Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 18m

bro didn’t even learn about placentas from Lightning Crashes

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1h

"Baby in her placenta"

RFK Jr. Complains About TikTok Video of Woman Taking Tylenol With a 'Baby in Her Placenta'

gizmodo.com

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 3h

“Theocratic libertarian” is exactly as incoherent as it sounds. No laws at all except for the laws of God, which… turns out… is gonna require a lot of laws written by men

"He Believes America Should Be a Theocracy. He Says His Influence Is Growing."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/o...

The government should be significantly smaller than it is, and we need to curtail a lot of the busybodyness that we have. That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God.

We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done. That’s the repentance part.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 3h

Best example: Warwick, RI

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 4h

If the Gen-AI bubble bursts, the techlords are going to demand taxpayer bailouts. And the coalition that opposes those bailouts is going to be some mix of Bernie, Jasmine Crockett, MTG, Rand Paul.

David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 4h

On a range of issues, Marjorie Taylor Greene is now to the left of Lindsey Graham. South Carolina can do better than Graham with @drannieandrews.com.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5h

Greene on the Epstein files: "I can't conclusively say that's why the House isn't in session, but the House should be in session...there is a new Democrat that's been elected that deserves to be sworn in...if it's to avoid the discharge petition, why drag this out? It's going to have 218 signatures"

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 21h

for the longest time I refused to say it out loud because I was convinced that “dilla” couldn’t possible be right

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 21h

Basically every word. Taughannock, Cayuga, Cascadilla, Groton, Schuyler, Owego, Skaneateles

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 1d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

In all, three takes on the state of presidentialism and democracy in Indonesia, using original data and distinct theoretical and empirical approaches. These should advance the literature on Indonesian politics, and the comparative literature on presidentialism in diverse democracies

/end

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

And then a piece by me, on social cleavages and electoral institutions in contemporary Indonesia

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journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Indonesian democracy is characterised by large governing coalitions and a dominant presidency, coupled with weak parties with few programmatic differences. These features of coalitional presidentialism are the product of a presidential form of government and proportional representation with high district magnitudes and have implications for electoral politics in a diverse socioeconomic context. This manuscript shows that the core features of Indonesian party politics and electoral competition in the 2024 elections can be explained by applying the comparative literature on electoral institutions to Indonesia's social structure and political cleavages. Analysing the interaction of electoral rules, social structure, and politicians’ incentives provides insights into the roots of Indonesia's democratic decline and the pathways towards reform.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

Next, we have Burhanuddin Muhtadi (Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta) on collective memory and the election of Prabowo Subianto

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journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

In 2024, Prabowo won by the greatest margin in Indonesian presidential election history, garnering over 96 million votes. How did Prabowo win so decisively, despite his deep ties to the dark authoritarian past and allegations of human rights violations? Utilizing the original national survey data prior to the 2024 presidential election, the author finds that authoritarian beliefs and nostalgia for the authoritarian past do not explain support for Prabowo. Instead, authoritarian notions of democracy such as support for military governments and strongman leaders are highly linked to Prabowo support. Although supporting Prabowo does not necessarily indicate support for the return of authoritarianism, it does imply that many Indonesians may either be unconcerned or naïve about potential challenges to the current political system, or have a concept of democracy that aligns with the idea of a strong, powerful personalistic leadership that has been a central selling point of Prabowo's presidential candidacy.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

First up, Marcus Mietzner (ANU) on Joko Widodo’s majoritarian instincts and their mixed effects on Indonesian democracy

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journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

After ruling Indonesia for a decade, Joko Widodo (or popularly called "Jokowi") left the presidency in 2024 amid a heated debate over his democratic record. While his high approval ratings indicated support in the broader population, pro-democracy activists were scathing. Indeed, under his presidency, many democratic achievements of previous periods eroded. Yet democracy, however damaged, survived Jokowi's rule. This article adds to scholarship on this outcome of a harmed but enduring Indonesian democracy. It looks at how Jokowi's majoritarian thinking led him to undermine democracy when he felt he had the majority's support for his actions. Believing that democracy is doing what the majority wants, approves, or tolerates, he used polls to identify segments of democracy he could attack. At the same time, his majoritarianism also set him limits: if a majority was opposed, he retreated. This left Indonesia with a declining democracy, but one that did not cross over into fully authoritarian territory.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

Want to read about how a presidential regime confronts democratic backsliding in a diverse and unequal society? Want to replace Latin (E Pluribus Unum) with Sanskrit (Bhinneka Tunggal Eka)? Check out these papers in the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 👇

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Introduction to the Special Section on Presidentialism and Democracy in Indonesia - Thomas B. Pepinsky, 2025

The three articles in this special section on presidentialism and democracy in Indonesia analyse the state of Indonesian democracy through a careful study of th...

journals.sagepub.com

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

I predict we will see more such proposals, I’m afraid: Exclusionary openness is a tried-and-true model in recent European history and updating it to meet the current moment would serve a lot of corporate and racist interests

tompepinsky.com/wp-content/u...

The Exclusionary Foundations of Embedded Liberalism
Sara Wallace Goodman and Thomas B. Pepinsky

Analyses of embedded liberalism have focused overwhelmingly on
trade in goods and capital, to the exclusion of migration. We argue that much as capital controls were essential components of the embedded liberal compromise, so too were restrictions on the democratic and social rights of labor migrants. Generous welfare programs in labor-receiving countries thrived alongside inclusionary immigration policies, but this balanced arrangement was only tenable if migrants were politically excluded in their destination countries. That is, embedded liberalism abroad rested on exclusionary political foundations at home. In bringing together the IPE literature on the“globalization trilemma” with the comparative politics of citizenship, we provide a novel account of how embedded liberalism worked politically, with implications for current debates about the fate of the liberal order in a time of populist resurgence.

Migrant workers are profitable and beneficial to the host society only so long as
they are unorganized, insecure, bereft of political rights, in a word,“exploited.”
Gary Freeman, Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies1

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

This AI-boom flow-of-funs chart reminds me of a map of the heroin/yaba/meth trade in the Golden Triangle

Methamphetamine trafficking routes in East and Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania, 2024 and 2025 (May)

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

>>> You are an institutional investor. You have access to the history of financial markets since 1600. Generate an investment strategy that….

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

I discovered the orange part in Australia. Queenslanders serving scallops and bay bugs in a red wine cream sauce like absolute savages (laudatory)

Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 2d

fish cheeks, trotters, and that giant orange part of the scallop that you never ever see in the United States

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

What foods do you love that you fully acknowledge make you a pervert for loving them?

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 4d

My theory is that they have to retrain all the AIs to be insane and that means they have to brute force it by generating insane text first

Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 4d

what the fuck is going on

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 6d

This piece is simply wild. Yes, the bailout faces bipartisan opposition in the US, is a blatantly corrupt favor to Bessent’s hedge fun pals, throws good money after bad, and won’t work. But bailing out Argentina in 2025 is good for… wait for it… democracy and an open economy

Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 6d

So much of this piece is just wrong, on the facts. The swap line is coming from Treasury, not the Fed. And the Pollyannaish view of Milei is just remarkable, even for a libertarian. ohttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/argentina-trump-milei-bailout/684427/

Bail Out Argentina

The Trump administration got this one right.

www.theatlantic.com

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 6d

They’re literally socially constructing gender out of sand and metal after a decade of tut-tutting about women being adult human females ONLY

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6d

A lot of tech bros who were upset about pronouns want to confer them on their computers now that they’re dating

Cate Denial @cjdenial.bsky.social · 6d

Can we stop calling an artificial representation of a person by a human-coded name? "She" does not exist. "She" is a reflection of someone's ingenue dreams, but "she" is pixels and code.

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Reposted by Tom Pepinsky

Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 6d

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

Sky News @news.sky.com · 6d

Woman named as new Archbishop of Canterbury in historic first

Bishop of London Dame Sarah Mullally, a former nurse, has been named as the next Archbishop of Canterbury - the first time a woman has been appointed to the role in the Church of England's history.

news.sky.com

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Reposted by Tom Pepinsky

Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · 6d

if Charles has any class and he iis given the sword he should immediately donate it to the Eisenhower Library from which it would have been stolen — but that may be a big if, considering the Parthenon friezes (aka Elgin Marbles) and so much other loot

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 6d

Very Trump-era story.
1. The sword has no meaning for Charles, but matters for the Eisenhower Museum.
2. Illegal for the museum to give away US property!
3. Trump makes no distinction between personal/public property.
4. The person who did the right thing was fired.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/a...

After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Tom Pepinsky

Micah @rincewind.run · 6d

if your response to this - a basic statement of sympathy about an attack on a synagogue - is to bring up Israel, please delete your account

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 7d

I am sickened by today’s attack in Manchester. Antisemitism is on the rise around the world, and we must do all we can to stomp it out. I am grateful to first responders and congregants who showed incredible bravery, and I am praying for those who were killed.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 7d

We are like 2 years away from a Trump administration sex scandal leading to The American Communion, Henry VIII-style

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 7d

amazing watching tradcath converts discover they are protestants.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 7d

Look, affirmative MAY be justified. Take from one… give to another. But obviously, the goal is to be unified. Take my hand, be my brother.

Right Wing Watch @rightwingwatch.bsky.social · 7d

Outraged that Bad Bunny was chosen to perform during the Super Bowl halftime show, Jason Whitlock calls on conservative media to plan counter-programming featuring ... a concert by Creed.

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 7d

Sorry, American bigots. I’m already in your country and I’ve been here for centuries.

Teacher, researcher, globalist, republican.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 7d

So at the same time the Trump regime claims it's fighting antisemitism (which was always a lie) it's now saying it will deny citizenship (or visas?) to "globalists" which is mostly used in their crowd as a barely coded euphemism for "Jews"

Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 8d

DHS appears to suggest that it will deny citizenship to "globalists"

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