Brooks Williams

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-...

FWIW, social democracies like Norway, Sweden etc have big businesses. They have billionaires.

They also have universal healthcare, quality free education & child care, and programs to curb poverty and food insecurity.

How?

Their billionaires pay taxes and don’t control the government.

Ronald Reagan said it. #NoKings tomorrow 10/18

True

Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

Man in custody after 3 killed, at least 8 injured in shooting at a waterfront bar in North Carolina, officials say | CNN A 40-year-old man is facing murder charges after allegedly pulling up on a boat to a waterfront bar in North Carolina Saturday night and opening fire, killing three and injuring at least eight others.

Targeted attack on a dockside restaurant in North Carolina. Three dead. Suspect a former Marine sniper in Iraq and Haiti who tried to sue the US govt for “genocide against straight men by the LGBQT community.”

Flags at half mast? Endless op-eds? Victims’ faces on coins?

www.cnn.com/2025/09/28/u...

The solution is right there in front of us.

#TaxTheRich #EndBillionaires

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.

This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.

All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

Next time someone on the right claims all the political violence in this country is coming from the left, not the right, do please show them this.

You're welcome

“Ooh, can you put it on speaker? I want to hear 911 laugh at you.”

DAY 1/ Wall Street Journal: "Shooter was motivated by trans/antifa grievances."

DAY 2/ WSJ finds out the shooter was not trans or antifa, but a Trump supporter who was a huge fan of Charlie Kirk's notorious rival Nick Fuentes.

DAY 3/ WSJ: "We have no idea what motivated the shooter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

New Mexico will be the first state to make child care free The program, which is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually, is available to all residents regardless of income.

New Mexico's economy is a fraction of the size of New York City's.

If they can enact universal childcare — and relieve working families of a crushing cost burden — surely we can too.

It's just a question of political will.

This was 4 days ago btw.

Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman remembered as funny, savvy and 'a true leader' Friends and colleagues remembered her as grounded, kind and compassionate.

This is a Melissa Hortman appreciation account for the next 24 hours.

This is not the message the country needs. We need unifying leadership to take down the temperature, not exploitative blame-seeking that falsely pins all political violence on one side of the spectrum to fit Trump’s narratives. Enough. Americans are tired of the divisiveness.

Charlie Kirk was a private citizen

Melissa Hortman was a seated lawmaker in MN

No Flags were flown half staff at the WH for her death by gun violence

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah took down X posts Tuesday making an apparent connection between Gov. Tim Walz and the man accused of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, and blaming “Marxists” for the murders. The change comes after blowback from Sen. Tina Smith and her staffers as well as Minnesota Democratic and Republican lawmakers. One X post said “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” with pictures of Boelter, who is accused of killing Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and shooting Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in the early morning hours of June 14. Boelter also went to the homes of two other state lawmakers that night; one house was empty, and at the other, a police officer pulled up to the house shortly after Boelter arrived, so Boelter left. Another Lee post read, “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” with a picture of Boelter.

No elected official Democratic party will be as cruel about Kirk's death as Mike Lee was about the death of Melissa Hortman.

wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/06/17/s...

Wish the news outlets and baseball teams (lol???) rushing to eulogize a D-tier right wing mouthpiece would include some of their favorite inspirational quotes from the guy. Should be easy, right? Show me that soaring rhetoric and big thinking worthy of such veneration

xAI has a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense to provide... whatever this is.

My feed is almost entirely people condemning violence and telling others not to celebrate this.

The Awkward Moment a Fox News Host's Mom Calls in to Tell Him Off

San Angelo town hall heated up over immigration and "Alligator Alcatraz." A 91-year-old woman told Rep. Pfluger,
"You're here to listen."
Crowd applauded, then tensions soared.
Walkouts and tough questions left
unanswered.

Hey Jake Tapper, fodder for your next book!👇

The worst chief justice of all time Move over, Roger Taney and Melville Fuller.

New in PN: The worst chief justice of all time

"American history has no shortage of legendarily bad chief justices and disgraceful decisions. But John Roberts has overseen the wholesale corruption and capture of the Supreme Court, and history should look back on his tenure with revulsion."

Los Angeles residents were outraged after dozens of federal agents marched through MacArthur Park, in one of the city’s most immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. Homeland Security officials said it was an immigration enforcement operation, though it was unclear if anyone had been arrested. trib.al/JYW5IsU

House Passes Trump's Big Bill Cutting Taxes For Wealthy, Axing Health Care For Millions Despite all the bad things Republican lawmakers said about the “big, beautiful bill,” the holdouts caved and delivered for Donald Trump.

Congress has passed Trump’s “big, beautiful” nightmare bill, leaving the safety net in shreds to fund tax cuts for the rich

Here he is, folks. The President of the United States selling his new men’s cologne for $199 and women’s perfume for $249.

They Fired America’s Nuclear Guards, Then Tried to Take It Back A 24-hour reversal that reveals how government "efficiency" is threatening national security.

“Since 1975, they’ve logged 140 million miles transporting nuclear materials without a single fatality or radioactive release.”

Then Trump’s appointees fired the specialists who made that safety record possible by mistake.

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