Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 5h

Great use. Can you ask it to do sentiment analysis in each one?

Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 6h

Really nice that NYC climate activists have their eyes on the prize. No not reducing emissions or getting rid of Republicans who voted to repeal the IRA or the fascists running our government that illegally canceled climate projects. Protesting Brad Lander(?) for not divesting from BlackRock.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 7h

Weird nothing from Jonathan Greenblatt

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 12h

One commenter replied, “based song choice,” which was liked by the Border Patrol account. Another commenter wrote, “if you know you know.”

Border Patrol Posts Instagram Propaganda Video Featuring Antisemitic Slurs

The video was pinned to Border Patrol's Instagram Reels.

gizmodo.com

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 8h

“Let’s hook ourself up to anger comparison machines that emphasize in group and out group content that make us angry and hate each other and see if that’s good for liberalism” turned out to be a bad strategy.

Corn Cob (Tariffed) @corncobanalysis.bsky.social · 8h

Very bad that the French government crisis has only led to polling increases for the far-right. At some point, we have to acknowledge that as bad as US Dem leadership is, every single developed country and quite a few "emerging" countries are dealing with center-left popularity issues

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Reposted by Joel Wertheimer

Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 10h

a lot of bsky progressives will tell you there's no point in addressing your worst issues head-on in adversarial contexts because "they'll say you hate the police anyway"

but what Zohran is doing here is Politics

you take the tough questions and you convince voters bsky.app/profile/atru...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10h

Mamdani: "Absolutely, I will apologize to police officers. Because this is the apology that I've been sharing with many rank and file officers. I apologize because of the fact that I'm looking to work with these officers, and I know that these officers put their lives on the line every single day."

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 11h

I think the most likely scenario where OAI drops some huge amount (and I'm skeptical tbh) is that Microsoft just swallows them up, negotiates a haircut on any huge liabilities with the counterparties, and no government intervention.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 11h

In 2000, Cisco was briefly the most valuable company in the world and fell by over 80% in about a year.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 11h

Within the Democratic Party, there is substantial Black political power that would persist without racial gerrymandering. There's a case that the VRA in a world where partisan gerrymandering is illegal, Section 2 weakens Black political power rather than strengthens it. But here we are.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 11h

The dirty secret is that if SCOTUS hadn't made partisan gerrymandering legal the case for Section 2's persistence would be different!

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 12h

Google is obviously best positioned, and can monetize through GCS and Youtube and makes its own chips, and has so much FCF it can not worry about having to swim back. Meta does seem boned.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 12h

ChatGPT has 800m DAUs and yes only 5% are paying customers but usually companies that much breadth and that many eyeballs on the internet can sell ads and make a lot of money. Figuring out how to do it well is obviously an issue but doesn't seem impossible.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 12h

I agree with a lot of this and Theo knows more than I'll ever know about machine learning, but I think OAI has a lot more potential even in the models stop improving no machine god capex oblivion world.

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 13h

of the majors, I think Google and Microsoft are well-positioned to stop capex if the profits come in too low to justify the investment and then buy back investor loyalty with stock buybacks. NVIDIA is probably in for a big correction because they can't do this. in this world OpenAI is dead.

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Reposted by Joel Wertheimer

Guy Berger @econberger.bsky.social · 12h

We don't have BLS data for the time being, but Morning Consult data shows no increase in the unemployment rate (on a Y/Y basis) in their first 2 shutdown data points.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 15h

Of course, this is a weird situation where we obviously know there's a ton of investment spending happening that does not require a lot of employment growth. Also earnings data looks like GDP. On some level we might just be in the dreaded jobless expansion.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 15h

Jason Furman's CEA when at White House put out a great piece on this obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/defaul...

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 17h

Rachael's description of RFK seems exactly right, “tallow-fried blood-and-soil nationalism." www.theargumentmag.com/p/rfk-jrs-de...

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

I feel like a lot of people view at as declasse or something to sue for defamation, but Eric Trump accused Smith of a serious crime and he should sue him for defamation.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Eric Trump: "We found out that Jack Smith was actually planting classified folders in Mar-a-Lago"

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

If Platner were outpolling I'd be all in, but she's a reasonably popular governor (i.e. she's known statewide, has been attacked, and people still like her) who is polling well against Collins. It's a pretty good starting point for a candidate!

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

And Mills is a really strong prog. Her fight with Trump in April was about her standing up for trans participation in sports! She’s just old and Schumer wants her which I don’t think is enough to dismiss her.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

I don't even know the answer I just really want to beat Susan Collins and I'd rather wheel out an 82 year old Mills with a staffer voting for her to vote against Pam Bondi SCOTUS justice and win than lose with the younger guy who I like.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

This is interesting research but I don't understand why it cuts against Mills running rather than Platner dropping? What if she's just the vibes candidate and people don't like it because she's old. 40% of Maine voters are 65 and older. They might just love her vibes. bsky.app/profile/jake...

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 1d

The research does suggest that competitive primaries hurt the party in high salience races like this one.

I'd bet that it's even bigger when party organizations like the DCCC fundraise for one side in the primary--half of the base will get really mad at that.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

Is she the one initiating the competitive primary?

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

In 2020, even in polling that dramatically overstated Gideon, Collins had a 13% favorable rating from Democrats and 48% from independents. In 2025 those numbers are significantly lower (not apples to apples but useful). I ignore her overall favorability because Republicans mostly hate her.

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

In what sense?

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Joel Wertheimer @wertwhile.bsky.social · 1d

If Maine really has shifted 4 points to the left since 2020 then just change in national environment and change in state partisanship alone would mean that the same Susan Collins might lose *to Sara Gideon* in 2026 let alone to a different candidate. And is Susan Collins the same?

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