Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jim Witkins

Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 3h

Are you fucking kidding me.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 16h

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 3h

We will need Nuremberg-like trials

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 5h

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

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Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 3h

He seems like a complete lunatic, but telling billionaires not to donate to charities and instead fund rightwing causes is serious stuff. Speculating about the antichrist also puts bigger targets on those he named. Guy is a super toxic danger to world. His views are anti humanity. Pro billionaire.

Lynda Will Not Obey @ivanasstaircam.bsky.social · 3h

Does anyone actually believe this crazy stuff about Peter Thiel or is it just part of the ongoing Russian pysop we’re in?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

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Melissa Ryan @melissaryan.bsky.social · 3h

I love what Portland is doing so much. Joy is resistance. Dancing animals are resistance. ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 5h

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 3h

Look with all due respect Trump is very unpopular and most Americans do not approve of pretty much anything he’s doing. Our political and media institutions are pathetic, filled with cowards looking for a boot to crawl under, but even despite pressure to comply Americans broadly do not condone this

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

Premium: The AI Bubble's promises are impossible. NVIDIA's customers are running out of money, GPUs die in 3-5 years, most 1GW data centers will never get built, and OpenAI's Abilene data center doesn't won't have the power it needs before 2028 - if it ever does.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-bubbl...

The AI Bubble's Impossible Promises

Readers: I’ve done a very generous “free” portion of this newsletter, but I do recommend paying for premium to get the in-depth analysis underpinning the intro. That being said, I want as many people ...

www.wheresyoured.at

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Larry Tenney @larrytenney.bsky.social · 4h

The majority of hardworking families hurt by cuts to Affordable Care live in Red Districts/States

Once again for those in the back...

🗣️ THE MAJORITY OF HARD WORKING FAMILIES HURT BY CUTS TO AFFORDABLE CARE LIVE IN RED DISTRICTS/STATES

arielwest1987.bsky.social @arielwest1987.bsky.social · 5h

Do you think people get it that Trump and GOP really do want to screw them?

Obamacare Enrollment by State: Most Enrollees Live in Republican Areas (Gift Article)

Millions of Americans depend on Obamacare. Here's where they live.

www.nytimes.com

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 3h

They have fired the staff of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, who are disease detectives that respond to outbreaks around the world.

I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous it is to dismantle our disease surveillance infrastructure.

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Heidi Kitrosser @heidikitrosser.bsky.social · 3h

ICE is now pulling from a pool of applicants who see televised images of sobbing children in handcuffs, or masked men in tactical gear roughing up Latino laborers, and don't recoil in horror.
The administration is also doing its best to send all the worst possible signals to existing agents, from every level of the hierarchy. The president ominously declares we are engaged in a "war within" - with domestic urban populations cast as the enemy combatants.

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Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 3h

For sure, but for the people paying attention it’s frustrating beyond words. You feel your country is full of ignorant, complacent citizens. None of this should be happening.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 3h

It’s actually about half that that approve. A big chunk of Trump’s support is weak support - people culturally or historically inclined to be Republican, but who feel cross-pressured enough to admit that their support is qualified. That’s a far cry from what he needs to install a dictatorship

Falsifiable Statement Enthusiast @ontariobanderas.bsky.social · 3h

44% of americans either approve of what he’s doing or are ambivalent

that is a massive condemnation of americans and completely proves that americans are not a freedom loving people, but are instead a bunch of nazis and morons

Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 3h

Was this not clear?! 🙃

GRobbins @ecorobbins.bsky.social · 3h

authoritarians operate “just by breaking things” instead of building new alternatives to the systems they decry.

Obama’s warnings about democracy fading increasingly sound directed toward the US | CNN Politics www.cnn.com/2025/10/11/p...

Obama’s warnings about democracy fading increasingly sound directed toward the US | CNN Politics

“We’re seeing politicians target civil society, undermine freedom of the press, weaponize the justice system. And no one is being spared. Even countries that thought they were immune from wholesale as...

www.cnn.com

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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 4h

“After Trump got his.”

A useful, replicable phrase.

Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 4h

After Trump got his Covid shot, he chose to fire the scientists protecting the rest of us from diseases.

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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 6h

More and more people are saying it:
SCOTUS is a reactionary monarchist vanguard against all the rest of the courts, who would prefer that law and their lives mean something www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders

www.nytimes.com

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✨ A Goddess has NO KING ✨ @the-goddess-speaks.bsky.social · 3h

Never give up HOP.🐸

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Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 3h

😬 bubble. 💥

Matthew Terrill @matthewterrill.bsky.social · 3h

I was already a hard AI-skeptic but this cements my long suspicion that there is no feasible path to anything close to return on invested capital for these data centers. Tech would need 15 to 25 times current AI revenues within the next 2-3 years just to break even. Not financially viable.

"I clearly hit a nerve in the industry, when judging by the number of individuals who reached out to chat," he wrote in an followup blog post. "In total, l've spoken with over two-dozen rather senior people in the datacenter universe, and there was an interesting and overriding theme to our conversations: no one understands how the financial math is supposed to work. They are as baffled as I am, and they do this for a living."
Kupperman's original skepticism was built on a guess that the components in an average Al data center would take ten years to depreciate, requiring costly replacements. That was bad enough: "I don't see how there can ever be any return on investment given the current math," he wrote at the time.
But ten years, he now understands, is way too generous.
" had previously assumed a 10-year depreciation curve, which I now recognize as quite unrealistic based upon the speed with which Al datacenter technology is advancing," Kupperman wrote. "Based on my conversations over the past month, the physical data centers last for three to ten years, at most."
In his previous analysis, Kupperman assumed it would take the tech industry $160 billion of revenue to break even on data center spending in 2025 alone. And that's assuming an incredibly generous 25 percent gross margin - not to mention the fact that the industry's actual Al revenue is closer to $20 billion annually, as the investment manager noted in his previous blog.

"In reality, the industry probably needs a revenue range that is closer to the $320 billion to $480 billion range, just to break even on the capex to be spent this year," Kupperman posited in his updated essay. "No wonder my new contacts in the industry shoulder a heavy burden - heavier than I could ever imagine. They know the truth."
Kupperman called that gulf between tech industry spending and actual revenue in 2025 "astonishing."
However, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. For example, how does it all shake out when we account for 2026, when hundreds of new data centers are expected to pop up?
"Adding the two years together, and using the math from my prior post, you'd need approximately $1 trillion in revenue to hit break even, and many trillions more to earn an acceptable return on this spend," he writes.
"If the economics don't work, doing it at massive scale doesn't make the economics work any better
- it just takes an industry crisis and makes it into a national economic crisis," he concludes.
Overall, the pessimists broadly agree: it's no longer a matter of if Al is massively overhyped, but when the whole thing comes crashing down.
More on Al hype: Data Shows That Al Use Is Now Declining at Large Companies

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Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 3h

Jesus christ

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@GottaLaff @gottalaff.bsky.social · 7h

Omg, how'd I miss this one?

Every bit of this. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 1d

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#TuckFrump @realtuckfrumper.bsky.social · 7h

This Nazi philosopher's playbook explains everything Donald Trump does

www.rawstory.com

This Nazi philosopher's playbook explains everything Donald Trump does

twp.ai

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Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 6h

Wow, that headline is brutal for the economy. I though Halloween was like the 2nd or 3rd most expensive holiday. People really morphed it into something big.

#TuckFrump @realtuckfrumper.bsky.social · 7h

Why So Many Americans Are Skipping Halloween in 2025

www.vice.com

Why So Many Americans Are Skipping Halloween in 2025

twp.ai

Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 7h

A lot of good takes here. www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Mike Johnson leads Republicans off a cliff

Gabe Fleisher /Wake Up To Politics: The Shutdown Isn’t Going How I Expected Republicans are taking the blame, and some are starting to crack. In the same vein, I doubt anyone will remember ...

www.dailykos.com

Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 16h

Or universities could say, no, FU.

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 18h

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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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 22h

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 1d

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

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Jim Witkins @jimwitkins.bsky.social · 17h

No wonder republicans are freaking out. #NoKings

Shannon (she/her) @ravenlenore.bsky.social · 20h

Didn’t you dare give me hope
substack.com/@authorkstar...

K. Starling (@authorkstarling)

UPDATE: No Kings protest count has risen to 2466!!! Here are the 10 states with the most locations: 10. Pennsylvania - 84 9. Florida - 85 8. Ohio - 87 7. Wisconsin - 91 6. Washington - 95 5. Tex...

substack.com

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 1d

George was just trying to get to work.

ICE pepper-sprayed him, dragged him from his car, locked him in a detention center, and placed him on suicide watch. He even missed his young daughter’s birthday in the process.

This man is a veteran and American citizen. Don't look away.

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 1d

"They put me on suicide watch and they put me in the cell, I'm naked, in like a hospital dress and just a concrete bed with like a mattress, like a thin mattress and, they leave the light on 24/7."

@timmiller.bsky.social talked to a veteran who ICE wrongly detained and brutalized

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Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social · 21h

I love this image.

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