Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Louis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 20m

lmao

Louis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 57m

Thiel seems to be repackaging “the Antichrist” to refer to Elders of Zion-esque conspiracies about globalist cabals that is trying to undermine him, specifically his ability to accumulate and hide wealth.

Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 2h

What Thiel is saying about tax havens = what Altman is saying about copyright:

"I can't be rich unless you let me steal from you."

This is how Broligarchs differ from oligarchs of yore: the latter tried to hide their thievery; the Broligarchs trumpet their entitlement to steal as a natural right.

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Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 11h

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 9h

🤷🏽‍♂️ 🇺🇸 💰

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12h

DOGE was a catastrophic failure by any measure except further hollowing out govt to be fleeced by tech guys. So yeah, DOGE seems like a success if rent-seeking is your goal, but no serious policymaker is under any obligation to take these people seriously, and those that do are doing it for the $

He praised Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative to slash federal spending, texting a recent photo of himself hanging out with Mr. Musk and a Tesla robot. He likewise praised David Sacks, another San Francisco tech billionaire and the chairman of Mr. Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12h

Like, I think our society has given way too much political power to guys whose worldview is reshaped by political invitations to dine with the King of England and have no idea about what is happening in American cities.

Mr. Benioff is close enough to Mr. Trump to have been invited last month to a state dinner that was hosted by King Charles for the president at Windsor Castle in England. Mr. Benioff said that he was incredibly honored to be seated directly across the table from Mr. Trump and spent the dinner telling him “how grateful I am for everything he’s doing,” he recounted.

Mr. Benioff, who also owns Time magazine, said he had not closely followed the news about the immigration raids, Mr. Trump’s call to gerrymander congressional districts before the midterm elections, the government shutdown or the Trump administration’s attacks on the media. He said Time, which named Mr. Trump its “Person of the Year” last year, had faced no pressure from the White House.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12h

These guys have gotten incredibly rich by fleecing the government with subpar tech that was designed for rentseeking rather than performance. A smart Dem agenda item would be to build internal tech capacity. The fact that it would punish these guys is just a silver lining.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 12h

Being a billionaire must really fuck with your mind. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco

www.nytimes.com

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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 12h

Vivek was apparently shocked to learn that the kids in Charlie Kirk's TPUSA groups are Christian Nationalists who will never accept him. They want the entire country to be white Christians, and the very idea that he could hold a position of power offends them.

newrepublic.com/post/201664/...

Surprise! Vivek Ramaswamy’s Turning Point Event Derailed by Racism

Event attendees asked Ramaswamy why he felt he could be the governor of Ohio even though he isn’t Christian.

newrepublic.com

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 15h

His slip of the tongue reveals who’s really in charge. trib.al/mIvP0yE

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN. “If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 17h

I've attempted and abandoned a memoir about living through the digital media bubble a few times, but man do I have stories about AJAM.

Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 19h

Actually just occurred to me that those of us who worked at Al Jazeera America — a hugely expensive boondoggle backed by an authoritarian regime that thought it could have it both ways — are uniquely well positioned to predict the future of CBS News.

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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 18h

Those are three people in inflatable frog suits.

@MrAndyNgo
Now that the local and national press have started to cover the Portland ICE area round-the-clock in reaction to the President, Antifa have devised a plan where they are encouraging one another to come in animal costumes.

The costumes serve the function of masking the violent extremism to make the direct action appear like a family-friendly gathering on camera, and to whitewash the past ultraviolence.

In 2019, Antifa devised a similar plot by giving out free "milkshakes" at a protest. But they couldn't contain their bloodthirst and nearly killed me when they saw me. In 2020, they mobilized a fake "Wall of Moms" where female Antifa supporters and members wore yellow shirts to act as human body shields while violent rioters behind them hurled projectile weapons.

photo of three people in inflatable frog costumes

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Adam Selzer @adamchicago.bsky.social · 19h

The frogs have landed in Chicago!

Protestor in a frog suit and an anti-Ice sign with what I believe to be a Pokémon character on a street corner in Rogers Park.

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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 16h

the republican majority leader with a clear vision for the democratic party

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Thune: "If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would've tried to nuke the filibuster. And then you'd have four new senators from Puerto Rico and DC, you'd have a packed Supreme Court, you'd have abortion on demand ... "

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 16h

The MSM does not interview community organizers. It's part of why they miss so much of what happens at the local level.

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David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING:

"Just landed."

Mark Bray confirms to me this morning that he and his family did, on the second attempt, make it out of the US and to Spain

www.wired.com/story/mark-b...

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US

Rutgers historian Mark Bray is trying to flee to Spain after after an online campaign from far-right influencers was followed by death threats. He was turned back at the airport on his first attempt.

www.wired.com

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 18h

Update: Bari Weiss’s first pitch at CBS — a roundtable with Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, and Hillary Clinton that ended up being a virtual interview with Clinton & Condoleezza Rice — has about 150 viewers on YouTube.

Added with the 24/7 CBS stream, it’s just over 1200 viewers.

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SFDB @sfdb.bsky.social · 18h

Mike Johnson & every single MAGA can story tell all they want about so-called anti-American Democrats but they will never ever be able to escape the reality that they are part of a movement, the leader they still hysterically support, that attempted to violently overthrow a free and fair election.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Mike Johnson: "This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18? The antifa crowd, the pro-Hamas crowd, and the Marxists, they're all gonna gather on the Mall. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes ... all this has gotta come to an end."

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 20h

Russell Vought has announced that "mass firings [RIFs] have begun."

Lawless. The RIFs in the spring were illegal, as Judge Illston outlined. Yes, the conservative SCOTUS supermajority lawlessly signed off. But the Calvinball Court is not doing law.

Congress can stop this. A thread: 1/

'RIFs have begun.' Vought announces start of mass firings during government shutdown

The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.

www.pbs.org

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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 6d

As I argue in the book, when we attend to respectability attitudes, which focus on & center Black ppl’s beliefs abt Black behavior, we can understand so much abt how ppl think abt a range of issues. And I think our standard ideological language, though often useful, gets in the way of this clarity.

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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 6d

One of the interesting bits of the work I’ve been doing for nearly a decade to understand Black Americans’ embrace of respectability is the relatively limited relationship btwn age/cohort & respectability attitudes.

These ideas have so endured that you find them even among younger cohorts.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @ebonyteach.blacksky.app · 6d

The Obamas always remind me of my young aunts and uncles and their spouses who were always like my elder sibs.

Born in the 60s, 70s childhood, came of age in the 80s, etc. Different experiences, insights, and stumbling blocks than those of us born in the 70s, 80s childhood, 90s coming of age faced.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 5d

DO POLITICAL PROTESTS MATTER? EVIDENCE FROM THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT*
ANDREAS MADESTAM
DANIEL SHOAG
STAN VEUGER
DAVID YANAGIZAWA-DROTT
Can protests cause political change, or are they merely symptoms of underlying shifts in policy preferences? We address this question by studying the Tea Party movement in the United States, which rose to prominence through coordinated rallies across the country on Tax Day, April 15, 2009. We exploit variation in rainfall on the day of these rallies as an exogenous source of variation in attendance. We show that good weather at this initial, coordinating event had significant consequences for the subsequent local strength of the move-ment, increased public support for Tea Party positions, and led to more Republican votes in the 2010 midterm elections. Policy making was also af-fected, as incumbents responded to large protests in their district by voting more conservatively in Congress. Our estimates suggest significant multiplier effects: an additional protester increased the number of Republican votes by a factor well above 1. Together our results show that protests can build political movements that ultimately affect policy making and that they do so by influencing political views rather than solely through the revelation of existing political preferences. JEL Code: D72.

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Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 22h

A lot of people on here, in multiple directions but primarily in the left-bashing formula, are less interested in Gaza or Palestine itself than what they can achieve out of it vis a vis their online arguments.

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Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 22h

Khaled Elgindy proving that you can in fact talk to Isaac Chotiner without sounding like you've recently been lobotomized with a cheese grater

Why Hamas Agreed to Release the Hostages

And why it might not matter much for Gaza’s future, or for Palestinian statehood.

www.newyorker.com

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 1d

Stephen Miller just said that Chicago ICE raid was one of the most successful law enforcement operations ever. I asked Pritzker to respond.

"If this was Pinochet’s Chile, if this was Argentina under authoritarian rule, maybe you’d call it successful," he said. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Louis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 1d

It’s also that since Rowan is directly involved with this so called “compact,” this not opinion but advertising

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you @nytopinion.nytimes.com for publishing this rot. Marc Rowan has run hundreds of companies into the dust to extract profits from their failure and bankruptcies. Now he wants to do the same to American higher education. Do not believe a word this man says. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Badly Needed

www.nytimes.com

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