 So yesterday, the CEOs of, let's see, Discord, Snap, TikTok, X, i.e. Twitter, and Metta, were all seated in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss or to be accused of, to be lectured to on big tech and online child sexual exploitation. It turns out there's a crisis of online child sexual exploitation, and according to senators, mainly Republicans, the responsibility for this exploitation and for this crisis, I didn't know there was a crisis, but they get there is. I mean, if the Senate says there's a crisis, they must be. All the CEOs of social media, and generally social media is responsible for this. I mean, you will, I guess, if you followed the Iran Book Show for a while, you know that there's nothing that infuriates me more than seeing incredibly productive, creative, innovative entrepreneurs and managers and people who actually work for a living being brought in front of Congress and lectured to by the parasites, the looters in the Senate. This is particularly offensive when those looters are Republicans and claim to stand for free enterprise and free markets and capitalism, and they come across as micromanaging central planning socialists. Yesterday was no exception. The Republican senators, and most of the clips I've seen are from Republicans, because I think they were the ones that got most passionate, you know, were pathetic, ludicrous. It was it was an ugly, ugly, ugly site. You might not like social media. Most of these social media platforms, I don't even know what they do. And I don't particularly like them. And I don't know how to use them. And so on. But they built something. They created something. They built and created something of value to people. And we know that because the real preference people use these websites, use these services, passionate. Many people are passionate about them. They add values, some of them that value is reflected in their stock price. Many people's perception of these different social media sites has more to do with their political stand than they have to do with the actual value of these things. And the reality is that most of these social media platforms are not used primarily for politics. Politics is just the entertainment. But the accusation is that these are used for child sexual exploitation and the blame for any exploitation and suicide of teenagers has to blame with the technology, with the platform itself. God forbid we should blame the exploiters or even more God forbid we should blame the parents. No, it's the entrepreneurs. It's the value creators. It's the people who create and build and make these technologies, who advance new technologies and try to make them safe. I don't think anybody on this panel, even CEOs of companies that I do not like, I don't think any of them built the companies or run the companies because they relish the idea the children are going to be exploited on them or that they are going to do harm to children. The harm that social media does to children is questionable. Put it that way. There's a lot of dispute within the scientific community about whether how much harm and whether there is any harm created by social media. I have to say that when I was growing up, we were told constantly, even though I didn't have TV until I was about nine years old. And after there was only black and white and small and only programming in the evening, I was still told that TV was destroying my mind. Certainly in the 80s and 90s as a young adult, I was told constantly that too much television was destructive when I was raising my own kids. I remember how much that was said. My mother actually told me that I read too much. I was doing too much reading. Parents constantly complain about whatever technology exists at the time. Then it was too much internet. Then it was too much video games. Now it's too much social media. Now, there's no question there is such a thing as too much of any of those things. But the panic and hysteria and the blame always go in one direction. And indeed at the end of the day, the people responsible for how their kids spend their time are not social media entrepreneurs. They're not CEOs of companies. The people responsible for how the kids spend their time and what they do online and who they interact with online are parents. I also should state that there are a lot of technologies now to help parents filter and control what their kids do. But let's not blame the parents, the parents are the victims. The real enemy is social media. The real enemy, I mean at the top of the pyramid of all enemies really of all time is Mark Zuckerberg. Everybody loves to hate Mark Zuckerberg. Everybody. He's being accused of being a monopolist. He is obviously needs to apologize to parents whose children have committed suicide because it is Facebook that is driving them towards that suicide. It is he who is responsible for the decline in our culture. He is of course a lefty. So therefore he is evil because he is left wing. And so let's go after him and slaughter him and kill him and do whatever is necessary. Disgusting. The behavior of Josh Hawley yesterday. The video is vital. You can see it is absolutely unequivocally disgusting. Ted Cruz sitting smugly next to him. Disgusting, offensive. Another senator who is the other senator went after the TikTok guy and it was funny because it was like he was channeling the old 1950s things and he was like the CEO of TikTok is in Singapore, lives in Singapore, is a Singapore native. And the questioning went, are you, have you ever been, are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? And the guy saying, no, or the Chinese Communist Party guy says, no, I live in Singapore. Do you do this and this and this? No, I actually just live in Singapore. I'm not Chinese. I'm not a Chinese. You know, I may be technically Chinese, but I'm not Chinese. It was embarrassing. And you think they've done the research and they know this. But the senator looked like a fool. So the reality is that our political culture is just horrific and it's only getting worse. I mean, it's been horrific for a long time. I mean, Howard Hughes was brought in front of Congress and treated like this after World War II, but Howard Hughes spoke back. CEOs today stay silent. They don't fight back. You get the bankers coming in during the financial crisis and lamblasted. You get the auto company CEO brought in during the financial crisis and lamblasted. And I think if I remember, they had a drive-in because, you know, there were reports that they were going to fly in on corporate private jets and everybody freaked out because they were going to fly in and spend all their money. So they drove in as if the CEO's time is not valuable. And they said nothing. Of course, they ultimately got a bailout. So a bailout that was not particularly favorable to them or shareholders, but primarily to the Union. And over and over again, Bill Gates, Microsoft executives were brought in front of Congress in the 1990s over and over and over again. And to see again, these senators who are not, in my view, that smart. Oh, it was Tom Cotton, who was the one who was questioning the CEO of TikTok and made himself look like a fool. I mean, Josh Hawley has a high IQ, but he's an idiot. Ted Cruz, I don't know how smart he is. I don't know how smart Tom Cotton is. Josh Hawley, just based on his credentials, is smart, but his mind has been polluted by Catholic fundamentalism. Anyway, another pathetic display by our senators, senators who should have more urgent business, for example, maybe solving the immigration problem, maybe voting about aid one way or the other, vote against the four, vote for against aid for Ukraine, aid for Israel, aid for Taiwan, maybe cutting spending, maybe reforming out. I mean, there are a million things I could list of things that our senators should be worried about, other than bringing in front of us the CEOs of social media companies and land-blasting them. Basically, this is virtue signaling on steroids. They don't care. I mean, if you think for one Iota, Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton or any of the Democrats on that panel, okay, one Iota, they don't. This is all about going after these generally leftist with the exception of Linda Jacuino, who's the CEO of X who might not be a lefty. Everybody is a lefty and just going after them and doing a lot of virtue signaling. It's why they're tough on these executives than the Democrats because it's all about politics. It has nothing to do with the safety of Americans and it certainly has nothing to do with protecting the individual rights of Americans. Facebook does not violate your rights. Twitter, even TikTok does not violate your rights unless you have not approved their use of information and they are stealing information and giving it to China. And if that is the case, bring a lawsuit against them. Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. This isn't the medium, this isn't the place to try them for abusing their privacy laws.