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 — 👍 10274    🔁 5657    💬 115    📌 340

Two months. I love the Venty but the smaller size make it a lot easier to use on the go.

09.11.2025 14:47 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I love the VEAZY!

09.11.2025 14:43 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

You can joke about Pam Bondi’s ridiculous unprofessionalism all you want, but I’m deeply shocked by it: She acts as if she fears absolutely no consequences, convinced that there will be no more political power transfers. — This should shake everyone to their core.

07.10.2025 19:40 — 👍 28330    🔁 7727    💬 2141    📌 607

I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.

This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.

It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing.

03.07.2025 18:58 — 👍 97746    🔁 38025    💬 4488    📌 2678

They launched a coup, suffered no consequences for it, won back power, and have used the power to pardon everyone involved while remaking the country through violence and intimidation. It’s just ridiculous to talk about the political violence of yelling at ICE agents within that context.

14.06.2025 17:09 — 👍 22302    🔁 5719    💬 212    📌 114

Every flashbang could instead be a meal for a poor kid. Every hotel room for a National Guardsman deployed to fire at our neighbors could house a homeless vet. Every "less-than-lethal" bullet pulled from a journalist's eye could be already needed healthcare for anyone else. All of this is a choice.

11.06.2025 16:22 — 👍 49024    🔁 14845    💬 583    📌 379

I just heard ICE is at the Home Depot near High st in Oakland

10.06.2025 03:32 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

ICE crossed a line in LA

08.06.2025 12:42 — 👍 24917    🔁 12095    💬 799    📌 1371

At the ICE raid and subsequent community resistance in Paramount, California this morning, this skater kid ate dozens of munitions from Border Patrol agents, walked away slowly and flipped them off.

07.06.2025 21:59 — 👍 45012    🔁 11996    💬 1116    📌 1764

All we want is healthcare.

08.06.2025 10:42 — 👍 17755    🔁 5042    💬 714    📌 342

So let me get this straight: masks are bad and un-American if worn to fight a pandemic, but good if worn by people claiming to be government agents when they kidnap people off the street

10.05.2025 15:06 — 👍 40004    🔁 11384    💬 990    📌 488

I think it's bad that the country is led by people who haven't had a real problem in their entire lives and couldn't get a regular job due to being too weird

11.04.2025 15:27 — 👍 34578    🔁 5313    💬 184    📌 201

Thanks for leading such a fun seed swap addition!

23.03.2025 14:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Aww thank you Megan! They are keeping me sane too xo

26.02.2025 04:02 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A gathering at Mine + Farm Inn in Sonoma County

A little light from a friend

Cacao ceremony

Spring is on the way! Flowers blooming

NorCal Women in Cannabis events are keeping me sane! Thank you @leahcerri.bsky.social 💜 #community #weedwitches

25.02.2025 19:59 — 👍 37    🔁 3    💬 3    📌 0

Feels like we all need to add as much pro-social, Mr Rogers like activity as possible just as a homeostatic response to all the ambient evil floating around right now.

Anyway I just signed up to read with little kids on Wednesday mornings before work.

15.02.2025 03:15 — 👍 5698    🔁 560    💬 134    📌 47

Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce.

Bear with me for a second while I try to explain.

21.01.2025 02:26 — 👍 14439    🔁 4531    💬 505    📌 1299

To an asshole, all virtue is "virtue signaling."

09.01.2025 17:34 — 👍 19536    🔁 3033    💬 288    📌 117

Sweet tooth. Guess I’ll lean into it.

01.01.2025 16:19 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This is what happens when I get high before decorating cookies.

25.12.2024 15:12 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Or AT LEAST try not to demean, objectify or offend.

21.11.2024 07:14 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Interests:
Art and crafts
Dogs
Cannabis
Climate
Mutual aid
Writing
Events
Community building
Silly puns
Surviving apocalypse and general societal collapse

Things I’m NOT interested in:
Crypto
AI
Sports
MAGA
your MLM

18.11.2024 18:39 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0