I Want You to Understand Chicago
Politics Chicago
2025-11-08
I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.
Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again.
An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next.
Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st.
Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
09.11.2025 20:49 — 👍 6429 🔁 3567 💬 71 📌 215
I mean people have been saying how ugly it looks from the beginning. And it’s all his fault!
07.11.2025 01:22 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I hate him with every ounce of me.
31.10.2025 11:02 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Classic framing of an authoritarian leader:
the leader becomes the source of all achievement, the regime becomes the owner of every success.
30.10.2025 22:00 — 👍 1979 🔁 485 💬 201 📌 51
I keep seeing conservatives trash Mamdani as a communist who is going to destroy NYC, but have yet to see them cite an actual policy reason for that critique.
28.10.2025 20:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
This enrages me. I wish people could fight back without getting killed or spending life in prison
28.10.2025 20:01 — 👍 14 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
YouTube video by Nick Valencia News
67-year old American citizen left with broken ribs by ICE #breakingnews #iceraids #savedemocracy
This incident is spreading through Chicago running circles. A 67 year old man, driving back from a long run with his friends, is pulled from the car and thrown to the ground by ICE (or BP?) agents because he did... something.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWAw...
28.10.2025 16:59 — 👍 983 🔁 441 💬 53 📌 31
Why are people like this?
27.10.2025 13:44 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
When Netflix was first advertising Kpop Demon Hunters I remember people online making fun of it #agedlikemilk
24.10.2025 23:53 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Trump is the most corrupt politician the United states has ever seen.
23.10.2025 21:32 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I for one think the Epstein Ballroom will be magnificent. I love the decor theme of “what if Uday Hussein ran a Ramada Inn.” And giving it a theme song everyone will associate with it is a stroke of brilliance! “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” is very catchy.
23.10.2025 02:17 — 👍 19777 🔁 4790 💬 529 📌 239
I must have missed the steals $230 million part. Too much happening all the time, can’t keep up
22.10.2025 11:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Mamdani is already getting the criminals out of NYC!
21.10.2025 17:09 — 👍 21963 🔁 3333 💬 899 📌 303
Michael Rapaport tweets: "How’s a so-called “working class” mayoral candidate like Zohran Mamdani eating at OMEN SUSHI tonight — one of the priciest joints in NYC? 🍣💰
This clown lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Queens but dines like a diplomat on a Qatar-funded per diem.
Who’s paying for that toro, “Zoron the Moron”?"
There are two photos of Zohran Mamdani and his wife eating at a restaurant.
Michael Rapaport eating outside of a restaurant. There are some white canopy umbrellas around him and a tree in the background. Also the ocean and some fence.
Two photos. The first shows the outside of Nobu in Malibu. The second shows the area where Michael sat. There is the same tree, ocean, white canopy umbrellas, and fence.
The menu for Nobu in Malibu shows prices around $60. The menu for Omen Sushi in NYC shows prices around $35.
i don't get it. omen sushi in nyc is cheaper than nobu in malibu, where you dined last year without your wife
22.10.2025 03:47 — 👍 16086 🔁 1898 💬 637 📌 350
Thank you for some actual humor
19.10.2025 18:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The president needs your help! He's collecting diarrhea for his plane. He has a plane that's 99% toilet with other people's diarrhea in it and he wears a little crown when he drives it around. Brave patriots please send your loose stool to your favorite diarrhea president for his diarrhea plane.
19.10.2025 04:54 — 👍 14402 🔁 2157 💬 419 📌 117
The Pope tweets: "The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty. #DilexiTe"
Someone replies: "I was so hopeful I could be a Catholic again after the disaster that Francis was, guess we just get Francis 2.0 now and I am heartbroken. How do I stay a Catholic now...I don't want to lose faith but I am. You belong to someone else, not God."
heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god
17.10.2025 17:43 — 👍 50380 🔁 10361 💬 1810 📌 774
Nye: We are here to tell our lawmakers that what's going on in our government is
wrong. They must stop the abuses of this petulant president and his circle of sycophants. No thrones, no crowns, no king
18.10.2025 17:01 — 👍 14323 🔁 4092 💬 151 📌 178
Every single thing he does is what a weak loser would do
08.10.2025 01:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A purported leader reacting angrily to a country song seems weak, not strong.
07.10.2025 22:54 — 👍 2436 🔁 221 💬 43 📌 5
What’s it going to take to finally convince MAGA they’re the bad guys?
07.10.2025 00:43 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The federal government under Stephen Miller is explicitly trying to start a civil war.
That is my statement.
06.10.2025 18:09 — 👍 1172 🔁 189 💬 13 📌 10
I feel a lot of rage with everything Trump does. But I think what angers me the most is the people who are cheering it on. Who think he is the greatest.
06.10.2025 19:55 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
We’re only 9 months into this presidency and he’s already sending troops from red states into blue states while clearly stating his motives are political.
06.10.2025 03:41 — 👍 6477 🔁 1718 💬 40 📌 71
U.S. Forest Service Kills Off Smokey Bear To Get People Serious About Fire Safety
02.10.2025 17:01 — 👍 1143 🔁 135 💬 25 📌 11
The president said, in a televised speech, that he's sending his new, less restrained, more violent military into US cities to practice their brutality on immigrants and minorities, to better train them to apply that brutality to other countries.
He said this out loud.
30.09.2025 20:50 — 👍 15432 🔁 5533 💬 649 📌 330
Phang: So, as we can see you have a DHS official—you clearly hear him say on that body cam footage, “I am arresting the mayor. Even though he stepped out, I’m going to put him in cuffs.”
Who told him to do it? He says: the Deputy Attorney General… And who’s that? Todd Blanche.
30.09.2025 22:47 — 👍 10502 🔁 4690 💬 242 📌 147
Impeachment now
30.09.2025 15:50 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The revolution won’t be televised but the treason sure is
30.09.2025 15:41 — 👍 13538 🔁 2866 💬 130 📌 58
I hope our military generals understand they serve the country and not trump the fucking pedophile
30.09.2025 15:49 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Mayor-Elect of New York City
Former journalist running for Congress (IL-09) because we deserve Democrats who actually do something | katforillinois.com
Professor of planetary science at Johns Hopkins. Titan’s biggest fan. Pomeranian wrangler. Runner. Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe. She/her. sarahhorst.com
Planetdr.26 on signal
The Midwest’s Best Casino On This Side Of The Hoover River
Slots, table games, golf, luxury spa, sweat lodge, ball pit, dining options, concert/convention center, and some other stuff. Definitely haunted.
Contributors: https://go.bsky.app/4yomz8H
Artist whose mediums include film, tv, and soda. www.StillersSoda.com
🎧 The audiobook company that shares profits with independent bookshops
💗 Social Purpose Corp
🔗 Shop, sign up, find bookshops, & more: www.libro.fm
Failed Actor/Comedian/Lighting Designer.
Successful pain in the ass.
I talk about my pitbull and soccer alot.
Girl Dad | Sports Fan | TTRPGs | Terrible Golfer
I make Dad jokes on NPR and also write books and other things.
Troublemaker extraordinaire, CA AD 72 Candidate, www.kluweoc.com
Journalist, author, speaker on pubs, beer, travel. Daily Star beer guy, occasional beer op-ed for DT, features Pellicle, Ferment and others. Latest book, A Pub for all Seasons, paperback now out.
Agent: Kevin Pocklington, North Literary Agency.
I make movies. I watch movies. I love movies.
Lvl 50 Writer of Wrongs. SINISTER 1 & 2. DOCTOR STRANGE. THE BLACK PHONE 1 & 2. THE GORGE. V/H/S/85. SEA OF RUST. DAY ZERO. WE ARE WHERE THE NIGHTMARES GO. Six books, seven movies. Podcaster with JUNKFOOD CINEMA. Tio do Churrasco. Misfit toy.
Senior Digital Editor for MeidasTouch.com
Clips made with SnapStream
Internet Hooligan...
Husband, dad, veteran, writer, and proud Midwesterner. 19th US Secretary of Transportation and former Mayor of South Bend.
Writer. Queenlord. Gaming hobbyist. Weird. Formerly at Destructoid. Editor of Maximum Utmost. Support me at http://ko-fi.com/adzuken. Find me at https://linktr.ee/adzuken.