Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 4h

Glad to see Senator Paul co-sponsoring the war powers resolution to block further strikes in the Caribbean.

Senator Schiff has said he will force a vote on the resolution today.

We can't have a policy where we just blow up ships." Kentucky Sen.
@RandPaul
told
@jmathieureports
that he will be co-sponsoring a War Powers Act resolution later this week with eyes on military strikes on vessels allegedly ferrying drugs from Venezuela

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 4h

Whether it's sincere or bad-faith, it is pretty simply true that AI-mania is providing an easy rhetorical cover for the US government actively worsening the use of fossil fuels

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

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Eye on The Horn @eyeonthehorn.bsky.social · 4h

Ethiopia claims Eritrea is readying to ‘wage war’ against it #AlJazeera #Ethiopia

Ethiopia claims Eritrea is readying to ‘wage war’ against it

In a letter to the UN, Ethiopia’s foreign minister claims Eritrea is colluding with a Tigray-based opposition group.

dlvr.it

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Mark Kersten @markkersten.bsky.social · 15h

"A lot of them are malnourished and they are facing executions on the road, some gunshots."

Sudan's civil war has faded from headlines, but monitors say it's the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, writes Margaret Evans: www.cbc.ca/news/world/e... #KeepEyesonSudan #Darfur

Sudan's civil war has faded from headlines, but monitors say it's the largest humanitarian crisis in the world | CBC News

The UN says more than 12 million Sudanese have been displaced since its civil war began in spring 2023, making it the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Aid agencies, including Medecins Sans Fr...

www.cbc.ca

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 11h

I love this town.

Courtney Vaughn @courtneyvaughn.bsky.social · 12h

Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 12h

photo credit to @alexbaumhardt.bsky.social

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 15h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 18h

mom, daughter, & chicken give a very Portland welcome to visiting perpetrator of crimes against humanity & puppy murderer, Kristi Noem.

a very cool protester in a chicken outfit makes peace signs. on either side are two white women (one in her fav yellow dress) bearing signs that say, respectively “not a war zone” & “WE LOVE OUR IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORS”

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Robert Cruickshank @robertcruickshank.com · 18h

Uh...

San Andreas, Cascadia faults could combine to produce back-to-back earthquake disasters, new research suggests

They are two of the West Coast's most destructive generators of huge earthquakes: the San Andreas fault and the Cascadia subduction zone. What if they were capable of back-to-back disasters?

www.seattletimes.com

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Matthew Hay Brown @matthewhaybrown.bsky.social · 1d

When a judge told Claudio David Balcane González “Welcome to the United States,” he sobbed. He had finally been granted asylum.

Then ICE detained him for 63 more days @marialuisapaul.bsky.social reports

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

A Venezuelan singer won asylum. ICE detained him for two more months.

The singer known online as Davicito59 won his asylum case in July. Still, ICE kept him in custody for two more months — a holdup several experts called unlawful.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Alex Baumhardt @alexbaumhardt.bsky.social · 21h

DHS police taking down protest signs in preparation for Noem’s arrival. Apparently streamer Benny Johnson will be with her to video but actual press are being kept a block away….

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The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 4d

Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester, video shows

The interaction illustrates how federal law enforcement officers do use aggressive tactics against protesters who yell and needle officers but don’t appear to present clear physical threats.

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 21h

I was talking to Nick about this. And he was like “it’s the racism.” And it is, in fact, the racism.

These sickos don’t want to share public goods with people of color. They don’t want their tax money helping people of color. They do, however, want a police force to repress people of color.

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 21h

I must admit that I have now stolen the line “might as well make your banner say “tread on me, daddy”” & to very satisfying effect. 💀

emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 21h

TreadOnMeDaddyRepublicans is literally such a good way to describe these psychos. 💀

The “Government Bad! Except for the ones with guns!” thing has been driving me insane.

Kaliko Castille @wizkaliko.bsky.social · 2d

Pretty proud of this blog I'm calling The Rise of the #TreadOnMeDaddy Republican.

The Rise of the #TreadOnMeDaddy Republican

Troops in Portland, midnight raids in Chicago and an updated National Security Presidential Memo that might label you a terrorist.

open.substack.com

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 23h

Notice her non-answer.

This is explosive. Should be explosive. The US AG who said she had the Epstein files on her desk cannot say whether or not the FBI has pix of Trump with half-naked women, which one witness who knew Epstein has said he has seen.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse

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Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 21h

Y'all who keep lecturing protesters to "not give them an excuse" need to pause for a minute. Imagine yourself telling a DV victim, "Be sure not to mouth off or make any mistakes so he won't hit you. Don't give him an excuse! It's what he wants!" That's what you fools sound like.

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Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 9d

An early version of the first US News college rankings awarded points for diversity & didn't put the usual suspects on top. So the magazine got rid of the statistician responsible & changed the algorithm to affirm the "conventional wisdom of the meritocracy."
washingtonmonthly.com/2000/09/01/p...

There’s a certain irony to the way that universities trip over themselves to improve their rankings. Not only are many of the best minds at colleges across the country preoccupied with what is essentially a silly enterprise, the books were cooked to begin with. Since the beginning, U.S. News has operated a system with the top schools pre-selected and the rest jumbled behind.

When Elfin was first charged with creating a ranking system, he seems to have known that the only believable methodology would be one that confirmed the prejudices of the meritocracy: The schools that the most prestigious journalists and their friends had gone to would have to come out on top. The first time that the staff had drafted up a numerical ranking system to test internally–a formula that, most controversially, awarded points for diversity–a college that Elfin cannot even remember the name of came out on top. He told me: “When you’re picking the most valuable player in baseball and a utility player hitting .220 comes up as the MVP, it’s not right.”

Elfin subsequently removed the first statistician who had created the algorithm and brought in Morse, a statistician with very limited educational reporting experience. Morse rewrote the algorithm and ran it through the computers. Yale came out on top, and Elfin accepted this more persuasive formula. At the time, there was internal debate about whether the methodology was as good as it could be. According to Lucia Solorzano, who helped create the original U.S. News rankings in 1983, worked on the guide until 1988, and now edits Barron’s Best Buys in College Education, “It’s a college guide and the minute you start to have people in charge of it who have little understanding of education, you’re asking for trouble.”

To Elfin, however, who has a Harvard master’s diploma on his wall, there’s a kind of circular logic to it all: The schools that the conventional wisdom of the meritocracy regards as the best, are in fact the best–as confirmed by the methodology, itself conclusively ratified by the presence of the most prestigious schools at the top of the list. In 1997, he told The New York Times: “We’ve produced a list that puts Harvard, Yale and Princeton, in whatever order, at the top. This is a nutty list? Something we pulled out of the sky?”

The walls around the system that confirmed the top Ivies began to crack in 1996 when Zuckerman hired James Fallows (a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly) to edit the magazine. Fallows hired former New Yorker writer Lincoln Caplan and, when Elfin left in January of ’97, Fallows put Caplan in charge of special projects at the magazine, which included the annual development of the rankings. The two began to make a series of changes that improved the rankings, most noticeably by eliminating one decimal place in the scoring (schools now get grades like 77 instead of 76.8) to create more ties and reduce a spurious air of precision. Caplan also hired a statistical expert named Amy Graham to direct the magazine’s data gathering and analysis. Although both Caplan and Graham have left the magazine, and both declined to be interviewed, sources within U.S. News claim that, after looking deeply into the methodology of the rankings, Graham found that U.S. News had essentially put its thumb on the scale to make sure that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton continued to come out on top, as they did every year until 1999 after Elfin selected a formula.

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 22h

Yikes.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

Thorough accounting of TFP's shoddy journalism here.

slate.com/technology/2...

Forget “DEI”—Bari Weiss Is Proof That Merit Doesn’t Matter

She’s made a career railing against “wokeness.” Now she’s in charge of a venerated newsroom.

slate.com

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 1d

Still awful. ♥️

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 1d

Jackie!! Oh my God. I hope you are okay!!

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emily @soupmuse.bsky.social · 1d

The lil dances!!!

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Alissa Azar @alissaazar.bsky.social · 1d

Small group of far right agitators already on the ground. Protesters are holding ground. Portland police bike cops just rolled thru and other PPB officers including several squad cars parked close by

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Robert Mackey @robertmackey.bsky.social · 1d

The Oregon Republican Party tried to help Donald Trump make the case for military intervention in Portland with an image of a fiery protest — but since Portland is calm, they had to fabricate one by merging old photos of police in Ecuador and protesters in Brazil www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America

A federal judge had blocked Trump’s request to deploy California national guard to Portland

www.theguardian.com

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