Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Sep 3

Today’s strike: a $1.4M+ missile, launched by a sailor earning ~$60K, hit a $5k vessel. The target? A criminal gang the president brands as a terrorist organization — a label our own intelligence community does not support.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · Sep 2

Rubio video of strike on Venezuelan ship:

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 20

Please consider voting for Chica on @tsa’s Instagram story for no other reason then to make the DHS Secretary have to celebrate the same breed of dog she shot and killed.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 20

Those are special agents. This is uniformed division.

Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 20

Not uniformed division. Those are special agents.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 20

Oh perfect, because if there’s one agency drowning in free time and resources, it’s the Secret Service. Protecting the President, VP, foreign heads of state, embassies, and running details wasn’t enough—so let’s tack on DC police duties too. Brilliant plan.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 17

I’ve traveled with the President. There’s a whole team that stands up secure printers and sets up suites as offices, on secured floors. Using a hotel business center printer isn’t just sloppy—it’s malpractice by the advance and protocol teams.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 15

DHS doesn’t do that in house.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 14

ICE has new marked vehicles… and they’re sporting the same paint job as Trump’s personal jet. Subtle.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 13

And if you actually understand Star Wars, you know Anakin’s story is about fear, unchecked power, and the slide into fascism, not a heroic arc to borrow for PR.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 13

“We’ll deport a million people!” is political Mad Libs: pick a scary number, add a scary noun, and hope nobody asks how it works. It’s not immigration policy, it’s a math problem written by someone who’s never had to solve one.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Aug 13

The problem with Border Patrol’s Darth Vader video isn’t just the awkward pop culture flex, it’s the dangerous simplicity of the message.

Immigration Enforcement: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

youtu.be

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 23

Shit posting your way to own the libs.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 10

As of June 1, nearly 25% of the people arrested by ICE in the interior and sent to detention had NO CRIMINAL RECORD.

TLDR; DHS and Noem is lying

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 10

It’s giving Infrastructure week vibes

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 9

I worked at DHS. I’ve seen the job done with integrity. This? It’s cruelty as content — posted by the official DHS account. This administration is out of control, and it’s going to take years to undo the damage they’ve done to the mission, the agency, and the people we serve.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 9

Working on it.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 9

Kristi Noem taking credit for ending TSA’s shoe rule is like showing up at the ribbon-cutting and pretending you built the airport.

The Biden admin invested in the tech—CT scanners, body imaging, self-screening lanes—that made this possible. Noem just showed up for the photo op.

CBS News @cbsnews.com · Jul 8

Passengers at airports across the U.S. no longer have to remove their shoes during regular TSA security checks, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed Tuesday. cbsn.ws/3U0DM2h

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Reposted by Alex Howard

ProPublica @propublica.org · Jul 5

The additional $80,000 that Noem received from the dark money group in 2023 represented a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 salary as South Dakota governor.

By @justinelliott.bsky.social @josh-kaplan.bsky.social
@amierjeski.bsky.social

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics…

www.propublica.org

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 4

Totally fair — shoutout to grocers everywhere for keeping us alive with berries and brie. My beef’s not with them, it’s with putting someone in charge of natsec who’d never even heard of CP3 a year ago. The last dude to have that job literally spent his career hunting bin Laden.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 4

Take this with a grain of salt since I worked at DHS, but yeah—I&A had its public L’s, no doubt. But behind the scenes, it filled critical gaps no one else would. Killing it now, in this threat environment, isn’t bold. It’s reckless.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 4

In the middle of a heightened threat environment with Iran, DHS is gutting its intelligence office by 75%—and put a 22-year-old ex-grocer with no natsec experience in charge of countering extremism. What could possibly go wrong?

DHS to cut 75% of staff in its intelligence office amid heightened threat environment

DHS plans to reduce its Office of Intelligence & Analysis to just 275 personnel, four sources said.

www.cbsnews.com

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 2

The same political figures who once spread paranoid fantasies about “FEMA camps” are now using actual FEMA funds to build real detention camps — in a national preserve, without oversight, transparency, or basic infrastructure.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 2

Even Richard Nixon backed away from developing this site after the first ever federal environmental impact report in 1969.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 2

They stole land from the local government, built this facility on a flood plane, have no sewage plan and will likely dump it in the Everglades that feeds Miami’s 2.7M people. There’s a reason why no one has built anything on this land — it floods, a lot. Like seen here with a small summer storm.

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Alex Howard @ajhoward121.bsky.social · Jul 2

These dismantled safeguards would’ve once flagged concerns over conditions, medical neglect, and abuse. Now, there’s no meaningful federal accountability, especially when these camps operate under a blanket and frankly b/s “state of emergency.”

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