Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Keith (vibe spreadsheeter) @mosheroperandi.bsky.social · 55m

The right has spent so long basking in performative outrage about senseless bullshit that I think they are unequipped to grasp the river of white hot moral rage that is currently coursing just under the surface of anyone who's ever had a liberal urge in their life.

Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social · 4h

look i was recently talking to a septuagenarian life long dem (who shall remain nameless) and generic lib, and she was like “i just think there should be firing squads and they should sell tickets.”

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Salome @salome-gongadze.bsky.social · 36m

you really just feel the cynicism and cruelty of our age in reporting language like this. the sincerity and seriousness and principle of the Ukrainian cause has always rubbed a certain set of people the wrong way *because* it is sincere and serious and principled

Salome @salome-gongadze.bsky.social · 39m

foreign policy media is so insufferable - the quote "since Kyiv learned there could only be 'one diva' in the room" is such an insane way to describe ukraine's leadership trying to get a support for a war brutalizing its civilian population www.politico.eu/article/ukra...

Ukraine likes its latest ally — Trump

Relations between the two leaders have warmed since Kyiv learned there could only be “one diva” in the room.

www.politico.eu

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zatapatique @zatapatique.bsky.social · 1h

Even in this place, I feel the sheer scale of foreign aid being demolished isn't fully appreciated. As it stands, it is perhaps *the* most catastrophic change to preventable deaths in our lifetimes, and the salience - even in presumably friendly spaces - is basically zero

apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · Feb 14

If only there had been some kind of warning

- on.ft.com/40Zncmv

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LOWρUF🐸 🇵🇦🇬🇱🇨🇦🇲🇽 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 23h

I feel like Ben Gvir personally being in the room when Greta Thunberg was being tortured should be bigger news

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Sophie Loy-Wilson @sophieloywilson.bsky.social · 13h

Reading list on Chinese philosophy used by Chinese Australians in Sydney in 1934

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 45m

I don't remember pre-9/11 politics so I try to calibrate "normal" to the Cheney-Lieberman debate. It is incredible. Literally nothing like what we've had for the past 10 years. Its worth looking up. Its more alien to me than the Nixon-Kennedy debate

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 4d

Vought is not interested in “normal” democratic politics: He seeks to “traumatize” civil servants, use the military to suppress protests, and sees Trump as an agent of God’s will. He is convinced to be fighting a noble war to defend his “real America” of white Christian patriarchal rule.

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stevelevitsky.bsky.social @stevelevitsky.bsky.social · 9h

We need to say it more often: this is a racist government.

Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

www.nytimes.com

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Senate Gabe @senategabe.bsky.social · 8h

It is really really hard to describe just how many indicators are flashing bright red right now.

Do not think in my lifetime I ever expected to experience a time like this. And here we are.

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 1d

"It’s getting worse. I mean this neither as an expression of hyperbole nor a cry of alarm. I mean this simply as a factual statement about where we are." And more than three quarters of Trump 2.0 left.

Today's Morning Shots from @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social and @eggerdc.bsky.social:

It’s Getting Worse.

The Trump administration’s assault on the rest of us is intensifying.

www.thebulwark.com

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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 3d

Very hard to reinforce norms when you can't pass a law to save your life

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Andrew Rudalevige @rudalev.bsky.social · 3d

Indeed so. The only major effort was to repair the Electoral Count Act. Important - but reforms to the National Emergencies Act, the Civil Service Reform Act (to bar Schedule F), the Insurrection Act, etc., should not have been out of reach.

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 3d

Congressional Dems and the Biden admin should have put more effort into passing post-Trump reforms. We need more aggressive reform than what was on offer then, but it could really have helped

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brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 7h

The word “essay” means “to try” and it’s just not worth reading if the author did not.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 7h

I think one realization that a lot of people resist is that a good essay is as much entertainment as it is persuasion or edification.

Which is partly why I have a really hard time engaging with AI generated content the same way.

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 15h

I thought this too - I tool lin alg online this spring and the instructor and the videos made specifically for the class were fantastic. But being back in person for engineering classes? Yeah most of these sessions could be a detailed syllabus, a doc of practice problems, and an hour with a chatbot

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 16h

No

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Vlad 🐸 Țepeș @porcupunk.bsky.social · 18h

Wow. Just wow.

"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

Good. Even if this doesn’t work, it’s time to go on offense.

www.newsweek.com/jb-pritzker-...

JB Pritzker looking at prosecuting ICE agents in Chicago

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has suggested that state prosecutors might examine the conduct of ICE agents.

www.newsweek.com

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 19h

There's literally no reason for Congress to exist if any random freak in the presidential orbit can nullify laws and seize federal funds. All of this is plainly illegal, but Mike Johnson leads the most corrupt Congress in US history (and by a wide margin.)

Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers reut.rs/4qjMIyT

White House budget director Vought plans to shut down CFPB within months, says it's no longer protecting consumers

White House budget director Russell Vought said he wants to close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and expects to do so within the next two to three months.

reut.rs

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 17h

Curious what a real expert thinks of it - I read about half in a "promoting rule of law" job, found the interpretation of Germanic tribes' justice very interesting, the basic 6 revolutions and the 10 features of the Western Legal Tradition frame plausible...the rest got pretty bogged down

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · 1d

One casualty in the Trump administration’s war on higher education is federal funding for area studies. This harms students, scholars, and U.S. national security.

It also comes at a time in which political science and area studies are more compatible than ever before. Read on for new research!

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Comparative Politics Needs Area Studies, and Area Studies Needs Comparative Politics

If you were a graduate student in political science between 1990 and 2010 or so, you probably experienced some heated debates about the future of area studies and its role in the discipline. This w…

tompepinsky.com

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 18h

When did professors start assuming they can slap extra events and projects students have to physically go to on top of the actual class? 10 years ago I think I met up with a group to write a mini essay once. Every day for weeks now I've had to attend some training/session/schedule a group meet

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Matthew Lewis is ready for progressive federalism @mateosfo.bsky.social · 1d

I am becoming convinced that autonomous vehicles are designed to solve the problem of "I live in a wealthy suburb but have a horrible car commute and don't want to drive anymore but also hate trains and buses and refuse to ride a bike."

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 1d

Like "polity failure" strikes me as more likely

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 1d

Pretty close to ruling it out though

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abovoadmala.bsky.social @abovoadmala.bsky.social · 1d

High variance agreed, possibility of a Third Reconstruction...I can't rule it out is the most optimistic I can get

Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 1d

I keep telling people who want prognostications that we're at a moment of extremely high variance. The future could plausibly go in a wider variety of directions--from full-on authoritarianism to backlash promoting a Third Reconstruction--than at any time in recent history.

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 1d

Culture might seem a less consequential right than free assembly+ its infringement makes less spectacular news than repressive violence. But the repeal of the right to culture is grave.

honored to be with @isanchezprado.bsky.social in @hyperallergic.com today!

hyperallergic.com/1049388/how-...

How to Protect Your Right to Culture

The United States government’s coordinated repeal of the right to culture has grave consequences for the texture of our daily lives. But there are ways to fight back.

hyperallergic.com

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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 1d

Some context: the authors published one of the most important law review articles about law and left social movements ever written. it’s shaped my work ever since

ARTICLE
Movement Law
Amna A. Akbar, Sameer M. Ashar & Jocelyn Simonson* Abstract. In this Article we make the case for movement law, an approach to legal scholarship grounded in solidarity, accountability, and engagement with grassroots organizing and left social movements. In contrast to law and social movements—a field that studies the relationship between lawyers, legal process, and social change— movement law offers a methodology to scholars across substantive areas of expertise to work alongside social movements. We argue that it is essential in this moment of crisis to cogenerate ideas alongside grassroots organizing that aims to transform our political,
economic, and social landscape. We identify four methodological moves in the work of a growing number of scholars organically developing methods for movement law. First, movement law scholars attend to modes of resistance by social movements and local organizing. Attending to resistance is in itself significant, for it meaningfully diversifies the voices and sources within legal scholarship. Second, movement law scholars work to understand the strategies, tactics, and experiments of resistance and contestation. By studying the range of these approaches-including but not limited to law-reform campaigns-movement law scholars engage with new pathways to and possibilities for justice. Third, movement law scholars shift their epistemes away from courts and siloed legal expertise and toward the stories,
strategies, and histories of social movements.

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