Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Katrina Voll @katrinavoll.bsky.social · 12h

How Does It Feel is one of the greatest songs ever recorded; just for that one song he deserves to be remembered as one of the all time greats.

Katrina Voll @katrinavoll.bsky.social · 12h

As good as D'Angelo's albums were, he was 100x better live. He was one of a kind and the world is lesser for having lost him

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Katrina Voll @katrinavoll.bsky.social · 12h

Good god, D'Angelo. I am fucking heartbroken. That man had immeasurable talent and skill.

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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 12h

To be clear:

LA County has declared a state of emergency BECAUSE OF the federal government.

The Feds, LA County is (correctly) saying, have CAUSED the emergency.

This is a striking political moment of internal collapse. Local govts feeling compelled to protect their ppl from … their own govt.

Los Angeles County declares state of emergency over immigration raids

Los Angeles County officials voted on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency over ongoing federal immigration raids.

abcnews.go.com

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Alissa Azar @alissaazar.bsky.social · 15h

Members of the Unpresidented Brass Band were bull rushed & brutalized in the middle of playing "Ghostbusters." One was sent to the hospital and another tackled, arrested, and taken across state lines where she is still being detained.

Read more about Sunday's protest in Portland here:

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Scott @smadin.net · 14h

imagine admitting this out loud

U.S. House Speaker calls Portland naked bike ride ‘most threatening thing I’ve seen yet’

"The most threatening thing I’ve seen yet was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ICE down there," said U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Tuesday.

www.oregonlive.com

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 4d

A five-point-five billion Trump golf course in Qatar, and Qatar gets an air base in Idaho.

New Trump Golf Course, $5.5 Billion Beachside Project Announced for Qatar

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Katrina Voll @katrinavoll.bsky.social · 1d

youtu.be/41zKVmk4z8Q?...

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Chris Steller @chrissteller.bsky.social · 1d

Look, I'll meet you at the corner of 29-5/8ths Avenue and 7-15/16ths Street. I don't see what's so hard about this.

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Linda Holmes @lindaholmes.bsky.social · 1d

This also places unreasonable, unlivable pressure on service workers, as does being surveilled on social media. People are not at their best at every moment. They get terse, they don’t smile, they act rushed. They might even be slightly impatient or impolite! None of this requires tattling.

Amos Posner @amosposner.bsky.social · 1d

I think businesses asking people to rate every single experience has furthered this damage. We shouldn't have this many opinions about this many things, and we certainly shouldn't expect other busy people to care if we do.

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 1d

few ideas have damaged the average psyche more than ‘the customer is always right.’ it should be a little bit humiliating, being a customer. you should walk into any service transaction knowing that the other person, and not you, is in control over whether you get your treats

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 1d

I appreciate @punchbowlnews.bsky.social noting something that's objectively true and necessary context, but routinely elided over:

The House GOP is not away because of the shutdown, but to avoid taking a vote on releasing info about a notorious pedophile because that info implicates Trump.

Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 1d

👀 “The Ghost House”: Eye opening report from @punchbowlnews.bsky.social this am on how Mike Johnson has turned the House into a joke under Republican rule. He has turned House Republican leaders into Trump White House’s poodles (if you catch my drift) covering up for #EpsteinFiles.

$“The Ghost House. Speaker Mike Johnson and top House GOP leaders have kept members home since Sept. 19. While the complaints are growing louder inside House GOP ranks over the issue, Johnson insists Republicans have done their job and there’s no reason for them to be here. House GOP lawmakers passed a “clean” CR that would keep federal agencies open until Nov. 21. Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked that measure, which led to this shutdown. Democrats are demanding a vote on their own proposal to permanently extend expiring Obamacare premium credits, a rollback in massive Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the end of unilateral spending rescissions. Yet the House’s absence makes it easier for the shutdown to continue. Part of what ends shutdowns is anxiety building among the rank-and-file. Members are home, so there’s limited pressure on House GOP leaders to do anything. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and dozens of Democrats have been in D.C. throughout the shutdown. More importantly, Johnson has emerged as the “face” of the shutdown for House Republicans. He’s doing daily press conferences and more media interviews, putting himself in the center of the fracas. A C-SPAN caller begging Johnson to bring the House back last week went viral. So did Johnson’s hallway confrontation with Arizona Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly over Johnson’s refusal to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, a move that has infuriated Democrats.”$

OBBB and done. The reality is that since the OBBB passed on July 3, the House has been checked out. A virtual non-entity for more than three months. And this is the off-year, when Congress is supposed to be busy.
Since July 3, the House has only been in session for 20 days (out of more than 100 calendar days.) Even accounting for the normal August break — which began early because of the Epstein mess – the House has been AWOL.
There have been just over 90 floor votes during this period. A lot of these were amendment votes or votes on non-controversial suspension bills. Several were partisan FY2026 spending bills that have no chance of passage. All in all, very little of substance has been taken up. But as Johnson will remind you, the House did pass a CR.
The only period comparable to this in recent decades was in 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi used proxy voting to buttress the Democratic leadership’s power. Republicans yelled loudly about that at the time, even filing an unsuccessful lawsuit to stop it. But a similar thing is happening in reverse now.
If you see it, don’t say it. House Republicans have done virtually no oversight on the Trump administration, rolling over on a number of issues that their predecessors would have screamed loudly about. It’s true that House Democrats did little or nothing to rein in President Joe Biden when they controlled the House. But Trump has gone far beyond Biden in using executive authority. “Inside the White House, top advisers joke that they are ruling Congress with an ‘iron fist,’” the Wall Street Journal reported.
For an institution that has complained for years about the need to claw back power from the executive branch, it’s a sad state of affairs. And it shows no sign of ending soon.

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The People's Fabric @peoplesfabric.com · 1d

You officially live in a “show me your papers” nation, if you were wondering how far along things are now.

And ICE took his unhoused friend.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 1d

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 2d

honestly props to the Emergency Naked Bike Riders, the weather was absolute shit today

Naked bike riders crossing an intersection

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Second Great Bisexual Awakening @suesswassersee.bsky.social · 2d

It's illegal to take bribes because of woke 😔

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 2d

Vance is having an incredible morning on the Sunday shows doing "oh so now it's illegal to [mundane thing]?"

A real quote when Vance is asked about whether Tom Homan kept the $50,000 he got in a fast food bag: "Is it illegal to take a payment for doing services?"

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 2d

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 3d

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · Nov 25

Jokes on them, I’m going to use AI to come up with 8000 businesses for dipshits

Marco Rinaldi @marcorinaldi.bsky.social · Nov 25

Why? Who is this meant to be good for? Nobody wants your shit AI books, never mind 8,000 in a year. Just a terrible idea and a horrible road the publishing industry is heading down.

Bookseller article with the headline "New publisher Spines aims to 'disrupt' industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone" 🤮🤮🤮

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Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social · 4d

A story indistinguishable from those depicted/dramatized in all the WWII / Holocaust movies and plays and novels we grew up with

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 4d

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 7d

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.