Michael Hawthorne

Elon Musk Gambles Billions in Memphis to Catch Up on AI xAI aims to win the tech arms race with its “Colossus” data centers, thrown up at lightning speed. The city is divided over the massive power and water demands.

“Musk’s data centers will probably bring in only a few hundred jobs to Memphis while consuming millions of gallons of water a day and more electricity than is needed to power all the city’s homes.”

1/2

www.wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...

(1) Agree (2) Also note how argument has publicly shifted from US needs to send in military PROTECT the CIVILIANS from crime (supposedly committed by immigrants), to US needs to send in military to protect ICE officers FROM the CIVILIANS (so they can safely commit crimes against immigrants).

One thing about a #KavanaughStop that people should pay attention to (beyond the cruelty it enables) is that much of our law is based on Supreme Court justices just making up facts and ideas about the world. Time and again, they just invent things to justify their conclusions, both left and right.

This.

But also the Infidels are in Gaza quart of the genocide at the behest of the US and Israel. We’re already there and it’s boomeranging back. The old Bikers for Trump characters look quaint now, but even they are ultimately apart of this Fascism.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Maybe the Texas National Guard should stay in all the cities with a higher crime rate than Chicago

According to Newsweek, here’s 25 to begin with, less Memphis and DC?

Better yet?

No military occupation of American cities by *ANY* American military personnel?

400 troops is obviously a very small number. They’re clearly testing the courts, Congress, and — frankly — us, trying to see what they can away with.

Gov. JB Pritzker says Texas National Guard expected to join troops from Illinois as deportations escalate Gov. JB Pritzker said he has learned that likely hundreds of National Guard members from Texas were preparing to be sent to Illinois as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to deploy 300 Illinois N…

UPDATE:

Gov. JB Pritzker says Texas National Guard expected to join troops from Illinois as deportations escalate.

“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion."

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate. We must now start calling this what it is: Trump's Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state's military troops. I call on Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate. There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. The brave men and women who serve in our national guards must not be used as political props. This is a moment where every American must speak up and help stop this madness.

Statement from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker

Of all the things we’ve seen in Chicago, can’t recall anything like these scenes, reportedly from 63rd and Kostner on the South Side

个 Post ••• Stephen Miller • @StephenM X.com The issue before is now is very simple and clear. There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks. 1:59 PM • 10/4/25 • 5.1M Views 10K 27 21K 83K 2.3K 1

“Goering shouted, ‘This [the Reichstag fire] is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be shot, where he is found. Every Communist deputy must this very night be strung up.’”

- Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, p 139

Absolutely right

As masked government functionaries invade Chicago neighborhoods on behalf of Trump, members of the clergy stand up and bear witness: @tesskenny.bsky.social @adrianaperez.bsky.social www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/28/i...

IL Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh: "I think Kristi Noem should have consequences. I think she should be tried at The Hague."

Treasury Plans to Mint $1 Commemorative Trump Coin

It is not clear that Mr. Trump’s image can be featured on a coin. An 1866 law enshrined a tradition that only deceased people could appear on U.S. currency to avoid the appearance that America was a monarchy. Trump admin is planning to do it anyway.
By Alan Rappeport

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

Introducing the Second Cohort of the StoryReach U.S. Fellowship - StoryReach Midwest - Our second cohort of seven StoryReach Fellows will focus on reporting and outreach in the Midwest

We are excited to present the second cohort of the Pulitzer Center's StoryReach initiative.

Seven Fellows will spend a year reporting in-depth stories in the U.S. Midwest while also exploring engagement opportunities to expand story impact. 🧵
👉 bit.ly/StoryReach25

2025 Pulitzer Center StoryReach Midwest Fellow - Michael Hawthorne - Chicago Tribune - Focus: pollution in the Great Lakes

We are excited to welcome Michael Hawthorne to the second cohort of StoryReach initiative Fellows.

@scribeguy.bsky.social is a Pulitzer Prize finalist whose reporting for @chicagotribune.com has exposed environmental and public health threats across the Midwest.

👉 bit.ly/StoryReach25

Today Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom Our resistance is peaceful, but it is not weak. We will not stop until Donald Trump gets his masked battle-armed thugs off our streets.

Today Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom. Our resistance is peaceful, but it is not weak. We will not stop until Donald Trump gets his masked battle-armed thugs off our streets.
My latest: open.substack.com/pub/edwineis...

He Calls Church-State Separation a Myth. He’s Now Weighing In on Public School Curricula. David Barton, far-right Christian activist and founder of Wallbuilders, has been appointed by Texas's board of education to advise on social studies instruction.

“This is no longer a fringe movement. Christian nationalism is here, and it is deeply entrenched in our government in ways that should concern all Americans, regardless of their views on religion.”

BlackRock will buy AES, one of the largest publicly traded utility companies in the U.S.

AES is a major power provider for Big Tech companies building out data centers.

Yes: while these data centers drive up your electricity costs, wealthy financiers are going to make a killing.

A Raw New Deal The administration’s proposed compact would seek to remake higher education in its own image

The Trump administration compact with higher education turns a manifesto of conservative grievances into policy, sprinkled with cost-cutting measures, and violates the very principles it claims to protect. I wrote about it here. It's free: adamhsays.substack.com/p/a-raw-new-...

CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom EXCLUSIVE: ‘People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now.

“'The fact that we don't have money to pay journalists, but we have money to pay Bari Weiss between $100 and 200 million is indicative of what the Ellisons' true goal here is,' a network correspondent said. 'And it's not journalism.'"

Good lord

They Radicalized Themselves And we can pinpoint when it happened.

All Trump loyalists get a libidinal thrill watching him piss on the Constitution, but I wrote about the subset who feel exposed by their obvious hypocrisy, and so pretend it's all a regrettable consequence of Barack Obama radicalizing them. www.offmessage.net/p/they-radic...

ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team Documents show ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation.

NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

The Government now asks us to reverse the preliminary injunctions in these cases. We see no reason to do so. The Government is right that the Framers of the Citizenship Clause sought to remove the stain of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 119 How.) 393 (1857), which shamefully denied United States citizenship to "descendants of Africans who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves," even when the descendants were born here. Id. at 403. But the Framers chose to accomplish that just purpose in broad terms, as both the supreme Court in United States . Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and Congress in passing § 1401(a) have recognized. The Government is therefore wrong to argue that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in showing that the children that the EO covers are citizens of this country at birth, just as the Government is wrong to argue that various limits on our remedial power independently require us to reverse the preliminary injunctions.?

The analysis that follows is necessarily lengthy, as we must address the parties' numerous arguments in each of the cases involved. But the length of our analysis should not be mistaken for a sign that the fundamental question that these cases raise about the scope of birthright citizenship is a difficult one. •It is not, which may explain why it has been more than a century since a branch of our government has made as concerted an effort as the Executive Branch now makes to deny Americans their birthright.

Thus, it is no surprise that, when presented with even more uncontroverted evidence by the State-Plaintiffs about the need for an injunction of the current breadth, the District Court again found that a narrower injunction would leave unremedied "administrative and financial harms." We therefore decline to conclude that the District Court has abused its discretion in fashioning relief. See Philip Morris, Inc. v. Harshbarger, 159 F. 3d 670, 680 (1st Cir. 1998) (explaining that "[als a general rule, a disappointed litigant cannot surface an objection to a preliminary injunction for the first time in an appellate venue" because doing so deprives the district court of the opportunity to "consider [the objection] and correct the injunction if necessary, without the need for appeal" (quoting Zenon, 711 F.2d at 478)).

The "lessons of history" thus give us every reason to be wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to make citizenship depend on the actions of one's parents rather than -- in all but the rarest of circumstances -- the simple fact of being born in the United States. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 595 (1948). Nor does the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, which countermanded our most infamous attempt to break with that tradition, permit us to bless this effort, any more than does the Supreme Court's interpretation of that amendment in Wong Kim Ark, the many related precedents that have followed it, or Congress's 1952 statute writing that amendment's words in the U.S. Code. The District Court's order for entry of the preliminary injunctions is affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further consideration consistent with this decision.

BREAKING: The First Circuit rejects Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. In the New Jersey-led multistate case, the appeals court, in a 100-page ruling, keeps the nationwide scope of the injunction blocking the EO in place. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

MAGA’s “Voter Fraud” Watchdog Votes in a Swing State. He Doesn’t Live There. A long paper trail shows that Jack Posobiec casts a ballot in one state and lives in another.

"For all the bleating, the conspiracy theorists have continually failed to find widespread fraud. Despite court cases and mass searches, there have been vanishingly few substantiated instances of voters illegally casting ballots.

"Perhaps, for Posobiec, it’s a grand exercise in projection."

Alderperson Jessie L. Fuentes on Instagram: "Federal ICE agents are terrorizing our communities, storming businesses, gassing civilians, and instilling fear where families should feel safe. Alongside ... 791 likes, 110 comments - 26thwardchicago on October 3, 2025: "Federal ICE agents are terrorizing our communities, storming businesses, gassing civilians, and instilling fear where families should fee...

Chicago Alderperson Jessie L. Fuentes post a video of being arrested by ICE

www.instagram.com/26thwardchic...

Add throwing tear gas from their car in the middle of the street by an elementary school to this list

worth remembering that hoover's administration was defined by 4 years of economic chaos, suffering, dislocation, and fear. People genuinely believed the country itself was on the verge of irreversible collapse. He still got 40% of the vote.

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.