Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1m

Same with Indonesia, and many parts of the world. BSKY is still mostly for Americans, and the folks who shame those who still read or maintain accounts on Twitter are almost to a person Americans and Americanists who don't need to access those accounts which reamain there.

Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 30m

So ICE is now threatening to shoot medical personnel treating the people they are beating and shooting.

Nick Kristof @nickkristof.bsky.social · 1h

In Portland, an ambulance was summoned to the ICE office to treat an injured protester (not clear how he was injured). But when the patient was loaded inside, ICE officers refused to let the ambulance leave and threatened to shoot the ambulance driver: www.wweek.com/news/2025/10...

Documents Allege a Federal Agent at Portland ICE Threatened to Shoot an Ambulance Driver

Feds delayed medics who had come to pick up an injured protester. Then, according to confidential incident reports, the agents became aggressive.

www.wweek.com

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Reposted by Brad Simpson

Andrew Hartman @andrewhartman.bsky.social · 1h

The great Robin Blackburn reviews my book for @thenation.com.

"In Karl Marx in America, Andrew Hartman provides us with a kaleidoscopic vision of Marxism in the United States in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries."

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1h

There is much more that is not yet in an organized state, or is available through my Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/indo...

Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1h

As with my self-determination files, these represent my own very partial curating of what I have found in various archival trips. The files here are mostly read only, but if you find something you are interested in, feel free to reach out and I can get you downloadable copies.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1h

Scholarship is a collaborative endeavor, and I have benefitted over the years from the generosity of colleagues who have shared documents and files with me. I have no idea how long it will take to write this book, so I figured others should be able to use the documents in the meantime.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1h

While I am document dumping, I am posting many of the files from my forthcoming book project on the politics of development and human rights during the Suharto era, including East Timor/Timor Leste.

www.bradleyrsimpson.com/indonesia-an...

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 2h

“Sauron’s plan to exercise tyrannical Dominion over all middle earth, wipe out elves, dwarves, and men, and cover all the lands in shadow represents expansive conception of executive authority.”

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 2h

A literal joke turned reality

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 3h

Opinion | It's time for corporate America to end DEI and choose its leaders on the basis of merit alone.

by Barron Trump

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 5h

I think one reason why these thugs are going masked is that it prevents organizers from identifying them. They would maybe be a lot less keen about their jobs if activists were leafleting their neighbors and letting them know that a racist kidnapper lives next-door..

Michael J. Kramer @michaeljkramer.bsky.social · 14h

Why are there so few (none?) news stories about individual ICE agents themselves? Who they are, what motivates them, any moral dilemmas they face? Why aren’t protesters trying to get some to speak out?

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

This is an incomplete "archive" of my book, which relied on huge amounts of materials drawn from digital, as opposed to physical archives. But hopefully it gives a sense of the sources I used for the book, and models a practive of open access to some of my research that others may be able to use.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

I am mostly done with the archival material I used for my book The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transfomation of International Order, and so I am putting as much of these materials as I can online, where they can be used by other scholars: www.bradleyrsimpson.com/self-determi...

Self-determination Documents — Bradley R. Simpson

www.bradleyrsimpson.com

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Reposted by Brad Simpson

frankbongiorno.bsky.social @frankbongiorno.bsky.social · 1d

Past/Present is an Australian Historical Association initiative, in partnership with the Guardian, looking at current events in historical context. Here's an excellent piece by Roland Burke on early international efforts to deal with misinformation/disinformation.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The fledgling UN tried to rein in mass-scale misinformation. The world turned its back and is now paying the price | Roland Burke

The ruinous result of the US approach to freedom of information and media has made anti-democratic contagion impossible to ignore

www.theguardian.com

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the Salvation Army called The Preacher and the Slave. The Wobbly and Catholic Worker folk singer Utah Phillips covered it. open.spotify.com/track/0UVEYu...

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

Hey @govpritzker.illinois.gov wtf what are you doing cooperating with and sending state police to support the fascist racist thugs who are kidnapping people off of Illinois streets? You can’t claim to resist to Trump and use state police to support his shock troops at the same time. Pick a side.

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 1d

Note: it's not even curfew yet.

State police just started pushing people off the business park corner. Here in the road, a brave group of demonstrators are attempting to hold their line.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

The Trump administrations attempt to destroy US solar and renewable energy capacity is one of the great geopolitical own goals in world history. Like abandoning computers and the internet in favor of typewriters in the 1980s-1990s.

Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 1d

America's collapse in one swath of the NYT homepage

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

At this point, I think it’s appropriate to make comparisons with Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Indonesia’s Suharto, and maybe one or two others as among the most corrupt national leaders in modern history.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

Thiessen’s role at the Post has long been to launder in the most unimaginative and boring way possible the absolute dumbest ideas and Trump world. He has never had an original thought. Just a human centipede of a megaphone for mega.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

I would imagine people in jail could give a shit less about such things if Kardashian coming led to even a temporary improvement in anything going on around them, even if it was only for the cameras.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

I played a minor role in helping to organize the 2003 global day of action against the Iraq war and I will never forget the New York Times the next day calling the anti-war movement a third superpower. If the media were actually honest about the scope and scale of these protests, it would matter.

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Sara Silverstein @sarasilverstein.bsky.social · 2d

Trump govt further gutted the CDC last night, while continuing the govt shutdown instead of protecting healthcare for Americans. Areas affected last night include policy, comms, intelligence, infrastructure, global health & more. This is an attack on national security
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Trump Administration Lays Off Dozens of C.D.C. Officials

www.nytimes.com

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

Trump’s demented and demonstrably false descriptions of Portland are the rantings of an authoritarian lunatic. Why would @nbcnews.com merely say that this fascist propaganda “is disputed by local officials.” @nbcnews.com use words that convey what Trump is actually doing and their actual intent.l!

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 1d

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 1d

All of this is of course completely illegal. At some point people who can afford to spend the day in jail on bullshit charges up that will immediately get dismissed before ever reaching a judge need to just gum up the works and fill the jails, leaving fewer ICE folks to torment immigrants.

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jj skolnik @modernistwitch.myatproto.social · 2d

every single dem should be taking notes. this is how you message around trans issues

(of note: i believe he is the only cis candidate for office to have trans people consult on his lgtbq+ policy platform)

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 2d

UNTIL IT’S DONE, Ep. 4: Sylvia Rivera

In the 1970s, queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of NYC. Our trans neighbors faced immense cruelty. But in Sylvia Rivera, they found a champion.

As we combat Trump’s politics of darkness, her legacy can light the path forward.

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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 2d

Trump Admin torn between racism, growing and eating food. wapo.st/48Iuil5

Trump administration says immigration enforcement threatens higher food prices

U.S. farmers face labor shortages and potential food price hikes due to Trump’s immigration policy, the administration acknowledged in a Federal Registry document.

wapo.st

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