Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Charlie

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 3h

Dems floated a narrow bill to fund the military, which can’t move because the House isn’t in session. Meanwhile, DoD is now going to spend funds not appropriated by Congress to ensure military paychecks continue.

POTUS now both commands and provisions the military. Unconstitutional and SO dangerous

The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.
A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC
News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1h

AI has lost the dunce vote. It’s over

Nate Silver
@NateSilver538 • 5h
•.°
I'm just one person, and my programming needs are somewhat unusual (building various kinds of statistical forecasting models). But I'm just not seeing the consistent productivity gains from LLMs that I would have expected if you'd asked me 6 months ago.

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David Noll @david.noll.org · 4h

Ladies and gentlemen, the meritocracy

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 20h

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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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 10h

The message must be "No bailouts for billionaires." AI is not too big to fail. And should it fail, the richest men in the world should be held accountable and take responsibility for their failures.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 4h

seems like a non-insignificant percentage of rage against the machine's fanbase are young republican men driving SUVs bopping their head to anti-oil, pro-immigrant songs thinking the lyrics are about how they wish their suburban parents would get off their back

Tom Morello tweets: "Fascinating that all those “don’t tread on me” posers and their AR-15’s are nowhere to be seen and government tyranny is instead being opposed by a guy in an inflatable frog suit."

Someone named Manny replies: "@grok
why do some people say Tom Morello and band mates are RAGE FOR THE MACHINE and not against ?"

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Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 13h

What Thiel is saying about tax havens = what Altman is saying about copyright:

"I can't be rich unless you let me steal from you."

This is how Broligarchs differ from oligarchs of yore: the latter tried to hide their thievery; the Broligarchs trumpet their entitlement to steal as a natural right.

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 13h

“Are these tariffs ‘Liberation Day 2’?” Or will we get another ‘TACO Tuesday?’

This is how we all talk now. Absurd. 🌮

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 14h

Tock-tick.

The Clock Is Ticking

Trump and Putin face a reckoning

open.substack.com

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Charlie @reanderthal.bsky.social · 22h

It's easier for the first yeast in the fermenter to raise 5 little yeasts on a single earners' salary...

Charlie @reanderthal.bsky.social · 22h

What if we have reached late stages simply because we are approaching the carrying capacity afforded by our current energy systems? (Peak oil?) Everything is just easier when you have energy to spare. We should expect things to get harder, even if individual specifics seem bewilderingly complex.

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 23h

An executive who cannot be removed but whose power is fenced in is one thing. An invulnerable executive whose power has expanded to encompass nearly all of daily life begins to look like a monarch with a defined term. www.thebulwark.com/p/is-this-wh...

Is This What ‘Late-Stage Democracy’ Looks Like?

What if the Constitution *is* a suicide pact?

www.thebulwark.com

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Reposted by Charlie

Starfleet Intelligence SCREAM Analyst @daxarian.bsky.social · 1d

“The T-600s had rubber skin. Bright, day glo green coloring. We spotted them easy. But these are new. They look like frogs. Slime, realistic croaking, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait til he moved on you before I could zero him.”

ellie lockhart (she/they) @eleanor.lockhart.contact · 1d

2025. Even then there were barely any stores left. even though the worst had not yet come to pass, antifa supersoldiers already ravaged the land, clad in inflatable frog suits. all I can remember from those days - frogs, fire, and ash

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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Reposted by Charlie

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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David Noll @david.noll.org · 1d

i just got back from Antifa headquarters.

they're making an INSANE new set of demands.

first, the radical left is saying, "no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law."

David Noll @david.noll.org · 1d

interesting that if you say the constitution creates a separation of powers systems in which there are no kings, they think you hate america

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Emmer: "This is about one thing and one thing alone -- to score political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in DC next week."

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Reposted by Charlie

JK @miniver.bsky.social · 3d

I just realized that the Portland Antifascist Frog has singlehandedly reclaimed amphibians from the “alt right”. Yet another way he is a Great American.

Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 4d

Incredible (via www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...)

A group of apparent armed agents assemble at the end of a street, as seen from the perspective of a person in inflatable frog costume, their frog’s eyes dominating the foreground. The Ice facility in downtown Portland on Monday. Photograph: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/AFP/Getty Images

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Reposted by Charlie

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 2d

The less elite nepotism we have in politics associated or adjacent to Democratic politics the better. #MEPolitics

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 2d

Spotted: Angus King introducing Ron Wyden to his son Angus King III, who is running for Governor

Angus King, an old white man with a moustache, standing next to Angus King III, a younger white man in a black suit, next to Ron Wyden, an older white man in a charcoal blazer

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Charlie @reanderthal.bsky.social · 2d

Have said this before. I think the most plausible optimistic scenario I can believe is an alliance with libertarian types to cripple the presidency back into its original role as administrator

Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 3d

This is really the quintessential failure of progressives, and the area where I think libertarians actually had a point (stopped clock and all): we have such a bad habit of getting fixed on the good things we want to do with government power that we forget that sometimes evil people get ahold of it

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 3d

as Goldsmith points out, it's kind of insane no one thought that reigning this in during the Biden years was a good idea:

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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 2d

I'm sorry but it's just wild we are in the middle of a government shutdown and the House Republicans are REFUSING TO SHOW UP FOR WORK so they can protect billionaire pedophiles and billionaire tax breaks.

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 2d

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

NN: Dems say you won't swear in Grijalva bc you don't want her vote on Epstein

JOHNSON: No. It's scheduling

NN: But there have been Rs sworn in during pro forma sessions

MJ: Only reason was bc they flew in their family

NN: So if she flies in her family you'd do it?

MJ: Again, it's a distraction

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d

thank you brett kavanaugh!

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 4d

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Reposted by Charlie

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 4d

In none of these cases, when the federal government was openly and with good reason using military force, did Eisenhower or JFK or LBJ say "ok, we're sending the Vermont National Guard to Mississippi to handle this." That would have been understood as insane, it wasn't even considered.

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Gareth Watkins @garethwatkins.bsky.social · 3d

The way that you could absolutely destroy Donald Trump would be to have a very large, very muscular man shout that he's a low-IQ sissy who likes showtunes and the YMCA, with slurs.

The way that you could destroy Stephen Miller is to have a Muppet dump Nickelodeon slime on his head.

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Charlie @reanderthal.bsky.social · 3d

We need to win a fight against these establishment types. I think this fight helps an insurgent nominee in the general.

Also, @jordanwood.bsky.social is running too. Worked with Katie Porter, which is pretty cool.

Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 3d

77-year-old Maine Gov. Janet Mills has apparently been coaxed into jumping into the Maine Senate race, challenging Graham Platner in a Democratic primary.

The 40-year-old Platner has become a favorite of progressives and Democrats wanting a more muscular response to Trump. He has raised millions.

Charlie @reanderthal.bsky.social · 4d

Am I going to be spending $600 or something on a purposefully limited phone with e-ink (and maybe a rotary dial??) or (more likely) am I going to be crippling my phone with duct tape and tinfoil?

Or maybe we'll get a land line

Techni-Calli @illleavenow.bsky.social · 4d

Great news! Your spyware is about to stop pretending you get to choose when it spies on you!

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 4d

“Google has filed a patent for a face-detection activation system that would eliminate the need for ‘Hey Google’ hotwords by automatically triggering its Gemini AI assistant when a user's phone detects their face nearby.” 😩