Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1h

This is best understood as the start of MAGA's post-Trump succession struggle

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 23h

Tim Dillon: "If you don't see a Republican candidate in 2028 that has the values that you think matter, will you throw your hat in the ring?"

Marjorie Taylor Greene: "I very much want to fix problems. That's honestly all I care about. And I am genuinely angry on behalf of every American."

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ceej @ceej.online · 3h

the disastrous refusal of the self-styled silicon valley technokings to keep anyone in their lives capable of questioning their increasingly incomprehensible politics has lead to a crisis of thinking so severe that a fifty-eight year old man believes something is important because he knows about it

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 5h

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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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2h

My version of this is that Vought, Yarvin etc represent a kind of braindead right-Gramscianism, which leaves out all the interesting subtleties and treats civil society _only_ as a realm of indoctrination, where one ideological master-narrative can readily be substituted for another.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 4h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Matthew Gault @mjgault.bsky.social · 2h

destroyed digital media so he can force you to attend an in-person lecture and listen to his half-baked 2004-era AV Club essays

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 5h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h

Pritzker: "If the Constitution means anything -- and I guess we all are questioning that right now -- the Insurrection Act cannot be invoked ... they just want troops on the ground because they want to militarize especially blue cities in blue states."

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2h

The whole strategy is a joke. They doomed themselves when they made those tax pledges and nothing is going to change until they admit their mistake and make the case for higher taxes as a way of delivering a fairer and more growth friendly system. They might even find people support it.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2h

More from the briefing to the Times. An oasis of political stability? A government with a massive majority being unable to get changes to WFA and welfare through the Commons , a PM with historic low levels of popularity and Reform ahead in the polls? That government?

The message is simple: Farage is ultimately to blame, as the man who de-livered Brexit with "easy sloganeering" then walked away from the aftermath rather than putting in the hard yards.

Or to put it another way: Farage, not us, is responsible for putting up your taxes.

The theme will tie to the main thrust of Starmer's argument at conference, that the Reform leader is selling easy solutions that are just a fantasy.

The other approach deployed by Starmer and Reeves will be to present Britain as a bastion of political stability.

Reeves will head to the International Monetary Fund in Washington on Wednesday where she is expected to argue that Britain is a sanctuary of eco-nomic responsibility in an increasingly unstable world, and open to business. She will nod to the political turmoil engulfing France as a counterfactual.

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Chrononaut @chrononaut.bsky.social · 2h

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 4h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 3h

the real takeaway here is even vance is on national tv saying that its totally fair to ask why trump sucks at making deals

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

JD Vance: "We want to make sure that they skyrocketing healthcare costs of the Biden administration start to level off and hopefully come down."

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 3h

There would be a dark kind of banter heuristic at play if after everyone spends half a year worrying about the AI bubble the next global financial crisis instead kicks off because too many people in Houston and San Diego can no longer pay off their windshield wiper loans

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

If this was happening in any other country you'd have journalists and analysts discussing risks of state failure

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 1d

The ease with which officials lie in 2025 is honestly terrifying

rost
Tricia McLaughlin @TriciaOhio
X.com
She was arrested for throwing objects at law enforcement.
Heartland Signal v
@HeartlandSignal • 22h
BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook)

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WGN employee detained amid ICE activity on Chicago's North Side, ...
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swarmed a busy intersection on Chicago's North Side Friday morning, at the height of rush hour.
WGN is not naming the employee, as station policy requires blurring faces and not identifying those who have not been charged with a crime.
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The Provost / سيدة الفتنة @msentropy.bsky.social · 2d

When an Oath Keeper leaked the 2009 DHS memo about militias recruiting members of the military, the entire right-wing went ballistic about “presidential tyranny” and “political prosecution” and “patriotic dissent” and “domestic extremism” and “government overreach.”

just saying

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 1d

It’s this multiple times a day

They don't even bother to lie badly anymore.
I suppose that's the final humiliation.

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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting piece. Reform currently control Staffordshire CC and the company HQ is at Rocester with major facilities at nearby Uttoxeter. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/uk/...

The right’s love affair with JCB

The British firm has acquired an obsessive fanbase and influential political allies in the UK. But in India and the West Bank, its big yellow diggers ...

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 1d

When Republicans are pre-butting a pro-democracy rally like No Kings and making shit up left and right to scare people, you know they're losing and in panic mode.

Pedal to the floor.

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🎃 a frightful hoxgoblin 🎃 @kellenhoxworth.bsky.social · 2d

Higher Ed in 2025 is opening your mailbox to see that your institution has sent you:

1. A Center for Teaching and Learning call to integrate AI into your classroom; and

2. An Office of Academic Integrity email encouraging you to crack down on students who use AI to cheat.

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

The coming market crash will be a heck of an opportunity for businesses and investors who survive through more cost/energy efficient models

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

If going out for half healthy food becomes ever more unaffordable then the demand will still be there even if current PE financing models crater

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 1d

A man born in Pretoria, 1971, left for Canada in 1989, might want to wind his neck in (though apartheid South Africa was not necessarily too traumatic place for those who could benefit from apartheid if could manage to resist being too troubled by the racist principles of the state and society)

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

So much of the angst over structural changes to economic behaviour gets distracted by symptoms without really engaging with the central cause

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

Once you take your kids somewhere travel costs, requests for another round of orders from the menu, stopping elsewhere all starts to accumulate further. At home it is the one order and that is it

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

One of the advantages of living around North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire is that is occasionally possible to take 3 kids out for meals that don't destroy your wallet

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 1d

As long as costs spiral upwards to the extent that eating out becomes unaffordable for a family in London then this kind of delivery-based food economy can become the only option for parents when they don't have the time or energy to cook every day

David Klemperer @dmk1793.bsky.social · 1d

Reading @londoncentric.media and reflecting on how everything wrong with Britain can be seen through Deliveroo:
- much of the economy is fraudulent
- people don’t go outside
- workers are underpaid and insecure
- the immigration system is broken
- society is being eroded by Big Tech

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