#uspo

[stone-cold-groove]

Vintage bookplate. Scientific Library / United States Patent Office - circa 1910.

[transgenderhelp]

Mauree Turner is the first nonbinary and first Muslim Oklahoma state lawmaker

Mauree Turner won her race for Oklahoma state House for District 88, becoming the first nonbinary state legislator in US history and first Muslim lawmaker in Oklahoma.

A few days old now, but in the kerfuffle following the election I'm not sure I posted about this. The first nonbinary state lawmaker in the US was elected recently in, of all places, Oklahoma!

[whattolearntoday]

A bit of July 26th history...

1609 - English mathematician Thomas Harriot is the 1st person to draw a map of the Moon by looking through a telescope

1775 - US Continental Congress creates United States Post Office in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin

1947 - US President Truman signs National Security Act establishing Department of Defense, CIA, National Security Council, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

1990 - US President George H W Bush signs Americans With Disabilities Act

2016 - Hillary Clinton becomes 1st woman to top a majority party ticket for President of the US

2018 - Observation of a black hole by The Very Large Telescope in Chile proves Einstein’s prediction of “gravitational redshift” (pictured)

[justahillbillyfromouterspace]

[transgenderhelp]

This is from the platform of Joshua Collins of Washington, a 28 year old truck driver running for Congress who thinks life could be a little better.

Progress is coming, even if you can’t always see it, and I wanted to remind my followers that it’s not all bad news.

His platform is here if you’re curious

[transgenderhelp]

The women, people of color, and LGBTQ candidates who made history in the 2017 election

Election Day was full of historic firsts.

Great news! Local elections are so important

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

‪Too many people in 2016: ‬

‪“Let’s elect Trump. How much worse could things possibly get?“‬

‪Where we’re at in 2020: ‬

‪“U.S. veteran wears face mask to shield himself from deadly unchecked pandemic while guarding neighborhood post office box to safeguard democracy.”‬

* * * * *

I think most people realise that for all its complexity contemporary society is an artificial construct that can be moved offstage at a moment’s notice, as people find at times of war, as I found during the Second World War as a child in Shanghai. You know, reality is just a stage set that can be pushed aside, and a very different set of rules can then apply. — J. G. Ballard (via inthenoosphere)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Trump Says Gutting the Post Office 'Means You Can't Have Universal Mail-In Voting'

The president says the quiet part out loud when it comes to attacking mail-in voting

* * * *

“Trump’s assault on mail-in voting is blatantly political and nakedly hypocritical. At the same time he attacks mail-in voting, his campaign is encouraging Republican voters in battleground states to apply for absentee ballots and vote by mail. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr, and other senior administration officials have all voted by mail in recent elections. The only plausible explanation for Trump’s newfound resistance to voting by mail — to the point that he would kneecap the Postal Service to prevent the delivery and transport of ballots — is that he believes it will hurt his chances of reelection in November.

“Mail-in voting wasn’t created in this pandemic,” Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, recently told Rolling Stone. “It’s only when we see the expansion of access to this very practical tool that we see the casting of votes being subjected to such scrutiny and malignment.”

[Rolling Stone]