Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics

Birthright Citizenship is NOT in the Constitution

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This topic has long been debated with no resolution including at the Supreme Court level. Much has been written about what ‘birthright’ is including in the New York Times as recently as in 2015.
The simply requirement is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, not subject to a foreign power. A birth must be to parents who were legally domiciled to the United States as citizens themselves. There is no such thing legally as an anchor baby. There must be a provable bind to the United States.
President Trump has ordered a team to investigate the definition of the 14th Amendment leading to his possible signature of an Executive Order which would lead government agencies to act in accordance with the clarification and regulations around the Citizenship Clause.

During the years of Ellis Islands, immigrants had to have money, the proven ability to earn a salary and not be an economic burden to the United States. 12 million people passed through Ellis Island and had for the time, a rigorous process to comply for entry. They included medical exams, have existing family members in the United States for connections and a safety net and prove existing financial means. There was quite a list of questions for the immigrants including those regarding a criminal record, being institutionalized for insanity and having some prior knowledge of the United States including facts of the Constitution, naming the 13 colonies and if they were an anarchist. There were in many cases immediate deportations for failures of passing fundamental stipulations.

High praise should be given to the Trump administration for tackling the issue of birthright citizenship for clarification because the abuse of the system has been out of control, exploiting the anchor baby model.

Take notice that even ABC news as recently as March of this year, 2019 addressed the issue of pregnant Russian women flocking to Miami to given birth just to gain citizenship under the anchor baby policy which is not nor has even been policy or legal. There are brokers around the world that facilitate these American births where the cost can range from $20,000 to $50,000. This includes travel, accommodations and the hospital expenses. This is otherwise known as ‘birth tourists’. But hey, Russia is not the only country. Nigeria, Mexico and China are included. We cant know the full number of those participating in  birth tourism but each year it is estimated to range in the 30-50,000 of women that make the trip. Not to be overlooked is the healthcare in itself, clearly better here than in their home country. Consider that a particular area of Miami, known as Sunny Isles Beach is teeming with Russians and has the nickname of little Moscow.

So, next how about California?

So as recently as 2018, the FBI had to perform a set of raids on maternity hotels and apartment complexes in an estimated 20 locations in and around Los Angeles. Ah, it seems these pregnant Chinese women had more expensive brokers as they paid in the range of $40-$80,000 for their travel, accommodations and hospital stay. Operations in Los Angeles obviously had quite the operation stateside as some of these locations witnessed trucks and fork lifts delivering pallets of diapers and other infant needs like formula.

California Apartments Raided in Federal Investigation of ...

This all amounts to abuse of U.S. citizenship.

Further:

The Trump administration on Monday issued a long-awaited rule strengthening the ability of federal officials to deny green cards to immigrants deemed likely to rely on government aid.

Officials described the so-called “public charge” rule as a way to ensure those granted permanent residency are self-sufficient — and protect taxpayers in the process.

“It will also have the long-term benefit of protecting taxpayers by ensuring people who are immigrating to this country don’t become public burdens, that they can stand on their own two feet, as immigrants in years past have done,” he said. “It’s not only a recipe for their success, but for America’s success growing out of our immigration system.”

The updated rule will better define, and expand, the factors that can be considered to deny an applicant on these grounds.

While the “public charge” inadmissibility standard has long been part of U.S. immigration law, the term has not been formally defined in statute. The new rule, which will go into effect on October 15, will define “public charge” as an immigrant who receives one or more designated public benefits for more than 12 months within a 36-month period.

USDA Hires 'Integrity Officer' to Fight Fraud in Food ...

Those benefits include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), as well as most forms of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — commonly known as food stamps. The rule expands the number of benefits that can be considered from interim guidance issued in 1999.

Those factors will be considered along with standard considerations such as age, health, financial assets and education. While Cuccinelli’s USCIS is the lead agency, similar filters will be used at the State Department (for those applying for visas from abroad) and Border Patrol.

Maybe true clarity for the sake of law and order is becoming a reality with regard to immigration and the Constitution.

 

Waivers? China Pharmaceuticals Killing Americans

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Primer:

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In part from Reuters: “My friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of fentanyl to the United States – this never happened and many Americans continue to die,” Trump said in a tweet.

“We’re losing thousands of people to fentanyl,” he later told reporters.

The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fentanyl is an opioid painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin, and has a central role in the devastating U.S. opioid crisis. In the United States, fentanyl and all of its analogues are controlled substances subject to strict regulation.

More than 28,000 synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths, mostly from fentanyl related substances, were recorded in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Added from Bloomberg:

China has become the world’s largest supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients, or API, providing key components to drugmakers worldwide. But a yearlong recall of tainted heart drugs taken by millions of Americans is prompting U.S. national security officials to ask whether China’s growing role in the pharmaceutical supply chain could pose a threat to the health of military personnel.

“The national security risks of increased Chinese dominance of the global API market cannot be overstated,” Christopher Priest, the acting deputy assistant director for health care operations and Tricare for the Defense Health Agency, told a U.S.-China advisory panel last week in Washington.

The Defense Health Agency manages much of the health care of military members, including prescription drugs.

Concerns about the safety and efficacy of Chinese-made drugs are rising at a time of heightened trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. Last week, Trump unveiled plans for new tariffs on Chinese goods; China plans to halt imports of U.S. crops in response. The yuan sank on Monday against the dollar.

The National Security Council is looking into Chinese drug manufacturing and trying to identify the most at-risk medications, Priest told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington, without elaborating. The National Security Council declined to comment.

The Defense Health Agency is supposed to use drugs that comply with the Trade Agreements Act, a 1979 law that requires many federal purchases to be made in the U.S. or another compliant country. China isn’t on the approved list, but the agency has waivers for almost 150 drugs they otherwise wouldn’t be able to procure, Priest said. The TAA covers only finished products, not their components.

Many drugs taken by military members and civilians have active ingredients made in China. While drugmakers typically don’t disclose where every molecule in a pill comes from, the recall of contaminated blood-pressure drugs has shown that many of their active components originated in Chinese factories.

Rocket Fuel

Larry Wortzel, a member of the U.S.-China commission and a military retiree, said four of his blood-pressure medications were recalled in three months. Wortzel’s pills, versions of a drug called valsartan, were manufactured in India but had active ingredients from China.

“They were contaminated with rocket fuel,” Wortzel said. “I imagine active people have the same problem. This affects the readiness of our troops.”

The recalled valsartan contained a probable carcinogen known as NDMA, a manufacturing byproduct once used to make rocket fuel and also found in grilled and cured meats.

Priest called the recalls “a never-ending saga” and a “wake-up call.”

The recalls began in July 2018 with valsartan made by China’s Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has largely blamed the company’s manufacturing process for creating the NDMA, which went undetected for as long as four years. Drugmakers in other countries who used similar processes have also had to recall blood-pressure pills.

Some valsartan purchased by the Defense Logistics Agency and later recalled was TAA-compliant, said Patrick Mackin, a spokesman for the DLA. The agency manages the supply chain for the U.S. military, including ensuring pharmaceuticals make their way to military treatment facilities. With valsartan in shortage, according to the FDA, the agency sought a TAA waiver for valsartan on July 15, Mackin said.

A Bloomberg investigation this year detailed doubts among U.S. health officials about the data generic-drug companies, including Zhejiang Huahai and others involved in the valsartan recalls, use to prove their products are safe and effective.

“We wouldn’t have our aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines built in China, and for very important medications, we really should look at what it takes to purchase based on value not just price,” Rosemary Gibson, the author of the book “China Rx,” told the commission. “We want cheap, we can buy cheap. But what’s missing from the whole equation is quality.”

Shortage Fears

Quality isn’t the only concern. Shortages could also arise from attempts by the Chinese to cut off supply, particularly amid the U.S.-China trade standoff.

“If China shut the door on exports, our hospitals would cease to function, so this has tremendous urgency,” Gibson said.

Priest said pharmaceutical companies should be compelled, using the buying power of the entire federal government, to maintain the infrastructure to make drugs without relying on countries like China.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating the FDA’s ability to police foreign manufacturing. The committee’s leaders asked the agency for more information on the valsartan recall in June, including about a dispute between senior officials and an agency inspector who raised red flags at Zhejiang Huahai more than a year before the NDMA was detected. The panel also asked the Government Accountability Office to look at the FDA’s oversight of foreign drug manufacturing.

“Shame on us for not paying attention to something so critical and assuming, which has been the orthodoxy for a long time, that the industry would regulate itself,” Benjamin Shobert, senior associate for international health at The National Bureau of Asian Research, told the commission.

 

Senator Daines vs. Socialism

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Resolution_draft by Fox News on Scribd

In his prepared remarks introducing the resolution, obtained by Fox News, Daines criticized the Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-all” — as well as the increase in partisanship on Capitol Hill. Less than an hour earlier, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., similarly condemned “hyperventilating hacks” seeking to sow division, rather than make policy.

Daines Stumps For Gorsuch, Spars With Protesters At ...

“We are at a pivotal time in our great nation’s history,” Daines said. “We have shown the world time and time again the genius of American ingenuity and the grit of American determination. However, a radical, socialist, far-left movement is growing across this country. And it has taken root as the new voice of the Democratic Party.”

*** A hat tip to the Senator for his position on America vs. Democrats, Socialism and all things related to the Green New Deal. There is also Medicare for All, free college tuition and even paying criminals to behave.

Does this resolution go far enough? Not really, but it is a start. There should be legislation and eventually law that states socialism is forbidden in the United States. It is wishful thinking however, because our Federal government is slammed full with socialist programs that we can never undo.

All things government healthcare like Obamacare is socialism, Social Security is of course socialism, block grants, community reinvestment act and so many more fit the definition of socialism as do the countless entitlement programs.

You can however begin the challenge on yet another item that you personally pay each month. Have you checked your utility bills lately and looked at all those weird fees? Same thing with your cell phone bill. The cable bill too? Yes.

There is corporate socialism too, bailouts and subsidies…yes…all socialism. This is forced socialism with no oversight. That means no one is accountable, no one measures success, no one measures if the money really goes where it is supposed to go.

Places like Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Baltimore and other major cities all have a major homeless program where tax money is earmarked to address that crisis. For instance, California voted in March to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help the homeless. It is expected to raise $355 million each year for a ten year period. That said, do California officials and residents really believe the homeless problem will go away in ten years? Really?

As long as Baltimore is in the news, thousands of residents in the inner city get a lead check along with living in Section 8 housing and getting food stamps. What is a lead check you ask?

Well our Congress voted in the 1990’s to create a slush fund to eradicate lead (paint) from homes and buildings constructed before 1977. By now, all that lead should be gone right? Nah..residents in Baltimore and other major cities get a monthly lead check as they choose to live in row houses allegedly still containing peeling lead paint. This whole scam was coordinated by several federal agencies including Housing and Urban Development, the EPA and Health and Human Services.

Socialism is a constant cancer, of which the ends we will never see but we can stop some of it at least by challenging those pesky fees in your power bill, the cable bill or your cell phone bill.

Anyway….hat tip again to the Senator.

 

 

Stupid Republicans in the House and Senate, Cheap Foreign Labor

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Some of the names in the Republican House and Senate we have reasons to like very much but we should have a problem with this legislation. How about America First to start? You see, Silicon Valley did some very successful Congressional lobbying. The tech companies include Microsoft, Amazon, Equifax, Cisco, Google and Facebook to name a few. In summary, America does not have enough techies to do the jobs of the future, so rather than augmenting education or do career retraining, let’s go to China and India….swell eh? We lift visa quotas, bring in cheaper labor, put Americans out of work and launch another employment crisis, right? This too is fundamentally changing the whole immigration model again and placing foreign workers above American workers. American manufacturers go to China to build stuff because it is cheap labor. H.R. 1044 ends up doing the same thing right here in America.

Trump CANNOT sign this, please tell him so as you read on.

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The House of Representatives has taken a step in the direction of eliminating green card backlogs by passing the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 (H.R. 1044) introduced by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Ken Buck. (R-CO). The support was bi-partisan and passed in a 365 to 65 vote.  The bill would:

  • Increase per country quotas from 7% to 15% in the family-based categories;
  • Establish a “first-come first-served” employment-based visa system (including EB-5 investor visas) by eliminating the “per country” caps;
  • Establish a three-year transition period during which 10-15% of the visas would be set aside for countries other than India or China; and
  • Ensure that immigrants who have approved employment-based immigration visa petitions at the time of enactment do not lose their places “in line.”

Representative Lofgren estimates that it would take a decade for the per country lines to equalize.  The expectation is that if there is no increase in the number of visas available the wait time will even out to roughly seven years for everyone.  Others have suggested that eliminating the quotas will only incentivize more immigration from India and China and thus eliminate any benefit.

Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced a companion bill in the Senate (S. 386) back in February.  That bill which also has bi-partisan support was referred to committee on July 9, 2019.

Senator Rand Paul, who opposed the “Fairness” Act, introduced the BELIEVE Act (Backlog Elimination, Legal Immigration and Employment Visa Enhancement Act) (S. 2091) on July 11, 2019.  That bill, like the House bill, would establish a “first-come-first-served” employment-based visa system but would also:

  • Quadruple the number of employment-based visas by doubling the number available annually and then exempting dependents from the “count”;
  • Grant green cards to children of temporary workers who would normally “age-out” as long as they have graduated from a U.S. university and have been in the U.S. for at least ten years;
  • Issue employment authorization to spouses and children of temporary workers in E, H and L status;
  • Provide employment and travel authorization to those waiting in line for employment-based green cards as a safeguard; and (importantly for nurses and physical therapists)
  • Exempt all shortage occupations from green card limits.

Any equalization will eliminate long lines for some employers and industries while adding wait times for others.  Proponents of the new bills believe that the equalization would create economic benefits by, among other things, making the United States more competitive with other countries like Canada that have been able to take advantage of prospective immigrants’ frustrations with the long delays in the U.S. immigrant visa process.

The Jalisco Drug Cartel, the Terror Training Camp

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In part:

“If you want to go, fine, get out of here. The only way out of here is in a body bag. Whoever wants to go with him better speak up now. We’re not here to play.”

“Then I understood, and we all understood, that we were in big trouble. You don’t know what’s going to happen next, but you have to stay quiet and very serious because they could take any movement the wrong way,” Francisco recalls.

For years, videos of dismembered bodies, shootings, decapitated heads and all types of violence attributed to the CJNG ran through his mind. “I thought a lot about my son,” Francisco says. He ultimately decided to stay.

A Powerful Cartel

The CJNG has grown to become one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, according to analysts and security forces. The Attorney General’s Office estimates that the cartel maintains a presence in 28 of the country’s 32 states, according to local media reports. The cartel has also established alliances with local criminal groups in the states of Durango, Campeche, Coahuila and Zacatecas.

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The CJNG has also expanded abroad, “with a significant presence not only in the United States and Mexico, but also in Europe, Asia and Australia,” according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The genesis of this criminal organization, according to Sam Houston State University professor Nathan P. Jones, dates back to the July 2010 death of Sinaloa Cartel boss Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, alias “Nacho Coronel.” He specialized in methamphetamine production in the region around Jalisco. When Mexican authorities killed him, his operations fragmented into several groups. One of them was led by El Mencho. He was able to take advantage of Jalisco’s geographical location near Mexico’s Pacific ports. This allowed him to increase the volume of his business thanks to the sale of methamphetamine in markets in Europe and Asia, and the sale of fentanyl in the United States. Control of the ports was key to the CJNG being able to obtain the resources that allowed them to expand territorially, to corrupt Mexican government officials and to train their assassins as an elite force.

The Training

Francisco’s training camp was in Talpa de Allende, a municipality of just over 15,000 people in western Jalisco. A group of men armed with assault rifles and portable missile launchers loaded the 19 men into luxury trucks and drove them on dirt roads out to a hidden place in the Sierra de Talpa. The first truck stopped, then someone pulled a gun out the window and shot three times, which automatically opened a gate. They all passed and, again, another three shots were fired to signal the gate to close.

Once inside, the armed men took their cell phones and stripped them. “They had some car batteries. They got us wet and made us grab the terminals. So, if you had a GPS [Global Positioning System device] hidden inside you, it would burn. The shock was so strong that I practically peed,” Francisco explained.

The local boss was a young man about 28 years old, according to Francisco. He chose a nickname to address each of them. Then the training began with instructions on how to handle short and long weapons: handguns, AK-47 rifles and rocket launchers similar to the one the CJNG used to shoot down a Mexican Army helicopter in an attack that killed seven soldiers in May 2015.

The instructors let the men know all of the cartel’s rules imposed by El Mencho. They started with those related to firearms.

“Rule number one: Your finger should always be away from the trigger. Otherwise, in front of a cartel leader or high-ranking commander, you could be considered a threat and they could kill you.”

“Rule number two: Always check the safety.”

“Rule number three: Know how to hand over a weapon. Always pass it with the butt of the gun and not the barrel.”

The instructors imposed strict discipline. One mistake could be fatal. As was the case for one of the 19 recruits who nervously failed to put together a gun.

“In the blink of an eye, he killed him. He told us that he wasn’t useful because in a real confrontation, he would panic and put us all in danger,” Francisco said. Then began what the cartel called “the christening.” They all approached the corpse of their recently murdered companion.

“What is the first rule?” the plaza boss asked.

“If there isn’t a body, there isn’t a crime to pursue,” two of the commanders responded.

“Ok, Shaggy, come here. Cut off his hand. You don’t want to do it? Just tell me you don’t want to,” one commander said.

“You knew that if you said no, they were going to kill you,” Francisco recalls. Trembling, he began to cut off the dead man’s hand. Francisco touched his forearm. “I had to do it, you have no choice. I remember the fear, the blood.”

They were going one by one. The commanders saved the most timid group of recruits for the most difficult task: to decapitate the dead man and crush his head with a stone. When the body was severed, they were forced to eat some parts of it.

“There was one recruit who couldn’t eat it and vomited, but they picked up the piece of flesh from the dirt and forced him to eat it.”

These cannibalistic practices described by Francisco coincide with what a group of cartel hitmen arrested last June revealed. They said they did it to become desensitized to violence. The Attorney General’s Office in Jalisco has discovered at least five camps that the cartel used as clandestine training centers and narco-laboratories. Two more have been dismantled in Veracruz and Tabasco.

For Francisco, this was only the first part of a three-month stay in captivity.

*** In Bolivia, where he spent over two years evading justice, he was known as Jafett Arias Becerra, a respectable cattle rancher. José González Valencia is a man of many names.

González Valencia flew in and out of Bolivia multiple times in 2016 and 2017, raising questions about how it was so easy for him to live comfortably as a wealthy cattleman when he was wanted by the United States on charges of conspiracy to distribute large amounts of cocaine.

Bolivian authorities blame Mexico for the lapse, but also admit their fertile Santa Cruz region, known as “Bolivia’s barn,” is a popular hideout for drug traffickers on the lam. They acknowledge that they need to corral criminals like the Shrimp who find safe haven there.

A Cartel in the Crosshairs

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) has alarmed authorities in the United States and Mexico with its brutal tactics and rapid growth since it was formed in 2011.

Based in Guadalajara, the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, CJNG is behind some of the most notorious drug crimes of the past decade, including the 2011 torture and massacre of 35 rival cartel members in Veracruz and the downing of a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015. The cartel even uses cannibalism as an initiation rite for new members.

The CJNG now has a presence in most of Mexico and connections in the rest of Latin America, the United States, Asia, Europe, and Australia. It is responsible for trafficking at least five tons each of cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States every month, according to former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Last October, Sessions announced new measures targeting the CJNG, including hefty rewards for the capture of its leaders and economic sanctions against several of the Cuinis. He also unsealed indictments of 11 alleged members of the cartel, including Jose González Valencia.

Sessions called the CJNG one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal groups in the world.

“We are hitting them from all sides and with every weapon we have,” he said at a news conference. “They are in our crosshairs. This cartel is a top priority.”

Like many criminal organizations, CJNG is a family affair. José González Valencia — the man who lived as a cattle rancher in Bolivia — is the brother-in-law of its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, who is also known as “El Mencho.”

The cartel’s rise and expansion are due largely to Los Cuinis, which according to US officials is dominated by the González Valencia family.

El Mencho’s wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, and three of her brothers, José, Gerardo, and Abigael, played a dominant role in establishing and operating Los Cuinis, with Abigael serving as “El Cuini” — the top squirrel.

In an interview with the Mexican news magazine Proceso in 2015, a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official described El Cuini as an intelligent trafficker whose diversification strategy differentiates CJNG from other cartels.

“The ‘Cuini’ focused on partnering with drug traffickers and narco-rebels of Colombia and other South American countries to sell cocaine and other drugs in Europe, without regard to the United States. That made a big difference in terms of profits earned,” he said.

“‘El Cuini’ and ‘El Mencho’ understood that there was more risk … if they were to compete with other cartels for the U.S. market,” another official told the magazine.

José González Valencia took over cartel finances after his brother Abigael was arrested in February 2015, according to the Center for Investigation and National Security, a Mexican intelligence agency. He was also allegedly responsible for providing security for the leader, El Mencho, making alliances with criminal groups in Asia and Europe, and establishing relationships with arms traffickers in the United States and Central America, Mexican newspaper La Jornada reported.

But despite his high profile, José González Valencia moved easily from Guadalajara to Bolivia, entering the country for the first time later that year. His ticket was a Mexican passport he had obtained in Guadalajara in 2013 under the name Jafett Arias Becerra.

It is unclear what he did to obtain that document, but it bought him years of freedom. In 2016, the year after he first came to Bolivia, he used it to obtain a Bolivian ID for foreigners. He was also granted a temporary stay valid for one year and applied for a second that would have been valid until March 2019.

Court records show American officials had been aware of his alias since January 2016. But according to Bolivian authorities, Interpol never issued any alerts for “Jafett Arias Becerra.”

González Valencia was finally caught in December 2017 — not in Bolivia, but in Brazil. He had flown there with a Bolivian friend, Mario Genaro Soljancic Fernandez, a vendor of veterinary products for cattle.

González Valencia was planning to meet his wife and children, who live in the United States, for a holiday in the tourist hub of Taíba on Brazil’s northeastern coast. Under Soljancic’s name, they rented a car and a seaside villa, complete with a basketball court and a small swimming pool, for 15 days.

In response to a US arrest request passed on by officials in Brasilia, police in the city of Fortaleza identified the rental car and then spent days monitoring security camera video until they found it, said Aldair da Rocha, the officer in charge of the operation. González Valencia was arrested at the stores in front of Beach Park, a nearby water park and tourist resort, on December 27, 2017. He was carrying his Bolivian ID card. Read the full fascinating wild story here from InSight. Amazing work.