Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 16h

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 17h

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 20h

"Siblings, cousins and playmates are often killed together, by an airstrike or artillery shell. Even children shot by snipers or quadcopters are sometimes brought into hospitals in groups, doctors say." www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

www.theguardian.com

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 23h

The vindictive prosecutions of political enemies are not a distraction from the Epstein files - they’re one and the same: wielding the power of the DoJ to persecute your foes AND to protect your friends.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d

This very very very bad. I cannot stress this enough. I said that they crossed the Rubicon with arresting Ras Baraka several months ago. This is very bad and portends more bad things for regular people.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 1d

The President of the United States is calling for the mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois to be jailed.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

Since On the Wrong Side came out, I’ve given talks all over the country.

I always challenge the Title IX Office to attend and to truly listen. Because when they do, they tend to say things like, “I can’t believe we’re finally talking about the biggest things we need to change.”

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

I’m giving a book talk at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln at the end of the month.

Here’s what a survivor has to say about that:

“If only those at the hand of my harm would read her book and attend her lecture, perhaps they would realize that they are supporting the vicious cycle of harm.”

Letter to the Editor: 550 days on the wrong side

A student, Hurting Husker, experienced sexual assault at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and believes campus silences survivors and protects victims. Women's and Gender studies professor hosts lect...

www.dailynebraskan.com

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1d

We’re not dealing with brilliant strategists cleverly laying traps, we’re dealing with impulsive whiners whose advantage is contempt for laws, norms, and morality.

They’re not pulling some elaborate trick, they’re just willing—even eager—to do things regular, principled people consider off limits.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

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."

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

On the Wrong Side has been out for a year! To celebrate, the audiobook is 70% off for the rest of the month.

Since its release, the most common word I’ve heard to describe the book—from survivors, as well as faculty and staff who care for them—is “validating.” I couldn’t be prouder of that.

70% OFF On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence

THIS EXPLOSIVE INVESTIGATION REVEALS THE PROFOUND FAILURES OF THE TITLE IX SYSTEM AND IDENTIFIES THE STEPS WE CAN TAKE TO PROTECT STUDENTS On the Wrong Side provides the first comprehensive account o...

www.audiobooks.com

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Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · 1d

Conversion therapy isn't "voluntary" for children when their parents are the ones deciding to do it.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 1d

Why assume CBS under the Ellisons aims to make money, rather than sees financial losses as an acceptable price to advance political goals, like the Washington Post under Bezos or RT?

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ghoill.bsky.social @ghoill.bsky.social · 1d

There was nothing that helped me understand authoritarianism better than books on domestic violence and the psychology of abusers. There is no distinction between the two groups.

Men who assault their wives and children want the social environment to do the same to strangers that bother them.

Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

One of the fundamental truths we need to acknowledge in this moment is that domestic violence is where fascists learned how to get away with their violence.

“What did you do to provoke him?” is exactly what victims hear when they try to seek help in an abusive relationship.

Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 1d

Y'all who keep lecturing protesters to "not give them an excuse" need to pause for a minute. Imagine yourself telling a DV victim, "Be sure not to mouth off or make any mistakes so he won't hit you. Don't give him an excuse! It's what he wants!" That's what you fools sound like.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

Corporations engage in a lot of violence. Men as well. In looking the other way, the state tacitly endorses that violence too.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

A lot of scholars across disciplines view legitimate access to violence as the primary definition of a state.

That being said, I’m not just talking about state violence here. Private citizens can also have their violence obscured if they are more powerful than their targets.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

And, relatedly, if you’re in a position of power, you will be permitted to do things that are objectively violent while everyone falls all over themselves to blame the victims and insist it was justified.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

The entire debate over whether or not protestors should use violence comes down to the fact that the definition of “violence” is applied unevenly to different groups on the basis of power.

If you’re attempting to upend the status quo, someone will always call something you did violent.

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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 2d

Caldwell thinks the Civil Rights Act was a mistake and calls for segregationist policy at the nation’s most revered newspaper.

The idea that open racism is disqualifying in polite society should be put to rest.

Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2d

Despite appearances, this is not a @nytpitchbot.bsky.social joke, it's an actual @nytimes.com column by some Claremont hack who praises Hegseth for his "nuanced vision of the military’s purpose and its relationship to civilian society."

Opinion
Guest Essay

That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good
Oct. 7, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

We’re seeing something very similar happen with blaming progressives and “the left” for everything Trump does.

It’s our fault for our mistakes, but also for being too good and “threatening” conservative power. Anything we do to resist fascism is too much or too little and never just right.

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

That’s exactly right.

All victim-blaming ideologies are contradictory. That’s the way all victims will fail the perfect victim test and be seen as “deserving” of their abuse.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 2d

When I say MAGA is post-truth, one of the things I mean is the movement—along with its fellow travelers and apologists—approaches the world insisting that there’s no such thing as factual reality, there are only words and images that are good or bad for one’s team.

Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 2d

I am following this debut, and I don’t know anyone who can explain why an opinion journalist has been chosen as Editor-in-Chief. Did we need more opinion at CBS?

Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 2d

Not an expert on this stuff but I have the sense that no one backing Weiss understands that what she has done her whole career, opinion-based news-flavored content, is distinct from news reporting.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 3d

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” -Edward R. Murrow

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 2d

we gotta stop using “democratic run” or “blue cities” and start saying donald trump is invading “american cities”

NPR @npr.org · 2d

President Trump is bucking tradition and legal precedent in pushing to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago due to what he says is rampant crime and to support his crackdown on illegal immigration.

Trump's power to deploy National Guard, explained

President Trump is bucking tradition and legal precedent in pushing to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago due to what he says is rampant crime and to support his crackdown on illegal immigration.

n.pr

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 1d

One of the things that brings me the greatest despair in authoritarianism is watching people react to state violence the way they react to domestic violence.

By justifying anything and everything the perpetrators does through blaming a victim for failing to be submissive enough.

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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 2d

Supreme Court: of course states can regulate, and restrict access to, medical procedures if there’s a compelling public interest

Colorado: (bans conversion therapy for minors)

Supreme Court: no not like that, we only meant abortion

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Justin Zimmerman @jztidecat.bsky.social · 2d

Please scream this from the mountains. Do we really want them to be as efficient as the Nazis before responding?

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

that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move

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