Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Smoking Hot Satan

Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 15h

Hey! FYI we use alt text on our images here. There's a switch you can flip in settings that'll keep you from posting until your media has alt text. It's super important! Welcome to bluesky, the user base is inclusive and good. You won't get much engagement if you don't use it! Further explanation 👇

Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · Nov 22

Hi! You're seeing this because someone noticed you posting an image that doesn't contain alt text. This is not a scolding! You are loved! But everyone needs to be convinced using alt text is socially mandatory. (I sure had to be shown the way as well!) Would you mind reading this🧵 about it and why?

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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 16h

I’m old enough to remember when we had a system of checks & balances that involved Congress, when Congress controlled the purse and legislated, and the president respected the Constitution & rule of law. I’m old enough to remember when a U.S. president wouldn’t want to be King George or a dictator.

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Smoking Hot Satan @darthmarmalade.bsky.social · 5h

Image of an enormous crowd in a city. Meme text reads: Just had a conversation with a nice French couple who said the problem with American protests is that we schedule them one by one instead of showing up every night until
the change happens.

Grimby @omegagrim.itch.io · 17h

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DocAtCDI @docatcdi.com · 14h

One of the most amazing displays of democracy in history is that one thousand islands managed to come together and agree on a single dressing.

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Vianne Max @viannemax.bsky.social · 14h

Basically this👇🏻

A line-drawn woman holding a tea pot says “WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA?”
Across the table, a line-drawn man in a sappy bow tie says “NO.”
ANARCHY IN THE UK.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 15h

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
prev | next
(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 15h

‼️ this is one of the reasons why the Musk shutdown of USAID broke me, like

Congress said 'we're allocating these funds to save lives'

a random asshole with too much money and unresolved bitterness about the end of Apartheid said 'no you're not'

so the funding disappeared??

and people are dying??

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 · 23h

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

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Ouji 🍉 @ufsamakro.bsky.social · 13h

Finalizad Zeltron boy, Fenn, he's gonna smooch Kaliyo most likely

#swtor #zeltron #fantasmlegacy

swtor screenshot of a pink humanoid alien with purple hair, made to look like a zeltron, when that species isn't actually available in game yet

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Dennis B. Hooper @dennisbhooper.bsky.social · 17h

A thing I really believe about gay rights is that we didn’t win by changing everybody’s minds, we won by getting the very large contingent of fence sitters to actually pick a side, and outnumbering the ride-or-die homophobes to the point that they finally had to shut up.

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Big Demon Energy @mayawest.online · 17h

if you blame the most marginalized members of your demographic for the oppression you experience, you are choosing the side of the oppressor.

remove the oppressor inside your head.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 17h

2021, MSFT claimed a Teams app could read emotional affect & I's like "holy shit this will fuck over so many Black & autistic & otherwise neurodivergent & women & non-binary ppl & ppl w/ chronic pain & … like Everybody at any of those intersections."

This PainChek thing is that, but a doctors' tool

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

Facial expressions common to all humans! 🙃

PainChek is one of these behavioral models, and it acts like a camera‑based thermometer, but for pain: A care worker opens the app and holds a phone 30 centimeters from a person’s face. For three seconds, a neural network looks for nine particular microscopic movements—upper‑lip raise, brow pinch, cheek tension, and so on—that research has linked most strongly to pain. Then the screen flashes a score of 0 to 42. “There’s a catalogue of ‘action‑unit codes’—facial expressions common to all humans. Nine of those are associated with pain,” explains Kreshnik Hoti, a senior research scientist with PainChek and a co-inventor of the device. This system is built directly on the foundation of FACS. After the scan, the app walks the user through a yes‑or‑no checklist of other signs, like groaning, “guarding,” and sleep disruption, and stores the result on a cloud dashboard that can show trends.

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David Mack @davidmack.bsky.social · 18h

Exactly. FUCK SWING VOTERS. Mobilize the LEFT. Don’t tack to the center, Dems, that’s how you LOSE, every time. TACK LEFT! HARD LEFT! HARDER, MOTHERFUCKERS! Fascist voters already have A+ fascists; they aren’t gonna vote for you as a D- fascist. Be a fucking A+ SOCIAL JUSTICE DEMOCRAT. FIGHT TO WIN.

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 20h

It’s time to abandon the idea of chasing after “swing voters.”

We gotta start targeting the angry. Those who have been failed by the system. Those who are being screwed every day despite giving it their all.

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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 15h

People in Washington do not understand the United States. They are constantly blathering about “the real America” bc they have never been there. If your information about the United States comes from people in Washington then you also do not understand the United States.

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Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · 15h

lol some of us don’t have time to discern the (rumored) different flavors of conservatives. They all sit together anyway. Like. Be for serious.

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Jake Goldsbie @jakegoldsbie.bsky.social · 15h

This is possibly the all-time funniest real answer to an interview question

Cheryl Hines clarifying her mutant husband only had a bit of his brain eaten by an actual worm

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Denis - The COVID Info Guy @thecovidinfoguy.bsky.social · 13h

A friend kept getting sick. I said it might be repeated COVID infections.
He laughed — “You think everything is COVID”
Then added, “Everyone’s been sick lately — it’s normal now”

That’s not normal. That’s what years of COVID denial have done.

#LongCOVID #COVIDIsNotOver #CleanAir #Masks

a man says he 's in denial in a movie

Alt: a man says he 's in denial in a movie

media.tenor.com

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Andrew J (319.65 ppm) @ajaxnw.bsky.social · 12h

"Under capitalism, it's normal to let children go hungry, let banks force people out of their homes, let sick people die for lack of access to healthcare. But the idea that billionaires could just be less rich - not poor, not struggling, just less rich, is considered insane."

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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 14h

Welcome, new users. Posts on Bluesky are called skeets.

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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 16h

Welcome, new followers. Please add alt text to the images you post. What is alt text? Glad you asked:

Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · Nov 19

A brief thread on alt-text.

Alt text is descriptive text that conveys the meaning of an image. It's designed to make visual content accessible to people with vision disabilities. When a person uses assistive technology such as a screen reader, the screen reader will read the onscreen text aloud 1/7

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Patrick - Here for the craic 👍🏼 @patrickopatrick.bsky.social · 1d

I absolutely agree with this👇🏼👇🏼

Vets bills have rocketed by 50-60% since 2015 was £1,000 to have a bad tooth out for our dog (doesn’t cost anyway near that for humans) and with other treatment despite insurance we got a £3,000 bill

A driver has been Corporations buying up vets to fleece owners❗️😡

Vets should be made to publish prices, competition watchdog says

Vet prices have risen at nearly twice the rate of inflation, the Competition and Markets Authority found.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Janet 🇨🇦 @jansplanet.bsky.social · 12h

'You’re not going to have the functioning government, you’re not going to have disease control, you’re not going to have health insurance, you’re not gonna have Social Security unless you have democracy. Those are all things you get with democracy.’

Tim Snyder on The Last Word with Velshi

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Micah @rincewind.run · 1d

"republican staffers are all literal nazis" is less of a groupchat thing and more of a posting on main thing at this point

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

X post today from Homeland Security @DHSgov that says "Remigrate."
3:06 PM · Oct 14, 2025

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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 1d

We’ve lived 15 years under Citizens United, watching billionaires and corporations shape democracy with their wallets. Reform once seemed impossible. But now, a group in Montana is asking a radical question: What if states simply stopped granting corporations the power to spend in politics?

Could We End Corporate Money In Politics?

Backers of a referendum before Montana voters next year believe they’ve found a vulnerability on Citizen United

thinkbigpicture.substack.com

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hikercat.bsky.social @hikercat.bsky.social · 1d

Please don't forget that Argentina's leader helped destroy Argentine economy with crypto. Over 200 wallets controlled by the same group in Argentina, each holds 200 bitcoin. Argentina needs to launder it through the U.S. fed reserve. This 20 billion is not a bailout. Follow coins in those wallets

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Geonn Cannon @geonncannon.bsky.social · 1d

While this isn't fun when the 1-2 times a year when it happens, I do kinda like having a rare, unexplained disease with no symptoms or pain and a cool name like "exploding head syndrome."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explodi...

Exploding head syndrome - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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