This is a more wonky thread about how I made this visualization in #Rstats using the awesome visNetwork

First step is to create the underlying network data. We need one file of "nodes" - i.e. the people and organizations. And one file of "edges" - i.e. the connections between them.

I created these by hand, based on excellent investigate journalism:

Now we can pull these together to create a network visualization!

You'll notice that I included a column for "type" in the nodes file. This allows me to use different icons for people vs firms vs political organizations.

All the icons are taken from @fontawesome. I *think* the visNetwork 📦 currently only works with fontawesome version 4.7, which is a bit limited – e.g. I decided to use a book icon to represent the fringe Evangelical Christian sect "Exclusive Brethren"! 😂

I very much enjoyed getting to use the "incognito" icon to represent all the unknown donors that have funded Tory MP Owen Paterson's overseas jaunts!

This might be a good time for folks to take a deep breath before interpreting election results. We don't know how much of victory was due to Biden's campaign message, Biden's record, Kamala's boost to the ticket, hatred for Trump, Trump errors on the campaign trail...

...the enduring appeal of Trumpism, the effectiveness of GOP campaigns for the Senate or the House, the mistakes made in Dem campaigns for the House, vice versa on both the preceding counts, the role of the GOP disinformation echosystem, COVID, the economy...

...mobilizing progressives, mobilizing centrists, racism, anti-racism, the movement to defund the police, the use of the word socialism, media blunders, voter ignorance, the impeachment process, corruption in DC, campaign finance abuse, the power of the establishment...

...the power of the Murdoch's, the hard right, the evangelicals, the Russians, the young, the old, whites, Latinos, blacks, women, men or any of the other countless factors (divine intervention, etc.) that have been cited in the media, by pols, on social media, in the days since.

For Dems, this is definitely not the time for finger pointing and division. There must be a laser-like focus on winning the run-offs in Georgia. There should be a widespread effort to mobilize the broadest possible support for the agenda of the Biden-Harris administration.

On the occasion of the recent turmoil in Ethiopia's insurgent Tigray province, I'm resharing my thread about the history of Belgian expansionism towards the region in the 19th century. 🇧🇪🇪🇹⏳

⬇️

During the 19th century, Belgian imperialism did not only affect the Congo, a whole list of other countries were seen as potential colonies. Already in the 1840s Abyssinia (the region which roughly corresponds with Ethiopia) was on the radar of Belgian expansionism 2/14

During the reign of King of the Belgians Leopold I, Belgian consul general in Alexandria Edouard Blondeel van Cuelebroeck was sent on an exploratory mission into Abysinnia. 3/14

At the time, Abyssinia went through an era of internal fueds called "Zemene Mesafint". This was seen as a perfect opportunity to apply some of Belgium's finest 'divide and conquer'-tactics. It promped Blondeel to approach local warlord Biru Goshu of the Gojjam in 1841. 4/14

In order to convince Biru Goshu of the potential to become an ally of Belgium, the local warlord received samples of Belgium's finest industrial products such as: small arms, textiles and jewelry. Blondeel message was clear, he had to showcase the prospects of trade. 5/14

Hey I'm gonna tell you some things without attribution that you may choose to believe or not

1) 5GW/infowar is not something weird online people are reading into things, it's USG's public-facing governing paradigm & they are playing to win

2) You already know that anyone who says NSA et al "have no domestic mission" is lying to you, but they don't even pretend that's true in the quasi-public fora that coffee-getters like me attend

It means about as much as "interstate commerce" at this point, there are no borders

3) Mil officials at the highest levels are openly courting Big Tech at the highest levels to "practice good digital citizenship" (IOW fight the infowar for them) bc government can't - not bc they gaf about the Constitution, but bc nobody in Congress knows how to use a computer

4) MIC admits that "kinetic effects" (things that blow up) are no longer the primary concern - they're worried about narrative collapse because no one is curating the flow of media to people who are "tribal, susceptible to misinformation, less educated"

5) So far none of this is really news (except that they're open about it), but one thing that may surprise: they are not soft on China, they are scared shitless

They despise Trump openly but the only good thing they have to say is "at least he cut China out of US finance & tech"

1/ How to raise a real estate fund (and, ideally, avoid getting sued)

Have warned everyone it’s better to raise capital deal-by-deal, bc it’s easier to raise & bc it's better for the sponsor. Still, there’s interest in learning how to do a fund… so, here goes.

2/ Don’t think of doing this unless you have a record of successful deals, ideally mostly/all in the same asset class / strategy.

Remember: You will be asking LPs to invest in YOU; they need to feel like you know what you’re doing.

3/ Really helps to have a list of prospective LPs BEFORE you start your raise. The more high-quality leads you have, the more likely you are to succeed. (I built my list via my blog initially; now twitter leads predominate - see my bio.)

4/ Find an experienced attorney. Doesn’t need to be a huge, expensive firm, but you want someone who has done a lot of private offerings before. Don’t agree to a big fee yet… at first, you just want a few hrs of her time for advice.

5/ Find an experienced CPA. Ideally, your existing CPA has worked on a lot of private deals before. If not, get a new one. Prospective LPs need confidence that someone good is overseeing the bookkeeping and doing the tax prep.

The Esper firing sums up well the extremely frustrating and toxic dynamic between Trump's political maneuvers and governing strategy and his fanbase.

Step 1: There is a decisive moment, crisis, or major opportunity

Step 2: Trump talks big, takes photo-ops, and generates extreme reactions from his opponents.

Step 3: Trum fails to take action, sends mixed signals, and generally bungles the opportunity.

Step 4: Trump lashes out at the people who gave him bad advice ... and then talks big again.

Step 5: Trump's fans announce that we're about to "see the real Trump," "the gloves are off," "he'll go full bore now," etc.

Rinse, repeat.

I can think of countless examples that fit this patter: John Bolton and Iran, Esper and the BLM riots, reforming legal immigration, building The Wall, removing troops from Afghanistan, Covid stimulus checks...

Seemingly, every consequential issue fits this pattern.

So we're left w/ this situation in which Trump, at least rhetorically, still stands as the candidate of immigration restriction, nationalism, ending wars, law and order, traditional values, etc. Yet he had clear opportunities to act decisively on all of these matters and didn't.

Key detail in this @NYMag story on the pro-censorship movement inside NYT by its own employees: NYT tech reporters were angry that the anti-censorship posture of NYT editors would impede their campaign to pressure Silicon Valley to censor more robustly:

https://t.co/EGbfEVuTSZ

The role that mainstream **journalists** have played, of all people, in taking the lead to demand that Silicon Valley oligarchs more aggressively control and censor the internet -- the greatest threat to a free and open internet after mass surveillance -- cannot be overstated.

Just ponder the warped mentality of someone who chooses journalism as a career, then devotes themselves to trying to silence the ability of others to be heard by converting themselves into petulant tattletales who demand that Facebook, Twitter & Google censor dissenting voices.

This is absolutely the key fact to understand about media trends over the last 4 years: most corporate & "independent" outlets explicitly aligned themselves with one political faction -- out of both conviction and profit -- and it contaminated everything, principally the "news."

The stat that tells it all: NYT is now every bit as partisan and ideologically insular as Fox and MSNBC, talking only to hard-core Democrats, with CNN and NPR very close behind, leaving these institutions financially dependent on never reporting things that anger their audience:

All I have is my VOICE🔊

I am part of a generation of Nigerians who have lived most of their adult lives under ‘democratic’ rule and yet, I woke up today feeling there is no difference between the Nigeria I grew up in, and the Nigeria my parents grew up in.

The sacrifices of the democrats who bravely stood on the June 12 mandate to bring our democracy to life seem to be in vain. Ironically, many of who are serving in this government and ruling party.

Everywhere I turn, I am told that I should be ‘grateful’ for a democracy that lives were lost, I should be thankful that I have a voice and I can speak up for myself and my peers.

But how can I be grateful when young men and women disappear every day, some killed recklessly without cause, while others get scarred for life—physically, emotionally, or both?

When we began to protest, it was because young Nigerians decided to speak up.

We spoke up - not because we wanted to overthrow the government, the only agenda was getting the @PoliceNG to stop killing us. We did not carry arms, or incite any insurrection.

Awarding Electoral Votes

All 50 states and the District of Columbia use one of two methods for awarding their electoral votes:

The Winner-Take-All System

In 48 states and the District of Columbia, when a candidate for president wins a state's popular vote, that party's slate

BREAKING. Sir John Major: "Complacency and nostalgia are the route to national decline"

"We are no longer a great power. We will never be so again. In a world of nearly 8 billion people, well under 1% are British"

"We are a top second-rank power"

2) John Major: "Our hefty international influence rested on our history and reputation, buttressed by our membership of the EU and our close alliance with the US.
Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to them both"

3) Sir John: "I do find it surprising that – in the midst of the Covid crisis – the Government appears to be fostering disputes with the Judiciary [...]; the Civil Service, upon whose help the Government depends; and the BBC, still the most respected broadcaster on the planet"

4) Sir John: "#Brexit divided England & Wales from Scotland and Northern Ireland. It divided political parties and families; the young and their elders; business and trade unions; and friend from friend. As its full impact becomes apparent in the New Year, old wounds may re-open"

5) John Major: "There is no consensus on #Brexit, and never has been. It was a bitterly divisive policy, and uncorked a populism that may be difficult to quell.
The Referendum debate was unlike any I have known before. Emotion overcame reality".

1. Phony Joe Biden.
Joe Biden is truly an ambulance chaser.  He had nothing to do with the vaccine that is about to be made available to the public, he had nothing to do with the manufacturing process that is already underway,

2. and he had nothing to do with the distribution process that is set in place, all of which were superbly instituted by President Trump and his team.

3. So, there he is, at a podium, reading from a teleprompter, telling us how he will follow the science, how he will distribute the vaccine, etc.,

4. now that Pfizer announced today that its vaccine is ready to go very, very soon (obviously, Pfizer chose to hold back its announcement until after the election).

5. This is the kind of bullshit we are going to hear from this clown (to quote him), who did absolutely nothing and has done absolutely nothing.

Let's go back in history. Let's visit the 1990's. Bill Clinton was President. Janet Reno AG.

When was [BIG TECH] born? What year?

Who does this remind you of?

Has anyone at the [top] been prosecuted for anything...

ever???

When did the whole black-mailing congress begin?

Who should run NASA: a scientist or a bureaucrat? I don't have the answer, but I will share a little vignette from history (because I'm an historian) that I think is interesting and relevant... Please read on!

The Administrator typically changes with each President, usually to be politically in-line with the administration. When Kennedy took office, he wanted Jim Webb for the job.

Jim Webb arrived in Lyndon Johnson’s office on Jan. 30, 1961. The lawyer turned lobbyist and businessman who had been head of the Bureau of the Budget and as under-secretary of state during the Truman administration was wary of taking the job. NASA was considered a boondoggle.

Space stations and lunar missions were on the books for 1970 or later, so in the meantime, whoever ran the agency would have to stand up to the military trying to wrest control of space activities while managing an agency that might kill an astronaut in front of the whole world.

Not to mention, belief in Washington was that the country would lose interest soon enough. When the glamour of space faded, it would take its administrator down with it. It was, in essence, a career killer.

Breaking: The DUP and Sinn Fein leaders have sent a joint letter to the European Commission describing as “unacceptable” the alleged threat to the continuity of existing food supplies to Northern supermarkets once the Northern Ireland Protocol takes effect.

2/ The letter, seen by @rtenews, and signed by @DUPleader and @moneillsf, highlights the problem of the need for checks and controls on food products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain from January 1 and how that might impact on the supply of food to supermarket chains.

3/ The First/Dep First Ministers write: “It is hard to imagine a more fundamental aspect of everyday life than the purchase of daily food supplies...

4/ "Hence we would ask you to recognise how important it is that the current consideration of the detail of how the Protocol will be applied takes our unique context into account.”

5/ Under the Protocol, food and animal derived products entering NI from Great Britain will be subject to the EU’s food safety regime, meaning that so-called sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks will be required on a range of products destined for supermarket shelves.

I think there's a lot of general confusion over that "conservatism" is.

First, it's not "evil" or even "bad". It's a legitimate political philosophy that boils down to minimal possible intervention in society, including but not limited to the economy.

Liberals and moreso progressives, believe that the state can/should if not "engineer" society, exercise its power to shape society and use its machinery to level the playing field. To address inequalities that arise from an insufficiently regulated free market system.

If you buy into the notion that these are the primary, functional differences between liberalism and conservativism, you cannot escape the conclusion that a part of the reason for the rise of the hard right is the "gains" made by the liberals towards their "better society" goals.

These liberal "gains" include state intervention in free speech, reduction of personal property rights and freedoms, so-called political correctness, identity politics, redistribution of wealth via taxation and a slew of other things cheered by the left and reviled by the right.

Every time there is a gain that the left cheers, the right moves a little further right and gets a little more angry.

Every time the right gains or undoes something the left feels a deep existential angst and loss of optimism.

My interview with @Mixergy is live. Check it out here: https://t.co/fvxio9FArN

It's great. We cover 15 years of business.

I like getting tactical on podcasts. I know Andrew likes it too. I missed some spots. So here are 5 tips I wish I shared during the interview.

🧵👇

1) During recessions, get close to the money.

I talk a bit about what business was like in 2008. Besides some personal struggles, 2008 was also a time when individuals and businesses were clamping down on spending. So what can you do if you are freelancing through that?

Get close to the money. People will be cutting spending on things that seem superfluous, but any tools, service, or consulting that ties directly to the company's bottom line will be the last to go.

This was part of what encouraged us to focus on membership sites.

I remember some clients we built websites for, even friendly clients (maybe family members ;), saying to me "The website is nice, but it didn't really bring us business."

!!!

We weren't tracking it. The membership sites we helped launched had reporting built in showing $$$.

2) When going up against established competition, don't compete with them head on. Focus your marketing efforts on features and in spaces they aren't addressing.

There were already a couple established membership plugins for WP when PMPro launched.