Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jim Goldgeier

Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 14h

"The U.S. is two economies. There's an enormous AI boom going on, huge investments, particularly in data centers. If you took that out of the numbers and you just looked at the non-AI parts of the economy, it's basically flatlining. We're on the cusp of a non-AI recession."
-- Me

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Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 19h

👇🎯

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 20h

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.

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Julie DiCaro @juliedicaro.bsky.social · 15h

So Kilmer Abrego-Garcia will not challenge a deportation to Costa Rica, who has agreed to for him residency, but DHS won’t agree to send him there because it’s not cruel enough.

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

For weeks, Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who is married to a U.S. citizen, has made clear that he would not challenge his deportation if he were sent to Costa Rica, which has promised him legal residency and guaranteed that he would not be sent back to El Salvador.

But the Trump administration has refused to deport him to Costa Rica, and in an earlier hearing this week, Judge Xinis pressed the administration to consider the option or clarify why it was unacceptable.

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 22h

The people who want violent protests to happen are Trump, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Tom Homan, and other senior appointees in his admin. They are doing everything they possibly can to provoke people to violence and it is obvious that is what they hope for daily.

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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 1d

“I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. During that time, I was never told what I was charged with, was not allowed to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, had no phone call to my family, and no access to an attorney.” - George Retes, U.S. citizen and veteran.

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.

Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

newsletter.ofthebrave.org

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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 1d

In Polarization and International Politics, @rachelmyrick.bsky.social explains how extreme polarization undermines the advantages that democracies have when formulating foreign policy.

Available worldwide. Explore a free sample of this timely book: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability by Rachel Myrick

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Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 1d

“Turn around or you’re going to get the dog.” To an American citizen in 2025, solely because he “looks like” he doesn’t “belong” here.

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 2d

This is not a border crossing.
There’s no law that any of us have to show our papers on the interior.

This is a blatant civil rights violation. How is anyone supposed to know whether this man is a real ICE agent or just pretending to be one?!

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 2d

What he not saying is that his friends and cronies invested a fortune in Argentina since their guy Milei won, they stand to lose a big chunk of those fortunes the way things are going, and Argentina’s elections are in two weeks and we are tampering in them to bail Milei out.

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Julianne McShane @juliannemcshane.bsky.social · 3d

"Only about 13% of the personnel carrying out Trump’s deportation agenda are employed by ICE’s primary deportation unit; the rest are pulled from other jobs, primarily crime-fighting jobs. The admin “is deprioritizing all other types of criminal law enforcement,” says Cato Institute’s David Bier"

Trump's deportation machine has diverted some 42,000 crime fighters from other tasks

Feeling safer now?

www.motherjones.com

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Jim Goldgeier @jimgoldgeier.bsky.social · 3d

Well I suppose that’s one way to do it.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

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Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) @hcrichardson.bsky.social · 3d

20 paragraphs down in the NBC News story that broke the information that the administration is considering invoking the Insurrection Act is the report that Stephen Miller is driving the issue.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3d

"30-year-old conservative lawyer and activist who is Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination" cancelled his colleague's hotel room so she would be forced to stay with him.
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

In late July, Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando with a lower-ranking female colleague and others from their department. When the group reached the front desk, the woman learned she didn’t have a hotel room.

Ingrassia then informed her that she would be staying with him, according to five administration officials familiar with the episode. Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him, three of those officials said.

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 4d

Crucial from former prosecutor @kristyparker.bsky.social: Trump might have immunity, but those who commit corrupt or illegal orders for him do not. That's why DOJ insiders are leaking word that cases against Comey and Letitia James are collapsing.

All on the pod:
newrepublic.com/article/2015...

Trump Threats to Jail Foes Take Darker Turn with Damning New DOJ Leaks

As ugly new information emerges about Trump’s efforts to prosecute James Comey and other enemies, a former federal prosecutor explains how his corrupt schemes are running into stiff internal resistanc...

newrepublic.com

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4d

JPM DESK: “.. the US budget deficit has not shrunk despite the tariff revenue.

“.. if tariffs are not being used to pay down debt or in some cases as a bailout (e.g., soybean farmers ..) at what point does the bond market react negatively?”

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 4d

Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but avoidable harm to kids really gets to me. My kids can be difficult when they don't get an afternoon snack at the usual time. I'm sure various parents and teachers can say the same. Watching a kid starve to death? And the US govt did it on purpose?
Unconscionable.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 4d

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 5d

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 5d

The government’s own data rebuts Trump Admin claims that wind and solar are driving up electricity prices, Politico reports share.google/RTIXPPQMXrTH...
“[T]he data say pretty much the opposite” of Trump & Secretary Wright’s claims.

Among the 22 states that drew higher-than-average shares of their power from wind and solar, 17 had below-average electricity prices in June, according to EIA data.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 5d

Deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean under what legal authority? The White House never stated one, but it leaked.

Apparently the answer is a lawyer wrote down something that amounts to drugs are weapons so the president can kill whoever he says is moving drugs, without evidence or review.

Lawrence Hurley @lawrencehurley.bsky.social · 6d

Head of OLC is a former Alito clerk
www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/p...

Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say | CNN Politics

The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, according to multiple peop...

www.cnn.com

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Congressman Don Beyer @beyer.house.gov · 5d

This Administration's own guidance and Speaker Johnson's website both state, correctly, that federal workers will receive retroactive pay "as required by law."

The Trump Administration is just trying to frighten people as a tactic to avoid negotiating in good faith. Despicable.

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Eyes on the Fright 🎃 @eyesontheright.bsky.social · 6d

Look at what they have to face

Person dressed in a silly looking frog costume at a protest.

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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 5d

Feel free to attribute the following to a former OMB General Counsel: The supposed "new legal analysis" is, to use a technical legal term, horseshit. What the law actually says is that when Congress enacts a law ending a lapse, furloughed employees get paid at the earliest date possible. Period.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

WHITEHOUSE: What happened to the $50k in cash that the FBI paid to Tom Homan in a paper bag?

BONDI: The investigation of Mr Homan was subjected to a full review by the FBI. They found no credible evidence of any wrongdoing

W: That was not my Q

B: You're welcome to discuss this with Director Patel

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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.bsky.social · 6d

And here we go. I never wrote this article, and yet it is cited here.

www.liberalbriefs.com/geopolitics/...

And of course, it sounds so plausible, I seriously checked whether I had forgotten it, or the footnote was slightly wrong.

#AIisnotresearch

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