Christopher Schroeder

Many anti-immigrant Americans once had ancestors in same situation as newcomers It’s hard not to get swept up in the day-to-day, blow-by-blow happenings surrounding immigration enforcement. But when you get a chance to reflect, during those few quiet moments between news headline...

"How can a nation full of the descendants of immigrants, on land stolen by foreign colonizers, be so opposed to the arrival of people seeking the same things their ancestors did years ago?" @chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2...

Sen. Graciela Guzmán and Gabe Gonzalez: There is something deeper at work in Chicago than residents blowing whistles In Chicago a trifecta has emerged to fight ICE: grassroots mobilization, judicial accountability and united local governments.

"For those of us who love Chicago, this isn’t the middle or end of our resistance story. We’re just getting started." @chicagotribune.com
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/05/o...

Nadav Ziv and Sam Wineburg: How to save Wikipedia from AI AI amputates information from its source, so internet users must continue to look for citations and click through to original sources.

"The challenge we face is to move from being passive users of AI to engaged citizens who can verify AI responses that, as a common expression goes, are 'frequently wrong but never in doubt.'" @chicagotribune.com
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/04/o...

November 2, 2025 Last Monday, October 27, right-wing personality Tucker Carlson interviewed white nationalist Nick Fuentes for more than two hours, mainstreaming the podcaster whose praise for Hitler, vows to kill Jew...

"The modern Republican Party was always an uneasy marriage between business interests . . . and the racist Dixiecrats and religious traditionalists who wanted to get rid of equal rights for racial minorities and women." @hcrichardson.bsky.social heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-2...

Elliott Gorn: Regarding the shutdown, Democrats, it’s time to let Republicans wear it Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries tried to protect the American people from MAGA, but they refused to negotiate.

"The Democrats’ message to Americans must be clear: They did this to you. We tried our best to protect you from this obscene attack on the health care system, but they wouldn’t even talk to us. There is nothing more we can do."

@chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/02/o...

Government shutdown is a humanitarian crisis What makes this moment especially egregious is the Trump administration’s unprecedented decision to deny SNAP benefits during a government shutdown.

"It is not just a policy failure — it’s a moral one. Denying food assistance to millions of Americans in the dead of winter, during a time of economic uncertainty, is unconscionable." @chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2...

Jonathan Zimmerman: On free speech, hypocrisy now rules For years, conservatives have complained about cancel culture, but they now embrace it following the murder of Charlie Kirk.

"You might think that an attack of this magnitude would cause the American left to make a full-throated defense of free and open expression. But you’d be wrong." @chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/29/o...

Editorial: Kristi Noem needs to halt the ICE terrorizing of Chicago neighborhoods ICE and Border Patrol agents wreaking havoc in Chicago neighborhoods can’t go on.

"There has to be a moratorium on these kinds of un-American tactics and there has to be one now. This . . . is outrage over kids seeing things that are impossible to forget. And over American kids suddenly having a parent swept away." @chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/28/e...

Mayor Brandon Johnson's Call For A General Strike Went Viral — But Could It Actually Happen? Johnson clarified that he's calling for a nationwide strike in an interview with Block Club. Other progressive leaders are on board, but critics say the country isn't ready.

"The United States hasn’t seen anything resembling a general strike since the 1940s, and a few key legal changes have been made since then."

@blockclubchi.bsky.social

blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/28/m...

The right-wing's attempts to label peaceful protesters as violent extremists is a classic authoritarian strategy to justify crackdowns: @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social on the historic No Kings Day of peaceful protest – on @thenation.com podcast bit.ly/48CM3SF #NoKings

University of Illinois Chicago drops race, gender as factors in financial aid and faculty hiring Some faculty see the changes as “voluntary capitulation” to the Trump administration. UIC leaders say they align with “current legal standards” and new University of Illinois System policy.

Faculty leaders call the decision "voluntary capitulation" to the #Trump administration: “UIC’s mission is to increase access at the highest levels of excellence and this, to me, sends a message that essentially says, 'We don’t actually care about access.'"

Read more: www.wbez.org/education/20...

#nokings #chicago

Editorial: Most Americans don’t think either Democrats or Republicans care about them People are searching for grown-ups willing to step up and lead on both sides, but especially on the left.

"People are searching for grown-ups willing to step up and lead on both sides, but especially on the left." @chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/20/s...

October 19, 2025 All last week, Republican leaders tried to portray the No Kings protests scheduled for Saturday, October 18, as “Hate America” rallies.

"The idea that leaders must attract voters with reasoned arguments to win power and must concede power when their opponents win has been the central premise of American government since 1800." @hcrichardson.bsky.social
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-19...

No Kings Chicago

No Kings Chicago

No Kings Chicago

No Kings Chicago

No Kings Chicago

The No Kings March in Chicago is one of the largest gatherings I’ve seen here. Looking down from by the river, the crowd stretches for blocks down Michigan Ave and wraps around Wacker Dr. This video is from a few minutes ago and the end of the protest is nowhere in sight.
@blockclubchi.bsky.social

What's unfolding in cities is 'terrifying escalation' of what we saw in 1968 Chicago The action of federal government agents at Donald Trump’s direction demonstrates all too clearly that what his administration really wants is to intimidate American cities.

"What occurred on Chicago’s streets . . . was emblematic not only of the deep fissures in America over the Vietnam War but of the willingness of a police state, which included the National Guard, to silence dissent in America." @chicago.suntimes.com
chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/...

October 16, 2025 Yesterday the Trump administration announced it would pay furloughed troops by using funds Congress appropriated for research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDTE) for fiscal year 2026.

"Trump’s assumption of power over the government’s purse is a profound attack on the principles on which the Founders justified independence from King George III in 1776."

@hcrichardson.bsky.social

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-16...

Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request The group ICE Sighting-Chicagoland has been increasingly used in the last five weeks of President Donald Trump’s intense deportation campaign to warn neighbors that federal agents are nearby.

"Loomer, the far-right activist, has also taken credit for prompting Apple and Google to remove two popular ICE-sighting apps — ICEBlock and Red Dot — from their app stores."

@chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Jamie Kalven: The president is using a civil rights-era tactic to suppress free speech The federal government is using the threat of disorder in Chicago as a rationale for suppressing protests.

"The danger is that we will drift — disoriented, unmoored, bewildered — into the iron cage of tyranny."

@chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/12/o...

Getting Away with Murder | David Cole During his first presidential campaign Donald Trump famously claimed that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose

"There was no conceivable legal authority for these killings. We are not at war with drug traffickers. The 'war on drugs' is a metaphor, not a legal term of art that authorizes killing the 'enemy.'"

@nyrb-imprints.bsky.social

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

David Fish: Getting fired for social media posts is the new workplace cancel culture Employees’ online lives are not separate from their professional ones.

"The deeper problem is cultural, not legal. Free speech hasn’t disappeared — it has been privatized. Americans remain free to say almost anything, but our livelihoods now depend on how the internet reacts."

@chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/08/o...

Academic neutrality is a smokescreen for state-sanctioned indoctrination A Texas A&M University professor's firing is taking place amid a backdrop of schools and colleges grappling with the very concept of academic neutrality — a vague ideal calling on educational institut...

"Neutrality is being weaponized as part of a larger attack on critical thinking and social emotional learning. Ultimately, it is nothing more than a smokescreen for state-sanctioned indoctrination."

@chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/...

'Deeply wounded' by Cardinal Dolan’s adulation of Charlie Kirk Kirk’s death was, without question, a tragic loss of a young father and husband. But compassion does not require canonization. To elevate Kirk to sainthood is to rewrite the moral ledger of his public...

"This is not a minor theological disagreement. It is a clash over the moral compass of the church in a time of political extremism and rising violence."

@chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2...

Moral panics intensify social divisions and can lead to political violence From the Salem witch trials to McCarthyism and Charlie Kirk’s killing, an exaggerated fear of a particular group has resulted in repression from liberals and conservatives.

"While researching this polarization, I have found recurring themes of segregation and both the dehumanization and disproportionate fear of people with opposing views among liberals and conservatives alike."

@theconversation.com

theconversation.com/moral-panics...

Stephanie R. Toliver: What can we do as the Trump administration sanitizes civic education? Democratic citizenship requires intellectual courage: the willingness to encounter perspectives that challenge our assumptions.

"This approach recognizes that democratic citizenship requires intellectual courage: the willingness to encounter perspectives that challenge our assumptions and grapple with evidence that complicates simple stories."

@chicagotribune.com

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/01/o...

Tylenol guidance shows Trump administration doesn't understand the scientific process As a biomedical scientist, I am concerned that any small, preliminary study that is meant to only begin to explore a new link will be taken as demonstration that that link exists.

"The trend from small to large, from observation to causation is often true in science, no matter if the topic is autism, allergies, Alzheimer’s or anything else."

@chicago.suntimes.com

chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/...

Trump floats using Chicago, other Democrat-led cities as military training ground, troops coming 'very soon' Trump’s wide-ranging and unprecedented address to military leaders in Quantico, Virginia comes a day after Gov. JB Pritzker said he’ had received word that the Department of Homeland Security wants to send in 100 "military troops" to Illinois to help protect ICE facilities and personnel.

President Donald Trump told about 800 of the country’s top military officials that he’s using “dangerous cities as training grounds” for the military and will be going into Chicago “very soon.”

A Reagan-appointed judge just wrote a blistering anti-Trump decision Federal judge William G. Young attacked the president's crackdown on civil liberties as un-American.

In a blistering decision, a Reagan-appointed judge says the Trump administration has trampled First Amendment rights by targeting students protesting Israel's actions in Gaza.

Perspective | An appreciation of a uniquely American language: Spanglish The language I grew up hearing was flexible and fluid. It was playful and rhythmic. It made no sense and perfect sense.

Column by Theresa Vargas: Spanglish is often described in the context of bilingualism. A dual ability. Two gifts. But that’s not what it was for my siblings and me. We spoke one language that was a patchwork of two.

There’s a difference.