One woman made national news when she protested the Covid-19 vaccine at her local City Council. Another is a member of the Trumpettes, a group of women united in their ardent support for the president. A third is a retired grocery salesman who said he didn’t remember signing up to be involved in a lawsuit. The three are among the 12 Louisiana voters at the center of a case set to be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday that could gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark civil-rights-era legislation. In January 2024, the group filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional district map, arguing state lawmakers had discriminated against them as white voters by impermissibly taking race into account when they drafted the map after the 2020 census. Since then, they’ve been referred to in court filings merely as the “non-African-American” voters.

The "plaintiffs" seeking to dismantle the Voting Rights Act (in a case this week at SCOTUS) include:

-a member of the "Trumpettes," a group of women who ardently support for the president
-a retiree who said he didn’t remember signing up to be involved in a lawsuit.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

need Sunday reading? explore what's on the ballot next month!

I put together the 180+ key races you should know about, across 32 states.

so explore, & find the ones that interest you the most, here: boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

and let me highlight three under-radar races, in 🧵 below. ⬇️

Freedom is Action: A Campaign for Ukraine A fundraiser for life-saving drone-jamming cars and trucks

Please join me in a new campaign to help protect Ukrainians in a very special way. My Ukrainian friends chose to call this campaign Freedom is Action. They are making an important point. One way to find our own courage is to act in support those who are showing it
snyder.substack.com/p/freedom-is...

How The Twilight Zone Smuggled Controversial Ideas Past TV Censors Hundreds of fans gathered in Rod Serling’s hometown to celebrate The Twilight Zone creator who turned science fiction into bold social commentary.

Rod Serling used ‘The Twilight Zone’ to say what 1950s TV wasn't allowed to say. Fans at SerlingFest argue his lessons still hold up.

Saturday, October 18. Everywhere. Find your local event at nokings.org.

#NoKings

Smithsonian museums, research centers, and the National Zoo temporarily closed Sunday due to the federal government shutdown.

‘Fear and hopelessness’: study finds one in four professors consider leaving US south Survey by American Association of Professors shows nearly quarter of respondents are switching due to states’s politics

There are so few academic jobs, and thousands of excellent scholars are all trying to move at the same time due to location. 

🔥 For those closely following the Russian war in Ukraine, you’ve seen the shift: each week, more updates come from inside Russia as their own regions turn into war zones. 💥 Ukrainian drones are hitting military sites deep inside Russia, and now even pro-war Russians are questioning Putin’s failures.

Hi Sally. When Weiss published a supposed expose on the death of George Floyd, a veteran criminal justice reporter showed in deep detail that the piece was not just wrong but filled with falsehoods and misrepresentations. Weiss did not retract the piece. What do you think of that?

MSNBC Panelist Says Pam Bondi Is on Shaky Ground With Trump The president’s newest DOJ bulldog going over the Attorney General’s head may signal that Bondi is losing favor.

The president’s newest DOJ bulldog going over the Attorney General’s head may signal that Bondi is losing favor.

“I’m a cop. I am not supposed to feel dread. He’s a brown person. HE’S supposed to feel dread!”

Bari nods sympathetically.

Never forget that when Bondi was appointed, Democracy Docket immediately called her out while The Washington Post gave her a thumbs up.

If you value independent, pro-democracy media that won't bow down or obey, support Democracy Docket today. hubs.ly/Q03M8rql0

Know your rights flyer in Spanish on street pole

No ice in sidewalk chalk

Rapid responder posing with whistle

Alderperson Maria Hadden on street corner

There are a tremendous number of ICE watchers out in Rogers Park this afternoon after some early morning abductions.

People are guarding churches and patrolling alleyways. Ran into Alderperson Hadden. First timers tell us they're primed and ready to use their whistles.

ice’s illegitimacy grows with every passing day

Inside the West’s Race to Defend the Arctic Sailors scanned for icebergs on a nine-day journey to the U.S.’s northernmost military installation this summer—part of an effort to erode Russia’s vast advantage in the region.

Russia and China are scrambling to dominate the high north. Shipping lanes, oil, gas, vast territorial sees. NATO needs to step up its game in the Arctic, led by the United States and Canada. www.wsj.com/world/inside...

Just a reminder that Wikipedia is the only remaining reliable source of information that right wing billionaires can't control. (Although they'll never stop trying.)

Please donate to them whenever you can. Even a little bit helps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

‘It’s Never Been This Bad’ Immigrant advocates face escalating consequences and threats from the president.

Immigrant advocates have been thrown to the ground, pepper-sprayed, and tailed in their cars by officers in an apparent attempt to intimidate them, @caitlindickerson.bsky.social reports. One tells her: “It's never been this bad.”

Why Ghislaine Maxwell Is Already Making Enemies Behind Bars Fellow inmates at Camp Bryan haven’t taken kindly to living alongside one of the world’s most infamous sex traffickers.

Fellow inmates at Camp Bryan haven’t taken kindly to living alongside one of the world’s most infamous sex traffickers.

Epstein files giving House Republicans over two months paid vacation and counting.

DB-OTO Gene Therapy for Inherited Deafness | NEJM Genetic deficiency of otoferlin, a protein critical to synaptic transmission by the sensory hair cells of the ear, causes congenital deafness. Medicines to treat the condition are lacking; children...

New @nejm.org
One-shot gene therapy for a type of congenital deafness enabled some children to hear for the first time, and 3 of 12 kids achieved normal hearing
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2400521

Trump administration lays off dozens of CDC officials, NYT reports The Trump administration has laid off dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its latest round of cuts, including "disease detectives," high-ranking scientists and the entire Washington office, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Those affected included members of the federal measles response unit, personnel managing Ebola containment efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team responsible for producing the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Reminder:

Two contractors the Trump campaign paid to look for fraud — Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group — debunked the claims.

The top election subversion charge against Trump was conspiracy to defraud because of concrete evidence he knew he was lying.

Purge, Merge, and Surge Trump is creating a omniforce of armed loyalists to establish his police state

New, from me:
Trump's 3 step plan to create a military omniforce
1. Purge - those deemed disloyal
2. Merge - different parts of law enforcement/military
3. Surge - impose the omniforce on Dem cities; instigate unrest; assert dominance; silence dissent
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...

How Bill Pulte learned the art of the attack, from his own family to Letitia James Bill Pulte has become a significant player in the Trump administration. Known for his aggressive online persona and bitter public fights with several family members, Pulte currently serves as director...

apnews.com/article/trum...

‘How is this possible?’: a new film looks inside the appalling abuses of the Alabama prison system In the year’s most shocking documentary The Alabama Solution, prisoners share astonishing footage in a plea for help

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Thankfully, some of yesterday's CDC firings have been rescinded.

But this should be a major scandal, not business as usual in this shitshow of an administration. It's either spectacular incompetence or an effort to make even politically untouchable positions feel precarious to those in them.