Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 4h

we need to build new universities since the ones we have are not up for the task

Chris Morran @themorrancave.bsky.social · 4h

NEW: As Linda McMahon guts the Dept. of Education, she’s operated in what she calls “a parallel universe” to radically shift how future kids will learn -- seeking to dismantle the public school system in favor of private and Christian schools or homeschooling.

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of publ...

www.propublica.org

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matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 5h

man they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point

CNN @cnn.com · 12h

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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Hemry, Local Bartender @bartenderhemry.bsky.social · 9h

I think the failing washington post is illustrative: people don't just get brainwashed or hoodwinked by this shit, they cancel their subscriptions and stop engaging with it. This is still much worse than having actually good media but it's not the nightmare scenario, it's not actually persuasive

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Alissa Azar @alissaazar.bsky.social · 17h

I need people not from Portland to understand that a majority of the escalations happening here are the direct result of the far right grifting machine. They are another arm of the fascist regime and have been manufacturing content and spreading lies to manufacture consent. It's as simple as that.

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 9h

Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud. Trump has “plenary authority,” then suddenly went silent. Their plan wasn’t to be public yet. Clearly, someone hit the panic button in his earpiece.

It gets weirder: CNN uploaded the interview with the “plenary authority” comment edited out.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 1d

public research universities, holding on:
veronica gago wowed uic tonight with her forthcoming book, adapted here ctjournal.org/2025/06/03/n...

New Authoritarianism as Counterrevolution - Critical Times

Translated by Liz Mason-Deese Reflections on Authoritarian Times What is new about the authoritarianism that we are currently witnessing? It is useful to situate this authoritarianism within, and to...

ctjournal.org

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W.E.D.em Boyz @leftistwonk.bsky.social · 1d

MTG is awful in more ways than I can count, but she does happen to be a normal person as compared to all the lawyer-pipeline Ivy grads in Congress. She’s a bigoted crank, but like the kind your aunt is friends with on Facebook.

Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur.bsky.social · 1d

👀 Marjorie Taylor Greene breaks with Republicans on Obamacare funding, saying she’s not a fan of the law but demands action to prevent a premium hike. “I’m absolutely disgusted that health insurance premiums will DOUBLE if the tax credits expire this year.” She says GOP leaders don’t have a plan.

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matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 1d

We're lucky to have writers like China Miéville for this moment

Beyond Folk Marxism: Mind, Metaphysics and Spooky Materialism - Salvage

Why, and how, are any of us capable of self-reflective thought? Of experiencing emotion, ratiocination, preference, cold, whim, melancholy, joy? Anything at all?

salvage.zone

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d

Scholarslop: The Dangers of an Algorithmic Idea of the University - great piece by @berrydm.bsky.social

"academics will need to find new means to defend the university and contest the use of scholarslop before it is too late" stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

Scholarslop: The Dangers of an Algorithmic Idea of the University

Understanding digital media, technology, theory, culture and society.

stunlaw.blogspot.com

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Kai Bosworth @kaibosworth.bsky.social · 1d

out now in @societyandspace.bsky.social, a volume of shorter interventions on new (and renewed) forms of reactionary environmentalisms around the world. my contribution below.

Chloe Ahmann @chloeahmann.bsky.social · 3d

📣 Friends, sharing a new collection on “Everyday and Emergent Ecofascisms” – edited with Zeynep Oguz for @societyandspace.bsky.social – that we hope folks find useful in These Times. Together, we “tend to the mundane ways ecofascist tenets organize the everyday...

t.co/JUowfqw7cB

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02637758251374876

t.co

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Chris Yogerst @chrisyogerst.com · 1d

New column up at @thr.com where I offer a history of the Committee for the First Amendment, then and now.

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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 4d

Amidst a violent crackdown, the Trump administration has set its sights on anyone monitoring its expanding immigration enforcement operations—and it’s turning to major tech companies to help, writes Free Press advocacy director Jenna Ruddock.

Amidst Violent Immigration Raids, DHS Turns to Big Tech to Silence Dissent | TechPolicy.Press

Free Press advocacy director Jenna Ruddock says the Trump administration is targeting anyone monitoring its expanding immigration enforcement operations.

www.techpolicy.press

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Zoomer Antimillenarian ♨️ @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 2d

This is the actual core of it, where he manages some cogent thought. Yarvin understands that getting rid of liberalism requires completely unmaking our freedoms and consolidating an utterly lawless extralegal apparatus.

And he can see that this isn't happening anywhere near fast enough to succeed.

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matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 2d

Matt from Chapo joked about this back in the day--lock Trump inside a room and play him fake TV addressing him like he's the president--and at the time I thought it was a great idea but whoops!

The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 2d

Thinking how Stephen Bannon got fired in 2017 because Trump got mad that people were saying he's the real president. Probably wouldn't work with Miller because they only feed Trump AI slop now. They got him in the Professor X rig watching videos of himself leading troops in battle

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Alex Baumhardt @alexbaumhardt.bsky.social · 2d

She’s still out here ✌️

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matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 2d

I think I told you about this at SLSA but watch this interview with the book's coauthors--Art Bell, host of Coast to Coast AM, and Whitley Streiber, "alien abductee" and author of Communion--selling the idea to a skeptical Matt Lauer www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDj...

Art Bell and Whitley Strieber Today Show Interview 2000

YouTube video by devoidzer01

www.youtube.com

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matthew ellis @matthiasellis.com · 2d

Everything is so bad right now man

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🐔 Brian Bucklew 🐔 ₑͤ＞∿＜ₑͤ ∞🌮 @unormal.bsky.social · 3d

we should invent a new kind of online that is hard to understand and not corporate controlled lets all get ham radio licenses

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Playoffs Eschewer @scratchbomb.bsky.social · 5d

a semiotics major could write a whole PhD thesis on this thing. images divorced from their sources or any inherent meaning, presented in a stew, artificially aged, to invoke the hint of a scent of a feeling of something bsky.app/profile/airb...

kate bush’s husband @airbagged.bsky.social · 5d

The Department of Homeland Security using clips from Twin Peaks in their cringe and racist anti immigration edits….