Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 6h

Also we have precisely ONE verified recent case of a politician paying actors to attend a political event. You'll never guess who it was.

www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...

Did Trump Campaign Offer Actors $50 to Cheer His Announcement?

The Trump campaign denied knowing a contractor hired a casting agency for the candidate's 2015 campaign-announcement rally.

www.snopes.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 6h

It's a two-fer, you get your antisemitic conspiracy theory AND the insistence that there is no such thing as sincere progressive opinion, it couldn't possibly be that people are genuinely pissed off so they must have been paid to protest.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."

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Reposted by Paul Waldman

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 8h

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 · 8h

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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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 6h

Elon Musk continues to impress

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Boring Company cited for almost 800 environmental violations in Las Vegas

Violations include digging without permits and dumping wastewater into storm drains.

arstechnica.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 8h

As I wrote today, it's not cool to be with the Empire; it's cool to be with the Rebellion. Especially when the Empire's approval ratings are slipping:

paulwaldman.substack.com/p/why-trump-...

That's not the entirety of why Tucker Carlson is doing this, but it's definitely part of the story.

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Reposted by Paul Waldman

MSNBC @msnbc.com · 18h

OPINION by @paulwaldman.bsky.social:

“Because this imagined antifa is a phantom, the term becomes infinitely flexible.”

READ MORE:
www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Trump's war on 'antifa' is both buffoonish and sinister

As easy as it is to mock the president and his staff, they are attempting something quite serious.

www.msnbc.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 16h

Trump’s support among young people has collapsed, and even the podcasters he cultivated in 2024 are fed up with him. Here’s why it happened.

paulwaldman.substack.com/p/why-trump-...

Why Trump Lost the Podcast Bros

It's cool to support the Rebellion. It's not cool to support the Empire.

paulwaldman.substack.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 20h

I think Trump is going to do a Michigan Man of the Year and just invent a fictitious peace prize he won.

"I won the Norbiggle Peace Prize, not a lot of people know that. The Norbiggle, people are saying it's even more prestigious than the Nobel, which nobody wants anymore."

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 20h

Hey what happened to the sandwich throwing guy, does he have his own podcast yet?

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 20h

Watching this I kept thinking "Toonces CAN drive, just not very well."

This thing can fold laundry and pick up after you, just not very well.

Have humanoid robots come a long way? Sure. But there's a loooong way to go.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu5m...

Introducing Figure 03

YouTube video by Figure

www.youtube.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 21h

Were you a big fan of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror? Welcome to the War on Antifa.

My latest at MSNBC:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Trump's war on 'antifa' is both buffoonish and sinister

As easy as it is to mock the president and his staff, they are attempting something quite serious.

www.msnbc.com

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Reposted by Paul Waldman

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).

The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 1d

SCOOP: The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada — the Esmeralda 7 mega-farm — has been canceled

The news was quietly dropped via a sudden website update with no public word from any of the companies involved or a statement from the agency

@heatmap.news

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

heatmap.news

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 21h

You're never going to believe this, but the Trump administration's claim that assaults on ICE officers have gone up 1,000% turns out to be bullshit

www.npr.org/2025/10/10/n...

White House claims "more than 1,000%" rise in assaults on ICE agents, data says otherwise

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers claim assaults on their officers are up sharply since June. There's no public evidence that number is true.

www.npr.org

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 1d

Been looking around some right wing web sites this morning (Fox, Newsmax) and every page I click on pops up an ad from OpenAI featuring Trump and Sam Altman touting the glory of the Stargate project

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 2d

It's as though every PSA was like:

"I smoked a pack a day and got cancer. Remember, tobacco kills."

"Brought to you by the crisp, clean flavor of Marlboro cigarettes. Come to Marlboro country!"

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like I'm seeing this all the time now: A Reddit post, a YouTube video, etc. lamenting the dire effects of the proliferation of AI (in this case a teacher talking about their students being rendered unable to think and learn) followed directly by an ad for an AI product

Reddit post from a teacher lamenting that AI is making their students unable to learn, followed directly by an ad for Microsoft's AI product

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 2d

Every time a new AI slop machine like Sora is released, know the next iteration will be better and worse, both in very bad ways.

It'll be "better" - more realistic, tougher to tell the real from the fake

It'll also be worse - more useful for scams, higher volume of slop, enshittifying the world

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 2d

Imagine if health care was just something everyone had, and not a zero sum competition between "good" people and "bad" people

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Mike Johnson: "If you're a young, pregnant American citizen women who shows up in an ER and you get treated and they pay the hospital less for treating you than some illegal rabble rouser who came in from some South American country to do us harm, that is wrong."

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks! Things are tough out there, but we're doing our best.

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Reposted by Paul Waldman

Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 2d

Six of the nine Nobel Prize winners this year work in the U.S.
Three of the six were born outside the U.S., which is the pattern most years. No country has benefited more from welcoming immigrants from around the world.
www.nobelprize.org

The official website of the Nobel Prize - NobelPrize.org

The Nobel Prize rewards science, humanism and peace efforts. This is one of the central concepts in the will of Alfred Nobel, and it also permeates the outreach activities that have been developed for...

www.nobelprize.org

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 3d

Attention residents of Queens: If you're a genuine he-man with rippling muscles and a contempt for housework, Mrs. Sally Grabstein is totally dtf

Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 3d

1972

THE QUESTION
As women are becoming liberated, are men becoming less masculine?
WHERE ASKED
Sunnyside, Queens
THE ANSWERS
Mrs. Sally Grabstein, Sunnyside, Sales: "Yes. All you have to do is walk past a laundromat on Sunday. They are crowded with men doing the family wash. Any man who does this has become less masculine. Doing wash is woman's work and it must be embarrassing for them. I'm so embarrassed that I won't go to the laundromat on Sunday."
--Daily News, 8 Oct 1972

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 3d

🧵on Bari Weiss at the Times written by one who knows

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 3d

John Mitchell does come to mind. And that ended with him in prison.

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 3d

Never before has the United States had an Attorney General and FBI Director who openly serve the president personally as he works to break laws rather than enforcing laws for the country, Constitution, and American people.

I don’t know if any previous one even said “the president’s agenda.” Ever.

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 3d

Democrats are finally showing some spine, and not a moment too soon. So who’s willing to do what is necessary to undo the horror of the Trump years? That’s what voters are going to demand, as they should:

paulwaldman.substack.com/p/democrats-...

Democrats Need to Find Their Strength

They're beginning to get the picture, but this should be only the start.

paulwaldman.substack.com

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 3d

1. Clearly Homan kept the $50,000 (alleged) bribe money.

2. You think he declared it on his taxes? No way.

3. Democrats should say now that there will be a full investigation once they're back in power, and if Homan committed tax evasion he'll be going to prison.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 3d

WATCH — @whitehouse.senate.gov : “What became of the $50,000 in cash in that Cava bag? Did the FBI get it back from Homan?”

AG PAM BONDI: *LASHES OUT aggressively, avoids answering entirely* 🤷🏼‍♀️

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