Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) @hcrichardson.bsky.social · 17h

People ask what they can do in this moment: here's a crucially important election. There are 52,000 elections taking place next month, many of which will be determined by turnout.

Alex Burness @burness.bsky.social · 1d

Dispatch from Pennsylvania on a highly unusual state Supreme Court election—one of the few most consequential matters on the ballot anywhere in the country next month. New from me in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/pennsylvania...

Inside the Clunky Elections to Control Pennsylvania's Supreme Court - Bolts

The GOP is making an expensive push to end Democrats’ majority on a court at the center of election lawsuits, sparking a fledging campaign season with little precedent or template.

boltsmag.org

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 9h

The current Republican Party will follow Donald Trump absolutely anywhere he decides to take it, including public ownership of the means of production.

Republican socialism: The Trump administration buys a stake in yet another company

Trilogy Metals will receive a $35.6 million "investment," and the federal government will now own a 10 percent stake in the company.

reason.com

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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · Jul 25

Few “don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone” examples as potent as an independent DOJ

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Pritzker: "It's unconscionable. This has never happened before. They're calling out troops onto the streets of a state that doesn't want them and they're not even telling us where they're gonna go, what they're gonna do. This hasn't happened I don't think since the Civil War."

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Blue Moon Wondering @wildbluemoon.bsky.social · 9h

Portland is a delightful place to live - full of creative folks and amazing food and cocktails. This framing of it as a hellscape is ludicrous. Admittedly, like many hip and expensive urban areas it has far too many houseless people. We're working on solutions though.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13h

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 9h

If you’d like a more realistic assessment; I wrote about it today. www.pbump.net/o/dethawing-...

Thawing out ‘Arctic Frost’ and the new Biden-was-worse argument

A recent American presidency, you may be alarmed to hear, engaged in an action that was "arguably worse than Watergate" — an event still positioned in some circles as the gold-standard of presidential...

www.pbump.net

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 9h

Probably just a coincidence, but I had tickets cancelled for an international flight on Friday, after I checked in. Airline said the ticket had been flagged for potential fraud and cancelled. My hosts who bought the ticket purchased it again the next day, and I was able to travel w/o a problem.

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Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 10h

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19h

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 20h

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

Johnson: "He has defunded our education system. He has defunded our transportation system. He's firing black women across this country. He's defunding our healthcare system. This president is absolutely out of control... Chicago is going to stand firm in protecting humanity."

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 19h

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 17h

Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but avoidable harm to kids really gets to me. My kids can be difficult when they don't get an afternoon snack at the usual time. I'm sure various parents and teachers can say the same. Watching a kid starve to death? And the US govt did it on purpose?
Unconscionable.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 19h

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 22h

JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics, and they've developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems need to reckon with Miller's understanding of the moment.

New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...

Inside Stephen Miller’s Secret Plan to Normalize Trump’s Dictator Rule

He wants to supercharge searing civil tensions to get low-information voters to embrace their inner authoritarian. Exactly two Democrats appear to fully grasp this.

newrepublic.com

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C. Henry @henryhenryhenry.com · 18h

this is a good thread that finally reckons with the more primordial politics at play. there is a long, rich research tradition in conflict studies about the behavior of and strategy towards influencing audiences - by state security forces, by non-state armed actors. they all apply in the US now.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 22h

JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom are doing something new and important: They understand Stephen Miller's theory of fascist power politics, and they've developed a theory on how to combat it. More Dems need to reckon with Miller's understanding of the moment.

New from me:
newrepublic.com/article/2014...

Inside Stephen Miller’s Secret Plan to Normalize Trump’s Dictator Rule

He wants to supercharge searing civil tensions to get low-information voters to embrace their inner authoritarian. Exactly two Democrats appear to fully grasp this.

newrepublic.com

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Sen. Adam Schiff @schiff.senate.gov · 19h

Today, Senator Kaine and I will force the Senate to vote on the administration’s decision to blow up ships in the Caribbean.

If a president can unilaterally put people or groups on a list and kill them, there is no meaningful limit to his use of force.

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Blue Moon Wondering @wildbluemoon.bsky.social · 18h

Lives depend on NOAA providing accurate consistent information. This is deeply concerning

Greg Todd @1gregtodd.bsky.social · 19h

Senate Confirms ‘Sharpiegate’ Meteorologist to Lead NOAA.

Neil Jacobs was found to have violated NOAA’s code of ethics after an investigation into an incident that centered on an altered hurricane forecast map in 2019.

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

Senate Confirms ‘Sharpiegate’ Meteorologist to Lead NOAA

www.nytimes.com

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Anna Hickey @annahickey.bsky.social · 1d

There's an overwhelming amount of litigation surrounding the Trump administration so over at @lawfaremedia.org we have tried to make it easier to parse it. You can find district court, appellate level, and SCOTUS cases all in one place!

Check it out ⬇️

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 1d

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

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Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com · 1d

Pam Bondi admits she spoke to Apple to "get the ICEBlock app taken down." Sounds an awful lot like coercion to suppress disfavored speech to me. A clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Bondi claims that the ICEBlock app was "criminal in that people were posting where ICE officers lived"

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 2d

Records obtained by ProPublica indicate that food banks across the country were expecting more than 27 million pounds of chicken, 2 million gallons of milk, 10 million pounds of dried fruit and 60 million eggs that never arrived.

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

projects.propublica.org

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Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 2d

Pritzker is also furious: “Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.”

Gov. JB Pritzker’s letter to the National Governors Association

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 2d

Turning the military on citizens.

Attempting to rig elections.

Toying with the idea of declaring martial law.

Attacking political enemies and punishing those who speak out.

If this were happening in another country, what would you call it?

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Alex Zielinski @alexzee.bsky.social · 3d

Hours after a federal judge paused the Trump administration’s plans to deploy 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland, federal law enforcement officers escalated the tactics used on protesters in the city.

Troy and I were on the ground:

Federal tactics on protesters escalate, hours after judge rules against Trump

Hours after a federal judge paused the Trump administration’s plans to deploy 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland, federal law enforcement officers escalated the tactics used on prote...

www.opb.org

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 3d

This Trump administration policy of generating an artificial civil war on the basis of big lies is of course meant to be frightening but it is also anti-American, unlawful, stupid and pursued by wildly unpopular people.

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 4d

Everyone is trying to have a normal Saturday night and the president's top advisor is on X announcing that civil war is necessary

@StephenM on X: Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more local law enforcement officers in Oregon than there are guns and badges in the FBI nationwide). This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.

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