Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

journalspectre.bsky.social @journalspectre.bsky.social · Sep 5

hammerandhope.org/article/trum...

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writing for @hammerandhope.bsky.social

Building an Opposition to Survive the Trump Era

Mass protests have demonstrated a wide range of disagreement with the Trump agenda. But we need smaller local and regional networks to build a more rooted, sustained opposition.

hammerandhope.org

1 5 6

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

journalspectre.bsky.social @journalspectre.bsky.social · Sep 5

Also reposting our piece by @nhold.bsky.social on related matters here.

spectrejournal.com/hands-off/

Hands Off! – Spectre Journal

Nate Holdren argues that both Trump and the legalistic opposition to his "lawlessness" are varieties of the same law-and-order politics.

spectrejournal.com

4 7

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Slackermom @slackermom.bsky.social · 19h

Was just at a neighborhood school at dismissal. Hundreds of people with whistles surrounding the school and stationed down every block making sure ICE doesn’t snatch anyone. The same is happening at all the schools around here. I love my neighborhood and I love Chicago.

26 790 3.6K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 17h

The historical parallels are glaring.

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 20h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

2 36 80

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Spencer Beswick @spencerbeswick.bsky.social · 17h

Academic freedom in Florida is dead, killed in the name of academic freedom. Florida and Texas are the vanguard, but this is coming soon to all red states.

From a colleague and comrade at Florida International University—a glimpse at the infuriating stupidity of descending rapidly into authoritarianism

A view from South Florida:

1. Last week, the administration removed all of the international flags hanging in the dining area of the student commons, replacing them with a single American flag. At a university called Florida International University.

2. International graduate students in my department have reported being turned away from the student health center. Student IDs, which have always sufficed, no longer do. Now they're requiring passports.

3. Our campus police are in the process of training to serve as ICE agents. Some of our international graduate students are now avoiding campus.

4. Faculty Senates on all public university campuses have been instructed to pass a resolution for free speech and academic freedom in the name of Charlie Kirk. There's no mention of the multiple tenured faculty currently suspended for extramural political speech at Florida Atlantic University.

5. Despite this rhetoric, the provost's office has been going into faculty's Canvas shells and changing language on syllabi without informing faculty. A colleague in my department had an academic freedom statement, adopted directly from our collective bargaining agreement, deleted from her syllabus by the provost's office.

6. FIU's president, formerly DeSantis' Lt Gov, chaired a campus memorial service for Charlie Kirk a couple of weeks ago, declaring that Jesus is our sovereign. And she gave a speech this week declaring that FIU stands with Israel, with Israeli state officials present on campus.

7. There's talk of state-mandated textbooks being forced on our Intro to Soc classes, though nothing is concrete yet.

8. Another colleague in my department was told he wouldn't be reimbursed for giving a talk at a conference in Colombia because, upon reviewing the full program, someone else gave a paper on trauma and collective memory in wartime Ukraine. The administrator reviewing the program deemed use of the words "trauma" and "Ukraine" to be illegal use of state funds for DEI. The decision was reversed when he contested it, but the very *fact* that we are dealing with this crap...

9. Campus police are harassing undergraduates flyering for a sanctuary campus campaign, taking down their names and ID numbers and claiming that it violates the code of conduct to flyer more than 20 feet from their official table. The regulation was changed from 50 feet to 20 feet this year, student organizers told me.

10. The state legislature has proposed a bill requiring all public universities in the state to name a campus road after Charlie Kirk or else lose state funding. We'll see if it passes.

1 8 11

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 18h

hey, white friends, in case you thought being white and normie lookin' was gonna keep you safe from our fascist secret police, it will not.

it matters that they are coming for ANYBODY

we must fight their stealing ANYONE

AND: all our liberations are, as always, intertwined.

Heartland Signal @heartlandsignal.bsky.social · 21h

BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook)

Follow @heartlandsignal for more.

4 100 240

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Adrian Daub @adriandaub.bsky.social · 18h

Huge congrats who helped make this happen you guys will be remembered as history's real heroes

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 19h

Found this just incredibly depressing, more than anything.

An easel sign reads, “UCLA
ATTENTION
No events are permitted in this area today. Per Policy 852, this location is NOT designated for public expression activities.
Individuals participating in an event or a public expression activity in this area are subject to discipline and/or arrest.
Scan for policy information.”

4 11 72

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 1d

There are too many quotable in this piece from Lyz. It's hilarious.

Putting your faith in Bari Weiss to uphold journalistic integrity is like hoping Kristi Noem will lose her injectionist’s number, or that the three ghosts of conspiracies past will visit Marjorie Taylor Greene and she will stop believing in Jewish space lasers, or the alien that is using Mitch McConnell’s body as its host will finally go back to the planet from whence it came, or that the Republicans will stop doing a Weekend at Bernies with Chuck Grassley, or that if we ask pretty pretty please Donald Trump will stop using the Constitution as toilet paper, or that RFK Jr. will just leave all that road kill alone. Basically, it’s like hoping that shit will fix the diaper.

23 56

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Jonathan Feingold @jpygold.bsky.social · 1d

MIT first out of the gate to reject the Compact. The (very obvi) right thing to do and (very obvi) smart PR.

Who's next?

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

2 3

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Tamara Kneese @tamigraph.bsky.social · 1d

Peter Thiel says the Antichrist is a Luddite btw www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Screenshot from WashingtonPost: “in the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil science,” Thiel said in his September 15 opening talk, according to the recordings. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It’s someone like Greta or Eliezer,” he said, referring to Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent critic of the tech industry’s approach to AI”

1 1 8

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING:

"Just landed."

Mark Bray confirms to me this morning that he and his family did, on the second attempt, make it out of the US and to Spain

www.wired.com/story/mark-b...

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US

Rutgers historian Mark Bray is trying to flee to Spain after after an online campaign from far-right influencers was followed by death threats. He was turned back at the airport on his first attempt.

www.wired.com

28 410 1.6K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Josh Moody @byjoshmoody.bsky.social · 1d

MIT rejects "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.
MIT prez wrote: it "would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution" and "is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone."
orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

33 470 1.8K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 1d

Its the modern day version of the white man's burden. Colonialism and empire building at its best, using the same arguments of empires of yore as Karen Hao so eloquently put it in her book, Empire of AI.

This IS the side to fight against, not the side to join in service of some larger goal.

2 19 100

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 1d

This isn't a "why can't we all get along" kumbaya moment. Its a moment to understand all the ways in which the people who created OpenAI, Anthropic etc claiming that their machine god will bring utopia, are the actual "existential risks" to humanity.

Raising billions of dollars to "save humanity."

2 54 190

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 1d

Also, a total lie that American students have been crowded out by international students. International students effectively subsidize the tuition of American students!

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 1d

Quite a feat to go from this to "and therefore universities must ban faculty and students from belittling conservative ideas"

14 210 1.1K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 1d

Friends and comrades made a crowdfunding page for my family.

It’s really hard to post this. I know that there are a lot of other important issues asking for money but things have gotten to the point where we need to open ourselves up to your support.

Thank you for your consideration.

"Help us leave safely" on FreeFunder

Click here to support "Help us leave safely" by Dara on FreeFunder!

www.freefunder.com

45 730 1.7K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Fight For A Union @fightforaunion.bsky.social · 1d

Chicago and Portland showing us how it’s DONE!!

190 2.8K 11K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · 1d

If this ceasefire happens - and I hope it does - Western media will talk about 'peace'. This will be inaccurate. What they will mean is 'quiet', a reversion to the background level of violence that Palestinians have faced for decades. Peace can only come with the end of the occupation and apartheid.

3 97 240

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Fred Little @doclittle.bsky.social · 1d

Greetings from Athens, Greece, where far-right Israeli-aligned State Paramilitary Units are violently attacking local residents engaged in anti-genocide protests.

Harms Committed @harmscommitted.com · 1d

"5,000 demonstrators marched through Athens' city center to the Israeli Embassy."

"Police attacked the crowd, using flashbang grenades, pepper spray, and tear gas."

"[D]ozens of indiscriminate arrests and [..] limbs were broken."
#Greece #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Policing #Incarceration #Genocide

Demonstrators Protest in Front of the Israeli Embassy in Greece, Police Violently Attack Crowd - UNICORN RIOT

Around 5,000 demonstrators marched through Athens' city center to the Israeli Embassy in solidarity with the Palestinian people on Oct. 7, 2025.

unicornriot.ninja

4 8

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

CollinCountyDems @collincountydems.bsky.social · 1d

This is terrifying!

ICE breaks into this woman’s car in the pick-up line at West Loop Elementary school in Chicago and detains her before she can pick her kids up from school. (They were eventually let go after showing their documents)

This is Trump’s America.

200 1.2K 2.2K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Are we great yet?

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on anti-fascist groups, is fleeing to Spain with his family due to death threats that stem from a campaign by Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired, falsely labeling him as an antifa member.

Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats

An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at New Jersey’s flagship state university is moving his family overseas.

apnews.com

16 260 850

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not autistic, just a parent to an autistic kid w/ fairly significant support needs, but I personally find it very frustrating to see so many people fixated on preventing, reducing, or “curing” autism and neurodiversity instead of talking about inclusion + getting folks whatever support they need

9 120 1.1K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 2d

Spoke with cnn while sitting on the floor of my hotel room hallway bc my family were asleep in the other room.

6a E Mark.mp4 - 6a E Mark - Frame.io

next.frame.io

130 650 2.8K

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 1d

I don't even know anymore man

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

50 96 780

Reposted by Eli Meyerhoff

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 2d

It is simply accurate to call this regime segregationist.

Trump Fires Black Officials From an Overwhelmingly White Administration

www.nytimes.com

27 450 1.5K