Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 10h

A thing I have learned from being online since 1995:

If you're a writer, editor, journalist, academic, you have to be ready to go contrarian when you feel it. And if you're feeling it all the time, such that it's become your idenitity, that's a signal. You broke your mind.

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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 16h

Politically Extreme Individuals Exhibit Similar Neural
Processing Despite Ideological Differences

www.apa.org/pubs/journal...

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Maria Popova @popovaprof.bsky.social · 15h

Your regular reminder that Reuters is often indistinguishable from Ru media. Here they fret that delivering Tomahawks to Ukraine would trigger a big NATO-Ru war. They and the Kremlin said the same thing before every single delivery of a new type of weapon to Ukr. They were wrong every time.

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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 17h

“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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Phillips OBrien @phillipspobrien.bsky.social · 19h

Almost worst, we tried to pretend what she said didn’t matter and got right down to business with Putin

Nicolas Tenzer @nicolastenzer.bsky.social · 5d

Nineteen years ago, on October 7, 2006, Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated by Putin's hitmen.
She was the first to tell the truth about Russia's mass crimes in Chechnya, which foreshadowed those in Syria, Ukraine, Africa and elsewhere. They could have been prevented.
Almost no one listened to her.

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Kevin Carey @kevincarey1.bsky.social · 1d

It's clearer by the day that Columbia making a deal with Trump in July was a catastrophe for higher education as a whole. It gave terrible people a bottomless appetite for extortion. The other eight universities must follow MIT's lead.

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

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

www.nytimes.com

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Julius Kölzer @juliusk.bsky.social · 1d

"We show how an immigration-unconcerned but deprived "loser of modernization" still only has half the likelihood to support the AfD than an entirely non-deprived "winner of modernization" who is concerned about immigration"

www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle...

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Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · 2d

Some thoughts on where we are right now and the state of US democracy.

Trump is both deeply unpopular right now—and yet more politically powerful than during his first term, thanks to a pliant Congress and Supreme Court. That’s an uncertain, and dangerous, place to be.

Approval rating of Trump according to the Economist —he’s at -15%.

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 3d

Just bone chilling. And when the imprisonment of critics is combined with his offer to enrich and immunize his loyalists, this is how democracies die fast.

But it's still our choice. Don't let him silence you.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 3d

Regrettably relevant research today

Disguised Repression: Targeting Opponents with Nonpolitical Crimes to Undermine Dissent
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 3d

If we were a serious country, nonsense like this would end it immediately. But then, if we were a serious country, <gestures at everything> would end it immediately.

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Sharon Machlis @smachlis.bsky.social · 5d

This is a professor at Rutgers who teaches a class on the history of anti-fascism. He also teaches about human rights. He has received multiple death threats and been doxed. He is relocating to Europe for his safety. This is where we are in the US now. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 3d

Harvard (and all universities) must take a stand against Trump's extorionary "compact". Enos and Levitsky.
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Harvard Must Take a Stand Against Trump’s Compact | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard, rather than quietly pursuing its own appeasement strategy, should lead the way to preserve academic freedom and democracy.

www.thecrimson.com

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Christopher Wratil 🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine @chriswratil.bsky.social · 4d

We really have reached the end of a civilized age in several Western societies. Wild West in front of us. A dangerous world for most of us.

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 4d

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 5d

The First Amendment explicitly guarantees:

-the right of the people peaceably to assemble
-to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
-the free exercise of religion
-freedom of speech

If this priest had also been press, ICE would have violated all five 1A freedoms at once.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 5d

Here’s video of the incident

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Chris Hanretty @chanret.bsky.social · 4d

This x100. Business degrees are cheap to run, easy to run badly, and face seemingly inexhaustible demand

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 4d

Something grimly predictable about the way that the conversation about 'ripoff degrees' in the UK is always about degrees that aren't rip-offs, but are instead fairly obvious 'this student has chosen something unlikely to pay off economically' rather than the short tail of crap business degrees:

Everyone needs educating in the fight over university degrees

Political confusion over the purpose of these institutions means the obvious fixes are being neglected

www.ft.com

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 4d

She's nothing if not predictable, is she? I know the Tories aren't keen on anything Green these days, but pretty much all they've done this week is recycle stuff they've been banging on about--for the most part fruitlessly--for the last decade and a half. And today it's "Mickey Mouse" degrees. 🙄

Badenoch: Curb students taking 'rip-off' degrees such as English

The performing arts, sociology and anthropology are among the subjects the Conservatives would like to cut

inews.co.uk

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 4d

Constant, morale-sapping, self-doubting rejection throughout their careers is one thing that all but the luckiest/most talented academics, no matter how supposedly senior they are, share with each other! I rather liked this advice about staying positive regardless - I just wish I could follow it!

‘Stay true to yourself – and fly closer to the sun’: what I’ve learned from 50 years of rejection

As a writer, I have been rejected thousands of times, and it initially led to shock, denial and anger. Then I accepted it. Here’s what you can gain from doing so too

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Hix @simonhix.bsky.social · 4d

An excellent (although deeply depressing) piece by Thomas Edsall, with some great interviews with top US political scientists.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Opinion | Trump Is Not Afraid of Civil War. Neither Is Stephen Miller.

www.nytimes.com

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Luis Ramiro @ljramiro.bsky.social · 5d

y lo compré en la magnífica librería El Retiro de las Letras, en Niño Jesús, a un paso de la C/Samaria, lugares que aparecen en la novela!!! www.elretirodelasletras.com

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Luis Ramiro @ljramiro.bsky.social · 5d

Me ha gustado Nunca voló tan alto tu televisor d S. Nanclares (felicidades @silvink.bsky.social).
Fantástico retrato del Moratalaz (lo digo yo born & bred en los pisitos pequeños) d aquellos años, d su estructura social, tipologías d edificios, los interbloques, lo 'aspiracional' y la frontera M30

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Kai Arzheimer @kai-arzheimer.com · 5d

'We remain unclear as a profession about what exactly we expect from our students.' And it's very much the same here, not because we don't care, but because we do not really know #AcademicChatter

A new academic year has begun, but UK universities are still struggling to respond to AI - Impact of Social Sciences

Mark Carrigan argues university staff are still struggling to develop coherent, contextual and disciplinary responses to AI’s impact on teaching and learning.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 5d

Here's what I told him:

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PS: Political Science & Politics @pspolisci.bsky.social · 5d

Now on FirstView: a Profession Spotlight guest edited by @isaackamola.bsky.social! Rethinking the Corporate University: An Engagement with Kaufman-Osborn’s The Autocratic Academy

The collection is free to read through the end of November here: shorturl.at/4vWqV

#polisky

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David Attewell @davidattewell6.bsky.social · 5d

@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️

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