Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 5h

Yikes. It was 40 in the morning here last week

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 5h

Well, put the flannel sheets on the bed, feel like the middle of October is early for it

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The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 5h

More Americans are biting their tongues, not because they don’t care, but because they’re afraid to speak.

From DEI to the war in Gaza, people are more afraid to speak their minds now than during the Red Scare, according to a political scientist who has been conducting surveys.

buff.ly/Ls2m7mv

Self-censorship and the ‘spiral of silence’: Why Americans are less likely to publicly voice their opinions on political issues

Nearly half of Americans say they feel less free to speak their minds.

buff.ly

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 5h

Sorta sounds like this fellow Nelson struggles with the basic idea of being a judge

Dan Immergluck @danimmergluck.bsky.social · 19h

Me, a very smart federal judge, “but should we really have any right to put a check on the fascism of Dear Leader?”

digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/shortcode/CH...

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Lee Drutman @leedrutman.bsky.social · 12h

Thermostatic public opinion, reacting against the governing regime, like old faithful.
globalaffairs.org/research/pub...

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 7h

Amazing time, congrats

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8h

federal agents stealing children and sending them south. where have i heard about that before?

Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 10h

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Page Fortna @pagefortna.bsky.social · 8h

Portland frog with a founding fathers wig and the text “give me ribberty or give me death”

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 8h

(thanks partly to you! And, seriously, thank you for that)

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 8h

Yeah, the last couple days have given me some things to think about re: responsible posting

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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 9h

The New York Times knows crime is not “out of control” in major U.S. cities — in fact, crime is way down from past years and decades — but NYT amplifies JD Vance’s lie without a fact check.
It’s journalism malpractice that helps the fascists.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 10h

Ultimately, the death of US manufacturing is about this attitude. It's easy to say "buy american or stfu" because virtue signaling is free. But it's hard to actually sustain a business because many Americans simply don't want to pay what it costs to produce things ethically in this country

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 15h

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 11h

Well, stop having to worry about catching marine mammals in nets & ropes, or stunning and killing them with very loud & polluting activities

Reposted by Kevin Elliott

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 15h

“Alito has the opinion”

Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 16h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

New library catalogue website.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 16h

My version of this is that Vought, Yarvin etc represent a kind of braindead right-Gramscianism, which leaves out all the interesting subtleties and treats civil society _only_ as a realm of indoctrination, where one ideological master-narrative can readily be substituted for another.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Roy Edroso @edroso.bsky.social · 15h

Yep. They heard "long march through the institutions" and thought: we're good at marching! Let's US march through the institutions!

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 16h

My version of this is that Vought, Yarvin etc represent a kind of braindead right-Gramscianism, which leaves out all the interesting subtleties and treats civil society _only_ as a realm of indoctrination, where one ideological master-narrative can readily be substituted for another.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 15h

JFC

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 19h

The deportation order derives from the crime of which he has now been exonerated.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 16h

YES

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 17h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

vought's view is that the president is an elected dictator and lo and behold he is seizing outright the power of the purse

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 1d

Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 17h

“All but one rated Trump as a greater or much greater threat to the rule of law than [in] his first term. …. the president’s abuses of power as far worse than they imagined before his re-election.”

Chilling piece.
But even now NYT fails: they convey truth not directly but through a poll.

‘Bow to the Emperor’: We Asked 50 Legal Experts About the Trump Presidency

www.nytimes.com

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 17h

This is pure fascism, folks

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18h

Vought’s ideology of “radical constitutionalism” captures the defining sensibility on the Trumpist Right: “The Left,” he believes, has command of America, there is nothing left to conserve, nothing short of a radical “counter-revolution” can now save the nation.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18h

But there is nothing noble or respectable about what Vought is doing, about his vision for the country. He is a fully competent, utterly committed radical ideologue. He lusts for counter-revolution and radical measures. There is no line he doesn’t feel justified to cross.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18h

The overriding goal of too many journalists is to provide “balanced” coverage from a “neutral” position in equidistance to both sides. That framework is much easier to justify if you pretend to be dealing with “normal” politicians – as opposed to committed ideologues pursuing an extreme project.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 17h

The @nytimes.com The Daily

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18h

Vought, we are told, is a pious man who never curses. Ok! Not a word about his Christian nationalism; instead, one of the most influential political platforms in the world chooses to perpetuate the number one fallacy about the modern Right: That this is all about “small government.”

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