Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 3h

The Supreme Court is entrenching a system where a state’s ruling party can essentially make itself permanent by drawing districts that ensure that party’s majority, both for state legislatures & US House seats.

Democracies do not deprive themselves entirely of competitive elections.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

asylum but only for racists apparently 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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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 1h

the president using the office to punish americans that didnt vote for him should really be one of the biggest scandals in americas history

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 9h

Trump is upfront in saying he will use the shutdown to punish Democrats, and here are the receipts. About $27.2 billion cut from Dem districts compared to about $0.7 billion in GOP districts.
We all complain about the media, but need this type of in-depth journalism.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump Halts Billions in Grants for Democratic Districts During Shutdown (Gift Article)

The Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion primarily located in Democratic-led districts, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

www.nytimes.com

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2h

The "anti-woke" backlash was always about white collar labor competition from nonwhites, not hr bullshit. bsky.app/profile/phil...

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 3h

NBC News has reportedly eliminated its NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino and NBC OUT teams

NBC News’ 150 Layoffs Gut Black, Latino, Asian American and LGBTQ+ Diversity Teams

The cuts affected teams across the NBC News operation and came as the network no longer needed to support two different news operations. MSNBC has begun growing its own newsroom, hiring swaths of tale...

www.thewrap.com

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 1h

So weird how one major US political party keeps getting caught electing nazis and hiring nazi staffers and hanging out in nazi group chats and displaying nazi symbols and using nazi talking points and stuff

Anyway, let’s put them in charge of the government for a while, I’m sure it’ll be fine

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 4h

Holy shit. This is Angelo Elia, a legislative correspondent for Congressman Dave Taylor.

According to @rooster.info, during a Zoom meeting today, he had an American nazi flag displayed in the background.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 1h

I have a lot of respect for Zolan Kanno-Youngs and @haleaziz.bsky.social and have talked to both many times in the past. That the Times lets them be so blunt about what is happening with the U.S. refugee admissions program is a good sign of how much the Trump admin is not even trying to deny it.

Zolan Kanno-YoungsHamed Aleaziz
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz
Reporting from Washington

Oct. 15, 2025
Updated 3:44 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The proposals, some of which already have gone into effect, would transform a decades-old program aimed at helping the world’s most desperate people into one that conforms to Mr. Trump’s vision of immigration — which is to help mostly white people who say they are being persecuted while keeping the vast majority of other people out.

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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 23h

Literally nothing coming from the Pentagon, DHS, or DOJ should be considered credible unless backed up by an independent source outside of government. (This, for the record, is a huge problem!)

MFordTheRiver @prynnford.bsky.social · 23h

Of all the things that didn’t happen

Screen shot of ABC article with the headline “cartels issuing bounties up to 50k for hits on ICE and CBP agents, DHS says.”

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 20h

She's not being rewarded despite printing lies in the newspaper, she's being rewarded because she printed lies in the newspaper.

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 21h

Scoop: Olivia Nuzzi has written a book during her year in exile, in which she is set to in part address her relationship with RFK Jr. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/olivia-nuz...

Have I Got Nuzzi For You

Olivia Nuzzi is set to address her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a forthcoming book, galleys of which are circulating among a select group of readers, Status has learned.

www.status.news

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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 23h

Smashing Meta, Twitter and Amazon into a thousand tiny subsidiary companies has got to be a priority of the next Democratic administration. Find the most unhinged AG you can get the Senate to confirm.

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 1d

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

Amarnath Amarasingam @amaramarasingam.bsky.social · 1d

The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says

www.nytimes.com

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Dark Bedroom Enjoyer 7’4” 520 lb @dingbattitude.bsky.social · 1d

This is the county whose Democratic Party politicians have opposed every housing bill introduced by Scott Wiener in the last decade, saying they were best suited to solve the crisis. They are not serious people.

Emily Hamilton @ebwhamilton.bsky.social · 1d

If you want to really feel the housing crisis, browse the Census microdata for LA households with lots of people in them. About 16,000 houses in LA County have three bedrooms and 8+ people.

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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 1d

Dozens of people have lost their jobs because they were insufficiently sad about Charlie Kirk being killed and then Trump goes and makes a joke about dodging bullets at his memorial.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump at the Charlie Kirk memorial event: "They fired sniper rifles at ICE agents, and me. But I made a turn at a good time. I made a turn at a good time. Charlie couldn't believe it, actually."

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Sam @samd.bsky.social · 1d

it’s funny how Jeff bezos dedicated the Washington post to embracing “free markets” and the free market of newspaper subscribers completely rejected it

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 2d

Lmao WaPo has fewer than 100K circulation now. It turns out “alienate your liberal subscriber base” is not a good strategy when the Republicans also hate you. www.forbes.com/sites/andyme...

The Washington Post Is Running Out Of Readers Willing To Pay

Once a titan of American journalism, The Washington Post now struggles to reach even 100,000 print subscribers most days.

www.forbes.com

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 1d

every young Republican staffer is a Nazi, it's that simple www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 1d

Sam Altman went from “AI will cure cancer" to "ChatGPT porn" in less than a month

ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.
12:02 PM · Oct 14, 2025
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Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh.bsky.social · 1d

reminds me that i still don't have a handle on how anti-BDS laws are supposed to work. i am a criminal for not owning a sodastream or what

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Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh.bsky.social · 1d

it's been said before but these guys simply do not understand the concept of commercial transactions being consensual

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Josh Fruhlinger @jfruh.bsky.social · 1d

purposefully not buying? as opposed to, like, accidentally not doing it or what

George Pearkes @peark.es · 1d

"We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil" is an all-timer. Thank you Mr President, we appreciate your insights.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution. As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China.

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Oct 14, 2025, 3:37 PM

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GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 1d

if you invite donald trump to speak at your loved one’s memorial, you deserve to have to watch him insult your dead loved one

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump at the Charlie Kirk memorial event: "They fired sniper rifles at ICE agents, and me. But I made a turn at a good time. I made a turn at a good time. Charlie couldn't believe it, actually."

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CAHSR's Strongest Soldier @emoscientist.bsky.social · 1d

A society that tolerates and encourages gender exploration, even if it's not permanent or "a fad", is a society that is kinder to women (and men), non-binary people, and binary trans people. Sad to see that slipping away

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CAHSR's Strongest Soldier @emoscientist.bsky.social · 1d

Feels like especially amongst young people the vibe has shifted hard against gender exploration and towards strict gender roles, with some people retreating to the closet. This is a worrying indicator of an increasingly reactionary and bigoted culture, not proof that non-binary is fake.

onion person @junlper.beer · 1d

people are acting like this is a study talking about all trans people but it’s just about nonbinary people which makes sense that this is lower, 9 out of 10 nonbinary people i’ve ever met have now transitioned lol

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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 2d

one thing that has been obvious for a while is this aspect of the authoritarian internationale: they recognize that their allies abroad are not *countries* but *political movements* within foreign countries.

time we liberals woke up and recognized this--because it's the truth.

Rigorous, Fred-based Reporting @thefred.bsky.social · 2d

Or maybe, just maybe, what was obvious in 2024 was correct: Netanyahu fully backed Trump and would not deal with Biden because Trump would give him a free hand to escalate the starvation, bombing, and do full ethnic cleansing. Which he then did, until Netanyahu embarrassed him by bombing Qatar.

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 2d

Combine this with the RFK Jr. antivaxxer stuff and you get a pretty clear and coherent eugenicist policy agenda.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 2d

U.S. Department of Education fired nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a wave of new layoffs that began Friday, according to the union representing the agency's employees. www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 2d

everyoneiswelcome.substack.com/p/the-presen...

A society that exists solely to bend to the whims of little kings of tiny chiefdoms is a society in permanent decay. It is a society that thinks no further than the petulance of the loudest voices. It dreams no more than the most small-minded among us who believe with all their hearts that what is present now is the best that will ever be.

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Hyperlexic @hyperlexic.bsky.social · 2d

Reminder that California golf courses have a special massive property tax benefit over and above Prop 13. www.evolve-ca.org/news/hole-in...

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