Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Voting Rights Act on the line: key takeaways from supreme court hearing

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1h

“The US supreme court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in Callais v Louisiana, a high-stakes voting rights case in which the court’s conservative majority appears poised to gut one of the most powerful provisions of the Voting Rights Act. “
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Majority of US justices appear sympathetic to weakening key civil rights law in Callais v Louisiana case

JD Vance brushes off racist texts by adults in Republican group chat as ‘what kids do’

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2h

“a group called the Young Republicans exchanged hundreds of racist, sexist text messages – including one in which rape was called “epic”, and another in which someone wrote “I love Hitler” – as youthful indiscretions.”
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Vice-president downplays messages such as ‘I love Hitler’ in chat by 24 to 35-year-olds to ‘stupid jokes’

'The LORD told me it’s flat none of your business': Jimmy Swaggart’s Scandalous Legacy

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1d

“With tears streaming down his face, he apologized to his wife, Frances: “I have sinned against you and I beg your forgiveness.” Notably, Swaggart never specified what he had done—only that he had sinned, in the vaguest terms.”
religiondispatches.org/the-lord-tol...

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart died yesterday. He’ll be remembered in many ways—as a charismatic preacher and talented singer (Swaggart was Jerry Lee Lewis' cousin). But perhaps his most lasting legacy ...

religiondispatches.org

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1d

“a President bent on vengeful, destructive, and lawless behavior can do lasting damage to our norms and institutions. ‘we should not gravitate toward interpretations of the Constitution that ‘legaliz[e] the full exertion of a tyrannical disposition.’” newrepublic.com/article/2017...

Has the Supreme Court Abandoned Originalism?

The right-wing majority has veered hard in the direction of the unitary executive theory—and a schism with conservative legal scholars is starting to widen.

newrepublic.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1d

“The coordinated “No Kings” protests became one of the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history—and the biggest since Trump returned to the White House for a second term.”
time.com/7325683/no-k...

Millions Expected to Attend 'No Kings' Protest on Oct. 18.

Here's what to know about the Oct. 18 protests, which are expected to draw large crowds.

time.com

‘You are constantly told you are evil’: inside the lives of diagnosed narcissists

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1d

“A narcissist will tend to have “an inflated view of oneself”, “a lack of empathy”, and “a strategy of using people to bolster one’s self-esteem or social status through things like seeking admiration, displaying material goods, seeking power,” www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Few psychiatric conditions are as stigmatised or as misunderstood as narcissistic personality disorder. Here’s how it can damage careers and relationships – even before prejudice takes its toll

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 1d

😂😂👍

Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we be worried?

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2d

“Asked last year if he was creating a doomsday bunker, the Facebook founder gave a flat "no". The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, "just like a little shelter, it's like a basement".
www.bbc.com/news/article...

The debate is ramping up about what happens if - or when - computer intelligence overtakes humans

www.bbc.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2d

“The new policy “constrains how journalists can report on the U.S. military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars annually,” a New York Times statement said. “The public has a right to know how the government and military are operating,”
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

US news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official information

Defense department policy requires outlets to vow not to obtain unauthorized files and restricts access to some areas

How Did Carl Jung Differ from Sigmund Freud? | TheCollector

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2d

“Jung seems to be the one who initiated this strange dynamic with Freud, the originator of the Oedipus complex. Jung wrote to Freud, “Let me enjoy your friendship as not one between equals but one between father and son”
www.thecollector.com/how-carl-jun...

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud began as close allies. Their dramatic split revealed two very different ways of understanding the mind.

www.thecollector.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2d

“these events somehow miraculously managed to go off without dozens of people being assaulted by ISIS-like zealots of antifa tells us what a sick, disgusting pack of lies Donald Trump,Stephen Miller,Kristi Noem, and the rest of them have been peddling about the city.”
newrepublic.com/article/2016...

Trump’s Lies About Portland: An Excuse to Create a Police State

The disturbances in Portland are basically limited to a single block about two miles from the city center. And Trump says the city is burning. Why?

newrepublic.com

Everybody Around Trump Hates the Unhinged Laura Loomer. Except Trump.

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 2d

“In her power and profanity, in her smashing of walls between "influencer" and "journalist" and "presidential adviser," Loomer is a mile-marker in the descent of the American political discourse into depravity, and of our government into chaos and farce.”
newrepublic.com/article/2016...

She has zero qualifications, zero experience, zero talent except self-promotion. So how’d she get the national security adviser fired?

newrepublic.com

The Philosophy of Hedonism & Its Major Thinkers | TheCollector

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

You’re welcome,Patsy,yes , remarkable advances in cancer treatment;the reduction and elimination of scientific research by the Trump regime is a detestable assault on the well being of American citizens, this should be non-political, but the forces of evil have invaded every segment of civilization.

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

“Hedonism posits that pleasure and happiness are the ultimate goals in life. At its core, hedonism declares that what renders life valuable is the amount of enjoyment one can squeeze out of it. “
www.thecollector.com/hedonism-phi...

Hedonism explores the pursuit of pleasure as life’s ultimate goal, balancing short-term indulgence with long-term happiness and responsibility.

www.thecollector.com

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

“But a growing body of research, she says, suggests it can also destroy tumors, subdue metastatic disease (cancers that have spread to other parts of the body) and boost the efficacy of other cancer treatments – all without putting a patient under the knife.”
www.bbc.com/future/artic...

How ultrasound is ushering a new era of surgery-free cancer treatment

Ultrasound has long been used for helping doctors see inside the body, but focused high frequency sound waves are offering new ways of targeting cancer.

www.bbc.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

“she devoted equal time to poetry and fiction, shifting her focus to stories when she felt stalled as a poet, then returning to poetry when she lost confidence in herself as a fiction writer.”
hudsonreview.com/2025/08/neve...

Never Stop Writing: Sylvia Plath’s Prose | The Hudson Review

hudsonreview.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

“The second “Global Tipping Points” report published by the University of Exeter found that warm-water coral reefs are passing their tipping point. Rising ocean temperatures, acidification, overfishing, and pollution are combining to cause coral bleaching and mortality”
time.com/7325086/cora...

The World's First Climate Tipping Point Has Been Crossed

The world's coral reefs are dying—and will continue to unless global temperatures drop significantly.

time.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 3d

“Monet’s Venetian paintings are softer, more concerned with color, light, and atmosphere than with form and precision. The city’s architecture and its canals seem to be the artist’s primary interest, both of which are rendered in hazy, almost dream-like tones.”
mymodernmet.com/monet-and-ve...

Monet’s Venetian Cityscapes Are Coming to the Brooklyn Museum

Monet visited Venice once and now Brooklyn will get a chance to see how it inspired him.

mymodernmet.com

Jane Fonda, other stars, revive the Committee for the First Amendment – a group that emerged when the anti-communist panic came for Hollywood

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 4d

“the revival of the Committee for the First Amendment draws attention to the dangers implicit in efforts to muzzle writers, artists and filmmakers.
“Silence the artist, and you silence the most articulate voice the people have,” the actress Katharine Hepburn said”
theconversation.com/jane-fonda-o...

Even after the original group fizzled, many of its members were able to keep making films with progressive messages.

theconversation.com

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 4d

“Stein’s desire to wring every ounce of meaning from a limited set of words transformed into an even bolder ambition: to shed language of all its previous associations.”
lithub.com/inventing-ge...

Inventing Gertrude Stein, Literary Cubist

Near the beginning of The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein breaks off abruptly to address her reader—“but truly,” she adds, “I never feel it that there ever can be for me any such a creature, no…

lithub.com

Sloane Crosley: “How Sober Should a Writer Be?”

Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 4d

“For all of Dorothy Parker’s quips about cocktails and Charles Bukowski’s bromides about beer, Fitzgerald’s prose alcohol content remains unparalleled.”
yalereview.org/article/cros...

Sloane Crosley on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s On Booze and the state of American drinking culture.

yalereview.org

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Ken @bludrone.bsky.social · 4d

👍👍 a cosplaying terrorist