Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 1h

Yes i would imagine he also misunderstands one piece lol

Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 1h

The negative reaction is probably mostly because she is of poor character and is bad at her job. For example: bsky.app/profile/jame...

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 6d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 6d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 6h

Thank you, @aselrod.bsky.social. As far as I can tell, zero internal evaluations are going on at the big news orgs on how to deal with this basic problem, yet any discerning reader can see that it's a major impediment to conveying what's really happening in the US to readers and viewers.

Alan Elrod @aselrod.bsky.social · 23h

“the conventions of political reporting today are poorly suited to capturing this naked use of sheer pretexts and the bottomless bad faith they rely upon.”
@gregsargent.bsky.social is absolutely right. Big, legacy media has got to catch up to reality.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 1d

This week, MAGA figures claimed Kristi Noem "stared down" violent antifa protesters in Portland. Turns out they were talking mostly about a guy in a chicken suit.

This episode opens a window into how MAGA propaganda works and MSM failure to handle it. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 2h

I like this version of the shot lol

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 3h

"Look at the picture... One of these is a member of a private militia that supports the President and was involved in a violent effort to overturn the election, the other is an agent of the state. Can you tell the difference?" donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 4h

New, from me:
Trump's 3 step plan to create a military omniforce
1. Purge - those deemed disloyal
2. Merge - different parts of law enforcement/military
3. Surge - impose the omniforce on Dem cities; instigate unrest; assert dominance; silence dissent
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...

Purge, Merge, and Surge

Trump is creating a omniforce of armed loyalists to establish his police state

donmoynihan.substack.com

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Jill Lawrence @jilldlawrence.bsky.social · 2h

If you doubt the American apocalypse is imminent, or even already here, read this @donmoyn.bsky.social take on Trump’s rapidly growing “omniforce” of armed thugs. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

Purge, Merge, and Surge

Trump is creating a omniforce of armed loyalists to establish his police state

open.substack.com

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 2h

This is the US Vice President’s close mentor and confidant saying “I get my theology from One Piece”

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 6h

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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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 2h

A big flaw with this recent “AI increases research success” study. The study did NOT directly compare researchers who used vs didn’t use AI. What they found is people who used words like “significant” & “groundbreaking“ more had bigger success. Maybe they just had success bc results were better?

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 4h

Diffusion of innovations in outlawing your political opposition

Pascal Jacquemain @jacquep.bsky.social · 4h

European far right follows Trump in calling for antifa to be declared terrorists

Netherlands and Hungary move towards designation as draft resolution reportedly backed by 79 MEPs in 20 countries

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

European far right follows Trump in calling for antifa to be declared terrorists

Netherlands and Hungary move towards designation as draft resolution reportedly backed by 79 MEPs in 20 countries

www.theguardian.com

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 4h

This is really good. But stepping back, it is also a sign of where comparative politics and political theory are going these days, towards productive engagement on basic questions of civilian rule, republicanism, and the politics of order. The field needs more work like this.

Avishay BSG (Ben-Sasson-Gordis) @avishaybsg.bsky.social · 4h

🧵 I'm excited to share that my article "Democratic Backsliding and the Limits of Civilian Control of the Military" has been accepted @thejop.bsky.social.

It answers the question "how ought militaries act when civilian leaders turn on democratic institutions?"

1/
#CivMilSky #PolTheory

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 6h

Yes - as @thomaszimmer.bsky.social @lilymasonphd.bsky.social have said this is the reason talking about the “authoritarian playbook” or general definitions of “fascism” isn’t that helpful for predicting what will happen in the US. This case will likely be different to past cases.

Jay Ulfelder @jayulfelder.bsky.social · 6h

As someone whose professional interests have overlapped heavily with Przeworski's, I felt (and concurred with) this bit: "The brutal fact that we find it so difficult to predict what will happen under our current circumstances is evidence that we do not have theories we can rely on."

How Democracies Fall Apart - Dissent Magazine

An interview with Adam Przeworski.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Jay Ulfelder @jayulfelder.bsky.social · 6h

As someone whose professional interests have overlapped heavily with Przeworski's, I felt (and concurred with) this bit: "The brutal fact that we find it so difficult to predict what will happen under our current circumstances is evidence that we do not have theories we can rely on."

How Democracies Fall Apart - Dissent Magazine

An interview with Adam Przeworski.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 6h

The fact that theres any conversation about “is the Saudi regime bad or not” is a PR win for the Saudi regime. Anything the artists might say or do now has to be weighed against what they already did: sent a big message to the US and UK that hey, dismembering critics isn’t THAT bad right?

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · 7h

The Trump administration has promoted the anti-vax, anti-science movement which has now produced an epidemic www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks

At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. "Expect more," one expert said.

www.nbcnews.com

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 6h

No institutional design can overcome a lawbreaking president, a Congress defending lawbreaking and forfeiting its own power, a Supreme Court that pretends legal text doesn’t count to facilitate lawbreaking, and a citizenry that votes for all that.
Need at least one that wants rule of law. Maybe two.

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Neil Hillhouse (The Haunting Of) @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 19h

1 year anniversary of this beauty

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muscular baby jeb lund @mobute.bsky.social · 1d

suddenly thinking about a december message blitz from RFK, the NIH and the administration like, "this christmas, get your family the marburg virus. it literally makes you invincible"

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Quibble While Rome Burns @nimi0us.blacksky.app · 1d

The Enigma of Amigara Fault but with Sherman, the dog, yelling "TH-THIS IS MY HOLE! IT WAS MADE FOR ME!" edited into the picture.

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 1d

It simply should not be possible for the president to repeatedly claim that a major city is burning without a wall of live standups happening in that city clearly demonstrating that it is not

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 1d

American broadcast journalism has utterly failed and is a dead industry, there's nothing left worth saving

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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 1d

holy shit i flew over it as it happened!

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 1d

The teams have stopped play and have joined each other on the field to sing Christmas carols

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Cortana 👻 @cortanav.bsky.social · 1d

When will my husband return from the Mariner’s game

Oil painting of a woman waiting by the sea

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david tveite @tveite.bsky.social · 1d

baseball is designed to make its fans feel like shit and that is what's good about it

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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 1d

Glad that NYT went to some of the smartest, most clued in experts, @whitneyphillips.bsky.social who is the bomb when it comes to abusive internetting, and @shannimcg.bsky.social an expert in media and social media in politics.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2d

President Trump’s long, avid embrace of social media has been eagerly adopted by his top aides, replacing longstanding governmental norms with ones native to the internet while also controlling the political narrative.

Trump’s Aides and Officials Take Political Battles Online

President Trump’s long, avid embrace of social media has been eagerly adopted by his top aides, replacing longstanding governmental norms with online ones.

nyti.ms

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