To understand not only what took place last week in DC, but the response of many Americans and the Republican party to it, it's absolutely essential to understand the role a certain kind of religion plays in US culture and politics. /1 #capitolsiegereligion

This kind of religion is most accentuated in its evangelical iteration, but is to be found in a lot of other sectors of religion in the US since, as Kristin Kobes du Mez shows in her book Jesus and John Wayne, evangelicalism has extended its influence all through US religion. /2
Some key reasons — rooted in a kind of religion that is deeply embedded in US culture and politics — many Americans and Republicans will keep lying boldly about what we can all see on the videos from last Wednesday: /3
a. The kind of religion on full display last week in the DC race riot lives in a world of alternative facts, and is proudly scornful of all information and news sources beyond that world. /4
b. The kind of religion we saw manifesting such malevolence in DC last week is ravenous for enemies. Its raison d'etre is the generation of an endless succession of enemies — the native peoples, "witches," "heretics," Jews, Commies, queers, women, liberals — to be overcome. /5
c. The belief of these religionists that they are engaged in holy war as they trounce their perceived enemies seamlessly translates into coercion and violence, against which there is little check in this religious system — since God is on their side. /6
d. This is all fed by an absolute certainty (the world of alternative face does not correct this) that they own America and have a divine commission to run it, and a right to do with it as they please. /7
e. The strong apocalyptic backdrop of this belief system encourages it to welcome violence, death, destruction as the ushering in of an era in which these believers' "enemes" are finally trounced and their power over everyone else is decisively confirmed. /8
f. People who think God is on their side and God validates their cruelty and violence towards perceived enemies are full of a hubris that allows them to see no "truth" other than their own truth. /9
For all these reasons, and due to the willing captivity of the GOP to this kind of US religiosity, we will see little repentance, acknowledgment of something horrendously awry, in what happened last week. We'll see only lies piled on lies and the determination to do it again. /10
“Alternative fact,” not “alternative face,” in /7 above.

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"3 million people are estimated not to have official photo ID, with ethnic minorities more at risk". They will "have to contact their council to confirm their ID if they want to vote"

This is shameful legislation, that does nothing to tackle the problems with UK elections.THREAD


There is no evidence in-person voter fraud is a problem, and it wd be near-impossible to organise on an effective scale. Campaign finance violations, digital disinformation & manipulation of postal voting are bigger issues, but these are crimes of the powerful, not the powerless.

In a democracy, anything that makes it harder to vote - in particular, anything that disadvantages one group of voters - should face an extremely high bar. Compulsory voter ID takes a hammer to 3 million legitimate voters (disproportionately poor & BAME) to crack an imaginary nut

If the government is concerned about the purity of elections, it should reflect on its own conduct. In 2019 it circulated doctored news footage of an opponent, disguised its twitter feed as a fake fact-checking site, and ran adverts so dishonest that even Facebook took them down.

Britain's electoral law largely predates the internet. There is little serious regulation of online campaigning or the cash that pays for it. That allows unscrupulous campaigners to ignore much of the legal framework erected since the C19th to guard against electoral misconduct.

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@franciscodeasis https://t.co/OuQaBRFPu7
Unfortunately the "This work includes the identification of viral sequences in bat samples, and has resulted in the isolation of three bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are now used as reagents to test therapeutics and vaccines." were BEFORE the


chimeric infectious clone grants were there.https://t.co/DAArwFkz6v is in 2017, Rs4231.
https://t.co/UgXygDjYbW is in 2016, RsSHC014 and RsWIV16.
https://t.co/krO69CsJ94 is in 2013, RsWIV1. notice that this is before the beginning of the project

starting in 2016. Also remember that they told about only 3 isolates/live viruses. RsSHC014 is a live infectious clone that is just as alive as those other "Isolates".

P.D. somehow is able to use funds that he have yet recieved yet, and send results and sequences from late 2019 back in time into 2015,2013 and 2016!

https://t.co/4wC7k1Lh54 Ref 3: Why ALL your pangolin samples were PCR negative? to avoid deep sequencing and accidentally reveal Paguma Larvata and Oryctolagus Cuniculus?