https://twitter.com/mekkaokereke/status/1081620320098824192?s=17

This. Thread. The guy who designed SpaceX’s Merlin engine is the son of an Idaho lumberjack who got the right nudge from his HS geometry teacher.

Mekka Okereke (@mekkaokereke) Tweeted:

If you’ve seen my talk on D&I, then you are familiar with under-matching: a phenomenon where bright kids from rural areas don’t pursue intellectually rigorous careers.

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not.

Under-matching affects white folk too.

Something I learned at the Racial Equity Institute “groundwater” seminar I attended: inequities aimed at minorities affect white people, too. The U.S. has a terrible infant-mortality ranking in the world, but it’s not a matter of one demographic wrecking the curve. If you take out the “problematic minority”, we STILL rank terribly. Injustice hurts us all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html

Yikes.

«As Lance Wallnau, an evangelical author and speaker who appears in the film, once said, “I believe the 45th president is meant to be an Isaiah 45 Cyrus,” who will “restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse.”

Cyrus, in case you’ve forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.

….

Today’s Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America’s founders, but at bottom they sound as if they prefer autocrats to democrats. In fact, what they really want is a king. “It is God that raises up a king,” according to Paula White, a prosperity gospel preacher who has advised Mr. Trump.

….

The great thing about kings like Cyrus, as far as today’s Christian nationalists are concerned, is that they don’t have to follow rules. They are the law. This makes them ideal leaders in paranoid times.

….

This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.

They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.»

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/trump-aides-fear-the-wall-will-be-his-alamo

Yes, please. But, wait… what kind of deal?

«“You’re already hearing people speculate Trump could do a deal and resign.”»

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/politics/trump-wall-active-national-emergency/index.html

Huh.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy774j/a-fake-nude-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-was-debunked-by-foot-fetishists

Um… Ok….

«An image that’s being passed off as a nude of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was debunked as being fake by a foot fetishist on Reddit—because that’s the future we’re living in now.»

https://twitter.com/Barry_Yeoman/status/1081214144035147777?s=17

Whoa. Including Buncombe (Western NC) and Cumberland (Fayetteville/Ft. Bragg).

Barry Yeoman (@Barry_Yeoman) Tweeted:

I wrote a @washingtonpost story about an unprecedented sweep in North Carolina. The 7 biggest counties all elected African-American sheriffs, a sharp break from the nation’s historic pattern of picking white men and keeping them there in perpetuity.
https://t.co/7VbPk1AjRa #ncpol

https://twitter.com/C_Stroop/status/1081562279987032064?s=17

Chris Stroop (@C_Stroop) Tweeted:

Convergence b/w Russian and far right talking is bigger than Trump, though it’s striking how quickly he picks up on them.

Soros conspiracies have been a Russian thing since the collapse of the USSR. Putinist Russia’s emergence as champion of “traditional values” is key context. https://t.co/BNKbbBW04X

https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1081470376226508800?s=17

Yep, we’re under attack. “Hybrid war,” “memetic war”. Lots of all caps in this thread, but I believe he’s right.

Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) Tweeted:

@wajiii Hello, the unroll you asked for: Thread by @DirkSchwenk: “I am a giant fan of @sapinker. An incredible mind, wrote The Stuff of Thought -a book I oft go back to. (I wish he would […]” https://t.co/v6eyw8WssA

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