Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Marya

Daniel Ahmad @zhugeex.com · 55m

One reason behind Western decline is that US capital gave up on investing in productive forces long ago.

The current system is all about looting / grifting through financial engineering, rent extraction, and speculative bubbles.

When the system rewards that, reversing it is near impossible.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 22m

I love this!

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Reposted by Marya

Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 46m

If the Commander of Southern Command is stepping down less than a year into his tenure, I’m guessing we’re about to find out the intelligence picture on these “narco-terrorist” vessels that we’re blowing out of the water isn’t as solid as it’s being portrayed.

Blue Freedom Quest 💙🌊💙🌊 @bluefreedomquest.bsky.social · 1h

Head of the U.S. Military’s Southern Command Is Stepping Down, Officials Say www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

Head of the U.S. Military’s Southern Command Is Stepping Down, Officials Say

www.nytimes.com

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 25m

Japanese maples just love to show off! Autumn is glorious —one last burst of color before the cold, dark sleep. It’s starting here in northern Virginia.

Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 2h

This is the very reason I bought noise-cancelling headphones. I don’t know what frequency those tools are on but it is painful!

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Reposted by Marya

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 9h

This isn't a new insight, but: the people who are always ready to put a Black teenager on trial as an adult sure do like extending the "youth will be youth" excuse in other contexts— not just to college students like Kavanaugh, but to, e.g., 35-year-olds on a Young Republicans group chat.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 8h

This is the crux of it all: never say it, never acknowledge it, talk around it and, voila, it is not a thing. The racism just disappears like magic.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 9h

roberts’s constitution allows for racial discrimination as long as you don’t say you’re racially discriminating, because in a classic bit of racecraft, roberts’s constitution forbids acknowledging race but has no particular issue with racism.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 8h

We are losing the urgent role of journalists so many critical venues, particularly the Pentagon.

Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 8h

In the wake of the Hegseth/Pentagon press ban, I'm reminded of this section from Sebastian Junger's National Review essay, 2024.

www.nationalreview.com/magazine/202...

And then we invaded Iraq. Although I was drawn to the sheer magnitude and drama of the war, I didn’t cover it because I was personally so against our decision to invade that I didn’t think I could be objective. I still had high hopes for Afghanistan, but my optimism didn’t survive long. I spent a year embedded with a platoon from the 173rd Airborne in the infamous Korengal Valley, and our outpost was attacked almost daily. After one particularly fierce firefight, a special operator shook his head and said, “We’re never going to win this war until we admit we’re losing it.”

What he said shocked me: It was 2007, and questioning the war was still considered unpatriotic heresy. If you didn’t believe America was right and honorable in all things and would win any war it fought, you were basically siding with the terrorists. And yet here was a highly experienced soldier questioning exactly that. And that is the proper role of the press: to provide the kind of honest and brutal assessment that generals, politicians, contractors, and second lieutenants can’t because they’ll lose their jobs. The simple truth is that if you’re against the working press, you’re against protecting American soldiers from faulty weapons and bad decisions. No military or government will publicly examine itself for failures. Only the press — and internal whistleblowers — can do that.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 8h

Fascinating conundrum.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 9h

A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault. Jim Sanborn is auctioning off the solution to Kryptos, the puzzle he sculpted for the intelligence agency’s headquarters. Two fans of the work then discovered the solution.

A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Marya

Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley.bsky.social · 21h

$40 Billion to Argentina. Don’t tell me we can’t have healthcare.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 9h

They created the space in which they could perform —damn us to hell.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 9h

Yeah. The mid day crash will be uncomfortable.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 10h

Oh no. That’s not great.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 10h

The administration is nullifying Congress and the Congress is allowing it by doing nothing. We are in grave and dangerous times.

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 1d

Taken to the extreme, and taken alongside impoundments, Trump’s ADA violations renders Congress completely irrelevant for spending.

The president is claiming the ability to not spend even if Congress makes him spend, and also the ability to spend even if Congress doesn’t let him spend.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 20h

There is a different neural pathway at work when you write with pen and paper rather than type onto a screen. Information sticks better when you’ve written it. I use a small notebook.

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Reposted by Marya

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

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 · 1d

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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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 22h

💔🤦🏼‍♀️

Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 23h

Yup. Just so we’re all clear about where we are right at this moment.

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 23h

The Supreme Court’s majority right wing indicated in oral arguments that they think racism is over on the same day that the vice president defended the “I love Hitler” guy, and that the NYT reported that the current administration plans to accept only white, English-speaking refugees.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

“The soft bigotry of low expectations”

Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

This is so incredibly shady and I’m sure we won’t know the true depths of the corruption and self-enrichment for decades to come.

Zach Everson @zacheverson.com · 1d

NEW: Abu Dhabi’s MGX is suddenly everywhere in Trump’s Washington—

📱 TikTok’s possible new US ownership

💰 A $2B Binance deal using Trump’s stablecoin

💻 A 51% stake in Intel’s Altera unit—and US taxpayers own 9.9% of Intel

Me, for @forbes.com

🎁🔗

What Is MGX? Abu Dhabi Fund Linked To TikTok And Trump’s USD1 Crypto

Founded in 2024, the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle has quickly become a major force in Trump administration deals, from the reported TikTok restructuring to a controversial $2 billion investment in Bin...

forbes.com

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

I loved this show. The satire was the absolute point. As Hawkeye would tell you, never trust the government. I’m trying to think of a modern equivalent to MASH but I don’t think it exists.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

I’m 65. This is what the young republicans were like when I was young. They all wore pleated khakis and worked in finance and talked this kind of trash in bars.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

Read it and weep.

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

NEW — I dug into the story of ICE abducting a 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts and moving him 500 miles across state lines without notifying his mother, local cop's complicity, and how the federal government's justification for such cruelty is already falling apart:

ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.

Now he's detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Reposted by Marya

Jacob Soboroff @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social · 1d

here’s more context to the videos DHS is putting out from Chicago.

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Marya @maryapetry.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, Jaki!

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