Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 9h

It is sad and demeaning to admit, but the incompetence and stupidity of Trump and the people he has appointed to positions of power based on their craven willingness to flatter him is our best hope to save the republic.

Hegseth's stupidity and alcoholism limits the effectiveness of his purges.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 9h

Stupid, inefficient, and capacity-destroying attempt at a political purge of the military, but a purge of the military and a deadly threat to American freedom nonetheless.

A military loyal to a dictator and willing to use force against Americans is the end of the republic.

bsky.app/profile/prem...

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 14h

NEW: Pentagon officials are forcing staff to watch Pete Hegseth's "Warrior" speech he forced generals to listen to.

Officials are even "testing" staff to see if they watched — and are threatening consequences if they lie about watching it or if they mock it, sources tell @swin24.bsky.social and I.

The Pentagon Is Ordering Staff to Watch Hegseth’s ‘MAGA Garbage’ Speech… Or Else

Defense Department sources tell Zeteo that staff have been warned that if they don’t watch or read the speech, or if they speak negatively of it, they could face severe consequences.

zeteo.com

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 9h

These people need to be shunned, they need to be mocked and despised by every person who values freedom or equality. Employers should be boycotted for hiring them.

They are enemies of the idea of America, and they will destroy everything we value if we don't stop them.

bsky.app/profile/carl...

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 13h

You'd really think that the fact that there is no actual Antifa organization would make this propaganda blitz more difficult, but I suppose the sky's the limit when you have a multi-billion dollar oligarch-controlled national media apparatus focused on willing Emmanuel Goldstein into existence.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 13h

First they came for the inflatable frogs . . .

bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14h

AG Bondi: "We're gonna get to the funding of antifa, we're gonna get to the root of antifa, and we're gonna find and charge all of those people who are causing this chaos in Portland and all these other cities across our country."

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 17h

The heroes America needs.

bsky.app/profile/amut...

alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 4d

hell yeah

Cover of the classic children's book Frog And Toad Are Friends.

Drawing of Toad, a brown toad, sitting on a bench, dressed in a green jacket and slacks. He is reading a book to his friend Frog, a green frog dressed in a brown jacket and slacks. They are surrounded by green plants and mushrooms. There is a silver Caldecott Medal in the corner.

Text has been altered from original. It reads
Fiftieth Anniversary
Frog and Toad Are Antifa
by Arnold Lobel

Commemorative Edition

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 17h

Amazing to think that just a few years ago, this craven, broken little toady whose primary job is facilitating bribes for his boss by propping up foreign dictators was the future.

Is there a single ideal in this press release that Rubio has not betrayed?

www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/ru...

Rubio Campaign Press Release - This Is the Story of Marco Rubio's Presidential Campaign | The American Presidency Project

www.presidency.ucsb.edu

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 17h

They should workshop this a bit . . . "Bureau of Ethnic Cleansing" has a real ring to it.

And we all saw how proud Hegseth was to have a plaque on his door that said "War Department" - Rubio might really get off on becoming the "Secretary of Genocide."

bsky.app/profile/mari...

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · May 29

SCOOP: The State Department's new reorganization plan includes the opening of an "Office for Remigration," a term popularized by far right extremists and neo-Nazis in Europe. The office will coordinate directly with DHS "to advance the President’s immigration agenda."

My report:

State Department set to launch ‘Office of Remigration’

The concept of remigration has explicitly neo-Nazi roots and has been popularized in Europe.

www.thehandbasket.co

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 19h

The Republican Party reflects his will and nothing else. The fact that Republicans voters support something or that Republican legislators enacted a program are irrelevant.

The Republican Party is an extension of his will. He wants that to apply to the entire government as well.

That's fascism.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 19h

Common mistake of a legal-rational mindset. For Trump, "Republican Programs" are those that he personally likes or that benefit people he favors (predominantly those who give him money).

The term has no objective or fixed meaning, and no relationship to Republican Voters.

bsky.app/profile/mira...

Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver.bsky.social · 20h

My Lancet analysis with @scottlgreer.bsky.social @hjarman.bsky.social @xrkulik.bsky.social shows how inaccurate it is to say it's just "Democrat programs" being cut. From insurance to service delivery (incl. veterans' crisis services), people of both parties harmed. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

1

Reposted by Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile

James Davis Nicoll @jdnicoll.bsky.social · 1d

Old time SF might still have the edge over 2020s where blurbs are concerned. I'll take HE KNEW THE MARTIAN LOVE SECRET over LORD OF THE FLIES MEETS ANNE OF GREEN GABLES IN THIS FRIENDS TO ENEMIES FOUND FAMILY ACCIDENTAL WISH ROMANTASY.

4 31 150

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 20h

For the record, even non-Nazi billionaires would be very bad and dangerous for a free society.

But yes, litetal Nazi billionaires who openly aspire to be villains from a James Bond movie are worse.

bsky.app/profile/whst...

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 23h

is it ever going to be news that the richest man in the world openly promotes full-bore, swastika-flying, pro-genocide neo-Nazis

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

I remember when it was a national crisis that parents might have to explain consensual oral sex to children who were exposed to Republicans constantly screaming about Bill Clinton on every network.

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

My 10 year old son asked me recently why any women voted for Donald Trump.

Explaining false consciousness and the nature of mass propaganda to kids is hard. Even harder to explain that some people never learned the sense of self-respect that we've tried to teach our kids.

bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump ignores a question from a woman reporter but says, "I just like to watch her talk. Good job. Thank you darling."

1 2

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

But for that one day, he totally had a lock on the Nobel.

Maybe we can create a new prize for the best peace-themed press conference and let him win that.

Maybe one for most ludicrously sycophantic press coverage.

bsky.app/profile/junl...

onion person @junlper.beer · 21h

israel has already broken the ceasefire

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

Yes, I know - arguably, it already has.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
-Jay Gould

If a single wealthy man has the ability to place your military on personal retainer, you are not free. The US must end concentrated wealth of this magnitude or it will end our republic.

bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump: "I had a very wealthy person who called -- a donor, a great gentleman -- and he said, 'if there's any money necessary, shortfall, for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it.' Meaning he will pay it. How about that?"

2 4 3

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

More extrajudicial, arbitrary murder by the President of the US.

Legally, there is a distinction between this and what Bush/Obama did with drone strikes against "terrorists," but legal sophistry does not make this moral - no President should have this unaccountable power.

bsky.app/profile/greg...

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 21h

Trump is no longer even pretending to have any kind of argument that his murdering of people in the Caribbean Sea has any kind of statutory validity. Just straight up declaring that he has quasi-unlimited power to execute people based on (nominal) suspicion.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

Patrimonialism: Exhibit A.

Patrimonial regimes are not compatible with democracy, personal liberty, or with a modern market economy.

You will not like the world in which all three of those things are corrupted or eliminated.

bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump: "The funding for New York, and for every place, comes through the White House. And I'm very generous, and I was always very generous with New York. But I wouldn't be generous to a communist that's gonna take the money and throw it out the window."

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 21h

One indicator of a financial bubble is that investment decisions are made on the basis of what other investors are doing rather than the performance or prospects of the economic activity underlying the investment.

Another is relentless (and well-funded) denial that the run-up in prices could end.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 1d

What a grotesque thing for the governor of an American state to say.

bsky.app/profile/thet...

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 1d

Gov. Bill Lee says Trump’s military-police occupation of Memphis “may never end.”

“We have just begun. We do know this is going to last for months… In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever.”

2 2

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 1d

People also, well, lie about their assets to qualify.

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 2d

Whatever else, Kristol did learn something from his PhD in political theory.

bsky.app/profile/bill...

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 2d

"No Kings is happening, and this is how Republicans are talking about it.

Accusations like 'terrorist wing,' 'pro-Hamas,' and 'Antifa' aren’t just insults. They’re phrases that unlock, in the view of the administration, a permission structure for state violence."

www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-guil...

Trump’s Guilt-By-Association Law Enforcement

The groundwork has been laid to go after innocent people, opposition groups, and even No Kings protesters.

www.thebulwark.com

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 2d

I sometimes miss living in Portland.

Just a slower, nicer, more community-oriented place than Silicon Valley.

bsky.app/profile/jeff...

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 3d

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

1

Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile @exiledsocscientist.bsky.social · 3d

Approaching fascist shock troops as literal demons to be banished or exorcised by the power of God's grace seems theologically sound to me.

The KPop Demon Hunters approach of catchy tunes & cartoon violence might seem more immediately gratifying, but the Catholics have a lot of experience at this.

2