Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

much like God, the Buffalo Bills want me to suffer

November 9, 2025 at 6:55 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

Nuremburg trials is the moderate position

Lynda Lopez @lyndab08.bsky.social · 4d

He said that the agents would throw food at them to eat. The agents threatened to withhold food for a week and to beat him up if he didn't sign deportation papers. He said he saw others refuse and get beaten/receive no food. He signed because he was afraid.

November 7, 2025 at 12:34 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

great piece by @sarahposner.bsky.social. I was pretty much out of the Christian right by 2012 and it was a headfuck to realize that most people in my new orbit did not grasp the movement’s real menace talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/tradi...

Traditional Media Never Took the Christian Right Seriously

Back in the early 2000s, when we were outraged by the excesses...

talkingpointsmemo.com

November 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

James

@gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social

Sick story dude. I mean a Muslim democratic socialist just became mayor of NYC but I'm sure they were totally gonna make second rate Yale philosophy professors the number one target. Truly the most persecuted amongst us.

God I hate this loser shit.

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 4d

Jason Stanley isn’t afraid to use the F-word when talking about President Donald Trump.

The author of How Fascism Works and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future is clear: He believes the US is currently under an authoritarian regime led by a fascist leader.

I study fascism. I’ve already fled America.

On this week’s “More To The Story,” former Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley explains his recent move to Canada and calls the Trump administration’s takeover of the US government a “coup.”

www.motherjones.com

November 7, 2025 at 2:47 AM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

having intrusive thoughts about Ross Douthat’s self-published fantasy novel

November 6, 2025 at 11:43 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Kate Redburn

@kredburn.bsky.social

to be clear: the government's claim - validated by the Court - is that it would *irreparably harm* the president to not misgender trans people

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 4d

NEW: On the shadow docket, the Supreme Court lets Trump resume misgendering trans Americans on their passports, claiming "the government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment." All three liberals dissent. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

This case concerns an Executive Branch policy requiring
all new passports to display an individual’s biological sex at
birth. The United States District Court for the District of
Massachusetts preliminarily enjoined the Government
from enforcing the policy, and the First Circuit declined to
stay the injunction pending appeal. The Government then

filed this stay application. Applying our familiar stay fac-
tors at this preliminary stage, we grant the application.

Displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends
equal protection principles than displaying their country of
birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to
a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential
treatment. And on this record, respondents have failed to
establish that the Government’s choice to display biological
sex “lack[s] any purpose other than a bare . . . desire to
harm a politically unpopular group.” Trump v. Hawaii, 585
U. S. 667, 705 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Nor are respondents likely to prevail in arguing that the

State Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously by de-
clining to depart from Presidential rules that Congress ex-
pressly required it to follow. See 22 U. S. C. §211a.

November 6, 2025 at 11:01 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Sharon

@sharonk.bsky.social

i think this tidbit is more telling than she realizes

LLS: Part of the way I constructed the title of the book is as a fair warning: The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto. I have tried to promise the reader that I will annoy each of you somewhere in the book. I received different warnings, like, does it have to say feminist? Does it have to be as confrontational as manifesto? My agent said, “When you say ‘dignity,’ people know it is Catholic, so you might want to just do dependence.”

My goal was to create a lot of different entry points with this book. Maybe you will pick up the book as someone who is a Catholic, who has had a lot of bad experiences with the word “feminist.” Or you will read the book as a pro-choice feminist with an enormous heart for the vulnerable, but you do not feel that extends to the unborn, or cannot without imperiling women. You will have the experience, reading certain pages, of feeling seen, and on the next page there will be something that you are going to find uncomfortable to sit with.

November 6, 2025 at 3:51 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

I read Leah Libresco Sargeant’s book (and mentioned it in a recent piece) and it’s poorly researched, poorly argued, and totally pernicious. It’s astonishing to me that anyone takes her seriously, but the bar for conservative women has always been lower

November 6, 2025 at 3:16 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Mezentine

@mezentine.bsky.social

She tries to turn it into this judo move about how both the left and the right are disrespectful of pregnant women, but I'm...mostly confused by what she's saying? This is a podcast transcript, I get it, she's talking off the cuff, but what does this mean exactly?

Libresco Sargeant: And when you aren’t, it’s kind of a personal hobby. You hear that language of personal choice, not only on the left with regard to abortion, but for conservatives in opposition to things like SNAP benefits for unmarried women: Well, you chose to have this baby while you were poor, and everyone knows you could have chosen differently — when that could entail not having sex or killing the baby in the womb after sex has been had.

So there is this sense that the base-line person does not have someone to depend on in this way. I think pregnancy is the starkest example, and it’s the gendered example, but the sense that the fundamental nature of the human person is someone who isn’t constrained by someone else’s need isn’t just a problem for women — it’s a problem for all of us. Each of us has people who depend on us, even if we go through our whole lives childless, because we have parents who increasingly are aging without the supports to age all alone.

November 6, 2025 at 2:59 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Jameel Jaffer

@jameeljaffer.bsky.social

Fourteen years later, I *still* think one of the best ways for us to repudiate Cheney's legacy of torture would be to recognize and honor the courageous soldiers and public servants who exposed the torture policies and tried to end them. www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/o...

November 4, 2025 at 6:21 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

Today I’m voting for a socialist Muslim, and Dick Cheney is dead. Feeling pretty good

November 4, 2025 at 1:09 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

hannah gais

@hannahgais.bsky.social

The MAGA luminaries keep quoting Spengler, Schmitt, and other figures from Germany’s conservative revolution, but the NYT opinion page acts like all of this revolutionary fervor just came from the left. Why? www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/o...

Opinion | Hey, Lefties! Trump Has Stolen Your Game.

www.nytimes.com

October 31, 2025 at 4:57 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

started working on an essay about the proliferation of right-wing CS Lewis pseudoscholars, and all I can say is

October 31, 2025 at 1:13 AM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Perry Bacon

@perrybaconjr.bsky.social

“Deciding to Win' also displays little awareness of what winning elections is for. There is an obvious reason why the Democratic Party ought not abandon its commitment to preventing the climate crisis," writes @davekarpf.bsky.social. Excellent piece. newrepublic.com/article/2023...

Why Centrist Democrats Keep Being Wrong About Elections

A new 60-page report insists the party is too radical. But the problem isn’t the party platform. The problem is the broader environment.

newrepublic.com

October 30, 2025 at 3:46 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

just finished the Karine Jean Pierre book for work and it is one of the most vapid manuscripts I’ve ever forced myself to read. Completely incoherent from start to finish

October 27, 2025 at 9:09 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

felt like garbage for a long time; turns out my blood sugar had entered the Cool Zone. some thoughts about that, the MAHA fixation on diabetes, and the cold free market logic of RFK Jr nymag.com/intelligence...

What a Diabetes Diagnosis Taught Me About MAHA

Self-mastery is free-market logic in another guise.

nymag.com

October 26, 2025 at 4:18 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

steven monacelli

@stevanzetti.bsky.social

In 2024, I wrote a story for Texas Monthly about Michelle Haas, whose complaints resulted in the removal of books about slavery from historic Texas slave plantations. Haas sued us, alleging defamation, and was represented by the preferred lawyer of billionaire J.P. Bryan. Today, we won on appeal.

The header of the appeals court decision:

NUMBER 13-25-00005-CV

COURT OF APPEALS

THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

The conclusion of the appeals court decision, which states: The trial court's judgment is reversed. We remand the cause to the trial court with

instructions to (1) grant appellants' TCPA motion to dismiss, (2) award court costs and reasonable attorney's fees to appellants in accordance with the statute, (3) consider whether to assess sanctions against Haas in accordance with the statute. See TEX. Civ. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 27.009(a).

October 16, 2025 at 2:13 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

you’re telling me a Marine veteran got spicy on the internet? totally without precedent

October 16, 2025 at 12:50 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Max Read

@maxread.info

"anti-patriotic gun-owning veteran psychedelic-taking small-business owner" is actually an extremely common Maine Type and it won't hurt Platner unless he lets it

www.cnn.com/2025/10/16/p...

In another Reddit post that year, Platner reflected on his life after his military service, saying he was “a vegetable growing, psychedelics taking socialist these days. After the war, I’ve pretty much stopped believing in any of the patriotic nonsense that got me there in the first place, and am a firm believer that the best thing a person can do is help their neighbors and live a loving life.”

“Still got the guns though,” he added. “I don’t trust the fascists to act politely.”

In his interview with CNN, Platner wanted to assure voters: “I’m not a communist. I’m not a socialist. I own a small business. I’m a Marine Corps veteran.”

October 16, 2025 at 12:46 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

that’s funny, because it’s cringe and also because she’s never ‘done the news’ once in her career. she’s coasted on the opinion pages since she started working, which really explains a lot about her whole deal

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · Oct 7

Bari Weiss introduced herself to CBS News staff today on the network's 9AM call, saying she wants to "win," which requires restoring trust to CBS. She also said she was excited for staff to get to know the Free Press, and ended her remarks by saying: "Let's do the fucking news."

October 7, 2025 at 1:39 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

🥴

Blue Virginia @bluevirginia.bsky.social · Sep 29

"We're talking about Tech, by the way; saw the game this past Friday - go 'Hoos!" - Winsome Earle-Sears bluevirginia.us/2025/09/very...

September 29, 2025 at 9:56 PM

Sarah Jones

@sarahjones.bsky.social

have been feeling off for a while and found out today that I have diabetes?? probably type 2. anyway, if you are feeling generically sort of ill and you have the means, go to the doctor

September 29, 2025 at 8:27 PM

Reposted by Sarah Jones

Veena Dubal

@veenadubal.bsky.social

Part of what this reveals is what US labor has been arguing since the late 19th C. At will employment impedes political democracy. If u can lose ur livelihood for ur (non violent & non harassing) beliefs, then being an engaged citizen is all but impossible.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/u...