Author | Lightnews

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Kathryn BrightBOO! 👻 @kebrightbill.bsky.social · 49m

The new roof on The Trop is supposed to be able to withstand 165mph winds, good thing we didn't just see a hurricane make landfall with 185mph sustained winds and gusts up to 250mph or anything.

Tropicana Field roof repairs: Company behind project says it's their largest, most important in the U.S.

Friday, the 18th panel out of 24 was installed on Tropicana Field’s roof. St. Pete officials say crews are on track to finish Hurricane Milton repairs to the Trop by the Rays’ opening day in April. Th...

www.fox13news.com

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Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty @irhottakes.bsky.social · 1h

Thedas is a magical place where everyone is woke enough to share their pronouns and nobody is woke enough to think it’d be upsetting to the oppressed indigenous culture to tell them their religious tradition is a lame-o dipshit fake LARP they should throw in the garbage.

👻Spooky Astrid☠️ @namitomoon.bsky.social · 1h

Dragon Age is...weird.

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 1h

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 2h

“Judas suitcase leads the others to the baggage claim”

…actually I kinda want to know more about that one.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 22h

Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.

Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 1d

FL is moving forward w/ plan to end all childhood vaccine mandates. Starting with hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Then next year GOP FL legislature is expected to revisit 1977 law re: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 1d

Among other things, like never having shopped in his life, this jerk thinks that poor people should never eat fresh vegetables.

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana blames SNAP recipients for not stockpiling a month's worth of food.

He ends his tweet with "stop smoking crack."

Rep. Clay Higgins:

There are 22 million American households receiving SNAP benefits for groceries, at $4200 per year on average.
Try to get your head wrapped around how many pantries you can stock with $4200 dollars in properly shopped groceries.
Any American who has been receiving $4200 dollars per year of free groceries and does NOT have at least 1 month of groceries stocked should never again receive SNAP, because wow, stop smoking crack.

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Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @csmfht.bsky.social · 14h

Watch out for Ea Nasir this Halloween!

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Dan Izzo @izzos.us · 12h

Wild how an actual KING is more restrained than the current President of the United States

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 13h

Someone on Radio 4 saying that the King hasn’t done enough to punish Mountbatten-Windsor when he should be facing police investigation, and… I know criminal cases are Rex versus X, but the King can’t actually just prosecute people when he personally wants to, and that’s a good thing!

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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 6h

so the three year-old told me she wants her baby brother to be “a little mean rock” for Halloween and I took this directive really seriously

homemade fleece costume of a little mean rock with big eyes and angry felt eyebrows

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The Up Front @theupfront.media · 3h

In December 1941, Pan Am flight 18602 was trapped the wrong side of the Pacific by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

To get home, her civilian crew would need to do the near-impossible: circumnavigate the world in commercial seaplane.

In our new series, we tell tell their remarkable story.

The Long Way Round: The remarkable journey of the California Clipper, Part 1

In 1941, the Japanese attacked Hawaii, leaving Pan Am flight 18602 trapped the wrong side of Pearl Harbour, To get home, its civilian crew would have to do something incredible: circumnavigate the wor...

theupfront.media

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tom @dongolev.bsky.social · 8h

Mark Rosewater of Magic the Gathering fame makes a great point: the players play your game under the assumption that the game will be fun. If it's not, they will blame the game designer.
As a GM, one of your hats is game designer, so you have to own up to this.

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Kraut @derparrot.bsky.social · Aug 5

Hasan Piker called Ukrainian air strikes on Russian positions in Crimea "Ukrainian terrorist attacks". He claimed Ukraine was a nation full of Nazis. He blamed the invasion on NATO. He justified the Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories. And he mocked Ukrainians who called out his statements.

Slomo @slomo5.bsky.social · Aug 5

This is a surprising and somewhat dishonest take. I wouldn't call him pro Russian. As for his other views they are often loud to stir reflection. E.g. Where do you stand on the Palestine and Hamas debate? This is a point he is very clear on.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 4h

Reminds me of a time I was reading a poem by Thomas Merton with a bunch of students. The poem references “the silence of stones.” Students spent 10 minutes bickering with each other about what the stones represented. “What if they’re stones?” I asked. This theory was firmly rejected.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 6h

oh no is this doing the rounds again? it's the one in which he calls Gandalf letting off firewalks at the wargs "using napalm" and thinks that when Treebeard talks about "little orcs" he's talking about orc children.

Perfectly Harmless Effy @effinvicta.bsky.social · 10h

The Mills essay that's going around does feature a passage where, once you strip away the academic obfuscations, he declares that Tolkien is projecting himself into the position of a Jew/hobbit, naturally reverent of Aryans/elves. Hmmmm.

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 21h

trump can't do it and biden tried to do it

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 23h

So Biden and the Dems wouldn’t get rid of the filibuster to help people but Trump will do it to avoid helping people

So damn predictable

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Dr Alex Cruikshanks @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 21h

There's this common wisdom that all the veto points in the US system blocks wild policy swings, when it actually has the opposite effect: parties stew for years over everything they'll rapidly ram through by any means possible in their brief window of full power before it's gridlock for years again.

the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 21h

personally I think we should encourage parties doing things publicly with their majorities over trying to hide it with the courts and obscure executive action

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 23h

on one hand, the next year of legislation (if they kill the filibuster) is going to be batshit insane

on the other, it's likely going to cause a much larger thermostatic backlash given the changes they want to make

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20,000 years of this, seven more to go @uhhhclem.bsky.social · 12h

Fascism’s most salient feature is its subordination of political argument to violence. Power exerted through violence meets its opposition violently. Not only do you expect liberal democracy to bring a knife to this gunfight, you’ll call them hypocrites for bringing the knife.

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 7h

jd vance's partner is so mad about the erika kirk thing, he's no longer allowed to sleep on the couch

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 4h

the thing about the RSF is that once your state decides it needs death squads for regime security, it's the death squads' decision, not the regime's, whether the state needs death squads anymore

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cheyinka @cheyinka.bsky.social · 4h

good tsar bad boyars yet again!!

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Jake Lahut @jakelahut.writes.news · 5h

As far as we can tell, this is what Mace was pissed off about and what precipitated the incident (it was a grey/silver BMW, not a white one like her team said it would be) www.wired.com/story/nancy-...

Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social · 5h

What she was apparently mad about was that the cops didn't meet her at the curb to escort her to her flight; it appears that's because she turned up 20 minutes late in a different type and color of vehicle and possibly at a different location than what her people arranged with the police.

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The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 4h

Yes yes yes. Gerrymandering is bad but the very fact of single member districts on its own creates extreme distortions from the voters’ will. Multi-member districts would push us almost all the way to proportionality while preserving local representation.

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 5h

And more from me on this topic @theunpopulist.net :

Want to End the Gerrymandering Wars? Embrace Proportional Representation

Trump has triggered a particularly fierce round, but the logic of war is inherent in a winner-take-all system

www.theunpopulist.net

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cheyinka @cheyinka.bsky.social · 4h

That could be really interesting or really bad. I know one of the mods that adds daedra worship causes a lot of frustration when fast-traveling causes the player to miss dawn and dusk prayers and then Azura penalizes the player for it

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cheyinka @cheyinka.bsky.social · 4h

-also my mother as she explains why vatican ii had to do away with communion rails and latin and why liking either of those things was directly equivalent to wanting to undo vatican ii

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Keith (vibe spreadsheeter) @mosheroperandi.bsky.social · 4h

*two court orders

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 7h

BREAKING: In a second case over the suspension of SNAP benefits, a federal judge in Rhode Island has issued a TRO from the bench against the Trump administration.

There is no written order yet, but here is CNBC's report: www.cnbc.com/2025/10/31/s...

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ceasing to pay SNAP benefits during the
U.S. government shutdown.
The oral ruling by Judge Jack McConnell came a day before the administration was set to cut off those food stamp benefits from
42 million Americans.

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Keith (vibe spreadsheeter) @mosheroperandi.bsky.social · 7h

"We are defying a court order telling us to feed people" is gonna be a fun one for all the republican bobbleheads to message.

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 8h

BREAKING: Federal judge rules that the Trump administration likely illegally suspended SNAP benefits, ruling that at least reduced distribution is required to go forward under law using the $6 billion reserve fund.

Judge gives the Trump admin until Monday to respond as to whether it will act.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS ET AL.,
Plaintiffs,
V.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ET AL.,
Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-13165-IT
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
October 31, 2025
TALWANI, D.J.
Pending before the court is Plaintiffs' Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order [Doc.
No. 3] seeking to enjoin, on an emergency basis, Defendants' November 1, 2025 suspension of benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ("SNAP"). For the reasons stated
below, Plaintiffs have standing to bring this action and are likely to succeed on their claim that
Defendants' suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful. Where that suspension of benefits rested
on an erroneous construction of the relevant statutory provisions, the court will allow Defendants
to consider whether they will authorize at least reduced SNAP benefits for November, and report
back to the court no later than Monday, November 3, 2025.

A. Likelihood of Success on the Merits
Plaintiffs have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their claim under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), (C), that Defendants' suspension of SNAP benefits is contrary to law. At core, Defendants' conclusion that USDA is statutorily prohibited from funding SNAP because Congress has not enacted new appropriations for the
current fiscal year is erroneous. To the contrary, Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the
previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to
use other previously appropriated funds as detailed below.

As both parties acknowledge, Congress has not yet appropriated any new funds for SNAP
benefits for Fiscal Year 2026, which began on October 1, 2025. Pls.' Mem. 6 [Doc. No. 4];
Defs.' Opp'n 7 [Doc. No. 18]. But Congress took steps to protect against the deprivation of
SNAP assistance. In the 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Pub. L. No. 118-42, § 6, 138
Stat. 25, 93-94, Congress separately appropriated $6 billion to the SNAP program "to remain available through September 30, 2026" and "be placed in reserve for use only in such amounts and at such times as may become necessary to carry out program operations." See also Pub. L.
No. 119-4, § 1101(a), 139 Stat. 9, 10 (2025). As Plaintiffs point out, given the mandatory nature
of SNAP benefits under 7 U.S.C. § 2014(a) and the appropriation of these funds to be available
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Case 1:25-cv-13165-IT
Document 26 Filed 10/31/25
Page 11 of 15
through this current fiscal year, the government is obligated to use this contingent reserve
account to fund SNAP "as may become necessary to carry out program operations." 138 Stat. at
93-94; Pls.' Mem. 11 [Doc. No. 4].

Defendants argue out that a "suspension" is permitted under USDA's regulations, and that USDA "has consistently interpreted its authority to allow for the suspension or cancellation of benefits when necessary." Defs. Opp'n 6 [Doc. No. 18). The regulation at issue, 7 C.F.R. $ 271.7(a), sets forth procedures to be followed if monthly SNAP allowances "must be reduced, suspended, or cancelled to comply with section 18 of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008"
(emphasis added). But that the regulation allows for a suspension when there are no funds does
not mean that Defendants may choose a suspension over a reduction while funds do remain. If
the regulation did authorize such discretion, it would be inconsistent with the statutory mandate that benefits "shall" be paid unless funding is no longer available.

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