Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Max Kennerly

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 2h

What an emblem of the billionaire class—descending on a peaceful city in a private jet on the horn to NYT asking for the place to be invaded by federal authorities because the rent-a-cops you employ for a week to harass a few junkies outside the convention center cost too much.

Mr. Benioff spoke as his annual Dreamforce conference is set to begin Tuesday in downtown San Francisco, bringing 50,000 visitors to the city. He is scheduled to deliver a keynote address about the benefits of "agentic enterprise," a business model in which humans and artificial intelligence bots work together.
Speaking by telephone from his private plane en route to San Francisco, he lamented that he has to pay for nundreds of off-duty law enforcement officers to help patrol the convention area and said that San Francisco needed to "re-fund" the police.
The city never actually "defunded" its police force, and San Francisco's violent crime rates are below those in many other U.S. cities.
But San Francisco has struggled to recruit and keep officers, and it still has problems with lower-level crimes and open-air drug use, especially in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin near City Hall. It has about 1,500 police officers, and Mr. Benioff says it ne → another thousand.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 9h

I hope they follow up their "I'm proud to smell bad" essay with "I'm proud to put my phone on speaker in public places" and "I'm proud to double park in urban areas."

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Reposted by Max Kennerly

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 14h

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 17h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 11h

Ross Douthat treats this guy like they're having some deep conversation about the relationship of Christianity and the government, but the dude is a garden-variety dull, shallow, hateful, worthless bigot with nothing interesting to say, just endless riffs on "God hates everything/everyone I do."

Douthat: So that’s the first purpose of your political project, for America to stop making God angry.

Wilson: Yes. And most people think that when they are confronted with that project, they think that we want to get our tentacles into everything and start controlling everything. I actually think we need limited government. The government should be significantly smaller than it is, and we need to curtail a lot of the busybodyness that we have. That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God.

We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done. That’s the repentance part.

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Jacqueline Sweet @jsweetli.bsky.social · 14h

WGN, this woman’s employer, is now reporting she was not charged with any crimes and was released.

DHS said earlier she was arrested for assault for throwing objects at agents.

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 15h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 15h

MAGA remains baffled and outraged that regular Americans care more about Jimmy Kimmel than all of their fake billionaire-created "influencers" put together.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Pam Bondi held a news conference today with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson to highlight a threat made against him

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 15h

Yep, there we go. To no one's surprise, the trigger was "Trump is bad at deals."

Dow drops almost 900 points, S&P 500 declines the most since April after Trump’s new China tariff threat

S&P 500 this week, flat until today, when kerplunk down 2.69%

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 16h

I agree, although I'd put "mutant" under "origin" given the storyline, not that it matters to order here.

Funny part is if we deem them "teenager" because they're anthropomorphic post-ooze, which then moves "turtle" to an adjective, which I interpret as: Mutant Turtle Ninja Teenager.

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Reposted by Max Kennerly

Micah @rincewind.run · 22h

I feel terrible for everyone whose career is being destroyed but she is going to set speed records for running CBS into the ground, Ellison is no Murdoch

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 22h

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of."

One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 1d

It’s an insane world where militarizing your own civilian streets and ordering extrajudicial murders on the high seas doesn’t get you a prize.

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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 1d

This is even better www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Nobel peace prize 2025 live: María Corina Machado wins for work promoting democratic rights in Venezuela

US president had been conducting campaign to influence prize committee

www.theguardian.com

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

Add SPEED RACER to that list.

Truly awful movie, but if you are, ahem, looking at things differently....

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

He was definitely hired *because* he's this kind of person, not in spite of it.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

"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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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

When you see scary things in the news, look for the helpers.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

🎶
I have
put on
cummerbund
on my tux
🎸

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

Obviously, a true moral leader should only give their opinions about non-divisive issues. As we all know, morals are meant to be flexible, convenient, and easily applied. Morals should be ignored where they might cause difficulty or disagreement.

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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 1d

“Baby in her placenta” is pretty bad for a HHS secretary but it’s arguably worse for a guy with six kids. It’s impossible to not learn this stuff as a dad if you’re even remotely paying attention just once.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

This is the genius of the Portland protests - they make the claims of lawlessness look not just wrong, but comical

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

i feel like everything bari weiss does is treated like she's a network exec in 1973 when she's really just a LARPer at the helm of a particularly irrelevant brand while TV news is dying.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 1d

New: Bari Weiss booked Hillary Clinton, Mike Pompeo, and Antony Blinken for a roundtable on Gaza, her first major move at CBS.

Notably on a CBS call today in which the panel was floated, one producer also repeatedly emphasized the need to hear from Palestinians in Gaza (Weiss did not respond).

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

As @propublica.org reported, "at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages."

No indictments for them, because this is how a fascist regime works. "For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Peter Sterne @petersterne.com · 1d

BREAKING: NY State AG Letitia James indicted by federal grand jury in Virginia www.cityandstateny.com/politics/202...

Letitia James indicted by federal grand jury in Virginia

State Attorney General Letitia James has reportedly been indicted for alleged mortgage fraud.

www.cityandstateny.com

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 1d

these people are actually out of their fucking minds and im so sick of being told we need to pretend otherwise

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 1d

New from 404 Media: the Discord hack is every users' worst nightmare. Yesterday the hackers started posting Discord users' selfies, identity documents, email addresses, phone numbers, more. I watched in real time. This is risk of tech storing ID for age verification
www.404media.co/the-discord-...

The Discord Hack is Every Users’ Worst Nightmare

A hack impacting Discord’s age verification process shows in stark terms the risk of tech companies collecting users’ ID documents. Now the hackers are posting peoples’ IDs and other sensitive informa...

www.404media.co

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

Curious if MAGA knows that "God Bless America" was written by someone not born in America who arrived here without any authorization whatsoever and yet, through the woke policies of the time, was allowed to stay and to become a naturalized citizen. So very "open borders."

Joshua Holland @joshuaholland.bsky.social · 1d

I’m sure that he stays seated for many songs. I bet he knows that sappy song isn’t our anthem.

Bad Bunny Remains Seated During 'God Bless America' at Yankees Game

Bad Bunny raised eyebrows at the New York Yankees game Tuesday night ... choosing not to stand during the singing of "God Bless America."

www.tmz.com

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Rex Huppke @rexhuppke.bsky.social · 1d

This is the clearest sign yet that Democrats are winning this argument. Nobody is going to buy this desperate B.S. I’m honestly surprised, but the Democrats have managed to back Johnson into a corner.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Mike Johnson: "It's about keeping Congress operating so we can get to healthcare. We always were going to. They're lying to you. Okay? The healthcare issues were always gonna be something discussed, deliberated, contemplated, and debated in October and November."

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