https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/doge-is-ripping-out-the-guts-of-government

I wonder how long it will take for us to start caring about stuff we never cared about.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/musk-friday-coup

Oh, boy oh boy oh boy.

«But there’s a long road ahead, because Virginia has a complex process for constitutional amendments: They must pass in two consecutive legislative sessions, and then be approved by voters in a statewide referendum. Concretely, this means that the voting rights reform needs to pass the legislature again in 2026 before voters even get to weigh in.

And that repeat passage very likely hinges on whether Democrats maintain legislative control during this November’s elections, when the entirety of the state House is on the ballot. This measure is universally supported by Democratic lawmakers and almost universally opposed by Republicans, and the GOP could, and probably would, look to kill it next year if they win back the state House in the fall.

Virginia’s system of felony disenfranchisement is a Jim Crow relic, enshrined during a 1902 state constitutional convention with specifically racist intent. One of the lead authors at that convention said at the time that a system which ties voting rights to criminal records would “eliminate the darkie as a political factor” in Virginia, and guarantee “the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.”»

https://boltsmag.org/virginia-advances-measure-to-end-lifetime-ban-on-voting/

None of us are racists today, of course*, so this is a classic example of racism without racists.

«[Sweater vest dad Governor Glenn] Youngkin, the Republican who succeeded Northam in 2022, shut down that decade of reform. He said he’d only consider whether people are worthy of having their rights restored on an individual, case-by-case basis.»

Not a racist, though. Just a gentle, loveable guy.

\* Sarcasm, Mastodon. Give me a little credit.

The youth did not save us.

«Young people who chose issues like racism, abortion, and climate change as their top priority in the 2024 election were the most likely to support Harris. However, 40% of youth chose “the economy and jobs” as their top priority—by far the highest of any issue, and those youth voted for Trump by a more than 22-point margin. Immigration was the third most commonly chosen top issue among youth overall, and the young people who chose it voted for President Trump by a nearly 70-point margin.»

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/overall-youth-turnout-down-2020-strong-battleground-states

«It’s also worth highlighting that, in an election cycle with a lot of focus on the potential role of influencers and celebrities to engage young voters, less than 1% of young people said that motivation from an influencer had been one of their top-three motivations to cast a ballot.»

«More Than 1 in 3 Young People Were Never Contacted By an Organization About the 2024 Election»

«The study surveyed a total of 2,064 self-reported U.S. citizens ages 18 to 34 in the United States.»

There’s kind of a launchpad to this info here: https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election.

And here’s how I found it: https://prospect.org/culture/2025-01-31-celebrity-fatigue-democrats/.

On Trump ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tiktok, after Congress passed a bipartisan law banning it:

«it shows that the Court’s reputation has already reached a point when a president can openly ignore its rulings and orders, with hardly any opposition or political consequence. Trump has set a precedent, and it’s hard to imagine this will end here.»

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-01-31-trump-administration-test-supreme-court-tiktok/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/

There’s gotta be another lawsuit here.

It occurred to me this morning that whining and complaining is nothing new:

«The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”»

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exod.16.2,Exod.16.3&version=NRSVUE

Context: all the bitching and moaning about the Democratic party before the election, and now the rationalizations.

https://www.rawstory.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-2671031806/

Thanks, AOC, good reminder.

https://5calls.org/issue/robert-kennedy-rfk-hhs/done/

And you can, too!

2 voicemails, 2 minutes.