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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 — 👍 9026    🔁 4969    💬 102    📌 285

This is highly related to my main takeaway from my jury duty earlier this year: "beyond a reasonable doubt" for _every element_ of the crime charged is a HIGH STANDARD TO MEET in a jury trial, esp when the gov is doing all this. Every juror should be prepared to hold the government to that standard.

06.11.2025 20:10 — 👍 272    🔁 57    💬 6    📌 1

I have a similar takeaway from my just completed jury duty for a civil trial in MA and the plaintiff only had to meet the the preponderance of the evidence standard.

07.11.2025 14:28 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Me (42 yr old 32 wk pregnant woman in grey sweater) smiling while holding a large sign saying "Abolish I.C.E." and a small one saying "No Trump No KKK No Fascist USA!" Standing next to the road.

Person in an inflatable frog costume with a bubble gun in the foreground with people sitting and walking around behind on a lovely fall day

Pics from today's No Kings protest in my small town. Was a lovely day for it. People driving by were mostly supportive, big 'insult' thrown at us was being called communist. (Close enough label I guess, def not the insult they think it is when compared to fascist)

19.10.2025 02:58 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Senator Ed Markey speaking to a crowd on the Battle Green in Lexington MA

Crowd on the Battle Green in Lexington MA

A man in a red sweater holding a sign that reads "No kings! 250 years and more!"

Good turnout for #nokings in Lexington MA to hear @markey.senate.gov speak!

18.10.2025 16:04 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

The expectation, from the complicit mainstream media, that every single person on social media hold themselves to a HIGHER standard of respect than the freaking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES will never cease to amaze me.

11.09.2025 01:33 — 👍 3915    🔁 746    💬 101    📌 29

The reason Trump got his ass handed to him on Friday is bc ALL Trump's power is built on Russian disinfo--"RussiaRussiaRussia." And Putin just made it clear he can destroy that with glee.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3hT...

17.08.2025 20:33 — 👍 702    🔁 196    💬 32    📌 12

Read this: “There are really better ways to fight fascism than focusing on what magical ponies we’ll ride if we “win.”

31.07.2025 11:19 — 👍 64    🔁 21    💬 1    📌 0

Constitutional Cope in the Time of Texas Hold'em - emptywheel There are really better ways to fight fascism than focusing on what magical ponies we'll ride if we "win." But if you're going to do that, consider what would need to happen to actually reverse the ti...

Constitutional Cope in the Time of Texas Hold'em (a response to @jvl.bsky.social and @froomkin.bsky.social).

www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/31/c...

31.07.2025 11:10 — 👍 206    🔁 85    💬 10    📌 10

*NEW MONTHLY RECORD*

Boston has moved up to 101F, the hottest June day ever recorded in the city (since at least 1872). #wbz

24.06.2025 19:13 — 👍 1140    🔁 261    💬 57    📌 28

Can’t get over how great this is.

People who say they don’t understand what we want Dems to do: do this. Make them sound as dumb as they are, attack, don’t use caveats or hedge, stand up for the people you say you protect, act fucking mad.

22.03.2025 03:47 — 👍 2193    🔁 435    💬 7    📌 9

Imagine DOGE opens your mail and finds your household electric bill. To eliminate this cost, they burn your house down without warning. Then they total up the bills that, as a homeless person, you will never again pay. On its website, DOGE boasts about the money it has saved you.

04.03.2025 08:56 — 👍 11920    🔁 3113    💬 100    📌 129

Showing up but then walking out would be a great demonstration of the gravity of the current situation. Would be great to see my rep @whipkclark.bsky.social and senators @markey.senate.gov and @warren.senate.gov rise to the occasion!

04.03.2025 15:00 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social You can't have Dems sit quietly tonight. Do a dignified walk-out if you must. Sitting there and pretending this is all normal is affirming Trump and all that he is doing.

04.03.2025 14:26 — 👍 152    🔁 33    💬 7    📌 2

Posting to @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social in hopes his staff are counting the pushback: sitting in the room for the SOTU like everything is normal validates what Trump is doing as in the range of normal political disagreements.

This is not normal, and you need to demonstrate that you recognize that

04.03.2025 14:28 — 👍 217    🔁 46    💬 9    📌 3

worth clarifying that if they straight boycott, those seats will just get filled by other toadies from the GOP. You gotta do it after the event starts so he's facing empty seats that cannot be filled in time to soothe his little feelings

04.03.2025 03:08 — 👍 648    🔁 85    💬 20    📌 2

Ok folks, deep breaths.

There is very real reason to worry about the dynamic emerging between Washington and Moscow when it comes to Ukraine. But there is also very real reason to believe that Ukraine and Europe can create a better outcome.

(A rather long 🧵, obviously)

/1

13.02.2025 23:05 — 👍 1906    🔁 726    💬 67    📌 135

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

08.02.2025 20:42 — 👍 1106    🔁 402    💬 15    📌 44

Casual Viewing | Will Tavlin A decade before Airbnb persuaded homeowners to transform their homes into hotels, Netflix convinced its users to turn theirs into mini Netflix warehouses. Customers who held onto their DVDs for longer...

This is brilliant on how streaming has wrecked movie careers and movie viewing, to the point where AI makes films no one watches. All to make some very rich people very very rich.

Time for some creative destruction.

www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/ess...

29.12.2024 08:51 — 👍 67    🔁 43    💬 5    📌 10

Finally made an account here, next step is to use my actual domain for my profile name

18.11.2023 02:57 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0