Did Zuckerberg Lie to Congress?

• PETA buys a stake in Levi on first day of trading… but what’s their ulterior motive?
• Zuckerberg knew about Cambridge Analytica scandal months before story broke.
• Smart toilet detects heart failure before it happens.
• A revolutionary technology that could radically change the next 100 years.

Did Zuckerberg Lie to Congress?

Facebook CEO knew about Cambridge Analytica scandal months before story broke

Facebook is making the hike to D.C. (again) to try and keep some scandalous internal emails private.

(Could you guys grab me one of those Washington Monument paperweights while you’re up there? You’ve gotta be pros at souvenir shopping in the Capital by now.)

The emails allegedly reveal that Mark Zuckerberg knew about Cambridge Analytica’s “improper data gathering” months before The Guardian broke the story.

(Or at the very least, the lizard man wearing the Mark Zuckerberg skin suit knew about it.)

Analytica? I hardly know ya! Global Science Research harvested the data of 87 million people from Facebook and sold it to English political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Analytica went on to use that data in political campaigns all over the world, including the 2016 U.S. election.

Last year, Zuckerberg told Congress that he first learned about Cambridge Analytica in December 2015, when the story made international news.

But according to D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, Facebook execs potentially knew about Analytica months before — as early as September 2015. And Racine wants to unseal the company’s private employee emails to prove it.

In a statement to The Guardian this morning, Facebook said it “absolutely did not mislead anyone about this timeline.”

Facebook is claiming that yes, they knew about a Cambridge Analytica scandal in September. But that was a completely different scandal than the one Zuckerberg was called to Congress to testify about.

(Duh, guys! Of course. That makes total sense.)

What do you think about all this? Is Facebook too big to be stopped? Or is this another nail in the coffin? Click here to email me and let me know your thoughts.

I know how our tech trends expert James Altucher feels.

What goes up…

Way back in 2007, James predicted Facebook would be worth $100 billion in a few years.

He didn’t keep it to himself either.

He even went on live TV, on CNBC, and told the world that the time to invest in Facebook was now.

They laughed him off the air.

Of course, James was right.

Facebook went on to become one of the biggest companies in the world, and would at one point be valued at $400 billion.

But, after an endless string of headlines detailing company mismanagement, security breaches, and misuse of consumer data, James has soured on Facebook.

His new prediction? Facebook is on its way out. And a new social media alternative is going to take its place.

The biggest companies in the world are already scrambling to get into this explosive opportunity, which already has a market larger than Facebook!

While the rest of the world was distracted by Facebook getting slammed by regulators… and dealing with its troubling privacy breaches and info leaks… this underground opportunity was rapidly building an army of raving cash-paying customers…

In short: This tiny, little-known company is the critical linchpin of a “Social Media Killer” that could soon replace Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on Wall Street.

This “Social Media Killer” is presenting a chance so unique that even richest-divorcee-in-the-world Jeff Bezos couldn’t ignore it.

Amazon recently invested nearly $1 billion for a spot on the ground floor of this explosive revolution.

Which is huge news for one tiny little company that’s trading for just $11 this morning. My research team says this little stock is uniquely positioned to profit directly from the success of this new social media alternative.

Click here to find out how to position your money and get in on the ground floor of this “Social Media Killer.”

Doctor Toilet Will See You Now

A team of researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have invented a smart toilet capable of monitoring your health while you *cough* offer tribute to the porcelain king.

The cardiovascular monitoring system (which looks a little like the toilet-seat bomb from Lethal Weapon 2) is designed to detect the early signs of heart failure and potentially save thousands of lives annually.

When you sit on the smart toilet (to do whatever you do, no judgment), the seat measures your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygenation levels.

If the creepy robot seat detects any irregularities, it will notify your doctor directly.

For now, RIT plans to sell the toilets seats directly to hospitals, who would then issue the seats to patients already suffering from heart failure.

According to researcher Nicholas Conn, these are the folks who are most at risk of fatal heart failure:

Typically, within 30 days of hospital discharge, 25% of patients with congestive heart failure are readmitted. After 90 days of hospital discharge, 45% of patients are readmitted. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients for heart failure.

The toilet seat-scientists estimate that their revolutionary butt-monitoring toilet tech could save hospitals hundreds of thousands of dollars by significantly lowering the readmission rates of heart failure patients.

But, what’s really exciting here is the prospect of an affordable system for monitoring your health at home. Whoever cracks that nut will have a golden-egg-laying goose on their hands.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be a toilet seat though…

PETA Buys a Stake in Levi on First Day of Trading

Famously rational animal rights group PETA has bought a stake in the newly public Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE: LEVI).

The 165-year old jeans maker returned to the public market yesterday, surging 31% in a single day and giving the company a market value of $8.7 billion.

One of those new investors just so happens to be the famously provocative (see: annoying) PETA.

Reportedly, PETA bought just enough shares to attend shareholder meetings and propose shareholder resolutions.

Their first proposal? Switch out the cow-skin leather patches on Levi’s denim for vegan leather.

To be honest, I wouldn’t care if Levi switched out their patch or not. It’s a pretty non-essential part of the pants wearing experience for me.

But I predict that this campaign will be as ineffective as the rest of PETA’s vain, attention-grabbing strategies.

PETA’s worst P.R. campaigns:

1. PETA campaigns to rename fish “sea kittens.”
2. PETA petitions Ben & Jerry to switch from dairy to breast milk.
3. PETA compares meat eaters to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
4. PETA compares the American Kennel Club to the KKK.
5. PETA compares battery farming to the Holocaust.

What’s your read on this? Is there any benefit for Levi to give into PETA’s demands? Do PETA actually have any impact on society or is it just a huge waste of money, time, and resources?

Click here to email me and tell me what you think.

ONE LAST THING The War of the Currents

Today’s One Last Thing is about the future.

It’s a story about a revolutionary technology that could radically change the next 100 years. A story about changing the lives of those living with chronic disease. And a promise to snuff out the prevalence of dangerous addictive painkillers.

But at its heart, it’s the story about two men who hated each other’s guts.

Danger, Danger, High Voltage!

We can trace the beginning of this story all the way back to the 1890s and a battle of the minds now known as the War of the Currents.

Electricity was the hot new thing. (Use it to light your home or publicly execute your enemies, folks!)

But in order to roll it out to masses (and start raking in those clams), the system had to be standardized.

The problem? There were two competing systems vying for dominance.

Direct current (DC), where electricity flows in a single direction.

Alternating current (AC), where the current reverses direction 60 times per second. The big advantage of AC is that it allows power companies to easily change the voltage of the power and transmit power of long distances.

At stake was a leading position in a world-changing industry. Both sides were backed by financial giants like J.P. Morgan, GE, and Westinghouse. But two passionate inventors were central to the war.

In the DC corner, you know him as the “inventor” of the lightbulb, the infamous patent bully and electrocuter of elephants, Thomas Edison. (Seriously, the guy electrocuted an elephant to prove a point.)

In the AC corner, the notorious loaner who fell in love with a pigeon and was famously portrayed as David Bowie in a Christopher Nolan movie, Nikola Tesla.

Edison, who was heavily invested in DC, waged an aggressive publicity war on AC current. To prove that AC was too dangerous for household use, Edison began publicly electrocuting animals. Stray dogs and cats. Cattle and horses. And eventually, a sweet circus elephant named Topsy.

For his part, Telsa let his tech do the talking. And… it worked.

The war was finally settled in 1893 when George Westinghouse outbid GE to electrify The Chicago World’s Fair with AC.

Tesla was the winner.

So why is it Edison get all the credit and wears the golden crown in the history book while Nikola Tesla died alone and penniless?

To answer the question is Jud Anglin: the researcher who brought this opportunity to my attention:

The answer to this question lies hidden in Tesla’s other ventures into the world of electricity… far beyond the electrons flowing through power lines.

It goes to the heart of our modern-day treatment of chronic disease… I’m talking about heart disease, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, Crohn’s disease, and even cancer.

Tesla’s discoveries would have set our medical research on a totally different path. But finally, after more than 100 years, neuroscientists have discovered Tesla’s missing link…

And it’s going to change everything we know about all chronic disease.

We’ll go more into what this tech actually is and how it could change the world next week. It’s early days yet. But Jud and the rest of the team are really excited about this opportunity.

As soon, as we know the best way to play it, I’ll let you know.

MARKET MOVEMENTS

Closing Data for 3/21/19:

• U.S. stocks took a nosedive following downbeat macroeconomic data for the U.S. and Europe. The Dow tumbled 274 points and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 137 points.
• Cannabis stocks take a bath in the red as investors seize on the opportunity to lock in their gains.
• Trump announces reversal of new North Korean sanctions. (By tweet of course.)

READER COMMENTS

Click here to send us your comments and tell us what you think. Do you agree with us? Do you think our ideas are stupid? Bring it on. We can take it.

Hi Shane,

You don’t get high with CBD products for pain, they are what is being used for pain by anyone who knows what they are doing.

— Scott M.

Hi Scott,

It’s possible that CBD makes up a share of those seniors who are working longer. But unfortunately, the survey didn’t have specific data on who was using what. That information is private. It merely compared labor data for seniors who were eligible for medical marijuana from before and after legalization. Despite not having a huge amount of clinical testing, CBD is extremely promising. I have a close family member who treats their anxiety and clinical depression with CBD. Then again, some folks just like getting high (even seniors).

— Shane

Hi Shane,

Manafort should never have to go to jail. And if so President Trump should Pardon him immediately!

— Forrest M.

Hi Forrest,

I’m going to have to disagree with you there. If Manafort did something illegal (I’m not saying he did or didn’t) he should 100% go to jail. I don’t think our system should make exceptions for anyone just because of how much money is in their bank account or who they know. If President Trump wants to pardon Manafort of his federal crimes, that’s his right as president. Unfortunately, his hands are tied when it comes to the State crimes, Manafort is getting charged with now.

Cheers,

Shane Ormond
Editor, One Last Thing

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