Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Alexander Tsai, MD @drdrtsai.bsky.social · 13h

From @ryanenos.bsky.social & Levitsky: “Predictably, the extortionist has returned for more. The reward for capitulation was more extortion.”
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Harvard Must Take a Stand Against Trump’s Compact | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard, rather than quietly pursuing its own appeasement strategy, should lead the way to preserve academic freedom and democracy.

www.thecrimson.com

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Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University @ipratnu.bsky.social · 1d

In @goodauth.bsky.social, @polisciatnu.bsky.social's @danigilbert.bsky.social explains President Trump’s new executive order creating a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation, aimed at punishing countries that detain foreigners as bargaining chips. spr.ly/63323ASHdP

Trump wants to punish countries that wrongfully detain U.S. citizens

A new executive order aims to strike back against “hostage diplomacy.”

spr.ly

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Political Science Department at Northwestern University @polisciatnu.bsky.social · 9d

Will Trump's new executive order “Strengthening Efforts to Protect U.S. Nationals from Wrongful Detention Abroad” help deter hostage diplomacy? Four big questions remain.

Professor @danigilbert.bsky.social via @goodauth.bsky.social

goodauthority.org/news/trump-w...

Trump wants to punish countries that wrongfully detain U.S. citizens

A new executive order aims to strike back against “hostage diplomacy.”

goodauthority.org

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Good Authority @goodauth.bsky.social · 9d

Trump wants to punish countries that wrongfully detain U.S. citizens.

A new executive order aims to strike back against “hostage diplomacy.”

Read the latest from @danigilbert.bsky.social: goodauthority.org/news/trump-w...

Trump wants to punish countries that wrongfully detain U.S. citizens

A new executive order aims to strike back against “hostage diplomacy.”

goodauthority.org

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Dani Gilbert @danigilbert.bsky.social · 9d

That’s in the piece too!

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Dani Gilbert @danigilbert.bsky.social · 9d

What should we expect from President Trump’s new executive order on “wrongful detention”? My latest, on @goodauth.bsky.social, explains👇

goodauthority.org/news/trump-w...

Trump wants to punish countries that wrongfully detain U.S. citizens

A new executive order aims to strike back against “hostage diplomacy.”

goodauthority.org

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · Sep 9

Breaking News: Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student taken hostage in Iraq, has been freed after more than two years of captivity.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, Princeton Student, Is Released From Iraq, Trump Says

Iraq’s prime minister also confirmed the release of Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli graduate student kidnapped in Iraq in 2023 by Kataib Hezbollah, a militant group.

nyti.ms

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · Jul 9

ALL CAPS

THIS IS CATASTROPHIC FOR SPACE SCIENCE AND ASTROPHYSICS ...

GLOBALLY CATASTROPHIC, NOT JUST FOR AMERICANS 🔭🧪

www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave NASA under agency push

The losses could endanger the administration’s plans for landing astronauts on the moon and Mars.

www.politico.com

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Dani Gilbert @danigilbert.bsky.social · Jul 8

👀👀👀
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/w...

Dueling U.S. Efforts Botched a Deal to Swap Venezuelans Held in El Salvador for Americans

www.nytimes.com

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Erica De Bruin @edebruin.bsky.social · Jun 25

I’m currently building a dataset on police forces around the globe. No other country has a force quite like ICE (w/ broad enforcement powers, tactical gear, immigration focus); the most apt comparisons are to secret police in authoritarian regimes rather than border/immigration forces elsewhere.

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · Jun 25

@adamprz.bsky.social on ICE's authorities & operating procedures: "The comparativist in me wants to think about other police forces in history which had such broad and ill-defined powers. But such comparisons are too frightening."

WEEK 19

adamprzeworski.substack.com

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Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · Jun 24

This is an unappreciated downside of the Iranian airstrikes: it revealed capabilities of the MOD and the B-2 itself (both radar x-section and actual combat load/range) and, despite everything working perfectly, appears to have failed to destroy the program despite being built for this use

ghost malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · Jun 24

There's a lot of discussion about cost here and it matters but the thing that arguably matters more is that we just demonstrated inability to bomb Iran's hardened programs with the purpose-built weapons we had

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · Jun 24

My colleague Nick Miller in The Economist www.economist.com/middle-east-...

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · Jun 23

What’s striking about the SCOTUS stay here is not just (!) the risk that the govt will ship people off to countries where they may face serious danger, but that the Court is tacitly rewarding the govt’s repeated defiance of the district court

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · Jun 23

Remember when Trump tried to deport people to South Sudan, right after he tried to deport people to Libya, right after he shipped people to Gitmo and then deported them to CECOT? All those were in the same case www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Jun 23

according to conservatives on the court, the constitution does not protect your right to your own body but does enable the government to ship you off to a foreign gulag without any hope of return

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · Jun 23

NEW: The Supreme Court's conservatives halt a preliminary injunction that had restricted the Trump administration's ability to rapidly deport migrants to "third countries" where they have never lived and where allegedly face torture. All three liberals dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET AL. v.
D.V.D., ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[June 23, 2025]
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON
and by her referred to the Court is granted. The April 18,
2025, preliminary injunction of the United States District
Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 25–cv–
10676, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is
timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall
terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted,
the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of the Court.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and
JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.
In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach. It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala,
even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to
face torture there. Then, in clear violation of a court order,
it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical
personnel. An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya.
Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jun 23

Justice Sotomayor ends her dissent by saying the Supreme Court has permitted "thousands [to] suffer violence in farflung locales," an action which "rewards lawlessness" by the Trump administration.

She says the Court has undermined the basic concept of Due Process under the law.

The Due Process Clause represents “the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 646 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle. Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled. That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable. Respectfully, but regretfully, I dissent.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jun 23

Sotomayor's dissent is scathing. She accuses her colleagues of a gross abuse of discretion, saying they "interven[ed] to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied."

She's right. The 6-justice majority is effectively endorsing contempt of court.

DHS v. D.V.D. Sotomayor, J, dissent. "... [T]his Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied. I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion."

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · Jun 23

#BREAKING: Over a (sharp) public dissent from the three Democratic appointees, #SCOTUS clears the way for the Trump administration to remove migrants to third countries *without* giving them an additional opportunity to contest whether they face persecution or other forms of mistreatment there:

www.supremecourt.gov

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Dave Itzkoff @ditzkoff.bsky.social · Jun 22

at least he didn't do something truly reckless like try to forgive student loans

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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · Jun 22

By the way, one of the reasons it’s terrible all of these people lie all of the time about meaningless things is it makes it impossible to believe them when they’re talking about incredibly consequential things.

Hugo Lowell @hugolowell.bsky.social · Jun 22

Pete Hegseth repeated claims by Trump that US strikes had completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities even as the Pentagon acknowledged it was too early to provide a full damage assessment @theguardian.com latest www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Hegseth claims US ‘obliterated’ Iranian nuclear sites despite lack of assessment

US defense secretary praises Trump at first news briefing but Pentagon says it is too early for full damage assessment

www.theguardian.com

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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · Jun 22

Journalists: this thread has many, many people who can comment on different angles of the US attack on Iran. Contact them!

Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · Jun 18

🧵IR scholars, let's start a thread of what we know that's relevant for a US attack on Iran. Won't change any minds, but might help us teach this crisis and learn new angles. Please add (incl. your own work!), forgive/correct omissions. Nobody can cover everything and it's great to find new work. 1/?

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · Jun 22

Donald Trump, a weak and dangerously reckless president, has put the United States on a path to a war in the Middle East that the country does not want, the law does not allow, and our security does not demand.

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Loren DeJonge Schulman @lorenraeds.bsky.social · Jun 22

Trump is skipping over all potential checks on use of force. Intl law - no claim of self defense. US law - no AUMF, does not meet WPR criteria, Article 2 so stretched it’s tearing. Partisan congressional notification only. Intel and defense principals objected. Vast majority of Americans opposed. 1/

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Caitlin Talmadge @proftalmadge.bsky.social · Jun 22

Trump is once against arsonist and fireman. If he hadn't pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal (which our own State Dept. certified Iran was in compliance with), we wouldn't be here.

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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · Jun 22

🧵 Quick legal thoughts on Trump's attack on Iran.

It was patently illegal.

And a further egregious assault on the rule of law in the US. 1/n

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · Jun 22

I was briefed on the intelligence last week.

Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States. Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon. The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success.

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