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Wednesday Reads: Coup… Excuse Me.

Posted: November 11, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: 2020 Elections, Biden Harris 2020, COVID19, Donald Trump, morning reads, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics, the GOP |11 Comments

The front page of the New York Times for Wednesday…

The New York Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly to The Times. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state; none reported any major voting issues.

Statewide officials in Texas did not respond to repeated inquiries. But a spokeswoman for the top elections official in Harris County, the largest county in Texas with a population greater than many states, said that there were only a few minor issues and that “we had a very seamless election.” On Tuesday, the Republican lieutenant governor in Texas, Dan Patrick, announced a $1 million fund to reward reports of voter fraud.

https://twitter.com/nick_anderson_/status/1326392659594911744?s=21

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Visit link in bio for full story.

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Yep

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I still have anxiety:

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Someone sent me this

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Omg

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Someone sent me this and it’s perfect

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I’m seeing a lot of weird “Dems barely won” takes about this election from people who should know better about #racistcapitalistpatriarchy and about #authoritarianism and #demagoguery. winning against an incumbent president up for reelection in the US is difficult, on top of which MAGA is a white supremacist authoritarian’s turnout. Removing a dictator through a democratic practice and institution like voting is actually pretty miraculous and a rare occurrence in history. We are retaining the House majority and power of the Senate is up for runoff elections. Of course it’s extremely depressing that that many people still voted for Trump but it’s hardly surprising. We actually did really well here compared to what we were up against. also our popular votes both in 2016 and in 2020 have been decisively against trump. We have to remember the electoral college is what makes it seem like things are close, that we also have the GOP actively doing massive voter suppression, deterrence, and in red states like mine everything is redistricted and gerrymandered. (We are actually not as red as a land mass map implies or as red as the world thinks we are.) Also if women voted and men didn’t… damn. Just saying. It’s super stark a contrast.

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Straight up? #NewYorkerCartoons 🖋 Seth Fleishman

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Happy Birthday Sesame Street…

Today is Veterans Day…

As we reflect on those who gave their lives fighting for our rights of democracy, let us think on the current occupant of the White House. tRump and his fellow Republicans, who are attempting to coup the very foundation of government these Veterans have for, are threatening the heart of a democratic government. The people’s voice, their vote.

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November 11 is Veteran's Day in the US and Remembrance Day in commonwealth countries, a memorial day observed since the end of World War I to remember all those who died in service to their country. . In Canada we always wore poppies on Remembrance Day because they are mentioned in the opening lines of the World War I poem "In Flanders Fields," referring to poppies growing among the graves of war victims in Belgium.  . This illustration of a poppy is from the 16th-century Great Hours of Anne of Brittany held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 9474. It contains the Latin text of Psalm 101: 12-18, which, interestingly enough, is quite fitting for this day. . Dies mei sicut umbra declinaverunt, et ego sicut foenum arui. Tu autem, Domine, in aeternum permanes, et memoriale tuum in generationem et generationem. Tu exsurgens misereberis Sion, quia tempus miserendi ejus, quia venit tempus: quoniam placuerunt servis tuis lapides ejus, et terrae ejus miserebuntur. Et timebunt gentes nomen tuum, Domine, et omnes reges terrae gloriam tuam: quia aedificavit Dominus Sion, et videbitur in gloria sua. Respexit in orationem humilium. . My days have declined like a shadow, and I have withered like the grass in the field. But you, O Lord, remain forever, and your remembrance endures for generation and generation. You shall rise up and remember Sion, because it is the time for mercy, because the time comes. For its stones have pleased your servants , and they will have pity on the earth. And the people will fear your name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth your glory, because the Lord has built up Sion, and he shall be seen in His glory. He has considered the prayer of the humble. . #medieval #remembranceday #poppy #psalm #latinlanguage #lingualatina #vulgate #Bible

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Remembrance Day, November 11th, is about all of those who served. During the world wars, on the front or as prisoners of war, it was vital for soldiers to stay in touch with their families and loved ones. Most of the time, the only way to do so was through written correspondence. These letters are housed in the Madeleine Parent Fonds, which documents Parent’s work as a key union organizer and activist in Québec and Ontario from the 1940s-1980s. Parent’s husband, union leader Kent Rowley, was held as a prisoner of war in Petawawa and Hull from 1940 to 1942. The fonds contains his correspondence, including censored letters received in wartime from friends on the battlefield. #mcgillarchives #madeleineparent #remembranceday #snailmail

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Today is Armistice Day, commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the end of the First World War and the armistice signed.⁠ ⁠ As planes took to the air during the war, the world was being seen from entirely new angles, inspiring artists to experiment and to depict landscape in new, unexpected ways. Here the abstract patchwork of fields is laid out under the wing of a military aircraft, the sharp angles of the composition emphasising the dizzying height of the plane.⁠ ⁠ While many works by Nevinson have a Futurist flavour in this period, including Swooping Down on a Taube, three of his six designs for the Efforts and Ideals ('Building Aircraft') series are more realistic in style.⁠ ⁠ In the Air by Christopher Nevinson, 1917. Lithograph. See more in our online WW1 exhibition, Artists Under Fire.⁠ ⁠ #AshmoleanMuseum #Ashmolean #Museum #Art #Culture #History #InstaHistory #InstaMuseum #Oxford #WWI #FirstWorldWar #Military #Nevinson #ArmisticeDay #RemembranceDay #Lithograph #ChristopherNevinson #Planes #War

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He ate rats with rice and survived Japanese war camps, but on Saturday Bal Bahadur Basnet, the last surviving Gurkha prisoner of World War II succumbed to Covid-19 at the age of 99. Basnet was captured by the Japanese during the fall of Singapore, and survived four years in a prisoner of war camp in New Guinea. The British Gurkha defending Burma from Japanese invasion had to flee to Malaya, and were captured as Singapore fell. Those who refused to surrender were executed. The war camps were enduring. “On empty stomachs we were made to work carrying heavy loads, and had to bury the bodies of our friends,” Basnet told Nepalitimes in an interview in December last year. “The dead were the lucky ones, those who were alive worried that there would be no one to bury them after they died,” remembered Basnet. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the camps were liberated by Australian troops who took Basnet and others to Darwin from where they were brought to Bombay. Basnet took a train to Gorakhpur, and then to his village in Galkot of Baglung to reunite who had assumed his demise. Before he was infected with Covid-19, he was perfectly fit and never took any medication. He got up every morning at four, took a cold shower and a walk, and did not even need prescription glasses for reading and writing. Read more about Basnet and his lived experiences at the link in bio @nepalitimes #wwii #prisonersofwar #gurkha #nepal #nepalitimes #covid-19 #war #warcamps #hiroshima #nagasaki

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The latest on Covid:

And…let’s not end on a depressing thought:

Congratulations Chris, fanfuckingtastic!

What’s going on in your part of the world?

11 Comments on “Wednesday Reads: Coup… Excuse Me.”

  1. Pat Johnson says:
    November 11, 2020 at 7:57 am

    There is no depth to Donald Trump just as there is no limit of how low he can go in trying to get his way.

    While the nation suffers under a raging pandemic this idiot is holed uo in the Oval Office nursing his wounds, refusing to concede, planning his revenge.

    We’ve never seen anything this infantile as this man and his monumental ego. The question is how much longer this can go on and what damage he will do to us on his way out?

    No telling.

  2. dakinikat says:
    November 11, 2020 at 10:26 am

    This keeps getting scarier. He’s going to sell us out.

  3. dakinikat says:
    November 11, 2020 at 12:56 pm

  4. MsMass says:
    November 11, 2020 at 1:02 pm


    Well, if you still want a little celebration, these kids are good.

  5. NW Luna says:
    November 11, 2020 at 2:54 pm

    In Flanders Fields
    John McCrae – 1872-1918

    In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
    That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the Dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
    In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high.
    If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
    In Flanders fields.

    • Beata says:
      November 11, 2020 at 4:00 pm

      Thank you for posting this, Luna.

      My Quaker grandfather was in medical school when the US entered WWI. He volunteered to be an ambulance driver in France. He met my grandmother, who was a nurse, during that time.
      Both of her brothers were in the infantry in France. None of them ever talked about their war experiences. I wish they had.

    • RonStill4Hills says:
      November 12, 2020 at 8:27 am

      When I see our British friends wearing their poppies I get a pang of grief over how patriotism and national unity has been perverted in America.

      • DarthVelma says:
        November 12, 2020 at 9:14 am

        This is what happens when you celebrate 11/11 as veteran’s day rather than remembrance day or armistice day. When you celebrate the military rather than remember the cost of war and celebrate its ending.

  6. NW Luna says:
    November 11, 2020 at 2:59 pm

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a hand-counted audit of the presidential vote in his state, where President-elect Joe Biden leads by more than 14,000 votes. The goal is to have the audit completed by Nov. 20, the state deadline for certification.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/11/joe-biden-trump-election-live-updates/

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