Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 4h

Wondering what you can do to persuade universities not to sign Trump’s so-called “Compact”? Sign (and sign up to help organize) here:

alumni.standforcampusfreedom.org/petitions/si...

SIGN THE ALUMNI PETITION: Tell your school to reject the federal government’s “Compact”

The federal government is trying to extort your school by coercing American universities into joining its so-called "Compact”. This is a time for courage, not capitulation. Sign this alumni petition n...

alumni.standforcampusfreedom.org

1 1

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Time for another social media break. Stay strong.

5

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 9d

Those who are so inclined to immediately dismiss all the seemingly grandiose reports of torture and abuse in the Israeli prison system should read this report from B'Tselem entitled: "Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps"

In some cases, witnesses described other IPS personnel being present during attacks by the IRF. They stood idly by and did nothing to protect the victims, their presence essentially lending legitimacy to the actions. The presence of IPS officers and the participation of dozens of IPS guards in the assaults indicates that these were not isolated incidents or the work of a rogue guard.
On 9 November 2023, at around 2:00 P.M., a force of 20 masked officers from the IRF and DU arrived with a dog. They opened the cell door and attacked
Some of the
us with batons. Two of them grabbed me forces filmed
and hit me in the back with batons. One of us with cell
them grabbed my head while I was on the phones and
floor and hit me in the face with a baton.
cameras. I
My face and right eye started bleeding. I heard the
told them in Hebrew, "I'm going to die," and officer tell
one of them said that he wanted me to die.
the others in
Others told me to shut up.
Hebrew: "We're
After they beat us up for about 10 minutes, they tied our hands behind our backs with
loresee wins
zip ties. They fastened them so tight that I felt them cutting into my hands. The beating continued, and members of the forces stepped on my chest and head. There were also two officers in the cell, and one of them ordered them to beat us. The members of the forces laughed among themselves. They took some clothes away from inmates. They dragged some of us on the floor and forced others to kiss one of the officer's shoes.
I saw them grab some inmates by the testicles, and the inmates screamed and cried. The officers also pressed their batons against

Keter
Welcome to Hell
the genitals of some inmates. The stream of insults didn't stop: "motherfuckers," "sons
None of us could move,
of bitches," "dogs," "ISIS." Some of the forces
not even to
filmed us with cell phones and cameras. I go to the
heard the officer tell the others in Hebrew:
bathroom.
"We're livestreaming for Ben Gvir."
We were all
The attack lasted a long time, more than half dizzy and lost
an hour of nonstop beating. It looked like they balance.
wanted to cause as much damage as possible.
My right eye
When it was over, I felt I was going to pass swelled up,
out. Afterwards, we lay on the floor for hours.
and I was
None of us could move, not even to go to the afraid I'd lose
bathroom. We were all dizzy and lost balance.
my sight. We
My right eye swelled up, and I was afraid I'd were in a very
lose my sight. We were in a very bad state. One bad state.
prisoner said in tears that they'd raped him
One prisoner
with a stick.
said in tears that they'd
After that incident, we lived in constant fear.
raped him
Also, we were shocked by the screams of with a stick.
inmates being beaten in other cells. We were
afraid all the time, day and night, that the forces would attack us again.
From the testimony of Firas Hassan
50, a father of four and resident of Hindaza in Bethlehem District, who was held in the Negev Prison (Ketziot) | Full testimony

4 120 270

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Local store owners are giving no quarter.

(I’m avoiding other natural puns. You may be relieved.)

Chris Goodman @cbgoodman.co · 9d

The third amendment is about to get very relevant.

'Very difficult situation': Kristi Noem whines locals not letting ICE agents use restrooms

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained that her agents were not being permitted to use restrooms in Chicago because of opposition from residents.During a Sunday interview on ...

www.rawstory.com

3

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Jonathan Ladd @jonmladd.bsky.social · 9d

Michael Tesler and others have shown that, prior to 2008-2009, politically disengaged swing voters did not perceive the Democratic Party as more liberal than Republicans on racial policy (fair to include immigration as part of this). Almost impossible for high info people to believe it, but true. /4

1 5 26

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

😆 Ha! That entry says “[? Yiddish/Russian]” so maybe that’s the answer: different dialect of Yiddish from what I grew up with.
But clearly, at least in the long version, it’s been American for quite a while. So I was wrong. Must have not talked to enough gamblers and loan sharks growing up.

1

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

What about “vig” (for the percentage that the House, e.g. a betting house or brothel, takes off the top of a transaction)?
Brits think it’s Yiddish but I never heard it growing up. And Americans have started using it, but only recently and, I think, copying Brits (like “spot on”).

3 2

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Until last year, I’d never seen the Thriller video. My family started talking about how it was a Halloween song and I had no idea what they were talking about.

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 9d

Inspired by a post I just saw in which someone admitted they hadn’t seen a single episode of Friends nor the film Love Actually… what cultural hole do you have that’s a bit weird for your generation?

I’ll go first: I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.

1 2

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 10d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

67 1.6K 5.8K

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 9d

@fishkin.bsky.social outlines a key strategy of the Shakedown State: the attempt to pockets of “no law”. Immigration has always been an area of tremendous deference to the Executive; by the signing these “compact” any university would be acting at the sufferance of the Executive.

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 10d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

1 1 5

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Agreed! But they haven’t achieved fascism; those who deride the term are completely right about that.

We have to avoid a Boy Who Cried Wolf problem. They’ve achieved competitive authoritarianism and huge amounts of racism and reaction. But to call it fascism now just erodes credibility.

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 9d

Keep taking videos of what ICE is doing. @govpritzker.illinois.gov is right, document what’s happening. This is why they hate journalists so much.

320 4.2K 13K

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

So far they have. When it’s actual fascism I’ll call it that (from abroad, or a prison cell).

1

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Blocked.

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 9d

Um…no.

But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t read my bio rather than that you were being deliberately rude.

1

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 10d

Not bad, but for those who aren’t political theory junkies “attempted tyranny” risks sounding archaic, like “long train of abuses.”

(And for those who are political theory junkies, “attempted despotism” is more descriptive.)

1 2

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 10d

As an adjective describing intentions, “fascistic” is fine. But we need a noun for what’s going on: “attempted fascism.”

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 10d

I really think we need to popularize “attempted fascism”.

It faces the very real danger without misstating the facts—there’s still tremendous room for dissent and pushback—or sliding into defeatism.

3 3 36

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 10d

All legal nonsense aside about the supposed state of armed conflict between the U.S. and Venezuelan gangs, what "I wish to emphasize is that there is a word for killings outside of armed conflict for which there is no domestic legal authority. That word is murder." [@benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org]

The Situation: Murder She Wrote

There's a word for what they're doing.

www.lawfaremedia.org

14 280 890

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 10d

No, just attempted fascism.

Trump wants us to believe that his power is unlimited. Don’t.

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 11d

This is fascism.

1 1 3

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Brian Soucek @brsoucek.bsky.social · 11d

Strong statement today from UC's Academic Senate:

18 370 1.1K

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 12d

As if irony isn’t already dead, the Hatch Act violation on the DOJ website, which blames Democrats for the shutdown, appears on the page advising DOJ employees they are subject to the Hatch Act. joycevance.substack.com/p/a-note-abo...

230 3.2K 8.9K

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 12d

This usage has a practical origin: 20th century US political scientists used education as a proxy for class b-c most population surveys tracked the former but not the latter: sometimes income, never occupational status.
(I’d love to read the political history of why govt-funded surveys did this.)

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 12d

the going definition of "working class" seems to be whether or not one went to college. look I know we're not going to agree on here about what "working-class" is but can we all agree it's not that?

New York Magazine @nymag.com · 12d

Trump’s 2024 coalition has already fallen apart. Polls show Trump has lost the young, Black, and Latino supporters he attracted in 2024, leaving him with the same old white working-class base.

3

Reposted by Andrew Sabl

川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 12d

Horseshoe theory was originally created to explain anti-semitism on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately its original application still very much holds true.

5 57

Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · 12d

Remember (if it helps it make more sense) that New York City has a higher population than all but one Canadian province.

(That said, NYC mayors only run the schools only by the permission of the State legislature, which must be renewed every few years.)

1