Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 1m

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2d

MoC can shape the media narrative by drafting articles of impeachment and talking publicly about how POTUS’ speech Tuesday furnished proof of the *intent* behind his military occupation of cities; he’s waging war on the United States in violation of the Treason Clause.

Josh Sternberg @joshsternberg.com · 2d

One of the questions: Will the media step up and report as such? Yes, the conservative media owns the modes of mass comms. But ostensibly, large mainstream outlets who purport to speak truth to power etc have leaders who are watching things unfold and understand the stakes. Will they be as honest?

Reposted by Sam Halpert

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 1h

Pritzker/Newsom see it as a defining fact of the moment that Trump is consolidating authoritarian power daily and using it to subjugate Blue America like an enemy nation within. Other Dems should stop the Beltway-speak about Trump laying "traps" for them and engage.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 3m

LOOK at what they are doing to your people, Governor. bsky.app/profile/anth...

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 10h

File state charges. This is a crime.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 13h

Here’s video of the incident

Reposted by Sam Halpert

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 6m

For those of us in higher education this company has snaked its way into our institutions—and this is the kind of care and thought they put into the risks of their products.
Do you imagine our students are safe with these people?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 49m

Altman claims the company didn’t anticipate people not wanting their deepfakes to say “offensive things or things that they find deeply problematic,” which sounds like a lie but is also indicative of how they recklessly release tech into the world.

OpenAI wasn’t expecting Sora’s copyright drama

It felt “more different to images than people expected.”

www.theverge.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Marc Fischer @marc-fischer.bsky.social · 8m

Emergency Protest Today, 10/8/2025 in Chicago: 5:30 PM at Michigan and Ida B. Wells. We're demanding that ICE and the National Guard get out of our city. I'll attend this.

A flyer credited to Coalition Against the Trump Agenda announcing an Emergency Protest Today, 10/8/2025 in Chicago: 5:30 PM at Michigan and Ida B. Wells, demanding that ICE and the National Guard leave Chicago. A large crowd is shown marching in downtown Chicago.

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 7m

You have executive powers also.
You lead a sovereign state! You have emergency powers to respond more swiftly and to exercise more direct control over state law enforcement, to directly order the arrests of federal officers committing state crimes outside the bounds of their federal authority.

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 10m

bsky.app/profile/samh...

Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 2d

Governors call on the courts. They call on the public. They never call on their executive powers as the leaders of sovereign states in our federal system.

Call on the troops to refuse unconstitutional orders, @governor.ca.gov. Call on your commanders to recognize you haven’t relayed any orders.

"The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens," Newsom said. "We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States."

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 17m

boy is this a relevant observation

To create something, anything, good, takes time and desire. “A project that takes five years will accumulate those years’ inventions and richnesses. Much of those years’ reading will feed the work,” Annie Dillard wrote in The Writing Life. Good creative work draws on the well of your experience, on everything that you consumed and felt and saw over a period of time. If you dip into the well constantly without giving it time to refill, you end up with nothing but pieces of mud, nothing that will satiate a thirst for art.

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 19m

“There are clearly going to be challenges for society…the only way that we know of to help mitigate it is to get the world to experience it and figure out how that’s going to go.”

The *only way that we know of*. Sure. Apply this to other exciting areas of technological endeavor, like landmines.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 43m

Cyberlibertarianism.

He positioned the launch’s speed bumps as learning opportunities. “Not for much longer will we have the only good video model out there, and there’s going to be a ton of videos with none of our safeguards, and that’s fine, that’s the way the world works,” Altman said, adding, “We can use this window to get society to really understand, ‘Hey, the playing field changed, we can generate almost indistinguishable video in some cases now, and you’ve got to be ready for that.’”
Altman said he feels that people don’t pay attention to OpenAI’s technology when people at the company talk about it, only when they release it. “We’ve got to have … this sort of technological and societal co-evolution,” Altman said. “I believe that works, and I actually don’t know anything else that works. There are clearly going to be challenges for society contending with this quality, and what will get much better, with the video generation. But the only way that we know of to help mitigate it is to get the world to experience it and figure out how that’s going to go.”

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Maya Sen @mayasen.bsky.social · 35m

SCOTUS “eliminating Section 2, a provision that prohibits racial gerrymandering when it dilutes minority voting power, would let Republicans redraw up to 19 House seats to favor the party and crush minority representation in Congress”

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Republicans could draw 19 more House seats after an upcoming Supreme Court ruling

Many experts are forecasting the end of a key provision of election law — enabling Republicans to shore up their advantage in the House, according to a new report.

www.politico.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 2h

I honestly can’t bring myself to read this but I do think it’s very important for people in the US to remember that this is happening right now because of our government.

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 3h

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 10h

File state charges. This is a crime.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 13h

Here’s video of the incident

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 13h

Thread, which illustrates nicely why I'm having that "hey uhhhh did the dissolution of the Union just kind of happen just now" feeling the last few days

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 13h

Never before in American history has one state's military force been deployed in another state over its objection.

I say never because the Civil War involved states whose governments legally ceased to exist, their offices vacated by constructive resignation, with no legitimate governors to object.

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Vicky ACAB @vickyacab.bsky.social · 12h

I know there's a lot to keep up with but someone has ALREADY been killed by ICE in Chicago, its not a theoretical question, and folks are dying in ICE detention and being disappeared constantly, when you say "someone's gonna get killed" youre actually washing the blood from their hands 😘✌️

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Amy Feldman @amyfeldman7.bsky.social · 12h

Six former surgeons general appointed by every President since George HW Bush warn that RFK Jr. is endangering the health of the nation, calling his policies/positions a “profound, immediate + unprecedented threat”

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | Six surgeons general: It’s our duty to warn the nation about RFK Jr.

We took an oath to declare dangers when we found them. We’re doing that again today.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Keira Havens @highcountryrose.bsky.social · 12h

It's Treason.

That's why we wrote this article: citizensimpeachment.com/article-of-i...

(the whole thread is fire, be sure to read it)

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Gail Drakes @gaildrakes.bsky.social · 2d

I just learned that the number of children in the U.S. navigating life with Long COVID exceeds that of the number of kids with asthma.

Wow.

Long COVID is here to stay—even in children

Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC, also known as long COVID) are complex, multisystem, long-lasting complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection that profoundly impact the daily life of those...

www.thelancet.com

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Gail Drakes @gaildrakes.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, they certainly need to be vaccinated! But, unfortunately, vaccines don’t have much success in preventing long COVID.

The focus must remain on doing more to prevent kids (and the rest of us!) from getting COVID, including improved air ventilation and filtration.

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 12h

Just heard someone say that if you aren't willing to get arrested or die at a protest you aren't serious about the cause and that's a) not true and b) not helpful

You don't need to have a death wish to fight for a better world, and anyone who says you do is throwing up a massive red flag

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Sam Halpert @samhalpert.bsky.social · 12h

Absent the structure of federalism, this would be an unambiguous act of aggression. And POTUS eliminated any ambiguity last week at Quantico, when he looked all his generals in the face and said, “this is a war.” He’s told us what these moves mean: he’s levying war on the United States. It’s treason

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 13h

It's one thing to be politically divided into red states and blue states. We are now being militarily divided into red states and blue states. It's crossing the Rubicon, a bright-red flashing warning that the constitutional order is coming unglued, in a way that will have monumental consequences. /x

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 13h

thank you brett kavanaugh!

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13h

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

Ag communities - often for good reason - want to limit how much ag land is lost. The rise of agrivoltaics is perhaps a middle way.

IDK man. Just building data centers whose only existence is to make money for companies while foisting tech on us we don't want while NIMBY"s oppose solar projects

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Reposted by Sam Halpert

Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 16h

Can’t decide which is the wilder use of “BREAKING” by a government official:

1. “BREAKING: I’m launching undercover operations” — Texas Attorney General

Or

2. “BREAKING: MSNBC still an ass clown factory” — FBI Director

FBI Director Kash Patel &
@FBIDirectorKash
X.com
BREAKING: MSNBC still an ass clown factory of disinformation. Same circus animals that slobbered all over perp walks of Stone, Navarro, Bannon...
MSNBC has no facts and no audience
In this @fbi, follow the chain of command or get relieved.
9, Barb McQuade • @BarbMcQuade • 3d
DOJ policy prohibits "perp walks," in which arrestees are paraded before the cameras. x.com/ jesserodriguez...
10:03 AM • 10/4/25 • 12M Views

Attorney General Ken Paxton &
@KenPaxtonTX
X.com
BREAKING: I'm launching undercover operations to infiltrate and uproot leftist terror cells in Texas.
Leftist political terrorism is a clear and present danger. There can be no compromise with those who want us dead.
ORNEY

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💞Sabrina💞 @sabrinarina.bsky.social · 18h

Oregon National Guard Adjutant General, General Gronewold says if they are federalized, that he will advise the Title 10 commander to utilize National Guard Troops to PROTECT protesters at ICE facilities. This is the right answer.

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