Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Ron Filipkowski

@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social

Last month he was a soybean farmer, this month he’s an expert on intercontinental cattle drives.

November 17, 2025 at 12:07 AM

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Will Stancil

@whstancil.bsky.social

this is increasingly what I believe too, especially regarding fascism: it is the ideology of pure indulgent feeling, unchecked by reason or consistency. that's why so much of it is built around empty aesthetics that feel strong or important but have no substantive ideas beneath them.

DaggaRoosta @daggaroosta.bsky.social · Oct 31

This mirrors closely my idea (spurred by reading Robert Sapolsky) that at its core, populism is the politics of gut social instincts - our default social mode, inherited from primates. Baboons have no ideological beliefs but tons of MAGAesque social opinions - xenophobia, pro-hierarchy, etc.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · Oct 31

MAGA revels in the idea that rules, standards, norms, mores, and even consistent beliefs are for suckers. It is an ideology of indulgent groupthink - "Why not simply go along with the crowd? It'll feel good"

October 31, 2024 at 4:29 PM

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Adam Serwer

@adamserwer.bsky.social

The “Epstein Files” saga shows that Republicans were only ever interested in using sexual assault as a pretext to smear political rivals and deprive LGBT people of their constitutional rights www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

The President Who Cried ‘Hoax’

Republicans went after Epstein only when it was politically useful.

www.theatlantic.com

November 14, 2025 at 3:11 PM

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David Noll

@david.noll.org

I urge members of the legal profession to realize that prosecuting individuals who seek to overturn the constitutional order is not "retaliation" in any normatively significant sense.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 7h

Prosecutor, D.C. metro area: The D.C. office is hemorrhaging bodies, and they will probably get rid of two competent people for stating relevant facts that were on the record.

I don’t think people will truly understand what’s happening to justice in America until it impacts them. Even my family: My parents voted for Trump. I don’t think they see it as a priority. I mean, they’re not going to be criminally indicted anytime soon. When I tell them what’s happening, I don’t think they really believe me.

It would take a lot of restraint not to retaliate in the next administration. A lot of career people are helping the administration now. I have a list in my head, and if we get out of this, some of them I’m holding to account. A lot could be validly criminally probed. But the back-and-forth will not be good.

November 17, 2025 at 2:23 PM

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Leah Litman

@leahlitman.bsky.social

Is it bad if a sitting federal judge was (allegedly) part of a conspiracy to commit murder? It seems bad ....

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 6h

OMFG-ex DOJ official (& now federal judge) Emil Bove was involved in the administration's plots to murder individuals via lethal strikes

"At a DOJ conference ... Bove told drug prosecutors the ... administration wasn't interested in interdicting ... Instead... the U.S. should "just sink the boats."

At a Justice Department conference in February, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove told the department's top drug prosecutors that the Trump administration wasn't interested in interdicting suspected drug vessels at sea anymore. Instead, he said, the U.S. should "just sink the boats," according to three people present for the speech.

November 17, 2025 at 2:38 PM

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rev. howard arson

@theophite.bsky.social

matt yglesias' primary claim about politics is that to win elections, democrats should adopt the strategy which has given starmer a 13% approval rating in the UK

November 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM

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Joanne Hammond

@joannehammond.bsky.social

holy shit: “Among the 2,000 UK adults surveyed, 85% were unaware that Britain forcibly transported more than 3 million Africans to the Caribbean, 89% did not know that Britain enslaved people in the Caribbean for more than 300 years” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Caribbean reparations leaders in ‘historic’ first UK visit to press for justice

CRC mission will seek to deepen public understanding of Britain’s colonial legacy and its lasting impact

www.theguardian.com

November 16, 2025 at 7:54 PM

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Mike Sacks

@mikesacks.bsky.social

This whole piece is all the actual horribles on parade, and this one is just infuriating

April 7
Brian McEntire, Civil Rights Division: My goal was always to become an attorney in the Civil Rights Division. That was my dream. I ended up working a lot on fire department cases. In Cobb County, Ga., we got information that even though African Americans and whites were applying for positions at about an equal rate over the previous decade, 90 percent of the hires had been white and 10 percent had been African American. And we didn't quite understand why that was.
So we did an investigation and found out that there was a credit check that was disproportionately knocking out African Americans, particularly for student loan debt. And when we asked them why they were doing that, their response was essentially, Well, if a firefighter is deeply in debt and he's fighting a fire, he might steal grandma's pearls. So we brought suit.

In February, we got a note saying that the attorney general wanted us to withdraw the case. The next day, division leadership insisted that we put additional language in the notice of dismissal that implied it was all about reverse discrimination.
I didn't know, quite frankly, if I could sign it. If I have to say what I argued before was illegal, then I could have been accused of misleading the court, which could have ended up with me being disciplined, sanctioned and my bar license revoked. So I did not sign it. My colleagues didn't sign it. They pulled us all into a room, and we were all prepared to get fired because none of us were going to sign. My boss signed a modified version of the notice of withdrawal on our behalf.
We also had a racial-discrimination case involving the sole African American attorney working for the Mississippi State Senate, who, during the years she worked there, was paid less than half of what her similarly situated white colleagues were making. It was as clear-cut a case of disparate racial treatment you could find. The Senate stalled the case until Trump's appointees could come in and order our section to drop it. When you talk about the rule of law and treating people fairly and equally, that's obviously a slap in the face.

November 17, 2025 at 1:30 PM

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Carl Quintanilla

@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

(Politico) - An Indiana Senate Republican who President Donald Trump called out in a Truth Social post Sunday for not backing the White House’s plan to draw new congressional maps was later targeted by a swatting, according to local authorities.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

November 17, 2025 at 2:07 AM

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Chris Geidner

@chrisgeidner.bsky.social

UPDATE: Today, DOJ filed an "emergency" motion in the Ninth Circuit seeking a stay of Judge Immergut's Nov. 7 ruling siding with Oregon (and others suing) in the case over Trump's effort to federalize and deploy National Guard troops in the state.

Filing: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

No. 25-7194
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ー
STATE OF OREGON, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
V.
DONALD J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon
-
EMERGENCY MOTION UNDER CIRCUIT RULE 27-3 FOR STAY PENDING APPEAL AND A PARTIAL ADMINISTRATIVE STAY BY
NOVEMBER 21
BRETT A. SHUMATE
Assistant Attorney General
ERIC D. MCARTHUR
Deputy Assistant Attorney General
MARK R. FREEMAN
SHARON SWINGLE
ANDREW M. BERNIE
J. KAIN DAY
Attorneys, Appellate Staff Civil Division, Room 7539
U.S. Department of Justice

November 17, 2025 at 3:08 AM

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Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf

@revdrmichaelwoolf.bsky.social

@govpritzker.illinois.gov I want you to watch this video of me slammed to the ground- why are you allowing this to happen to people you know are on the right side of history. They tied my hands behind my back and when I asked them to be loosened because I was going numb they said, “STFU.”

shawn @mulchy.bsky.social · 3d

at one point, i watched a cook county sheriff’s officer (who appears to be in charge) point out a priest in the crowd.

he and a couple officers then went into the crowd , dragged him into the street, and arrested him.

situation is still tense as crowd jostles with police to get into the street.

November 15, 2025 at 5:34 PM

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nullifie

@nullifie.bsky.social

ICE abducted Leticia Jacobo and tried to deport her, she is Native American.

Polk County Sheriff’s Office, which held her for ICE, admitted that it was a ‘clerical error’.

Her family fought through layers of bureaucracy to stop her from being disappeared.

www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/202...

Native American woman nearly deported after Polk County Jail issues ICE detainer by mistake

A Native American woman from Arizona was nearly deported by federal immigration officials after a clerical error at the Polk County Jail. The woman's family had to scramble to prove she was Indigenous...

www.iowapublicradio.org

November 14, 2025 at 12:51 AM

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Quinta Jurecic

@qjurecic.bsky.social

the "just trust us" approach to presenting evidence before a grand jury storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Second, the prosecutor told the grand jury that there was [REDACTED] . That statement
clearly suggested to the grand jury that they did not have to rely only on the record before them to
determine probable cause but could be assured the government had more evidence–perhaps better
evidence–that would be presented at trial.

November 17, 2025 at 4:53 PM

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Owen Barcala

@obarcala.bsky.social

Everyone's missing potentially the most interesting thing about this order, which is the judge's finding that Halligan may have returned an indictment that was never presented to the jury

November 17, 2025 at 5:50 PM

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Aaron Parnas

@aaronparnas.bsky.social

NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen.

Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

November 16, 2025 at 11:43 PM

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Kyle Griffin

@kylegriffin1.bsky.social

Why does Trump need to support the House vote to release the Epstein files? Can't he just order their release himself?

November 17, 2025 at 2:50 PM

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Chris Geidner

@chrisgeidner.bsky.social

NEW: Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of 'Charlotte's Web' — warned us about.

DHS named its North Carolina anti-immigrant effort "Operation Charlotte's Web." In 1940, White wrote of the "smell" that "rises" from those who "adjust to fascism" over freedom.

Tonight, at Law Dork:

Gregory Bovino is exactly who E.B. White — author of 'Charlotte's Web' — warned us about

DHS named its North Carolina anti-immigrant effort "Operation Charlotte's Web." In 1940, White wrote of the "smell" that "rises" from those who "adjust to fascism" over freedom.

www.lawdork.com

November 17, 2025 at 12:26 AM

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Kate Ross

@kateross.bsky.social

Billionaire Peter Thiel’s latest 13F didn’t show off a mere trim, but a full-blown exit from AI bellwether Nvidia (NVDA).

November 17, 2025 at 4:06 AM

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David Noll

@david.noll.org

No surprise that Mr. "We May Need to Tell the Courts 'Fuck You'" was also pushing the administration's campaign of extrajudicial killings.
www.npr.org/2025/11/17/g...

Justice Department official told prosecutors that U.S. should 'just sink' drug boats

NPR interviews with current and former officials reveal more of the backstory around the military's strikes in the Caribbean.

www.npr.org

November 17, 2025 at 1:12 PM

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Barb McQuade

@barbmcquade.bsky.social

Gift link to NYT article about the corruption of DOJ. One former insider says “I wouldn’t even call it the Justice Department anymore. It’s become Trump’s personal law firm. … [T]he American people should be enraged.”
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

60 Attorneys on the Year of Chaos Inside Trump’s Justice Department (Gift Article)

Sixty former staffers describe an environment of suspicion and intimidation within the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency.

www.nytimes.com

November 17, 2025 at 12:54 PM

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John Sipher

@johnsipher.bsky.social

Marco Rubio may be the greatest contortion artist of our time

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/u...

As Trump Targets Antifa in U.S., Rubio Labels European Groups as Terrorists

www.nytimes.com

November 17, 2025 at 1:21 PM

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Carl Quintanilla

@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

* WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER HASSETT: THERE COULD BE A LITTLE BIT OF ALMOST QUIET TIME IN THE LABOR MARKET

@reuters.com #QuietTime

November 17, 2025 at 1:28 PM

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Gillian Brockell

@gbrockell.bsky.social

And to be clear, the six reported injuries were nosebleeds, which is what happens when you have barotrauma.

I’ve been asking since June, if a passenger is handcuffed and the handcuffs are attached to a chain around their waists, can they even reach up to grab their masks? Seems like no.

JJ in DC @jjindc.bsky.social · 9h

😲 CONFIRMED: “an Avelo ICE flight declared an emergency when the cabin lost pressure, according to air traffic control transmissions. The plane made a rapid descent and landed safely. Of 88 people on board, six were injured…”

From: @gbrockell.bsky.social
prospect.org/2025/11/17/i...

ICE Air’s Sloppy, Dangerous Deportation Flights - The American Prospect

Poor planning, mechanical issues, serious safety lapses, and the shutdown are taking a toll on Avelo, America’s most famous deportation airline, internal documents show.

prospect.org

November 17, 2025 at 1:28 PM

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Mark Joseph Stern

@mjsdc.bsky.social

The Supreme Court takes up a major immigration case that asks whether the U.S. government can effectively prevent migrants from applying for asylum by blocking them at the border. I am very, very worried about this one. www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-f...