Here @playbookplus goes again: ‘HOW MUCH IS BIPARTISANSHIP WORTH?’ I don't know @politico, how many more months would you like the pandemic to drag on for? How many more dead? How many more people, businesses ruined economically? I'm sorry but this is garbage framing in a crisis.

I've spent the past year as angry as I've been since the early days of the AIDS epidemic when I had to bury friends in their 20s, 30s because our government didn't care if gay men lived or died from a new virus among us. 1/

Some were put off by my anger, some thought scientists shouldn't be political or if they were tone it down a bit. 2/

I work in public health. I am not a basic scientist or a theoretician. I work in a field that is hemmed in by history and politics on every side. 3/

From the 19th century onwards, we've known that who lives and who dies isn't just a function of biology. The data support this thesis, we call them the social determinants of health. 4/

My friend and colleague Paul Farmer calls out these determinants in more direct terms as pathologies of power, structural violence. 5/

One thing I will never understand. In 2020, we let ~340,000 Americans die, sometimes in the thousands per day. And we watched. There were no protests, no daily banner headlines befitting a national tragedy on this scale. It's as if we watched 9/11 in a loop for 300+ days. 1/

It was the non-chalance of all of it, the sangfroid. Yes, of course, there were stories in the media, some great ones, but we were shoving bodies into makeshift morgues in America in 2020, and it all became background noise. 2/

And no one rose up. Punctuated outrage from some. But no one on the streets in any substantial numbers asking for, demanding answers, action. 3/

If it weren't for the #BlackLivesMatter protests you'd think most of America was already dead. 4/

You don't have to ask what would I have done if I was present at one of history's great tragedies where people made choices to let barbarism flourish. We've done it now. 5/

Eight years ago, Spencer Cox died of #AIDS. He had access to #antiretroviral therapy, but in his own struggles with #depression and substance use, he stopped taking them. 1/

Spencer left college, dropped out like me in the 80s, and we both found ourselves in @actupny where we joined the Treatment and Data Committee, doing battle with drug companies, the @US_FDA, the @NIH on a quest to save ourselves and our friends from near-certain death. 2/

Now everyone knows what those dark days before the advent of antiretroviral therapy were like. Waves upon waves of dying friends. A government who couldn't care less for the sick and dying. 3/

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. AIDS. #COVID19. The next pandemic. The fire next time. 4/

And it changes you. Seeing so much death so young. Seeing those in power turn away from the catastrophe, even joke about it (find, listen to the tape of Larry Speakes in Oval Office w Reagan laughing about AIDS). 5/

THREAD on how economically Muslims maybe poorer (the state is overall also not as rich) in #Bengal but have relatively got socio-political empowerment (part of Threads I am writing for the understanding of Bengal politics in the context of upcoming assembly election):

1/20

The socio-economic status of Muslims in the state is far behind other communities as the Sachar Committee Report (2006) and Pratichi-SNAP’s “Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal” (2016) attest.

2/20

But it has not witnessed the rule of the BJP yet although the founder of the predecessor of the saffron party, Bharatiya Jan-Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was himself a Bengali.

3/20

During both the Congress and the Left Front rule earlier, and now under TMC Muslims did get some leverage although political marginalization even at block level had continued.

4/20

Across India, the last two general elections, and even the recent Bihar assembly elections, have resulted in the further marginalization of Muslims.

5/20

1. “Who Are Ireland’s Members Of The World Economic Forum Implementing The Great Reset In 2021 ? 🧵1/28

🕵️🔎 Politicians, Musicians, Clergy, Bankers, Journalists, Human Rights, Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability, Corporations & Agriculture

2. In previous threads I have looked at 🇮🇪 key players in the Trilateral Commission as well as 🇮🇪 people who have attended the Bilderberger meetings. I also looked at the 🇮🇪 in the Young Global Leaders which is a site run by the WEF. You will see a lot of crossover between them.

3. The purpose of this thread is to compile all the Irish members into one thread for ease of access and reading rather than having to dive through the WEF site. This is by no means definitive and I will be adding more over time when they pop out of the woodwork.

4. Ireland’s WEF members are drawn from all walks of life but can be split into 2 separate areas. The WEF calls the first category “people” and the 2nd one “agenda contributors”. In total Ireland has a minimum of 61 members. Some of the names will be familiar and others will not

5. In this thread I’m just going to concentrate on the 21 people (there are probably a lot more). There are also 40 “agenda contributors” which I will cover in a separate thread. The agenda contributors are those who write articles or do research for the WEF site.

1/ 2017 vs 2020 Economics

Whatever the many reasons for the coup. The aftermath has been an economic disaster. This is instructive, since Mugabe was a monumental failure in Economics.

I wish to stick to economic facts &figures. I restrict myself exclusively to GOZ & RBZ stats

2/
To be fair to Mnangagwa, as President he is fed a lot of misinformation & politically convenient gibberish by those closest to him & security clusters bent on personal enrichment than national well being.

I say this, because some of the issues are too simple to understand.

3/
Mnangagwa can never commit harakiri ( Japanese suicide by cutting one’s belly) if facts & figures were honestly presented to him. Yet we saw Mugabe commit harakiri. He died a sad death while his lieutenants are now in power. Where the lieutenants honest to Mugabe...

4/
Chinamasa was Mugabe’s finance Minister. Was he frank & honest? If so why would he benefit from Mugabe’s ouster? The same is true of Mugabe’s bureaucracy. Most benefitted from the coup. So we ask if they were honest with him during his reign?

ED suffers the same problem

5/
On Wallstreet, CEO’s are not protected from their critics & independent research. Often they rely entirely on this research & seek it out in developing their strategy.

Once, Patterson Timba kicked out an analyst from his investor briefing. Forgetting strategy is in critique

On Sep 3rd 2020 we closed on a 120k sf glove factory built in 1890 in a small NY town.

Has 45k sf of self storage inside and had $14k a month of net operating income at closing.

Let's breakdown this deal.

A THREAD on creating $2 million out of thin air in 18 months...

👇👇

First saw the property on Loopnet in mid 2018. I ignored it. Who wants to try to operate a business in an old factory in a dying NY town.

A few months later I reached out. Broker sent me financials. They were good. $24k a month in revenue and $10k in expenses.

So I visited the property. It was old. Needed a new roof. Full time manager. Only accessible to customers 9am-5pm M-S. No autopay. A lot of folks paying 1/2 market rent.

I loved everything about it.

But I knew they were going to have trouble selling this thing no matter the profitability, so on July 1 2018 I made a low offer. $750k + seller pays for new $250k roof + $20k in environmental work.

Countered at asking price + $100k credit towards roof.

I ignored the response.

Broker called me back mid September of 2018. Make another offer, he urged.

I knew it was a good biz so I got more aggressive - $1MM + seller pays for roof / environmental.

Declined. Countered with $1.2MM but they'd give me a new roof and do the environmental.

SALUTATIONS you fantastic denizens of the internet! The first #FridayNightHistory of 2021 is here! This week, a new mystery: the true name of "John Williams," Japanese Veteran of the American Civil War.

Yeah, you heard right. And he's not the only one, either.

Now-- I know, I know. Ordinarily you see me talking about the Japanese aftermath of the US Civil War, in the form of people and surplus equipment from the US that ended up there during the Boshin War.

I find myself in pursuit of the opposite, today. @DuPertweet brought a tweet by @KyleMizokami to my attention, with photos of an article talking about Asian-American/Pacific Islander veterans of the US Civil War in general and 2 Japanese vets in particular.

I'm starting from one of those two, and seeing how much I can reconstruct, because there really weren't that many Japanese people outside of Japan in the timespan of the US Civil War (1861-1865), so I think it should be possible to narrow down their precise names and identities.

And this week I want to start from one. What do we know about this person who American records call John Williams?