Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Taoskie

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 9h

What an emblem of the billionaire class—descending on a peaceful city in a private jet on the horn to NYT asking for the place to be invaded by federal authorities because the rent-a-cops you employ for a week to harass a few junkies outside the convention center cost too much.

Mr. Benioff spoke as his annual Dreamforce conference is set to begin Tuesday in downtown San Francisco, bringing 50,000 visitors to the city. He is scheduled to deliver a keynote address about the benefits of "agentic enterprise," a business model in which humans and artificial intelligence bots work together.
Speaking by telephone from his private plane en route to San Francisco, he lamented that he has to pay for nundreds of off-duty law enforcement officers to help patrol the convention area and said that San Francisco needed to "re-fund" the police.
The city never actually "defunded" its police force, and San Francisco's violent crime rates are below those in many other U.S. cities.
But San Francisco has struggled to recruit and keep officers, and it still has problems with lower-level crimes and open-air drug use, especially in neighborhoods like the Tenderloin near City Hall. It has about 1,500 police officers, and Mr. Benioff says it ne → another thousand.

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DrDinD.bsky.social @drdind.bsky.social · 2h

🧵Billionaire Marc Benioff built a tower that dominates the San Francisco skyline like a giant dick. Apparently he aspires to be a giant dick himself. Crime is way down in San Francisco. No need for Trump to send troops and spread authoritarianism.

Salesforce Tower, visible all over San Francisco and known affectionately as the giant penis.

NYT headline

Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco

Mr. Benioff, the Salesforce C.E.O. and owner of Time magazine, once supported Hillary Clinton and a business tax for homeless services. Now he’s fully behind Donald Trump

Table of crime rate change from 2024 to 2025 in a number of American cities. San Francisco dropped 14% in violent crime and 29% in property crime.

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Taoskie @taoskie.bsky.social · 2h

That's quite the punchline.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 4h

New — Video shared with me shows ICE officers in DC detaining a man on Friday.

Bystander filming asks man for his name. ICE agent lies and says he’s not allowed to speak to him “by law” and another says “We’ve arrested American citizens for being too close…If he gets any closer, put him in cuffs.”

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 7d

"The length of our analysis should not be mistaken for a sign that the fundamental question these cases raise about the scope of birthright citizenship is a difficult one. It is not."

Our shitbag SCOTUS may end up reversing this, but there's life, and respect for democracy, in the US judiciary yet.

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 7d

BREAKING: The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 100-page opinion -- says it is unequivocally, lopsidedly easy to determine that the Trump administration's view of birthright citizenship is wrong.

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 2d

The literal reading of this statement is Pam Bondi is planning extrajudicial executions of random protesters.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 2d

My gosh. After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly "carrying drugs," the US Attorney General says "Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa."

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Mike W @gekido.bsky.social · 19h

so Google just added a bunch (more) AI bullshit to Chrome

Go through these steps to disable it:

opus.ing/posts/how-to...

#chrome #aibullshit

How to Remove AI From Your Google Chrome Experience - Opus

Follow these steps to resist the AI-pocalypse in your everyday web browsing.

opus.ing

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 21h

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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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 8h

More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 19h

We can have democracy or we can have billionaires.
We cannot have both.

NYT: Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco (gift link)

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

Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco

www.nytimes.com

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 21h

His slip of the tongue reveals who’s really in charge. trib.al/mIvP0yE

“Illinois governor says we’re provoking actions that are unlawful,” Miller said on CNN. “If I put federal law enforcement and National Guard into a nice sleepy Southern town, is anyone gonna riot?”

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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 10h

153 kids are in quarantine in South Carolina.

118 kids in Minneapolis.

This is what happens when we ignore the science.

When we stop vaccinating, long eradicated diseases come back.

The kids deserve better than this. Measles can disable. It can kill. And it’s completely preventable.

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks

At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. "Expect more," one expert said.

www.nbcnews.com

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Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 10h

A new facet to David Graeber's idea of "Bullshit Jobs": work that uses AI without consideration. If you think using AI without doing all of the work to check the outcome, you implicitly consider what you're doing to be bullshit.

(See also: every company deploying AI in customer service.)

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 11h

“Deloitte “misused AI and used it very inappropriately: misquoted a judge, used references that are non-existent,” Pocock told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I mean, the kinds of things that a first-year university student would be in deep trouble for.””

👀

fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...

Deloitte was caught using AI in $290,000 report to help the Australian government crack down on welfare after a researcher flagged hallucinations | Fortune

The updates “in no way impact” the report’s findings and recommendations, the Big Four firm said.

fortune.com

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Jason Haslam @jasonhaslam.ca · 18h

Dearest Martha,

The front lines in Portland remain bleak. Today the local coffee-shop/bookstore/meditation space ran out of oat milk so I had to have soy in my favourite new latte.

And the frogs, Martha. Oh god the frogs.

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Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 17h

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 1d

Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of AI are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future.

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction

In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.

wapo.st

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 1d

“Uncritical adoption of AI, will inevitably create people without critical thinking, and this may be a feature - not a bug, as it represents an attack on human agency itself.”

collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

EXCLUSIVE — DHS Acting General Counsel sent out a memo Wednesday to all Federal Protective Service staff (the sub-agency that guards federal buildings) letting officers know they could take any action necessary "in the vicinity" federal property to protect themselves.

The Handbasket reports:

DHS top lawyer says 'no legal barrier' to actions officers can take to defend federal property

In a memo obtained exclusively by The Handbasket, Federal Protective Service (FPS) officers were given free rein.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 19h

ICE left David, a 17-year-old boy, stranded on the side of Interstate 20 after pulling over his immigrant father, Hector, in Mississippi.

David began running in the scorching sun after the car and watched as it disappeared from sight—soon headed to a Louisiana ICE prison.

Here's their story.

ICE Stranded a 17-Year-Old on I-20 After Arresting His Father. The Mississippi Dad Now Faces Deportation.

A 17-year-old watched as ICE arrested his immigrant father, Hector, on I-20 in June. The family faces mounting legal fees and the risk of deportation.

www.mississippifreepress.org

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Taoskie @taoskie.bsky.social · 10h

We all need to be like this man.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18h

My first thought was “wow I hope this guy didn’t give out his name because he could absolutely be charged” and yup, he is correct to stay anonymous.

This man’s account is shocking. His neighbors’ situation is shocking. The entire Chicago raid is shocking.

On the other side was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for his help.
"I wasn't planning on letting her stay, but I didn't know what the hell was going on," the man said of his Venezuelan migrant neighbors. But he quickly relented. The little girl was inconsolable and hid under his bed.
"I didn't want them to take her," said the man, who didn't want to be named because he fears he'll be targeted by federal authorities for his actions.
"I gave her my bedroom, and I just told her,
'Just stay there. Don't open, don't, shh, just stay quiet," he recalled telling the mom and daughter as he choked back tears.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Q: How many layoffs have you authorized?

TRUMP: It'll be a lot. And it'll be Democrat-oriented.

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Taoskie @taoskie.bsky.social · 11h

Not holding my breath on that one...

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22h

Vought promised to put federal employees “in trauma” - consider this, HHS employees are reading in the news about layoffs but most are not allowed to check their emails to see if they are affected because of the shutdown.

Dorit Reiss @doritreiss.bsky.social · 1d

Unknown layoffs are happening at HHS. Unknown in terms of who and which agencies.

www.statnews.com/2025/10/10/h...

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HHS employees to be fired as White House enacts mass terminations it blames on shutdown

Federal health employees are being fired as the White House makes good on a promise to terminate federal employees en masse because of the shutdown.

www.statnews.com

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Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 22h

NEW: The private jet that flew 10 shackled migrants to an Eswatini prison last weekend is owned by Israeli-American billionaires with close ties to Trump.

It’s oligarchs all the way down.

My first for @zeteo.com:

zeteo.com/p/this-famil...

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JeffTrnka @jefftrnka.bsky.social · 22h

Jesse talks about the New York Times reporting related to the wild numbers of Black people who Donald Trump is purging from his administration and replacing with mediocre White people.

youtu.be/aYjvXKTuiJ8?...

Donald Trump Has FIRED RECORD NUMBERS OF BLACK PEOPLE in Whitest Administration Ever!!!

YouTube video by Jesse Dollemore

youtu.be

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