Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 3h

People tend to be suspicious of CHAOS agents, big surprise.

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 4h

Oh No Anyway (checks gif folder)

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 4h

I love for the Republican Party that one of the new faces of GOP bigotry has the name Joe Maligno. Real Bond villain vibe, this one.

1 1 3

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 6h

Plus they gotta find some way to spend their obscene wealth otherwise they have no reason to exist.

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 6h

It's almost as if Republicans imagine that considering whiteness in drawing up voting districts isn't taking race into account because white isn't a race race, it's just you know normal.

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 6h

Evidently the Court's Republicans believe state legislatures can establish & maintain rules that ensure voting districts are dominated by whites more or less permanently, but the nation's legislature can establish rules to ensure some districts are dominated by non-whites only for a limited period.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 7h

Hey, so this is a bit terrifying

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 7h

This entire argument by Louisiana and the conservatives questions are premised on an erasure of Congress’ enforcement power under the 14th & 15th Amendments.

Literally swinging for the fences to wipe out the premise for the legitimacy of Congress’ power to enact civil rights statutes.

1 2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 1d

Look what you made them do to you.

6

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 2d

Just a dribble.

1 1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 2d

stonking

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 3d

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

Collaborated with wrong epigraphers.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3d

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

Archives banned making copies.

Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 3d

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

New library catalogue website.

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 6d

I was so lacking in savoir faire (1st gen student) it never occurred to me to write to a potential grad adviser before applying. In fact even after my transfer appl was accepted to study w/ a brilliant scholar in the UK, David Lewis, I decided it'd be impertinent to write him to introduce myself.

2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 6d

When I was research asst for a visiting prof, Bill MacDonald, he told me w/ great amusement that my grad adviser, Mortimer Chambers, pretended to know him well when they were grads at Harvard. Said he recited things about him Bill had written for a yearbook profile to prove they were close. Bizarre.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6d

Pro-Tip:

If you are emailing a prospective grad school adviser and have actually read their work, sure, feel free to mention that. But if you haven't, please don't try to fake it.

I know what my departmental page says about my books because I wrote the page. You shouldn't quote it back to me.

1 2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 7d

Yep. I remember being corrected on this point in a HS class on Huck Finn.

Don't ask how I know the pronunciation of Virginville PA.

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 7d

Cairo IL

1 2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 7d

Read this Reddit thread.

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 7d

With all the caveats about anonymous posters, this is still staggering, a revelation of what a sliver we see reported across mainstream & alt media combined; and this itself is obviously just a sliver. www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...

From the AskReddit community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the AskReddit community

www.reddit.com

Reposted by Michael Clark

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 7d

12 59 470

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

Just a thought about wrong footing ICE thugs in public confrontations. Have protestors considered the optics of blockading them simply by dancing, maybe to old timey Latin music?

Can't imagine how Pam Bondi would justify images of Trump's goons rushing and violently bashing mambo dancers.

Mambo No. 5

YouTube video by Pérez Prado - Topic

www.youtube.com

2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

Even the Mamluks, slave mercenaries of the Ottoman rulers, were paid for their service. This statement of the MAGA ethos should give Americans pause. Who do they think *we* serve? Who is it unnecessary and inappropriate to pay for their labor?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Johnson: "It's true that in previous shutdowns, many or most furloughed employees have been paid for the time they were furloughed, but there is new legal analysis - I don't know the details, I just saw a headline - but there are some legal analysts saying that might not be appropriate or necessary"

2 7

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

Even the Mamluks, slave mercenaries of the Ottoman rulers, were paid for their service. This statement of the MAGA ethos should give Americans pause. Who do they think *we* serve?

4

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

The speech was greeted with stone cold silence by the general officers in attendance.

Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · 8d

The biggest dumbass you've ever met in your life:

Opinion
Guest Essay

That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good
Oct. 7, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET

1 4

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

10 yrs ago I spent vast effort trying to get the most basic facts about Bondi's AG career into her WP page. A partisan troll kept trying to obstruct - often arguing that the cited facts & sources were portraying her as implausibly shameless.

Normie WP editors almost always accepted that argument!

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 8d

Sounds just like a man who has a ready plan to hide from the truth whenever it isn't on his side.

2

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 9d

A very sharp weapon for Democrats if they just resolve not to take a defensive crouch over the shut down but instead keep making the case that Republicans are so out of the minds & intransigent on one-party power they're now refusing to accept the results of any congressional election the GOP loses.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 9d

They really don't want to release the Epstein Files, huh.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 9d

U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva won her election two weeks ago. Republicans refuse to seat her in Congress.

1

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 9d

A hostile VC takeover of a once great news organization. Nobody henceforth should cite or discuss CBS News reporting with any more credence or respect than a tweet or a public insult or a Nazi salute coming from any of our reviled tech oligarchs.

Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · 9d

Bari Weiss launched The Free Press with funding from Peter Thiel allies Marc Andreessen and David Sacks. She’s the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. 1/

Michael Clark @smintheus.bsky.social · 9d

There's a story to be told about a shitty Civil War historian, the USNA, some comically extreme sucking up to Harrison Ford, the filming of Patriot Games, and the first time I heard somebody spouting 'they didn't try hard enough to win'. But it's too nauseating to tell in these v nauseating times.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 9d

There’s an essay to be written about how maga patriotism is just shitty fandom. Anyone who follows sports knows fans like this, it’s always the ref’s fault, the other team doesn’t exist, there’s some plot/player/coach holding the team back otherwise they’d always win easy bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10d

Trump: "The problem with Vietnam, we, you know, we stopped fighting to win. We would've won easy. We would've won Afghanistan easy. We would've won every war easy. But we got politically correct. 'Oh, let's take it easy.' We're not politically correct anymore, just so you understand."