Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Wes Termin

Drew Magary @drewmagary.bsky.social · 2d

Bari Weiss Signs Huge Deal To Usher CBS News Into Its Vichy Era | Defector

On Monday, newly appointed Paramount CEO David Ellison announced that his company had acquired the Free Press, the smirking blood-and-soil blog founded and run by former New York Times hall monitor Ba...

defector.com

9 25 180

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 3d

Why I cancelled my subscription

Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 3d

behold the bold and brave washington post opinion section (under new management), lol

2

Reposted by Wes Termin

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 5d

Teachers should also get more time to be pleasurably bored! It’s a solution for many things!

1 1 9

Reposted by Wes Termin

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

America today is a puzzle of contradictions: it proclaims freedom yet fears its own police, it venerates strength yet trembles before old age, it boasts of prosperity yet cannot afford its own steak. At the center sits its weary ruler, a man older than his republic can bear.

1 1 3

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 8d

Trying to imagine what a historian of this moment will look for in sources. A visiting foreign journalist's account of the collapse of the Republic, perhaps?

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Dispatch from Washington, D.C.
I arrive in Dulles Airport, just as the capital is preparing for its recurring October 1st ritual: the potential and probable Federal government shutdown. For the outsider, this strange rite may appear chaotic, but for Americans it is as old as their democracy.

1

Reposted by Wes Termin

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8d

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story!

680 16K 50K

Reposted by Wes Termin

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The press, once celebrated as a pillar of freedom, now cowers under the thumbs of billionaires. Once-brave journalists have become court stenographers, transcribing lies and calling them news. The Washington Post, no longer a watchdog, but a leashed poodle, tugged by the whims of Jeff Bezos.

1 1 2

Reposted by Wes Termin

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The capital trembles, & at its center is the 79-year-old ruler, Donald Trump, so aged that his own government seems to wither around him. His reign illustrates America’s gerontocratic culture: the elderly cling to power and youth is seen only as a source of campaign rallies and military recruits.

1 1 2

Reposted by Wes Termin

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Dispatch from Washington, D.C.
I arrive in Dulles Airport, just as the capital is preparing for its recurring October 1st ritual: the potential and probable Federal government shutdown. For the outsider, this strange rite may appear chaotic, but for Americans it is as old as their democracy.

1 1 3

Reposted by Wes Termin

@Crowebarre @davidcrowe.bsky.social · 9d

The “growing body” here is a tumor, malignant and metastatic

Pat Sobkowski @patsobkowski.com · 9d

“Growing body of modern scholarship”

1

Reposted by Wes Termin

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9d

durbin underrated as one of the worst mcclellan democrats in the senate

🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 9d

good lord, dick durbin wants democrats to give up their only remaining leverage this year for an *informal commitment* from republicans. www.semafor.com/article/09/2...

For instance, some Democrats indicated they could be open to funding the government with simply a commitment from Thune to extend health care subsidies in the coming days.
"It would be a real mark of progress. I hope that's considered by him. That's progress, as far as I'm concerned; whether it's enough, I can't say," said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-II. "If we're not sitting down talking about ending this responsibility and helping people deal with health care, it's going to be a rocky road."

130 370 2.4K

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The world once looked to America for guidance. Now it looks on in pity. As my cab departs Dulles, I reflect: this is not a government on the verge of shutdown. This is a civilization on the verge of expiry.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

America today is a puzzle of contradictions: it proclaims freedom yet fears its own police, it venerates strength yet trembles before old age, it boasts of prosperity yet cannot afford its own steak. At the center sits its weary ruler, a man older than his republic can bear.

1 1 3

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

And so, As October 1st approaches, the nation braces. Federal workers prepare to be cast aside. Families stockpile canned goods. The machinery of empire grinds to a halt, not from invasion or collapse, but from the sheer weight of its own dysfunction.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

At the same time, the Great Beef Crisis gnaws at the American psyche. Steak—once the sacred meal of their mythology—is now beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. Farmers in the Great Plains, their soybeans unwanted by China, plead desperately for alms from the very government that may close tomorrow

1 2

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The American economy is suffering not merely a recession but a crisis of spirit. The U.S. dollar, long their talisman of power, grows weaker by the day. Confidence drains from it like blood from an old man’s face.

1 2

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The press, once celebrated as a pillar of freedom, now cowers under the thumbs of billionaires. Once-brave journalists have become court stenographers, transcribing lies and calling them news. The Washington Post, no longer a watchdog, but a leashed poodle, tugged by the whims of Jeff Bezos.

1 1 2

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The supposed opposition Democrats are little more than hollow men folding at the slightest pressure, raising their voices in empty speeches that echo in the marble senate halls before vanishing. Like eunuchs in an imperial court, they preen & posture, never daring to actually challenge the sovereign

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Bribes flow freely through from ICE to contractors and private prisons as federal officers enrich themselves with impunity. It is no longer an enforcement agency but a marketplace of extortion.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

On the streets, ICE patrols terrorize immigrant neighborhoods with their raids, barging into schools, hospitals, and homes. They create an atmosphere of fear that Americans, accustomed to their myths of freedom, can neither explain nor resist.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller rules silently through terror, weaving his xenophobic ideology into every agency. He has become America’s Rasputin, whispering into the corridors of power, reshaping laws and lives with a fanaticism so intense that even his allies fear him.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Pentagon meetings descend into incoherent rants, generals shuffle nervously, uncertain whether the orders they receive were shouted in earnest or muttered through whiskey fumes.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

Trump’s power is already fragmented. The Pentagon, once a feared empire, is now in the grip of Pete Hegseth, a paranoid drunkard who bellows at shadows & sees enemies in every corner.

1 1 3

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

To understand America today, one must understand that it worships age not for wisdom, but for obstinacy. The creaking body of its president mirrors the creaking institutions he presides over.

1 1

Wes Termin @historyell.bsky.social · 9d

The capital trembles, & at its center is the 79-year-old ruler, Donald Trump, so aged that his own government seems to wither around him. His reign illustrates America’s gerontocratic culture: the elderly cling to power and youth is seen only as a source of campaign rallies and military recruits.

1 1 2