Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Ma 🇺🇦 @nakhthor.bsky.social · 1h

I can't attend the #NoKings do on Oct 18 bc I'll be travelling, but can I recommend that friends take American flags to celebrate and defend our republican traditions, and not allow GOP bastards to cast this as an "anti-American event".

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John Ma 🇺🇦 @nakhthor.bsky.social · 5h

Thank you sir

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 7h

New — Video shared with me shows ICE officers in DC detaining a man on Friday.

Bystander filming asks man for his name. ICE agent lies and says he’s not allowed to speak to him “by law” and another says “We’ve arrested American citizens for being too close…If he gets any closer, put him in cuffs.”

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Pé 🍺🧿 @forevernever.bsky.social · 5h

I feel like shops have pre-positioned frog costumes for delivery in the Portland area.

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 5h

Trump’s rationale for sending the military into American cities keeps shifting. But the purpose remains constant: intimidation. The Supreme Court and Congress must push back. bit.ly/3IWUMED

There Is No Insurrection

Troops are for national defense, not displays of presidential power.

www.brennancenter.org

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Harry Litman @harrylitman.bsky.social · 5h

Guaranteed that this “ wanted to get it done“ trope is incomplete or a bald lie. A spanking new US attorney who brought a (weak) case against a sitting state AG without coordinating with main justice would get a phone call from the deputy AG firing them within 10 minutes
www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Trump’s Favored Prosecutor Is Moving at Full Steam

Lindsey Halligan wasted no time in bringing charges against two of the president’s adversaries.

www.wsj.com

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Leonid Baezhnev @rev-avocado.bsky.social · 8h

This is good, actually. This is the kind of thing we need to build a pro-court expansion majority.

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 11h

More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 17h

in 2011, the president of antifa hired me to give fashion consultancy to the organization. i recommended everyone wear navy suits with tan shoes, dress sneakers, and golf polos with slim chinos. if you arrested everyone today wearing these things, you'd destroy antifa

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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 9h

The Dems' demands have to shift. They cannot accept ACA subsidies if that means also accepting the ouster of people who protect the people from virulent diseases. They cannot accept ACA subsidies if that means accepting Trump's lawlessness.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20h

RIFs can’t be done without agency leadership so this is RFK Jr extending his purge of CDC scientists to help Vought’s shutdown agenda. Genuine public health risks created by aggrieved men.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 20h

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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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 9h

I’m a patriotic American, so I’m proudly anti-fascist. How about you? 🇺🇸

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Stellaween? @antlervel.vet · Apr 23

It’s really funny that The Art of War is treated as this like alpha male book when it’s clearly meant to be read by ancient Chinese failsons because it’s all “please don’t forget you have to feed your troops” and “if someone asks if you’re going to attack them consider lying about it”

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 9h

the more i learned about the book the more i felt i was not equipped to understand it properly without reading the other thinkers the author was in conversation with

Stellaween? @antlervel.vet · Apr 23

It’s really funny that The Art of War is treated as this like alpha male book when it’s clearly meant to be read by ancient Chinese failsons because it’s all “please don’t forget you have to feed your troops” and “if someone asks if you’re going to attack them consider lying about it”

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Andrew in 🇺🇦 @wouldeye.bsky.social · 9h

Obama also-the only Nobel Peace Laureate to later bomb a different Nobel Peace Laureate.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 17h

For instance: "prohibiting discrimination, harassment and intimidation of students" is an important thing we do at universities.

Would you glean from this summary that the actual compact includes the university agreeing to take the maximalist anti-trans position that trans students do not exist?

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 9d

Universities must adopt the govt's definition of "male," "female," "woman," and "man" that (clumsily, but the meaning is obvious enough) prohibits recognition of transgender students' existence.

The previous sentence is about women's sports. But the reach of the imposed definition is unbounded.

Institutions commit to defining
and otherwise interpreting “male,” “female,
” “woman,” and “man” according to reproductive function and
biological processes.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 17h

Here's a semicolon-delineated list of platitudes, most of which are important pillars of what all universities already do, and none of which sound at all like they would include the specifics written into the compact itself that make them into stalking horses for undermining the university.

agreeing to a few common-sense policies laid out in the compact.
Editors’ Picks

A Debate About A.I. Plays Out on the Subway Walls

Out of This World Fashion for Life on Earth

Help! We Found a Hidden Camera in the Bathroom of Our Airbnb.
These include: selecting students and faculty members based on individual merit instead of group characteristics; holding the line against grade inflation; providing transparency to students about the economic potential of the academic programs on offer; prohibiting discrimination, harassment and intimidation of students; neutrally enforcing “time, place and manner” guidelines for protest activities; refraining from taking institutional positions on political controversies unrelated to a school’s core mission, while encouraging all members of the community to speak out and debate in their personal capacities; reporting and following all applicable rules on foreign contributions; and enrolling and educating primarily American students, so that schools remain U.S. institutions with foreign diversity instead of becoming global institutions that happen to be based in the United States.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 17h

The NYT's news pages did a solid job of covering the role of billionaire Marc Rowan in concocting the incredibly dangerous "compact" by which the Trump administration proposes to take over American universities.

But the opinion pages invited Marc Rowan to offer a rather wolflike defense. A brief 🧵—

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 6d

The Times' coverage of Rowan's role has been remarkable. It is sad to me that after forcing his alma mater, Penn, to oust a really good president for incredibly poor reasons, Rowan's megalomanical next thought was "maybe the federal government should do this everywhere" and they're actually trying.

The Billionaire Behind Trump’s Deal for Universities

www.nytimes.com

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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 20h

In fairness, Donald could invoke the "I'm not mentally disabled, I'm just intentionally lying again" defense to the 25th Amendment.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

The president says there are very few stores left in Portland, Oregon, and the ones that are left are made of plywood.

I know we’re numb to this, but in any other time he’d have been removed by the 25th Amendment by now

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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Grudgie the Whale @grudgie.bsky.social · 17h

Literally every person reporting on Trump knows this isn’t true.

Why aren’t they either calling this a lie or calling him demented and lost? THOSE ARE THE ONLY TWO POSSIBILITIES!

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

The president says there are very few stores left in Portland, Oregon, and the ones that are left are made of plywood.

I know we’re numb to this, but in any other time he’d have been removed by the 25th Amendment by now

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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John Ma 🇺🇦 @nakhthor.bsky.social · 17h

“Don’t have” I think

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 22h

If GOP wants to abolish the filibuster over this, awesome. It helps Rs way more than Ds. It’s also a central reason for loss of faith in government over the last 25 yrs. Rs can reopen the govt tonight if they want. If they want to do it to make sure 15 million lose their health care that’s on them.

ringwiss @ringwiss.bsky.social · 1d

“And that’s why we nuked it twice in the past month.”

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John Ma 🇺🇦 @nakhthor.bsky.social · 1d

I wonder if there has been a Wannsee style conference among the Trump Admin yet. Prob not bc it would have been on Signal and shared with some journo. But the antifa roundtable was like a clownshow foretaste

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John Ma 🇺🇦 @nakhthor.bsky.social · 17h

Autocracy but done by imbeciles

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 1d

UPS says it is destroying parcels sent to US customers because the Trump administration is failing to process or clear the parcels through customs. In essence, no one can figure out what the applicable tariff rules are and how they are to be applied—amidst a deluge of contradictory tweets from Trump

UPS Admits ‘Disposing’ of Parcels as Trump Chaos Creates Backlog

The president’s tariff policy has seen countless packages getting lost in customs.

www.thedailybeast.com

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 1d

UPS says it is destroying parcels sent to US customers because the Trump administration is failing to process or clear the parcels through customs. In essence, no one can figure out what the applicable tariff rules are and how they are to be applied—amidst a deluge of contradictory tweets from Trump

UPS Admits ‘Disposing’ of Parcels as Trump Chaos Creates Backlog

The president’s tariff policy has seen countless packages getting lost in customs.

www.thedailybeast.com

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Rick Perlstein @rickperlstein.bsky.social · 17h

Interesting. I just described myself as a "historian of fascism" without thinking about it. Am I? I guess it turns out I am.

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