Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alex Brandenburg @alexbrandenburg.bsky.social · 4h

Dems already need to win by more than 50%

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 4h

If Democrats need to win the popular vote by six points to take the House, then that is neither a free nor fair election. It would, therefore, be unclear to me how anyone could justify elections as the primary method of political change in America moving forward.

Emily Badger @emmbadger.bsky.social · 12h

If Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act falls, Democrats might need to win the national popular vote by 5 to 6 points to take control of the House, via Nate Cohn
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Reposted by Alex Brandenburg

Nancy @plaintanjane.bsky.social · 5h

“But I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing“

Trump goes on to thank Stephen Miller for (doing what Trump didn’t get elected to do) and tells him to come up & “explain his true feelings” #TheApprentice #RacistsFascistsIsolationistsRobberBaron season.

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CAKE @thebandcake.bsky.social · 6h

The phone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. #epstein

Green Hombre @greenhombre.bsky.social · 8h

"Virginia Giuffre died by suicide on 25 April 2025."

"I’d show up, perform whatever sex acts Epstein wanted, then hang out beside his vast swimming pool while he got some work done. If Maxwell was there, I was often told to attend to her sexually as well."

- She was 16

‘Prince Andrew believed having sex with me was his birthright’: Virginia Giuffre on her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell and the King’s brother

In an extract from her posthumous memoir, Virginia Roberts Giuffre remembers the day an ‘apex predator’ recruited her from Mar-a-Lago, aged just 16; how she was trafficked to a succession of wealthy a...

www.theguardian.com

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Red Lori Bright Eyes Pissed Off American @redloribrighteyes.bsky.social · 5h

How to File a Hatch Act Complaint
OSC is also authorized to investigate violations of the Hatch Act. 5 U.S.C. § 1216 (a)(1)(2). If OSC charges an employee with a violation of the Hatch Act, those charges are adjudicated before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

osc.gov/Services/Pag...

How to File a Hatch Act Complaint

osc.gov

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WatchYourRepsSC @watchyourrepssc.bsky.social · 4h

apnews.com/article/immi...

This family visit to a military base ended with ICE deporting a Marine's dad

A U.S. Marine says his parents were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials after they visited a California military base and one of them was later deported.

apnews.com

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Reposted by Alex Brandenburg

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 7h

The Supreme Court's Republican appointees sound ready to transform the 14th and 15th Amendments into a weapon against the very racial minorities they were meant to protect—handing Republicans 15-19 additional House seats in the process. A disaster for democracy.
slate.com/news-and-pol...

Is it racist to remedy racism? That’s the question at the heart of Callais v. Louisiana, which the Supreme Court heard on Wednesday. The case asks whether the Voting Rights Act gives Black Louisianans too much political power—and if so, whether the landmark law violates the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to rule that it does. Throughout oral arguments, they suggested the VRA protects minority voters too effectively, dragging the government into race-conscious considerations that offend the equal protection rights of the white voters who sued in this case. And they floated various ways to gut what remains of the statute by twisting it beyond recognition or striking it down altogether. The result would be a windfall for Republicans, who stand to gain at least 19 seats in the House of Representatives if the Supreme Court frees them to gerrymander Black communities into oblivion. Such a decision would also devastate minority representation in Congress, eliminating up to 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4h

the extent to which media elites treat liberal americans as if they do not count in the body politic is a real problem

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 6h

I read the piece. You shouldn't. He dismisses the "No Kings" protests as liberals in blue cities. He invokes Rosa Parks, as if rural white people in the 60s loved everything that the movement then was doing. "We need a movement but not this one" is a core centrist tact these days.

Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 6h

Is this a joke. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

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Bolts @boltsmag.org · 8h

Conservative billionaire Jeff Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania, is helping fund the GOP’s bid to oust three Democratic state supreme court justices this fall.

Inside the Clunky Elections to Control Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court

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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Alex Brandenburg @alexbrandenburg.bsky.social · 4h

Is this a police matter? Doesn’t seem like it?

Reposted by Alex Brandenburg

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 8h

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/

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LOWρUF🐸 🇵🇦🇬🇱🇨🇦🇲🇽 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 7h

I feel like Ben Gvir personally being in the room when Greta Thunberg was being tortured should be bigger news

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 8h

And the craziest part is this was needless. Congress would've passed a military pay bill with near unanimous support! Congressional Ds have been begging Rs to bring a bill to pay the military to the floor! But Johnson refuses to gavel in because he doesn't want an Epstein vote.

Johnson wearing a jacket that's photoshopped to say "this has nothing to do with epstein"

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 8h

Under the Constitution and under the ADA, it is illegal to spend money without funding for that purpose. The president may not spend money to do something unless there's actually money to carry it out and that action is expressly allowed.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C7-1/ALDE_00001095/

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 8h

The mechanism through which Trump is paying the troops is the most blatant large Antideficiency Act (ADA) violation in US history. It's also clearly willful. No one has been charged under the ADA before, but violations carry a two-year jail term. The statute of limitations is five years.

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Alex Brandenburg @alexbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5h

It's the "open" part. They weren't "open." It was still publicly agreed upon that Hitler was bad.

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 6h

“they’ve always been like this” is such a lazy argument, it’s demonstrably untrue and pushing them back means understanding that it is untrue

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 11h

"they've always been like this" is always a tempting savvy take but it is just not true that Republican staffers were 100 percent open Nazis back in 2004, or hell even 2014. they just weren't

Reposted by Alex Brandenburg

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 7h

WOW! Our survey of scientists who stopped using Twitter and started using Bluesky is now the #1 most-shared on social media article in the history of the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology! Thanks for reading it, everyone! @sicbjournals.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1093/icb/... 🧪

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky

Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

doi.org

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 7h

UPDATE: Following the firing of the director of the student newspaper, Indiana University has now cut the print edition of the newspaper entirely.

www.idsnews.com/article/2025...

Indiana University cuts IDS print entirely, hours after firing student media director
By IDS staff
Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm · Updated Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm

IU previously directed the Indiana Daily Student to stop printing news coverage in our newspaper. Upon pushback, the university fully cut print, including our special editions. The IDS was not involved in the decision.

Media School Dean David Tolchinsky sent the order to IDS leadership in an email responding to its appeal that the school not censor the newspaper. And the dean attributed the decision to “the campus.” He has not yet responded to a message for clarification.

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Alex Brandenburg @alexbrandenburg.bsky.social · 6h

Thank you!

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Grudgie the Whale @grudgie.bsky.social · 6h

Trump acts like and absolutely believes prior Presidents were total suckers for not getting insanely wealthy during their Presidencies

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 6h

Oh, look. Another billionaire dinner.

@bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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mjfrombuffalo @mjfrombuffalo.bsky.social · 6h

"... the best advice I have to give is to ask: 'in what way is this argument founded in the premise that some people matter and other people don't?'"

A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · Aug 24

Today I wrote about a general tendency to accept atrocious premises, and the need to reject fascism's false choices in order to find expansive and imaginative paths forward.

Breaking the premise, embracing the obstacles, pursing everything.

www.the-reframe.com/there-is-no-...

There Is No Trolley Problem

We actually aren't constrained into atrocious premises by thought exercises. Obstacles are a reason to fight, not an excuse to quit. Our friends and neighbors aren't distractions..

www.the-reframe.com

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Congressman Greg Casar @repcasar.bsky.social · 1d

You can understand this shutdown with 3 numbers.

15M — the number of people Republicans want to kick off health care

20M — the number of people Republicans want to 2x health premiums for

0 — the number of times Republicans have called the House back to reopen the government

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Reposted by Alex Brandenburg

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 1d

At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, a Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people to report sightings of federal immigration agents in the Chicago area has been taken down by the social media giant Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request

The group, "ICE Sighting-Chicagoland," has been increasingly used in the last five weeks of President Donald Trump’s intense deportation campaign to warn neighbors that federal agents are nearby.

trib.al

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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 1d

If you’re a man in the room and a public official says this about your female colleague, you don’t continue as if nothing happened.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump ignores a question from a woman reporter but says, "I just like to watch her talk. Good job. Thank you darling."

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Alex Brandenburg @alexbrandenburg.bsky.social · 8h

@thegodpodcast.com ?

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Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 8h

They literally want more Nazis:
"The proposals also advise Mr. Trump to prioritize Europeans who have been 'targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.'”

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 8h

"According to the rationale laid out in the documents submitted to Mr. Trump, America’s acceptance of refugees has made the country too diverse." There is no bottom. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

www.nytimes.com

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