Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Leonid Baezhnev @rev-avocado.bsky.social · 49m

The thing about the little pig man is that the press doesn't have the bizarre instinctive deference to him that Trump gets.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 1h

We fired people we had no reason or budgetary need to fire and we actually screwed up and fired the wrong people and then rehired them the next day and all because of Chuck Schumer

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 44m

The U.S. president shared a video from Putin: "There have been cases where the committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have done nothing for peace,” Putin said, according to the AP’s translation. “[Trump’s] really doing a lot to resolve such complex crises." trib.al/Z5v8yOt

Trump’s Posting Spree Shows He’s Losing It Over Nobel Peace Prize

Donald Trump shared two posts that managed to make the prize all about him.

trib.al

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God @thegodpodcast.com · 2h

FROGS TOGETHER STRONG!

Bless The Frog Proving Kristi Noem Wrong

It's raining frogs! Hallelujah!

www.thegodpodcast.com

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Dean Baker @deanbaker13.bsky.social · 43m

No one ever said that the Dems were very sharp

MS Kohut @mskohut.bsky.social · 5h

I’ve heard people call him “dumb” now for a decade. He’s enriched himself, gotten away with insurrection & is in the most powerful seat on the planet. NO ONE has stopped him. NO ONE was even prepared for ANYTHING he’s done. Who’s dumb??

You’re being PLAYED.

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 41m

this pedantic bullshit. if you let irreparable harm happen, you’ve decided the issue. the hint is in the word irreparable. let me break that down for you Amy. Imagine, if you will, a harm that is reparable. now,

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 5h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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The Alternate Historian @althistorian.bsky.social · 40m

Americans are generally proud of what the nation did during WWII. A lot of families can tell you how Grandpa Joe was a hero. But you think telling them he was a fascist and so are they will help? Yeah sure that will definitely make them join your reading group.

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BeSeriousUSA 🐝 @beserioususa.bsky.social · 3h

🤨 so yeah, this shite is happening now
#DictatorsDontWantYouToHaveGuns

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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 39m

ig its cool we get to see what the ceiling is for democrats in Virginia is

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

BREAM: Federal workers in Virginia lost jobs bc of DOGE. Your opponent points out unemployment is up under Youngkin/Sears

EARLE-SEARS: Actually unemployment is down

B: She points to numbers from BLS showing unemployment is up. Do you quibble w/data?

S: I don't know where she's getting stats from

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Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 2h

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have developed a cancer vaccine that has shown STUNNING results, PREVENTING up to 88% of MULTIPLE aggressive cancers by harnessing dual-pathway nanoparticles that train the immune system to recognize and destroy tumor cells. In some cases, it COMPLETELY prevented metastasis.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 39m

ICE Boasts Zero Murders Committed By 5-Year-Olds Since Child Detainments Began

WASHINGTON—Touting a new crime report as evidence their ramped-up operations were improving American life, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced Friday that there had been zero murde...

theonion.com

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 38m

If Johnson fully assumes the role of grand Republican villain—a distant second to Trump, of course—he would be the first speaker to don the mantle of national partisan villainy since Nancy Pelosi. An accomplishment. ICYMI @cheetah.bsky.social: www.thebulwark.com/p/mike-johns...

Mike Johnson Is Becoming the New Liberal Bogeyman

The low-key House speaker’s success and defiance are turning him into a prime political target.

www.thebulwark.com

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Carolyn Ownbey, PhD @carolynownbey.bsky.social · 39m

🧵

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 1h

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

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gelbach @gelbach.bsky.social · 1h

If you’re that unsure about resolution of an issue, you shouldn’t decide it on the shadow docket anyway, unless there’s an exigent need. And if there’s an accident need, you should say what it is and why the resolution is appropriate. ACB is making the 6 look worse, not better, w/ these appearances.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."

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Fired but Fighting (National Public Health Coalition) @firedbutfighting.bsky.social · 38m

🎃 Spooky Season PSA: When public health gets ghosted,👻 we all feel it.
Don’t let science become a skeleton 💀 of its former self.

Not just a Halloween prop. It's a warning. We have a skeleton crew holding it all together. Public health isn’t scary: it’s essential.

Spread the word.

Halloween decoration skeleton holding a sign states Save Public Health

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Garth Marenghi's Catbus @hayao.lol · 1h

I am dead serious when I say Mamdani should be assembling a private security force in the event he wins

remember when NYPD kidnapped DiBlasio's kid because he suggested maybe they should murder fewer innocent citizens?

yeah

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 20h

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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jhstoo @jhstoo.bsky.social · 23m

The responses are great!

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4h

oh this guy is delusional delusional

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 6h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

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Russet Chatham @russetchatham.bsky.social · 4h

Philosophy major Thiel singlehandedly disproving the thesis a more thorough liberal arts education would be beneficial for tech industry douchebags.

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jhstoo @jhstoo.bsky.social · 27m

+1

JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 4h

A stupid person’s idea of an intellectual.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4h

oh this guy is delusional delusional

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 6h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Zoomer Antimillenarian ♨️ @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 39m

[Picture of Peter Thiel]
"This is your brain on cocaine, twelve unregulated testosterone-like substances, and the methylated trans-isometer of a Soviet de-icing agent rejected for excessive toxicity in sled dogs".

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4h

oh this guy is delusional delusional

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 6h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

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jhstoo @jhstoo.bsky.social · 35m

+1

The Spousal Unit: "I like that."

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 8h

They can dish laws out but they can’t take them.

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 1d

Was reminded of a neuro-surgeon who, on hearing I was a political philosopher, told me that society needs wars every couple of generations to ‘get rid of the riff-raff’. People like him are in charge of things now.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 14h

Thankfully, some of yesterday's CDC firings have been rescinded.

But this should be a major scandal, not business as usual in this shitshow of an administration. It's either spectacular incompetence or an effort to make even politically untouchable positions feel precarious to those in them.

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · 15h

100s of #CDC employees were notified Friday they were being fired — RIF'd. The firings cross multiple parts of the agency, endangering its core mission of keeping Americans safe.
Saturday, some were informed they were RIF'd in error.
Hard to imagine how this happens www.statnews.com/2025/10/11/c...

CDC battered by government shutdown firings, while some are rescinded

The White House’s mass firing of CDC staff on Friday has decimated offices related to injury prevention, respiratory disease surveillance, and chronic disease, according to four people familiar with t...

www.statnews.com

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