Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jonathan Zaworski

Andrew Parker @andrewparker.bsky.social · 12h

Remember when democrats freaked the fuck out at the mere accusation that the IRS was scrutinizing right-wing nonprofits more?

Not rejecting them, not prosecuting anyone, just raising more questions?

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 12h

"The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter."

Exclusive | Trump Team Plans IRS Overhaul to Enable Pursuit of Left-Leaning Groups

The effort would install a Trump ally at the IRS’s criminal unit who has drawn up a list of investigative targets.

www.wsj.com

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Reposted by Jonathan Zaworski

T. Greg "Antifa General Counsel (Retired)" Doucette @gregdoucette.bsky.social · 1d

My vote in the 2028 D primary for POTUS will hinge almost entirely on the % of this Administration they promise to imprison

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

Good. Even if this doesn’t work, it’s time to go on offense.

www.newsweek.com/jb-pritzker-...

JB Pritzker looking at prosecuting ICE agents in Chicago

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has suggested that state prosecutors might examine the conduct of ICE agents.

www.newsweek.com

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 1d

A castle, a company that will move it brick-by-brick to Iceland, and enough earth-moving equipment to give it an actual lava moat (at which point I will be burnt to a crisp because heat transfer is a harsh mistress).

doctober @docseuss.bsky.social · 2d

lets say a wizard has cursed you with a lot of money. you are going to become permanently brain damaged simply by being in possession of so much money. the only way out of it is to spend a lot of money on something ridiculous and not at all useful

what would you buy to break the curse?

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe it's just me, but it seems even more dramatic than usual with Vyvanse. Which makes me wonder if some of the theoretically inactive ingredients actually affect bioavailability.

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 1d

They keep trying to make 'fetch' happen.

Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 1d

a man in a suit and tie stands in a crowd

Alt: David Cross as Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development, telling a crowd "there are dozens of us, dozens!"

media.tenor.com

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 2d

90% of Sturgeon's law is crap.

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Reposted by Jonathan Zaworski

Rebecca Watson @skepchick.org · 2d

my husband loves john oliver so i’m glad this week’s ep is about bari weiss and I got to tell him of the time I got booked to debate her live on stage in nyc and the organizers went bankrupt so I got paid without actually needing to interact with her, aka the greatest thing that has ever happened

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Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 2d

It's become clear this year that, in view of the Supreme Court of the United States, "Trump takes an L" counts as irreparable harm

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Reposted by Jonathan Zaworski

Mina Kimes @minakimes.bsky.social · 2d

3-0 since Humpy won

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Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 2d

The gutting of the VRA in recent years is one of the topics mostly likely to get me in a fight with folks on social media, mostly because so few even know what Shelby v Holder was, or to what extent voting has not been free OR fair in much of the South, in the most racist ways imaginable.

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 2d

Wednesday is gonna be a rough day:

The Supreme Court will be hearing oral argument in a pair of cases that threaten what little remains of the federal government’s ability to protect voters from racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act

ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/louis...

Louisiana v Callais: The Republicans Justices Are Getting Ready to Finish Off the Voting Rights Act

In Louisiana v Callais, John Roberts will have the chance to finish his decades-long war on. voting rights.

ballsandstrikes.org

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Bree Lundberg @breelundberg.com · 7d

I've been seeing my favorite fuzzy friends around! 🍂🐛

Illustration of a wooly (sometimes spelled woolly) bear caterpillar. It's fuzzy and cute and has a happy little smile. There's lines radiating around it and above it says "it's wooly time!" in lowercase hand lettering. The background is a light orange checkered pattern.

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 2d

Hear me out: hagfish.

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Hey, nobody *made* them vote for the host of Wrestlemania 4 @legalminimum.bsky.social · 3d

If for some reason you can’t get behind Indigenous Peoples Day today, feel free to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. Americans stole a perfectly good holiday and turned it into a day for Columbus, in exactly the same way they coopted Remembrance Day and made it about their Veterans only.

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 3d

Elvis would never.

Reposted by Jonathan Zaworski

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 3d

your tactic of protesting in an inflatable frog suit which gets normal people on your side is far inferior to my tactic of posting about laser blinding helicopter pilots which is both wildly illegal and, were it to succeed, would put basically *everyone* against me

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 3d

I assume the ribbon is because you made him the Terriest.

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Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 3d

I am very tired of this, but a quick review.

In America, it is legal for you to own your bullshit laser, no matter how it got into the county.

How you use your bullshit laser matters. Most jurisdictions escalate to felony for lighting up any law enforcement. Doing to them in the sky is ++Felony.

Jake @jakeythesnakey.bsky.social · 3d

This is such an astoundingly bad idea that I kinda think it’s a false flag or an op of some sort

Merits aside, it is insanely easy to be caught if you do this and the punishment for doing this is much more severe than you’d guess.

(@faineg.bsky.social often writes on stuff like this)

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 3d

I'm very sad I can only reskeet this once.

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Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 3d

Also, let’s all say this together, class.

“There is no such thing as a toy laser. No laser is a toy.”

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Jonathan Zaworski @jrzaworski.bsky.social · 3d

I have an eye safe laser at home right next to my cold fusion reactor and modest collection of perpetual motion machines.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 3d

someone on the Internet who really wants to convince you to shine lasers at manned aircraft as a protest tactic “because they did it in Chile in 2019” is either:

1. a fascist fed, or,

2. so terminally stupid that they have become functionally indistinguishable from one

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Jack Murphy @jackmurphyrgr.bsky.social · 3d

Our elite class folks.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 3d

“People have done a really insanely dangerous thing in the past in other countries years ago” is not a great argument

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 3d

is it really fear-mongering to note that this is an extremely dangerous move in the current U.S. context (and in general), and that i would assume anyone actually suggesting protesters do this is in fact a fascist wrecker

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