Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 1h

I don't get what the audience is supposed to be for these daily media roundtables that boil down to "fascism: is it fine?"

It's all stuff like "hey, if POTUS agrees to assassinate schoolkids in exchange for an evening of donkey sex, who are you to second guess him?" Just performative chirping.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 1h

Mockler: Trump on his first day issued a historic and he has been subverting congress… He has absolutely been consolidating power by appointing loyalists

Jennings: All presidents appoint their supporters…

Mockler: Do they then ask their supporters to indict people…

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 3h

I can’t help but think today about how many young people were savaged on social media, branded as anti-semites and abandoned by their schools for daring to call for a ceasefire. I remember saying that it was the first time I can remember that calling for ceasefire was regarded as a hostile demand.

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 6h

JPL is run by Caltech, one of the most prestigious research universities in the country, so this should probably be interpreted as part of the broader fascist war on higher education.

Reuters @reuters.com · 8h

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers reut.rs/4302N2L

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Monday it will cut nearly 550 jobs as part of a restructuring, not related to the current U.S. government shutdown.

reut.rs

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 6h

I wrote about TikTok, Barron Trump, Supreme Court corruption, and ... stuff.

www.unchartedblue.com/the-united-s...

The United States is no longer a democracy

If the prerequisites of self-rule do not exist, neither does self-rule itself.

www.unchartedblue.com

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 9h

Geez, I remember being annoyed when a phone number had a bunch of 7/8/9/0's in it because it took _so much longer_ to rotate the dial around to those large numbers. Dialing 1-800-something took real commitment in them olden days.

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 10h

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
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I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Paul Waldman @paulwaldman.bsky.social · 9h

No, the protesters aren’t being paid. Believe it or not, lots of people are genuinely upset about authoritarianism!

paulwaldman.substack.com/p/ahead-of-n...

Ahead of No Kings Protest, Trump and GOP Try to Delegitimize All Dissent

There is no such thing as genuine progressive public opinion, and therefore mass and mobilized opposition to Trump doesn't count.

paulwaldman.substack.com

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 10h

We should have ended it all when he started openly monetizing the presidency at his DC hotel & sending his kids to represent the 🇺🇸 government at official international events. But he is One Special Boy and we appear to no longer be a serious country interested in the rule of law or the Constitution.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10h

Trump's conversation with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is caught on a hot mic. Hard to tell exactly what they are talking about, but Subianto asks Trump about meeting Eric Trump and Don Jr, who supposedly have nothing to do with government while they run the family business.

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elias isquith @eliasisquith.blog · 14h

it’s just remarkable how much of what’s wrong with this country can be put at the feet of overachieving dorks motivated by bottomless self-regard and ressentiment.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 14h

Absolutely brutal.

Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

www.youtube.com

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Ben D’Avanzo @bendavanzo.bsky.social · 1d

The film "NO" about the plebiscite that took down Pinochet has definitely influenced my advocacy. The lesson was, if you seem fun and upbeat, even in very serious times, the public is much more likely to stand with you.

These folks are doing it right!

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

Chicago not letting Portland have all the fun 🐧

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 1d

New levels of hell: just got an email from our local AYSO cancelling today’s youth soccer games because ICE is at the Home Depot across from the soccer fields at James Park in Evanston.

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Mark Sumner 🇺🇦 @devilstower.bsky.social · 1d

No nation in this history of the world has even been better prepared for becoming a police state. For years, half of all scripted dramas on American television have been about police or military police. And police are the heroes of every one. …

America has a police problem.

In a police state, political power, policing authority, and military action have no clear boundaries.

www.unchartedblue.com

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Sexy CHOAM Nomsky costume @samthielman.com · 1d

I wish, too, that there was some acknowledgement here that the reason decent people hated Kirk and weren’t sorry that he’d been killed is that this was his entire MO as a professional agitator. His whole deal was making enemies lists and siccing his viewership of red-faced morons on them

Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 1d

I was trying to put my finger on what bothered me about this portrayal and I think it’s that it just takes the guy’s words at face value, like he was a nice guy and reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death just pushed him over the edge www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

She Despised Charlie Kirk. He Resolved to Make People Like Her Pay.

www.nytimes.com

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 2d

This pic really makes the US collapse into full despotism feel real, doesn't it? Leader's dead-eyed, meritless teen son shoved into powerful role solely because Leader wills it: a marker of corrupt autocracy recognizable on every continent and in every century.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 2d

We will need Nuremberg-like trials

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 2d

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 2d

The era of "It isn't fair to pick on him, he's just a kid, he didn't choose to be in the limelight" is definitely over, so feel free to say he looks like he throws pets into a woodchipper with an expressionless face and a heart rate of 60bpm.

Trump's weird, serial killer-looking son might get a top job at TikTok.

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alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 3d

anybody who's good at history want to tell me if it's good or not to starve your troops

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 3d

Military families on day 9 of the shutdown lining up at the food bank

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 3d

Yes, because NYT is a fascist institution

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 3d

Douthat is laundering hard core white Christian supremacy into the mainstream, with the NYT's blessing.

Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 3d

Ross Douthat treats this guy like they're having some deep conversation about the relationship of Christianity and the government, but the dude is a garden-variety dull, shallow, hateful, worthless bigot with nothing interesting to say, just endless riffs on "God hates everything/everyone I do."

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 3d

You could bring Trump to Portland, give him a tour of the city, get him to agree nothing was burning down, and by the time he got back to DC he'd once again be repeating 'Portland is burning down' because he has dementia and that is what dementia patients do.

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 3d

A common dementia symptom is repeating the same hallucinatory claims over and over. Even if you convince the patient that they're mistaken, they'll come back a few hours later repeating their original claim or embellishing it further. It gets stuck in their brain and they can't help it.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 3d

Network news could put this guy on the air during like Lester Holt or the Sunday shows but they don't because they know stories like this would help stop the administration and then the big bet they made on fascism would be for nothing

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 3d

"They put me on suicide watch and they put me in the cell, I'm naked, in like a hospital dress and just a concrete bed with like a mattress, like a thin mattress and, they leave the light on 24/7."

@timmiller.bsky.social talked to a veteran who ICE wrongly detained and brutalized

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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 3d

Oh, does it benefit the US to provide aid to foreign countries? That would have been good to know back in January and February.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3d

“Stabilizing Argentina is ‘America First’.”

🇦🇷 🇺🇸

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 3d

"Who's that?" "Oh, I remember her, her face was plastered all over everything when I was getting fondled by airport security. You know, what's her name. The airport fondler."

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 3d

Obviously this is illegal (Hatch Act) and almost comically petty, but the most likely effect will be travelers forever associating this face with whatever airport misery they're going through. The face of airport shutdowns—literally!

William Adler @williamadler78.bsky.social · 3d

Petty garbage www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/u...

Video of Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for shutdown “rolling out” at TSA security checkpoints across the country | CNN

Travelers waiting in airport security lines across the country will now be met with a video where the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem blames Democrats for the government shutdown.

www.cnn.com

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Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 3d

As a protest optics nerd love about the inflatables is how much they visually disrupt and pull focus from the fascist shock imagery Noem & Miller are trying to create.

So many of these photos now look like the world's silliest dance party, backgrounded by a bunch of guys in uniform looking awkward

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Hunter @hunterub.bsky.social · 3d

There's a very good chance that at some point this Congress just never gavels in again. If protests increase; if the military starts shooting; if more Epstein stuff drops. If R majority ever thinks the only remaining way to protect Trump is to block the House from voting against him, they'll try it.

Simon Rosenberg @simonwdc.bsky.social · 3d

Mike Johnson, one of the great cowards in American history, has cancelled votes again.

A reminder that by law a budget was supposed to have been passed and in place on September 30. There is no Republican budget; no process to create one; and Johnson is preventing Congress from working on one.

Aaron Fritschner @fritschner.bsky.social · 3d

UNREAL

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