The FBI is going to have to do better than this if the Bureau wants to earn back the reputation squandered by James Comey.

OH: A Win For A Woman Doesn’t Always Mean A Win For Women.

NEXT UP: A special counsel to probe Team Obama’s obstruction of justice.

Specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced last week it will hold hearings to “examine then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s involvement in the Clinton email server investigation.”

The findings of the powerful panel, which has oversight of the Justice Department and FBI, could lead to a separate criminal investigation and the naming of another special counsel — exactly what Trump needs to distract attention from his growing legal woes.

What Lynch did reeks of obstruction. According to Comey, his ex-boss:

• Ordered him to mislead the public about the criminal investigation of Clinton by calling it a “matter” rather than an investigation. (He complied with her wish, even though it made him feel “queasy.”)

• Refused to recuse herself from the case after Comey confronted her about a secret June 2016 meeting she had with former President Bill Clinton — five days before his wife was scheduled to be interviewed by the FBI. (Hillary was cleared three days later.)

There are also concerns, raised by a New York Times report, that Lynch privately assured the Clinton campaign she would keep FBI agents in check and wouldn’t let their investigation “go too far,” according to a message the FBI intercepted involving then-Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Carl Bernstein said, “The great thing about Watergate is, is that the system worked. The American system worked. The press did its job. We did what we were supposed to do.”

Where is that spirit today?

(Hat tip, Glenn Reynolds, checking in ever-so-briefly from his secure and undisclosed location.)