Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kate Brannen @k8brannen.bsky.social · 1h

I've been wondering the same thing. Where is the exhaustive New York Times profile of him? We got day-after versions of the story ... but who is this guy and how did he become radicalized?

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Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 1h

Did I miss any updates on the investigation into the motive of Charlie Kirk’s killer? It feels like that just disappeared as a story, which is strange considering his exaltation within GOP and making his murder into a national event. I’d think we’d be getting hearing about it frequently

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 20h

This is not morally or legally different than lining up two dozen men and shooting them in the face.

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Sam Fellman @samfellman.bsky.social · 20h

This is a necessary and unsettling read from Just Security: "A label that once guided [internal] document handling now operates as a filter on what journalists can report without fear of potential prosecution."

Kate Brannen @k8brannen.bsky.social · 1d

The Trump administration has "multiplied the circumstances in which reporting can be cast as 'unauthorized.'"

Brian O'Neill and David Schulz on how the Espionage Act could be weaponized to go after reporters and whistleblowers: www.justsecurity.org/122491/weapo...

Weaponizing the Espionage Act: What It Means for Whistleblowers, Reporters, and Democracy

How the Trump administration could weaponize the Espionage Act and its chilling effect to control the press and justify suppression.

www.justsecurity.org

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Tess Bridgeman @tessbridgeman.bsky.social · 22h

The President is announcing more extrajudicial killings today.

A reminder that the administration has provided no limiting principles and these killings are completely untethered from the law (there was no "armed attack," there's no "armed conflict," and these aren't "unlawful combatants").

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Kate Brannen @k8brannen.bsky.social · 1d

The Trump administration has "multiplied the circumstances in which reporting can be cast as 'unauthorized.'"

Brian O'Neill and David Schulz on how the Espionage Act could be weaponized to go after reporters and whistleblowers: www.justsecurity.org/122491/weapo...

Weaponizing the Espionage Act: What It Means for Whistleblowers, Reporters, and Democracy

How the Trump administration could weaponize the Espionage Act and its chilling effect to control the press and justify suppression.

www.justsecurity.org

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Alex Wayne @aawayne.bsky.social · 5d

“Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

The Republican chair of the National Governors Association breaks with Trump.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Criticizes National Guard Deployment in Chicago

www.nytimes.com

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Rebecca Ingber @becingber.bsky.social · 7d

We lawyers keep saying there is no limiting principle to the Administration’s legal theory on these boat strikes, but as usual the Onion captures it:

The Onion @theonion.com · 7d

U.S. Military Carries Out Strike On Scuffy The Tugboat https://theonion.com/u-s-military-carries-out-strike-on-scuffy-the-tugboat/

U.S. Military Carries Out Strike On Scuffy The Tugboat
Pentagon Claims Little Red Vessel Working With ‘Narco-Terrorists’

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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 8d

“A federal team in El Paso that once pursued child traffickers has been disbanded.

“A task force in Kansas focused on stemming fentanyl has been redirected.

“Highway checkpoints near the border—on roads identified as major drug-trafficking routes—have gone unstaffed”

🎁
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Trump’s Immigration Push Diverts U.S. Agents From Drug, Money and Sex-Crime Cases

Federal investigators are resigning, and morale is low, as they juggle complex cases and detain migrants.

www.wsj.com

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Kate Brannen @k8brannen.bsky.social · 8d

"Every military leader...must understand that the law is still the law, even if the Court is willing to exempt the president from its consequences."

Steven J. Lepper and Eugene R. Fidell for @justsecurity.org: www.justsecurity.org/121919/milit...

The Crisis in Uniform: The Danger of Presidential Immunity for the U.S. Military

Military personnel are increasingly aware that they may be asked to prioritize loyalty to an individual over their rights and responsibilities

www.justsecurity.org

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 9d

If U.S. states have any degree of sovereignty, if there’s any states’ rights at all, it is the right not to be invaded by the armed forces of another U.S. state.

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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 9d

Judge: How could bringing in NG from CA not be in direct contravention of TRO I issued yesterday?

DOJ: TRO related only to Oregon NG

Judge: You are an officer of the court. Aren't defendants clearly circumventing my order?

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 13d

“.. no modern American president has positioned his family to make so much money while in the White House. Already, since the early days of his reelection campaign, he’s more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4 billion.”

@bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 12d

@jburnmurdoch.ft.com today on how the broader slopification of social media has led to an almost 10% drop in time spent on platforms worldwide. Except in the US, where consumption of "extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop" has continued to rise.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12d

Very Trump-era story.
1. The sword has no meaning for Charles, but matters for the Eisenhower Museum.
2. Illegal for the museum to give away US property!
3. Trump makes no distinction between personal/public property.
4. The person who did the right thing was fired.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/a...

After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out

www.nytimes.com

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 12d

"Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said."

www.wbez.org/immigration/...

Jones, 27, is among the residents left at 7500 S. South Shore Drive who are trying to piece together what remains after an early morning, high-powered federal immigration raid led to the arrests of dozens of their neighbors at their South Shore apartment building.

Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said. Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours.

When he got home from work, Jones said he entered his unit to find all of his electronics and furniture missing, and all of his clothes and shoes thrown on the floor. Jones said he had no idea who took his belongings and hadn’t received answers from Chicago police.

“I’m pissed off,” Jones said. “I feel defeated because the authorities aren’t doing anything.”

On Wednesday, toys, shoes and food were still in piles in the building’s hallways. Property managers were seen throwing mattresses and broken doors into dumpsters.

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 12d

You can't raid and arrest everyone in an entire apartment building, or even legitimately get a warrant to do that, any more than you could for a whole neighborhood. That would be a general warrant. This is the most specific core the-British-did-it-to-us thing the Fourth Amendment is written to ban.

The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 14d

NEW — An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in an overnight raid in South Shore, a predominantly-Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

A couple who live nearby said they were shocked to see the enormous militarized raid in their community.

thetriibe.com/2025/09/feds...

Feds detain dozens of immigrants in 'massive' South Shore apartment building raid in Chicago • The TRiiBE

An estimated 40 people were taken by federal agents in the course of the overnight raid in the predominately-Black neighborhood.

thetriibe.com

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 12d

ICE is running around Chicago harassing people for not being white.

Just a year ago, that was illegal in the United States and now it’s commonplace.

That’s not making America great again.

South Shore Residents Return To Ransacked Apartments After ICE Raid: 'It Looks Like Hell'

A "now renting" sign outside touts granite countertops. Inside, residents are trying to make sense of the raid that made their already neglected building even worse.

blockclubchicago.org

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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 12d

Spoke with @charliesavage.bsky.social about how the administration is trying to backfill a legal rationale for US strikes in the Caribbean.

Seems by "determining" there is an armed conflict—without any basis in fact or law—POTUS is giving himself a license to kill.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

www.nytimes.com

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Matthew Hay Brown @matthewhaybrown.bsky.social · 14d

BREAKING U.N. Security Council approves militarized, 5,500-member force to take on Haiti’s gangs and clear the way for its first presidential and legislative elections since 2016 – an acknowledgment the Kenya-led police mission it once supported has failed to wrest back control

wapo.st/4gOTW9D

U.N. approves militarized force to take on Haiti’s gangs

The Security Council vote was an acknowledgment that the police mission it once backed had failed to wrest back control of the beleaguered Caribbean nation.

wapo.st

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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 14d

Young’s opinion, which rules that the Trump admin illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation, is absolutely scathing.

“In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police…ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”

And there's the issue of masks. This Court has listened
carefully to the reasons given by Öztürk's captors for masking-
up and has heard the same reasons advanced by the defendant Todd
Lyons, Acting Director of ICE. It rejects this testimony as
disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a
single reason -- to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small
wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard
them
as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It
should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks.
Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor -- and
honor still matters.
To us, masks are associated with cowardly
desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we
have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.
Carrying on
in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this
administration and everyone who works in it
"We can not escape
history," Lincoln righty said. "[It] will light us down in
honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." Abraham Lincoln,
Second Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 1, 1862) .
Perhaps we're now afraid to stick our necks out. If the
distinguished Homeland Security intelligence agency can be
weaponized to squelch the free speech rights of a small, hapless
group of non-citizens in our midst, so too can the Federal Home
Loan Mortgage Corporation, and the audit divisions of the I.R.s.
and the Social Security Administration be unconstitutionally
[98]

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14d

The ruling itself is remarkable, but it closes with something I've never seen: a 12-page assessment of Trump himself as an ignorant bully, braggart and threat to free speech and the republic writ-large. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14d

BREAKING: Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, delivers the most scathing legal rebuke of the Trump era, ruling that Trump and his cabinet illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation to "strike fear" into First Amendment protesters. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 15d

“The president just said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that ‘we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,’ referring to urban areas within the United States.” www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Update from Shawn McCreesh

www.nytimes.com

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15d

Trump: "The ones that are run by radical left Democrats -- what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They're very unsafe places & we're gonna straighten them out one by one. This is gonna be a major part for some people in this room. That's a war too. It's war from within"

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