NEW: Pair of lawsuits challenging Trump's targeting of Chicago get first hearings. The lawsuits challenge the Trump administration's military deployment efforts and harsh treatment of protesters and journalists. More hearings are set for later this week. Tonight, at Law Dork:

Photo: Richard Cahan evanstonroundtable.com/2025/10/04/b...

Kind of feels like feds occupying our city for a month, killing one person and shooting another while attacking neighborhoods with chemical weapons and kidnapping hundreds of people already counts as a civil war whether the Guard arrives or not, but what do we know?

-the absolute fascist insanity of 300 armed agents, some descending from HELICOPTERS, at 1am -the fact that they rounded up everyone in the building, busted down doors, detained everyone, held them for hours -that there was no warrant for this

With democratic voters support for Israel at an all time low and 65% of Dems saying Israel is carrying out a genocide, theres emerged a new suite of pseudo criticism of Israel by AIPAC liberals. I listed the top four and dissect why they’re bullshit ass-covering and misleading busy work.

I feel like we're not mocking UChicago enough for losing a ton of money on crypto

Once you understand that a driving principle of American politics is there is no such thing as a compassionate solution that's cheap enough or a cruel solution that's too expensive, a lot of things click into place.

Terrible www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Farthest I’ve been: N: Achill Island, Ireland S: Medellin, Colombia E: Tokyo, Japan W: Vancouver, BC

"I am a disgrace to this planet. I am a disgrace to this universe. I am a disgrace to all universes. I am a disgrace to all possible universes. I am a disgrace to all possible and impossible universes. I am a disgrace to all possible and impossible universes and all that is not a universe.”

Cutting jazz band, theater classes, and AP classes sucks for the students and it’s bad policy. We’re trying to live in a society here.

We’ve discovered a literal miracle with almost unlimited potential and it’s being scrapped for *no reason whatsoever*. This isn’t even nihilism, it’s outright worship of death and human suffering.

mRNA vaccines have saved maybe millions of lives. The United States remains a death cult.

The “left” is not silent on this: a) not being an asshole is more attractive, b) access to birth control, c) better movies, music, art, fashion, cities, and other things that have historically created opportunities for human connection. The left can’t force women to be attracted to you.

I think the fascism debate would be more easily resolved if the no-fascism team were more open to considering misogyny as a component of fascism

It really does feel like we each lost a small part of ourselves watching this genocide. There's no therapy for the feeling of "yeah it happened in my lifetime, I witnessed and I tried my best to raise awareness, but all us good people had our pleas bulldozed"

The pain of not being able to feed your child must be unendurable. I can hardly imagine anything worse.

Got a message from the Illinois State Board of Education that the Federal government is withholding over $200 million that had already been appropriated for the coming school year. This includes money for teacher professional development, English Language Learners, and technology funding.

I’m having Big Feelings about this one. (Which is normal because I’m a woman, right?) The ER patient that is going to stay with me forever, until the day I die, was a woman with postpartum depression. She was failed by several people. We fought SO hard for her. We failed. SSRIs save people.

#b1c2b0

Every time I have a complaint about Mayor Johnson, I remind myself that we almost had Paul Vallas instead -- way worse. But I think Johnson's biggest failure has been that he is always on the defensive with his critics, both in terms of messaging and in terms of actually hearing them.

The 1995 heatwave in Chicago killed over 700 people in five days.

a thing I learned to today: Mexico had personnel on site to assist in the Texas flood aftermath before FEMA did

There are many known and unknown ways to win this fight and one of them is making the job of ICE agent so morally and materially unattractive for people that no one wants to do it anymore

once again encouraging everyone to read this passage from They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945 and reflect a little on the rapidly changing character of the united states we are living through.

My boss in the NYT talking about cuts to my employer, Poetry in America. We've lost north of $800k in promised NEH grants. Hours of interview footage I recorded, just before Trump returned to office, about antebellum Native American poetry may never be aired on PBS. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/o...

Also, when you favor policies that benefit people, and that people can get excited about, you don’t have to be afraid of your constituents.

More than tax cuts or whatever the fuck else, the biggest boost to American small business would be single payer healthcare.

In the spirit of “no one knows what will work” and “try a diversity of tactics,” ICE hasn’t shown up at Chicago’s immigration court since June 16.

RFK Jr. illegally withdrawing U.S. support from Gavi condemns 75 million children to preventable disease over five years, over 1.2 million needless deaths. That is the equivalent of 6 to 8 Hiroshima-scale blasts -- and there is no reason to do it.

Yet and still CRIME IS DOWN IN CHICAGO and the press wants to credit everything but the Johnson admin and the abolitionist movement work happening here. Do not get it twisted. Black organizers + multiethnic progressive coalitions did that.

my son is 18 months old and I struggle to describe how volcanically angry this makes me

That is 17% of the population

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

I still think this is a strong contender for the funniest video ever uploaded. Absolutely unbeatable comedic rhythm

Meanwhile, at White Sands National Park ... www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Whenever you’re pissed off at Brandon Johnson, as I am often, ask yourself: “What would Paul Vallas have done in this situation?” And then you’ll at least feel better that we’re not doing that.

At the beach last night, probably hundreds of teenagers hanging out, throwing footballs and doing tik-tok dances. Families building sand castles. Middle-aged folks in camp chairs listening to the house DJ. Nothing to fear.

This picture goes pretty hard.

This is horrific but what also strikes me about it is that Brad Lander is brave to do it and I hope more elected officials follow his lead.

Tag yourself, I’m number 10.

UPDATE: An estimated 75,000 people marched in Chicago's 'No Kings' protest, organizers said. blockclubchicago.org/2025/06/14/c...

The moment the rally started marching north on Dearborn, as seen from the County building

Proud of Minnesotans

#Nokings in Chicago

Re: the left/liberal divide: leftists are tirelessly organizing jail support for folks arrested at yesterday’s protests, which were organized by a bunch of somewhat more liberal orgs. We can get pretty far with solidarity.