Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Gary Dauphin

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 12m

They've been arguing in court repeatedly that there are no plans for a shutdown and that they will honor all statutory obligations.
Not sure what a legal system does with a government that simply isn't credible.

Reuters @reuters.com · 5h

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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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Distinguished Herbert West Fellow, Miskatonic Institute Gigan @gigansprogress.bsky.social · 1h

How much more illegal can we get? lets find out together!
www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-f...

FBI agents will get paid despite government shutdown, Patel says

The Trump administration will continue paying FBI agents despite the ongoing government shutdown that has frozen paychecks for nearly all federal workers, FBI Director Kash Patel announced.

www.cbsnews.com

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ghost malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · 4h

we're going to have to prosecute this stuff

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 4h

The mechanism through which Trump is paying the troops is the most blatant large Antideficiency Act (ADA) violation in US history. It's also clearly willful. No one has been charged under the ADA before, but violations carry a two-year jail term. The statute of limitations is five years.

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 12m

So this is just facially illegal right?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidef...

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 3h

NBC News has reportedly eliminated its NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino and NBC OUT teams

NBC News’ 150 Layoffs Gut Black, Latino, Asian American and LGBTQ+ Diversity Teams

The cuts affected teams across the NBC News operation and came as the network no longer needed to support two different news operations. MSNBC has begun growing its own newsroom, hiring swaths of tale...

www.thewrap.com

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 38m

“the protests don’t count if they happen in blue cities.” so, what, they aren’t americans? their voices don’t matter?

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12h

“A clarinet player was arrested after playing her instrument to the tune of the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme song outside of a Portland ICE facility…”

Musician playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside ICE facility is arrested by agents

‘Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed,’ her band said

www.independent.co.uk

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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2h

I have a lot of respect for Zolan Kanno-Youngs and @haleaziz.bsky.social and have talked to both many times in the past. That the Times lets them be so blunt about what is happening with the U.S. refugee admissions program is a good sign of how much the Trump admin is not even trying to deny it.

Zolan Kanno-YoungsHamed Aleaziz
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Hamed Aleaziz
Reporting from Washington

Oct. 15, 2025
Updated 3:44 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The proposals, some of which already have gone into effect, would transform a decades-old program aimed at helping the world’s most desperate people into one that conforms to Mr. Trump’s vision of immigration — which is to help mostly white people who say they are being persecuted while keeping the vast majority of other people out.

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 1h

“The Defense Department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America,” the Pentagon Press Association said

Oct. 15, 2025
PENTAGON PRESS ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT
Today, the Defense Department confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America. It did this because reporters would not sign onto a new media policy over its implicit threat of criminalizing national security reporting and exposing those who sign it to potential prosecution.
The Pentagon Press Association's members are still committed to reporting on the U.S. military. But make no mistake, today, Oct. 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom that raises concerns about a weakening U.S. commitment to transparency in governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon and to free speech for all.
PPA

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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Josie Duffy Rice @jduffyrice.bsky.social · 1h

can't help but feel that the total gutting of the VRA is going to lead to someone running to the right of trump/vance...and winning. i don't think they are worst case scenario. i think worst case scenario is what comes next.

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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 3h

tfw your 1,000-word tweets aren't working

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3h

white reactionaries disenfranchising black voters to secure political power? that’s a jim crow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The Supreme Court Case That Could Hand the House to Republicans

www.nytimes.com

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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 3h

Headline actually understates it: it is deliberately designed to favor white supremacists who will, once here, support white supremacy 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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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 6h

The funniest part of all the billionaires are building bunker stories is the part where they’re sure the class hierarchy will survive the apocalypse.

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 9h

www.bbc.com/news/article...

"I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own "bunker", who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn't seem to be joking."

Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we be worried?

The debate is ramping up about what happens if - or when - computer intelligence overtakes humans

www.bbc.com

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Gary Dauphin @ebogjonson.bsky.social · 3h

Even the longest thread is a fast twitch muscle, but Trump telegraphed this kind of move and the Democrats are staking everything on the shutdown. They must have hundreds of very smart people gaming out how to manage it. There should be immediate responses to this sort of thing in the can

Gary Dauphin @ebogjonson.bsky.social · 3h

Grateful to this poster, but why I am learning about this from him and not a Zohran-style video from @schumer.senate.gov or @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social?

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 4h

Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/

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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 4h

Under the Constitution and under the ADA, it is illegal to spend money without funding for that purpose. The president may not spend money to do something unless there's actually money to carry it out and that action is expressly allowed.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C7-1/ALDE_00001095/

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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 4h

The mechanism through which Trump is paying the troops is the most blatant large Antideficiency Act (ADA) violation in US history. It's also clearly willful. No one has been charged under the ADA before, but violations carry a two-year jail term. The statute of limitations is five years.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 4h

I don't get a ton of FB traffic and can remember only one other post in the last year or so that got shared as much as this article. you may be "unsurprised" as an extremely online person but people seem to be paying attention to this, for whatever that's worth

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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Jamison Foser @jamisonfoser.bsky.social · 4h

the good news is the Trump administration knows they don't have enough U.S. Nazis to retain power.

the bad news is they're recruiting Nazis from abroad to help.

Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 4h

So Nazis. They want to give refugee status to Nazis.

OK, maybe not JUST Nazis. Also certain other white people who hate non-white immigration. But Nazis can definitely come.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The proposals also advise Mr. Trump to prioritize Europeans who have been “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.”

That appeared to be a reference to the European far-right political party Alternative for Germany, whose leaders have trivialized the Holocaust, revived Nazi slogans and denigrated foreigners. Vice President JD Vance has criticized Germany for trying to suppress the views of the group, which is known as the AfD.

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Reposted by Gary Dauphin

Rebecca Demarest @writerlybliss.bsky.social · 26d

Come see Cory Doctorow and @edzitron.com talk about #Enshittification and the #RotEconomy with @clarionwest.bsky.social on Oct. 22nd! In person in Seattle or free online. secure.clarionwest.org/np/clients/c...

#authortalk #scifi #seattlelibrary

Enshittification and the Rot Economy: A Deep Dives Conversation with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron

Join Cory Doctorow (Enshittification), Ed Zitron (Better Offline), and moderator Whitney Beltrán for a discussion of how reckless tech policy created an enshittogenic environment that allowed the wors...

secure.clarionwest.org

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Gary Dauphin @ebogjonson.bsky.social · 4h

Just an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm

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unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 7h

Carpentersville this morning. Border Patrol grabs some laborers at a worksite. The agent accuses a woman filming them of interfering and also tells her if she has an issue she should "contact her senators and congressmen."

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 6h

This is good: Rep Eric Swalwell tells me House Dems are now discussing making an end to mask-wearing a precondition for ICE funding.

"When we are in the majority, the masks are coming off," he says.

This is the next frontier in anti-Trump resistance.

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/2018...

Trump ICE Raids Take Horrific Turn in Chicago, Handing Dems an Opening

There’s one simple pledge Democrats can make to voters about ICE that’s easy to understand and will have broad support.

newrepublic.com

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Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 6h

Standing and defending the fundamental truths of the Republic means rejecting and opposing loathsome people like Johnson.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8h

Johnson: "We call it the Hate America Rally that will happen Saturday. Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you you'll see Hamas supporters, I bet you'll see antifa types, I bet you'll see Marxists on full display, people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic"

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