 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to The Iran Book Show on this Wednesday evening. Hope everybody's having a great week so far. And I'm ready for another episode of The Iran Book Show today, to yesterday, to Monday. It's been a busy week. All right, hopefully everybody is on. Yeah, that's better. All right, so we've got, yeah, let's just jump in. Taylor Swift. Who ever thought you would hear about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey? Let's not forget Travis on The Iran Book Show. I mean, this is very unusual. I have to admit that my knowledge of Taylor Swift is primarily of her business success. I'm not familiar with her music. I doubt that I would like her music. But I'm just not familiar with it. I probably heard it. It's probably everywhere, right? So I probably heard it at some point, some way, some way. I've seen pictures of her in costume and just pictures of her, because she's everywhere. You can't not see Taylor Swift if you're in this world, in reading the media or on Twitter or any way, really. She is everywhere. And she's a billionaire. She's the biggest thing in music from a financial perspective, possibly ever. Her tour, which is global, is sold out everywhere. It's on a scale of no tour that's ever been before. I mean, there was Beatlemania. But this is on a completely different level where Taylor Swift is achieving what she's doing from a business and entertainment perspective. She is the biggest musician, artist, however you want to call it, in the world today, the richest. It's not just that she albums sell. She's had, I don't know what the numbers are, huge number of albums at the top of the list, huge number of songs at the top of every list of songs, titanium albums, whatever they call them these days. She's had it. She is this jaw-dropping success. It's hard to imagine. I mean, she's bigger than Madonna ever was. She's bigger than, I don't know, Beyonce or any of the modern singers out there, exactly what made her so successful we'll get to in a minute. But she's huge. And there's nobody as big as her in the world today. And what complicates the story, of course, I don't know what to make of the story. This is the funny, stupid, ridiculous, idiotic. But it's the story. So we covered here at Nirvana Book Show. And I think it does reveal something really sad about American politics. But anyway, she is dating Travis Kelsey. Travis Kelsey is the, what is he? He plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. He is a god, I forget the name of the position. Anyway, he is on the tight end, thank you, is a tight end on the Kansas City Chiefs. He's one of the great tight ends from what I've read, one of the great tight ends in NFL history. He has won, I think, two Super Bowls already and is in the Super Bowl coming up. So you've got, there's Travis Kelsey in the Super Bowl. You've got his girlfriend, the biggest star on the planet. Literally, she will be flying in from Singapore, I think, on a private jet. And only because she'll basically be doing a show and watching the Super Bowl in the same day. But since she's traveling over the date line, it won't be the same day. But technically, it'll be the same day. And she's going to be there in the stands. And this has brought a whole new generation of new football fans to football. Because all the girls who adore Taylor Swift, they call it Swifties, are going to be watching the game and watching Taylor and Kelsey. It's kind of this romantic fairy tale. He's a good-looking football player. He's younger than she is, I'm pretty sure. We'll get to that too in a little while, kind of the insanity of the whole thing. But anyway, you'd think this is just OK, an all-American story. Incredibly successful entertainer. Makes a billion dollars, is one of the richest people in the planet. And people love her and adore her. And they buy her merchandise. They buy everything she touches. It's one of those stories that you hear about in America constantly. But she's just taking it into a new dimension. It just doesn't be more successful than anybody else. And supposedly, we love success in this country, particularly conservatives claim they love success. In this country, they love entrepreneurs. She's definitely an entrepreneur. She's done something few people have done before. And yeah, I mean, this is a fantastic story, which we should all be happy for. And then we've got one of the best football players in America. Again, football, after all, is the American sport. Nobody else really plays football. It's the sport of the working class. It is the sport of Sunday, sitting on the sofa, watching the game. Everybody, who in America doesn't love football? I mean, football is America. And you've got one of the great football players, maybe of all time, certainly in his position, falling in love with one of the most successful entertainers in all of history. She's a billionaire. He's only worth probably tens of millions of dollars. So that is a little bit of a world reversal in terms of gender. But there you go. You think everybody would be crazy about this. Ultimately, Taylor Swift is a woman. She dresses sexy. People, the girls who go to performances dress like women. She's not trans. She's not pretending to be something she's not. She's not confused. She's not psychologically problematic. She's a good old woman who's pretty sexy. And she has adoring fans who are mostly young women who, I think, and here it is. She's a model of entrepreneurship and capitalism and making money and being successful. But girls go to a contest dressed like girls. You think, you think. People would be excited about this, particularly, again, conservatives, would be excited about this phenomenon. She has a weakness. Everybody has a weakness. She has a weakness, after all. Human beings do have original sun. And her weakness is that in 2020, she endorsed Biden. And here is where it gets pretty crazy, right? She endorsed Biden. She's not a crazy lefty. She's left. But she doesn't act left. She's obviously acting capitalist. She endorsed Biden. That is unacceptable. That cannot be tolerated. And so over the last few weeks, the Make America Great Again universe has gone apoplectic over Taylor Swift. She is a, we'll talk about what she is, but let me just give you a few examples, right? I mean, first of all, it's clear. Mike Crispy, a congressional candidate who lost, luckily, Mike Crispy tweets, the NFL is totally rigged for Kansas City Chiefs. Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer, we'll get to Mr. Pfizer, Travis Kelsey, all to spread democratic propaganda. Calling it now, KC wins, goes to Super Bowl. This is just before the previous game that led to the Super Bowl. Swift comes out at the halftime show and endorses Joe Biden and Kelsey at midfield. It's all about, it's all been an up since day one. Now, Travis Kelsey, they hate Travis Kelsey. I mean, he's an all-American football player. He's like, you know, solid. He's the real thing, good-looking white guy, playing football, making money, being successful, winning Super Bowls. Again, you think that he was, he'd be adored. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, why? He actually participated in an advertising campaign to encourage people to get, God forbid, I mean, this is like the devil, but to get vaccinated. He actually participated in a campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated. And therefore, he is part of the evil whatever, fill in the blank. He is the agent of the devil. He also, by the way, and this is hard. I don't know how you want to evaluate him, but he also made a commercial, right? Made a commercial for Bud Light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to get into the discussion of vaccines. Vaccines are science. Anybody who doubts the vaccines and the data is ignorant at best, but probably not just ignorant. He's probably a lot worse than that. Evan Rogers is just a mindless idiot. I mean, he's a good quarterback. He's a great quarterback. But when it comes to pretty much everything else, he's a mindless idiot. And the fact that he has Atlas Shrugged in the back doesn't redeem him from the fact that he's not that smart when it comes to anything other than football. But that's OK. You guys go along with the vaccine mythology of the right. This is Vivek. Vivek writes tweets. Vivek is trying to stay relevant, of course. Tweets, I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from artificially, culturally propped up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here. Let's see how it ages over the next eight months. So Vivek is now playing into this idea, oh, it's all rigged. This is all just a democratic conspiracy to win the Super Bowl and use it as a platform for advertising Joe Biden as president. I mean, Joe Biden campaign is pretty sophisticated. You've got to admit it. Unbelievable sophistication. Here is Lara Luma. Lara Luma is a complete loon, although Scott probably likes her. But Lara Luma says, the Democrats, Taylor Swift election interference psych off up is happening in the open. It's not a coincidence that current and former Biden administration officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. They're going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion Go TV campaign. What do you say about this? It gets loonier and loonier, but this is loony stuff. I don't know. Fox is pretty bad, but you'd think that Fox maybe would be somewhat sanity, a little bit of sanity, maybe not completely nuts in the Republican world. But again, Taylor Swift, by all accounts, self-made woman, self-made, unbelievable success. But Republicans can't accept that somebody is a self-made, unbelievable success and still supports Joe Biden. So here is Jesse Waters' explanation for what is going on with Taylor Swift, because it just can't be. It can't be that somebody endorses Biden and then goes on and becomes a billionaire and even dates a football player who happens to be in the Super Bowl. Something very suspicious is going on here, people. Wake up. Wake up. The world is being taken over. Here is Jesse Waters, who is just a straight up Fox guy. Well, Taylor Swift's the biggest star in the world. Sorry, Gutfeld. She's been blanketed across the sports media entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated she's a lesbian. And last year's tour broke Ticketmaster. New York Times just speculated she's a lesbian. Why is that relevant in this context? Is that just a slam against her? The fact that she's a lesbian makes a bad in some way, probably. This is Fox after all. And so here we go. She's a lesbian, maybe. Maybe she's a lesbian, so that just reinforces the idea that her affair with Kelsey is all propped up. It's not real. It's all pretend. A tour that's revenue tops the GDP of 50 countries. I mean, I like her music. She's all right. But I mean, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this? Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit floated, turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A PSYOP for combating online misinformation. Listen. Can you believe this? So she's a PSYOP. For combating online information, she blew up because the Pentagon wanted her to blow up. They have been propping her up. They made it possible. I mean, this is Fox. This is not some crazy channel. We'll get to the crazy channel in a minute. This is Fox. Now, here's the presentation from the Pentagon. This is a presentation at some conference. Public conference, by the way. Public conference, not some secret, hidden away operation. Notice the woman making the presentation. She can barely speak. But this is the Pentagon's secret operation to take over America by using Taylor Swift as a PSYOP. You came in here wanting to understand how you just go out there and counter information operation. The idea is that social influence can help encourage or promote behavior change, so potentially as a peaceful information operation. I include Taylor Swift in here because she's a fairly influential online person. I don't know if you're part of her. Yeah, that's real. Yeah, it's real. But she's like a kid. She can barely speak. This is a high-level Pentagon operation run by a kid who's making this public. All she said is use Taylor Swift as an example of how such a thing could happen. I mean, really? But he doesn't stop there. The Pentagon PSYOP unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online. I didn't see NATO being pitched of anything. This is nothing new. In the 1950s, the government strong-armed Louis Armstrong into doing propaganda tours across Africa. Exactly the same. The CIA did the same thing with jazz singer Nina Simone, except they did it without her really knowing. In the 70s, Nixon enlisted Elvis in his war on drugs. He gave the king a badge and named him a covert federal law enforcement agent. Michael Jackson was tapped by Reagan using his song Beat It and his public service campaigns against teen drinking and driving. Quickly, I take it. I'm persuading minors not to drink. Anyway, so is Swift a front for a covert political agenda. Primetime obviously has no evidence. If we did, we'd share it. No evidence. No evidence. And yet, this is a five-minute story on it. How do you do a five-minute story on something that you have no evidence about? And you're willing to admit that you have no evidence about. This is journalism. This is amateur, not one-on-one. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Unbelievable. All this is is to get this idea of a side-off out there. No evidence. Just stick it out there so that people start talking about it. So it creates online chatter. This is like the lowest. And everybody's talking about this, by the way. Now, everybody online is talking about this. This has become a huge story off of what? Off of no evidence? And off of just rampant, ridiculous, stupid speculation that should be just a joke on Saturday Night Live, but is now people are selling this as real? This world is literally insane. This world is nuts. And this is on the right, where now everything is political. Truth doesn't matter. Reality doesn't matter. Sanity doesn't matter. All that matters is who's on what side? Who's on which team? We got to do one more of these, because this one is precious. She is amazing. This is OAN, this is a granted. This is a marginal right wing news show. But this is MAGA. This is Make America Great Again World. This is the foundations of Trump's supporters. These are the people who flood the media with this craziness and nonsense, and who dominate his supporters. This is why this country is going to hell if he wins, because it only emboldens these nutcases, these completely insane people. Now, this is the difference. They're insane people on the left. They're complete wackos on the left. Completely insane. Completely insane. All the woke and the DEI, and the pro Hamas. I mean, there's an unlimited number of insane people on the left. But they're not going to be president of the United States, and they're not this close to the president of the United States. They're marginalized even by their own people. This is at the heart of it. This is at the heart today of the Republican Party. All right, watch this. This is a classic. Pop star celebrity sweetheart joins forces with a top dog in the NFL, playing for the team that's going to the Super Bowl. I mean, let's be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major League sports, in and of itself, is nothing but a si-op. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports, only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never have it. So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements. So sad. Imagine being so brainwashed by sports you actually show up to your team stadium to shovel snow for free so you can watch a bunch of grown men who are overpaid tackle each other. God, American used to love sports, right? People underweight in particular used to love sports, particularly football. What has happened? This country's gone insane. At least some people in this country have gone completely insane. Scott Walker. Scott Walker was the governor of Wisconsin. He was a good guy. I liked Scott Walker. I would have voted for president if he'd lasted beyond, I think, the Iowa caucuses whenever it was that he ran. And I think it was the same year that Mitt Romney ultimately was the candidate. Scott was good. He broke the unions in Wisconsin. He was a tough guy. He was a good governor. He tweets this with a picture of Travis Kelsey. He tweets, funny how liberals are interested in the opinion of a white man living in the 1% who does work for Big Pharma, an insurance company. Oh my god, an insurance company. And Big Pharma, of course, Big Pharma, we know how evil Big Pharma is, an insurance company and a business accused of using sweatshops. She also mentioned sweatshops because he must have a clothing line or something that probably is accused of being sweatshops. Everybody uses sweatshops. Most of the clothes you wear were produced in sweatshops. This is Scott Walker tweeting, and who has a girlfriend who is going to fly around the world in a private jet to watch him play? And what's the problem with that? Why is that wrong? And it's not liberals. It's regular Americans. It's just regular Americans. It's not like Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swist are the favorite of the world crowd. They're the favorite of average Americans, the people who go to their shows. People who go to their shows are not the crazy left. They're just regular people, people who watch the Super Bowl. Believe me, the woke people don't watch the Super Bowl. They're not interested. They're very much like the crazy white. They think football is awful. They're just regular Americans. So Scott Walker is making fun of regular Americans because they're interested in Kelsey and Taylor Swift. And it goes on and on and on. I'm not going to bore you with all of this stuff. But when you watch the Super Bowl, remember, it is going to be rigged. So no point in watching. 49ers will lose because it's rigged. It's rigged. It's a psychopoperation by the Pentagon. You saw it for yourself, even though Fox said they have no evidence of it. But it's right there, right in front of you. Don't worry about it. And this is the craziness. This is the nightiness. This is Owen Benjamin. Owen Benjamin is a comedian. So maybe this is supposed to be comedy. I don't know. I find it hard to generally to tell when something is comedy these days or not because the world is so insane and so, in a sense, funny that it's hard to differentiate. So here's Owen Benjamin. Why would a rich, famous guy marry a 34-year-old woman? Because she's beautiful and talented and successful and amazing? I mean, is that it? I don't know how many or what the age difference is between them. It can't be that much. It's probably six, seven years. Is that what's going to kill it? If you started immediately, and this reveals it all, because this guy is obviously a conservative, if you started immediately, you might be able to have two kids. And she's publicly had sex with a ton of guys. Well, that rules her out. If you had sex with a lot of guys, rules you out. I mean, I think attitude should be the exact opposite. She has experience. This is great. I mean, don't you want somebody with experience? In every other field of life, in every other application of life, you want to have somebody with experience, except somehow when it comes to sex, it has to be a virgin who knows nothing, doesn't know what they're doing, and God helped me understand you people. Despite her wealth, she's very low quality for any successful male. Really, $1 billion. And in her physique, with her physique, and the way she looks, give me a break. Maybe this is comedy after all. Jess seems weird and almost like he's a gay guy. Why would a successful man want a middle-aged woman who's always on tour? It is, could it be because he's gay? Now, of course, this connects to the rumors about her being a lesbian, so that all fits. And then he adds, what was that thing? He says, there's a type of guy who marries the 34-year-old trainwreck who's always gone. He looks very, very gay. My theory is he wants access to Taylor's young fans. And then probably on a more serious note, he writes, any mom is more of an inspiring woman than someone who's 34 and chased dick and money and now just dances for strangers and has no family. That's a fact no matter how mad it makes you. Don't make the same mistake she's made, it's hell. Really? Really? So as a woman, you can't choose not to have kids and be super successful and be admired for being successful. Any mom is better. Any mom is more inspiring. Sorry, Owen. I mean, assuming you're not just kidding, maybe you're just kidding. But sorry, Owen, you're pathetic. And you conservatives are pathetic holding these kind of views. It just is sad, a statement in the 21st century for people to hold these views. So what's going on here? Well, a bunch of things are going on here. Look, the reality is the Trump has drawn out the wackiest, craziest, most insane people on the right and he's mainstreamed them. He's given them a voice because he's wacky, crazy, insane. And he's likely to repeat these when Taylor Swift endorses Biden, he's likely to repeat some of these crazy ideas. He's made it legit. He's made it OK. We've elected to Congress after all. Marjorie Taylor Greene, she's one of Trump's favorites, with Jews and space lasers and all kinds of stuff. We've legitimized all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. We've voted, what's her name? Bob, we've voted people like that into Congress. She probably won't be coming back to Congress after the next election, but we did vote her into Congress in spite of the fact that she held some of the most insane, crazy conspiracy theories. Now, again, you've got the same thing on the left. The left has these people as well. But the president of the United States doesn't embrace those theories. Indeed, they land up criticizing the president of the United States quite a bit. But Trump has embraced the crazy. He's part of the crazy. He encourages the crazy. And his next administration is probably going to be filled with some of these crazy. Now, it's also true, and you have to grant this, that there's a massive monetary incentive, just like there is with a vaccine, a fixed denial. There's a massive monetary incentive to say crazy things that go viral, to be at the cutting edge of stupidity. Social media has made this possible so that you have a lot of right-wing pundits who just, you know, Jesse Waters just really believes this. Or is this his ploy to try to capture more of Tucker Carlson's followers? Is the game here really just to get clicks, just to get followers? So you've got an overlap of real, you know, wackos. And then people trying to get followers. And then on top of that, you've got people who want to gain attention. You know, and again, mimic him Trump. Trump is all about attention. I mean, what is Vivek entering into this? Because Vivek wants to be cool. He wants to be among the cool kids. And the cool kids in the Republican Party right now are the stupid kids, are the dumb kids. Oh, did I say the cutting edge of stupidity? I don't know who said the cutting edge of stupidity. Are you citing me or somebody else at that? Because I don't remember saying it. But the cutting edge of stupidity really is a good phrase. And it fits the modern day right now, 2024 Republican Party, cutting edge of stupidity. There is also a wing of the Republican Party. And again, it's a stupid wing, but it exists. Just paranoid people. People who are convinced, at least I think so. I think they're convinced, unless it's all a show. But the world really end. I mean, there was Flight 93. That was serious, right? If we don't elect Trump, it's the end. The world is finished. We're all dead. If we re-elect Biden, he's going to come after all of us. We're going to be arrested. We're going to go to jail. There is this real paranoia among this fringe in the Republican Party, and it's everywhere. And if you consider that paranoia, then whoa, it could very well be, it could very well be that the Pentagon has unleashed Taylor Swift on us as a secret weapon to try to manipulate the election and get it, everybody, to vote for Biden. I mean, it's amazing to me how people who generally don't think the government is that sophisticated and able, or at least never used to, now think that the government is all powerful. They can pull off a psychop like this. They're thinking, fool, millions and millions of people around the world. Wow, I mean, that's amazing. And of course, what this all is leading to is really, I think, the collapse of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is a party of losers right now. It should have won the Senate last election, but it shows, as its candidates, people who are wacky, crazy, losers, Dr. Oz, they chose as House members. They should have won the House. If you remember the predictions about winning the House, were they going to win the House by 40 members? 50 maybe. You remember the red wave? They were going to take the Senate and dominate the House. They didn't. Why? Because most Americans like Taylor Swift. Most Americans just think she's fun. Most Americans love the Super Bowl, and they don't think it's rigged. And they don't care what Travis Kelsey's political views are. They really don't. I mean, as long as he's not taking a knee, but even when they took the knee, people still watch football. They just want to see a good game. And the fact that he's good looking, and she's successful and good looking, hey, they make a cute American couple. And people love that. So this is suicide for the Republican Party. And they're in suicide mode. There's no question about that. They are letting the wackiest people go out and represent them. And because it's on Fox and become people like Vivek and Scott Walker amplify this, it doesn't seem like it's just a crazy wacky people. It's not just Laura Luna or whatever she's called. It seems like more reasonable people are picking up on this. And it's these crazies. These crazies that have been inspired, motivated, and emboldened by Donald Trump that are destroying what was a political party. Not a great political party. I was always critical of them. But at least something. Now there's nothing. The best they can do, as we'll talk about tomorrow, the best they can do is claim that, now Zuckerberg is responsible for teen suicides rather than maybe the parents who should watch what their kids consume on social media. But no, Zuckerberg is responsible. They should have seen Holly and Cruz and McConnell and all these just beneath contempt politicians going after Mark Zuckerberg today and other social media CEOs. That's them at their best. If they want to lose many more elections, they'll do what they're doing right now. They will go after abortion in every single case everywhere, including going after a doctor. If you remember a doctor that did an abortion on what was she, a 12-year-old girl or a nine-year-old girl who was raped and was pregnant, couldn't get an abortion in her home space. She had to go to another state to get an abortion. And they still went after the doctor. Yep, that'll get you a lot of votes. That'll get you votes. Or the woman in Texas whose, you know, Phyllis was gonna die anyway and wanted an abortion because if she went to term, she probably would never be able to have kids again. And the fetus was gonna die anyway. And they denied her an abortion in Texas. The Texas Supreme Court denied her an abortion. She had to go out of state to get an abortion. And then there was some talk about potentially they never did this thankfully, about arresting her when she came back to Texas. They think this is a winning strategy and then making Taylor Swift and into some kind of Pentagon ops operator or the NFL is rigged in order in favor of Biden. They really think this is going to win. Yes, it'll rally the crazies. It'll make America a great nation. Enthusiastic, they'll love them. But is that gonna get the independence, the more rational Republicans excited to come out of vote? No. I mean, Republicans have an amazing chance of taking over the Senate in the next election, just like they had in the last one. It was tilted in their favor dramatically. This next one tilts in their favor even more. The one after that, not so much. Can they win the Senate? Maybe depends on which candidates they choose. Can they win the House? Can they increase their lead in the House? Maybe not. Maybe they lose the House given this wackiness and can Trump win? Can Trump win? If this is what Trump is, can you win? And this is what he is. Just follow his truth network tweets. If that's a sentence that's allowed. The guy's nuts. He's angry, he's vindictive, and he's nuts. But that's okay. You guys wanna make him president. There's enough people out there who wanna vote for him. No, I mean, the country is crazy. The left is crazy and the right is crazy. And the right is crazy mainstream. Whereas the left is crazy. Nobody, nobody, I mean, the, what do you call it? Woke and anti-colonialism and anti-racism and BLM are no longer popular. Nobody likes them. Nobody likes them. And including liberals, including the mainstream left. The problem is that these crazies are the mainstream right. They're it, Fox News, presidential candidates who Trump has embraced. The former governor, politicians, people solidly in the mainstream right, in the mainstream MAGA right, but MAGA is the Republican Party today. I don't know, the only thing that can save this country, in my view, I've said this before, nobody listens. The only thing that can save this country is a massive defeat of MAGA. Every MAGA candidate needs to be defeated. Donald Trump needs to be defeated. That's the only thing that will wake people up and maybe resurrect a solid alternative to the Democrats. Because right now, there is no alternative to the Democrats. There's no sane alternative to the Democrats. Anyway, that was entertaining in a sick, crazy, weird kind of way. But yes, you know, who knew that I would do a show where the centerpiece was Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. I'm gonna watch the Super Bowl, I think. And I'm gonna root for the 49ers, but not because of Travis Kelsey, just because I rooted for the 49ers from the days of Joe Montana. And I haven't watched football at all this season, but you know what's the American thing to do to watch the Super Bowl? You get some pizza, you get some beers or whatever, and you sit and you watch the Super Bowl. I mean, it's a fun, enjoyable thing to do. If I schedule a show during the Super Bowl, please tell me that I'm not supposed to do that. We're supposed to watch the Super Bowl. So anyway, we can do that. All right, reminder that the show is supported through contributions of people like you, listeners like you. The show meets the support itself. I make my living from this show. I do it from those of you who give money on Patreon or on Subscribestar or on youronbrookshow.com slash membership. That's a monthly contribution, which is fantastic. And yes, I know Travis is in Kansas City, not San Francisco. I'm gonna support San Francisco, not because I don't like Travis, but because I'm a supporter of San Francisco. If Kansas City was playing against anybody else, I'd probably support Kansas City, because Santa City probably has the best quarterback in the NFL, and I love great quarterbacks. And Mahomes is a great quarterback. I mean, he's really phenomenal. I don't know what his politics are. I mean, maybe if you vote for Biden, we shouldn't like him so much. Maybe he's not a good quarterback. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If he actually voted for Biden, then it will turn out that he is actually got a secret Pentagon implant that makes him a better quarterback just so we can then endorse Biden and win the Super Bowl, something like that. There has to be a reason, right? You can't actually endorse Biden, can't actually be a Democrat and be good at anything. That couldn't be possible. That's completely wacky. All right, so what was I saying? Yes, you can support the show. And of course, you can support the show here with a sticker. Stickers are good. Justin just did a $10 sticker, and it's his first Super Chat ever on a live stream. So thank you, Justin Gold. Really, really appreciate it. Steve also did a $10 sticker. Maybe what we should do is just get everybody to do a $10 sticker. We blow away our goal. I mean, if everybody watching now, we've got 130 people watching now, just did a $10 sticker. That would be fantastic. Let's see, who else did stickers? But maybe they're not $10. I don't know, but there were some other stickers. Yeah, Glenn Nicolini did a sticker. Thank you, Glenn, and everybody else has a question. But just the stickers, that way you don't have to ask questions and you don't have to come up with something. But of course, if you want to ask a question, do so. $20, $50, $100, $200, $500 questions get priority. Again, remember, this show doesn't exist. It does not exist without support from you. So thank you guys for making this. I mean, this is a pretty cool profession. I do this and I get public talks. That's most of what I do. And that's a lot of fun, right? That's a lot of fun that I can do those things and make a living at them. And I love them and enjoy them. And it's a blast. All right, here we go. Super chat. Liam, it is easy. By the way, you don't have to do $10, you can do $2, you can do $1, you can do $100, whatever you want. $10, there's a trend going. A few $10 would go a long way. It is easy to win people over by an appeal to their anger, hatred, and fear. It is more difficult to win them over by appealing to their reason, optimism, and hope. Still, it is much better to take the latter. I agree completely. I mean, and I think I'm evidence of exactly that. I mean, I don't have a massive following. I don't have hundreds of thousands of millions of people following me. And I don't appeal to anger and hatred and fear. I try to appeal to reason. I try to reel a fact. I try to do it in a passionate, fun way. So it's not divorced of fun, but it's certainly, certainly I don't like appeals to anger and hatred and fear, but that's what the Modern Republican Party does. That's its modus operandi. They figured in 2016 it worked. The fact that it failed in 1820 and 22. It failed in 1820 and 22. Doesn't seem to stop them. This seems to be the fuel right now, anger, hatred, and fear. But we stand with reason. We stand with facts and reality. And I still admire people who are successful. I don't care about their politics. I admire people who are successful. I don't care about their politics. And sometimes people will surprise you. You might think their politics are one way and it turns out that it's a little different, but it's not about the politics. It's about what you do with your life and productive, successful people. And somebody like Taylor Swift seems like she's having a blast and I don't care if she's bisexual, lesbian, tetrosexual. Why is it anybody's business? Why should anybody care? I just hope she's happy. And she certainly looks like she's got a boyfriend. But why does anybody care? Why does anybody care? Why does anybody care? Why is this an issue at all anyway? And instead of celebrating success, and yeah, if she was offensive and gross and was a bad role model, if she was, I don't know, chopping the heads of chickens off on stage and spraying blood all over the place, like Alice Cooper used to do in the 70s, I get it, not a good role model. Don't want my daughter going to see her, stuff like that. But it sounds like that's not the case. It sounds like she's pretty, I won't say wholesome, because I think that's an awful word, but she just seems like a successful entertainer who's done a really, really good job and who people really, really like and enjoy. And there's reason to celebrate her and her success. All right. Oh, we were going, 9.99 is trending right now. Jeffrey, thank you, friend Harper, thank you. Let's just keep the 9.99s going. If we do enough of those, yeah, we can definitely, again, we got 120 watching. So Michael asked, you said in the news roundup show that it would be okay for Israel to use force to destroy the October 7th Shawarma restaurant in Jordan. Is this not an egregious rights violation? Even scumbags have a right to free speech. Well, do they have a right to free speech in an authoritarian country that, you know, I mean, the big challenge here is that Jordan is at peace with Israel. If Jordan was an enemy country, you could do it. But I certainly would, so probably wouldn't do it given that they were a moderately friendly country to Israel. But I certainly would object and express my objection. But yes, you're right, Michael, you know, they have a right to free speech as despicable and horrible and disgusting as it absolutely is. If free speech was applicable in a place like Jordan, they have a right to free speech. Of course, free speech is not exactly applicable. Who exactly plays by the free speech rules in Jordan? You know, don't insult Allah. You might be in trouble. Don't do a bunch of different things. You can insult Jews, though, and you can celebrate their murder. You can celebrate that. But just don't say you're an atheist. Don't say a hundred different things. So there's no free speech in Jordan. All right, Harper Campbell. Why has Rand been so ineffective at creating a widespread rejection of altruism? Even radical free-market types like Millet or people like Reason TV never mentioned it as a barrier to implementing a freedom agenda. Well, because most of the people surrounding Millet, including Millet himself, I think, and many of the people at Reason and many libertarians out there, religious, they don't want to give up on their religion. They don't want to give up on the, what do you call it, the morality of religion. They don't want to give up on altruism. They bought into it. The reason it's so difficult to get rid of is because it's so deeply entrenched in the culture. It's got 2,000 years on us, you know? And people imagine and they pretend that you can be free market and an altruist. You can be anything and an altruist. So they don't feel the need other than they should in their own lives. They don't feel the commitment that this is something they have to do because they don't see the link and they're not willing, they're not willing to give up on the morality of sacrifice. They are bought in and partially it's because they're not willing to give up on religion. And they're not willing to be radical, only up to a point. Now, why is that the point? I think because morality goes deep to the core of who we are, it goes deep to the values that we have adopted from very early on in life. And that is a huge impact by the culture around us, by our religions, by ideas in the culture. And again, Ayn Rand is the only philosopher to really systematically, in a public way, challenge this morality of altruism. It just hasn't happened beyond Ayn Rand. Thomas Schumann, Hailey has no chance of winning the Republican nomination. Is she still in the race just to harm Trump? It really go, but hard to raise money for. Could she run on no labels? Does the Republican Party just need to die? I mean, there's a sense in which the Republican Party probably needs to die because I don't, I think Trump has now infected every aspect of the Republican Party, every branch of it, every element of it. I think Nikki Hailey is running partially because I think she can mount an opposition who is a certain percentage of Republicans who will not vote for Trump. I do think she also attracts a certain number of independents who are fed up with, or even Democrats who are fed up with Biden, but who no way will vote for Trump. And she seems like a good compromise candidate for them. Remember, Nikki Hailey was considered an ultra conservative. She was considered a Tea Party conservative when she won in South Carolina. She was considered super conservative when she went to the UN. But now she's considered a moderate because, again, you have views in far policy and your views on economics don't matter. The only matters, all the matters are the so-called cultural issues. So she can attract a lot of votes. I think that'll harm Trump. And I think she is gonna be able to raise a lot of money. You know, Trump said right after New Hampshire, Trump came out with a thing saying, if you give money to Nikki Hailey, you are no longer a member of MAGA and you will never be a member of MAGA or kicking you out of MAGA. And a bunch of donors, including some mega donors, some really, really, some billionaires, basically said, really? And they doubled up on Nikki Hailey. They sent a bigger cheque. She got a $5 million cheque from, I think, Ken Griffith as a consequence of Trump's things. So she's still raising a lot of money. She still has a lot of support from the Koch Network, among others. And she is gonna continue to run. She says she's gonna run beyond South Carolina. We'll see. I hope she does. The other thing is that there is a chance that Donald Trump goes to jail. There was a chance that he dropped dead. There was a chance. There are a lot of issues, right? A lot of things about Donald Trump that could happen between now and then, why not be the only one in the running why not be the one that, that if something happens to her, you know, you can get up. You can get up. You know, you'll be the candidate. So I think that's partially why she's staying in. On the leeway, do you think the mega faction of the Republican Party could lead to a new political party, similar to how the collapse of the weak party during the divided time led to the Republican Party and President Lincoln? I mean, yes, I mean, it's possible. And I wish it would happen. I just don't see who it's going to be. Who? I mean, if you look at the senators, who is gonna leave? Rand Paul's not gonna leave. He's completely bought into Trump. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, they've all kissed the ring. They're all part of mega. Who is not part of mega? Who is not bought into mega? Pretty much everybody has. Ted Cruz has sold his soul to mega. I wish. I mean, there were the days where I thought Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul could be a base for a new political party that was much more free-market oriented. But they all sold out. They all sold out. And now Mike Lee is one of the worst of all of them. All the senators. So no, I don't see it. Could Nikki lead a new political party that would replace the Republican Party? I just don't see it. I don't think she has enough of a base. I don't think she has enough political connections. Maybe, I mean, we'll see. It's gonna be a very interesting few years whether Trump wins or loses. It's gonna be fascinating if he loses. How does the Republican Party recover? Does he still remain the dominant force in the Republican Party? Does he pull off another? They stole the election? And the people support that? I mean, look what happened to, you know, to Liz God. I can see her father's face, but I can't remember his name, the vice president. Anyway, Liz Cheney, Liz Cheney. So look what happened to Liz Cheney. Completely kicked out of the party, couldn't even win an election in her own district. And she's marginalized. There's no political party around Liz. There's nobody to bring to the party. So I just don't know who that could be. You know, I think Nikki made a mistake. I think she should have been going after Trump all along. She should have done it early. I think she should have criticized him early. I think now it might be too late. He's got such momentum that it might be too late. I think she needed to do it months and months and months ago. And she did differentiate herself. Now it's one-on-one, she's going all out of Trump, but it might be too late. We'll see. We'll see. I hope a new party forms. I just don't see it. Richard Cunningham says, I couldn't believe Graham, Lindsey Graham said Mark Zuckerberg has blood in his hands. Yeah, remember, Lindsey Graham is the number one Trumpist in the Senate, right? He is the Trump guy. He's, of course, I think from South Carolina, right? So he's from Nikki Halley's and the two South Carolina senators have both endorsed Trump. Even, you know, even though Scott was basically a protégé of Nikki Halley, why won't, why don't he and his fellow blowhards realize that meta didn't create defensive context nor made the kids take action on it? Nor allow the kids to watch it, given that they have parents? Yeah, no, this is a Republican thing. They hate social media. They want to go after social media. They won't go after Twitter, even if some kids commit suicide watching Twitter. They won't go after Twitter because Twitter's the good guys. But they'll go after Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is evil. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg does not know how to handle them. He does not know how to stand up to them. Blood on his hands is all they can think of. They organized a bunch of parents whose children have committed suicide to sit behind Zuckerberg to try to shame him, which they did. He ultimately turned around and apologized to the parents. Not clear for what. He should have said, we didn't do anything. These kids, whatever damage was caused to kids is not the fault of Instagram, not the fault of Facebook. And you know what? The parents should take some personal responsibility over what kids are looking at, what kids engaged in, and whatever mental health issues that kids have. Not my problem, their problem. And you politicians, who the hell are you and what the hell do you know? I wish. It's disgusting. And Holly was just as bad, but you'd expect from Holly. John, wouldn't it tell you how to survive a hostage deal with Hamas? Yeah, I mean, I think so. I mean, again, Israelis are soft. Israelis are soft. It looks like the deal now is a 35-day ceasefire in exchange for 35 hostages, not even all of them. Just 35 hostages. Now maybe Israel thinks this is a breather to let them reorganize and be able to take on Hamas afterwards. But the reality is that the longer they wait, the harder it's going to be, the more difficult it'll be and the more pressure they will be under from the world community to succumb and to give up and to stop. Would Netanyahu? I don't think Netanyahu's gonna survive October 7th. I think he's out. But could he survive this particular deal? Yeah, I think. I think the War Cabinet will agree to it. Let's see. Carrying on in the $10 theme. Aaron Lyne, thank you for the $10. And let's see, Jeremy also did $10. So thank you guys. And then we've got a bunch of $10 questions which we're going to get to. Oh my God, we got a lot of five intelligent $10 questions. If you're asking a question, you might consider doing $20 so we can reach our goal without spending the next three hours here answering all these questions because there were a lot of them. But I will answer as many questions as you ask. So keep them coming. James Taylor says, I just watched your defensive Israel talk in Austin and listened to the pro-Palestinian crowd during your Q&A. Makes me realize what an immature and ugly intellectual world we live in. Yeah, although, you know, take into account that I got a standing ovation for that talk by 80% of the audience, 80% of the audience stood up, 80% of the audience were enthusiastic. Don't take the crazy pro-Palestinian minority within that, you know, that crowd as everything about the intellectual world we live in. On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the reality is I think the majority of Americans are rational on it. It is a minority that have these insane views. Robert Nyser, not particularly a fan, but I saw her constant film in the theaters and extraordinary performance for several reasons and admirable in every way. Yeah, I mean, I don't particularly like the music. I don't like the dancing. I don't like modern dance and the way they dance on stage. But it's a show and she is a performer and she's good at it. She's good at it and people love it. So the other thing is the Republicans are insulting, really insulting. Americans, just average Americans. Americans who, at least the fathers of these daughters are voting, vote Republican typically. So what are they gaining from this? To me, it's insane. It doesn't make any sense. It's complete insanity, but this is the craziness of this party right now. Ben Garson, will you be rerunning your current events of course with Amkar? Would it also be possible to get a very brief summary of your approach? I don't know, probably next year. We won't do it more than once a year. We might do it again next year. It seems to have gone over really well. People who sat in really, really enjoyed it. It was hard for me to tell if this was how new this was and how interesting this was for people because it's kind of what I think. So it's hard for me to say, do I know that other people think this as well or not? Our approach was really to, at least in the first half of the, particularly in the first half, but really throughout, to be guided by Ayn Rand's approach to current event. Ayn Rand's essays and the approach was to really look at an integrated approach to what is going on and try to convey a little bit to the students. The kind of context of knowledge that you need in order to make evaluations of current events. And here I'll argue from a term that I almost never use. And I don't know if it's appropriate here, but it's like, people need it. Well, I won't use it then. People need to know what they know. And part of what I see is a lot of people making pronouncements about stuff they don't know. Take the Israeli-Palestinian issue. There's a lot to know. And to become an expert, you need to know a huge amount. Now, you can make an opinion based on experts that you respect and based on reading a little bit, but how much, you know, you can't really debate that opinion because you don't really know. You have a sense of something. How much of the background do you need to know? You need to know a lot to make definitive statements about the world. With the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it's a little easier because Israel is clearly a particular type of state, and Palestinians are a particular type of state, and you can compare them. But expertise is unbelievably valuable in every field of human endeavor. In every field of human endeavor. I don't want to go to an amateur doctor. I don't want to go through a performance of an amateur pianist or an amateur conductor. I want to go to see Thomas Shabbatem, who's a professional conductor and a professional cellist. I'd much rather listen to him than an amateur. I don't want to go for my count events analysis to Scott. He's an amateur who doesn't, most of the time, doesn't really know much and doesn't have the context of knowledge to evaluate stuff, at least based on the evidence of what he writes on this chat. But he presents himself as an expert, and he talks with the confidence of an expert. Experts can disagree, and your responsibility, your job is to evaluate and choose and decide experts are going to disagree. There's no way you're not gonna get experts to disagree. You're not gonna get experts who disagree, right? Now, just having a PhD doesn't make you an expert. Just having a column in the newspaper doesn't make you an expert. Paul Krugman is not an expert in economics. And, well, Edward, you should go listen to Scott's show and you should leave this one. What are you doing here? Why are you wasting, I just don't, I still don't get this idea of people wasting their time listening to me when they have such a low opinion of me. It's really bizarre and says something about their life. I wouldn't do it. The fact that somebody considers himself an expert, the fact that somebody has credentials as an expert doesn't make them an expert. But they are experts. And you better listen to experts, not to amateurs. And it's torturous to live by the guidance of amateurs. And one of the approaches is to show what kind of expertise it takes to analyze historical events, current events. Part of the expertise is history. Part of it is philosophy. Part of it is a certain knowledge of politics and political processes and integrations. But we were guided by the expert of all experts, which I think is Ayn Rand. And we took her essays. The students had to read a number of Ayn Rand essays. In some cases, Linda Peacock essays in order to see her analyzing. And then we tried to fill in the context and what she's saying, what was going on at the time. Cause particularly young kids today, young students today don't know what the 60s were like, what the 70s were like. All they're getting is Ayn Rand's. So we try to fill that in and try to show how integrated her approach was from her evaluation of Kennedy through her evaluation of Reagan and all the different spots in between. And how that all integrates and how it's consistent. How she expresses a consistent view. And then on something like 9-11, give some sense of kind of the process that we went at the Ayn Rand Institute, agree or disagree with our analysis of 9-11. Hopefully most of you agree. And what it took. And most people disagreed with us. I mean, most people in the culture and quite a few objectivists disagreed with us. But Linda Peacock I think was right from the beginning. And I think we did phenomenal work on 9-11. And still doing the stuff we do in the Middle East and on Israel is phenomenal. And I'm saying we because I don't mean just me. I mean me and Ilan and particularly Ankhon and of course Leonard back then. And all of that really, really. So it give a little sense of the books we read, the kind of how we brought the context, what we knew about the past. 9-11 was not a blimp. What we knew about all the sequencer event that led up to it. What we knew about the Muslim world. What we had to learn about the Muslim brotherhood the whole sequence, the whole context. The whole context. How Leonard Peacock had already talked about Iran and talked about Islamic terrorism way before what happened. 9-11 was not a surprise in that sense. And therefore you bring all that knowledge forward. But you have to have the knowledge to bring it forward. It's very easy to respond like this to events. But you need a full context of knowledge. And that's rare. And that's rare. And that includes to evaluating presidential candidates. I mean, every one of us has to do it in the end because we all have to vote. But this is why I hope you listen to my show and listen to other people's shows who present rational perspectives is to fill in the context for yourselves and to gain more information and more different ways of thinking about this and gain context so that you can make the best decision. When it comes to voting, for example. All right, Thomas. Millay obviously has many of the right ideas. But does he know how to transform Argentina's economy in practical terms? Is it even possible in the current climate to significantly shrink a big welfare regulatory state? I think he actually does. I think he probably has a better understanding of that than of anything else of how to do it in practical terms. Like he's a real economist. And I think he's got people around him who know enough about the practical world in order to do that. There's enough expertise. How much he can shrink, I don't know. But that is a function of Argentinian politics. That's a function of what will the courts and what will parliament let him get away with. It's not a function of what you, of knowledge. I mean, you need to have the knowledge, but I think they have the knowledge. It's what the system will allow them to do. And how much the voters will support them. Because remember, the voters have been traditionally quite left, so will the voters let them get away with, even though they elected them, with radical changes? So I think the knowledge is there. How to do it, what to do is there. The knowledge of that is there. And there's some political knowledge about to get it through the political process. But will the establishment, the political, legal, and even business establishments, will they let Mele get, do it? I don't know. It's certainly possible if you had the power to do it. He doesn't because he has a small minority in parliament. All right, do nobody. Don't be afraid to lose people. Be afraid of losing yourself by trying to please everyone around you. Absolutely. And I've, you know, not something I worry about because I don't compromise to please the people around me. Clark says, what do I think all the fraudulent business practices did Trump engage in? If he hadn't inherited a real estate empire from his father, would we even know who he is? I think the first one is, what we do know is he used eminent domain to kick people out of their homes so he could build. A lot of real estate developers do that, but he did that. And I think that's wrong. And he's proud of it. He's not something he hides. He's proud of it. According to the court that ruled him guilty, he also inflated the values, artificially inflated the values of his properties in order to get loans that he would have otherwise not been able to get from lenders. So he lied about the value of assets and properties in order to do business. You know, that is a, you know, a hobby of a deal that is, hard to tell. In terms of if he hadn't inherited a real estate empire from his father, would we even know he is? No, we wouldn't. I mean, the reality is that Donald Trump has not made that much money. He took the money. If you've taken the money inherited from his father, somebody did this as an exercise. A number of people actually did it. And you just invested it in a diversified portfolio of New York real estate. You'd be as rich as Donald Trump is today. So his real genius is self-promotion. His real genius is marketing, is getting the Trump name out there. But he wouldn't have been able to do that without the money that was left to him that gave him the resources to do all that. So he is a great self-promoter. That is his strength. That's really the only strength he has. He's not smart, not smart at all. He's not articulate. He doesn't think in 4D chess. I doubt he could play 2D chess because he's not smart. And yeah, he provided capital for people to build buildings. Yeah. Good for him. But again, he made about as much money as a diversified portfolio without any effort would have made him. And he went bankrupt about three times. So he's created wealth, destroyed wealth, walked away from loans, not paid them. He's done every shenanigan in the book. Everybody who's ever dealt with him has basically considered him kind of an immoral, shady kind of business person. Somebody I know really, really well was up for a job in the Trump administration. It was interviewed by Trump. And in that interview, Trump was bragging about certain things and saying certain things that he would do. And basically, this person walked out there and said, I will never, ever, ever take a job for Trump, right, with Trump. Not in government, not anywhere. This guy is an immoral louse. And this is not somebody who was necessarily tilted against. And the job that he was going to be offered was a major job. It wasn't Treasury Secretary, but it was a major Fed job. But there was no way he was going to take it given the character that Trump exhibited just in that short interview. And this guy's a good judge of character. Michael says, the forces of anti-region were able to suppress the mind for over 1,000 years during the dark ages. I don't think they can do it today. I don't think they can do it today either. But we will see. Let's hope you and I are right. I hope so. They're certainly going to try. JJ Jigby's, this all reminds me, have you seen the movie War Wag the Dog? It's very, very funny and holds up. It seems like the level of public deceit, they could remake the movie with this premise, quite comical. Yeah, it's a movie about going to war in order to beef up your poll numbers so that you can win an election, bring the country together, and stuff like that. Happened before. So I think it was supposedly Bill Clinton and the Kosovo war that the United States got involved in. Ryan, the word isn't sane. Insanity has a lot to do with this. Ryan also, hi, Iran. No any good gulches anywhere. No gulches, unfortunately. Puerto Rico, I don't know, but as good an escapist anywhere else in the world. Vandy, did you see that Matt Walsh had the goal to defend the moon landing, and his idiotic following is now turning on him? The MAGA right is bonkers, as if we didn't already know that, but still, really? So Matt Walsh's audience is turning against him because he defended the moon landing. You can't make this up. You cannot make this up. If you don't. Yeah, I mean, why you would want to be in any capacity involved in the MAGA world, I have no idea. One for your life. Matt, Republicans are the preliminary to American Nazism. They certainly seem to be preliminary to authoritarians. There's no question about that. Dumb authoritarians at that. Why no one stops punks throwing soup on Mona Lisa? I mean, they arrested after the fact. It's hard to catch them in the act. I don't know why they don't check their backpacks and take away soup. I don't think you're allowed to bring liquids into the looves. I'm not sure how they see it. Luckily, the Mona Lisa is protected with glass. It's just an act of symbolic vandalism. They should spend a significant time in jail to think it over. But they're just performance-art idiots. I mean, talk about insane, stupid, right, left, all of them. Ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Jimmy Cleiman, the Democrats' crazies may be less mainstream. But living in New York City, it's hard to say I agree with that based on my own experience. Potentially. I mean, certainly New York City has a lot of them. San Francisco has a lot of them. But once you get out of a few of those metropolitan areas, the rest of the country is just crazy right and has very little, if any, crazy left. And even in New York, they did vote for Adams as mayor, who's nowhere near the crazy left to some of the people who are running for mayor. In San Francisco, they seem to be tilting away from the crazy left, at least politically. So I think, generally, the country is moving away from the crazy left. I think the crazy left is in decline across the country. And I think that the Israel Hamas thing has just made it more obvious how crazy the crazy left is. Ed, the first chip implanted by Newell Lincoln on Musk was done. Yes, I talked about that on the show yesterday. The name of the chip is telepathy. I think a discussion of the ethics of chips and brains would be interesting. I mean, I don't think there's much of a discussion. I mean, chip away. That is, it's not the chips that are in the brain that's an ethical issue. It's an issue of what you do with it. That's where ethics intervenes. But the existence of chips and a chip brain interface, some kind of interface between the chip and the brain, it's happening. It's a reality. It's going to happen. And morality doesn't say anything about not doing it because it could clearly be used for good. So then the question is, when would it be immoral? It would be immoral if it was used to control your thoughts. It would be immoral if it was used to coax you into doing something that otherwise you wouldn't want to do. And a bunch of things like that. You'd have to come up with standards that would make something like that the use of something like that immoral. Aunt Sam, congrats on the front page of the article today in the Austin statesman, even if about disruptor in your Israel lecture, any news is good news category. Yeah, I mean, I wish I could see it in the increase in numbers of subscribers. But yes, we did make the front page of the Austin American statesman, the major newspaper in Austin, Texas. It was all about the guy who disrupted my talk. But it did mention me. It did mention the talk. I did have a quote from Greg Salamiri. And that's all good. We got some publicity, all publicity. And it wasn't negative about me. So good publicity, they spelled my name right. Yeah, they spelled Iran's name right, so we're good. I think Iran made it into the article. Banging Barry's mother, why would you do that? Casino Magnet, Hollywood TV stars, twice divorced, twice married, 20 years older than his wife, multiple affairs, liable for sexual assault. This is the right savior. Yeah, it's exactly the right savior, right? I mean, these are the people that are criticizing Taylor Swift for having had many lovers in her past. But they won't criticize Donald Trump for having many lovers, including affairs while he was married in his past. Why is that? In the contrary, they're going to vote for him for president. I mean, the guy is a, I mean, I think in every other context, other than the election, you would say Donald Trump says, come back. He is just a horrible, despicable human being. But somehow, somehow, you guys have convinced yourself that he is the savior. And don't tell me it's a binary choice. It's in my mind, and you guys picked him. You did? Yeah, yeah, we supported these other guys. But at every opportunity, you defend Trump. Every opportunity. You picked him. He's your candidate. In spite of the fact that he is, let's come back. And in that sense, I don't think there's anybody else, anybody else out there, any other president or presidential candidate that has had a lower character than Donald Trump in the history of the US that I know of. And you guys picked him. You guys defended him. You guys picked him. He is your choice. You keep defending him. You keep standing by him. You never criticized him. You supported maybe other candidates in the primaries, but didn't attack Donald Trump. And your candidates didn't attack Donald Trump. He is your candidate. You have embraced him fully. And this MAGA is all on you. It's all on you. Gene, what does a foodie eat during a Super Bowl? What does a foodie eat during a Super Bowl? Hummus with, I don't know, a non. I have no idea. I eat a lot of hummus. I don't eat chips. Although there are some, what is it, non-flour-based chips or stuff like that, the paleo chips that I might eat. I don't drink beer, maybe a glass of red wine. Lobster would be good. I would eat lobster. Sardines. I love sardines. But sardines are not during the Super Bowl. Plus my wife, she can't stand the smell of it. So she kicks me out when I eat sardines. I have to eat sardines in the corner. So I don't know. What am I going to eat during the Super Bowl? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe Jeffrey has some ideas on what I can eat during the Super Bowl. Maybe he can send me over like a takeout gourmet meal for Super Bowl meal, especially. Yeah, I try to eat, I try to snack on healthy food. Do you know what I probably eat, which is what I probably eat most of the time anyway, which is my dominant snack is nuts. I'm nuts for nuts. I eat an assortment of nuts, a complete assortment of nuts, and I just have a big bowl of nuts, and I'm much of nuts all day. And yeah. On the leeway, who would have predicted in 1858 someone who lost almost every election they stood for only winning one state house race and one US house race and losing eight others, Abe Lipkin, would win the presidency? Yeah. Who would have predicted? I'm not sure what the parallel is here, but yeah. I mean, nobody would have, I don't think they would have predicted, but there you go. He won the presidency, nobody would have predicted that Donald Trump would have won the presidency either. But there's a big, big difference between Abe Lipkin and Donald Trump. Philip Weller, most young people in today's culture think of factory farming as unethical. What's your view? Is there something immoral about unnatural living conditions and suffering for the animals? No, I don't think so. I mean, animals don't have rights. There's no reason to torture animals for no reason. I think that's immoral to torture them for the sake of torturing. But the reality is that if we're going to produce cheap food for huge numbers of people, factory farming is the way you have to do it. There's no other way to do it. Now, maybe in the future, there'll be other ways to do it. Maybe in the future we'll all be eating meat that is grown from cells of real meat, not meat substitutes. Maybe there'll be some just organic farms for the specialists. But if you want to eat 8 billion people on planet Earth and you want to feed them well, and you want to be able to provide them with cheap food, food at a reasonable price, then factory farmer is inevitable. Animals are particularly pets you want to take care of. But what are you going to do with chickens, really? I mean, you really care about chickens that much. What are you hooding their feelings of? Feeling pain? Even if they're feeling pain, it's for a purpose. And the purpose here is human beings, human well-being. And animals, nature, reality is there for human beings to use in order to benefit themselves. And again, no reason to unnecessarily torture an animal, but sometimes it is necessary for them to be in somewhat pain or them to be not in a natural environment. And maybe the natural environment is awful for animals. It's risky, it's dangerous, they get sick. Maybe the unnatural environment is better for them. I don't know. Nobody knows. How do you tell? Clearly for human beings, a non-natural environment is better. Maybe it is for cows as well. I don't know, the cows are happier. What does happiness mean for cows? Steve, does the rise of MAGA indicate that there are really so many hateful, angry, envious, fearful people in America? Or is it because mainstream Republicans are so vacuous that it was easy for MAGA fringe to move in? I think there's a lot of anger in America. I think there's a lot of anger and hate. But mainly of all the things, all the emotions you mentioned, I think the main emotion that exists, and I saw it in a tea party, right? The tea party was huge, so it wasn't just someone. The main thing is fear. What you really see in America is fear. Particularly among older, working class, lower middle class people out there, there is fear. They don't understand the modern world. They don't understand the technological revolution. They don't understand how they're going to be jobs for them and their children. And their children seem to be fine. Remember, Trump voter is primarily is older, significantly older. Trump voter is uneducated or less educated. The Trump voter is fearful. So I think there is a lot of fear. And there's also a lot of vacuousness, and mainstream Republicans didn't stand by anything. At least MAGA said it was something. What? Leave eating fear, at least. So yeah, I mean, William says, Vivek had some good ideas about a free economy. And that's true, and that's why he couldn't win. Then he almost immediately went off the deep end about the southern border. And yes, that's the vote he got. The vote he got were the votes of MAGA, who he was young and more dynamic than Trump. But he didn't get it for the free market stuff. Nobody will vote today in the Republican Party for free markets. It just isn't. Even the libertarian party, even the libertarian movement now has become weirdly anti-immigration, nationalistic, crazy, anti-Israel, anti-American. These are supposedly the free market types. So there's no group there that can, you could say, pro-America, pro-robust self-defense of America, and pro-capitalism. There's just nobody out there. The best you can do in that configuration is somebody like Nikki Haley, who's somewhat gets America, somewhat is pro-America national defense, and somewhat pro-capitalism. But that's the best you can do. I don't understand you, and I don't understand the 1858 question. Link them together. What was the other question? I'm looking for the other question to see if I, on the leeway. Do you think MAGA faction of the Republican Party could lead to a new political party similar to how they collapsed at the weak party during that? See, you're linking Lincoln's election. Yeah, I don't know enough about that history to give you a full answer in terms of how he won and how that is related to the split between the Whig and the Republican Party. I just don't know enough about that period in politics in American history. And I don't want to make stuff up, because when I don't know, I don't know. Thank you, Stephen. Michael, did you see Millez's interview with the Wall Street Journal today? Incredible. Sounds like an unapologetic, full steam ahead. I'm a hero. I haven't. And he didn't do it today. It was a few days ago, because I saw it up a few days ago. I still need to see it. I will definitely watch it. Keep calm and carry on. Going to Israel soon, any hidden spot you recommend visiting. Also, what's your favorite city? I mean, my favorite city is Haifa, but it's also a boring city for a tourist to go to. But it certainly is my favorite city to live in. Tel Aviv is dynamic and modern and hip. Jerusalem is filled with history, but it's too religious for me. But yeah, I mean, I definitely go, well, I mean, I don't know how much traveling you'll be able to do, but the Golan Heights, the up in the Galilee is beautiful stuff. But there's maybe a war going on with Lebanon right now with Hezbollah going on over there. The desert is beautiful. The south is beautiful. You should definitely look up Boaz Arad. The objective is still over there. He will give you a lot of good tips of what to see. Tel Aviv is just a great cosmopolitan, very cool city. It lots is very touristy these days. I mean, not now probably, but lots of hotels. It's a beautiful setting. It's a beautiful location. But excuse me, but it's very, very touristy. Masada, again, if you can make it in there, it's a Masada is technically in the West Bank. So whether they'll allow tourists right now to Masada. Caesarea is beautiful. Caesarea is on the coast, so it's easy to get to. And then no problems, one of the best Greek, sorry, Roman ruins you will see anywhere in the world. I saw a number of music concerts in Caesarea. I saw, I think Paul Simon there. I saw, what's the name? You will be disappointed in me, but I saw, oh god, the 1960s, I think Joan Baez. I think I saw Joan Baez there. Anyway, yeah, Caesarea is a beautiful, beautiful place on the Mediterranean. Ryan Ward, I like the show. It helps with the AI algorithm. Algorithm, he's not allowed to say algorithm. So yes, please like the show before you leave. It helps with the algorithm. It helps from what the show. It helps us get more subscribers. It helps to get the word out there. So please, if you don't like the show, don't like it. But if you like the show even a little bit, please like the show. It doesn't cost you anything. It's cheap and it helps a lot if you want to help the show. We're right now at 81 lights, 127. Probably had 300 people, 400 people in and out of the show. Hopefully we can get up to over 100 lights before the show is over. All right, we're almost done. Jean, I'm totally eating Chinese lobster for the Super Bowl. Chinese lobster, cool. I want to eat Chinese lobster for the Super Bowl. Mark Thomas, wish to reach out by email schedule for February. Yeah, just drop an email to me and to Angela. You've got our email addresses. Reach out and be responsive. And Angela will schedule you for a one-on-one. On the leeway, what I meant was the man or woman who will lead us out of this mess is probably not well known, just like Lincoln was not. Yeah, but this is the challenge. The challenge is 1658 was peak America in many respects. You had slavery, but there was a big opposition out of slavery. We were getting ready for civil war against slavery. America was the land of individual rights. There was an understanding of individual rights. There was an understanding of capitalism. I mean, the North was as capitalist as any place has ever been on planet Earth. So there was an environment that could produce a Lincoln. So you couldn't see him coming. But the whole culture, the whole environment was an environment that was just waiting for a Lincoln type to come about. In the world in which to live it today, everything about the culture, everything about our surrounding is consistent with MAGA and with the crazy left. There is no respect for markets, for capitalism, for freedom. There is no culture of that. It just isn't. So where is this person going to come from? And even if such a person exists, and probably a lot of people exist who could live up to it, who's going to vote for them? Who is going to vote for them? I mean, there were people who would vote for Lincoln because they lived in a culture that was pro-American. But there's no pro-American culture anymore. The culture today is anti-American. And that's more so in some respects. I mean, that is particularly so on the MAGA and on the crazy left side. They're anti-American because they anti the values that made America great. So who's going to vote for a Lincoln today? I just don't see it. I just don't see it. I mean, I don't even see Ronald Reagan getting the votes today. I mean, Nikki Haley, who's not quite Ronald Reagan, right? But God, she's like light years ahead of Trump. Light years ahead of Trump. And they vote for Trump. And the people here in the chat support that. So I don't see where our savior is coming from and who's going to vote for them. How are they going to be successful in a culture that doesn't respect the ideas of America? I mean, they can mouth make America great again. They don't know what America means. They can mouth America first, but they don't know what America means. So how can they achieve any of that when they don't know what it actually means? And they don't know what it means. Trump has no clue. And the people that make America great again and crowds don't know what America is. They don't understand it. They have no conception of it. Richard, I recommend Dungeon Crab, Dungeon S. Crab. Wine and sourdough. Ooh, that sounds good. I mean, the sourdough is cheating, but that sounds really, really good. While chewing for the 49ers in the Super Bowl, sourdough bread has the lowest carbs and sugar. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. All right, sourdough bread, wine and Dungeon S. Crab. I have to see if one of the chefs in one of my favorite restaurants around here can make us a take out Super Bowl dinner. I'll see if I can pull that. I mean, what's actually going to happen, because the reality is that in Puerto Rico, the Super Bowl is late. The Super Bowl is only going to be at 7.30 in the evening. So I'm already way past dinner at 7.30. I eat dinner very early. So I'll go to a restaurant, a nice restaurant. I know which restaurant I'm going to go to on Sunday night, Sunday at like 5.30, eat dinner, and then go sit down, watch the Super Bowl, and not eat any snacks, because I don't eat after dinner. From between dinner and going to sleep, I don't eat. And I usually finish dinner definitely by 7, often by 6.30. So I have a weird lifestyle. But that is me. It's going to be tough to be in Europe, especially in Spain, where they don't start eating. I mean, the restaurants don't even open until 8 o'clock. I'm spending your super chat cash. Absolutely, I'm spending your super chat cash on living. I mean, that's what makes it possible. I have to eat, right? Makes it possible for you to do this. I don't do intermittent fasting. So I don't fast in the morning. I have to eat in the morning. I don't function in the morning unless I eat. So I'm not doing intermittent fasting, not in the sense of going for 16 hours. I do, you know, I probably go for 13, 14 hours. 12 to 14 hours is what I go for. But I don't do it consciously. Just I don't eat before bed. I sleep better. I think it's better for digestion. It's better for your health. And then when I wake up, I typically eat. All right, everybody, I don't think we're here to talk about my diet. I will see you all tomorrow morning for a News Roundup, Friday for News Roundup, no shows tomorrow evening and Friday evening. So Thursday, Friday for News Roundups, and then Saturday for, I think this time it's AMA. Ask me anything with our panel. So that'll be on Saturday. All right, everybody, I will see you all soon, tomorrow.