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 — 👍 9028 🔁 4970 💬 102 📌 285
CNN's Harry Enten: What President Trump is trying to sell, the American folks aren’t buying, and we can see it pretty simply here. Take a look here. This is consumer sentiment, the current conditions…and get this: according to the University of Michigan, we are dealing with the worst ever
10.11.2025 17:20 — 👍 434 🔁 151 💬 15 📌 10
ICYMI
10.11.2025 14:26 — 👍 68 🔁 28 💬 1 📌 0
YouTube video by Democracy Docket
What Congress's Top Fighter Sees Coming in 2026 | Rep. Jasmine Crockett
NEW EPISODE: Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett joins me to break down the GOP’s chaos in the House, the fight over redistricting in Texas, and what these battles reveal about the road to 2026.
Sit back and enjoy. youtu.be/W0TZ1WqwIOc?...
10.11.2025 17:20 — 👍 1820 🔁 582 💬 34 📌 12
Reporter: Dr Oz said that—
Jeffries: Who? Nobody who is serious in this country takes Dr. Oz seriously… I’m not going to respond to any comments from randos like Dr. Oz who is woefully unqualified.
10.11.2025 17:21 — 👍 15482 🔁 3561 💬 608 📌 273
10.11.2025 15:21 — 👍 3400 🔁 606 💬 103 📌 15
Alt National Park Service: The Supreme Court won't hear the same-sex marriage case!!!
This was reported by Zach Schonfield at The Hill on 11/10/25 at 8:31 AM CDT, ninety minutes before AltNPS reposted it without attribution.
thehill.com/regulation/c...
It doesn't matter how many times AltNPS omits their sources. I'll do this every single time.
10.11.2025 17:21 — 👍 113 🔁 10 💬 4 📌 0
STEWART RHODES (FOUNDER, OATH KEEPERS): I've been invited to speak across the country about January 6. And now that I'm relaunching Oath Keepers, I'm getting more invitations to come speak as well. So, yeah, I'm relaunching the organization and rebuilding it.
...
They tried to take us out after January 6 but what man means for evil, God will use for good. I came out stronger after it, and so my goal is to rebuild the organization stronger than ever because it's an essential mission. Absolutely.
JIM HOFT (HOST): Oh, that's wonderful news. So the Oath Keepers is going to have a relaunch here, and Stewart's breaking that news this weekend?
RHODES: Yes, sir.
...
RHODES: I mean, I have to make sure that if I'm ever taken out again or if I'm or when I'm taken out again, that the organization can drive on without me. That's not what happened last time.
...
So we want to make sure it's got resilience and redundancy built in that it can drive on strong. With the same mission, though. You can't call yourself an Oath Keeper if you're not willing to protect people against radical antifa and other leftist violence in the streets.
STEWART RHODES (FOUNDER, OATH KEEPERS): And one other thing I want to say is that President Trump, as commander in chief, always has absolute authority to call all of us up as the militia because every one of us — in federal statues defining the militia, it's every able-bodied male from age 17-45. And for us veterans, it goes up to age 64 because of our prior training and experience.
Right now, under federal statutes, President Trump can call us up as the militia if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union. And right now, we see all three of those in play.
...
And the militia is all of us. So the National Guard is part of the militia, which is why it's completely lawful for him to use the National Guard as he has, and he should do more of that, I think, across the country.
...
He could just say given the circumstances of an invasion, insurrection, and resistance against federal law being being enforced, I'm calling up the militia, ordering all the men to come together [in] every county, put the veterans in charge of training and organizing all the other men and just have them stand too and await his orders. He can do that and I think he should do that. And so that's what I'll be advocating for from him. So from the bottom, from down the rank and file, we can let President Trump know that we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia, order us all to come together in our counties under his command, which gives you complete legal sanction to do what you're doing.
New:
On The Gateway Pundit's podcast yesterday, Stewart Rhodes announced he's relaunching the Oath Keepers
He also urged Trump to “call us up as a militia" & "order us all to come together in our counties under his command."
www.mediamatters.org/oath-keepers...
10.11.2025 16:54 — 👍 740 🔁 440 💬 77 📌 125
The President pardoned members of his private militia after they failed to overturn an election; they, in turn, pledge their support to him and urge him to use them to police civil society.
10.11.2025 17:17 — 👍 1480 🔁 633 💬 28 📌 17
I am once asking people to take seriously Jon Michaels' and my idea of "vigilante capture." It is tragically a real thing.
10.11.2025 17:21 — 👍 21 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 0
09.11.2025 15:00 — 👍 8653 🔁 2913 💬 387 📌 152
Trump dining with billionaire Steve Wynn at Mar-a-Lago. Wynn was accused of pressuring workers to perform sex acts.
09.11.2025 17:36 — 👍 617 🔁 244 💬 138 📌 23
Fighting hard on a Sunday to take food from the poor, but you know, very strongly Christian.
09.11.2025 17:59 — 👍 425 🔁 70 💬 10 📌 3
Republicans: We Are Canceling Thanksgiving
Media: Did Zohran Mamdani Clap During His Friend’s Bar-Mitzvah Party In 2004?
09.11.2025 17:59 — 👍 94 🔁 17 💬 2 📌 1
Is there life after cars? These authors rethink America’s car culture in new book
"Life After Cars" tackles our dependence on cars. The authors say America's car culture is not only unsustainable, it's also destroying our society and connections to one another.
Car dependence is baked into an American society. We’re in love with our cars. They represent freedom, independence and the American spirit.
Cars are supposed to make life easier and better, but some say that dream is running on empty.
09.11.2025 18:00 — 👍 13 🔁 4 💬 4 📌 0
To whatever extent you can trust Kash
09.11.2025 18:01 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Trump's war on the hungry continues with Supreme Court stay
The pause allows, for now, the president to keep using hungry Americans as a political weapon.
The appeals court now has less than 48 hours to weigh in. Meanwhile, deep uncertainty for SNAP beneficiaries—39 percent of whom are children—continues.
09.11.2025 18:00 — 👍 250 🔁 91 💬 17 📌 8
lol it's literally called the Dunning-Kruger Times
09.11.2025 15:35 — 👍 688 🔁 18 💬 8 📌 1
Walmart has a habit of not vetting products submitted by individual vendors very well. Please give this a search and report them down, they're still up.
09.11.2025 17:08 — 👍 183 🔁 105 💬 12 📌 15
Sure looks like DHS has used Chicago to practice/hone larger neighborhood sweeps and then immediately exported that tactic back to LA
09.11.2025 17:37 — 👍 467 🔁 215 💬 8 📌 5
virtue signalling is good actually
07.11.2025 19:59 — 👍 3738 🔁 696 💬 43 📌 18
ICIRR posted this video on their IG of a man and a baby struggling after they’ve both been pepper sprayed by federal agents.
09.11.2025 03:41 — 👍 79 🔁 61 💬 1 📌 10
A COP30 reality check:
Warming is 50% faster than early 2000s
Sea-level rise accelerating
Coral collapse = first climate tipping point
The next 10 years? Make or break
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
09.11.2025 17:01 — 👍 23 🔁 9 💬 3 📌 0
OutKast is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame:
“We started in a little room. Great things start in little rooms”
09.11.2025 13:05 — 👍 7130 🔁 1520 💬 84 📌 206
St. Peter at the Pearly Gates: Did you live by the Ten Commandments?
Mike Johnson: I have no idea. I have not seen those
03.11.2025 16:55 — 👍 5843 🔁 1375 💬 119 📌 59
I have a f*ing M.B.A. and I’m still so confused about how to pick a health insurance plan. Open enrollment should not be this hard!
09.11.2025 16:00 — 👍 18 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
Zohran for New York style font reading: You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic
09.11.2025 04:07 — 👍 461 🔁 79 💬 5 📌 6
A retired military/energy guy is leaving the world a better place. Interests: foreign affairs, equal rights, military, veterans
TikTok @haldonahue
#DemCast
librarian, archivist, historian, author, Ignyte award-winning & Hugo-nominated writer and critic, rat obsessive, hella queer
words in reactormag.com, locusmag.com, npr, reader's digest, and elsewhere
bookjockeyalex.com
Investigative Reporter, Bloomberg News. "FOIA terrorist." Subscribe to my newsletter, FOIA Files and my FOIA podcast, Disclosure.
Signal: JasonLeopold.666
http://swap.fm/l/O8A3zzBKsGWpqLtjzLSF
https://www.bloomberg.com/foiafiles
🏳️⚧️⚧ Green fingered Orchid Witch 💚 Fox mum 🦊💕 Jackdaw mum, Cook, Sister to many ❤️ Star Wars Fan obs 😂, She / Her. Straight / Queer / Pan.. oh i don’t know its complicated 🏳️🌈
VAMO
OG Black feminist journalist and editor • Award-winning author of WEIGHTLESS and LAWC • Cofounder @theflytrapmedia.com • Helping incarcerated journalists with @empowermentave.bsky.social • Forever putting on for Black + queer folks • Next: ✍🏾 NO GIVING IN
managing editor at THE CITY (@thecity.nyc) • news if I must, local joy where I can find it • bird enjoyer • bluesky elder (derogatory) • tell me something good: rsmith@thecity.nyc
📍 queens / fun hell
Your Lady of Chaos (Theory) | Cassandra of Geopolitics | MENA - Nazis - ISIS - political violence - etc. |
https://substack.com/@msentropy
Minnesota transplant. Beard appreciator (moustache envier).
I HAD A DOCTORATE IN INDUSTRIAL/ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY BUT ON JULY 1ST 2024 I BARGAINED AWAY MY KNOWLEDGE FOR MADNESS AND A VARIETY OF SILLY COSTUMES AND I HAVE YET TO REGRET THIS EXCHANGE.
Editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of Decoder, cohost of The Vergecast. I am in love with spectacle.
A worker-owned reproductive rights and justice publication cofounded by @garnethenderson.com and @susanrinkunas.com.
autonomynews.co
Former metro editor at Chicago Tribune and Sunday editor at Chicago Sun-Times. Co-author of 10 books, mostly on history. Writer of the Stop the Presses newsletter at www.stopthepresses.news. Subscribe! It's free.
More than the subtraction of my parts 🏳️⚧️
Goth 🖤 Rock 🤘 Glasgow 🏴
Worker-owned, community-oriented intersectional feminist journalism to unfuck your algorithm.
🔗 theflytrapmedia.com
Just asking questions.
Senior Editor, Lawfaremedia.org.
Send story ideas and tips to anna.bower@lawfaremedia.org
Signal username: annabower.24
Political Science prof at University of Chicago. Democratic theory, egalitarianism, global justice. Will hammer like button on any dog pics.
Associate Professor at Fordham Law. Evidence, law teaching, crosswords, jokes.
Rhetoric prof and author of Prison Power (2016) and Black Feelings (2020); both from @UPMiss. Editor of #MeToo: A Rhetorical Zeitgeist (Routledge).
Journalist & Pulitzer finalist Historian. Fmr ed, @PoliticoMag & @washingtonian. Author of "Watergate: A New History" and "The Only Plane in the Sky" and other books. garrett.graff AT gmail OR ProtonMail. Subscribe to my newsletter: Doomsdayscenario.co
Filmmaker: Hyperobject Industries and Yellow Dot Studios
Rarely answer DMs. Always answer God.
NYC Courts Reporter for Courthouse News
📍Brooklyn, NY
Recovering cagefighting enjoyer
https://www.courthousenews.com/author/erik-uebelacker/