The Sad Truths About American Election 2016

 

The one constant around the world is that everywhere one hears discussions about the upcoming 2016 American elections and the talk immediately turns to the potential Presidential results and how they will either improve or ruin the plans of our leaders, nations, areas, threats, trade or economies. The truth is that trying to divine the thoughts of the American public and how they will vote for in the Presidential elections is complete folly, especially if one is using the relations between in foreign affairs as their criteria. While across the globe the United States foreign policy or lack thereof is of vital importance and in many instances potentially critical and even deadly, the American public usually cannot see any further than their wallet. Yes, there are numerous Americans who understand and even use a fair degree of foreign policy knowledge and positions of Presidential candidates, I must sadly report that when we left the United States that number decreased and even with our presence in the voting booths the people voting their wallets probably outnumbered foreign policy wonks by a thousand to one if not a hundred-thousand to one. This is why the Presidential debates only have one which presumably is advertised as pertaining to foreign policy. The truth is that most of the questions end up actually being turned inside-out, upside-down and twisted all around until it actually sets the candidates attentions to foreign situations as it pertains to the effects it might have on the budget or social programs at home. Still, the choice of who will be the next President of the United States will have a determining effect on every part of the globe; it will just be whether it will be for better or worse. So, what should we seek as far as the most preferentially positive effect generally around the globe?

 

The usual rule of thumb is that a Republican President will be more involved in foreign policy than a Democrat President. This does not necessarily mean this is preferential as it also depends on whether the Republican President has advisors and other assets which drive a thoughtful and thoroughly researched foreign policy or if they have a more seat of the pants reactionary policy. An example of the former would be President Dwight David Eisenhower who though often derogatorily called a do nothing President actually was responsible for the reconstruction of Europe and the Far East policy after the fall of Japan and much of the American ascendance after World War II all while the United States enjoyed some of its best economic growth years in its history. Another President who also did well largely due to advisors was John Fitzgerald Kennedy whose advisors were very knowledgeable and who when tested by Russian President Khrushchev over the Cuban Missile Crisis set a strong and potentially dangerous posture of no nonsense strong response that eventually led to the Soviet Union to retreat from Cuba removing their missiles. Kennedy also answered the Soviet initial success and leads in the start of the space race to set the goal as the Moon and challenged the American space industries and NASA with, “We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” On the other hand, the United States has had Presidents from both parties who were unmitigated disasters when it came to foreign policy though I will not shame any by naming them and instead allow each to choose their own examples. From the juncture where many currently observe the two Administrations under President Obama, these could easily be defined by numerous presumably traditional friends of the United States, who would, if choosing to be totally candid, would describe these as total disasters with potentially the worst yet to come. Then there are some of the worst mischief makers and oppressors or would be conquerors who likely would heap praise on President Obama’s choice to not challenge anything which might prove challenging or potentially difficult and demanding taking a principled stand.

 

So, first off, let me assure those who might be misled into believing that the Americans generally have begun to awaken and see what a disaster President Obama has been for the world as a whole, if it were somehow made possible for President Obama to run for a third term, the American public would likely reelect him and even the Jewish voters who might claim that Israel is one of their top concerns would still vote for President Obama by an easy majority likely near to sixty-five percent against thirty-five percent voting Republican. Actually, there would be a sizeable percentage of the Jewish voting public who would refuse to vote Republican and simply stay at home which is the same as voting for whichever candidate proves victorious. With this established, this fact does not bode well for the Republican Party if the American public, which is made predominantly of ‘low-information voters’ who vote pretty much as they are advised by such criteria as, my family have always voted Democrat/Republican/Whig (OK, most families who had voted for the Whig Party have moved on since then), what’s his name on Comedy Central/Saturday Night Live/the Late Show/Family Guy/South Park character, Media such as ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/CNN/PBS/MSNBC, print media, favorite personality/close friend/boss at work/union boss or whatever ridiculous source even to include Tarot Card reader’s advice, are the mainstay of the voting public which as time has passed has become more the norm. This is partly why the politicians fight over voting rules such as removing people from voter rolls through validation techniques to remove those who have moved, died or not voted in decades or the need for picture identifications, motor voter laws, and even register to vote outside the polling place and then enter and vote or permitting prisoners to vote even from death row as there is no area not pursued as a voting base that the party who thinks something is to their advantage will not use to the utmost of their ability. So, we have established that the American voting public is not necessarily the pure cerebral and reasoned public which Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, or James Madison envisioned, though probably Benjamin Franklin may have had the right attitude and worldly experience to realize how far the electorate would eventually slip. So, now what?

 

The next is choosing who will most likely be the candidate for each of the two major parties. Let us start with the Republican Party and the myriad of candidates there seeking to be the candidate chosen to represent the party in the elections in November 2016. The one thing we are assured is that the Republican candidates will mostly be breaking what President Ronald Reagan called the Eleventh Commandment, do not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans. The Republican candidates will refuse to bow out until it becomes mathematically impossible for them to win the nominations and some even then will continue just in case they can make a surge from out of the blue once the delegates are freed to vote however they choose, usually around the fifth ballot or later. With all the candidates, and a fair number of top ties candidates, it is quite likely that the Republican Party may reach its convention without any one candidate with sufficient numbers of delegates to win on the first or second ballot and there may be five candidates who are all actually closely matched in candidate count with none even remotely close to a majority or even a resounding plurality. This might lead to a lengthy and harshly fought convention which will go into the fourth day or beyond without reaching some resolution or producing a candidate. There appears now that Jeb Bush will have a loyal set of establishment delegates and the ‘movers and shakers and moneyed establishment supporting him while the Tea Party and Christian Right will be divided amongst a core of select candidates including but not limited to Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson and Scott Walker; with the likes of Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal will all have a base of support which may be sufficient to retain their hopes and finally there is Carly Fiorina who as the sole woman, might receive additional support as she is the only candidate against whom Hilary Clinton would not have the advantage of gender running to be the first American female President. The end result is whoever eventually survives the scathing attacks and fevered battle with the nomination may find themselves limping into the actual Presidential election race as damaged goods sorely injured by their own party. Oddly enough the one person who might mostly escape such infighting and scorn from their fellow Republicans might be Carly Fiorina simply because should she avoid falling prey to the gotcha media assaults most Republicans face, she could be the one without any damaged armor and slide between the barbs and arrows and prove the strongest candidate of them all and take the nomination with minimal damage and able to rally the Republican base and establishment as she belongs to neither but can make overtures to both.

 

That brings us to the Democrat Convention and the presumed coronation of Hillary Clinton as the ‘deserved one,’ the ‘chosen one.’ From the very beginning I have not believed that Hilary Clinton would survive to become the Democrat Party Presidential candidate in 2016 or ever as if she is cast aside this time it will be for good. Hillary Clinton’s most formidable and undefeatable opponent is Hillary Clinton of campaigns and offices past which will eventually make her untenable as a candidate. Her time as Secretary of State will tie her inexorably to President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy and much of the blame for President Obama’s failures will be heaped upon Hillary and she will be unable to escape this baggage. Additionally there will be the baggage from the entire Benghazi debacle, and even worse, her hearings before the Congress where the immortal words were uttered never to stop echoing in many ears where Hillary, referring to four dead Americans including two men whose heroic efforts became known making the inaction simply unacceptable and un-American and now forever tied to her stating, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” The absolute cynicism of her caustic remarks and the bald faced attempt to brush off any responsibility and to make any questions in this area as improper as that the reason for the hearings was not about those who gave their lives presumably in service of their country and for a mission which originated within the State Department, but to allow Hillary Clinton to be cleansed of any wrong-doing and to be vindicated and be lauded for striving to assure that such a situation never again presented such a deadly situation. The line of questions seeking to pinpoint blame was, in Hillary’s mind, completely out of bounds. Between Benghazi, the e-mail scandals, the missing records, scrubbed and sanitized memos and communications, Clinton Foundation contributions and influence peddling from her position as Secretary of State, foreign monies which likely were derived as payments for favors, the rise of Blumenthal communications concerning Libya where he had business interests while advising Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State as well as numerous other scandals yet to surface, and Hillary Clinton is damaged even beyond the capability for the Democrat Party to attempt to repair her to make her presentable to the public. All the baggage which has been in the mainstream news about Hillary Clinton was originally being exposed now early in the process and before she announced her intentions to run for President such that it could be labelled old news already beaten to death if brought up during the campaign by the Republican side. The problem is that there seemingly is no end to the scandals as they just keep jumping out from everywhere. As the media and Democrat operatives keep attempting to put these scandals to rest and tie up all the loose ends they run into another problem and then a scandal which follows as night follows day and there is no putting this to bed as more and more loose ends keep appearing and the Hillary apologists are beginning to become somewhat short tempered as their patience dies. In the end Hillary Clinton and former President William Jefferson Clinton will be required to hang up their hopes of returning to the White House until Chelsey is old enough which will be fairly soon, so they should get her elected to some office, governor of the state of their choosing, Maryland sounds easy as does Massachusetts.

 

So, with no Hillary as their candidate, who can the Democrats turn to as their best bet? There are a number of people which have been mentioned as potential replacements should Hillary self-destruct. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley though his having also been Mayor of Baltimore might be a slight drawback, Vice President Biden who has a history of foot-in-mouth disease but actually would be solid in foreign policy as even if a threat he made in a speech by his going off-script the adversary would never know for sure whether or not Old Joe might actually follow through. Bernie Sanders has also declared his interest and though we agree on very little I admire his forthrightness and honesty which are very admirable qualities and he can be counted on to do what he says and say what he means. Then we have Andrew Cuomo and Howard Dean who both are known for mouths beyond their control, Al Franken also has given a definite maybe which is quite comical as well as noncommittal though he and Biden debating would make for great comedy, and finally Ms. Elizabeth Warren whose credentials, or lack thereof, are equal to those of President Obama when he took up the mantle of Democrat candidate for President with a few critical differences making her worthy of a deeper look.

 

Though Senator Elizabeth Warren has claimed she is not running, this may not be left as her choice as she has a sizable supportive following without ever overtly seeking such. She is a far superior believer in the true Progressive way of which President Obama campaigned upon in his initial 2008 campaign. She is well spoken and needs little prompting from any crutches such as a teleprompter. Senator Elizabeth Warren is quick on her feet, knows what she believes and is very comfortable in stating her views unequivocally and with great passion. She is a strong supporter for individual rights though she does appear to place too much emphasis and burden upon government for protecting individuals from failure by providing a broad and sweeping system of safety nets and she does not appear to be adverse to a guaranteed minimal wage for everybody whether they be employed or not. She favors Obamacare with some modifications making it more workable, not less dependent on government as her adjustments would bring Obamacare closer to a single payer health plan than as it currently sits. Senator Elizabeth Warren is a believer in Keynesian economics where the government is the principle engine behind the economy. She also is opposed to free trade much of the time claiming instead to stand for fair trade which she has not fully explained. She is a through and through socialist progressive and like Bernie Sanders says what she means and means what she says and always sticking to that exact path. At least she would not produce any big surprises as the Democrat candidate or a President if successfully elected. Her largest area which is unfortunately untested and unknown is foreign policy. Here she would be untested and undefined and until such could be filled in she should not be taken as a serious candidate. But as I explained, foreign policy is the last and least of things on the average American’s mind so it is quite likely that with her populist political talking points and her appeal to those dependent upon government Senator Elizabeth Warren would likely gain a large popular appeal and could breeze to the Democrat nomination once Hillary Clinton realizes she had already failed and failed miserably, but it remains to be seen if she will even be willing to be dragged thus appearing to have the nomination and run in the primaries thrust upon her rather than actively sought. Though I have little in common with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s viewpoints and fear her lack of foreign policy experience or even exposure, I find that she would have little problem being elected as the next United States President, her biggest obstacle would be attaining the Democrat nomination and that is something remaining to be seen. The final note is that the next President of the United States will be the one who emerges as the victor in the Democrat nomination and only give the Republican candidate a one in three chance at winning the general election. But there is still a race to be run and we have to have the race just to prove every prognosticator to be so wrong it is embarrassing.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What the Post Ferguson Riot’s Commentaries Taught Me

 

After having the unpleasant experience of reading a small number of articles through which the reactions from numerous American Jewish rights groups officially released statements, amongst these groups included two statespersons from the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) plus spokespersons from JCPA (Jewish Council for Public Affairs) and AJWS (American Jewish World Service); the commentary from these and other rights groups were virtually interchangeable. The only addition to the Jewish rights groups’ commentary was the addition of mentioning how Jews should be more sensitive to racial injustice due to the historic injustices the Jewish people have faced over the dozens of centuries, an addition which probably was more destructive than it was informative. It is not that the Jews have not suffered from injustices since the times of slavery in Egypt to the current problems facing Jews across many European cities, on campuses throughout the world including within the United States, across the Arab and Muslim worlds, and even within the borders of Israel from terrorist groups and oft even from fellow Jews who have joined those for whom the simple existence of Jews in Israel is sufficient offense in their hearts and minds; it is that such prefacing is unnecessary and even more-so if it is being implemented in order to spur an emotional response from other Jews, as these were general statements which would be published throughout the United States and potentially beyond and as they appeared to separate the Jews from the rest of society and place within them a special ability to be the adjudicators of social justice, an ability based on offenses which the majority of Jews have never experienced, especially in the United States. But what was also a basis for most of these commentaries was the implication that there had been a miscarriage of justice by the grand jury not deciding to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown on that fateful day in Ferguson, Missouri.

 

What struck me about these virtually identical reactions to the grand jury’s verdict was not so much their refusal to even consider any of the evidence from the investigation but their ability to automatically side with the rioters cause and complaints even as they claimed that the rioting was not an appropriate answer. Then came their broadening their convictions of American society for not having actually made any real progress over the past half a century since the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 and the presumption that racism was still rampant across American society. They then went on in many cases to point to particular evidences that such racism was still prevalent which included such items as that black students are suspended or expelled from our public schools at a much higher rate than white students, a higher rate of arrests and convictions and longer jails sentences for black Americans over white Americans, and, as was stated in one commentary, “there are many other examples that show the continuing racial divide.” These cited perceptions give away the progressive liberal perspective which shapes the lens with which these rights groups view the world and how they simply accept every canard which paints American society with a broad brush of having made no progress over the last fifty years despite the glaring evidence that shows a world of change has taken place transforming American society into a virtually post-racial America. The reason these groups refuse to credit the average American and the society they collectively produce with having made any progress is because if progress has been achieved then they have less of a cause celeb with which to bludgeon the social fabric and demand continued funding in huge proportions in order to continue to collect their over bloated salaries and pontificate ponderously at great length about the ills of society which their social engineering will eventually lead the way to an enlightened society. These are the same people and the same perspective which looks across the United States and continues to believe that there has been no progress in combating pollution and feel that the air quality, water quality and the general levels of pollution are identical to what is was fifty years ago. They continue to believe that Los Angeles is smog bound, Denver sits in a brown dome of polluted air, Lake Erie is still choked with nitrates and no fish live within and the Cuyahoga River still catches fire every summer. I guess the correct concept here would be for these people to wake up and smell the roses, even on the banks of the Cuyahoga River which if it is flashing anything it is the bright sunlight through the crisp clean air sparking off the scales of the tiny fish living in that once polluted river.

 

The main realization that came over me was how these same Jewish organizations could continuously protest that they knew best how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if only those Israelis in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ruling coalition would listen to their sagely wisdoms. These were the same American Jews who agreed with one single idea from the entire eight years during President George W. Bush’s administration; and that was the idea for Israel to pull up every last single Jewish resident, every last IDF and other security forces, every single Jewish business, farm and factory from within the entirety of the Gaza Strip and turn it all over to Arab rule trusting that Mahmoud Abbas would then transform the areas freed of any Jewish influences into the Arab version of Hong Kong or Shanghai. Well, as we all know, that worked out just exactly as predicted, just not how they had predicted and instead became the Hamas run rocket launching and tunnel headquarters financed and armed by Qatar and Iran and dedicated to wiping out Israel and then murdering every Jew on the planet. Now many of these same geniuses are the ones in the fore calling for Israel to repeat this disengagement this time with Judea and Samaria so that the rest of Israel can enjoy the same horrors as Sderot and the Gaza Strip kibbutzim and towns with twenty-four/seven rockets raining down on their lives except this time the rockets will be falling on the most densely populated and industrial heartlands of Israel as well as onto Ben Gurion International Airport really giving President Obama reasons to ban all commercial flights into Israel as well as most of the world joining in on that boycott. Simply put, such an idea would be the fastest way to guarantee either the death of Israel or the final war between Israel and any Arab presence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Such a move would lead within a few short months to an us or them situation leading inexorably to a final war.

 

One might think that there would be a name for people who no matter the evidence they refuse to alter a single iota of their perfect little plan to right all the wrongs in the world. Those who constantly will point out the obvious truth which makes their presentation of these tried and failed ideas worth another go around, that being that they were not the ones entrusted with the reins of power and if they would be trusted, then this time it will work as it should in a perfect world. Never mind that their promise sounds remarkably like the promise made by those who have tried these exact same ideas before when they were the ones promising they could make it work. I think I have figured out what the appeal of making such ridiculous and absurd claims has to be; they have noted that those who made this claim before and failed just as miserably as every other attempt at righting the ills of human societies, those leaders lived extravagantly with every opulence and overindulgence imagined by man and never suffered for want of any sort and were completely removed from the squalor and degradations that they were causing. Perhaps that is their hope for getting it right, that it will be right from their viewpoint and not so much the rest of us. Whatever Pollyannish thinking they try to pass off as eternal wisdom they are selling as the solution, be it for the rioting resulting from the correct verdict reached by the Ferguson grand jury or their solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, be assured that any prudent and wise person should steer well clear of their suggestions and take a more reasoned route which has proven prudential and workable in the past rather than trust those who claim that if only we let them take charge this time all will be well. Somehow calling these people progressive is almost as absurd as when we referred to them as liberals as they are about as close to libertarian as they are to progress, true and real progress.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Netanyahu Back in Familiar Position with Coalition in the Crosshairs

As the great sage of baseball said, “It’s deja-vu all over again.” Last time that Bibi Netanyahu was Prime Minister and had a believed-to-be strong coalition, the Clinton administration forced concessions and heaped blame on the Prime Minister leaking damning reports to the press in both the United States and Israel until the coalition broke and new elections were forced. Then the Clinton political machinery sent many of its top election specialists including his pollster, Stanley Greenberg, his campaign guru, James Carville, and his image-maker, Robert Shrum. This was preceded by Secretary of State Albright blaming him for the lost chance for peace with the Palestinians. Just as was noted here, we are witnessing a repeat of that strategy and the aim was to force Prime Minister Netanyahu into a position of making excessive and unreasonable concessions to the Palestinians in the hope that they would be sufficient to force a signing of some form of treaty. The importance of this to the Democrats coming into the mid-term elections, where the polls show them losing and losing big, is immeasurable. An Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty signed on the White House lawn would be just the foreign policy victory the Obama administration could use to ride the Democrats through the November elections with even a glimmer of hope on retaining their numbers. They likely see forcing Israeli complete and total capitulation as their sole route to salvation. This is what was behind Secretary of State Kerry’s blaming of Israel for the failure and breakdown of the peace talks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he stated, “Israel didn’t release the Palestinian prisoners on the day they were supposed to be freed, and another day passed, and another day, and then another 700 settlement units were announced in Jerusalem, and ‘poof’…that was sort of the moment.”

 

When Prime Minister Netanyahu informed Secretary Kerry that to go forward with the newly demanded release of terror prisoners demanded by the Palestinians and backed by Indyk would likely bring down the governing coalition, that was the moment that Kerry and the Obama administration knew they were close to getting the new Israeli elections they need to elect an Israeli government more to their liking. This was likely part of the move to place a new face at the head of the Labor Party to play the role of American gadfly making charged statements against Netanyahu and giving press releases which could be used to undermine support for Netanyahu on the way to Israeli elections. Once the wedge has succeeded in breaking apart the current governing coalition in Israel we can expect to see the two more liberal and secular parties being wooed by Labor with some behind the scenes pressures from the United States with Labor Party Head Isaac Herzog in the role filled by Ehud Barak in 1999.

 

This is the impetus surrounding the latest mix of pressures and offers to continue the peace talks and the offer to release Jonathan Pollard to Israel in exchange for Israel releasing possibly four-hundred additional terrorist prisoners and freezing all construction in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Abbas is attempting to force even greater concessions demanding that any extension of talks would require an acceptance of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state along with calling for the satisfying the rest of the previous conditions leveled by Palestinian Authority officials. Of course all of these demands cannot be met and the likelihood is that Secretary Kerry or Martin Indyk will give assurances to Abbas that the United States will work, and possibly even guarantee, that Israel will meet all their demands. This would not be any stretch as they reportedly have already said as much in a letter the Palestinians claim was provided stating such guarantees before they entered these last negotiations.

 

This game has been played ever since the onset of the Oslo Accords with the United States pressing Israel into further and further concessions and the Palestinians steadfast in their refusal to accept anything short of the destruction of the state of Israel. Using the endless pressures placed on the Israelis by their presumed friends, the Americans, the Palestinians have pushed the Israeli position back to where they will soon be left with but one unmet demand, the acceptance of the complete right of return. We can expect that the near future the United States peace team will pressure and threaten the Israelis to accept at least a partial influx of Palestinian refugees as a compromise on the right of return. Once Israel accepts even one single refugee returning, the battle will have been lost and the wall of resistance broken. After that the only item left to debate then is the exact number that Israel must accept to prove they are not hateful and refusing to negotiate in good faith. Trust that the target number of the Palestinian leadership, and thus the United States position though such will never be admitted, will be somewhere close to five-million returning refugees. Do not get this wrong, the entirety of the Oslo process has been the complete destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the forcing of the Israeli Jews back into the statelessness of living in the Diaspora once again. This was the original intent of the British when they first chopped off seventy-eight-percent of the Mandate lands to form the Arab state of Transjordan (Jordan) and then allying with the United Nations in 1947 to attempt to cut the remaining land between the Jews and Arabs despite and contrary to their promises in the Churchill White Papers which guaranteed the British would never further allow for the division of the lands west of the Jordan River. The saving grace for the Israelis has been the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to accept anything short of the complete destruction of the Jewish State as a direct result of any negotiations, something that would be impossible to force any Israeli government to accept.

 

Thus any presumed gains reaped through negotiations could potentially be lost should Israel ever decide to annul the Oslo Accords over the refusal of the Arab Palestinian’s refusal to fulfill their obligations. This has become an even more probable option as the Palestinians making unilateral moves to gain international recognition and to declare their state independent of negotiations with the Israelis is in direct negation of the terms of the Oslo Accords. With the Palestinian refusal to accept anything short of a complete capitulation and thus the defeat through negotiations of the Jewish State of Israel, the only result is the inevitable ending of the charade of the Oslo Accords and Israeli annexation of at the very least the major Jewish settlements including East Jerusalem. This would entail granting, or at least making the offer, to as many as fifty-thousand Arab Palestinians Israeli citizenships or, minimally, resident visas permitting them to remain in their homes and farms within Israel. Such a resolution would likely be denounced and rejected by much of the rest of the world, much as the annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights has been left unrecognized. This should be of little consequence as actions of much of the world tends to display that the existence of Israel has yet to be fully accepted by much of the world, so why would anything else be any different. The only difficulty is that despite the lack of acceptance by much of the world, the Jews and Israel is and will remain to exist and will persevere against any odds. In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether or not the pressures applied and news stories leaked will once again prove sufficient to destroy a governing coalition in Israel and whether a leftist and more pliable coalition can be forthcoming with the able assistance of the current American administration should elections become necessary. This is what was accomplished in 1999 which still did not produce the complete and total surrender by the Israelis then and will not do so now.

 

Beyond the Cusp