There are going to be so many trials like this

///BREAKING/// A federal judge is issuing an injunction putting more permanent use-of-force restrictions on immigration agents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” saying top government officials lied in their testimony about threats that protesters posed www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/06/o...

"Pope Leo said Scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world: 'How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made about what is happening'..." chicago.suntimes.com/pope-leo-xiv...

Tax policy on the British left is pure "anti-bedtime left". Bizarre idea that you can have a big social democratic welfare state without everyone contributing properly www.economist.com/britain/2025...

I’m taking a victory lap for my coverage of young voters over the last year. I’ve argued that Trump’s 2024 gains with voters <30 stemmed mostly from anti-incumbent sentiment from high inflation — and that “GOP gains” / a youth “realignment” was a mirage. Tuesday’s results suggest I was right.

Great bit of reporting from Barrow-in-Furness - perhaps the last true manufacturing town in Britain, where a third of the population works in industry: www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Useful piece

Goat meat stands sound pretty great tbf

Just so we are clear: ICE went into a day care center—a private business—without a judicial warrant, and unlawfully kidnapped a worker in front of parents and children.

This preliminary injunction hearing in Chicago is just like... normie white liberal after normie white liberal describing how federal agents beat them, shot at them with pepper balls, pointed guns at them, threw flashbangs and tear gas at them

Federal agents pulling a woman out of Rayito Del Sol, a daycare by Lane Tech high school

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo... "our estimates indicate that U.S. consumers paid more than the government received in tariff revenue, because domestic markups amplified downstream price effects" Tariffs: even stupider than you thought!!

Under oath, Gregory Bovino testified that he did not use force against a protester. The government claimed he was assaulted. Video showed the exact opposite. Great details from Jason Meisner on this curtain raiser for tomorrow’s hearing www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/04/i...

The news that fans of the late Zambian president Edgar Lungu are singing David Baddiel/Frank Skinner's "Three Lions" because they want his body to come home from South Africa to Zambia is the funniest story I've read today: www.wsj.com/world/africa...

i want to repeat this: mamdani and spanberger have run similar campaigns tailored to their respective electorates and it is maddening to watch political journalists attempt to create some broad contrast where none exist

NEW from me: In a rare dissent in Trumpland, two conservative-leaning Catholic bishops who are tied to Trump's own religious liberty commission are criticizing the administration, voicing concerns for ICE detainees who are allegedly being denied access to Communion. religionnews.com/2025/11/04/c...

Where are we on housing policy this election evening? —NIMBY NJ Gubernatorial candidate loses decisively. —Mamdani, promising to pause rent increase & develop 200k affordable units, wins NYC decisively. —All pro-housing referendums in NYC likely passed. —Housing funding passed in Columbus & Denver.

I know the sandwich throwing trial is more "fun" but I hope folks will pay attention to this trial in Chicago today. People held at Broadview share details of the disgusting, inhumane conditions. A man said agents told him to sign self deportation papers and lied to him about what they were.

Seems like a bad night for all of the "Democrats have terrible approval ratings so we can't assume they'll win" analysis

How Stephen Miller is turning the US State Department into an ‘anti-immigration machine’ This whole article is worth a read, but some highlights: "The historic shifts in US immigration under Donald Trump have been dictated by a relentless voice over a telephone line:

The relentless corporate drive to turn absolutely everything into a subscription business is such an indicator of crony capitalism: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The way the firewall against *outright* gutter racism on the right has disappeared is perhaps the single thing I find most worrying about the world right now

Overnight court filings seem to be giving us a peek at what U.S. Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino said in his deposition so far (it apparently continues today):

Lol seems like the explanation for this is that the documentary was originally made for a UK/Irish audience, and the filmmakers clearly assumed everoyne would know the Day Today so they didn't need to label it as satire

This FT account of pure thuggishness of Trump representatives posing as diplomats has not appeared in US media anywhere, but is being widely circulated and reported in media in Europe, the UK and the Asia Pacific area. Be sure to read it all.

I had to watch this twice to ascertain that yes, they do include this as an example of how the ban was 'demeaning and demonizing' with no indicator that its satire, sandwiched among actual news clips.

This is striking, and evidence of something I've been saying speculatively for a while - I think there's actually every reason to think that federal operations in Chicago could *strengthen* hispanic organised crime groups like the Latin Kings, not weaken them www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/9...

Lol yeah I am sure

In our polling with YouGov, since the start of his second term Donald Trump's net approval has fallen 17pts among white Americans (+17 to -1), 28pts among Hispanic Americans (-9 to -37) and 38pts among black Americans (-36 to -74)

NEWS: Federal agents crashed with woman’s car, pointed guns at her, dragged her out by legs, tossed her in a minivan, held her and (eventually) let her go without charges. This as Chicagoans say the immigration blitz is out of control. (DHS blames her.) www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/c...

Apropos of absolutely nothing... I was looking at Chicago Bears NFL team trying to relocate from their really cool downtown stadium to some suburb. And it's just such a perfect example of the weird size and sprawl of US cities... it's the equivalent of Liverpool building a new stadium in Manchester!

have to hand it to the federal government of Nigeria for S-tier trolling if nothing else

🚨🚨🚨🚨

This French big bad wolf is the best children's book character I've ever encountered

We are seeing not just a merging of different parts of the armed forces; we are also seeing a deprofessionalization. Competent people are fired. Those willing to break the law are hired. Normal practices are abandoned as the new force becomes more responsive to the demand for quotas & brutalization.

Experts warn this aggressive approach will likely fuel greater abuses of civil and human rights, heighten public anger and lead to more warrantless arrests, straying far from the previous stated focus on “the worst of the worst.” “Spectacle, not security.” www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/02/b...

My piece from earlier this week

“We were screaming and filming, and that’s when the officer pulled the gun out and pointed it at us and threatened to shoot us. We were posing no immediate threat to him, and we were filming and making noise.”

Here’s a disturbing video from Evanston of a federal agent hitting a man on the ground as people yell that he can’t breathe.

this is how it worked in USSR: your neighbors and your coworkers who had more access to state power than you did would routinely use it against you to settle personal matters. were you insufficiently polite to some jackass? now your children's school admission may be in jeopardy.or your spouse's job

How people think authoritarian governments work: they're hacking your phones, watching your every move with facial recognition cameras, men in black come and grab you at night. How they actually work: someone like Laura Loomer tweets about you, men in black come and grab you in the night.

Peter Gurney wrote an excellent book - Braver Men Walk Away. They really don't - he was one of that select band of humans prepared to walk towards a suspected bomb and attempt to defuse it. A number of his friends never survived, but he got to 93. You don't get two George Medals for nothing.

The obituaries in The Economist, written by the brilliant Ann Wroe, are usually the best-written thing each week in the paper. This one is especially wonderful www.economist.com/obituary/202...

So not only does the massive transit package passed last night fill the funding gap, it *boosts* ops funding by roughly the size of the gap, eliminates parking minimums within a half mile of rail stations, and gives the new regional transit board sweeping powers to do public development

WOOHOO: “Illinois lawmakers approve $1.5B legislative package to buoy mass transit” chicago.suntimes.com/springfield/...

Something I've been mulling today - only about 1,700 criminal cases in the federal courts go *to trial* each year, of about 70,000 cases total. Obviously there have not *that* many of these cases yet but... arresting and charging protesters will pretty quickly overwhelm the court system no?

Seems quite bad how basically all humidifiers you can buy now are ultrasonic "cool mist" ones, and nobody seems to know that if you use them with hard water you're basically filling your house with air poisoning limescale dust

My story on what is happening in Chicago - Tear gas and Halloween costumes in America’s third largest city www.economist.com/united-state...

NEW: The Trump administration quietly lifted sanctions on Wednesday against the Putin-backed Serbian leader Milorad Dodik after an intensive campaign on his behalf by Trump allies including Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Laura Loomer & high-priced lobbyists.