Denton A. Cohen

One of the more incredible stories out of LA this year has been how a taco review blog became the best on-the-ground coverage of ICE raids in the city.

They do a dispatch every day, follow-up on the kidnapped people (which almost no media outlet has done), and fact-check government claims.

Charge them with attempted murder.

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE
Truth: No cars rammed ICE

Claim: She boxed ICE in
Truth: ICE boxed her in

Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE
Truth: She did not have a rifle

Claim: ICE returned fire
Truth: Only ICE fired

Claim: She drove herself to the hospital
Truth: Paramedics found her

This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...

The fortification of Broadview in defense of free speech continues. Workers are placing more barricades on 25th.

Great thread

In all the endless discussions of LLMs, there’s a point that is, on one level, obvious, but that I feel does not get sufficiently foregrounded: LLMs are transforming material that people have put up on the internet.

43% of Democrats (52% of 18-29 voters) say foreign policy and Israel will play a role in their vote in the 2026 primaries. (81% say the economy and healthcare, of course.)

80% want to reduce support for Israel
74% want an arms embargo
72% say it's a genocide
65% want sanctions

some people told dave chappelle his jokes weren’t funny and this ego maniac has been having a meltdown over it for ten years

We've recieved more photos from the inside of the South Shore apartment building that federal immigration agents raided over Monday night.

Doors bashed in, window panes missing, furniture smashed, water on the floor.

It's unclear what damage was pre-existing and what was inflicted in the raid.

Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties. Johnson said he was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go. “I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” Jones said. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

What DHS pulled in Chicago on Tuesday is wildly unconstitutional. They smashed down almost every door in the building, dragged entire families into the street, and detained people for hours ("Kavanaugh stops").

Ms. Fisher was held for five hours and another senior citizen was held for three hours.

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance.

Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.

We have been sent here to fight for people.

Bill Burr Defends Performing at Controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival: “They’re Just Like Us” The actor-comedian details his experience at the event: "Definitely one of the top three experiences I've ever had ... I think it's going to lead to a lot of positive things."

The Saudis didn’t pay big money for famous American comedians because they were super eager for comedy, they paid for PR like this.

L.A. approves $2.6B convention center expansion, even as convention demand shrivels There are boondoggles, there are big boondoggles, and then there are public development disasters. Los Angeles has just embarked on a disaster. Last week, the Los Angeles city council approved an expa...

"There are boondoggles, there are big boondoggles, and then there are public development disasters. Los Angeles has just embarked on a disaster."

Convention center development expert Heywood Sanders on LA's $2.6 billion mistake in the always-excellent Field of Schemes

Only 1 person in the whole study went from identifying as trans to not identifying as trans. The 1/5 number came from youth going between the binary and non-binary spectrum.

This headline and post are misleading on purpose to fit the economist's editorial bent on the political issue.

Klein is, for whatever reason, fumbling for parts of the coalition to throw overboard for the sake of accommodating authoritarians — the sake of “living here with each other,” to use a line of his this week.

But it’s other people’s liberties he’s bargaining over.

"If you think city services are bad now — and I think all of us would agree that they suck — and you thought maybe one day we would have funding to restore service, I have bad news. It's going to get worse."

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky absolutely shredding the $3B convention center plan to bits

DAILY MEMO: Rapid Responders Foil ICE Raid Again at The Same Car Wash Targeted a Third Time This Week
@eltragon.bsky.social

Comedy is legal again, which is why we have used the power of the federal government to coerce major broadcasters into canceling the shows of comedians we don’t like.

Nexstar is currently awaiting approval from the FCC and FTC on a $6.2 Billion acquisition of TEGNA.

People missing an important point about folks getting fired for whatever they said about Charlie Kirk: Americans are being conditioned to be snitches on their fellow citizens who don’t toe a party line on what is “allowed” to be expressed. And employers are going along. It’s the new secret police

Top *eight* articles on NYT devoted to Charlie Kirk, top one asks if he will be remembered like MLK. This is a man who only a tiny percent of Americans had even heard of before his death, whose views are too nasty for NYT to detail. But they are trying so hard to turn into martyr.

they literally want to round us up man. can democrats please get a fucking spine and stand the fuck up for us now? we literally cannot counter this ourselves when they want our voices and rights taken away. please do fucking something

Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn't a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division

I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

there's a weird feedback loop where the media's reaction to kirk's death pushes you to speak more ill of the dead than you otherwise would because it's the only reasonable response to the simpering praise they're heaping on him

This is simply untenable. There is no way forward with media and political classes captured by the right. Every time someone commits a crime you have to pray it's not an undesirable or it's purge time, then when it turns out to be themselves again they just shrug and wait for the next one.

What LA's tourism unions just did By the time July 2028 rolls around, the people who are ensuring the largest gathering in U.S. history is running smoothly will be making the highest minimum wage in the country

There's a lot of bad news this week. Here's some good news.

Tourism workers spent years fighting for a $30/hour Olympic wage. When a hotel- and airline-funded referendum tried to overturn the law, LA's unions employed astonishingly clever tactics to block it from the ballot.

Here's how they won