Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 20h

Perfect. Perfect.

Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 1d

Lecturing active soldiers about being too fat while dropping standards so low for the ICE deportation force that a third of their recruits can't handle the easiest PT test I've ever heard of www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

More than a third have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.
“It’s pathetic,” one career ICE official told me, adding that before now, a typical class of 40 recruits had only a couple of candidates fail, because the screening process was more rigorous.

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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 1d

It's very clear that unlimited wealth causes brain damage. That's not an exaggeration.

It's similar to other unnatural human conditions like solitary confinement (which is widely understood to cause mental deterioration) and other types of sensory deprivation.

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 1d

Someone went there:

"It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel is Losing It"

via @futurism.com

futurism.com/future-socie...

It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel Is Losing It

He's spent the past month delivering four high-octane lectures in San Francisco's downtown waterfront on the antichrist.

futurism.com

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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 2d

This story is extraordinary even by 2025 standards. Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, made a deal with Bukele and agreed to renege on informant agreements in a years-long DOJ investigation into MS-13, totally undercutting credibility of such agreements.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal

To secure U.S. access to President Nayib Bukele’s notorious CECOT prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several MS-13 leaders central to a long-running Justice Department investigation.

www.washingtonpost.com

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c.gerrish @cgerrish.bsky.social · 2d

No kings.

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 2d

While the Queen was on the throne, it was a different matter.

With her passing it's time to ask - perfectly reasonably - who the institution of monarchy serves and whether this one family should rule over us all in perpetuity... with almost zero accountability

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

MPs urged to confront royal family over Prince Andrew’s Epstein links

Calls grow for parliamentary rule changes to strip Andrew of titles and ask questions of royals

www.theguardian.com

c.gerrish @cgerrish.bsky.social · 3d

Benioff’s newest critic: Laurene Powell Jobs slams CEO’s selfish brand of philanthropy sfstandard.com/2025/10/17/l...

Marc Benioff: Laurene Powell Jobs slams CEO’s selfish philanthropy

The Emerson Collective leader’s Wall Street Journal essay calls out Marc Benioff over his alleged entitled attitude that stems from his civic contributions.

sfstandard.com

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3d

David Byrne at #NoKings on his bike.

(via @wutangforchildren.bsky.social)

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 4d

One of the less understood beauties of a transition to a renewable economy is: you cannot invade a country and steal its sunshine and its wind, and you will not need to. The uneven distribution of fossil fuel, esp. oil, has corroded geopolitics for more than a century....

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 7d

Nobel Peace Prize recipient María Corina Machado appeared on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast.

She touted the oil reserves in Venezuela (the largest in the world) and vowed to privatize the oil industry to enable American corporations to exploit and profit from the country’s resources if she gains power.

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Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 5d

“San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.” Good on you, Ron Conway www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

Venture Capitalist Resigns From Salesforce Foundation Over Benioff Comments

www.nytimes.com

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R.U. Sirius @rusirius.bsky.social · 5d

== THE STANDUP PHILOSOPHER ==

Graham St. John, on Terence McKenna:

“He would say that he’d imagined VR coming to be from the late 1960s, [a] projection of his own wish and fantasy —a position that would later form something of a bit in his standup philosopher routine.”

Full Interview:

The Strange Attractor of 90s Cyberdelia and His Afterlife In VR

Graham St. John’s Strange Attractor revisits Terence McKenna’s ecstatic theories, radical experiments, and enduring influence on the intersection of psychedelics, technology, and consciousness.

magazine.mindplex.ai

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Jodi @jodotcom.bsky.social · 5d

‘I’m Fat and I’m Going to Hell.’
open.substack.com/pub/jojofrom...

‘I’m Fat and I’m Going to Hell.’

- DONALD J. TRUMP

open.substack.com

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Ben Werdmuller @werd.io · 5d

Blogging was a different medium - and there's still a need for it more than ever.

What Made Blogging Different?

Blogging was a different medium - and there's still a need for it more than ever.

werd.io

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Allegra Kirkland @allegrak.bsky.social · 5d

Our first essay comes from @espiers.bsky.social, who writes about growing up in an information bubble in a right-wing, Southern Baptist family in rural Alabama, and how blogs helped changed her worldview

talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/what-...

What Made Blogging Different?

Whether I like it or not, the first line of my obituary...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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c.gerrish @cgerrish.bsky.social · 5d

‘Fall of Freedom’ to Unite Artists For Nationwide Creative Resistance
A number of theatre artists and institutions have signed on to this decentralized, open-sourced initiative, and are inviting others to join in resistance.

www.americantheatre.org/2025/10/15/f...

‘Fall of Freedom’ to Unite Artists For Nationwide Creative Resistance

A number of theatre artists and institutions have signed on to this decentralized, open-sourced initiative, and are inviting others to join in resistance.

www.americantheatre.org

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Disney Prime Video + @disneyprimevideo.bsky.social · 6d

Black Mold 2 (2025)

A mold-poisoned Dr Jordan B Peterson emerges from the cold Canadian tundra to terrorize more young boys

"It's all over But the Crying"

Only in theaters
Depending on your Definition of "only", "theaters" and "in"

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 6d

“the constitution forbids race conscious remedies” would be news to the people who wrote the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments

Michael Li (李之樸) @mcpli.bsky.social · 6d

Griem goes there, arguing in response to Justice Jackson that there can be no race-conscious remedy absent a finding of intentional discrimination.

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c.gerrish @cgerrish.bsky.social · 7d

Time to start the AI burn rate countdown?

pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

Pluralistic: The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh (27 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 8d

Nice….

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 8d

A couple of parking signs for anyone who wants to print them out for this coming Saturday.

Parking Signs

If you want to print out a poster for October 18th, here are two; fully-guaranteed countrywide but maybe especially suitable for in and around New York. No King Anytime sign ...

kieranhealy.org

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 8d

You need to see this:

“The show of force is the point. They want these images to be out…The Department of Homeland Security is walking around Chicago with a film crew.” @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 10d

The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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Denise Wheeler @denisedwheeler.bsky.social · 14d

Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst noticed that Bondi flipped open a file during the Senate hearing and he zoomed in.

Inside were her crib notes for attacking the senators.

The GOP now practicing Cliff's Notes Fascism

In other words, under oath Bondi was purely a performance.

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

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Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 14d

A lot of the apps on your phone are tracking your physical location and selling that information to other companies. Here's a fantastic explainer from @pcmag.com about 20 of the most common apps that spy on you. Service journalism at its finest. www.pcmag.com/explainers/t...

These 20 Apps Are Watching You—And You Probably Use Them Every Day

You might use these apps every day, but have no idea what they collect. These 20 apps are quietly harvesting your location, contacts, photos, and more—here's what you can do about it.

www.pcmag.com

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c.gerrish @cgerrish.bsky.social · 14d

In 2011, 80.26% of all email was spam. In 2024, the number was around 45%. That's about 14.5 million spam emails globally per day. While that's an improvement, half of everything you receive is trying to pick your pocket. In realtime social media, it's still 2011.

www.statista.com/statistics/4...

Spam e-mail traffic share 2023| Statista

In 2023, nearly 45.6 percent of all e-mails worldwide were identified as spam, down from almost 49 percent in 2022.

www.statista.com

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taber @kvetch.gay · 18d

this is wild: while Stephen Miller's guy was in Minnesota for his uncle's funeral, somebody was able to see his entire phone and take pictures of his Signal group chats talking about military deployments to Portland, and brought them to the Strib (gift link: www.startribune.com/trump-offici...)

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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 19d

You may have heard my arguments against the Electoral College before. Here’s a new one the Founders never anticipated:

If the President is elected by popular vote, he probably wouldn’t selectively punish entire states for voting against him.

OPB @opb.org · 19d

Oregon is set to lose an additional $400 million in federal grants awarded for climate action and is among more than a dozen Democratic states losing federal funding after the Trump administration terminated nearly $8 billion for those states this week.

Oregon to lose an additional $400 million in federal climate grants

Oregon and 15 other Democratic states are losing nearly $8 billion toward climate projects, after the Trump administration terminated multiple federal grants.

www.opb.org

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Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis @jeffjarvis.bsky.social · 24d

Superb reporting by @spiegel.de's Jörg Schindler on the cult next to the White House. "Holy warriors: How fanatical Christians are taking over the USA." I'm begging for it to be translated so Americans can read it and American journalists learn from it.
www.spiegel.de/ausland/usa-...

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