 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 February 1st, beginning of February. Time continues to fly. Last year flew by. It looks like this year is going to be the same. All right. I know you guys want to do a poll and favorite founding father, but it takes work and I'm not sure what the point is. I am torn between, if I had a pick, I'd be torn between Thomas Jefferson. You gotta love Jefferson. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, the greatest political document in all of human history. And James Madison, who I think is the mind behind the Constitution. So those two are my favorites. But all right, let us see. Elon Musk. So in 2018, Elon Musk got a pee package from the board of directors of Tesla. And it was, I don't think it was negotiated. That is one of the issues. I think it was what Elon Musk asked for and what they gave him. Anyway, the pee package was composed of a variety of stepped options. That is, the better Tesla stock did, the more money Elon Musk would make. And the package in total, if he achieved all the goals, all the stretch goals, all the ultimate goals, the max he could make was the ridiculous, astounding figure of $56 billion. It used to be that $56 million was a lot of money, not anymore. $56 billion would be his competition. If everyone, if the stock price achieved what it needed to achieve all those options to go into the money and make him a lot of money. Anyway, it turned out that's exactly what happened. That indeed, Elon Musk got $56 billion in compensation, which is just extraordinary. I've never heard of a pee package any way close to this, nothing even similar. Anyway, a judge yesterday threw that out, basically said that the compensation package was voided, was illegitimate, and it claimed that Tesla's shareholders were basically being exploited by this pay package, and he not only voided it and it's gone, Elon Musk is going to have to return to Tesla, the company he founded, but that is owned by many, many people because it's a public company, it's traded on the stock market. He's going to have to return to the company $56 billion. Now the judge was a Delaware judge. Now, I know most people don't know this, but most corporations in the United States, certainly most large corporations, but even small corporations, I have some corporations that are registered in Delaware. Delaware is where people register their corporations and most big businesses are registered in Delaware. Delaware, the state itself, has very low taxes on pretty much everybody. It makes most of its money on the various fees associated with registering your corporation in Delaware. And the reason Delaware attracts so many businesses is because Delaware has built up a reputation over, I don't know, 50 to 100 years, I would say, being a pro management, but also pro often pro shareholder, but primarily pro management and pro board of directors, jurisdiction, that is you register your company in Delaware, therefore all lawsuits go through Delaware and judges in Delaware tend to be pro management and pro board of directors. And this has been many, many, many famous cases, corporate governance cases over the last, that I'm familiar with certainly since the 1970s, maybe even really going back to the 60s, in which the court ruled in favor of managers of board of directors often to the detriment of shareholders. And it's got that reputation, it's had that reputation for a very long time, and it's why managers and board of directors love incorporating in Delaware. Delaware has pretty strong liability protections for board of directors. It's hard to sue them. I actually did my dissertation. I did my dissertation on board of director liability. And I can't remember Delaware, I can't remember specifically Delaware, but I'm pretty sure Delaware has strong protections for, so it's hard to sue directors. Anyway, this is why so many American companies are incorporated in Delaware. Delaware has always been a business friendly, CEO friendly, board of directors friendly place. And that's why I think a lot of people are shocked by the verdict. On the other hand, this pay package is shocking. But, and one of the things that judge cited was the fact that it doesn't look like the board negotiated with Musk. I mean, one of the things the courts look at is to what extent is the board executing in their fiduciary duty. And the fiduciary duty is not just to accept the pay package that the CEO submits, but to actually negotiate and get often compensation consultants involved and so on. And it doesn't look like the board did any of that. They basically rubber stamped what Musk gave them. The pay package did go to shareholder for a shareholder vote. 70% of shareholders voted for it. Minority shareholders that lost the vote sued and asked the court to protect their minority rights. I don't know what the right decision here is. It was probably, given that 70% of shareholders voted for it, to leave it. The only victims here, if you will, are shareholders and they voted for it. So they should be allowed to do whatever they want to, whatever the hell they want to pay their CEO. But this judge did not think so. Again, a judge in a jurisdiction, a judge that is well known as generally favoring management and favoring boards that ruled against them primarily because he did not believe that the board of directors fulfilled their fiduciary responsibility in negotiating a deal with Elon Musk. Share prices gone down by 3% after our trading when this happened. Tesla shares have already been sliding recently. They've already been going down recently. In response to all of this, Elon Musk has said that he will move the state of incorporation for Tesla from Delaware. This has nothing to do with factories or personnel or offices. Everybody incorporates in Delaware has kind of hired a firm, a legal firm in Delaware, to represent them in Delaware to get the mail. But really, nobody actually does any business in Delaware. So this will not affect any business that Tesla does, but it will affect where lawsuits are filed and under what jurisdiction the board and the CEO are under, and he wants to move it to Texas, with the idea that Texas now has an even more pro board, pro management friendly legal environment. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I haven't seen the empirics on it. Again, this is the kind of stuff I actually did as an academic is look at these kind of things, but that was a long, long time ago. And so you might incorporate in Texas. It appears that he's going to hold a special shareholder meeting to vote on this and to reincorporate Tesla in Texas. How did I must decide to consider this reincorporation in Texas? The way you wanted to decide who the best, I'm giving you a hard time, but who the best funny father was, he did a poll. He did a Twitter poll. He basically went out and did a poll saying should Tesla reincorporate in Tesla and make it its home? And 80% of the people on Twitter thought it was a good idea. I'm sure they all have deep knowledge and understanding of corporate governance and corporate law. And I'm sure they did it because they were convinced it was in the best interest of Tesla and not because it's Texas. Anyway, we will see. I'm pretty sure once it comes to shareholder vote, they will move it to Texas. And of course, what will happen once that happens is Musk will renegotiate a compensation deal that I'll give him back the 56 billion that the judge wiped out and so he'll get it back. So no worries. By the way, his defense for making so much money was him making that much money is the only way or one of the only ways to guarantee that man will go to Mars. So he gave a very kind of utilitarian explanation for his salary. It's almost like an effective altruism explanation. If I make a lot of money, then I will give it a I will invest it in ways that all of humanity will benefit from by going to Mars. So that was kind of entertaining. All right. That is in the headlines everywhere and certainly all over Twitter. So yesterday, the CEOs of the CEOs of, let's see, Discord, Snap, TikTok, X, i.e. Twitter and Metta, who 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 is responsible for this. I mean, you, I guess, if you follow 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, you know, free markets and capitalism. And they come across as micromanaging central planning socialists. Yesterday was no exception. The Republican senators and most eclipse I've seen it for Republicans, because I think they were the ones who 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 review of preference, people use these websites, use these services. A passionate, many people are passionate about them. They add value to 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 their companies or run their 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 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 that, it 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 their 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 viral. 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 he was channeling the old 1950s things and it was like the CEO of the CEO of of of TikTok is in Singapore, lives in Singapore, is a Singapore native. And the questioning went, are you, have you ever been, are you, 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. You know, do you do this and this no, you know, I actually just live in Singapore. I'm not Chinese. I'm not a Chinese. You know, I might be technically Chinese, but I'm not. 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, how it's used was brought in front of Congress and treated like this after World War II. But how it's used spoke back. CEOs today stay silent. They don't fight back. You get you get the bankers coming in during the financial crisis and land blasted. You get the auto company CEO brought in during the financial crisis and land blasted. 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, you know, 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. It was the one who was questioning the CEO of TikTok and made himself look like a fool. I mean, Josh Hawley has 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, you know, 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 uh, bringing in front of us, um, the CEOs of social media companies and landblasting 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, these generally leftist with the exception of Linda, uh, 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 tougher 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, this isn't the medium. This isn't the place to try them for abusing their privacy laws. Ukraine, while the United States won't do anything, can do anything, is too impotent to do anything to support Ukraine. The European Union has just approved aid for Ukraine, $54 billion. This is, this is in spite of coming into the meeting in, I'm not sure where the meeting is in, but coming into this meeting in Europe with fear that Orban would again veto this proposal, and Orban turned around and supported it in the end. He negotiated, he cut some deals, not clear what the deal is. It's not clear what Hungary is going to get in exchange. But he basically voted for this. This bill has gone through. There is now a money to support Ukraine in terms of buying military equipment and defending itself against Russian aggression. So while the United States did this and, you know, and plays politics, and, and Trump basically shows off his commanding control, absolute commanding control over the political party that is the Republican Party, in Europe they actually get some stuff done. In this case, even Viktor Orban, surprise Viktor Orban doesn't get his marching orders from Trump or Putin, for that sake. Anyway, he voted for it and it's going through. You know, Ukraine will get some relief. Of course, the war is not going well for Ukraine. It's not going horribly, but it's not going well. It's basically at this point almost like trench warfare. It's very difficult to advance. The intelligence in the field is so good because of drones. Basically both sides have drones in the air 24-7. They can see anybody advancing anywhere and, and react. It's very difficult to advance under such conditions. The Russians are not advancing, at least not in any significant way. The Ukrainians are not advancing in any significant way. They're both stuck. They're killing each other like crazy. Yeah, it's become like almost like World War I. It is truly horrible. The, the advantage the Russians have right now that in such a passive war in which, you know, drones provide all this intelligence, having artillery and having the firepower artillery gives you is a huge advantage. Now, Ukraine had cut into that advantage with, with the purchase of American hemorrhage or the receipt of American hemorrhage. The problem is they don't have the ammunition of fire. So while the Ukrainians can max the Russians in terms of artillery, at least sophisticated artillery, they don't have enough shells. Russia ran out of shells as well, but Russia found a solution. Russia has a worthwhile ally, whereas the allies of Ukraine are kind of weak. Russia has North Korea, a country that can be turned into one big massive giant slave labor driven shell manufacturing facility. And what is happening is that the North Koreans are supplying thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of shells to the Russian army to execute. And the North Koreans can do that because again, they can deploy everything for that. They don't produce anything really of value other than weapon systems. And they're complete dictatorship. There's no challenge. There's no body to offend. There's nobody to upset. They just do whatever the hell the bloody, you know, murderous dictator tells them to do. A bloody, murderous dictator who can't wait for Donald Trump to get back into the White House and to have Donald Grovel before him. That is super exciting for him. Anyway, the battle is unbelievably tough battle. Ukraine is trying to build up its ability to build shells for artillery. And it's a wonderful, it says the Ukrainians just received the Himal compatible glide bombs today. I saw that. So they'll have a much longer range bombs. But again, the main issue is supply. So they haven't had as many now they have some but this is again the very end of what the United States can supply them without another package out of Congress. So somehow now twice, it looks like you, the you and NATO are going to overcome Orban, you know, objections and get stuff done in spite of Orban, which is great news because Orban is a very, very bad guy. All right, let's see. Oh, me lay, quick me lay update. So, you know, it's all mixed when it comes to me lay in the sense of what he can get through a bunch of the things that he wanted to pass some of the the the spending cuts. And actually some of the tax cuts, he is not being able to get through parliament. Parliament is resisting and have been taken off the table. Some of the privatization that he wanted to do Congress will not let it pass. You I think we talked about in the past, the fact that the courts have hung up, have held up the deregulation of the labor market, which is a very, very, very crucial part of his program. So he's struggling internally to get enough passed to get everything passed. The IMF, the International Monetary Fund has come to the conclusion though that me lay is doing enough to justify them providing another tranche of of the debt that has been promised to Argentina over time, but it's always conditioned on how the macroeconomic changes heading. They've approved a $4.7 billion disbursement to the government of Argentina. This is part of a $44 billion program that Argentina negotiated with the IMF way back. But there was a lot of uncertainty about whether they would get it or not. The previous government wouldn't have got it. But I think the economists at the IMF, while they're not pro-free markets, do recognize that Argentina is doing stuff to balance their budget and actually have a surplus. It does look like this year they will have a primary surplus of 2% of gross domestic product in their budget, which is pretty amazing. On top of that, the IMF wants Argentina to boost the net fund, reserves the $10 billion a year. By year end, I think they seem to think that that is possible for Argentina to do that. So the IMF seems confident that Argentina is doing the right thing. Now, the IMF are pretty conventional when it comes to economics, so I don't want us to rely too much on them. But let's hope Millay is really the one in charge. He did meet with the IMF's number two. Well, no, he met with the IMF people at the World Economic Forum when he was there. I mean, we saw his amazing speech. But what was really going on was going on in the background that was actually going on in the background with the meetings. And Millay was meeting the IMF Managing Director and others. And IMF seems happy with Millay. So far, they seem happy with him. So I think that's good for Argentina because for now, in the short run, they need IMF. Hopefully, in the long run, they'll never need IMF again, and they will be able to reform their economy in ways that never put them in a position to rely on IMF in any way ever again. All right, let's see. Yeah, finally, on the Good News front, we have Vertex Pharmaceuticals, you know, one of those evil pharmaceutical companies that everybody loves to hate. Most people in the left and the right love to hate. The most evil industry, according to Candace Owen. Vertex Pharmaceuticals just announced that they have developed a medicine that can address moderate to severe acute pain. This is real pain. Pain that an Advil or Tylenol or will not help you. Or an Aspen will not help you with. The kind of pain that is typically you get opioids for because they can reduce it. Anyway, they now have immune medicine that can address these pain by a completely new original path. It's a medicine that blocks, right, an experimental drug that blocks the pain signals before they can get to the brain. It works only on the peripheral nerves, those outside the brain and the spinal cord. So it's completely unlike opioids. So it's not affecting the brain itself. This drug has the potential basically to replace opioids. And it is not addictive, right, because it doesn't affect the brain. This is super exciting. They've just completed two end of my studies. The first in 1100 people that had some bad disease. And another thousand people who had bunion surgery. The two procedures are commonly used in studies of people with acute pain because they generate acute pain. And it looks like they worked. That is, you know, patients rated their pain significantly lower after using these drugs, as compared, I guess, to a sample of patients that did not use the drug. So this is great. Great news. Again, more advancements in medicine to look forward to. And I expect you'll see a lot of other medicines like this. And I would argue that a lot of the opioid crisis, a lot of the reliance in medicine today on opioids as the main drug against pain, against pain is the fact that the FDA has made it so difficult, so expensive to develop new drugs to deal with pain. And that has reduced the incentives to do so. And as a consequence, the consequence is this, the consequence is the use of opioids and the fact that for so many years, so many people have gotten addicted to those opioids for no reason. Now it looks like we'll have an alternative. And that is super exciting, just on the same kind of theme of breakthroughs in medicine. This is consistent with other stories I've been talking about. CRISPR now has been used to treat in a very dangerous inflammatory condition. And this is the thing that struck me in terms of the success rate. Nine out of 10 people who received this CRISPR treatment, CRISPR is it goes in, it's a molecule that goes in, basically changes your DNA. It either replaces a gene or clips out a gene that is causing this disease. Anyway, nine out of 10 people who got the CRISPR based treatment for potentially life-threatening inflammatory condition have been cured. That's stunning. A nine out of 10 cure rate is stunning. It's stunning in medicine. So I mean, again, any one of these diseases is not going to affect you. It's unlikely to affect you. These are relatively rare diseases. However, the ability to use CRISPR on more and more and more of these genetic diseases ultimately will affect all of our lives, ultimately will lead to treatments that will cure diseases that we will be infected with and treatments that will ultimately dramatically extend both the duration and the quality of human life. So this is super, super exciting. All right. That's all I had for today. Let's jump into the super chat questions. We're a little behind on those. So if you'd like to ask a question, please jump in with one. $20 above get priority. Of course, this is the way we fund the show, at least from most live people. You can also support the show on a monthly basis by through Patreon or youronbookshow.com slash membership, which is PayPal. All right. Let's jump in with Clark. All right, Clark Young. All right. Do you think many bad evil people can't escape their hate? They don't know how. Yeah. I think certainly some of them don't know how, but some of them are just getting help, and they never give themselves the opportunity to learn how. And I think a lot of them don't want to escape it. They've accepted it. They want to live with it. They relish it. There's a certain sense, not a deep sense, but a certain sense they enjoy it. And you see that. I mean, fortunately, I think we're living in a culture of fear and anger, and you know, not necessarily bad or evil people, but it's, and people don't want to treat it because they relish the fact that they're angry. And I think that's true of bad and even people. They at some point relish it. So many of them don't want to change, and the ones who do want to change might not know how to, but they also avoid seeking out the help. And by avoiding seeking out the help, it means it's their responsibility that they're not getting the help. It's their responsibility that they're not indeed changing. Liam says, why can't you contact Lex to try and get on his show to discuss Israel with debate, Darth Finkelstein? Lex clearly really likes and respects you. Were you able to speak with him privately after you're talking to Austin? No, I mean, I didn't even see him there. He kind of snuck in and snuck out. I don't think he wanted to draw attention. He didn't want to draw my attention. You know, I've emailed Lex. I sent him an email about the debate. I haven't heard anything from him. I have no way to reach Lex unless he responds to my connection. So I like Lex. He's great, but he's busy. And I'm small fish in a very, very large lake that he engages in. Maybe he'll still reach out to me. Maybe he will still do a show. Maybe not. I'm not sitting here waiting. And I don't expect it, unfortunately. And he came to my talk. He saw what I have to say. And he decided, for now, at least, at least for this round, that he's not interested in having me on it. There's nothing more I can do about that. And again, if he's not going to respond to my email, there's nothing really I can do more than that. Let's see. We got some stickers. We got Shelly for 20. Thank you, Shelly. We got Mary Aileen for $4.99. We got Adi F for $2. And we got Stephen Harper for $5. Yeah, I mean, yeah. What is it? What should we do? A $2.99 thing? A $1.99 thing? A $5.99 thing? You can just do a stick up, support the show and help us get closer to the goal, which would be fantastic. Michael, when are you doing the rest of the song reviews? I've got two movie reviews, like 20 song reviews. I don't know exactly when I'll start next week. On Saturday, we've got an AMA. So I won't do them during the AMA. On tomorrow, there's only today and tomorrow, there's only a news roundup. I don't do these on the news roundup. So my guess is I'll try to do some Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday next week, or whenever I happen to have shows next week. But that's when I'll start chipping away at these during that period. Mary Aileen, the idea that politicians should do something is the root of many evils. Social media is none of their business. I agree. I mean, almost everything they deal with is none of their business. Almost anything, everything they deal with, is none of their business. So it just drives me nuts when I see it, because it's in your face when they bring them in front of Congress. But really, there's so many things they should do basically getting out of our business. They should unwind their involvement in our business. And it seems that all they do, left and right, is involve themselves more in our business. The country's not heading in the right direction. It doesn't matter who wins the presidency. We're in decline as a nation, as a military power, as a political power, and as a free country. We're in decline. All right, friend Harper did 999. Thank you, friend. Yes, if we do a few 999s, 13 of them, 115 people watching, we will, 10% of you just do 999. We get to our target. That's pretty cool. All right, Christian, you said some days ago the telepathy is amazing. I thought so as well, first, but I heard today all the monkeys died. So it is still not too dangerous for human being to get that implant. I am suspicious about the idea that all the monkeys died. I mean, I'll have to go and research it. But the reality is, I mean, the two things that are reality, the FDA approved this. I'm not a big fan of the FDA. But if really it was that dangerous, I don't think the FDA would have approved it. But with no FDA, this guy volunteered to do it, right? This was a volunteer. They didn't just implant it in some brand of person. They must have told him about the risks. He must have looked at what was going on. And he chose to have this implanted. So I'm assuming because he volunteered, and I'm assuming because the FDA approved it, that they must, they have given some reason, some reason why they think this is safe. So we will see. Spymann 3000, why didn't you completely back Nikki Haley at the outset? She wasn't still as the only candidate. I don't see how being soft on DeSantis when he is as unacceptable as he is makes sense. I was fully supportive of Nikki Haley from in 2016. I've been supportive of Nikki Haley since 2016. I thought Nikki Haley was the best candidate that the Republicans could put out there since the 2016 election. I wanted her to run in 2016. And she didn't, unfortunately. In this election, I backed her completely. The only thing I really said about DeSantis was that I find it absurd that the Republican Party, if they think those thoughts don't elect him rather than Trump. I mean, I didn't want him elected. I don't want him to be president. I've always preferred Nikki Haley over DeSantis from the beginning, right? And supported her as such, not that my support makes any difference. The only thing is in a choice between DeSantis and Trump, the reality that the Republican Party chooses Trump tells you that the Republican Party is basically now become this cult that worships an individual. And it's not about the ideas. It's not about getting stuff done. DeSantis was much more effective about getting stuff done than Trump was, even though he didn't like what he got done in many cases. So it's, you know, it is, no, but I've always supported Nikki Haley above DeSantis. Always. You'll be shocked. But even, you know, last time I saw Lenny Pekov, I told him why I thought Nikki Haley should be the nominee and, you know, we discussed that. So yeah, I mean, I'm all in on Nikki. I still think she should be. Again, I have some caveats, but I have caveats about everybody. But given who's out there, I would take her in a heartbeat over everybody else. All right, string about 100 bucks. Hello, Iran. Please do a review of Loris Almatidema's painting The Discourse. Wow. We have somebody who's put in a review of a painting. Didn't even ask how much money to put in. We've never done a review of a painting, I don't think, at a request of anybody, but we can slowly do that. I'm a huge Almatidema fan. So this is great. I think I know which one is The Discourse, but I will look it up and absolutely for 100 bucks, I will do that. So thank you, Stringer Bell. Again, there's a line in terms of my reviews. I've got a lot of songs and two movies still to get through. But yes, I will do this. So thank you, Stringer. Thank you for the support. Really, really appreciate it. Thanks all the support over the months. And this is great. Thanks for orienting us towards reviewing paintings. That's going to be fun. Richard, why does American culture obsess over the drama and conflict of politics rather than governance that affects their lives? Because I think they view it as sport. I think in America in particular, maybe because it's a two-party system, so it's clear and you belong to one tribe. It becomes sports, who you're for, who you're against. Tribal alliances, tribal relationships. And it's suspenseful and it's exciting and election-like. I mean, we treat it as a sport. We have semifinals and quarterfinals and right now it's semifinals of the Republican Party. And then that's a semi-fight. Then you have two finalists and they go at it. And we love competition. We love sport. We love stuff like that, though. Now Republicans turns out don't like football. I talked about that last night. They don't like football. Football is a big conspiracy theory by the left to destroy your mind and your children's mind and to make you into leftist drones. That's what they claim. I think that's... I don't know why they like the drama. America used to not care about politics. The bigger government becomes, in other words, the more intrusive government becomes, the more people care about it because the more it affects their lives. And then the more it becomes theatrical. And now it's just theater. Now it's just theater. I mean, what's going on with the border and the bill in Congress? It's just theater. It has nothing to do with principles, ideas, solutions, zero, zilch, nada. It's just about the tribalism and the theater of it. All right, guys, we're just five dollars away from meeting our goal. We want to start February off by meeting our goal. So five bucks away. Somebody can do $4.99 and get us there. Andrew asked, what do you infer about Trump from John Bolton's remark that he is susceptible to deciding policy based on whoever is the last person to talk to him? I mean, I said that the other day in analyzing Trump. I said he has no ideas. There is no content. And therefore he is completely manipulative, can be manipulated easily by the last person to talk to him. So Bolton talks to him. He has a particular opinion. Then he gets on a phone call with Erdogan, the president of Turkey and the president of Turkey says something that contradicts Bolton and Trump says, yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm with Erdogan. I love Erdogan. Erdogan is America first, mega fantastic. Let's go with Erdogan. And even if that means selling out, you can't think. You've got a human being. And this is part of why politics has become like a sport is we have people running for president who have been president, who cannot think. They can't contemplate an abstract thought. They're completely and utterly manipulable. They are completely utter pragmatists. Do you think Biden can think? I mean, the guys, you know, can barely speak, never mind think. We've got at the head of both political parties now, people who cannot form a thought. And Trump in particular never has been able to. He's, you know, he's got, he's a perceptual level mentality. That's it. And if you throw something interesting at him, oh, oh, that's interesting. I'm, yeah, I think I'm for that. And then somebody else steps in and said, oh, but what about this? Oh, I'm for that too. I really like that. I mean, I know that kind of person and he's, he can't. Again, you have to read the missing link, Ein Rans essay, the missing link, and you'll see Trump all over the missing link. He is, it's a, you know, the conceptual faculty is a great achievement. And she when many of our politicians have not achieved certainly, and Trump is certainly one of the people who have not achieved it. So that, that it's to me. I think, I think John Bolton's criticism of Trump is, is very, very interesting. It's, it's, it's, it's strike, you know, it sounds completely true. Trump is like a modern Plato. No, Plato is like a gazillion times smarter, more interesting, more principled. I mean, Trump is a nothing. He's a complete pragmatist. And in that sense intellectually, he's a nothing. No, I'm not caricaturing him. He is, he is a, he is everything I've said he is. He is an empty vessel. And I said this a few days ago before Bolton said it, he is, he believes in literally nothing, except what will give him the appearance of being liked. He is a absolute psychologically and in every respect, a narcissist. He is the kind of mentality that should never be present of the United States and have access to a button that could destroy the entire globe. And I think John Bolton was skeptical about Trump before, but then when he hung out with him for as much time as he did, and with as much knowledge as John Bolton has in foreign policy, he knows. And the fact that somebody like John Bolton, who really knows Trump and knows the world, I mean, yeah. And Scott has the same kind of perceptual level mentality. I mean, it's so concrete bound. It's so, I mean, it's pathetic. So his response is he didn't need to move the embassy to Jerusalem. That was a thought. A thought implanted in him by somebody, not an original thought to him and not he didn't. And that's the concrete that that's the argument against. God, concrete bound mentality. Scott, you should read the missing link. I think it describes you. All right. I find it astounding. I really find it astounding. It's not that I'm picking a Scott. It's because Scott represents a lot of people, a lot of people. And it's astounding that this is the level that they are at. Right? Yeah. Nobody said, nobody said they don't decide stuff. They don't do stuff. It's a question of what the process they go through in order to do it. A pragmatic process of listening and being manipulated by the people around them. Sometimes the people around them manipulate them in a good direction. Sometimes they're manipulated in a bad direction, but they have no content of their own. All right. How can you say Trump is dumb? He is a brute and he's no intellect, but you can't get to where he is in the world without, with, by having a low IQ. I do not think he has a high IQ. I do not. I don't know. You know, I don't, I don't know my IQ. I certainly don't know Trump's IQ. I do not think he has a high IQ. And certainly not his mental capability right now. I don't think you'd be happy if he did an IQ test. I don't think where he's gotten in life necessitated high IQ and necessitated the, what they call emotional intelligence. It necessitated the ability to manipulate people and to get a sense from them what they wanted and, and, and, and basically pleasing them in those kind of ways. It's a, it's a, it's a manipulative kind of attitude, which I don't think requires a high IQ. I don't think so. Now maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he does have a high IQ, but he doesn't strike me as somebody who has. And I, and ever, I've never thought highly, I've always thought pretty lowly of Trump. Never impressed me in anything he did. Have you tried Joe Rogan lately? No, no. The worst thing you do is for me to bug him. You guys should try Joe Rogan. You guys should call him and, and, and not call him, tweet him and email him and ask him to have me on. He'll listen to you. He won't listen to me. Spiderman 3000. I guess I was seeing a soft equivalence being drawn. You were less adamant in your support of her than opposing Trump. And I don't think DS is meaningfully different, borrowing and auxiliary party implications. No, I, I think DS is significantly different in many respects might be worse than Trump because he, because I think, I think, I think he's smart. I mean, that's a big difference. I think the Santas is smart. I think the Santas is effective, efficacious. I think also the Santas is, has ideas. I think he thinks himself. It all makes him dangerous, but I think he's completely different than Trump. My focus is anti-Trump. Yeah, my focus is not Trump. That is my focus. And I've always said of all the candidates I support, Nikki Haley, but my focus is anti-Trump because I don't want it just to be in the primary. I want Trump to lose in every thing that he can lose. You know, I think he's a bad human being. He's a bad human being. He's a brute. He's a horrible human being. And I want him to lose. I think that is what justice demands. The world is not just, unfortunately, so he might ultimately win. Rafael, I'm an object, I'm an object of this world. In an object of this world. God, I can't read. In an object of this world, let's say I get someone pregnant, but I don't want to have the child. I'm willing to cover the abortion cost. If she declines, am I obligated to support the child? I think so. I mean, I'm open to being convinced otherwise, but I think so. You know, if you're really, well, maybe not, if you're really willing to cover the cost of the abortion and you encourage that, and then no, I don't think you are. I don't think you are. I think if she chooses to have the child and you do not want to have the child, I think you can walk away. You're not obligated. And you should, you know, that should be part of the exchange, right? It's her choice. It's not your choice. And whether to have an abortion or not, you can't force her. But if she chooses to keep the child, that's her choice, not yours. And you are not obligated. You're not obligated. So, change my mind there in the middle. But no, I don't think you're responsible. Morally or legally. I mean, morally or legally. The quality is that I don't think men should be burdened with the idea that I have sex with a woman. She might, by the way, deceive me about using contraception. Who knows? She gets pregnant, she won't have an abortion, and I'm stuck paying the bills forever. Or we just had one night stand and consensual and everything, and whatever happened, and she got pregnant, and now I'm stuck with it. You know, I don't buy it. Again, that's why I'm so poor abortion is so that you have it out. You don't have to have a child if you don't want one. And if she chooses and you don't want it, and you will need to pay for the abortion or all of that, then you should be able to walk away from it. All right. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. I appreciate the support. I appreciate that we made our target. I will see you all tomorrow. I think tomorrow is early. Tomorrow might be 11am East Coast time because I've got a dentist appointment at like one o'clock. So we'll do it early tomorrow. And then on Saturday, we've got the AMA that asked me anything with the panel, $25 supporters and above. Make sure you got the email if you didn't let Angelo and me know and we can update you with the Zoom link. I will see you all tomorrow. Bye, everybody. Have a great rest of your week.