Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 1d

I’m a federal public defender. A local AUSA told me that the DOJ now refuses to help her prosecute jail guards who assault inmates on camera.

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Ivan Čurić @baxuz.bsky.social · 1d

Reading this makes me treat anyone's economy degree as an astrology one

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 2d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Matthew Stiegler @matthewstiegler.bsky.social · 5d

I think KBJ still isn’t getting the full credit she deserves for spotlighting the Supreme Court majority’s abuses. At a time when so many elected officials are failing so disastrously to meet the moment, she’s doing it.

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 3d

For both legal reasons and for the sake of your immortal soul.

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 5d

Shoutout to the person on the motorcycle who blocked the ICE vehicle so it remained in the middle of the tear gas.

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 5d

it makes me incandescently furious that roberts invented the idea of banning coercive conditions on funding to kill medicaid expansion and refuses to do a single thing about the fact that the trump administration's entire deal is "coercive conditions on funding"

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 6d

There is a gulf in America. I submit it is the gulf between good and evil, or at least not-evil and evil.

The gulf is not just between people who oppose this and people who are indifferent to it or reluctantly accept it in support of immigration policy or see it as collateral damage.
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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 6d

This raid is disgusting, abominable behavior, traumatizing children and families in their homes.
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

"They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'"

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Dimitri Drekonja, MD, MS @dimitridrekonja.bsky.social · 8d

I work with Veterans. If I told them that they "killed people and broke things for a living" they would (rightfully) tell me to go to hell.

Those that have had to kill someone in the line of duty most often view it with sadness, regret, and one of the worst experiences of their lives.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "A few months ago I was at the White House when President Trump announced his liberation day for America's trade policy. It was a landmark day. Well, today is another liberation day. The liberation of America's warriors ... you kill people and break things for a living."

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Aisle424 Has Fallen @aisle424.bsky.social · 9d

I don’t know anything about Bad Bunny but I am very excited that him playing at the Super Bowl will give the worst people in the world brain aneurysms

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Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 10d

The president of the United States seemingly can no longer discern between fantasy and reality. This is somehow less of a crisis for our legacy news media institutions than the previous president having a stutter and sometimes mixing some names up.

Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 10d

to me the weirdest part of this is not the specific conspiracy theory he's pushing, it's that he's pushing a conspiracy theory attributing to him actions he himself did not take

Alex Kaplan @alkapdc.bsky.social · 10d

Trump tonight appears to have pushed the false "medbed" conspiracy theory, which has spread in the far-right internet over the years. www.yahoo.com/news/qanon-c...

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🎃😱Slaybell Romero loves Halloween👻👹 @maybell.bsky.social · 10d

It’s wild that we’re labeling prosecutors who are doing the bare minimum required by the ethical standards of their jobs “heroes.” Times are wild and sad.

Bill Leibenguth @bill-leibenguth.bsky.social · 10d

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Anil Kalhan @akalhan.bsky.social · 11d

What we might refer to as a "Kavanaugh Stop"

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13d

WOW. The lead plaintiff is a Latino man who's been here legally for 24 years. He was grabbed off the street by plainclothes federal agents who didn't even ASK about his status.

He was detained overnight and only released once a supervisor realized he had been illegally arrested.

PARTIES3. Plaintiff José Escobar Molina is a 47-year-old man who has lived in D.C. for 25 years. He has maintained valid Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for El Salvador since 2001. On August 21, 2025, Mr. Escobar Molina was walking from his apartment building in Northwest D.C.to his work truck, about to start his workday, when two cars pulled up next to him. As he was about to get into his truck, plain-clothed and unidentified federal agents exited the cars and—without conducting any inquiry—seized Mr. Escobar Molina, grabbing him by the arms and legs and immediately handcuffing him. The agents arrested him without a warrant and without asking for his name, his identification, or anything about his immigration status. The agents also did not ask him where he lives, whom he lives with, how long he has lived here, or anything else about his ties to the community prior to arresting him. After ICE detained Mr. Escobar Molina overnight at its processing center in Chantilly, Virginia, the next day an ICE supervisor finally realized that he had valid TPS, which statutorily prohibits ICE from detaining him, and released him. Due tohis Latino ethnicity, Mr. Escobar Molina fears being arrested and detained again while going about his daily life in D.C.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 12d

I'd love to bask in the schadenfreude of this sleazebag getting indicted by the guy he helped elect with blatant electioneering right before the 2016 election, but that wasn't a crime either and this is indisputably authoritarian persecution that needs to be opposed vigorously.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 12d

Credit to ABC News for this headline on the Comey indictment.

abcnews.go.com/US/former-fb...

Former FBI Director James Comey indicted days after Trump demanded his DOJ move 'now' to prosecute enemies

Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted just days after President Trump issued a public demand for the DOJ to act "now" to prosecute him, sources say.

abcnews.go.com

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Chip Smith @chipsmith.bsky.social · 12d

An easy way for people to understand the legal enterprise they are engaged in on the shadow docket is to fucking write an opinion that explains their legal reasoning.

Kelsey Reichmann @kelseyreichmann.bsky.social · 13d

Barrett spurns Supreme Court bias claims after string of Trump shadow docket wins

“I want people to understand, agree or disagree with the decisions that the court reaches, that we are engaged in a legal enterprise."
@courthousenews.bsky.social
www.courthousenews.com/barrett-spur...

Barrett spurns Supreme Court bias claims after string of Trump shadow docket wins

Justice Amy Coney Barrett sat for an extended discussion where she defended the high court’s rulings and her jurisprudence.

www.courthousenews.com

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 12d

Folks: SOMEONE was going to be the first to be frivolously indicted (ignoring @replamonica.bsky.social, as you all are).

Better it be a rich white guy.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13d

Returning to a subject I was discussing this morning on X, I think a single video like this does more to radicalize people against ICE than any loaded rhetoric any politician has ever used, and DHS should think very hard about the consequences of supporting this kind of behavior from its agents.

Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 13d

I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)

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Emily Galvin-Almanza @galvinalmanza.bsky.social · 13d

This is satisfying but also a super commonsense idea. Why speculate about what happened in the interrogation room? Why not just KNOW?

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 13d

NEW: Hawaii's Supreme Court keeps releasing opinions that denounce the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest? A new ruling that requires the police to record all interrogations from now on.

The author took it as an opportunity to say Hawaii's court will protect due process—while SCOTUS isn't:

Hawaii Supreme Court Expands Rights of Defendants, and Once Again Rebukes SCOTUS - Bolts

Hawaii justices ruled that their state constitution requires police to record interrogations. And they vowed to protect due process for Hawaiians—unlike, they said, the Roberts Court.

boltsmag.org

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