Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Elizabeth Nolan Brown

@enbrown.bsky.social

19K followers 610 following 940 posts

sex, speech, tech, justice, parenting, politics, & panic ✨ senior editor @reason.com‬, journalism instructor at University of Cincinnati, Midwestern mom

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 21d

Obligatory nudge for folks interested in stories like this one to subscribe to my (free!) newsletter reason.com/newsletters/...

It comes out twice a week and focuses on sex policy, tech policy, and—often—the intersection of the two

3 15 55

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 5h

Newsom vetoed SB 771 👏

It would have essentially made being a social media platform a civil rights violation reason.com/2025/10/13/c...

2 9

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Noah Frank @noahafrank.bsky.social · 3d

Kid’s already got a better message on urbanism than half of elected democrats

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 3d

“I don’t care if it’s actually my birthday today or not; I’m just having such a Great time my in FAVORITE city in the world!!”

our toddler son

in Columbus Ohio

1 8 150

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 13h

I’m the only one in our household not to fall yet and I don’t have high hopes

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 2d

I don’t believe in god or the devil but hand foot and mouth disease after going dormant for weeks has reinfested my household and preying upon a son of mine once again, so the devil is real

2 23

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 20d

Critics including Elon Musk have assailed my @cato.org colleague Alex Nowrasteh's study finding that most politically motivated terrorist killings in the U.S. since 1975 have been done by persons on the right. Alex responds to the critics here and explains his methods and classifications.

Alex Responds to the Critics: Politically Motivated Terrorist Killings in the United States

The critics are mistaken

www.alexnowrasteh.com

14 290 700

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 1d

+3 cont) the use of profiling, in particular, is both a from-the-top policy choice and possibly _the only heuristic_ that some random ATFer on immigration duty even has.

And of course they’re not making it easy to tell who’s ICE and who’s just externing.

3 11 44

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 1d

+2 cont) of course, no group is a monolith and some ICE agents were probably eager to do raids, and that may be correlated with the people doing the most aggro stuff.

3) THIS ISN’T JUST ICE. The use of FBI, DEA, etc for basic imm enforcement is new. These dudes aren’t trained in imm at all. +

1 11 59

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Dara Lind @daralind.bsky.social · 1d

2) historically, ICE field agents have _not wanted to do community raids_ when avoidable. Effort to reward ratio too high, and danger to officers greater than zero (which is what it is when you pick someone up from jail).

The WH has overridden this preference this time. +

1 11 54

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 1d

get the fuck away from (what’s left of, sadly) the Black Cat

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely pointless.

National Guard walk by Black Cat patrolling 14th Street on a federal holiday during a shutdown.

10 26 220

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 5d

I am definitely not the "you folks" you are thinking of here

1 3

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 5d

huh

9 3 65

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 5d

Ohio Republicans want public schools to teach positive impacts of Christianity on history ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/10/09/o...

Ohio Republicans want public schools to teach positive impacts of Christianity on history • Ohio Capital Journal

A pair of Ohio Republican lawmakers want public schools and public universities to teach the positive impacts of Christianity on American history. No other religion is mentioned in the bill, named the...

ohiocapitaljournal.com

7 1 11

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Elizabeth Joh @elizabethjoh.bsky.social · 6d

🚨A quarter of all FBI agents have been assigned to immigration enforcement www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

A quarter of FBI agents are assigned to immigration enforcement, per FBI data

Nearly a quarter of FBI agents are currently assigned to immigration enforcement, with the number climbing above 40 percent in the bureau’s largest field offices.

www.washingtonpost.com

44 220 550

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 6d

So cool that whenever someone asks the president, “did you eat the Lindbergh baby” he’s like, “no but I’d be allowed to, I have the right to, I might do it later”

230 3.1K 17K

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 6d

Ohio's AG is threatening twenty adult sites operating in Ohio, saying they're inviolation of the state's recently enacted age-verification law.

The only problem? Many say the poorly drafted law is written in a way that excludes websites ("interactive computer services") from having to comply.

Headline: Ohio AG warns porn websits that they're violating new age-verification law.

6 15 74

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Jeremy Schulman @jeremyschulman.bsky.social · 6d

This seems right to me—a ruling that upheld the Colorado law is probably a bigger threat to LGBTQ kids than a ruling striking it down...

3 6 19

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 6d

We've already got so many conservatives passing laws premised on the idea that "gender ideology" is dangerous. Seems very clear that if you let a law like Colorado's ban on conversion *talk* therapy stand, you're inviting conservatives to pass laws banning "affirming therapy"

Is conversion therapy free speech?

Colorado says no. Supreme Court justices seem skeptical.

reason.com

6 4 21

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

andy jabbour @andyjabbour.bsky.social · 6d

New from @thorinklosowski.com @eff.org in @techdirt.com 'Chat Control is a dangerous legislative proposal that would make it mandatory for service providers... to scan all communications...' www.techdirt.com/2025/10/06/c... cc @tuta.com @enbrown.bsky.social

Chat Control Is Back On The Menu In The EU. It Still Must Be Stopped

The European Union Council is once again debating its controversial message scanning proposal, aka “Chat Control,” that would lead to the scanning of private conversations of billions of …

www.techdirt.com

1 1 2

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 6d

"If a doctor says, 'I know you identify as gay, and I'm going to help you accept that,' and another doctor says, 'I know you identify is gay, and I'm going to help you to change that,' and one of those is permissible, and the other is not, that seems like viewpoint discrimination," said Kagan

Is conversion therapy free speech?

Colorado says no. Supreme Court justices seem skeptical.

reason.com

6 4 26

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 7d

Mom For Liberty is morphing again, ditching adding "anti-American" content to their on-going campaign against "pornography" in schools.

"We are now seeing evidence that the results are harmful, not only to children, but to their families and society as a whole"

Tug of war over what books NC schoolchildren can read

Parent groups concerned by books in NC school libraries that may not fit their idea of US values. Academic experts seek more nuanced approach.

carolinapublicpress.org

3 28 62

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

CJ Ciaramella @cjciaramella.bsky.social · 8d

I've got the cover story on the latest issue of @reason.com. It's about how culture war legislation on everything from library books to lab-grown meat is feeding the police state reason.com/2025/10/06/c...

Texas and Florida have become national models for using the police state to wage culture war battles

From library books to abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state.

reason.com

23 44

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 8d

Whoops—Ohio Accidentally Excludes Most Major Porn Platforms From Anti-Porn Law

File this under “lawmakers trying to regulate tech and the internet without understanding tech and the internet."

reason.com/2025/10/06/w...

Whoops—Ohio accidentally excludes most major porn platforms from anti-porn law

Ohio lawmakers set out to block minors from viewing online porn. They messed up.

reason.com

6 45 160

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 9d

Video taken one hour ago outside the Portland ICE facility of the violent insurrectionists in question

400 2.8K 8.3K

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 12d

guys i have a billion dollar idea

2 10 96

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 8d

This is amazing

Reposted by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 8d

When the Orwellian named Dept of Homeland Security was created … MANY of us predicted that it would eventually be doing all the things that it is doing right now

Pinning it uniquely on Trump really misses the point in a bunch of ways

22 220 1K