Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1h

I have seen the new Daniel Day-Lewis movie, and it is slower paced than the Hundred Years' War.

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Abigail Higgins @abigailhiggins.bsky.social · 10h

Evictions in DC hit record levels last year, with 1,869 households removed from their homes. We don't have final numbers for this year yet but avg. monthly evictions are the highest they’ve been in six years. New investigation from @51st.news @streetsensedc.bsky.social 51st.news/record-evict...

Evictions rising in DC as housing costs increase

New data shows evictions have surged past pre-pandemic levels, fueled by shrinking aid, high rents, and weakened tenant protections.

51st.news

1 17 38

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 7h

Yikes.

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 7h

“Floridians buying groceries and other household items will be able to openly carry firearms while walking the aisles at Publix, the largest supermarket chain in the state, the company said on Thursday.”

Customers May Openly Carry Firearms in Florida’s Publix Stores, Company Says

www.nytimes.com

1 3

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 7h

Again this is how you do it. State universities are entities of their states, and when said states have branches governed by democrats that exercise authority over those universities, that authority needs to be used to protect them from the cowardice of their administrators

NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 7h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

1 22 74

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 12h

Washington Supreme Court Justice Mungia has an extraordinary opinion condemning "the underlying racism and prejudices that are woven into the very fabric" of SCOTUS opinions about Native people.

"We must clearly, loudly, and unequivocally state that was wrong.”
www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf...

MUNGIA, J. (concurring)—I concur with the majority’s opinion.1
And yet I
dissent. Not from the majority’s opinion, but I dissent from the racism embedded in the
federal case law that applies to this dispute.
FEDERAL INDIAN LAW IS A PRODUCT OF THE RACIST BELIEFS ENDEMIC IN OUR SOCIETY
AND OUR LEGAL SYSTEM
While it is certainly necessary to follow federal case law on issues involving
Native American tribes and their members, at the same time it is important to call out that
the very foundations of those opinions were based on racism and white supremacy. By
doing this, readers of our opinions will have no doubt that the current court disavows, and
condemns, those racist sentiments, beliefs, and statements.

Since the founding of our country, the federal government has characterized
Native Americans as “savages”: They were “uncivilized.” They had little claim to the
land upon which they lived. At times, the federal government attempted to eradicate
Native Americans through genocidal policies. At other times, the federal government
employed ethnic cleansing by forcibly removing children from their parents’ homes to
strip them from their culture, their language, and their beings.2
Federal Indian case law arises from those racist underpinnings.
The majority correctly cites to Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1, 8
L. Ed. 25 (1831), which is one of the foundational cases involving tribal sovereignty.
That opinion is rife with racist attitudes toward Native Americans. Chief Justice John
Marshall, writing for the majority, describes a tribe’s relationship to the federal
government as one of “ward to his guardian.” Id. at 17. In effect, the opinion presents
tribal members as children, and the federal government as the adult. That theme would
follow in later opinions by the United States Supreme Court—as would the theme of
white supremacy.
Cherokee Nation began with the premise that Native American tribes, once strong
and powerful, were no match for the white race and so found themselves “gradually
sinking beneath our superior policy, our arts and our arms.” Id. at 15. The white man
was considered the teacher, the Native Americans the pupils:

Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United
States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.
Id. at 17.
This characterization of superior to inferior, teacher to student, guardian to ward,
was repeated in later United States Supreme Court opinions.
In Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 (1903),
often characterized as the “American Indian Dred Scott,”
3
the Court used that rationale to
justify ruling that the United States could break its treaties with Native American tribes.
These Indian tribes are the wards of the nation. They are communities
dependent on the United States. Dependent largely for their daily food.
Dependent for their political rights. . . . From their very weakness and
helplessness . . . there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.
Id. at 567 (quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-84, 6 S. Ct. 1109, 30 L.
Ed. 228 (1886)).
Our court also carries the shame of denigrating Native Americans by using that
same characterization: “The Indian was a child, and a dangerous child, of nature, to be
both protected and restrained.” State v. Towessnute, 89 Wash. 478, 482, 154 P. 805
(1916), judgment vacated and opinion repudiated by 197 Wn.2d 574, 486 P.3d 111
(2020).
3 See A

Returning to Cherokee Nation, Justice William Johnson’s separate opinion was
less tempered in how he considered the various Native American tribes:
I cannot but think that there are strong reasons for doubting the
applicability of the epithet state, to a people so low in the grade of
organized society as our Indian tribes most generally are.
Cherokee Nation, 30 U.S. at 21. Native Americans were not to be treated as “equals to
equals” but, instead, the United States was the conqueror and Native Americans the
conquered. Id. at 23.
In discussing Native Americans, Justice Johnson employed another racist trope
used by judges both before and after him: Native Americans were uncivilized savages.
[W]e have extended to them the means and inducement to become
agricultural and civilized. . . . Independently of the general influence of
humanity, these people were restless, warlike, and signally cruel.
. . . .
But I think it very clear that the constitution neither speaks of them as states
or foreign states, but as just what they were, Indian tribes . . . which the law
of nations would regard as nothing more than wandering hordes, held
together only by ties of blood and habit, and having neither laws or
government, beyond what is required in a savage state.
Id. at 23, 27-28.
This same characterization was used by Justice Stanley Matthews in Ex parte KanGi-Shun-Ca (otherwise known as Crow Dog), 109 U.S. 556, 3 S. Ct. 396, 27 L. Ed. 1030
(1883). Justice Matthews described Native Americans as leading a savage life.

3 180 520

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 12h

Yes.

1 1

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 17h

My take on Roberts is that he’s a figure familiar to history, the credentialed and charming man who seemed so dazzling to his contemporaries, so plainly a bumbling failure to everyone else. A magnificent fool.

2 3 26

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 17h

A fair-minded, ultimately brutal profile of Roberts by Lincoln Caplan.

Roberts, often described as an institutionalist, has enabled the most hostile anti-institutionalist ever elected president. The leader of the nation’s judicial system has empowered the president who is the most disdainful in history of the decrees of judges, the provisos of the Constitution, and the workings of American democracy.

3 14 34

Reposted by Greg Lipper

muscular baby jeb lund @mobute.bsky.social · 17h

Although initially pursuing him in relation to the deaths of the Pietzel children, investigators were overwhelmed by the discovery of HH Holmes's "murder castle."

"It was too complicated, so we fined him for zoning violations and released him," said police. "There was a third story and everything."

ProPublica @propublica.org · 17h

NEW: Nevada could’ve fined Elon Musk’s Boring Co. more than $3 million, but regulators are seeking a reduced penalty of $242,800, citing an “extraordinary number of violations.”

Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Accused of Nearly 800 Environmental Violations on Las Vegas Project

Nevada could’ve fined the company more than $3 million, but regulators are seeking a reduced penalty of $242,800, citing an “extraordinary number of violations.”

www.propublica.org

3 54 220

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

As Langdell once said, “An order dismissing a complaint for failure to state a claim is the original diss track.”

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · 1d

Drake's defamation lawsuit over 'Not Like Us' is dismissed

A federal judge ruled that a reasonable listener wouldn't take Kendrick Lamar's hit diss track as 'conveying objective facts.'

www.latimes.com

2 3 14

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.

Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 1d

Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s nominee to lead the office investigating Jack Smith, has recently been investigated for harassing a colleague, Politico reports.

“Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him..”

=
POLITICO
By DANIEL LIPPMAN
10/09/2025 08:22 PM EDT
f
In late July, Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando with a lower-ranking female colleague and others from their department. When the group reached the front desk, the woman learned she didn't have a hotel room.
Ingrassia then informed her that she would be staying with him, according to five administration officials familiar with the episode. Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him, three of those officials said.

5

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Yep, you’re still way more fun than you sound ✅

1 2

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Liliana Segura @lilianasegura.bsky.social · 1d

Say it louder Nashville

An 8x12 sign on a telephone pole reading: “Whatever you allow your government to do to others they will eventually do to you.”

1 97 270

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

This Prof. Bray situation seems … off.

2

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

“it is federally illegal to distribute TikTok, yet it remains in the App Store”; “it is not illegal to host or share videos of law enforcement activity, yet these apps are being removed.” https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/10/09/eyes-up-removed-from-the-app-store/

4 5

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

"It’d be both interesting and honest if either Apple or Google justified these app bannings by simply saying the Trump administration demanded them and that they — Apple and Google — fear reprisal from Trump if they don’t comply." daringfireball.net/linked/2025/...

Apple’s Justification for Removing DeICER From the App Store

Link to: https://migrantinsider.com/p/scoop-apple-quietly-made-ice-agents

daringfireball.net

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Adding insult to injury, Apple is invoking an app store rule "normally reserved for protecting marginalized groups from hate speech." migrantinsider.com/p/scoop-appl...

SCOOP: Apple Quietly Made ICE Agents a Protected Class

Internal emails show tech giant used anti-hate-speech rules meant for minorities to block an app documenting immigration enforcement.

migrantinsider.com

2

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Even grosser, Apple. www.404media.co/apple-banned...

Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

Eyes Up's purpose is to "preserve evidence until it can be used in court." But it has been swept up in Apple's crackdown on ICE-spotting apps.

www.404media.co

1 3

Reposted by Greg Lipper

evy kwong @evystadium.bsky.social · 1d

hi hello unpaywalled

The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to ev...

www.wired.com

5 240 370

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

That is incorrect.

1 1

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Abraham is turning in his grave.

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 1d

My God, every day this gets worse.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

2 2 12

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Things definitely have not gotten the slightest bit dumber since you left.

1

Reposted by Greg Lipper

Brian Barrett @brbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Apple has removed at least three ICE-tracking apps from the App Store. WIRED spoke with the developers about where they go from here. from @thiccreese.bsky.social and @lhn.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/apple-...

Apple Took Down ICE-Tracking Apps. Their Developers Aren't Giving Up

“We are going to do everything in our power to fight this,” says ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron after Apple removed his app from the App Store.

www.wired.com

7 88 230

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Why didn't anyone tell me about (outstanding folk singer) Lizzie No.

Greg Lipper @theglipper.bsky.social · 1d

Now you've gone too far.

1