Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Chip Smith

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 5h

We will need Nuremberg-like trials

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 7h

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

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Rust Momster @cambrianera.radical.town · 6h

I think the fact that we allowed cops to lie openly with no real consequences is part of How We Got Here. If the people with the ability to shoot others in the street are allowed to lie about it, you can't expect other officials to abide by a higher standard.

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 22h

They listen and weigh evidence all the time

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 22h

Department of Justice lawyers, from Main Justice to AUSAs in the districts, have ALWAYS enjoyed a sort of aura of truth and justice and trust. That was arguably always unjustifiable but Trump DoJ has absolutely pissed it away with compulsive lying.

Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 1d

There goes another Trump admin talking point.

Claim: Abrego told an immigration judge that he fears persecution in Costa Rica.

Judge Xinis reads the immigration judge's ruling, which doesn't say that.

"That's very troubling to me," Xinis tells Ensign.

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LauraD-in-Indy @laurad-in-indy.bsky.social · 22h

I've said it dozens of times. City government should put up live cams around the ICE facilities, the downtown area, and have them broadcast live feed, 24/7, on the city's website so people can go look for themselves whenever they wish.

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

If I lived in Portland I’d be filming daily videos of the reality there and sending them to every single person in my contacts.

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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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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 2d

I live here, too. Drummond opposes Stitt. There is no reason he would coordinate with Stitt.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

Could the Supreme Court still apply different rules to a Democratic president? Of course. You don't need to remind me of that. But a lightning-fast blitz that repurposes Trump's new powers for good stands the best chance of standing up in court. Democrats need to start thinking about this right now.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

This is why I think the next Democratic president needs to use the EXACT tools that SCOTUS has handed Trump. Don't leave room for any distinctions.

Impound funds for deportation. Give ICE the USAID treatment. Refuse to collect government-backed debt. Purge MAGA loyalists from the executive branch.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

The best "defense" of SCOTUS' hypocrisy is that there's an asymmetry between how Democrats and Republicans wield executive power. Broadly—Dems want to give things (health care, asylum, foreign aid, loan relief, civil rights) while Republicans want to take things away. SCOTUS makes the latter easier.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

I think the Supreme Court and its defenders try to deny this blatant bias toward Trump by highlighting distinctions between cases—oh, you don't understand, student loan forgiveness was illegal while impoundment is permissible because [reasons]. But the big picture tells an undeniably damning story.

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

When the Supreme Court struck down Biden's policies, it was tempting to think: "At least these limits on executive authority will bind Trump if he comes back into office." But no—the court's skepticism of executive power vanished on Jan. 20, 2025. This dynamic is obvious to anyone paying attention!

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 2d

It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.

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Larry Ferlazzo @larryferlazzo.bsky.social · 2d

Oklahoma’s Republican governor criticizes guard deployment. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, a Republican and the chairman of the National Governors Association, on Thursday criticized the deployment of Texas National Guard troops to Illinois as a violation of his beliefs in federalism and “states’ rights.”

His comments, in an interview with The New York Times, marked the first time a Republican governor has questioned the interstate deployment of National Guard troops over a governor’s objections. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and other Democratic elected officials have been strongly critical of the move and have implored Republican governors to join the opposition.

Mr. Stitt on Thursday said, “We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights,” adding, “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 2d

All Governors and Attorneys General are politicians. The Oklahoma AG has already announced his candidacy for Governor and his decisions should been seen as the decisions of someone in an election

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 2d

Because our Attorney General is running for Governor and has spent the last year sucking up to Trump voters.

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 2d

If we call Medicare-for-all “Trumpcare,” that would be a win for his ego and for anyone who cares about people. The only losers would be Republicans who care about conservative policy and there aren’t many of those left.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Thune: "The president would like to overhaul Obamacare and give people health insurance that is higher quality and more affordable."

Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 4d

I’m a federal public defender. A local AUSA told me that the DOJ now refuses to help her prosecute jail guards who assault inmates on camera.

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Ivan Čurić @baxuz.bsky.social · 4d

Reading this makes me treat anyone's economy degree as an astrology one

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 5d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 5d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 8d

I think KBJ still isn’t getting the full credit she deserves for spotlighting the Supreme Court majority’s abuses. At a time when so many elected officials are failing so disastrously to meet the moment, she’s doing it.

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 6d

For both legal reasons and for the sake of your immortal soul.

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 8d

Shoutout to the person on the motorcycle who blocked the ICE vehicle so it remained in the middle of the tear gas.

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 9d

it makes me incandescently furious that roberts invented the idea of banning coercive conditions on funding to kill medicaid expansion and refuses to do a single thing about the fact that the trump administration's entire deal is "coercive conditions on funding"

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 9d

There is a gulf in America. I submit it is the gulf between good and evil, or at least not-evil and evil.

The gulf is not just between people who oppose this and people who are indifferent to it or reluctantly accept it in support of immigration policy or see it as collateral damage.
/1

Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 9d

This raid is disgusting, abominable behavior, traumatizing children and families in their homes.
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

"They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'"

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