Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 1h

Frog and Toad sat close by the fire. They were scared. The teacups shook in their hands. They were having the shivers. It was a good, warm feeling.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 3h

The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.

The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.

Read that back.

When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 9h

Gov. Pritzker: "The Insurrection Act is called the Insurrection Act for a reason — there has to be an insurrection in order for [Trump] to be allowed to invoke it. He can say anything he wants, but if the Constitution means anything...the Insurrection Act cannot be invoked."

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 9h

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 · 12h

BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists.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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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 3h

🤷😬😬😬

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5h

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 12h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 5h

What we should be asking is why somebody like Thiel, whose fortune was subsidized by massive public investments at University of Illinois, & humanities granting organizations at Stanford, wants to dismantle that educational infrastructure now that he’s rich.

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 5h

Most of these people are deeply trained, or at least highly educated, in humanities. Knowing isn’t being.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 10h

Anyone who claims that Silicon Valley would be better with more humanities education has to grapple with the fact that Peter Thiel was a philosophy major.

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Farrukh @implausibleblog.bsky.social · 12h

BBC News explain that because of Brexit, Brits will be photographed and have their fingerprints taken when going into the EU, as the UK now is a third country

BBC News forget to explain that the UK helped create these rules when we were part of the EU because we wanted stronger border control

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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 4h

What Trump is doing.

Eric Weinberger @ericweinberger.bsky.social · 5h

ICE sent a Massachusetts 7th grader 500 miles away without his parents or even telling them

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility - The Boston Globe

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.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 5h

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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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

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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Ira 'Bluebeard Homer' Goldman @kdbyproxy.bsky.social · 9h

B) 8005 no longer exists. Yes, the funds in multi-year accounts from which funds might be transferred exist, BUT the authority to transfer those funds into payroll accounts that would be granted by 8005 on expired Sept 30, same as bill that enacted 8005 – ie, the FY2025 defense approps bill.

2/

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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 4h

The Trump Shutdown.

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 8h

The federal food program helping more than 1 in 4 young children access fresh produce, milk, and formula will run out of funding next week.

Over 5 million children could lose food assistance — all thanks to the Trump-Republican shutdown.

The cruelty is endless.

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 5h

Q: "Have [the Qataris] changed their behavior from 2017 when you accused them of funding terrorism?"

Trump: "I don't know. In 2017, I didn't really know them very well."

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ProfKori @profkori.bsky.social · 12h

✅ He fired a U.S. Attorney who refused to bring charges against her
✅ He replaced them with someone with NO prosecutorial experience

This isn't justice. This is retaliation.

When Black women do their jobs with excellence, they face attacks. But AG James isn't backing down, and neither should we.

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 10h

The reason Mike Johnson is able to keep the House closed and not pass bills to pay the military or fund the government is because Trump is going to circumvent congress and illegally steal that money from other government programs. All to avoid releasing the Epstein files.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Chris Murphy: "Republicans are boycotting negotiations to reopen the govt bc they're desperate to raise premiums on people by 75% in order to finance their tax cut for the wealthy. The other reason House isn't in town? They're about to have enough votes to mandate the release of the Epstein files."

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PortiaMcGonagal @portiamcgonagal.bsky.social · 5h

“The House speaker is losing control of his party”

Three More GOP Reps Split From Mike Johnson Over Shutdown - The New Republic

apple.news/ACYRZzRAYTGq...

Three More GOP Reps Split From Mike Johnson Over Shutdown — The New Republic

The House speaker is losing control of his party.

apple.news

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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 4h

Trump. Did. This.

NPR @npr.org · 5h

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

n.pr

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 5h

Feeling safer now?

Trump's deportation machine has diverted some 42,000 crime fighters from other tasks

Feeling safer now?

www.motherjones.com

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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 7h

The amount of money we are giving to Argentina amounts to $450 per resident of that country. But we're not even giving it to people there who need it, we're giving it to prop up Elon's pal, the corrupt President of that country, who'll then shovel some of it into the pockets of Trump's friends here.

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 8h

“America First.”

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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 14h

Attacks on the federal workforce are also attacks on Black workers, who are overrepresented in the public sector.

Black unemployment is 7.5%. I'm reminded of Coates' observation that Black Americans regularly experience conditions that would be considered a crisis if whites faced them.

Black Unemployment Is Surging Again. This Time Is Different.

www.nytimes.com

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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 7h

I mean. Sweat shirts.

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Scott Banville @sbanville.bsky.social · 7h

"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

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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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 9h

CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow embodied what a journalist should be: someone who holds power to account instead of capitulating to it.

Over 70 years later, his segment denouncing Joe McCarthy’s congressional witch hunts rings truer than ever.

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