 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Monday, President's Day, February 19th. I hope everybody is having a great time. A microphone is not new. It's just higher up. So it's in the shot. And I think based on advice I've received, this is how we're going to get the best sound. It places my mouth closer to the mic. And sound is, therefore, better, less. You'll hear less of the room ambience. It's not huge. It's a regular-sized microphone. It's not particularly big. So not sure what you guys are thinking. But anyway, here it is. And hopefully the sound is better, even better than it was. It was really good. And we're still working. We're working on getting even better lighting. We're working on getting a better background. We're working on some interesting lighting in the back and maybe interesting things in the back. We might move the desk closer to the bookcase. So the bookcase covers more of the screen. Anyway, we're playing around with stuff to try to make this more appealing, sound better, and in every respect, just more professional. So we are excited about that. It's, I guess, popular now and cool now to have the mic in the picture. So my attempt to take the mic out of the picture, no good, because it meant you're getting more sound reverberating from the walls this way. Again, we're closer in. Anyway, most of you don't care about that. Certainly those of you in the podcast, although those of you in the podcast benefit from better sound, certainly less so in terms of the visual. So let's just get rolling with our program today. And we'll start with Truckers for Trump. As you might have heard, on Friday, a judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million for misrepresenting his wealth in applications for loans, applications for insurance, just generally business activities. $355 million. This is even the kind of cash that it is unlikely Trump can come up with, particularly given that he's probably not as wealthy as he claims he is. This all a consequence of the fact that he is accused and found guilty of committing fraud, which involved basically lying about the value of properties to get when it came time to get mortgages and a variety of different loans. The tricky part about this ruling is that nobody lost any money around this. So the reality is it's very, very probable that Trump and his business associates in various levels lied about the value of properties and maybe lied extravagantly about the value of these properties when they went to get loans and when they went to buy insurance and things like that. That is probably all true. And that is indeed finding a fact that as Trump appeals this case, he can't appeal to it finding a fact. What Trump will appeal is the $355 million that size of a penalty. And indeed, that penalty seems ridiculously high, even to me, not a Trump fan. But I worry about the clear anti-business signal that this is sending. I mean, it wasn't just to find a $355 million. There's an interest on top of that. It's probably close to $450. And then on top of that, there's also a bunch of restrictions about who can run the companies and so on. But $355 million clearly is punitive. And it's punitive partially because Trump denied it all. And even after it was found guilty, it showed no remorse and then continued to pretend that nothing had happened, that everybody's the same. And then it treated the judge pretty harshly, harassed him and made fun of him and so on. And I think that the judge is taking it out on Trump. I think the $355 million is probably a dramatic exaggeration. I don't know what cases like this go for. That is what kind of penalties are excluded. But this seems to me, based on everything I know about corporate law and these kind of cases, exaggerated and seems to be kind of vindictive on the part of the judge. Again, no question, I think. And I think from the evidence and the judge certainty that Trump did commit fraud. But in other words, lied. Fraud is lying in a business transaction. And there was fraud. So then the question is, given that nobody lost any money, how do you determine penalties? The penalty should be given that nobody lost money. The penalty should have been significantly lower than this. It's still right, I think, to penalize for fraud, to prosecute for fraud, even though nobody's lost money, partially to deter such behavior in the person being accused and to deter such behavior in other businesses. So verdict is right. Penalty, probably way too large. I wouldn't be surprised if, on appeal, they reduce the penalty or they send it back to the court to reconsider the penalty. And this could go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has, in the past, taken cases about kind of exorbitant penalties that judges and juries have afflicted. They don't always take cases like that. So it depends on how ridiculous they think this is. But with regard to the fraud, again, I'm in no position to question the judge who has reviewed all the evidence. You have not. So a bunch of you can think, oh, yeah, no. He didn't commit fraud. How do I know? Because on MAGA News, it says he didn't commit fraud. So he must not have committed fraud. I still, on finding the facts, mostly, think the justice system does a good job. And if it doesn't do a good job or if you doubt this, at the very most, you can say is I don't know. But you certainly can't say he didn't commit fraud, because the reality is, you don't know. You don't know. All right, let's see. Yeah, so with regard to this, there are truckers. Who are saying now, these are pro-Trump truckers, who are saying that they're not driving to New York City. They're boycotting New York City. And because they are boycotting New York City, they are not going to drive in. And because they view New York City as evil, bad, because of this $350 million penalty to Trump. So this is, again, truckers, just like Scott, who don't know what they're talking about, who don't know the law. I mean, you can disagree with $350 million and still acknowledge that, at best, you don't know. And probably he did actually commit fraud. Fraud, by the way, does not require that somebody lose money. Fraud doesn't require that you don't pay your loans. Fraud requires, or proof of fraud requires, and only requires, that you lie. And clearly, there was a lot of lying going on. So yeah, truckers out there protesting. Hard to tell how big this is. It's hard to tell how significant it is. And it's a bunch of Trump-banded caps yelling about F-leftists and how much they love Trump, whether this is a large movement, whether this will actually result in any kind of slowdown in New York. Of course, this isn't the only protest others are saying. They're never going to go visit New York. Other people are saying they're not going to do business with New York. So they're going to be a bunch of different ways in which people express their frustration and express the fact that they think this is a huge injustice. And therefore, Trump should not be prosecuted and should have been found not guilty, because they're all experts in the law, and they understand the law thoroughly. All right, let's see. Truckers, of course, have every right to do what they're doing. You have every right to boycott New York if you want to boycott New York. Go for it. I think it makes a lot more sense to boycott Texas. Given Texas's Byzantine, dark ages, abortion laws, it would make a lot more sense to boycott Texas than it makes sense to boycott New York. But it doesn't make sense to boycott either one of those states at this point. But certainly, I would consider what Texas laws about abortion are 1,000 times worse than whatever Trump is facing in terms of this fraud case. All right, talking about Trump, well, two stories about Trump still. You remember after the election, there was this whole thing about the election was stolen, particularly in Georgia. And there was even a movie made. What was it, 1,000? Something about ballot box stuffing. And that was happening in Metro Atlanta area. And we know of Trump's efforts to try to overturn the elections. 2,000 mules. Thank you, Ian. 2,000 mules. And we know about Trump's attempts to pressure Georgia to overturn the results in Georgia. Anyway, as part of it, a conservative group was founded at the time called To the Vote, which basically purpose was to go out there and accumulate all the evidence and get written testimonials and get all this evidence in order to prove that the vote indeed was stolen. They relied heavily on the 2,000 mules, but then they also went out and got their own surveillance camera footage. And they interviewed people. And they got testimonials. And they got all of this together. They claimed that their investigators spoke with several individuals regarding personal knowledge, method, and organization involved in the ballot trafficking in Georgia that people admitted to personally participating and providing specific information about ballot trafficking processes. However, the group refused to share any of this information with Georgia officials. So Georgia officials basically took them to court last year and the judge ordered To the Vote to turn over names, contact information for anyone who would provide information, transcripts, recordings, witness statements, anything that could support their allegations. The group has basically come up empty-handed, nothing. And there was a December 11th that's only been revealed now. But there was a December 11th legal filing where they basically said that they made every additional reasonable effort to locate responsive items, but they have none. Nobody else says nobody is available for comments. The organization won't respond. But legally, To the Vote has provided zero zilch. And it's basically said they can't locate anything with regard to any of the proofs that they alleged. Their own attorneys responded to the judge by saying, quote, TTV has no such documents in its possessions, custody, or control. In other words, as we all already knew, it was all BS from the beginning. But there we go. We talked about last week, we talked about Alexei Navalny's murder in prison in Siberia. And of course, it took Trump three days to comment on this. But he did. Trump did comment on it. And his comment is, I think, very indicative of everything that is Donald Trump. Here is the comment. This is the only comment Donald Trump has published under Navalny's death as far as I can tell and as far as anybody else has seen. Quote, the sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country. Allow me to laugh out loud, LOL. No, it's sad. It's too bad. Putin, you shouldn't kill your opposition leaders. No, no, no. Has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country. It's a slow, steady progression with crooked, radical, left politicians, prosecutors, and judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open borders, rigged elections, and grossly unfair courtroom decisions are destroying America, where nation in decline, a failing nation, MAGA 2024. In other words, he can't comment. He can't denounce. He can't say, you know, it's wrong of Putin to have killed his opposition. No, I mean, I think it was Trump's lawyers in front of the Supreme Court who argued that, no, not the Supreme Court, in front of the Circuit Court, the Court of Appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court, it was Trump lawyers that argued that Trump could have his political rival assassinated while being president and couldn't be prosecuted for it. So I guess Trump thinks that assassinating political rivals is OK. Anyway, nothing about the debt, nothing condolences, nothing negative, you know, anything. Nothing, zero. And I tell you in a minute why. I mean, there are many reasons why. But hey, he can only think about himself. He can only turn everything into a political statement for himself. He can only use this to denounce others. Donald Trump is the definition of a narcissistic scumbag. And his response to Navalny's death is a great example of exactly that. And if I sound like Hillary Clinton, that means Hillary Clinton sounds like me. And maybe she's come around. That's good. But this is truth, absolutely truth. Now, one of the reasons Trump does not want to denounce the murder of Alexander Nevaldi is because of the rumors, the conspiracy theories circulating among make America great again networks. You can see them all over Twitter, all over the network. They might be here right on the chat. If we just wait a minute, we might get some of them ourselves. One of the rumors, maybe the one that has the most legs right now, is that CIA murdered Navalny by the direct order of President Biden. And they did so in a high security jail above the Arctic Circle in Siberia. And indeed, you can expect any day now that the entire KGB hierarchy will be fired for letting this happen. But it's a CIA operative inside the high security jail in the Arctic Circle in Siberia who actually killed Navalny. And it's all Joe Biden's fault, which is part of the course because everything bad in the world is Joe Biden's fault. Everything good in the world is Donald Trump's fault. Now, this is insane. Now, why would the CIA want to kill him? Why would Joe Biden want to kill Navalny? Ah, here is why. And you can see this in action. You don't have to speculate. You can see it because it happened immediately. As soon as Navalny's murder was announced, Joe Biden did a press conference. And in the press conference, he basically used Navalny's death to urge the House of Representatives to pass an aid bill for Ukraine. So the reason Joe Biden wanted Navalny dead was to use it as a card to kind of urge the House of Representatives to pass the treasonous aid to Ukraine. I mean, these people are nuts. They are crazy. They have no connection and no grasp of reality. Putin to them is the savior. Well, he's second in line after Trump. Those two are Jesus Christ reincarnated in terms of being saviors on Earth for all of us. Evidence? Andrew, you're so, I don't know, 19th century or evidence. Who the hell needs evidence? Evidence is so per se. Evidence is what the left does or claims to do. They claim to have evidence, but the right doesn't even claim evidence. They don't even bother to make it up. They don't need evidence. They just see a patent. Navalny dies. Joe Biden does press conference. House considering aid to Ukraine. Isn't the causal relationship obvious? It must have been Biden who assassinated Navalny. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had a press conference. That is the insanity of the modern right. This is a stupidity. I'll tell you why Navalny killed, Putin killed Navalny. Because Navalny, in spite of everything, was still a vocal voice. His popularity was not significant in terms of polls, of course. But he was the inspirational voice behind the opposition to Putin. You just look right now in Moscow. You can find these videos all over the place of the number of places where people have gone and laid flowers for Navalny. If you only had 2% of the population, these people wouldn't be doing this. And they're risking arrest by doing it. So you can pretend you can buy Russian propaganda. You can buy into it completely. You can accept it. But the reality is, why is Navalny in jail? Why was Navalny poisoned in 2020? Why has any of this happened to Navalny? Because Navalny, like him or not, is the only charismatic opposition leader who has stood up to Putin and that Putin has feared. Notice that in the Navalny murder happens only days after Tucker Carlson says, who cares about Navalny? All, all leaders kill people. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. And I can't prove this. So this is just me speculating. This isn't truth. I wouldn't be surprised if Putin said, huh, I just did the interview with Tucker Carlson. He didn't ask about Navalny. He clearly doesn't care. Americans probably just don't care. And then when he was asked directly about Navalny, he was asked directly about Navalny, then Tucker basically says, who cares? All leaders kill people. So I'll just kill Navalny and get this thorn out of my sight. Who cares? And we're rid of it. The West doesn't seem to care anyway. And put on top of that, this sanctioned me from so many different directions. What more can they do to me? And that's exactly what he did. Now, whether you went through that thought process, I don't know. But there is no doubt that Navalny was murdered. Putin's behest. This is not, you know, Putin's already tried to murder her in the past. If he was so insignificant, why is he in jail? He wouldn't be in jail if he was insignificant. Only reason, he's not just in jail, but above the Arctic circle. The second rumor, not a rumor, it's, you know, that is circulating, conspiracy is circulating, is that Navalny is really a neo-Nazi. Navalny is the Nazi. He's a nationalist. Even, unfortunately, Peter Zane, who really needs to do his research, seconded this in his video he did when Navalny was dead after Navalny was died. And the idea is that Navalny is worse than Putin. Now, this is nonsense. Which, unfortunately, has, you know, a slight basis. They can pull out a video from over 10 years ago of Navalny attending a far-right protest against Putin where he sounds off and he sounds a little nationalistic. At the time, Navalny was trying to build a coalition against Putin. He was floating with the far-right in order to build such a coalition. Just like Scott would do, Navalny was the same way. Go float with anybody who is opposed to the monster in power. He pretty much quickly figured out that this was a bad idea and has since written extensively about his views, which are not nationalist. They are not neo-Nazi. He was against the war with Ukraine. And, you know, all these, again, everybody's claiming he's pro-war with Ukraine, all of that is wrong. All of that is wrong. So Navalny is not good for doing that. He shouldn't have never floated with the far-right. But he did it. And he learned his lesson and retracted it publicly. It's available. You can find it. The proof is out there. Navalny was basically a good guy. He was a, you know, centrist, if you will. He wasn't a raging capitalist. He wasn't a raging free marketer. But he was pro-freedom, freedom of speech, basic economic freedoms, property rights. And he was opposed to a clearly illegitimate, illegitimate monstrous regime. Navalny fought, even without associating himself with the far-right, he still fought. You can fight without associating with the scum of the earth. You really can. All right, so beware of crazy conspiracy theories out there. Beware of people just making stuff up and just running with it. Beware of people who sound authoritative, but are not actually doing the research, are not actually looking at sources, are not actually looking at the evidence. There is a wonderful exchange, if you want to get to know Navalny a little bit, if anybody's interested. There's a wonderful exchange between him and a Russian dissident from the Soviet era, Natan Shiransky, who lives in Israel, who wrote a book about his experiences in a hard labor camp in Siberia. And Navalny read his book in a similar camp that he was at, and they exchanged some letters. And those letters, the two letters that Navalny wrote to Shiransky, are available online. And you get a bit of a sense of Navalny's attitude and so on, and you get a sense of what kind of a person he was. This guy is not a bad guy. He's one of the good guys. A good guy in the context of Russia. It's not somebody you would be crazy about if he was in the West. But in the context of Russia, he was fighting the evil regime. And as such, should be celebrated and I think admired. All right, what is going on here? My super chat tracker is giving me problems. We're reloading it. All right, let's see. Yes, in discussing Ukraine, let's talk a little bit about what's going on in Ukraine. Not a lot, so we'll cover it fairly quickly. But I do like to keep you up to speed on what is going on. First, Russia made a significant advance over the weekend. It took the town of, that I can't pronounce its name, of something in Donetsk province, in the east in Ukraine, the battle that has been raging for months. It's very much like Bakhmut was last year. Russia lost thousands and thousands and thousands of troops, many tanks, many armed vehicles. But in the end, its sheer numbers overtook the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians withdrew its troops from the town. And so this is the first significant advance that the Russians have made since they took Bakhmut in the spring of last year. So a big part of this, the Ukrainians are blaming on a lack of ammunition on the fact that they don't have enough shells for their artillery, and they just don't have enough equipment. They seem to have a lot of tanks, but they don't have enough shells for artillery, and they don't seem to have other forms of equipment. And for some reason, at least in this region, they don't seem to be willing to deploy the tanks. I don't know what the strategy is for the Ukrainian military right now, and that's fine. I shouldn't know the strategy. Hopefully, they have one. And hopefully, once the spring arrives, we will discover what it is. And it will be a winning strategy, but let's wait and see. By then, hopefully, they'll have the F-16s. And by then, I think the ammunition problem will have gone away. I do expect Congress to pass a Ukraine aid bill in the next few weeks. The House is working on one right now, which is bipartisan. It's different than the Senate one, but that's often the case. Then they go into conference, and they try to come up with a compromise bill. I think that's doable. So it'll be interesting to see what exactly happens, but I do think there will be some kind of Ukraine aid bill passed by the US. In the meantime, Ukraine has signed a security pact with Germany and France. The two countries are pledged, basically, to provide Ukraine whatever weapons and arms it needs, whatever equipment, artillery and shells, ammunition, in other words, that they need, they will supply. The Germans have also announced a new $1.1 billion military support package for Ukraine. This mutual defense treaty is a 10-year treaty. So the French and the Germans are committed to helping Ukraine over the next 10 years, not just for the current situation, but over the long run. So Germany will provide them with $1.1 billion military support, which includes 36 SEF propelled howitzers, 120,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, two Skynecks, a defense system, and additional missiles for the defense of a different defense system. France, too, is providing them with military aid with $1.7 billion, so they're upping $2.1 in 2024. No, I keep switching. All right, $3 billion in 2024. So double what Germany is just committed to, triple, almost, which includes, again, a whole variety of weapons systems that they will be providing the Ukrainians. So I expect that's going to make a big difference as we move into the spring. In addition, Denmark has just announced that they are basically going to send Ukraine their entire artillery stock. Everything they have, which is artillery, is going to be given to Ukraine over the next few weeks. They're giving them ammunition and artillery units. And basically, everything they have they're sending to Ukraine, I think Denmark figures, and I think it figures rightly so, that if Russia ever is on the Danish border, they're in deep, deep doo-doo. I don't think their artillery will help them. And if Russia is to be prevented from reaching Denmark's border, Ukraine better be able to stop the Russians over there. And I think that is the basis on which Denmark is providing this aid. I think that's true of Germany and it's true of France, they understand that the future peace in Europe, future peace in Europe, in other words, holding the Russians at bay basically depends on the Ukrainians holding back Russia and ultimately absorbing Ukraine into NATO, which is likely to happen at some point. And as part of that, moving the border with Russia further out east, which protects Germany and protects France even more. The best protection Germany and France have against Russia is a border that's further east from where they are. They have a direct incentive in Ukraine, winning much more so than the United States has, although so does the US because the US does not want to get involved in a war in Europe. And Russia winning would almost guarantee that the United States will get involved in a war in Europe as Russia expands into NATO, which is given every indication that it intends to do. All right, finally, a good news story from Javier Millay. Javier Millay provides us with lots of good news stories. And this one comes as a consequence of the fact that his budgetary reforms, the things that he could do without the legislature, the thing that he has done basically as a president of Argentina, have basically led already, super fast, to a nearly $600 million monthly surplus, surplus in Argentina government, something the United States has not seen since, I think, 1999, since the very last period of the Clinton administration. The United States has not seen a surplus. Well, Argentina just achieved a surplus, a budgetary surplus, not just any budgetary surplus, but a significant one, a $600 million, which is quite impressive, very impressive. It's the first surplus that Argentina has achieved since August of 2012. At the same time, the monthly inflation rate, still very high, has fallen from 25.5% to last month, or month and a half ago, to 20.6% in January. This is a huge. Argentina has now committed to running surpluses, or for sure not running deficits. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could get the same thing in the United States actually running a surplus? There were a form package that he passed that's still in parliament. There's still quibbling, arguing about the little details involved in it. And it will be interesting to see how successfully is there that needs to happen for the long-term security of the reforms. It needs to happen for the long-term viability of the Argentinian economy and for its liberation. Everything he can do from an executive order perspective, I think he will do. But it's limited. As long as he's going to respect the laws in Argentina, that is limited, just like it's limited in the United States, to actually bring about change. He is going to have to work with parliament. He is going to have to get parliament to actually embrace his agenda. And who knows how long that will take. Hopefully by the time I'm there in April, but we will see how well that goes. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the emulate address CPAC. He is so removed. He is so far away from the policies of American conservatives and people like Orban, who is going to be there at CPAC. He is so removed from them in terms of his policies. He is so committed to actual liberty, at least in markets, to actual free markets, whereas they are committed to government management of markets, government management of industry, as is Trump, as is the entire new American conservative movement. It is going to be very interesting to see how he addresses them and whether he's willing to push them, to push their buttons, to push them in maybe a direction that might make some of them a little uncomfortable. I mean, that would be great if he does it, or he might just play the game of just wanting to get their adulations and get their standing ovation. We will see. I mean, if you think about his position in Ukraine, if you think about his position in Israel, but particularly Ukraine, it is dramatically different than the position of Orban, the position of Trump, the position of many, many, many of the people who will be at CPAC. So it'll be interesting to see how he presents himself and how he is received, how he is received. All right. That covers it. Thanks. I appreciate thanks for listening. I'll be taking Super Chat questions. So we've got a bunch of questions still. So don't go anywhere. There's a lot still to cover. There's still a lot of room for additional questions, particularly if they're $20 or more. There's still some money to be raised to achieve our goal. Remember, this show is funded through contributions by people like you, and Andrew, and Clark, and Jennifer, who all contribute generously through Super Chat regularly to the show. You can join them by doing that. Or you can just do a sticker and then not ask a question, like Brian has. Thank you, Brian. And I think I saw Jonathan do it early on, and Oivind and Ryan. Yep, there was Jonathan. So and Enric just said, so thank you to all the people who do stickers. You can do $1.99, $2.99, like Enric did, or anything, any number you want as a show of appreciation and a trade of value for value. I also want to remind listeners, particularly if you are in Europe, particularly if you are in Europe, that I am doing a, actually I should make this for Americans too, I'm doing a public speaking seminar in Amsterdam the day after the INRAN conference in Amsterdam. You don't have to attend the INRAN conference to come to my workshop. You can just come to the workshop. It'll be March 11th from about 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. It'll be a small group under 10. I think I've got six already. I'm hopeful the six person will sign up. We emailed me. So we're getting close, so four slots available. It is $750. It'll be right across the street from the hotel where the conference is held if you're attending the conference, so very easy to get to. And yeah, please register soon because there is homework and I want to give you plenty of time to be able to do that homework. So that'll happen the day after the Amsterdam conference, March 11th. Also, the day after OKON, I will be doing the same thing in California, in Anaheim, or at least in Southern California. I'm not sure it'll be in Anaheim itself. It'll be, again, a public speaking workshop, 10 people max. Anybody who registers in the next few weeks, it'll be $750. It might go up to $1,000 as we get closer. I expect more registrations there because OKON is much bigger. There'll be a lot of people there. But please email me now to express interest in it so I can provide you with information and information on how to pay and thus register for it. So just drop me an email at youron at youronbookshow.com. If you want to attend a public speaking workshop after OKON, that'll be, I think it is, the 19th of June, the 19th of June in Anaheim, California. Again, not more than 10 people. And you'll get a lot of one-on-one time and a lot of attention. And yeah, it should be a lot of fun. So hopefully you will join us at that. Let's see. What else do I want to say? Yes, the Einwand Institute. Just a reminder to all of you, you can still apply for a scholarship for the Einwand conference in Austin, Texas at the end of March. You can do so at Einwand.org slash start here. Or just the web page. Do it through there, because then they know you came from the Iran Book Show. Iran Einwand.institute.org slash start here. The link is down in the description below the video. And apply for a scholarship. It's going to be phenomenal. You'll have Jason Reigns. You'll have Greg Salamieri, Tara Smith, and Ben Baer, and Delve deeply into a discussion of the world of philosophy, history of ideas, and into a real discussion of objectivist ideas. I think it's a super exciting conference. It's going to be in depth. And if you're a student or if you're just interested in studying Einwand's ideas in greater depth, apply for a scholarship. You're young. Apply for a scholarship. All expenses paid. But otherwise, just go sign up and attend. I think it's going to be a real treat. It's a real opportunity to spend quality time with these four intellectuals and four philosophers and really pick their brains about stuff that interests you. All right. Thank you. Let's jump in to the super chat. I'll remind you, you can support the show, ask questions, and also do stickers. All right. Andrew asks, do you attribute that to a sizable portion of population thinks Trump is a noble truth teller to gullibility or to rationalization? Rand once said Americans have trouble spotting evil. Not sure if that's relevant. I mean, I don't remember who's saying that, but it makes sense that she would say that. I do think Americans have a problem spotting evil. Trump is evil, and yet they have a real problem spotting that. I think it's a massive rationalization. I don't think anybody who is willing to think and willing to do a little bit of research, a little bit. Like, read a little bit about Navalny. I think what's happened, step back. And we know this. We've talked about this. American voting public has basically divided itself into tribes. There's a variety of them because there are variations on the theme, but there is the Trumpist tribe, the Make America Great Again tribe, and basically the Make America Great Again tribe has decided that all sources of media are corrupt. They're all leftists. They're all evil. You can't trust anything they say. You can't trust anything they write. They just make stuff up. And therefore, the only source of news, and I emphasize only, is the MAGA providers of pseudo-news. Pseudo-news. Because MAGA news sources don't provide news. They don't have reporters. They don't actually, they provide, you know, either conspiracy theories made up stuff or they provide interpretation of the news. And they just read that. They just consume that. They don't consume anything else. And they take it as just an act of faith. And it is an act of faith that these so-called news stories, these so-called news stories are just true. They don't lie. They have their best interest of America. And just like they've completely borne into Trump and rationalized that, they rationalize away all the falsehood that dozens and dozens and dozens of stories that are absolutely on their face false that the same news sources provide on a daily basis. I get them. So I read the headlines and they're ludicrous. 90% of them are insane and are just plain lies. And all it takes is 10 minutes research to figure that out. But they don't do the research. They buy into it. It just reinforces the whole conspiratorial way of thinking. And you see it online. Now, even there, it's divided into tribes. And right now, the issue that divides the MAGA into tribes is Israel, for example, is a big divide. There's a whole huge segment of MAGA that is pro-Israel. But then there is the Taka, what's her name, Candace Owen portion of MAGA of the conservative world. And it's not just them. It's others, you know, Twitter is filled with this. The whole other piece of it that is violently anti-Israel, borderline, in some cases like Candace Owen, not borderline at all, outright anti-Semitic. And they have their piece of the conspiratorial pie that they derive. And they have their own news sources that feed them with stuff. I just read somebody post a Taylor Swift Psyche op story comes to mind. Yeah, I just read that 35% of Republicans now believe the Taylor Swift success is a consequence of an inside government operation. And the evidence for this is exactly zero. It doesn't exist. But the reality of modern media and the reality of the way the tribal mind works is you repeat, and the left understands us because people on the left believe in nonsense as well. And the way it works is if you repeat the lie over and over and over again. And if you have many people repeating the lies, it's not just one source, but it's multiple sources repeating the lie over and over again. People just assume it's absolutely true. They don't question it. And you see this in terms of interpretations of history. You see this in economics. You see them on conspiracies on the left. You see it on the right. You see it with the Israeli Palestinian conflict in all the pro-Palestinians and just the lies that they tell about Israel. And they just repeat it. Open-air prison. They just say it a million times and everybody says, yeah, it was an open-air prison. And you show them videos of this open-air prison and you challenge them in terms of the concrete things. It doesn't matter anymore because they've accepted the lie and they can't accept any facts that challenge that because that would challenge their whole way in which they consume news, in which they consume information. And the right is just as guilty as this, as the left. And it's, you know, in social media exacerbates it, spreads it faster, makes it deeper. And it turns out that a big percentage of the world doesn't think. It just doesn't use that tool that we have as human beings, at least not when analyzing what's going on around them in politics. And surprisingly, a lot of the people don't think of smart people. But they don't want to think about politics. They just join a tribe, get the tribes news source, and just rely on that. That's it. Straight line. All right. Clark, do you find most people just take up space? I don't know that most people take up space. Most people are productive. They're working. They're doing stuff. They worse than take up space when it comes to politics and others because they constantly get involved in things they know nothing about and vote or express opinions or act on opinions that are clueless in that sense. They're destructive. But at least in their productive life, they are productive. Many of them have families and get some element of joy from their lives. But they're also quite destructive in much of what they do. So it's a massive mixed bag. But I wouldn't say take up space. It's too negative. Clark says, would graveyards not exist in a rational world? What is the point of taking up so much real estate for corpses? Will cremation be the norm in an objective world, or maybe technology will be so good we just live forever? I'm rooting for the technology being so good to live forever. If I ever, that would be nice. But it's hard to tell. I think that the nice thing about gravesites is the ability to go and remember a person, to go and put flowers on them, not because they're watching you, not because it's an opportunity for you to remember them. It's an opportunity for you to remember them. So it is, I think, valuable to family members and so on. Now, I don't want to be buried. It seems silly to me. And I can't imagine that once my immediate family is not there, anybody would ever want to care about my grave. I intend to be cremated and just put somewhere, or ashes spread across the ocean or the Mediterranean Sea, who knows, whatever. So I think it's an individual choice. It's partially part of what you do as a family and how the family wants to remember you. I will say, I've said this before, that some of the most beautiful sculpture museums in the world are graveyards where rich people in the past, in the 19th century specifically, basic and early 20th century commissions some of the great sculptors of their time to make monuments to the loved ones that they had lost. And I'm glad we have those because they're beautiful and they're touching and they mean a lot. But certainly it seems like, particularly if you're spending a lot of money on a grave site, it seems like a waste of money and a waste of effort. Jennifer says, thank you. For all you do, you're on. Mike sounds good. I'm glad. I think this should be a lot better. We'll get a lot less of the ambiance. You'll get a lot less of whatever the echo might be. There might be a little bit of an echo. You won't get that, I think, with the mic so close to me. All right. Thanks. Let's see. Just to remind you, you can still ask questions. And yeah, in particular, if we could get four $20 questions, that would be great. All right. Let's see. One person asks, if for Trump's New Year actions, just as a man is a $355 million fine, why not burn the money? Is New York State worthy of $35 million? Unlike traffic health fines, it involves another party allowing something once, then not. Yeah. I mean, I would like the state of New York to burn the $355 million. I mean, or alternatively, what the state could do is instead of burning the $355 million, what the state could do is basically reduce taxes by $355 million that year. Give a tax refund for all New Yorkers in the sum of the amount of penalties that they have received through the justice system for that year. That would be a good way to do it, right? So in a more rational world, this would be one of the ways in which the government is funded. And to the extent that the government has more revenue than it needs, which I think will always be the case, it should refund that money to the state or put it into some fund for war or something like that, some legitimate thing that the state does. By the way, there is a GoFundMe, so Scott can contribute to... There's a GoFundMe to pay the $355 million for Trump. Trump was also yesterday selling a branded sneaker. So you can buy Trump sneakers for $355. That'll help depray Trump's legal costs. So those of you who would like to help him do that, I encourage you to go and do it. Just don't tell me about it, because then I just might block you on the chat if you do. All right, Harper Campbell, was Martin Shkreli a hero like Michael Milken, or was he a legitimate criminal for government to pursue? I think he was probably somebody in between. He was certainly not a hero like Michael Milken. He didn't have Milken's personality. He wasn't doing anything that productive, and he really wasn't changing the world. Mike Milken clearly changed the world. He was an incredibly productive, innovative entrepreneur, and I don't think Shkreli, even if you don't think he was a criminal, I don't think he was doing anything that innovative or that exciting or that world-changing. Hard for me to tell whether what he did was illegal or not. It certainly seemed that way at the time that he was engaged in some illegal activity. He certainly had the personality of a kind of narcissistic personality that leads one to believe that he could very well be doing illegal things. Note that Mike Milken didn't have that personality. You barely ever heard from Mike Milken. Michael Milken almost never went on TV. He never made big announcements. He was changing the world quietly, changing American finance forever, helping make it possible for us to have fiber optics in the ground and the first cellular networks and everything else. And yet, unless you were following the news carefully, you never heard of his name and you never saw him on TV. He just didn't have this kind of ugly, narcissistic attention-grabbing, attention-needing personality that Shkreli and Trump have. They remind me to some extent of each other. And as a consequence, I think there's a big part of that. I think that personality, that kind of narcissism, leads to immoral action clearly and illegal action often. And Milken was not motivated by that. Milken was motivated by production, by the deal, by making deals, by changing the world, by making money. Making money over the long run, not over the short run. Mike Milken was one of the good guys. I don't think Martin is. Liam, it doesn't feel like we live in a post-Iranian world. No, we live in a pre-Iranian world. Iran herself said, it's earlier than you think. She wrote an essay like that in 1964. Well, it's still earlier than you think. Sadly, I would have liked it to be much later than it is, but it's still very early in human cultural evolution. James says, do you think Netanyahu is not afraid of a mentally declining Biden? That's why he's ignoring his calls for de-escalation. No, I think that Netanyahu's calculus is much simpler than that. He knows that if he gives in to Biden, his political future is over. His political career is over. And he might land up in jail as a consequence, a little similar to Trump. And so he is doing what he always thinks he does, which is he's following the path to power. And he believes that the only way he can survive politically, the only way also, if we broaden this, the only way he can solidify a legacy for himself, and he cares about legacy, he cares about history, he cares about how he's going to be remembered, the only way he can secure a legacy for himself is by, you know, actually executing on his promise to destroy Hamas. And Biden is in the way. I don't think it doesn't matter who the president was, given their atmosphere in Israel, given the attitude of the Israeli public and the Israeli people. Netanyahu or any Israeli Prime Minister is going to say no to Biden. Because if they say yes to Biden, their political career is over. I mean, literally the soldiers in Gaza will say, you're a traitor, we want to go on. And, you know, I don't think any Prime Minister wants that situation to happen. Right? So that's why he's also being very cautious. You notice that they're not in Rafa yet. They're not heading towards Rafa. They're probably, the soonest they were going to Rafa is March 10th, which is, they're giving the 20 days, 20 days are a long time. It's a long, long time. And I think again, another strategic, another mistake. But they're trying to figure out what to do with a million and a half people who live in Rafa, or not live in Rafa, who occupy Rafa right now because they have left everywhere else. They're trying to figure out how to move them out of there. And they will go in once they figured that out, and they will try to satisfy Biden in the sense of emphasizing the humanitarian aspect, trying to shield the civilian population. But they need to do it. They know this without allowing Hamas fighters to escape at the same time. Whether they can do it, how they do it, I don't know. I'm keeping track of it, and I will let you know once I figure it out or once they disclose it. But they're not going to go into Rafa until the second week in March. So we've got time. And it'll be interesting to watch Biden and Europe. And by the way, Israel is now being prosecuted at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the West Bank. Israel is under attack from every quarter. Israel is terrified of what a second administration looks like. They're very, very worried about the impact of anti-Israeli conservatives will have on Trump and the fact that Trump dislikes Netanyahu as much as he does, as much as he said he has. So there's a lot of angst around the U.S., around the elections, and whatever they do, whatever Israel does in Gaza, they want to do it quickly. They don't want it to drag into the next president, too. All right, Savanos, at the risk of sounding lazy, do you have any way of sharing your sources or desire to point others directly to information that informs your thinking? I intend to track down the Navalny info so I can use it on my Trumpist relatives. No, I mean, I don't mind, but it's just a lot of stuff from a lot of different places over many, many years. So there are a number of Russian podcasters and YouTubers that you could follow. One of them is called Vlad God. The problem is my name, Vlad something, who actually analyzed, over the weekend, analyzed Peter Zien's video on Navalny. Then there's a number of others, but you can also, you know, where can you read stuff? You know, I read or I scan, at least, the dispatch, which is right of center, anti-Trump. I read and scan Barry Weiss's stuff, I think Barry Weiss, Vlad Wexler. Vlad Wexler is very good on Putin, very good on Russia. I think very objective. He's wrong on a lot of other stuff, and he's not very good on other stuff, but he's excellent on Russia and Putin. And he's thoughtful and interesting, and he always has a cool angle to stuff, and he's very, very well educated about Russian history, really in particular about the Putin administration and what it stands for. But in terms of new, you know, Barry Weiss does good stuff, the dispatch does good stuff, and then he's got to read broadly, and if you read broadly, you basically won't find anybody who says, I don't know, the CIA killed Navalny, except crazy places. So, and you learn who the crazy places are by taking a topic, a subject you know something about and seeing what they write about it. And you go, these people are nuts, and if they're nuts on a topic I know, well, then of course they're nuts about everything else. So, and I do the same thing in The New York Times. Every time I read a story in The New York Times about economics and they get it wrong, I go, yeah, this probably means they get wrong, everything they write about. So, you have to read The New York Times and everything else really, really carefully and really, really cautiously. And you have to try to dissect what is news. Because remember, organizations like Royta's, AP, New York Times, Washington Post, some foreign news sources, they're the only ones who have reporters in the field. They're the only ones who actually bring you news. But then how do you differentiate the news, which is often just factually true, from the interpretation which is completely bizarre and nutty. And that's not easy. It's not easy and it takes a lot of effort and a lot of practice. But, yeah, then if all these stuff is all over the web, if you email me, I can try to find a few of the links and send them to you. But really, the challenge is to ask your relatives why they think he was killed by the CIA. What's their evidence? And they won't have any, zero. They'll tell you the story about Biden and trying to influence Congress. But that's just the story. I could tell lots of stories. Evidence. They have zero. The problem is the fact that they have zero evidence doesn't bother them. So you're arguing with relatives who have abandoned reason, have abandoned the need for evidence, have abandoned logic, and you're trying to argue with them with logic and reason and facts when they don't care about facts. I assume. Now maybe your relatives are better. But most Trumpist relatives don't give one iota about facts. That doodle bunny, if we take the long run big picture outlook, let's say Trump wins and the Liberty Movement is set back another 10 years. We still win in the end. Sure, but for you 10 years is nothing, but I'm 62. So for me, 10 years is whoa. That's a long time. And that's setback. And I have to live through it. So it's not just about the setback, it's I have to live through the garbage. I don't understand the emoji, Alex, around next to the Vlad Vlad's name. What is the what is the emoji? Is that an approving emoji and disapproving emoji? What is it anyway? Maybe maybe Alex will respond in the chat. Jason says working hard for DB. It seems that in most Deutsche Bank in most cases, except for Trump, the onus is on the bank to KYC comply only with what is allowed or face fines. I don't know why except for Trump. The onus is on the bank to comply. Not on the. Well, but New York has different laws. So you might want to look at state fraud laws in New York. They're much more expansive and give the state. Much more power than I think many other states and many other places do. And much more power than the than the federal government does. Yeah. Oh, know your client. I see. Know your client. Yeah. Again, New York state has different state laws and notice that was not wasn't prosecuted by a federal agency was prosecuted by state agency based on New York law. And now we could argue that New York law is wrong, not objective. That would be an interesting argument. But know your client. Does it basically say that clients are okay to lie and deceive and they're free of all criminal prosecution? That would be interesting if we took that position. That would basically say the state has no wall in fraud. It's up to the bank to catch the fraudsters and they can deal with them anyway they want or they could sue them after the fact for damages. But I am I am curious, you know, so it would be not in New York. Right. So Jason says always on the bank. It's the bank's job. Again, not in New York. This is New York law. I read the law basically is much broader than standard law. Did you see me layers trying to legalize the buying and selling of organs? Could this be a game changer? Yeah. I mean, it could if you get to past. I don't know that it'll be a game changer because I don't think it'll be adopted by anybody else. I mean, think about it. Nobody supports organ transplant organ sales. Conservatives in the U.S. don't support it. Left doesn't support it. Nobody supports it except, you know, some objectives of some libertarians. So it's it's it's he might get it in Argentina, but you won't get it anywhere else in the world. I don't think so. I don't think it's a game changer. It's great if he gets it in Argentina. That'd be amazing. And maybe in the long run, it'll cause people to consider doing this. But in a short run, it won't change anything. Gail says DW News interviewed the Valnese wife and Latvia and Latvia. Yes, I saw the interview. Yeah, I mean, the Valnese wife is convinced that Putin killed them. I mean, there's no question about it. But and the Europeans are worried. The Europeans are worried because they're worried about Putin's ambitions beyond Ukraine, particularly the Balkan states. And they're members of NATO, so you should be worried too. Michael says, is Ben Shapiro covered from a firing canvas on? I don't know. It depends on the contract she has. He might not be able to fire her without, you know, really, really extreme financial consequences. It might not be his decision. He might not own a majority of the daily wire. I just don't know. I don't know the details. You'd have to know a lot more to make an argument like that. Yeah. Notice that I care about facts. You need to know stuff in order to make evaluations. You have to actually know what's going on. Andrew says, enjoyed the show on ambition. Emotional repression can inhibit ambition. I think a significant psychological driver for ambition is that there's no limit to happiness. That's right. There's no limit to happiness indeed. But indeed to sustain happiness, one has to be ambitious. One has to continuously work to sustain and to grow and to take on, you know, to achieve more values. Yeah. Okay. So Alex likes, it looks like, yeah, Alex likes. Yeah. I think that is very good. If you're interested in Russia, if you're interested in commentary in Russia, if you're interested in commentary in Putin, I think VAD Vexler is as good as it gets out there in English. Alex also recommends Maxim Katz, who speaks in Russian, but you can get him with English subtitles. Anyway, I mean, there's plenty of sources for good information about Russia. Roland says, happy present day. Are you celebrating? No. Given who a president is and given who it's likely to be a president in the future and given who the president has been for the last 30, 40 years, hard for me to celebrate. On the other hand, and I'm working, right? I've got this. I've got meetings in a little while. I'm basically booked solid through most of the day today. You know, I've worked just like any other day. I wish I was celebrating. If I was celebrating, I would celebrate George Washington. I would celebrate Thomas Jefferson and the founders, you know, and a few of the good presidents in between, Lincoln, Cleveland, Coolidge and people like that. Frank says, this is Black History Month. African-Americans don't often discuss slavery as a violation of individual rights. Instead, they blame capitalism. What do you, what, what to do? You have to educate, educate, educate, educate. It's not an issue of black Americans. It's all Americans. They don't understand what capitalism is. And, you know, read to them, oh, Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass saw slavery as a violation of individual rights. Frederick Douglass, one of the great orders of all time, one of the great essayists, one of the great upholders of individual rights and of the abolitionists, one who completely, unequivocally understood, understood that it was all about individual rights. And it was on the basis of individual rights that ultimately there would be abolition. Daniel Beethoven's third piano concerto, Rachmaninoff's second, Rachmaninoff's second. And the third is not my favorite Beethoven. I prefer the fourth and the fifth. I think the fourth is my favorite. I love the second and third movement, funnily enough. The fifth is magnificent. The third is my third favorite. Fourth, fifth, third. That would be the order for Beethoven. And in terms of Rachmaninoff, second and third, hard to decide between them. The third is just as good as the second, I think. They're both magnificent. And whether I choose Rachmaninoff or Beethoven for piano sonatas, for piano concertos, for piano concertos will very much depend on my mood, what I'm in the mood for. How do you view the term African-American? Is it an attempt to perpetuate the link between black-skinned people with the transatlantic slave trade? Probably. I think it's wrong. I think it's bad. I think they're just Americans. I don't like the... I mean, I'm often called this really American, which I hate. It might even be my bio sometimes. And I don't like black American. I don't like Irish American. You know, in the context of where you come from, okay? But most blacks have been in America for so long, it's irrelevant. And once they start mixing with other colored-skinned people, what do you call them then? Everybody's just an American. We need to get rid of these tribal labels. It'll be really useful. I don't know why black became a bad word. It's just a description of skin color. So to me, it seems more useful than going by where they come from originally. What about the Caribbean? I guess the Caribbean has also ultimately come from Africa. All right, thank you to all the superchatters, particularly the Sivanos, who gave $50 and got us over the threshold. I really, really appreciate that. You can support the show too, like many of your fellow listeners, by going to Patreon or by going to runbrokeshow.com slash membership. You can also become a member just here on YouTube. You can, when you're listening live, do a superchat. You can, when you listen later, do an applause. There are just many, many, many, many ways to support the show. I'd appreciate it. I'd appreciate it if you participated in one of them. If you're not a subscriber to the show, please subscribe. And before you leave, if you liked, even a little bit, the show you listened to today, please just click that like button. It really, really helps with the infamous algorithm. See you all tomorrow. Bye, everybody.