The Ballad of Larry, Moe & Curly

The Three Trump Attorneys

Let's talk about Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani & Chris Christie

Michael Cohen served as Trump's personal attorney for about a decade PRIOR to Trump coming to the White House

And whatever bad image you have of attorneys, to call Michael Cohen a lawyer, is unfair to attorneys. He acted like the worst thug, a despicable monster of a human being

Michael Cohen's 'method' was to bully and to threaten to sue and then to sue. And then to behave in all sorts of unethical ways. He acted ALWAYS like a monster.

It tells us enough, that Michael Cohen was BLOCKED from joining Trump in White House, as BEING TOO TOXIC

Even so, for first 15 months, Trump would use Michael Cohen (worked for 'free' ie paid by Trump organization, not Trump personally) - in GOVERNMENT matters. Trump would call Michael Cohen on the speaker phone - to JOIN the discussions (knowing Cohen would RECORD that discussion)

Michael Cohen's lawyer's office was raided by FBI in April of 2018. That RAID destroyed Trump's freedom, because the FBI got all the evidence it ever wanted, to put Trump away for LIFE. They have been patiently waiting for Trump to become Citizen Trump - to process those crimes

Thread - 8 habits of people that are going to accomplish anything they want:

1. Managing your energy, not your time

Motivation/discipline stems from having the energy to do something

Eat better, move more, and consume less mindless entertainment

Line up your most important tasks in the morning when your energy is highest

2. Spending time with winners

If you spend time with corporate drones you will become one

If you spend time with the opposite you will become one

There is a bit more to it, but you get the point

3. Reframing

Rather than seeing something as a problem, see it as a challenge

Rather than seeing a mistake as a failure, see it as an opportunity to grow

4. Teaching what you learn

This will help you master that topic quicker

It will also open up opportunities to earning money through your knowledge

Thread from a soon to be released book on Marxism:

Thomas Paine once profoundly stated in 1776, that, “When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits their horizon.”
To understand what Paine meant we must look back to history.

We hear a lot about Facebook as a platform for manipulation - using machine learning to bypass our critical faculties and trick us into believing things that are bad for us - but the real show is in Facebook's ability to target, not manipulate.

1/

People who hold disfavored views struggle to find one another and mobilize. To find other people that feel the same way as you and make common cause with them to effect political change, you have to reveal your views and suffer social sanction.

2/

Search allows people who hold these views to find one another. If you have a deep feeling about your gender being nonbinary but don't know the words for it, you can search for communities of people who have those words, join them, and discover who you've been all along.

3/

This is why, in this moment, so many ideas are migrating from the fringe to the center: ideas about racial justice, gender identity, alternatives to market systems, etc. People have harbored these views all along, but have held back on expressing them.

4/

Being able to express yourself in private, among people who share your views, is a prelude to going public and putting your case to the wider world in hopes of effecting change.

5/

Another day, limped through. What I’m noticing recently is that I’m getting so frustrated w/ myself. My brain works properly for a v small window of time & then I just can’t seem to think. I forget my kids names (although honestly, that’s nothing new). By afternoon I’m useless!

I’m beating myself up for not doing my job properly, for not homeschooling properly (*laughs hysterically*). I am SO clumsy! Okay fine, I’m always clumsy. But this is worse. I’m so damn distractable. And let’s be honest, there are so many distractions around.

I want to be myself. I want to focus and feel like I can recite the alphabet without wandering off halfway through because I’ve spotted something shiny.

HOWEVER (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?), psychological science, as it so often does, has something to offer. We have been living under conditions of extreme stress for a long, LONG time. We are officially chronically stressed.

And chronic stress is not overly kind to our brains. It uses an awful lot if our resources, to begin with. We are currently more focused on basic survival than on writing the great British novel (sorry, @fpathak!). Creativity relies on our prefrontal cortex. Our prefrontal cortex

I promised threads about recruiting for the next week. Here's the first one on referrals. In growth/marketing speak: referrals are your organic growth, inbound is your brand, and outbound/sourcing is your ad spend. You want to growth-hack your referrals. Here's how. 1/n

2/ Referrals (people on your team referring candidates into your recruiting pipeline) is great because it scales with your org size. They also convert higher since one of their friends is trying to convince them to join, plus they are generally not interviewing at many companies.

3/ The main disadvantage is that they tend to re-enforce your current team makeup. So if you have a diverse team, referrals will continue that diversity, but if you do not, you'll be entrenching your existing makeups which can have some real cons.

4/ A common tool for incentivizing referrals is the referral bonus (the coolest version of which is in equity IMO, although $ works well too), but I think you can do a lot more by leveraging process (referral parties) and culture (creating real pride about your referral culture).

5/ Referral parties are about making a game out of referrals by (virtually) locking 2+ teams in a room for 60 minutes and asking them them to go all out putting together a referral list. Here's how to do it.

1. The problem with the Ben Shapiro Playbook isn't primarily the author. It's that the *content* of the piece is bad, in a way that was eminently predictable given the author.

I'm going to go through the entire piece and explain why.

2. Shapiro's core argument is that House Republicans opposed impeachment because they saw it as a Democratic plot to undermine them — and, moreover, that they were right (or at least justified) in thinking that.

3. This logic has a glaring logical flaw: as @jonathanchait points out, Democrats couldn't use impeachment to tie Republicans to Trump *if they voted for it*

4. The problem goes deeper than that. The evidence that Shapiro uses to argue that Republicans are justified is that Democrats and liberal commentators have argued that the Capitol Hill riot vindicates their positions on *issues other than impeachment*

5. Of course they'd say that — they're Democrats! You can debate the validity of these claims, but that says nothing about the purpose of pursuing impeachment. There's just no real connection between Shapiro's argument and the evidence offered for it.

NEW: DOJ IG releases report on the zero tolerance policy -- aka the family separation policy -- finding that the Attorney General was the driving force behind it, failed to prepare for it, and that Jeff Sessions knew it would lead to children being separated from their fams.

Notes from US Attorneys across the country on a call that Jeff Sessions held in May 2018.

“we need to take away children; if care about kids, don’t bring them in; won’t give amnesty to kids; to people with kids” (strikethrough in original)."

"We concluded that the Department’s single-minded
focus on increasing immigration prosecutions came at the
expense of careful and appropriate consideration of the impact of family unit prosecutions and child separations."

Link to the report. It is INSANE how much more thorough the DOJ IG is as opposed to the DHS IG. The reports don't even

Report confirms the reporting of @shearm @ktbenner @nytmike from last

@lexfridman 12:37 This guy has too many brains for a place like Harvard, mentioning God right outta the box.

15:10 This guy gets it with the scales of ants, grains, lifespans and gratitude.

18:34 What it is, is here. #OumuamuaPropulsion

22:00 It's a light-pumper. They tend to **reflect** because it's how they move.

24:40 Yeah, "ice". Baby to go. Turn off the lights and I'll glow.

You could look at the past week & reasonably think MAGA/Q folk MUST know it's over.

But the thing about conspiracy theories is that they never end: they morph into new theories while maintaining that they've ALWAYS been right.

For MAGA/Q, it's "the plan" - Let me explain.

Right now the narrative running through the darker parts of the Internet involves "The Storm."

The Storm is a conspiracy theory that ALL of this - the election loss, the rhetoric, the insurrection, the 2nd impeachment - are part of Trump's master plan to root out the Deep State.

You see, in Trump's infinite wisdom he realized he could never MAGA as long as there were traitors in his own party.

So he came up with The Storm as a way to know who was truly a believer in MAGA, and who was a RINO.

This has all been an elaborate trap to catch those traitors.

The Storm starts w/Trump discovering, many months ago, that the voting machines had been hacked by Bill Gates' associates.

Trump ALLOWED the votes to be flipped, but they have PROOF that Trump won 410 electoral votes.

Of course, he let them THINK they had won.

By APPEARING weak & disjointed, he encouraged the Dems to lash out and the RINOs to jump ship.

Even the departures from his admin were carefully planned to give the appearance of disorder so that ALL the traitors would think it was time to show their true colors and strike.

gonna get in line for the vaccine because I've heard all these urban legends about tracking microchips

and I think I might be able to root it and install Doom

supposedly bill gates is involved, right?
so it's probably like a miniaturized 386 running ROM-DOS.

the doctor walks in, looks down at my charts, and sighs.
"well, the bad news is that you've got the virus. I'm sorry..."
"and the good news?"
"well..."
*at doom's gate starts faintly playing from my

it took them four tries to figure out that I had the virus, because every time they did a nasal sample, the diagnosis machine kept glitching and playing a youtube video

I laugh in the hospital bed while they're like "ma'am sir ma'am sir, please, this is serious: we can't treat you. Our ventilator keeps trying to reboot in to Windows 3.1 and play skifree. we're quarantining you here so you don't spread this DIGITAL VIRUS to other patients"

1/ Many people ask me, what is my hiring criteria? What do I expect from my team members? How do I retain good talent?

Here lies the answer.

This tweet thread will be useful for CEOs and people who want to work with me.

2/ My previous tweet has 1.4k comments from people who want to work with me. I want to put it out here so that I attract the right talent. It's gonna be a zen-like post. Brace yourself.

3/ Good experiences that we crave in life have something in common.

The medium through which you experience it usually disappears.

Because if it doesn't disappear, then the experience is not good enough.

Let me explain...

4/ Imagine. If you are watching a very good movie on a small mobile screen, you are constantly reminded of the phone you are holding.

It is small, you keep getting notifications, and also it is hard to hold it in your hand all the time.

5/ However, if you watch the same good movie in a home theatre with a 100 inch 4K HD projector, you will forget that there is a screen and you will forget that you are in the theatre.

You are into the movie.

Just you and the movie.

The medium (the theatre) disappears.

In court on the Aloha Coffee case, in which owner has refused to abide by mask rules, distancing rules. He’s telling the judge his rights are being violated and so is the Constitution.

“I have the right, the constitutional right, and a constitutional right can’t be converted to a crime. I do not consent to these hearings. I’m not going to be steamrolled.” Says he’s going to file a criminal case against the judge and DA.

He’s going to file, he says, with everyone from local DA and sheriff and the US Attorney. Judge Lydia Villarreal is being remarkably patient with him.

The point of today’s hearing is to decide whether a restraining order will become a preliminary injunction. He’s been operating without a health certificate since it was pulled in December.

“There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing on my part,” he says. Did I mention the part about the judge being patient? She’s being waaaay patient with him. He tried to disqualify her but doesn’t have an attorney and doesn’t know how to do it lawfully.

Polls show 2/3 of Republicans believe the insurrection was a false flag operation, which is psychologically no different than believing the Earth is flat or that highly evolved dinosaurs who survived the asteroid now control world governments from a secret base on the moon. 1/10

Humans are motivated reasoners, and all conspiracy theories begin with a motivation stronger than the pursuit of accuracy (often a fear of authority or sense of powerlessness), in this case, the motivation is to assuage cognitive dissonance in service of reputation management. 2/

The events at the Capitol formed two competing attitudes in the brains of many Republicans: [It is good to be a Trump supporter ]/ [Trump supporters seem like bad people.] That dissonance can be assuaged by simply believing that the people who did this aren't Trump supporters. 3/

Once committed to a dissonance-reducing causal narrative, one gets trapped in The Conspiratorial Loop -- all evidence to the contrary is part of the conspiracy, and any lack of evidence is part of a coverup. There is no bottom-up escape, only top-down via metacognition. 4/10

The good news it that you can encourage that metacognition in others. The most important thing is to avoid facts, abstractions, and conclusions. Focus on the other person’s processing instead. In psychology they call it “technique rebuttal” as opposed to “topic rebuttal." 5/10

Thread time (SORRY!) I've been thinking about Chris Stanton, one of the individuals who was arrested for being involved in the Capital insurrection, who died by suicide. How does a - seemingly - regular guy throw his entire life away to help commit an act of terror? 1/?

We need to address the rot that goes well beyond Trump. As someone who voted Republican back when these games started, I know their playbook by heart. I know they use fear to mobilize. I’m angry that so many Republicans will walk away from this with their career unscathed. 2/?

They're coming for your guns!
Socialism!
Trans story time!
They hate America!
They want to allow the murder of newborns!
Immigrants are going to take your jobs & rape your women!
Refugees = terrorists!
The media hates you!
You can't say Christmas!

And on and on and on.... 3/?

Nancy Mace mentioned the dangers of rhetoric the other day w/o acknowledging her part in this. Separating herself from an out of control fire after she’d been stoking it. And she’s far from alone. Rubio, Cruz, Haley, [insert hundreds of names] have all had a hand in this. 4/?

Men like Chris Stanton listened to the fear mongering, then he had Trump reaffirming it all, and an entire party lining up behind whatever beliefs brought them increased funding reaffirming it all. They told supporters to fight, they sold them on “war,” 5/?

THREAD AWS $AMZN
AMZN has 15Xed in 6 years (~$60bn->~$1tr). Along the way there have been many investor concerns, which have in hindsight been "can't see the forest for the trees" nitpicks: 1) AWS not profitable; 2) AWS price cuts; 3) Depr acctg; 4) Too much start up exposure.

First to establish valuation. I don’t think it is controversial to say that AWS is worth ~$1tr+ today annualizing nearly $50bn in revs this past Q, ~35% GAAP Op Margins growing ~30% in COVID times. In 2021, AWS will likely put up around ~$58BN in revenue (MSe).

While IaaS is not SaaS, applying even the lower end of Software universe multiples to this level of growth (not to mention profitability or any analysis of how great the business is) would get you to a $1trillion value: 16X EV/Sales ~$60bn in revs ~= $1tr.

And AWS is a lot more profitable than most software companies (today). On a P/E basis, this equates to ~60X 2021 GAAP EPS (assumes 20% Tax rate).
 
Looking back on it, it is funny to think about a few of the past AWS bear cases/worries:

1) AWS not profitable
AMZN first disclosed AWS financials on the 1Q15 print. Before AMZN disclosed AWS revs/EBIT, the consensus was the MORE unprofitable AWS was, the better it was for AMZN’s stock because it meant the retail business was even more profitable than people thought.

.@Tyler_t_moran and Esther Olavarria.

Johnny Nash sums up my feelings at this, because words don’t suffice.

https://t.co/r3apSHRBuc

I know it’s so hard for folks to understand how important this is, even for me. I don’t have words. My mind is all garbling with how incredible Esther and @tyler_t_moran are.

Both of them are incredibly humble. Both likely annoyed right now at the fuss. “Let’s get to work!”

.@Tyler_t_moran serving the office of @SenatorReid would come to Nevada and meet with families to see what the problems were in our communities. She used to go to their homes (not typical) eat with them and in that beautiful language that can only be shared around food -

would ask them what was wrong. People would look at me asking for cues “just dígale” and they would unleash what ICE had done to them, how a notario had explained something to them, as they pulled out all the receipts from a plastic bag and handed them to @tyler_t_moran -

.@Tyler_t_moran would patiently sit there with them and ask “por que!?” She would turn to us and say “is this common?” *nods* her calm demeanor would turn slightly pink as anger flowed but she’d keep asking, pulling out her little notebook and pen. A week later she’d contact -

Slavery by philanthropy. China offers help to Africa to gain voting power and maintain its hegemony.
@MichaelPSenger @stacey_rudin @randyhillier @katewand

"African allies -- which have crucial voting rights at major international bodies -- have arguably become an even more vital bloc for China to keep on side with its so-called vaccine diplomacy."

Why Does Wang visit African countries every year?

"According to the China Africa Research Initiative, Chinese loans to Africa dropped from $29.4 billion in 2016 to $8.9 billion in 2018."
"[Wang] postponed the repayment of interest-free loans from China that matured at the end of 2020"

When loans are postponed, this comes at some price; usually, its' sell your soul to the devil.

On 23 September 1984 the BBC broadcast the apocalypse: the story of nuclear war and its effects on the people of Sheffield. Filmed on a shoestring budget it still causes nightmares to this day.

This thread is not for the squeamish.

This the story of Threads...

In 1965 the BBC had filmed The War Game, a fictional docu-drama about a nuclear attack on Britain. However under pressure from the government the BBC withdrew it from screening. It was finally released in 1966 as a film in selected theatres.

For many years the withdrawal of The War Game had rankled many at the BBC. Surely it was a public broadcaster's duty to show the public what the reality of nuclear war would mean. Finally in 1982 they did so.

A Guide To Armageddon was a documentary for the BBC's peak-time science series Q.E.D. Produced by Mick Jackson it graphically depicted the effect of a one megaton explosion on London. It also explored how well people could survive such a blast if they were in a fallout shelter.

Jackson had carefully researched his subject and knew how under-prepared the UK was for nuclear war. The physical and psychological effects of atomic attack would catapult what was left of Britain back to a 14th century mode of living, a time when bubonic plague killed millions.