Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Denise Wheeler @denisedwheeler.bsky.social · 15h

Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst noticed that Bondi flipped open a file during the Senate hearing and he zoomed in.

Inside were her crib notes for attacking the senators.

The GOP now practicing Cliff's Notes Fascism

In other words, under oath Bondi was purely a performance.

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

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Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 18h

You can joke about Pam Bondi’s ridiculous unprofessionalism all you want, but I’m deeply shocked by it: She acts as if she fears absolutely no consequences, convinced that there will be no more political power transfers. — This should shake everyone to their core.

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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 8h

A reminder that this week the Conservatives announced they want a “British ICE”

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 11h

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 13h

Here’s video of the incident

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Dr. Allison Betus (she/her) 🌈 @allisonbetus.bsky.social · 6h

Folks, if ICE shot a pastor in the head with a pepper ball on camera, what do you think they do to people behind closed doors?

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 13h

Here’s video of the incident

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Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 14h

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 17h

Who is going to pay for all this slop?

Sora 2 Has a Huge Financial Problem

How will OpenAI stop Sora 2 from burning through cash as users generate countless resource-intensive AI videos?

futurism.com

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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 11h

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 13h

Here’s video of the incident

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Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 10h

This little twerp, who’s been there a few months, axed two of the lions of WaPo??

Fisher is an investigative champion and had been at The Post for 39 years. Hoffman had been there for 42, and he won a Pulitzer LAST YEAR.

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 12h

Last week, new WaPo opinion editor Adam O'Neal quietly carried out another purge of staffers, cutting editors and major names like Marc Fisher and David Hoffman, among others.

Meanwhile, he welcomed three conservatives to the section.

Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/washington...

Post Traumatic Disorder

Adam O’Neal says he’s bringing “intellectual diversity” to The Washington Post’s opinion pages—but the moves he’s making behind the scenes tell a different story.

www.status.news

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Dan Nexon @dhnexon.bsky.social · 3d

🧵 Fascism is an ideology. The government is fascist. But it's an unconsolidated competitive authoritarian regime, not a totalitarian one.

@justinscasey.bsky.social and I discuss this, and the heterogeneity of interwar fascism, here 👇

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Jason Linkins @dceiver.bsky.social · 11h

love that we had a whole national reckoning over the media's coverage of Biden's advanced age and none of the scolds who High Horsed us can be bothered to spend even a minute reflecting on the fact that Trump has basically become Mr. Burns in the "Spruce Moose" episode of THE SIMPSONS

CNN @cnn.com · 13h

The Trump administration has ordered FBI employees in Washington, DC, to immediately search their workstations and digital media for any records pertaining to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a law enforcement source told CNN.

FBI employees ordered to immediately search for records related to Amelia Earhart, source says | CNN Politics

The Trump administration has ordered FBI employees in Washington, DC, to immediately search their workstations and digital media for any records pertaining to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a la...

www.cnn.com

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 13h

It’s not Kristallnacht. That was bigger, involving more people in multiple locations, and left about 90 dead.
But the regime’s repressive paramilitaries hunting a scapegoated ethnic minority, violating rights, smashing property, harming citizens and noncitizens alike, is disturbingly Kristallnachty.

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 14h

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 14h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 16h

A Brief History of Men are Becoming Less Manly

🧵

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𝕍∃, Cyber closed shell syndrome relief fund coordinator @vortexegg.com · 14h

Pacification and de-agency programming of present and future authoritarian subjects

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 14h

Genuine question - what are OpenAI’s Sora and other video generation tools good for?

I am honestly trying to understand what is so important that it’s worth the cost. If you have examples, I would be interested to hear them.

futurism.com/artificial-i...

People Are Making Sora 2 Videos of Stephen Hawking Being Horribly Brutalized

People are using OpenAI's Sora 2 to generate videos of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking being brutalized in ghoulish ways.

futurism.com

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 20h

Hey Siri show me the desktop of someone who despises himself

my desktop which has copies of the recent dogshit books of Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, and Amy coney Barrett

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 14h

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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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 14h

“Hype, however, does not necessarily translate into sales. As of this writing, he has sold around 3,100 pendants — though he expects that will increase rapidly once the product hits retailers like Walmart sometime next tear. The ad campaign is still rolling out in Los Angeles, with Chicago up next.”

A Debate About A.I. Plays Out on the Subway Walls

www.nytimes.com

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C-REX @crexuio.bsky.social · 16h

Don’t miss this event on how to research the far right safely with former C-REX postdoc @audreygagnon.bsky.social👇

Audrey Gagnon @audreygagnon.bsky.social · 23h

Looking forward to discussing how to research the far right safely in academia at the @vox-pol.bsky.social report launch. The report is by @antoniavaughan.bsky.social, with the event hosted by @lizzypearson.bsky.social

New VOX-Pol Report Online Launch - VOX - Pol

09/10/2025 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm - VOX-Pol is publishing a new report titled Researching the Far Right Safely in Academia: Current Practices and Constraints by Dr Antonia Vaughan on Thursday 9 October 2...

voxpol.eu

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C-REX @crexuio.bsky.social · 12d

📢 Publication alert! C-REX scholar @grahammacklin.bsky.social & former postdoc Kacper Rekawek have contributed to the new book "Foreign Fighters and the Extreme Right," exploring the dynamics of far-right volunteers beyond the Ukraine War. A must-read! www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/1...

Foreign Fighters and the Extreme Right | Tracking Far-Right Volunteers

Foreign Fighters and the Extreme Right is the first comprehensive academic study taking an in-depth look at white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other right-wing

www.taylorfrancis.com

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 16h

But don't accuse them of racial profiling.

Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 16h

When US citizen Leo Garcia Venegas tried to prove his identity by showing federal agents his REAL ID, they dismissed it as a fake and kept him detained, releasing him only after they bothered to run his Social Security number.

Just a few weeks later, they detained him again:

Mass Deportation Is A Threat To Us All

Aided by the Supreme Court and the insidious "Kavanaugh stop," the administration's chaotic mass deportation operations are sweeping up Americans – including children and U.S. military veterans.

americasvoicecnn.substack.com

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Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · 18h

An adult driver angry at a child they hit with their car.

Our car culture summed up in one video.

Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.com · 19h

Police in Airdrie, Alberta (just north of Calgary) say this driver hit a 17-year-old girl in a marked crosswalk, got out of the vehicle, and appeared to get upset at the teenager before driving away.

They released this video and are now trying to identify the driver.

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 16h

I've written my analysis of today's grim Supreme Court oral argument in the conversion therapy case:

As far as the Court's concerned, imaginary medical uncertainty gives states the authority to hurt queer kids, and takes away states' authority to protect them

ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/chile...

The Conservative Justices Don't Trust Any Science That Supports LGBTQ Kids

States that want to facilitate discrimination against LGBTQ people have the Court's blessing. States that want to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination do not.

ballsandstrikes.org

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Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 1d

please read my memo www.theverge.com/business/793...

Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed

Bari Weiss has sold her company, The Free Press, to manage the decline of broadcast news at CBS. How many ways can it go wrong?

www.theverge.com

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 17h

So, is this allowing trans bills to go forward but also not signing them presidential-ambitions cynical? Probably. I'm not deeply familiar with them all.

But sometimes CA govs do this when they liked a different (could be tougher/laxer, or just specifics) version of that bill better.

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