Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Erika Wittekind

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 10h

To be clear - what Trump is doing is already illegal! But this is about adding some obstacles intended to make it harder to keep doing the illegal thing

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 10h

Finally, a good explainer of Dems' other shutdown demand, via @citizencohn.bsky.social. It's about trying to make it harder for the Trump admin to continue unilaterally (and illegally) cutting funding for government programs substack.com/home/post/p-...

The OTHER Democratic Demand for Reopening the Government

It’s about stopping Donald Trump and Russ Vought—and it can’t happen soon enough.

substack.com

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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 3d

ICE left David, a 17-year-old boy, stranded on the side of Interstate 20 after pulling over his immigrant father, Hector, in Mississippi.

David began running in the scorching sun after the car and watched as it disappeared from sight—soon headed to a Louisiana ICE prison.

Here's their story.

ICE Stranded a 17-Year-Old on I-20 After Arresting His Father. The Mississippi Dad Now Faces Deportation.

A 17-year-old watched as ICE arrested his immigrant father, Hector, on I-20 in June. The family faces mounting legal fees and the risk of deportation.

www.mississippifreepress.org

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Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 13h

Multiple airports are now announcing they will refuse to play Kristi Noem’s government-funded video blaming “Democrats” for the government shutdown.

“We believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” one airport said.

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 17h

More of this, please! Transphobes only win when they're the only ones talking.

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 19h

1. As some Democrats have run from transgender rights, Zohran Mamdani is showing what so many others have lacked: courage to lead with his values over pandering to focus groups.

The ad is one of the best things I've seen from a politician on transgender people.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

As Some Dems Run From Trans People, Zohran Mamdani's Latest Ad Shows Real Support

The 2 minute ad features Sylvia Rivera's story, Mamdani's commitment to transgender people, and even music from the legendary late trans artist SOPHIE.

www.erininthemorning.com

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 14h

Some good, brave stuff happening

Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 17h

"After the warning, neighbors showed up and formed a human chain outside the church to guide parishioners home. NBC Chicago found more organizers doing the same for the beginning of the 6 p.m. mass..."

www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/c...

Chicago priest urges parishioners to leave mass with caution after ICE agents reported nearby

Chicago's Rogers Park community remained vigilant after reports of federal agents near a Catholic church during Sunday mass.

www.nbcchicago.com

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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 16h

Basically all manufacturers and retailers should be obligated to either collect their waste and broken products, or pay for others to deal with them.

You’d see an amazing display of innovation in efficient, repairable and recyclable products and packaging.

Prune60 @prune602.bsky.social · 17h

I still wish we could set up a system where package delivery came with up “pickup empties” option, like milk deliveries use to have.

You bring me a new box, I give you some empty boxes!

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 15h

middle aged men, where is your courage

Sarah @sosomanysarahs.bsky.social · 21h

As for who I've actually seen at the protests, both grandma and grandpa are well represented, as are mom types. If anything, it's guys who are past student age but not yet worried about booking colonoscopies who are missing from the crowd.

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Reposted by Erika Wittekind

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18h

Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 19h

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 17h

More of this, please! Transphobes only win when they're the only ones talking.

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 19h

1. As some Democrats have run from transgender rights, Zohran Mamdani is showing what so many others have lacked: courage to lead with his values over pandering to focus groups.

The ad is one of the best things I've seen from a politician on transgender people.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

As Some Dems Run From Trans People, Zohran Mamdani's Latest Ad Shows Real Support

The 2 minute ad features Sylvia Rivera's story, Mamdani's commitment to transgender people, and even music from the legendary late trans artist SOPHIE.

www.erininthemorning.com

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Reposted by Erika Wittekind

Eric Umansky @ericumansky.bsky.social · 20h

ICE agents blocked an ambulance that was trying to take an injured protester to hospital.

"We are still not being allowed to leave by ICE officers.” an EMT said on radio

When driver tried to get out, an agent yelled, "DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I WILL SHOOT YOU"

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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God @thegodpodcast.com · 1d

"Conversion therapy" is a polite name for something that isn’t conversion and isn’t therapy. It’s abuse.

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 2d

The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.

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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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 5d

Nah, I think it's going to be a turnout election. Trump voters aren't going to be won over by messaging; they're going to stay home. The strategy should be lighting a fire under blue voters, and you don't do that by going Republican-lite.

Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · 5d

Yglesias makes the case that preventing a full authoritarian takeover hinges entirely on Democrats retaking the Senate in 2026; the House isn’t enough. Hence the entire ballgame is how to win uneasy Trump voters in even vaguely gettable GOP states, ie Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Maine, Florida. 1/2

The authoritarian menace has arrived

And so has the backlash — but the resistance needs to be smarter

open.substack.com

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 4d

If her fetus is "in her placenta," that woman is in a ton of pain and the pregnancy's a nonstarter anyway. Good lord, don't take medical advice from this man.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 4d

Why doesn't everyone believe me that we have a super secret healthcare plan that totally exists and I just can't talk about it yet when it would matter most?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Mike Johnson: "It's about keeping Congress operating so we can get to healthcare. We always were going to. They're lying to you. Okay? The healthcare issues were always gonna be something discussed, deliberated, contemplated, and debated in October and November."

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 4d

People are not going to get all of these separate shots. They're going to say, "What's rubella? Never heard of it. The internet says it leads to mild illness in most people."

And then we get an increase in preventable stillbirths and serious birth defects.

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 4d

The acting director of the CDC called for new, separate MMR shots. That would be "remarkably complicated, time-consuming, costly, but more importantly unnecessary," @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social told me:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Alarm as CDC calls for separate MMR vaccines despite measles outbreak

Concerns that three separate shots would be more costly and time-consuming, and keep kids from being vaccinated

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Erika Wittekind

Lucius Fox In The Box @carnegro.bsky.social · 4d

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows
"exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,"
with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty."

Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down."

The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote.

Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 4d

I grieve for the Post that used to be. This rag is a shameful impostor.

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 5d

I spent more than a decade at The Post. It was good to me and I was proud to work there. I’ve largely refrained from being critical since I left. But this framing of the special counsel probe is embarrassing and flatly wrong. Stunning, but not. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | Jack Smith’s lawfare and James Comey’s arraignment on pathetically weak charges

Good people will be deterred from public service if they see a meaningful risk of winding up in jail afterward.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Stefan E. Jones @stefanejones.bsky.social · 5d

tl;dl:

isportlandburning.com

The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 5d

Is Portland "burning to the ground?" A new website has the answer.

Want to know if Portland is 'burning to the ground'? There's a website for that

Is Portland "burning to the ground?" A new website has the answer.

www.oregonlive.com

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Samantha Michaels @samanthamichaels.bsky.social · 5d

So much tear gas that people who aren't even protesting are getting sick when they leave their homes to run errands: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

ICE is hounding Chicago area locals with excessive chemical munitions

Agents are firing tear gas and pepper balls on lawful protesters, lawsuits say, sickening even uninvolved residents.

www.motherjones.com

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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 5d

This is the episode you have been waiting for.

The End of Sport @endofsportpod.bsky.social · 5d

Ep. 170: The Pseudoscience of Trans Exclusion

In a LONG awaited and vital ep, the whole crew is joined by Sheree Bekker and @annaposbergh.bsky.social to delve into and refute the 'science' deployed to justify the anti-trans movement in sport.

open.spotify.com/episode/0IO2...

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Erika Wittekind @erikalyn.bsky.social · 5d

Nah, I think it's going to be a turnout election. Trump voters aren't going to be won over by messaging; they're going to stay home. The strategy should be lighting a fire under blue voters, and you don't do that by going Republican-lite.

Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · 5d

Yglesias makes the case that preventing a full authoritarian takeover hinges entirely on Democrats retaking the Senate in 2026; the House isn’t enough. Hence the entire ballgame is how to win uneasy Trump voters in even vaguely gettable GOP states, ie Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Maine, Florida. 1/2

The authoritarian menace has arrived

And so has the backlash — but the resistance needs to be smarter

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Erika Wittekind

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 5d

A window into how policy is made in this White House

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

Q: Are you going to work with your administration to designate antifa a foreign terror organization?

TRUMP: You mean anti-terror?

Q: Antifa

TRUMP: Antifa?

Q: A foreign terror organization

TRUMP: Would you like to see it done? I'd be glad to do it. Does everybody agree? It sounds good to me

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@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 7d

🚨THIS IS A BIG DEAL. Chicago journalists are suing the Trump administration for using excessive force against reporters & protestors in violation of the 1A.
The press here is doing astounding work documenting how ICE is out of control. The violence they face in doing so is obscene.

The protests at the Broadview ICE facility and the federal government’s violent
attempts to silence the protesters became a story of great interest to the local Chicago media and
was also covered in the national press. Much of the coverage described the federal officers’
abusive tactics. Defendants sought and are seeking to quash this coverage by attacking and
intimidating members of the Press on the ground there.
85. Federal immigration officers at the Broadview ICE facility have repeatedly and
intentionally singled out persons whom they know to be members of the Press for violence,
assault, and intimidation. These assaults are not incidental or unintentional. They are undertaken
by design to intimidate journalists on scene and to frustrate and suppress coverage of the federal
officers’ actions toward protesters and immigration detainees

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