Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 1d

Might feel like an inversion of the Civil War, but less than you might think. The federal government was thoroughly in the hands of the Slave Power in the 1850s. States resisted the Fugitive Slave Act; Dred Scott was SCOTUS. Secession happened b/c they wouldn't accept losing that control in 1860.

Nick Turse @nickturse.bsky.social · 1d

Republican Governors Eagerly Join Trump’s Military Campaign Against Blue Cities
theintercept.com/2025/10/09/r...

Republican Governors Eagerly Join Trump’s Military Campaign Against Blue Cities

An Intercept analysis finds nearly every Republican governor has deployed National Guard members to aid Trump’s domestic military agenda.

theintercept.com

5 94 310

Reposted

Matthew Sheffield @matthew.flux.community · 2d

Steven Carrillo, another boogaloo boi, pleaded guilty to murdering a security guard in Oakland in 2020.

He had posted on Facebook about wanting to start an anti-government revolution. The right loves framing the left for violence.

They are always trying to set Reichstag fires.

41-year sentence for Ex-Air Force sergeant who killed guard

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A former U.S. Air Force staff sergeant and alleged member of the “boogaloo” extremist movement was sentenced to 41 years in prison Friday for the fatal shooting of a federal sec...

apnews.com

3 74 340

Reposted

Matthew Sheffield @matthew.flux.community · 2d

Another riot in Minneapolis was instigated by a right-wing agitator who was convicted of shooting into a police station and setting it on fire, in the hopes of starting a civil war.

A self-described "boogaloo boi," he drove up from Texas to create a false flag.

Texas man in 'boogaloo' movement pleads guilty to firing at police station during Floyd protest

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a self-proclaimed member of the “boogaloo bois,” is accused of firing 13 rounds from a semi-automatic assault-style rifle at a Minneapolis station.

www.nbcnews.com

8 180 570

Reposted

Matthew Sheffield @matthew.flux.community · 2d

The very first riot after a George Floyd protest was started by a white supremacist nicknamed "Umbrella Man."

He spraypainted "free shit" on an AutoZone, broke the windows, and encouraged others to come in. abcnews.go.com/amp/US/man-h...

Man who helped ignite George Floyd riots identified as white supremacist: Police

A masked umbrella-wielding man helped incite riots and looting in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's death, police said.

abcnews.go.com

13 240 810

Reposted

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

In a very real and practical sense, the elimination of USAID occurred because a) civil servants who followed the law were pushed out, b) unaccountable amoral people were given power, and c) SCOTUS let it all happen.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...

In addition to mass firing of public servants, Musk's team executed a takeover of the Treasury payment system. David Lebryk, the civil servant who was acting Treasury Secretary, pushed back against the Musk official, Tom Krause, who demanded control over the payment system and specifically to pause USAID payments. Lebryk informed Krause that Treasury could not legally stop payments, and recommended to work through USAID instead. Krause then threatened Lebryk: “I would also recommend you consider an equal alternative liability.” By the next week Lebryk announced his retirement, and Musk announced he was shutting down the agency.

It was later revealed that the other DOGE official who had sought to take control of Treasury spending, Marko Elez, was a self-avowed racist with a record of making disparaging remarks about foreigners, including “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.” After he resigned, Musk led a successful campaign to bring Elez back into government, even as he pushed out those doing actual life-saving work.

7 120 480

Reposted

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

83 2.4K 5.1K

Reposted

David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 4d

As basic question from an ex-police reporter: Can some of our journalists detail the training regimen all these new federal agents receive? The lethal incompetence involving use of force and perameters of the 4A suggests they are just handed guns, masks and badges and told to go fuck people up.

John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz.bsky.social · 4d

ICE is made up of men who have failed the human test and have nothing of value to offer this nation.

Adults with decency and options and possibilities don’t do this shit.

130 880 3.5K

Reposted

Michael Anderson @michaelander45.bsky.social · 4d

As described here these agents seem to have committed a state criminal offense.

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 4d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

2 20 90

Reposted

Standplaats Kraków @standplaatskrk.pl · 8d

Josh Crowley (sp?) (@jdcrowley) on twitter: "If I built a big robot that consumed 33% of my state's electricity so it could go around stealing people's art I would be arrested, and that's how you know law is a social construct."

3 390 1.1K

Reposted

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 5d

When the Orwellian named Dept of Homeland Security was created … MANY of us predicted that it would eventually be doing all the things that it is doing right now

Pinning it uniquely on Trump really misses the point in a bunch of ways

22 220 1K

Reposted

Malaclypse the Middle @malaclypse.bsky.social · 5d

Strange frogs walking down streets and staring down ICE is absolutely a basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 6d

wizard frog is insane

3 14 60

Reposted

Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 6d

How exactly is this different from Kristallnacht?

Kristina Cooke @kristinacooke.bsky.social · 6d

I spoke to a Venezuelan woman who was arrested in this raid and later released with her 4yo son. She said agents broke down their door, pointed guns at them and made sexualized remarks about Venezuelan women. When she returned to her apartment it was boarded up and all her possessions were gone.

Ted Hesson @tedhesson.bsky.social · 6d

US Border Patrol raid sweeps in citizens, families as Chicago crackdown intensifies, w/ @reneehickman.bsky.social @kristinacooke.bsky.social www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

47 320 1.2K

Reposted

haunted mentions @makeitsnow.bsky.social · 7d

first thing i’d do is use civilian city and state services to make the broadview facility impossible to operate out of. sorry, there’s road work in all directions now and we’ve got to get it done before winter. this is a time-tested part of the chicago political playbook, so i know jb knows it

1 3 8

Reposted

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 8d

the bari weiss stuff is enraging because she is a vapid, narcissistic, dilettante dipshit, but it is precisely those qualities that will likely end with her destroying what’s left of cbs news, which may be the best of bad options, considering who owns it going forward

14 88 670

Reposted

Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 8d

They're terrorizing people to create fascist propaganda content to circulate on social media.

7 150 590

Reposted

Paul Rosenberg @paulrosenberg.bsky.social · 8d

The simplest thing is just to remove SCOTUS's appelate jurisdiction & assign it to a new circuit court. They can then implement all the other fixes as well: term limits, ethics rules, a fixed appointment schedule & the vast majority of cases heard by panels ala @elienyc.bsky.social's model.

1 3 18

Reposted

Democracy Dies in Dorkness @lizamazel.bsky.social · 8d

FUCK IT UP FRENCHIES

-sings La Marselleises-

News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 9d

BREAKING: Striking workers are currently storming Tesla showrooms in Paris, demanding higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

(🎥 Luc Auffret)

1 4

Reposted

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 8d

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"

20 310 1.8K

Reposted

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 8d

You can't raid and arrest everyone in an entire apartment building, or even legitimately get a warrant to do that, any more than you could for a whole neighborhood. That would be a general warrant. This is the most specific core the-British-did-it-to-us thing the Fourth Amendment is written to ban.

The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 10d

NEW — An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in an overnight raid in South Shore, a predominantly-Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

A couple who live nearby said they were shocked to see the enormous militarized raid in their community.

thetriibe.com/2025/09/feds...

Feds detain dozens of immigrants in 'massive' South Shore apartment building raid in Chicago • The TRiiBE

An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in the course of the overnight raid in the predominately-Black neighborhood.

thetriibe.com

110 1.7K 4.6K

Reposted

Zoomer Antimillenarian ♨️ @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 8d

One of the most important things legal scholars can do right now is figure out how to sell a liberal packed SCOTUS on personal civil liability for federal officers who committed overt and willful abuses of power.

You can’t jail them all but you can reduce a great many of them to poverty.

Zoomer Antimillenarian ♨️ @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 8d

For now. The pendulum is gonna swing hard the other way, maybe hard enough for these fucks to face personal liability for ludicrous sums.

B/c a SCOTUS full of jurists determined not to ever do this shit again has lots of originalist support for personal liability for shit *this* blatantly lawless.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 9d

Surreal moment for America. Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this — pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks — they would be sued into oblivion.

Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely.

6 52 230

Reposted

Comics in the Spooky Age 🧛🧟‍♀️👻 @comicsinthega.bsky.social · 9d

The first Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz was published on October 2, 1950.

Four black and white panels of a boy and girl sitting on steps. 1st panel: Charlie Brown is approaching and the boy says “Well! Here comes ol’ Charlie Brown!” 2nd panel: As Charlie Brown passes, he says “Good ol’ Charlie Brown…yes, sir!” 3rd panel: “Good ol’ Charlie Brown…” 4th panel: Once Charlie is gone, “How I hate him!”

27 810 2.6K

ersatzmossback.bsky.social @ersatzmossback.bsky.social · 9d

🫠

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 9d

Also, this, from Harrell: "You want to know who's the one to fight Trump with his racist, supremacist ass? It will be me, and no one but me and I will lead the way for you."

Reposted

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 9d

Fascism: assigning blame for all the problems caused by capitalism to minorities in order to defend the interests of the capitalist class.

Et voila.

Vance: "If you're an American citizen and you've been to the hospital in the last few years, you've probably noticed that wait times are especially large and very often somebody who's there in the ER is an illegal alien. Why do those people get healthcare benefits at hospitals paid for by American citizens?"

5 34 120

Reposted

delesslin @delesslin.bsky.social · 10d

I really need american media to follow me around and dissemble about whether or not I am "responsible" for my "actions"

1 3

Reposted

Sharon Brett @sharonbrett.bsky.social · 10d

New IJ lawsuit filed today challenging ICE raids of construction sites, wherein ICE detains American citizens in AL, rejects their proof of citizenship, and holds them without PC.

Worth a read, and more evidence of the wide gulf b/w what SCOTUS says is happening and what is actually happening.

ij.org

12 240 790