Good morning … or … maybe not -
Via the NYT: “Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority.”
Voters overwhelmingly believe American democracy is under threat, but seem remarkably apathetic about that danger, with few calling it the nation’s most pressing problem, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
In fact, more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system. [Morning Shots by The Bulwark Newsletter]
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I love this:
The New York Times
Anna May Wong, a Hollywood film star who had a trailblazing career, will be the first Asian American featured on U.S. currency. The U.S. Mint on Monday will begin producing quarters with her image. https://nyti.ms/3T94Muo
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October 22, 1884: The International Meridian Conference, which was a real thing, designates the line of longitude running through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich as the international Prime Meridian. [Foreign Exchanges]
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Is this what’s coming next in ‘Merica?
Brazil's unexpectedly close presidential race has taken an ugly turn in the final weeks ahead of an Oct. 30 runoff vote, even by the bruising standards of the past year, with insinuations of cannibalism, pedophilia and devil worship.
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October 23, 42 BC: A Roman army jointly led by Triumvirs Marc Antony and Octavian defeats Brutus’s Republican army in the second phase of the Battle of Philippi. Brutus committed suicide after the battle. As his co-commander, Cassius, had already killed himself following the first phase of the battle, on October 3, this left the Republican army leaderless and it unsurprisingly fell apart.
{WELL , D-A-M-N!} [Foreign Exchanges]
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In “Hadn’t these guys - and it’s always guys - been arguing about *real* issues, just a minute ago?” news?
LEBANON
The Lebanese military has accused its Israeli counterpart of sailing into Lebanese territorial waters on both Sunday and Monday, an allegation that Israeli officials have denied. Nothing came of either of these incidents but they come at a time when both countries have verbally agreed to a US-brokered deal demarcating their maritime border. Any new tension around this issue could prevent that verbal agreement from becoming an actual agreement. [Foreign Exchanges]
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Here is some lobbying that truly seems valuable and worthy -
→ The Girl Scouts of North East Ohio is getting in the lobbying game. They have hired G2G Consulting to lobby on supporting “STEM education for girls.”
– Jake Sherman [Punchbowl News]
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In a very unusual action during the Party Congress in China, and very unusual in that it was videotaped, President Xi Jinping did not make a move to stop the immediately previous President from being escorted out of the closing ceremony. In addition to the bizarreness of this action is the fact that the videotape escaped the conference room.
BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Chinese former President Hu Jintao was unexpectedly escorted out of the closing ceremony of a congress of the ruling Communist Party on Saturday.
Hu, 79, Xi Jinping's immediate predecessor, was seated to the left of Xi. He was led off the stage of the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing by two stewards, a Reuters witness at the congress said.
Video footage published by AFP showed a steward repeatedly trying to lift Hu from his seat, drawing concerned looks from officials seated nearby. Hu then put his hand on a sheet of paper placed on Xi's folder but Xi quickly put his hand on the sheet.
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Gee, the world sure looks different now that this epic-making resolution of conflicts has occurred.
October 17, 1437: The Battle of Tangier ends
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Yeah? Well, I’ll guess we’ll see how y’all do that, won’t we - the disappearances, executions & other destructions of life. President Xi?
‘We’ll be steadfast in deepening reform and opening up across the board, and in pursuing high-quality development,’ Xi Jinping says after announcing line-up [of new Standing Committee]. [South China Morning Post]
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A brief bio-article about Chelsea Manning that I found very interesting; how she got to where she got over the past 11 years … and why:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/22/chelsea-manning-leaked-military-documents-free-world-prison