Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Orpheus Condescending @maryscottoconnor.com · 23h

From what we know of the callous inhumanity of many cops, it very well could've happened to anyone.

Fact is, though - it happens with PREDICTABLE frequency, FAR more often, to people of colour. Particularly Black men & women.

Because to cops...

BLACK LIVES DO NOT MATTER.

It's a fucking fact.

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 18h

Www.hidinginplainsightbook.com

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Mark Sumner 🇺🇦 @devilstower.bsky.social · 23h

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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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 1d

I saw myself as maybe all in for J.B. Pritzker

But I am losing faith, rapidly.

Police state fascism in America is bigger than Trump. It's backed by Democrats just like Republicans. And it's not going anywhere

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 1d

Note: it's not even curfew yet.

State police just started pushing people off the business park corner. Here in the road, a brave group of demonstrators are attempting to hold their line.

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Ultracrepidarian @shevek57.bsky.social · 1d

Another one for the "And they'll know we are Christians by our love" files.

amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 1d

Outside of the Broadview ICE facility, a state trooper tells the delegation attempting to have communion with detainees that ICE has denied their request.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 1d

WATCH: ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

➡️ Read more: https://propub.li/4odsKnn

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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 1d

Are you fucking kidding me.

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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Ultracrepidarian @shevek57.bsky.social · 1d

Share wide and far! (Make sure to read until the end of the thread.)

David Pepper @davidpepperoh.bsky.social · 2d

🚨 🚨

Pop Quiz!

Every American should know the basics of our Founding, don’t you agree?

The history, and the Constitution itself?

Well, to make sure you know it, and as part of my virtual Democracy Academy, let me give you a quick pop quiz.

1/

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 1d

A lawsuit alleges a Black postal worker died after officers ignored clear signs he was suffering from a massive stroke, believing his medical emergency was drugs

The suit says guards left him helpless on a jail cell floor in his own urine for hours

KARE 11 Investigates: Postal worker died after police mistook stroke for drug impairment

Kingsley Bimpong was jailed instead of hospitalized; video shows guards ignored his suffering for hours.

www.kare11.com

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Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · 1d

Republicans want to make your health insurance premiums to skyrocket while wiping out federal resources for preventing communicable and eradicated diseases

Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4

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Ultracrepidarian @shevek57.bsky.social · 2d

I'm not aware of any foreign-run military bases in the U.S. However (of course), the U.S. has 800+ military bases all around the globe.

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Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: The private jet that flew 10 shackled migrants to an Eswatini prison last weekend is owned by Israeli-American billionaires with close ties to Trump.

It’s oligarchs all the way down.

My first for @zeteo.com:

zeteo.com/p/this-famil...

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Ultracrepidarian @shevek57.bsky.social · 2d

The Moodies rank as one of my all-time favorite bands. And John Lodge is/was terribly underrated as a bass player.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

John Lodge was a pioneering force of British rock’s most underrated band

The late musician helped steer the Moody Blues into an exciting and groundbreaking new era of psychedelia

www.theguardian.com

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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 3d

Trump signed an EO to combat "anti-Christian bias."

This week ICE shot a Christian Pastor, David Black & not one MAGA politician, pundit, or person has bothered to condemn it. Instead they celebrate it.

It was never about anti-Christian bias—it was always about fascism masquerading as Christianity

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 3d

Doug Wilson co-authored a (plagiarized) book that defended the institution of slavery *as it was practiced in the antebellum South*. This is how Douthat introduced the subject while providing him with the NYT's platform:

Douthat: So, just to take a related example, one of the controversies of many that you’ve been mixed up in has to do with slavery, and whether slavery is absolutely forbidden by the Bible, absolutely forbidden to Christians, or whether it is critiqued, but allowed for.

Wilson: Right.

Douthat: And you think it is critiqued, but allowed for.

Wilson: Right.

Douthat: On this, on a straightforward reading of the New Testament, I would agree with you. I would say, pretty clearly, there is a pretty clear path from the message of the Bible to the abolition of slavery. But there is no moment in the New Testament when Jesus insists on the manumission of slaves.

Wilson: Right.

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Robert “The Bobby Yaga” McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 4d

That is pretty rad.

An M.C. Escher-Inspired Series by Parth Kothekar Distorts Perspectives With Single Sheets of Paper

Harnessing the captivating power of pattern and mathematic principles, Parth Kothekar cuts meticulously deceptive works from single sheets of paper. The trippy pieces are inspired by the iconic optica...

www.thisiscolossal.com

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4d

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 4d

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 4d

Students talk about the demoralizing effects of AI. It makes them feel like they don't need to know anything and can't learn how to do anything well enough to compete with the machine.

MiMi Aye @meemalee.bsky.social · 9d

Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat.
People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian

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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 5d

Two years after 10/7, we never hear media report in the year prior to 10/7—Hamas killed 240 Israelis, kidnapped 800 Israeli kids, held 8000 Israelis hostage, & built 12,000 homes on Israeli land. Why?

Because Hamas did none of those things—Israeli government did
www.qasimrashid.com/p/two-years-...

Two Years After 10/7

An illegal military occupation, a yet expanding genocide, and what must happen to ensure peace and justice going forward

www.qasimrashid.com

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Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 5d

You can joke about Pam Bondi’s ridiculous unprofessionalism all you want, but I’m deeply shocked by it: She acts as if she fears absolutely no consequences, convinced that there will be no more political power transfers. — This should shake everyone to their core.

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Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 5d

This morning, Congress had the opportunity to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi anything and didn't ask a single question about NSPM-7 👍

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oldmanserious.bsky.social @oldmanserious.bsky.social · 6d

It looks like the US has two major parties, one of which whole-heartedly embraces and is pushing forward with fascism, and the other exists to capture all the opposition and hold them to one side until the fascism bit is done, and then complain about it but not actually fix it. Is that how it works?

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Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 6d

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE
Truth: No cars rammed ICE

Claim: She boxed ICE in
Truth: ICE boxed her in

Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE
Truth: She did not have a rifle

Claim: ICE returned fire
Truth: Only ICE fired

Claim: She drove herself to the hospital
Truth: Paramedics found her

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 6d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 6d

I don't have the bandwidth to make this case explicit. But today, Todd Bessent put Frank Bisignano in charge of IRS, in addition to Social Security.

Bisignano, at Social Security, gave Big Balls access to all our Social Security data.

Now he's in charge of IRS.

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Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 7d

James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness— for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps-they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of-and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

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