Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Curtis @curtosis.bsky.social · 8h

And as always, every accusation a confession. “They’re getting paid a lot of money.”

Reposted by Chris Curtis

phylan @phylan.website · 14h

I don't think they should be allowed to do that

Rob Friedman @pitchingninja.com · 15h

All 8 of the Blue Jays Pitchers from Yesterday (overlay)

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 10h

Everything the government does is for online clout because *that is the only thing that's actually real for them*

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Chris Curtis @curtosis.bsky.social · 10h

It’s quite simple: Congress can say a “day” is months when counting economic “emergencies”; the President* can say 6mos is a “year” for annual physicals. It’s all there in the Constitution, clearly.

*Still ineligible to serve

CBS News @cbsnews.com · 11h

President Trump is going to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Friday morning for what the White House says is his "routine yearly checkup," just six months after undergoing what the White House at the time described as his "annual physical examination" at the same facility.

Trump to visit Walter Reed for "routine yearly checkup" 6 months after annual physical exam

President Trump's annual physical examination in April showed his vital statistics were all within normal limits.

cbsn.ws

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Jessica Valenti @jessicavalenti.bsky.social · 14h

I can't stress this enough: opposing birth control isn’t a fringe position in the anti-abortion movement—it’s the norm. 'Mainstream' groups like Students for Life say so explicitly on their websites!

But because mainstream outlets don't report on it, most Americans don't know

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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 16h

Nothing to see here, just Trump going for his second “yearly” checkup this year.

Anyone ready to admit that something is wrong with POTUS yet?

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The Center for a New American Security @cnas.bsky.social · 16h

"Following the law of armed conflict is not a burden on warriors; it is the very expression of their warrior ethos. It is what separates professional soldiers, airmen, and sailors from criminals."

Former CNO Admiral John Richardson (Ret.)

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Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social · 1d

Just a reminder that Jack published a book last year called “unhumans” that makes the argument that all Democrats and anyone left of Francisco Franco should be rounded up and murdered en mass for the rest of the populations entertainment.
Jack is a Nazi and hell bent on the murder of his opponents

CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective @crimethinc.com · 1d

Jack Posobiec explicitly says that "Antifa" dates back to the Weimar Republic, explicitly acknowledging that this administration is opposed to those who resisted the arrival of Adolf Hitler in Power.

A screenshot of C-Span showing Jack Posobiec speaking during a panel on "Antifa."

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Andrew K. Gardner @akgardner.com · 1d

This is one of those things where, if you said after the first (couple) strikes on Venezuelan boats that they were laying the groundwork for killing people on US soil, you sound crazy. Hysterical.

And then.... When it actually does happen on US soil, it's nearly normalized.

Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 1d

As I observed in my Substack Round Up this past week, the endgame of the military strikes against drug cartels in international waters is to lay the groundwork to use lethal military force against Americans at home. Pay attention open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 1d

I guess I should also add that a key difference between the Trump investigation and the Comey indictment is that *Trump did something obviously and significantly wrong*. Like, if you can't grok that distinction as important, I don't know what to say.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Feb 5

just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't

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Chris Curtis @curtosis.bsky.social · 1d

“The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.” (City of Houston v. Hill)

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 1d

It's out at the Dispatch:

DHS Says Videotaping ICE Agents Is Illegal. Federal Courts Disagree.

Filming law enforcement serves important goals central to a free republic.

thedispatch.com

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Reposted by Chris Curtis

Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 1d

i'm not sure how you can claim to cover things fairly and fully when you're using the bootleg name that is officially only a "secondary name" for the department

Jon Passantino @passantino.bsky.social · 1d

CNN is now using the Trump preferred “Department of War” name in its official statements

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 1d

A practice that would have been unthinkable under past administrations is becoming normalized: Sending ICE detainees, without due process, to far-flung prisons.

@nlanard.bsky.social takes us inside the "legal black hole" in Eswatini, where Trump is sending detainees.

ICE is sending people to a prison in Africa’s only absolute monarchy

Inside the “legal black hole” in Eswatini where Trump is sending detainees.

www.motherjones.com

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 1d

The Speaker's default argument is to plead ignorance about things it's his job to know.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Q: Do you agree that the mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois should be in prison?

MIKE JOHNSON: Should they be in prison? I'm not the attorney general. I'm not following the day to day on that

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olive consumer's ambulatory skeleton @machete.gay · 1d

The current historical moment has given me obvious cause to go back and read what people wrote during their own interregna.

The through-line to each is that a bias to normalcy, a belief the old world lives as more than a half-dead husk, is the greatest danger of all.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i think it is cool that a government run by fanatical bigots is on track to plunge the economy into a mountain and cause a food crisis

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 1d

So this is funny.
The administration just issued a rule slashing foreign agricultural worker wages. And to justify it, in a public filing, Trump's Labor Department alleges that Trump's immigration enforcement has devastated the Ag workforce and caused a "risk of supply shock-induced food shortages."

Trump Labor Department Says His Immigration Raids Are Causing a Food Crisis

In a filing in the Federal Register, the Labor Department argues there are “immediate dangers to the American food supply” due to a lack of migrant agricultural workers.

prospect.org

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Chris Curtis @curtosis.bsky.social · 1d

It’s also fairly par for the course for this regime that they didn’t bother to read to the end of the chapter. “The path to stay in power indefinitely” is very much not the way this has ever ended for dictators who declare war on the populace.

Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 2d

Chilling insight by @barbarafwalter.com: "Once citizens view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this… They’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns."

via www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Screenshot from a NYT article by Thomas Edsall, quoting Barbara Walter of UC-San Diego: "The quickest way to piss people off is to send soldiers into their neighborhoods especially when there’s no reason for them to be there. It’s inherently provocative, and Trump and his team understand this. Research by the political scientist Robert Pape shows that the single most powerful predictor of suicide terrorism is the presence of foreign troops on local soil. People hate, hate, hate that. They hate the humiliation, the powerlessness, the feeling of being occupied.

"Once citizens begin to view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this. In fact, that’s the point. They are not trying to restore order; they’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns. In the end, violence serves their ultimate end: They want to create the illusion of disorder so they can tighten control and stay in power indefinitely."

Chris Curtis @curtosis.bsky.social · 2d

Clear articulation here of all the ways in which the regime’s claims are unsupported and/or legally insufficient.

Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 2d

I wrote in @justsecurity.org about how the administration is trying to repurpose—cynically and wrongfully—the "war on terror" framing for the lethal strikes in the Caribbean.

There has been no armed attack like 9/11 & US is not engaged in armed conflict. 3/n

www.justsecurity.org/120568/carib...

Asserting a License to Kill: Why the Caribbean Strike is a Dangerous Departure from the “War on Terror”

An absence of credible legal basis for the Caribbean strike suggests the Trump admin is asserting a prerogative to kill outside the law.

www.justsecurity.org

Reposted by Chris Curtis

Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 2d

Very nice piece from my colleague @stevevladeck.bsky.social in today's Times on the illegality of Trump's troop deployments to American cities. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Opinion | No, Trump Can’t Deploy Troops to Wherever He Wants

www.nytimes.com

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Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · 2d

Can’t stop thinking about this and what it says about a person.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 2d

“Who was president in 2020?” is the question of our time

Senator Jim Banks V
@SenatorBanks
Follow g..
The 2020 Census was a fraud. The Biden admin used a shady "privacy" formula that scrambled the data and miscounted 14 states.
It included illegal immigrants and handed
Democrats extra seats. Americans deserve a fair count and l'm fighting to fix it.
Zinited Statcs SScnate
MASHNORON DEYNN
October 6, 2025
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Socretary
U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, DXC 20230
Dear Secretary Lutaick:
I urge you to investigate and correct erroes from the 2020 Census that handed disproportionntd political power to Democrats and illogal alicns. The Census Burcau adoptod a now and opaque
voting districts. As preparod by the Biden administration, the 2020 Censas roports miscountod the population of fourteen states, ' wrongly allocating six congressional scats aod Electoral
xx conwuu tmora uy, toc taroro tu mot đoo tnn Cunu lc pung t imber of votine districts. And the reoorts de aniovety inchaded ilecnl nhens widhout track those aliens' citiz enship status, If left uncorrected, these erroes will coetinue diluting the political power of American citizens.
Consus data plays a crucial role in allocating political roprescntation and goverment funding
Under the Constitution, cach state gets Congressional represcotutives and Electoeal College votes- based on "the whole number of persons" within the state." The number of persoes is in
tum clabaabod by a consttubocalty-mandalcd dcccacaal ccavas. Pcual agcco nely on census data to allocate billions of dollars in federal funding, much of which hinges ee opulation. And states use consus data to deaw congrossicnal and voting districts, »hich the
The it eiy of tie soaren alie n tor dur at ce hor inc ae oam toy ee n
nght wilbout statsica ly signilicant ciroo.
Diffcrcntial privacy is opaque and liable to mistakcn count totals. Sure cnough, the 2020 Ccnsus ovarocunted the noculation in cicht states and undercounted it in six." Tihe most extrcmi andercount was Arkansas, at 5.04%, and the larg…

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Pat Bagley @bagleycartoons.bsky.social · 2d

Thugs

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🇵🇸Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer🖖🏳️‍🌈 @nuclearanthro.bsky.social · 2d

Together is the only way we build liveable todays and tomorrows.

Congress can end this tomorrow: contact them as part of diversity of tactics.

Mass protest remains necessary.

We must smash ICE & destroy fascism.

Most of the most effective things you can do are with other people.

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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 2d

How do you find a compromise budget that reflects the priorities of 535 members of the House and Senate when Trump will just withhold any money he doesn't want to spend? A representative democracy cannot function as Trump has broken the US system this year. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/there-is-n...

There is no budget "deal" to be made

President Trump has so broken the constitutional framework as to make joint normal, responsible government impossible.

www.doomsdayscenario.co

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