Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 11h

“Video of the arrest taken by an onlooker showed ICE agents handcuffing Brockman after they forced her to lie on her stomach. As the agents were detaining her, Brockman told the onlooker her name and asked him to let her employer, WGN, know what had happened to her.”

Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 11h

“A longtime TV news produced at Chicago-based station WGN on Friday was forcefully pinned to the ground and then hauled off in an unmarked van by masked federal agents.” www.commondreams.org/news/ice-chi...

ICE Pins Chicago TV News Producer to the Ground, Hauls Her Off in Unmarked Van | Common Dreams

WGN producer Debbie Brockman forcefully arrested by ICE agents in Chicago. Video shows aggressive tactics used in the arrest.

www.commondreams.org

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 11h

“I’m worried about my community… I’m out here in a frog costume to show how ridiculous the notion that we’re violent terrorists is, and showcase how that narrative is wrong…”

Serious Q: is it too late to give this dude the Nobel Peace Prize? 🐸 🏆

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 11h

That's wild. If you know anything about ICE agents, looking scared, changing your demeanor, etc are eminently reasonable reactions

thematthill.bsky.social @thematthill.bsky.social · 3d

Wow. Greg Bovino admits on camera that his agents can detain people if you look scared, change your demeanor, or grip a steering wheel too tight.

As his unmasked agents walk around with large guns to scare you, they may arrest you just for that — even if you're a U.S. citizen.

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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 11h

wE aRe FiRiNg WoRkErS

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 11h

The Trump administration is recalling some furloughed workers to publish a key inflation report, showing just how critical the data is for a variety of government services.

Why the Next CPI Report Is Important for Social Security Checks, Bonds and 401(k)s

Furloughed federal workers are being recalled to issue the monthly inflation report that was due out next week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it would publish the data on Oct. 24.

on.wsj.com

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

Every single AI data center is a toxic investment, with most of its value tied up in GPUs that will be multiple generations behind by the time these things turn on - and then die in 3-5 years.

All to build for AI demand that doesn't exist.
edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...

Actually, wait - how long do GPUs last, exactly? Four years for training? Three years? The A100 GPU started shipping in May 2020, and the H100 (and the Hopper GPU generation) entered full production in September 2022, meaning that we’re hurtling at speed toward the time in which we’re going to start seeing a remarkable amount of chips start wearing down, which should be a concern for companies like Microsoft, who bought 150,000 Hopper GPUs in 2023 and 485,000 of them in 2024.
Alright, let me just be blunt: the entire economy of debt around GPUs is insane.
Assuming these things don’t die within five years (their warranties generally end in three), their value absolutely will, as NVIDIA has committed to releasing a new AI chip every single year, likely with significant increases to power and power efficiency. At the end of the five year period, the Special Purpose Vehicle will be the proud owner of five-year-old chips that nobody is going to want to rent at the price that Elon Musk has been paying for the last five years. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the rental prices for H100 GPUs that went from $8-an-hour in 2023 to $2-an-hour in 2024, or the Silicon Data Indexes (aggregated realtime indexes of hourly prices) that show H100 rentals at around $2.14-an-hour and A100 rentals at a dollar-an-hour, with Vast.AI offering them at as little as $0.67 an hour.
This is, by the way, a problem that faces literally every data center being built in the world, and I feel insane talking about it. It feels like nobody is talking about how impossible and ridiculous all of this is - it’s one thing that OpenAI has promised one trillion dollars to people - it’s another that large swaths of that will be spent on hardware that will, by the end of these agreements, be half-obsolete and generating less revenue than ever.
Think about it - let’s assume we live in a fantasy land where OpenAI is somehow able to pay Oracle $300 billion over 5 years. Said money is paying for access to Blackwell…

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 11h

Not only is this rude, inappropriate, partisan, costly, and illegal, it reveals the fundamentally anti-American idiocy of this administration’s policy of handing over to China the most important economic sector of the 21st century.

Jamie Dupree @jamiedupree.bsky.social · 9d

Next move from OMB - canceling $8 billion in clean energy funds. You will note, all of the projects are in states led by Democrats

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11h

Doubt.

CJ Ciaramella @cjciaramella.bsky.social · 11h

UPDATE: In emailed statement to me / @reason.com, DHS alleges that WGN-TV producer Debbie Brockman "threw objects at Border Patrol’s car and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer."

Screencap of email from DHS public affairs: Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin:

“U.S. Border Patrol was conducting immigration enforcement operations and when several violent agitators used their vehicles to block in agents in an effort to impede and assault federal officers. In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers used their service vehicle to strike a suspect’s vehicle and create an opening. As agents were driving, Deborah Brockman, a U.S. citizen, threw objects at Border Patrol’s car and she was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.

“This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers. These attacks highlight the dangers our law enforcement officers face daily—all while receiving no pay thanks to the Democrats’ government shutdown.”

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Matthew Cortland (they) @matthewcort.land · 11h

This is a violation of a federal court order, it's also *really* incompetent technique

Heartland Signal @heartlandsignal.bsky.social · 12h

BREAKING: Masked Border Patrol agents aggressively arrested WGN video producer Debbie Brockman in Lincoln Square Friday morning, supposedly for "obstructing justice." (Video via Josh Thomas on Facebook)

Follow @heartlandsignal for more.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 11h

Knowing who to be mad at truly is praxis.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 11h

Want an introduction to digital surveillance, and how to protect your communications with others? Check out our Surveillance Self-Defense write-up. ssd.eff.org/en/module/c...

Communicating With Others

Telecommunication networks and the internet have made communicating with people easier than ever, but have also made surveillance more prevalent. Without taking extra steps to protect your privacy, every phone call, text message, email, instant message, video and audio chat, and social media message could be vulnerable to eavesdroppers. Often...

ssd.eff.org

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 11h

Amazing what happens when you give the guy a plane

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 11h

Yes Russia. Yes Peter Thiel and Russell Voght and Curtis Yarvin. But their would just be weirdos in dark corners of we treated racism and racists seriously

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 12h

Everything that's happening is because a majority of white Americans would rather oversee a country on fire than be a smidgen less racist

Democracy Docket @democracydocket.com · 12h

A new report reveals that an upcoming Supreme Court case could eliminate:

❌ 27 blue congressional districts
❌ 30% of Congressional Black Caucus seats
❌ 11% of Hispanic Caucus seats

And the effects could ripple for over a generation.

GOP Could Lock in House Control for a Generation if SCOTUS Ends Key VRA Protection, Report Warns

Read more here.

www.democracydocket.com

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 18h

Finally, Pritzker says more Dems must sound the alarm, though he notes some exceptions (like Chris Murphy).

"I am surprised that more leaders have not stood up," he says.

He urges people to join No Kings protests to let the country know something's wrong. 5/5

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 18h

JB Pritzker also talks about his inability to get any top Trump officials on the phone, probably because they *want* this to be experienced as an invasion. He explains why this could make law enforcement officials on both sides *less* safe. Total dereliction. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 18h

Stephen Miller just said that Chicago ICE raid was one of the most successful law enforcement operations ever. I asked Pritzker to respond.

"If this was Pinochet’s Chile, if this was Argentina under authoritarian rule, maybe you’d call it successful," he said. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 19h

JB Pritzker has also been emphatically placing Trump's mental decline squarely on the agenda. On our pod, he adds a new element: People around Trump are using his decline to manipulate him, so they're less likely to intervene. More Dems should say this. 1/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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The Massachusetts Spy @themassspy.bsky.social · 18h

If only we had news media relentlessly devoted to aggressive nonstop coverage of supposed Presidential cognitive decline.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 19h

JB Pritzker has also been emphatically placing Trump's mental decline squarely on the agenda. On our pod, he adds a new element: People around Trump are using his decline to manipulate him, so they're less likely to intervene. More Dems should say this. 1/

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 1d

If the purpose of a system is what it does, the only purpose of a universal voucher system is to undermine democracy and break public schools. We must break it first.

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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 1d

Let companies and employers produce workers and let our schools produce citizens. There is no vision of a thriving public education without reclaiming the central mission of schooling as the place where we live diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 1d

I’d like to see more elected officials make the full-throated case for public schools as exactly the place where our American ideals of equality, justice, and democracy are realized, and make our opponents stake a claim against them.

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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 17h

Crypto bros have a great idea: "fractional real estate." Investors just buy a piece of a property, on the blockchain.
This is *how every property-related security already works*.
And given its history, securitization might not be something you want to reinvent!
From @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social: