Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 11h

Bari Weiss's reported remarks to the CBS News staff on the daily morning call yesterday had a certain Logan Roy flavor. According to Semafor, she told them she wants to "win" and finished by saying "Let's do the fucking news!" Logan's TV newsroom pep talk in episode 2, season 4:

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 19h

Thanks to Republicans gutting Obamacare, the average annual health-insurance premium for the 22M Americans covered will increase 114% starting January 1, $888 to $1,904. And will triple, quadruple, almost quintuple for the neediest in 10 super-GOP states.

Dems are playing hardball to stop that.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 20h

Excellent summing-up by @Schiff.senate.gov of the U.S. attorney general’s just-for-Dear-Leader WWE-style performance at the Senate judiciary committee hearing yesterday.

Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 @judiciarydems.senate.gov · 1d

Sen. SCHIFF: You’ve refused to answer questions about ethics, the Qatari plane, the Epstein files, Tom Homan’s alleged bribery, political prosecutions, military authorization…

Bondi: *tries interrupting*

Schiff: Excuse me. This is an oversight hearing. We demand answers.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 22h

This “thought of the day” from @AOC.bsky.social is A+ true and prefect. And I think that not just because she accidentally mentions the title of my last book. www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMBg5D6U/
@aoc.bsky.social

AOC lays into Republicans in new video.

TikTok video by COURIER

www.tiktok.com

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 1d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Opinion | That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good

www.nytimes.com

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 1d

Declaring attempts by the military (and other nonprofits) to reduce bigotry against nonwhites, women and gays excessive is an opinion. But Christopher Caldwell’s assertion that “D.E.I. has wound up…making businesses concerned as much with social justice as with profit” is just factually ludicrous.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 3d

Hegseth today: “If you let the beards go and the bellies go and the uniforms go and the fitness standards go, pretty soon the big stuff goes.”

The commander-in-chief snd his next in line.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 3d

…but then I realized they’re all comic book characters.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 3d

Just realized the Secretary of War is a comic book character….

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 5d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...

Statue of Trump and Epstein Holding Hands Returns to National Mall

www.nytimes.com

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 5d

BRAVO, brilliant anonymous artists' group Secret Handshake —for making this great piece, for employing a veteran movie-TV location manager to oversee the installation on the National Mall, and for the comedy of your public statements. A+

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 5d

Excellent primer on models for defeating authoritarians democratically. Like Poland did in 2023, Brazil in 2022, Ukraine in 2004 & 2014, Chile in 1988.

Why it’s up to each every one of us now to do everything possible to win elections the next 3 years. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Opinion | This Is What Autocrats Dread

www.nytimes.com

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 6d

As with most of what his boss says, with Hegseth in this instance it’s hard to know if he was showing his remarkable ignorance or lying or both. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

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Reposted by Kurt Andersen

Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

Apart from Trump and the Republicans’ actions the last weeks and months, how do we know this government shutdown is their fault, not the Democrats?

Because it’s the first in history when one party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress. The lunatics run the asylum.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

An amazing, enviable, inspiring feat to write a good novel at age 88. Especially a Thomas Pynchon novel.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

Apart from Trump and the Republicans’ actions the last weeks and months, how do we know this government shutdown is their fault, not the Democrats?

Because it’s the first in history when one party controls the presidency and both houses of Congress. The lunatics run the asylum.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

He has said countless grotesque, horrific things as president. This is among the most grotesque and horrific.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Trump to top military officials: "I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but our military. Because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor."

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Reposted by Kurt Andersen

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 8d

Judging by their speeches, neither Trump nor Hegseth has paid the slightest attention to how actual wars are being fought in the actual world. The “war fighting” and “lethality” they plan is inside their own country and comes from conflicts inside their own minds.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

💯

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8d

can you imagine sitting in that audience as a three-star flag officer — decades in the service, multiple post-grad degrees and a virtually unequaled level of command expertise — and being forced to watch this dunderheaded dry drunk give an off-brand jordan belfort seminar?

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 8d

YES.

Dan Osborn running for the U.S. Senate in my home-state (Nebraska) and Zohran Mamdani running for mayor of my city ( ew York) are both the sort of Democrats we need now. Honest likable outsiders focused on populist economics. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/o...

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 12d

The headline now specifies it’s a problem of *Republicans* in Congress, but the piece refers again and again to “Congress” in general as cowardly anti-democratic quislings. Vestige of the writer having worked for two GOP Speakers of the House 2011-19? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/o...

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 12d

OK, not some mysterious Dr. Strangelove gathering of a few dozen top generals & admirals after all, but 800 officers to hear an incompetent ex National Guard major’s lecture on the “warrior ethos.” Overnight from strange
and disconcerting to just spectacularly wasteful, stupid and embarrassing. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 14d

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/n...

www.wsj.com/tech/peter-t...

The Billionaire, the Psychedelics and the Best-Selling Memoir

www.nytimes.com

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 14d

Today in Fantasyland.

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Kurt Andersen @kurtandersen.bsky.social · 15d

1982: unknown evil madman puts cyanide in Tylenol to kill and panic people, causing maker’s stock to drop 29%

2025: evil super-celebrity makes mad claims about Tylenol—“we found an answer to autism, won't let it happen anymore”—causing panic and maker’s stock to drop 20%

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