Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 21h

Absolutely this. Obama prosecutes Bush officials for their crimes and we never even get Trump. The whole GOP sense that laws don’t apply to them goes away both for electeds and voters, who respect strength and expect accountability.

Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 21h

actually we would be better off as a country if the obama administration had prosecuted the bush administration. ditto biden to trump. we're in a mess in large part because democrats were too chickenshit to do the right thing.

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 21h

“What we don’t want to become the norm is where people think, ‘OK, there’s a new administration, now everyone in the old administration gets prosecuted. That’s an incredibly dangerous cycle where nobody wins.”

www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

2

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 23h

Apart from helping Comey's selective prosecution defense, this also means the president of the United States uses direct messages on Truth Social to communicate with cabinet officials.

I didn't know that, but we can be sure intelligence agencies all over the planet already did.

520 4.4K 12K

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Chris 🎃 DevPods.gg gamedev community @chrisdeleon.bsky.social · 1d

Portland protestor frog costume: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge pepper balls?

Morpheus from Matrix movie: No, Frog. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.

84 4.3K 15K

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 1d

Sit in your assigned seat, young man, or so help me…

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 1d

This is absolutely wild. I’m on a cross country flight. We are being diverted midway through to Denver. The reason? Some dude is sitting in the exit row who didn’t pay the $155 fee and he refuses to move back to his seat.

1 2

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 2d

That she was successful in her grift isn’t really a great response to people complaining she’s a grifter.

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 3d

all of the praise is like, entrepreneurial

1

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 3d

its funny how not a single actual journalist has been like, “actually she’s good at journalism”

36 290 3K

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 6d

Wooow…14 is a lot.

Joel Reinstein @joelreinstein.bsky.social · 6d

Israel murders doctors so much it's become routine

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 6d

MSF staff are universally understood to be engaged in an essentially sacred form of work. For a state to nonetheless continuously murder them is a testament to a truly unthinkable degree of depravity.

msf.org/msf-denounce...

1

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 6d

"The question is not one of policy or strategy. The question is one of character." www.liberalcurrents.com/democrats-mu...

Democrats Must Embrace War Mindset

We have exited a long period of peace and entered into a struggle not unlike war, in which all the old certainties have gone malleable and the future of the republic is at stake.

www.liberalcurrents.com

6 62 270

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 7d

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’

Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...

www.404media.co

770 7.1K 17K

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 6d

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Trump’s proposed “compact” with nine major universities “is extortion, plain and simple,” Erwin Chemerinsky writes in a guest essay. “It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education in America requires that every university reject it.”

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

There seems to be no limit to the president’s odious attempts to control higher education.

nyti.ms

19 70 190

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 7d

I’m no Newsom fanboy, but figuring out how to change the incentives of institutions considering capitulation is one of the big tasks of our moment.

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 7d

Gavin Newsom announces that any California university that caves to Trump and signs his “loyalty pledge” will be immediately defunded.

“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS.”

36 490 2.6K

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 7d

Somebody actually sat down and wrote these two sentences, one after another. www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...

38 280 820

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Sarah Myers West @smw.bsky.social · 8d

I've been feeling a little bit crazy reading the news lately about what's going on in the AI market and what it means for the economy at large. So I'm grateful I got to knit the threads together with @alixdunn.com last week.

Alix Dunn @alixdunn.com · 9d

I don’t want AI companies to get a bailout. I said this to @smw.bsky.social of @ainowinstitute.bsky.social last week, and she said they already were being bailed out. We sat down to talk about it in our first full-form video interview here:
youtu.be/WvN1wQ_CBlY?...

Are AI Companies Cooking the Books? w/ Sarah Myers West

YouTube video by The Maybe

youtu.be

1 5 7

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 8d

The wannabe mob boss in chief is targeting Schumer and Jeffries by withholding funds from NYC, saying “well I coulda let them go but you shut down the government so my hands are tied.” I’m so fucking sick of this guy.

Trump administration puts on hold $18 billion in funding for New York City infrastructure projects

President Donald Trump’s administration is putting a hold on $18 billion to fund a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey and the city’s expanded Second Avenue s...

apnews.com

1 2

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

I feel like autocorrect has been doing this to me so much the last few months, maybe a year. I don’t know why but I guess it tracks with literally everything just getting worse.

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

This is a great conversation.

Alix Dunn @alixdunn.com · 9d

I don’t want AI companies to get a bailout. I said this to @smw.bsky.social of @ainowinstitute.bsky.social last week, and she said they already were being bailed out. We sat down to talk about it in our first full-form video interview here:
youtu.be/WvN1wQ_CBlY?...

Are AI Companies Cooking the Books? w/ Sarah Myers West

YouTube video by The Maybe

youtu.be

3

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

Publish it? :)

1 1

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

Note also that I’m not making a claim that AI is totally useless, just like, in a normal administration, some of the individual changes Trumpworld wants to make might be worth evaluating.

But in both the private and public sectors, you can’t ignore the corporatism and fascism driving it.

2

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

And other than complain and point this out, it really just seems like there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it right now.

1

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

The AI business model is to worm it into as many facets of life that when we all finally realize it’s not actually that useful it’s too embedded to rip it all out. It’s like gerrymandering in that it’s a play by those in power to ensure they can never be ousted.

2 1 4

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

Everything just sucks. And the reasons are just the people in charge—private sector billionaires and government fascists—are all in lock step making it suck and working on ways to entrench the suckage permanently.

1

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

I wish I could engage here more intelligently on the AI policy issues I’m expert in, but they’re all so enraging, and so tied in with the fascist takeover of our country, it’s hard to say anything nuanced or interesting about it.

2 4

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 9d

"Democrats fight every day to make sure those beaten in the street by fascist thugs receive affordable health care, unless the regime decides they shouldn't."

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 9d

Schumer: "They know they're screwed if this debate turns into one about healthcare. And guess what? That's just what we're doing. We are making this debate a debate on healthcare."

3 25 90

Andrew Selbst @aselbst.bsky.social · 9d

Without legal authority, they’re assaults like any other.

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 9d

State prosecutors should take these cases and give them serious consideration.

Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 9d

Another violent attack by an ICE officer on a civilian at 26 Federal Plaza—this time on a journalist, who had to be carried out on stretcher.

Another attack on the First Amendment, our neighbors, and our democracy.

1 2 9

Reposted by Andrew Selbst

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 9d

BTW I do also think the first and last page, responding to a slightly menacing postcard that judge received, are worth everyone reading.

The judge is deliberately modeling democracy itself, in how he responds to a person who appears more committed to his favored president than to democracy.

Post card dated June 19, 2025
(On file in Chambers)

19 | June 2025
Trump has pardons and tanks . . . .
What do you have?

Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,
Alone, I have nothing but my
sense of duty.
Together, We the People of the
United States –- you and me --
have our magnificent Constitution.
Here’s how that works out in a specific case --

I hope you found this
helpful. Thanks for writing.
It shows you care. You
should.
Sincerely & respectfully,
Bill Young
P.S. The next time you’re in
Boston [the postmark on the card
is from the Philadelphia area]
stop in at the Courthouse and
watch your fellow citizens, sitting
as jurors, reach out for justice.
It is here, and in courthouses
just like this one, both state and
federal, spread throughout our land
that our Constitution is most vibrantly
alive, for it is well said that “Where a
jury sits, there burns the lamp of
liberty.”

27 120