Thom Clark

What Chicago's fight against ICE can teach us all about how to resist oppression | Zoe Williams A harrowing US podcast documents a community’s struggle against immigration raids – and warns us about herd mentality, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams

“Don’t wait until your government is so racist that it’s lifting people off ladders while they are trying to work, or seizing kids as they are trying to get to school, before you protest.”

"Jill Garvey says they're not just standing against heavy-handed immigration enforcement. They're also pushing back against what she sees as an authoritarian strategy that, unchecked, could ultimately eat away at the freedom and rights of everyone in this country."
www.npr.org/2025/11/19/n...

The Grift Bubble A Political Theory of American Collapse

“The republic can break, but it need not. Those who work against the grifters, who reinforce the reality beyond the bubble, are doing right. They are not only holding back authoritarianism, but giving the republic a chance.” —Timothy Synder

Autumnal Lakeshore

One should never let facts get in the way of propaganda in a land of callous calumny. #1984

In Chicago, We Run Toward Danger Together "Faced with unrelenting state violence, Chicagoans have refused to be cowed," says Mariame Kaba.

“In a time when the levers of power are so limited, the steadfast organizing in Chicago remains a beacon of hope and essential guide for activists across the country.” Silly Shah

organizingmythoughts.org/in-chicago-w...

Everything you need to know about the current administration is that they will spike Head Start while sending masked thugs into communities to arrest preschool teachers because maybe — maybe — their papers don't have the right stamp.” Neil Steinberg

Daycare Teacher Pulled Out Of Preschool By Armed Federal Agents, 'Traumatizing,' Parents Say The incident happened in front of parents and children at Rayito de Sol in North Center, a parent said. They believe the employee is legally allowed to work in the United States.

tRump: "We're going after the worst of the worse, and we're gonna hit Chicago hard!" What a testosterone high the conman-in-chief must get uttering such utter calumny.
Daycare Teacher Pulled Out Of Preschool By Armed Federal Agents, 'Traumatizing,' Parents Say blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/05/d...

Joyce Vance (@joycevance) Prosecutors are facing discipline for telling a judge the truth in a sentencing memo. This post traces the case, its facts, the sentencing process, and helps us understand why this completes the cycle...

Illicit regime

Too Cruel Too Soon How Republicans messed up on Project 2025

"...they simply stumbled into this crisis, because senior Republicans in Congress & their advisors just don’t understand how [Obamacare] works, & never have. After all, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his membership in a political cult depends on his not understanding it."

Nothing to see The blog of Neil Steinberg

“It was very sad to see the White House. Usually I thrill to consider the greatness that once occupied it. Now it's hard to think past the evil therein, the excrescence occupying it, tearing it apart, and our country too.”

Video of federal agents tear-gassing Irving Park this morning, obtained by Armando Sanchez. This is at least the sixth neighborhood federal agents have tear gassed while conducting immigration raids

a photograph of the interior of a church. Several people are visible sitting in pews. In the pew immediately in front of the photographer, a black human-sized cardboard cutout in the outline of a woman is visible, as though a shadow is sitting in the pew in front of you.

Went to a prayer service tonight at St. Mary of the Lake, where they have cardboard cutouts throughout the church representing parishioners afraid to come to Mass because of ICE.

Echoes of Hitler's Germany in Stephen Miller's attack on Art. It's about more than a ballroom. In 1937, Hitler staged the Great German Art Exhibition — a showcase of what he called the Reich’s “true art.” Every painting and sculpture had been handpicked by Nazi officials to reflect the “purity”...

“It’s more than about a ballroom. It’s the authoritarian playbook: define beauty, outlaw dissent, and weaponize culture as propaganda. From Hitler’s Munich to Trump’s Washington, the message hasn’t changed — destroy what you can’t control, and call it patriotism.”

Tear gas, fear and federal secrecy: How Chicago journalists are covering Trump’s immigration policies while living through them - Poynter ‘It’s really exhausting, mentally and physically. But somebody has to record history’

"'I’ve never seen more active propaganda coming from the federal government,' said WBEZ reporter Chip Mitchell. 'When I’ve seen something with my own eyes and then I see a completely different characterization coming from the spokesperson in Washington...it’s hard to know how to respond to that.''

“The ballroom exterior is a cold, two-dimensional pastiche of windows, entrances and stylings more befitting of the old Chateau Bu-Sche banquet hall on Cicero Avenue in Alsip than next to the White House.” Lee Bey

“We are not living in a functional democracy any longer.... We are losing it every single day. We are not a functional nation with a rule of law any longer, and those toppled walls in the East Wing are a pretty stark reminder of that.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Tear gas, fear and federal secrecy: How Chicago journalists are covering Trump’s immigration policies while living through them - Poynter ‘It’s really exhausting, mentally and physically. But somebody has to record history’

Local news outlets like Block Club, The Triibe, Evanston Roundtable, Wednesday Journal, South Side Weekly, among others, are diligently documenting kidnappings and community residents’ response to protect neighbors.

Chidinma Anyanwu (@amay.a100) on Threads Trump would hate to see this: Someone made a new ad for Trump’s ballroom and it’s absolutely perfect. Make it go viral….

www.threads.com/@amay.a100/p...

Second "No Kings Day" protests the largest single-day political protest ever*, with 4.4-6.1 million participants Here are the initial results from our crowdsourced crowd-counting estimates

Are we at #tippingpoint yet?

Tens of 1000s Paradeon No Kings day in Chicago
“While an official crowd count wasn't immediately available for the gathering, it was surely in the tens of thousands. Helicopter footage showed a sprawling gathering on parkland that just months ago was home to a more festive event: Lollapalooza.”

Feds Raid Swap-O-Rama Flea Market, Arresting 15 People: 'It Breaks My Heart' Vendors questioned why agents were allowed inside and fear the raid will further hurt the local economy. "They said they'd detain gang members and criminals, but here it's just hardworking people," on...

Masked Thugs Detain Working Vendors!

Hundreds of neighbors turned out in Rogers Park, Chicago, as apparent ICE thugs (still violating court orders against unplayed cars and masked agents w no IDs) increased their kidnapping of brown people off streets. The crowd heard a few speeches, then fanned out to buy at local businesses.

“But this is bigger than politics. It is about whether we believe, as our forebears did, that no federal order can compel us to betray our humanity.”

It's been two weeks since Adelita Grijalva was elected and Mike Johnson has still refused to seat her, unlike in past cases where he swore in new members within 24 hours.

There cannot be one set of rules for Rs and another for Ds.

Also, release the damn Epstein files already.

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

State Terror, American Style Forget about “soft autocracy”

“We didn’t expect America to become a country where masked secret policemen smash down your door in the middle of the night and take you away. Yet that’s where we are.” Paul Krugman

Federal Agents Handcuff Chicago Alderperson At Hospital ER In another incident caught on video Friday, federal agents inside a car randomly threw tear gas into a Logan Square street while people — including a 2-year-old — were outside nearby.

They talk of dangerous criminals? Arresting elected officials, arresting citizens, throwing smoke bombs out car windows, Blackhawk helicopters, trashing apartments of citizens, arresting reporters, leaving children without parents: THIS is domestic terrorism.
blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/03/f...