Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sam Feldman

David Brauer @dbrauer.net · 2h

Your near-daily reminder that newspapers have business reporters, not labor reporters. www.startribune.com/a-new-kind-o...

Text with the word “hardship” is highlighted: Rising costs of food, rent and labor, which trickle down to menu prices, are turning off customers, restaurateurs are finding. The hardship is even starker within Minneapolis city limits, where the minimum wage is higher than in neighboring suburbs, and bigger government offices make navigating licenses, permits and
regulations even trickier

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 1h

I understand the argument here, but I've always felt that, as a legal matter, the term CSAM is underinclusive. Child pornography statutes can apply to materials that a minor makes on their own, like selfies, of their own volition. That can't be CSAM.

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 1d

This is an important fact!

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 1d

There is no statute of limitations for murder, including under UCMJ.

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 1d

Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 1d

There's a lot of talk about how a future Democratic administration could hold Trump administration officials for the various horrors they're perpetrating, which is tricky in some cases because there may not be an applicable criminal law. But there's very much a criminal law for intentional killings.

Amarnath Amarasingam @amaramarasingam.bsky.social · 1d

The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

SF Boswell @sfboswell.bsky.social · 1d

From Mamdani's speech. Pretty sure I know who these court watchers are.

If you are in New York City, and you're interested in doing court watch/ court accompaniments for immigration court, let me know. I'm at 26 Federal Plaza every week.

From Zohran Mamdani's speech: "I think of the pastor I sat with just a few weeks ago in East Flatbush. He told me how in September, a young woman from his congregation approached him after church. She told him she was facing a deportation order. He knew her well, and he knew the work she did with young people with disabilities in this city. She told him she couldn’t afford an attorney and had no one else. She asked if he would go with her to 26 Federal Plaza. He said yes.

Sitting in the courtroom, the judge told her to be ready to leave in the clothes she was wearing. He asked her if she had said goodbye to her family. She began to cry.

And then, in what felt like a miracle, the judge changed his mind. He decided he would put her Temporary Protected Status order before the deportation order. For a minute, it seemed as if the danger had passed.

From Mamdani's speech: "But the pastor knew that ICE stood outside. They did not care about a court order, because they do not care about the rule of law.

He turned to a few court watchers in the room and asked them to go outside first. He asked another man to hold the elevator. He picked up the young woman under her arms, opened the doors, rushed her past ICE agents into the elevator, and down into a waiting car before speeding off back to Brooklyn.

Through it all, her feet had never even touched the ground. He told me that it felt like the Underground Railroad. And still, he knew she was anything but safe."

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 1d

The article is just looking at prosecutors, who don't tend to have control over whether narcan is used.

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 1d

By historical standards, the current Supreme Court is pretty uninterested in criminal procedure, setting aside their substantive views on it. As @orinkerr.bsky.social points out, this Wednesday will be the first time SCOTUS has heard argument in a "real Fourth Amendment case" in a long time.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

"Thoughts on Case v. Montana and the Standards for the Emergency Aid Exception," new from me at Volokh. A deep dive for the law nerds. (Or at least kinda deep.)
reason.com/volokh/2025/...

Thoughts on Case v. Montana and the Standards for the Emergency Aid Exception

It's been a long, long time since the Supreme Court heard argument in a real Fourth Amendment case. This Wednesday,…

reason.com

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 4d

Who besides Obama was a con law professor? Bill Clinton?

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

Thomas Hansen @thomashansen.bsky.social · 13d

The famous guitar riff for Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" originated from a "circus melody" warm-up played by guitarist Slash during a 1986 jam session.
While Slash played the riff in a joking manner, bandmate Izzy Stradlin recognized its potential, and the band built the song around it.

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 6d

imagine tweeting so bad that a federal court is like "didn't ask don't care"

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 6d

"The views expressed by users @kaioken8026, @mrright8439, and @ZxZNebula ... do not alter the Court’s analysis."

The Court holds, based upon a full consideration of the context in which “Not Like Us” was published, that a reasonable listener could not have concluded that “Not Like Us” was conveying objective facts about Drake. The views expressed by users @kaioken8026, @mrright8439, and @ZxZNebula, and the other YouTube and Instagram commentators quoted in the Complaint, Am. Compl., ¶¶ 73-74, do not alter the Court’s analysis. In a world in which billions of people are active online, support for almost any proposition, no matter how farfetched, fantastical or unreasonable, can be found with little effort in any number of comment sections, chat rooms, and servers. “[T]hat some readers may infer a defamatory meaning from a statement does not necessarily render the inference reasonable under the circumstances.” Jacobus, 51 N.Y.S.3d at 336.

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 8d

An interesting range of interpretations here but what jumps out at me most is that sharp economic downturns seem to be associated, with some lag, with the far-right cannibalizing the center-right and thereby threatening democratic systems.

Some implications, perhaps, for democratic system design.

Marios Richards @mariosrichards.bsky.social · Aug 12

In our - very limited - historical experience of democracy,

(i) states rot from the centre-right
(ii) and it's contagious (via geography/powerful exemplar states)

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

Conor Sen @conorsen.bsky.social · 9d

The drop in international students this fall is almost entirely due to Asia. Inbound from Europe was mostly unchanged (UK was actually up a bit): www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 9d

NYC’s infamous & hellish jail barge, docked off the Bronx as a temporary measure to deal with overcrowded jails in 1992, finally closed in 2023. It’s now been sold for scrap metal and will be towed away to be disassembled this fall. Good riddance.

Scrapping NYC's 'Modern-Day Slave Ship'

The prison barge's sale to a Louisiana scrap metal company closes a grim chapter of New York City history. And more news to start your Wednesday.

hellgatenyc.com

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Reposted by Sam Feldman

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 10d

Time to repost a classic.

clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 11d

Or running for mayor and losing, right? I feel like that would have been enough to discourage him from trying again and attach the stench of loser-ness to him

Reposted by Sam Feldman

Felipe De La Hoz @felipedlh.bsky.social · 11d

No one really seems to care about this anymore but I think ICE detention centers turning away members of Congress is a good scandal to evaluate where we are right now. It is as clear as statutory language gets that members have the right to make unannounced visits; completely unequivocal 1/

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 12d

Amtrak Police has recently stepped up arrests at a gay cruising spot in NYC's Penn Station, handing at least one arrestee over to ICE, which really raises the question of whether Amtrak needs to have its own police force that's even less democratically accountable than other police forces.

Amtrak Police Arrests Surge at Penn Bathroom Cruising Spot

Federal law enforcement turned a person they arrested in the transit hub directly over to ICE.

www.thecity.nyc

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 13d

I think these are the kinds of questions @dianaadamsesq.bsky.social deals with

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 13d

Interesting decision on an issue of first impression: last month, a NY court recognized three adults, who live together as a family, as the legal parents of a baby. They jointly conceived the child using assisted reproductive technology: one provided the egg, one provided the sperm, & one gestated.

Matter of Baby D.K.N. (2025 NY Slip Op 25202)

nycourts.gov

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 14d

Can’t expect a UK publication to have heard about obscure American figures such as Martin Luther King or Bobby Kennedy

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 15d

He’s not, the article has nothing whatsoever to do with this, it’s very weird that the editor picked this title

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 16d

I agree this is a good piece. It doesn’t address the argument that huge concentrations of economic power lead to dangerous concentrations of political power, perhaps because that’s not a big part of Lynn’s book. I would be interested to see @mattbruenig.bsky.social discuss that too.

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 16d

The grand public ceremonies for the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge were scheduled for May 24, 1883. Everyone in New York was looking forward to it except the Irish (from
The Great Bridge by David McCullough):

Indeed, the only people who seemed displeased with the arrangements being made were some of the more militant Irish, who in mid-April had suddenly realized that the 24th happened also to be Queen Victoria’s birthday and so began angrily protesting the date selected. The Central Labor Union issued a statement calling on “all good men and women in both cities to remember this latest insult of the would-be aristocratic element in our midst.” The Tribune answered that “it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to fix upon a day that did not commemorate something or other unpleasant for Ireland,” and as the appointed day drew nearer, there was talk of Irish fanatics, “Dynamite Patriots,” attempting to blow up the bridge.

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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 18d

I’m generally hesitant about weaponizing the attorney discipline system against political opponents, but I do wonder whether this could be the basis for a bar complaint against Bondi or whoever in the DOJ hierarchy was directly responsible for this firing.

Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 19d

Any time someone asks a question like “so who should we put up a statute of instead?” or “who should we rename it after?” I think of Lt. Col. Petrov.

Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · 19d

Happy Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov Saves the World Day, everybody.

42 years ago today, Lt. Col. Petrov prevented an accidental nuclear war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisl...

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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