Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jeff Boone

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 5h

That’s $5 billion more than the entire annual USAID budget. All to one country. To rescue one friend of the president’s.

Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 5h

Trump found another $20 BILLION to give to Argentina, totaling their bailout to $40 BILLION.

Yet we can’t afford to prevent millions of Americans from losing their healthcare.

Shame.

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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 · 7h

white reactionaries disenfranchising black voters to secure political power? that’s a jim crow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The Supreme Court Case That Could Hand the House to Republicans

www.nytimes.com

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 1d

Been a long time, I need to re-read Tristes Tropiques to recall its handling of the layers of disaster in the contact.

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Courtney E. Thompson @cethompson.bsky.social · 3d

Just think of how many TT faculty lines, graduate stipends, and resources for teaching and research this kind of money could buy...

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 3d

the more things change, the more they stay the same in college football (coaches being showered in cash for not working)

Firings so far this season by Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Penn State, UAB, UCLA and Virginia Tech have those schools committed to buyouts totaling $93.9 million, subject to mitigation and offset, but not including amounts that also will be owed to assistant coaches

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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 3d

I like it when people on the right chastise the left for crying wolf because they have trump now and they kept warning about right wing authoritarianism under W., and it’s like: you mean the guy who is of the exact same political party as Trump whose administration’s abuses led directly to today

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 4d

What happened at WaPo matters because it captures a broader rightward shift in elite business and media circles - a pervasive tendency of civic institutions to accommodate and acquiesce the regime, to choose appeasement and even active complicity.

That is how authoritarian rule is consolidated.

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 5d

Straight title doesn’t indicate the wicked comedy in this piece (Stewart Lee among the righteous!) www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...

‘Amoral, evil’: vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival

Murder by bone-saw, lashings for rape victims, punishment amputation, jail for satirists … these are the Saudi human rights abuses fuelling the fury at the likes of Louis CK, Dave Chappelle and Jimmy ...

www.theguardian.com

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 6d

Actually they use…

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 6d

His Booker Intl prize speech in 2015 is soberly endearing. On the page he’d write this as one long paragraph; in person it’s memorable. youtu.be/zblzXy9bO_E

László Krasznahorkai's 2015 International Booker Prize Winning Speech | The Booker Prize

YouTube video by The Booker Prizes

youtu.be

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 8d

(Though for enduring heft I’m a Samurai fan; looking forward to her new big book.)

Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 8d

Can be read in an hour, not a re-run of Samurai or Lightning Rods, the lede here is good.

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 8d

Re high-class deceit, if you haven’t already read, you might greatly enjoy this novella. Last Samurai is also a unique delight. She has a new book out this fall. www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

Motherhood, money and genius in Helen DeWitt’s sui generis fiction

The English Understand Wool is Helen DeWitt’s best and funniest book so far – quite a feat given the standards set by the rest of her work. It is a heist

www.the-tls.com

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 8d

Props to him or the editor who approved the title👊🏼

Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 8d

The audiobook which she narrates herself, is also good for those more into listening!

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 9d

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 9d

It’s important to flood social media and news channels with news about how ICE lies, so that potential jurors see it.

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 9d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

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Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 11d

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

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Atrios @eschatonblog.com · 12d

As everyone else has noted, the ice stuff is just going to get worse and the dem plan of ignoring it isn't going to get better

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 12d

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13d

What DHS pulled in Chicago on Tuesday is wildly unconstitutional. They smashed down almost every door in the building, dragged entire families into the street, and detained people for hours ("Kavanaugh stops").

Ms. Fisher was held for five hours and another senior citizen was held for three hours.

Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties.

Johnson said he was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go.

“I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” Jones said. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

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Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social · 15d

I need journalists to be able to identify a push poll when they see one.

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 15d

& in my experience it long pre-dates pizzagate conspiracies: ironclad evangelical conscience response for decades has been, “because abortion” & “because gays.” Zero questioning of those positions (which weren’t constitutive in Prot churches pre-late 70s).

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Jeff Boone @jeffreyboone.bsky.social · 15d

Similar to the right’s successful takeover of evangelicalism: may be many Bulwark fans in churches…but their consciences are trained to rule out feeling common purpose with ‘libs.’

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Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 16d

8-year old Dasha Ramirez was playing with her brother at Millennium Park when Border Patrol took them. They’re now awaiting deportation to Guatemala. “We never imagined our Sunday would end this way, mother Noemi Chavez said. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/29/i...

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