Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 2h

Someone’s unclear about the meaning of “supreme” and how law works.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."

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BronSays @bronsays.bsky.social · 2h

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests."

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people

Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’

www.theguardian.com

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 2h

The US Supreme Court is making up facts to further judicial tyranny and thus MAGA tyranny. Nothing about the court is more disturbing.

slate.com/news-and-pol...

Brett Kavanaugh Is Leading the Supreme Court’s Embrace of Alternative Facts

It is striking that many early-stage SCOTUS orders have either reversed or supplanted factual findings of lower courts.

slate.com

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Dab Zombieson @thedansimonson.bsky.social · 4h

Ellison has also been talking about creating mass surveillance, so "everyone will be on their best behavior." It's grotesque and Orwellian.

fortune.com/2025/09/28/l...

Larry Ellison once predicted 'citizens will be on their best behavior' amid constant recording. Now his company will pay a key role in social media | Fortune

“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on,” Ellison said last year.

fortune.com

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Anthony L. Fisher @anthonylfisher.bsky.social · 4h

Politico is recommending a column by a guy who literally blogged for Richard Spencer's original alt-right site--but who has since been rehabilitated as a very serious political commentator--on why we need to bring back "internet gatekeepers."

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Fritzie Hall @fritzandtheoscars.bsky.social · 23h

I always go back to this scene. Not because Diane Keaton portrays her fear so vividly but because her understated reaction to seeing Warren Beatty is able to say more about love and closeness, about feeling relaxed and secure in somone's presence, than probably any other in movie history

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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 5h

The "plaintiffs" seeking to dismantle the Voting Rights Act (in a case this week at SCOTUS) include:

-a member of the "Trumpettes," a group of women who ardently support for the president
-a retiree who said he didn’t remember signing up to be involved in a lawsuit.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

One woman made national news when she protested the Covid-19 vaccine at her local City Council. Another is a member of the Trumpettes, a group of women united in their ardent support for the president. A third is a retired grocery salesman who said he didn’t remember signing up to be involved in a lawsuit.

The three are among the 12 Louisiana voters at the center of a case set to be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday that could gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the landmark civil-rights-era legislation.

In January 2024, the group filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional district map, arguing state lawmakers had discriminated against them as white voters by impermissibly taking race into account when they drafted the map after the 2020 census.

Since then, they’ve been referred to in court filings merely as the “non-African-American” voters.

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Dab Zombieson @thedansimonson.bsky.social · 4h

Gave a talk on AI hype Friday, but one of the things I learned during was that Sora 2 collects biometric data on its participants to generate videos. You basically scan your face.

OpenAI has been hungry for biometric data for a while, or at least Sam Altman has. why? 1/

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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 1d

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY: Make your voices heard. Join us in a peaceful protest across our country against the most corrupt, deceitful & criminal Administration in U.S. History. We say NO KINGS, NO CROOKS, NO SPRAY-TAN CONMAN! 👎

Check for a location near you at: www.nokings.org

#BeThere 👍

No Kings

As the president escalates his authoritarian power grab, the NO KINGS non-violent movement continues to rise stronger. We are united once again to remind the world: America has No Kings and the power ...

www.nokings.org

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1d

Plus, the whole violations of human rights

The David Pakman Show @thedavidpakmanshow.bsky.social · 1d

Kristi Noem prayed over federal agents who were about to go snatch people off the streets. When a government official acting in her official capacity as the Secretary of Homeland Security leads a prayer before a federal operation you run right into the First Amendment's Establishment Clause

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flux.community @flux.community · 1d

Democrats must make Trump's violence central to their case against him

There is no beating the president and MAGA without a strategy for defeating the political violence they are inflicting on American society

Via @jtccarroll.bsky.social: plus.flux.community/p/democrats-...

Democrats must transform Trump's threats and violence against Americans into a decisive cudgel against him

There is no beating the president and MAGA without a strategy for defeating the political violence they are inflicting on American society

plus.flux.community

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 1d

For weeks, anti-immigration agents have tossed smoke bombs at people in cars, shot so-called “less lethal” weapons like rubber bullets and pepper balls, and deployed a staggering amount of tear gas, sometimes unleashing it almost casually into streets crowded with passersby. trib.al/h31tf5z

Trump Is Waging War on an American City

The real threat to people in Chicago (and Los Angeles and Portland) is our maniacal president.

trib.al

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1d

I’m imagining one university taking the compact offer, calling to Department of Education to accept, and the phone just rings.

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1d

I’m imagining one university taking the compact offer, calling to DoE to accept, and the phone just rings.

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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 1d

The scale of this week’s crypto crash is stunning. $16.6B in losses due to margin calls on 1.6M accounts averages to $10,000 lost per person betting on crypto always going up.

A lesson for many on the downside of borrowing money to gamble.

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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com · 1d

Short Thread...

It's been a full week since DHS issued a press release claiming TEN CARS ambushed them—and have since:
•charged ZERO of those alleged 10 drivers
•arrested ZERO of those alleged 10 people
•filed ZERO reports of alleged property damage, &
•offered ZERO evidence of their claim

1/4

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David Darmofal @daviddarmofal.bsky.social · 1d

The Trump-Vance administration blocking Catholics from receiving the Eucharist. The Trump-Vance war on Catholics and Catholicism.

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 1d

As the procession reaches Broadview, priests have been denied access to ICE detention facility in order to bring the Eucharist to detainees.

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Sara Partridge, Ph.D. @sarapartridge.bsky.social · 1d

There are reports that the *entire* office of special education at the US Dept of Education has been cut. These hardworking folks ensure kids with disabilities get equal access to a quality education.

America’s children deserve better than this.

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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 1d

RIFs at CDC.

Destroying the Epidemic Intelligence Service, NCIRD, NCIPC & a dozen other areas/divisions/branches will cause enormous harm and suffering to America, and indeed to the whole world.

Call your Reps about it.

Then call them again.

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John Donegan @donegan.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Antifa leader Habeas Corpus has been arrested in Portland.

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Jason Dogwood 💙 🏳️‍🌈 🌱 @jasondogwood.bsky.social · 1d

On this day in 1991 Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Few believed her claims then, not enough people believed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and too few listened to Kamala Harris in 2024. See a pattern? Believe women, burn the patriarchy.

#BelieveWomen

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1d

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 1d

A classic case of irresponsible both-sidesism from the NYT. The story is that Trump and MAGA propagandists are lying about Portland to incite a conflict, not that there are different views of the matter.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 1d

Updates to this thread:

Eugene Volokh emphasizes that even when the federal gov't is allowed to require that *its grants* not be used to express a particular message or viewpoint, it can't constitutionally tell universitites what viewpoints to enforce w/*their own* funds raised elsewhere.

The Proposed "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" and the First Amendment

[1.] There's a lot going on in the Trump Administration's proposed "Compact," and there's a lot that we might want…

reason.com

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 1d

@walterolson.bsky.social at the Cato Institute emphasizes the same thing that struck me so much: the enforcement mechanism in this compact. He calls it a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

(The DOJ is standing there at the button; the university is the one whose neck is below the guillotine.)

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 1d

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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