Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Canonically Jar-Jar lost his next primary but ran a successful centrist independent campaign and lived out his life as an insurance company shill

Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty @irhottakes.bsky.social · 23h

I dislike this. I think Jar-Jar should have retired in luxury after a lengthy career in the Senate as one of the “Naboo Mafia,” be granted a dukedom by the emperor for his services to the Empire, and spent his elder years dabbling as a part-time centrist pundit in the New Republic.

RoninMacbeth ☠️🎢 @roninmacbeth.bsky.social · 1d

Canonically Jar Jar is an outcast clown on Naboo who scrapes by entertaining children because all the adults hate him for ruining everything. Wendig isn't exactly the most subtle author.

2 2 38

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

The Father differs from us in generation; the Son is a spiritually older brother. A lot less mysterious than ‘three in one’!

1 3

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

But in some ways more literally intuitive. Like, there is a divine family that functions almost identically to a mortal human one

2 5

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

Trinitarians debated the origin of the Son famously and extensively, and His nature, but to my knowledge none of the councils defined either aspect of the Spirit, really

2

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

The LDS father-son understanding is I think more intuitive than the trinitarian one but still the Spirit introduces complications they don’t really resolve

3 1

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

It’s extremely important to the early church and especially to “Luke” but doesn’t fit neatly into any theological framework

1 2

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

No one does! Neither side of this actually even attempts to fully explain it!

2 9

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15h

Say what you will about Joseph Smith & Brigham Young but their theology is much more straightforward

6 2 31

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 19h

The favorite trick is to take old disdain for extremely elitist institutions and then try to an it at modern, much less elitist ones that they hate for opposite reasons

1 1 23

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 19h

This is the kind of decades old white male ‘counter culture’ that lets reactionaries think they’re ‘punk’ a half century later

13 8 74

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 19h

Up there with “I hope Epstein made videos of me” and “we were just having dinner with Woody Allen”

Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 19h

Lmao at no point here does she say "No, there are no photos of Donald Trump with half-naked young women," she just goes straight to attacking Whitehouse. I'm not sure how she could've made him look guiltier unless she'd actually thrown the original photos at the senators.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse

4 31

Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 19h

Lmao at no point here does she say "No, there are no photos of Donald Trump with half-naked young women," she just goes straight to attacking Whitehouse. I'm not sure how she could've made him look guiltier unless she'd actually thrown the original photos at the senators.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse

20 120 530

Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Huey Li @hueyli.bsky.social · 22h

If the anti-establishment left admits that Trump is the worst, logically, they'll have to admit that the past admins weren't as evil as they could've been, and that electoral politics did place constraints on politicians. And that wouldn't fit the narrative.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 22h

The thing about Iran-Contra and Watergate was that they WEREN’T flagrant: they had to be exposed.Trump literally does stuff five times worse than Watergate every day, and then tweets an openly neo-Nazi meme about it from the official White House account. It’s a difference in kind, not just degree.

Emcee Hammerpants @emceehammerpants.bsky.social · 23h

I dunno, man. Iran-Contra and Watergate were pretty flagrant. I have a hard time believing they haven’t been heading down this road where the executive is all-powerful and power is the end, not the means, for a long, long time. Whether that alone qualifies as fascist I don’t know for sure.

7 12 110

Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22h

Just as a reminder, Bondi’s origin story in Trump world is that she said she was going to investigate Trump University, Trump sent her a $25K check and the investigation disappeared. She later became Trump’s personal defense lawyer. So yeah, don’t challenge her integrity.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22h

Bondi to Blumenthal: "You lied. How dare you? I'm a career prosecutor. Don't you ever challenge my integrity. Do not question my ability to be fair and impartial."

200 1.7K 5.6K

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 20h

Superhero movies by and large represent a yearning for a true aristocracy of merit, where some people are just visibly better and stronger than others and we get to indulge in the fantasy of entrusting our lives to them rather than self governing

1 3

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 20h

Have not seen it!

1 1

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 20h

More similar to each other than to normal morality anyway

2

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 21h

The problem is that it’s extremely difficult to make a movie about any kind of warrior nobility without people thinking they are cool, whether they are knights or mobsters

10 3 98

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 21h

My evolving views on mob movies

Midwit meme:

-lower quartile the godfather is so cool mobsters are like a warrior aristocracy
-peak: nooo mobsters are violent thieves
-top percentile: yes that’s why they are like a warrior aristocracy

14 47 350

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 22h

New BLS report dropped!

Bullets reading ‘lots of jobs, no inflation, winning’

1 9 58

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

I’m still not sure this was untrue

21

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

I just saw a video about how fast Millenials are in airport security and I think the main reason is we all secretly feared that if you took too long in the security line Alberto Gonzalez was allowed to seize and water board you

2 5 58

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Canonically Jar-Jar lost his next primary but ran a successful centrist independent campaign and lived out his life as an insurance company shill

Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty @irhottakes.bsky.social · 23h

I dislike this. I think Jar-Jar should have retired in luxury after a lengthy career in the Senate as one of the “Naboo Mafia,” be granted a dukedom by the emperor for his services to the Empire, and spent his elder years dabbling as a part-time centrist pundit in the New Republic.

RoninMacbeth ☠️🎢 @roninmacbeth.bsky.social · 1d

Canonically Jar Jar is an outcast clown on Naboo who scrapes by entertaining children because all the adults hate him for ruining everything. Wendig isn't exactly the most subtle author.

2 2 38

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

The Beast is basically trans so y’know

1

Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Faceless TimeTravel_0 @justa9.bsky.social · 23h

It's such a joke. Everything Russia does must be viewed as pragmatic, realist, and a reaction to events. Everything the US does needs to be viewed through the lens of ideology, expansion, and as having the initiative.

4 22