State legislatures: their campaign ads may be completely ludicrous comedy goldmines, and even some of the incumbents are unhinged lunatics, but with Congress basically deadlocked, they're the only place shit gets done. John Oliver spent nearly 20 minutes mocking these buffoons last night, and explaining why you need to vote anyway.

ALEC is dead. Long live ALEC. Yesterday, the American Legislative Exchange Council — a national clearinghouse of pre-written right-wing bills, helpfully provided to conservative state legislators too dumb to come up with their own ideas — announced that it was abandoning the task force that pushed voter-surpression bills and "Stand Your Ground" laws like the one that led Sanford Police to free George Zimmerman the night he killed Trayvon Martin. "We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues," the group's statement said, "and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy."