As the 2026 midterm elections get closer, there are plenty of scenarios to speculate about. Will traditional conventional wisdom win out and Republicans lose? Will the rapid takeover of the Democratic Party by Democratic Socialists announce their presence with multiple wins across the country? While most Democrats have a deer-in-the-headlights stare when they are asked about the party’s massive surge to the left, there is one who continues to call out his own party, regardless of what it may mean for him personally.

One of the biggest, and seemingly ongoing points of speculation comes in the form of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). Fetterman has repeatedly expressed concern about the party shift to the left, and, while he says he has “no plans” to leave the party, if it officially becomes the “anti-Israel” party, he’s done. Fetterman attended the Hill Nation Summit in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, where he stated:

“My long-term concern has been with the Democratic Party, as I am a member of that, is that our party is going to back away and turn their back to Israel. If our party ever becomes, and just makes it official, the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.”

Back in May, Fetterman penned an Op-Ed in The Washington Post, entitled, “I haven’t changed. Here’s what has.” In it, he wrote:

Though I was elected as a Democrat, I’m proud to serve all Pennsylvanians. It has become increasingly lonely to serve in that way, but I firmly believe it’s what is needed. My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says. The president could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and my party would suddenly hate them. Such pointless pile-ons and attacks are unproductive. The American people want us to work together to find solutions on issues they and our country face.

So, what are Fetterman’s “lines in the sand?”

• Israel
• Open borders
• Party Toxicity
• Anti-Trump reflex
• Obstruction and government shutdowns
• Defund the police
• Lack of “working across the aisle”
• Poor candidate vetting
• Rejection of voter ID

Isn’t this basically the Democrats’ entire platform? Fetterman also mentioned support from people like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), also a self-described Democratic Socialist, and his strong support for scandal-plagued former Maine Senatorial candidate Graham Platner, which, Fetterman said, made him “angry.” He also would not discuss what he referred to as “private conversations” with Republicans about leaving the Democratic Party, but in his Op-Ed, said he would become an independent first.

Given his positions on things like abortion, legalized marijuana, LGBT rights, and being pro-labor, Fetterman was refreshingly honest and concluded his Op-Ed saying, “I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” But at some point, will he sound like many from his own party, and even former President Ronald Reagan, also a former Democrat, and admit that, “I didn’t leave my party; my party left me”?

What John Fetterman looks like to me is a pretty typical old-school liberal Dem, a sincere patriot whose ideals and principles were totally mainstream before the party’s recent radical swerve to the extreme Left. It’s a damnable shame that he’s quite the rara avis these days, and it hurts the entire country that this should be so.

A Kiss in Indonesia and Its Aftermath Reveal the Heart and Soul of Islam
A kiss is still a kiss, as the old song goes, but in Indonesia’s Aceh province, it’s going to cost you. Not in terms of money, but in terms of the skin off your back. A young couple in Aceh just found that out after they shared a kiss on a TikTok stream, and found themselves hauled before a Sharia court and charged with violating the rules of modesty and the proper decorum that is to be maintained between an unmarried man and woman.

For that, they were each sentenced to 21 lashes, and the sentence was recently carried out before a gaping crowd of righteously indignant Sharia-adherent Muslims who know now never, ever to livestream a kiss. And so once again we see the true heart and soul of Islam: terror. While Muslim and non-Muslim Islamic apologists in the West continue to insist that the true Islam is benign and cuddly, and that terrorism is only a tiny minority of extremists’ “hijacking” of the religion, in reality, terror is at the very center of Islam. This latest caning in Aceh shows that anew.

The South China Morning Post reported Friday that “as each blow landed on their backs, the unnamed man, 22, and woman, 25, visibly grimaced. The woman later burst into tears, wailing in pain as the public punishment continued.” The Post noted that video of the canings had kicked up the usual firestorm: “It was far from the first such case to gain international attention and the response has become familiar: footage spreads online, rights groups condemn the punishment as inhumane and Aceh’s status as the Muslim-majority country’s sole sharia-enforcing province is thrust back into the spotlight.”

Yes indeed: “In a statement issued the same day as the flogging, Amnesty International said all forms of corporal punishment constituted torture or other ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,’ while its co-regional director, Montse Ferrer, called the caning of the couple ‘a horrifying act of discrimination.’”

In Aceh, however, they simply don’t care: “Nurjani, a 62-year-old housewife in Banda Aceh, said she supported caning because it ‘was about religion’ and in line with sharia law.” She explained: “If you do not do anything wrong, then there is nothing to fear. I support caning and I believe that if you lead your life in the right way and walk the right path, no one will question you.” Another Aceh resident, Muhammad Nasir, agreed, saying: “If someone is caned, it will be a lesson for them so that they do not do the same thing again. It has a physical element to it, but it is mostly social and designed to make the person ashamed of their crimes.”

Yes, and more than just ashamed: terrified. The caning is designed to make people afraid to violate Allah’s law again. People who have been caned in Indonesia have ended up collapsing and being hospitalized. If you don’t want to end up permanently injured, or at very least to suffer agonizing pain in front of a crowd that has gathered to watch you suffer, then don’t kiss a girl on TikTok.

This has nothing to do with virtue, the idea of choosing to do what is good because it is good. This is all about fear from the beginning to the end. The Qur’an tells Muslims to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (8:60), and lest any of Allah’s obedient slaves are tempted to violate his law and thus become his enemies as well, they get terrorized, too.

Every Westerner possessed of even a mere modicum of decency, compassion, and integrity is obligated to do everything he possibly can to aid in the destruction of Pisslam, one of the foulest, most fearful scourges ever to begrime our poor Earth.

The nightmarish blight that is Pisslam and all its evil works have been tolerated by the West for far, far too long now. We all know the score; without exception, every thinking person well knows deep in his heart what this vile pseudo-religion really is—what it intends, what it demands of its troglodytic followers, what wickedness and blood-drenched atrocities they gleefully commit, again and again, in its unholy name—yet in our disgraceful torpor, to our eternal shame we do nothing.

Pisslam must be obliterated, its loathsome adherents crushed until all that’s left is an unpleasant, rapidly-fading memory. Any lazy, gormless Westerner who keeps on puking forth one sad, sorry excuse after another for his political “leadership’s” flat refusal to take action to stanch the blood-dimmed tide of Mohammedanism—to foil the Musselman’s creeping, incremental conquest of all humanity—is guilty of de facto complicity in his own subjugation, and will reap the whirlwind he hath sown ere the end. I guar-on-gott-damn-TEE you he ain’t gonna enjoy it, either.

So there you have it, folks. We don’t have to like it, no…but we DO have to do it. There is no easy, fun, safe, pain-free option for us here. Success is by no means a sure thing, alas. Still; as the old saying goes: ROOT, HOG, OR DIE. Time’s nearly up; best get to it before what time we still do have expires completely.

When Kansas got signed…
In 1974, Kansas had one shot to impress a record producer. The meeting was set in the tiny town of Ellinwood, Kansas – population around 800. They needed a full house. So they came up with a simple plan: offer free beer to everyone who came to the show. The room was packed. The energy was electric. And the producer (Don Kirshner) was impressed enough to sign them to a record deal.

A little free beer, a lot of loud music, and a career that was just getting started. Kirshner financed the band out of his own pocket through four albums. When they released ‘Carry on wayward son’, they finally hit gold and the rest is history. A version of the band still tours to this day…

Kinda reminds me just a smidge of a certain hit song from Ye Aulden Thymes.

Back when the BPs were on Miami-based Teen Rebel Records, I remember the owner/proprietor/sole employee of said label giving us the low-down on the inner workings of major-label A&R departments (Artists and Repertoire, ie the folks whose job it is to go out to shows; evaluate unsigned artists and/or their commercial potential, if any; and, ideally, arrange recording contracts for the likelier prospects).

According to our boy Teen Rebel Tony, A&R staff could be broken down into two basic types:

1. Those who have “the power of NO” (which is pretty much every single one of any given label’s employees)
2. The exalted few endowed with “the power of YES,” by which Tony meant those authorized to sign an artist entirely on their own initiative, without ever having to beg permission in advance or ask forgiveness later from anybody…well, at least until several of those independently-signed recording artists end up A) bombing badly with their first three (3) releases; B) slaughtering each other in the recording studio over some random, unfathomable dispute; C) becoming crackheads; or D) are caught in bed with one or more same-sex children

In plain words, then, the Category Twos are in effect the only folks in A&R who truly matter.

99 times out of a hundred, the “power of NO” types would notify you well in advance, with inordinate pridefulness and braggadocio, that they’d be coming to check out your show at Club Shithole on such and such a date. Said notification enabled them to luxuriate in feeling like Big Shots whom the band, the supporting act, the venue staff, and basically all and sundry within a five-mile radius would want to suck up to, buy drinks for, introduce their hot girlfriends to, shamelessly flatter, and other such-like industry inanities.

These useless pustules to be compared/contrasted to the “power of YES” people, who disdain to give any kind of notice at all, to anybody, of anything. In fact, you’d usually never even know they were in the joint unless/until they A) approached you after the show; B) introduced themselves and explained who they worked for, in what capacity and why they’d come; and C) expressed at least some interest, albeit slight, in offering you a contract with the label they work for.

Ironically enough, it’s the latter category of A&R rep, rather than the former, that the smart performer with knowledge and experience in such matters will be interested in schmoozing, flattering, and buying cocktails for. Tony also called these the “power of the pen” people—a somewhat more apt and directly descriptive appellation of who they are and what they do, perhaps.

In sum, then, the “power of NO” kids are basically popinjays, pricks, and douchetools. The “power of YES” guys, on the other hand, are professionals who take their roles, their industry, and their artists seriously, with no use for fumble-fucking around, preening, posturing, or obnoxious self-indulgence. Said pros are the crucial first step in the long, wearying slog of getting the music recorded, packaged, and released into the wider world—where it will then stumble or soar on wings the A&R rep provides.

A&R people are in the main unacknowledged and unheralded, even wholly unknown to the world outside of the music biz. Even so, they’re nonetheless bona fide heroes for all that, at least to those of us on the “talent” side of the business.

Understand: this is the old, traditional music industry we’re speaking of here. What with internet sales, streaming, and downloads dominating everything these days, the once-untrammeled power of the major labels such as Sony, Columbia, Epic, Atlantic, &c has diminished greatly, as have their profits, influence, and credibility. Which, if you think about it, would in turn make the job of the Category 2 A&R guy tougher than it’s ever been before.

Over lo, these many years, I’ve personally known far too many of the Cat One types, as well as far too few examples from Cat Two. It’s been years and years since I moved in those circles, alas; I can only wonder what became of them all, and where they are today.

CNBC survey mocked after top 10 ‘worst places to live’ are all red states
CNBC faced a wave of online mockery Monday after releasing its annual quality-of-life rankings, which exclusively placed conservative red states in all 10 spots of the “worst places to live” — even as official U.S. Census data shows some of those states are leading the nation in population growth.

Critics quickly took to social media to call out the outlet for what they alleged as blatant liberal bias embedded in its ranking criteria.

Counting down from the tenth-worst place to the first, CNBC ranked the bottom ten states as Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Missouri, Utah, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee.

All 10 states are Republican-led and voted for President Donald Trump in 2024.

“Shocking. All deep red, conservative states. But somehow California and New York — with the highest taxes in the country, insane cost of living, and endless progressive policies — didn’t crack the top 10?”

“This is correct. Please believe this. Tennessee is HORRIBLE. You definitely shouldn’t move here…,” conservative Newsmax contributor Chrissy Clark wrote with sarcasm.

The corporate media outlet took direct shots at local conservative legislation across the board.

Tennessee was dinged for the state’s “bathroom law” — which requires transgender individuals to use facilities corresponding with their biological sex at birth — as well as a law barring localities from passing their own local antidiscrimination ordinances.

The outlet also took aim at a joint resolution signed by Gov. Bill Lee this past April designating June as “Nuclear Family Month,” while also noting it had low rankings for crime and drug deaths.

Utah, ranked sixth-worst, was hit for its $7.25 minimum wage, low availability of childcare providers and air quality.

Georgia, the fifth-worst in the survey, was explicitly called out for offering “few protections for LGBTQ+ people, making it one of America’s least inclusive states.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately seized on the study, taking to X to point out that every single state on the list leaned red.

Quelle shock, said nobody at all. Left unmentioned by anyone involved here is why it might be that most if not all of these supposedly godawful states are seeing such YUGE surges of in-migration from Shitholistan cities/states like NYC, Shitcago, San Fran, Seattle, and LA, among lots of others. Could it be that those aforementioned transplants know something that the CNBC scribes don’t?

Update! Hawkins responds:

Transgender American regrets fleeing to the Netherlands because all the Muslim migrants want to kill him
No, this is not a Babylon Bee story. This is real life.

It’s scary. It’s legitimately scary. I decided that my mental health is degrading so substantially being here that I just need to get out.

The situation I have in the U.S. as a trans person – not good, right? – but here I will be hurt or killed.

Best bit? Gotta be this right hyar (bold mine).

This interview took place in Ter Apel, a Dutch town with only 10,000 residents.

Like many small Western towns, the government has decided to fill Ter Apel with cultural enrichers – most of them military-aged Muslim men who love jihad.

Over 2,200 “refugees” now live at a center in the town – more than a quarter of the native population – putting residents in fear.

Hm. Sounds like somebody’s figured out the whole mishegas might actually be what you call one of them self-solving problems.

Y’know, I’ve read that historically, the Dutch were a pretty dang tough bunch. Having been to the Netherlands myself a time or two and mingled with a fair few of them over there, I can definitely tell you that ordinary, rank ‘n file Dutch folk ain’t at all happy with the Moslem immivasion foisted on them by their Ruling Class politicians.

Yeah, schwarma and falafel are pretty good, I like ’em both. But they ain’t worth the price you ultimately gotta pay to enjoy easy, regular access to them, I don’t think.

(Via Stephen Green)

The Shocking Cost of New York’s ‘Tax the Rich’ Experiment Has Finally Been Exposed
New York has spent years aggressively taxing its wealthiest residents in the name of fairness, and the results are now in. Suffice it to say, they’re not pretty.

A new study released Monday by the Citizen Budget Commission (CBC) reveals the state’s share of America’s millionaires has dropped sharply since 2010, triggering a nearly $11 billion shortfall in tax revenue in a single year as high earners quietly packed up and left for lower-tax states.

The analysis shows New York’s share of millionaires fell from 12.7% in 2010 to just 8.7% in 2022 — the steepest decline of any state in the country.

As a direct result, personal income tax collections in 2022 alone were roughly $10.7 billion lower than they otherwise would have been if they had maintained their share of the wealthy folks. The study makes clear that the people leaving pay a disproportionately large share of state taxes, creating a painful hole in the budget that affects everything from public services to infrastructure funding.

This represents tangible evidence that the “tax the rich” mantra does not yield higher revenue to subsequently spend on public services for lower-income families or improve general infrastructure. It is actually taking money away from the state and those residents who might benefit.

Taxing the rich is a platform for the economically illiterate. Unfortunately for the Empire State, the economically illiterate hold significant positions in government.

Not to mention the 80-90% of NY’s population who are also “economically illiterate” their own selves.

“Independence is our birthright. We don’t intend to trade it for rule by a self-appointed priesthood of ‘international law.'”—Marco Rubio

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is going down. At least, it is if Secretary of State Marco Rubio has anything to do with it.

“Most of us would struggle to imagine a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents, and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America,” Rubio wrote in an op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Monday. “But that is what the International Criminal Court now claims the power to do.”

If you’re unfamiliar, the ICC, which is located in The Hague, Netherlands, was established in 2002 under the Rome Statute to handle the absolute worst crimes in the world, like genocide. It claims it can investigate people of any nation if it feels their own government won’t, and the United States has never bought into this ridiculous idea that is simply a globalist slippery slope.

“Both of our major political parties opposed the prospect of handing a distant global court the power to prosecute and jail our own citizens,” Rubio writes. “President Clinton refused to submit the Rome Statute (the ICC’s founding charter) to the Senate for ratification due to his ‘concerns about significant flaws in the Treaty.’ Two years later, a bipartisan Senate supermajority passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, authorizing the president ‘to use all means necessary’—including military force—to prevent the ICC from detaining or arresting Americans.”

I was vehemently opposed to it myself back then, which opposition led me to compose one of my most popular CF parodies ever: ICC and the Dark Lord, ostensibly a Grauniad report on Frodo Baggins being tried at the ICC for wantonly destroying the One Ring.

Frodo Baggins of Bagshot Row, Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth, has been called before the International Criminal Court to answer charges of war crimes brought by Sauron the Dark Lord and Saruman the White in a joint filing.

Baggins refused comment on the matter from his home at Bag End, simply moaning and holding his head. But his former valet and gardener (now mayor of Hobbiton) Samwise Gamgee spoke with reporters from his “bit of garden,” saying that “you people ought to know better, coming here bothering my master and trampling my taters and all. This is just about the dumbest thing I’ve heard of since Master Merry and Master Pippin started up that Broadway show of theirs. That didn’t work out so well, either, but all’s well as ends better, as my Gaffer used to say.” Gamgee was referring to the spectacular failure of “Mount Doom – the Musical,” which debuted on Broadway last year and closed the same night, bankrupting its producers and principal investors Meriadoc Brandybuck of Buckland and Peregrine Took of the Tookland, both in the Shire.

The charges brought by Sauron and Saruman are serious and were commented on at length by the Dark Lord himself at a press conference held after he delivered the formal papers to the Court. As a full signatory to the Court’s original charter, Sauron is legally entitled to bring charges before the Court, and the Court’s decision will be binding on Mr. Baggins, per the charter establishing the authority of the Court over the entire world, whether the particular defendant lives in a member country or not. The Shire has repeatedly refused to ratify a proposal to join the Court; the proposal has languished in the legislature, bogged down by stalling tactics employed by right-wing and unilateralist legislators intent on blocking it. Gondor and Rohan have likewise not joined the ICC, for similar obstructionist reasons.

Heh. I slay me.

The (Pink) Elephant in the Room: Why the Whisper Campaign About Lindsey Graham’s Sex Life Matters
I worked in South Carolina talk radio in the early 2000s. (Shout out to 1250 WTMA, “Your news-talk leader in the Low Country.”) At the time, the sexual escapades of South Carolina politicians were fodder for gleeful gossip — especially our nonagenarian senior senator, Strom Thurmond. More than one Capitol Hill staffer told me his behind-the-scenes nickname was “Spermin’ Thurmond” — and his eye for (much younger) ladies was the stuff of legend.

This was a few years before Lindsey Graham became a senator. Back then, he was still just a congressman, but everyone in South Carolina already knew who he was.

Rep. Graham was an ascending superstar; his political talents were obvious. From pressing the case in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial to his (nonstop) visits to TV studios, Graham was inescapable.

As were the rumors that followed him.

Because I certainly heard them. WTMA’s reporters heard them. Our audience heard them.

It was an open secret: Lindsey Graham was gay, but he stayed in the closet to protect his political career.

Yet despite this rumor’s enduring popularity, it’s entirely possible it wasn’t true at all. Who knows for sure?

But Lindsey Graham stayed scandal-free. He never embarrassed his supporters.

Not even once.

His body is still warm, but some very nasty allegations are already being aired.

Of course, it’s also possible that these allegations are bull[expletive]. It’s easy to lie about someone when they’re not around to defend themselves.

Still, the contrast between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is glaring. For all the talk of the GOP’s “homophobia” and “closed-minded Christian morality,” Sen. Graham was welcomed into the Republican Party with open arms. He was so welcomed that he confidently ran for president in 2016.

He was treated as an individual — instead of as a cardboard cutout for a preassigned special interest group.

Sen. Graham carved his own identity as a military hawk, an unapologetic interventionist, and a global champion of freedom. If you were an ally of America, Graham would defend you until his dying breath.

And now, he’s gone. But he won’t be forgotten.

That’s safe enough to say, I reckon. Gay or no, he was indeed one of a kind; there never was any sort of template or mold to force-fit him into. He went his own way always, which you gotta respect.

Update! Sen Graham’s fill-in replacement has been named.

We now know who will replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who suddenly passed away over the weekend. Gov. Henry McMaster (R-S.C.) appointed Darline Graham Nordone, the late senator’s younger sister, to take his place in the Senate until the election in November.

“Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him,” Nordone told reporters at a press conference with McMaster on Monday afternoon. “It is such a privilege to get to finish some of his important work, and I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States.”

“To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words,” she added. “But I’m going to do this. I got it.”

Of course, Nordone’s name came up when President Donald Trump suggested that McMaster nominate her in a post on Truth Social: “I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina. This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Pretty unequivocal endorsement, woontchasay?

A rector from the University of Budapest sent an invitation to Ahmadinejad to attend a “climate change” conference. His hope was to get him close to Israeli delegates so that they could talk and maybe eventually broker a peace treaty.

The yearslong effort to groom the former Iranian president as an intelligence asset culminated in a dramatic effort to take him to an Israeli safe house in the early days of the war. But the plan fell apart.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s 2024 visit to the university and a second one the following year were part of a yearslong Israeli effort to groom him as an intelligence asset who, when the time came, could be installed as Iran’s new leader, according to both American and Iranian officials familiar with the operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence.

Recruiting Mr. Ahmadinejad was of such priority for Israel that the country’s then-spy chief David Barnea even traveled to the Hungarian capital in 2024 to meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad personally, according to former American officials. Soon afterward, they said, Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, notified the C.I.A. that it had been in contact with Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Israel’s decision to build a regime-change plan around Mr. Ahmadinejad is an extraordinary twist in the saga of the country’s relations with the former president, who was known for accelerating Iran’s nuclear program, calling regularly for the destruction of Israel and denying the Holocaust.

In recent years, according to American officials, Israel secretly paid money to Mr. Ahmadinejad for housing and travel, and Israeli operatives met him abroad on several occasions, including during his trips to Budapest.

The effort culminated in late February of this year — during the first days of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — with an audacious operation to relocate the former leader, who had been living under strict surveillance in Tehran. The goal: to set in motion the plan to topple the current regime and install Mr. Ahmadinejad.

The plan failed.

On Feb. 28, an Israeli airstrike hit Mr. Ahmadinejad’s compound, targeting the building of his bodyguards and his armored vehicle. After the strike, according to four senior Iranian officials, a black Peugeot car arrived, picked up Mr. Ahmadinejad and whisked him away at high speed from the chaotic scene.

American and Iranian officials with knowledge of the operation said the car had been driven by Mossad operatives, who took Mr. Ahmadinejad to a secret safe house in Iran.

But the former Iranian leader was upset about the frantic rescue operation, and he appeared to be disillusioned about the Israeli plan to return him to power, according to people with knowledge of what occurred.

He eventually left the safe house under circumstances that are still unclear. Mr. Ahmadinejad was not seen in public again until last Monday, when he made a brief appearance at the funeral procession for the slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

His current status remains uncertain. But four senior Iranian officials said that Mr. Ahmadinejad was in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing, under house arrest now that Iran has learned about much of his interactions with Israel.

A key part of the plan was that Kurdish Iranians would march on Tehran.

But, as Trump lamented months ago, that never happened. That was supposed to be the ground element which is absolutely essential in actually winning a war.

The story continues from there, and it’s all fascinating stuff.