I wrote this essay because I wanted as many people as possible to understand that what Paine did in Common Sense was recognize the urgency of his historical moment, and that he matched that moment with words. That is why it resonates now. What words will we find for our moment?

It’s feeling very real!!! Publication date: June 16, 2026. @pennpress.bsky.social

There are still a lot of hard times ahead, but remember this moment and what it means: We can win.

as i've been saying for weeks, he has broken 50% and this is going to be important his ability to control the narrative after tonight

Young people in NYC absolutely showed out and there should be 1000 articles and profiles about this. Because we have had to put up with 1000 MAGA diner stories for years now.

More unemployment and poverty will likely lead to more violence. More police will not stop this.

here’s a current chopper view of the chicago protests. the crowd moved north from grant park up michigan avenue; chicago pd has blocked the bridge across the river to trump tower and are routing everyone west down wacker drive

"The teachers union is stepping up by helping students+families understand protections they have under the union contract for which we fought, as well as the rights we all have under the Constitution. Teaching not just our nation’s history, but also how to make it." www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

white reactionaries disenfranchising black voters to secure political power? that’s a jim crow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

@jamellebouie.net has won the 2025 Tikkun Olam Prize for Promoting Public Historical Literacy. And I'm thrilled to add that he is joining the panel for the AHA's annual op-ed workshop at #AHA26. (Free to attend, but preregistration is required.) 🗃️

ICE out terrorizing Rogers Park and Edgewater in Chicago this morning. Lotsa watchers in the streets too!

Mapping Outside the Lines is open! Explore how maps work with classics like portolan charts and Antonio García Cubas and contemporary artists like Tonika Johnson, Ed Fairburn, and Ibrahim Miranda Ramos. Marvel at a fold-out river and listen to our rendition of a John Cage score.

*Many more neighbors were affected, but you won't get tallies on those numbers from the media because they don't get free ambulance rides and a PR team to issue statements on their behalf

eventually politicians need to start advocating for criminal and civil penalties for people involved in fabricating stories to get citizens incarcerated. or, put another way: a society that would like to keep functioning has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. trib.al/9Sxu9IN

this is a very very big story because of the apparently totally fake story ICE/DHS put out about what happened.

We’d be in a much stronger position right now if mainstream Democrats had taken a common sense stand for First Amendment principles instead of piling on undergraduate standing up for Palestine.

I've taught a range of map-related classes since 2009. We almost always started with Pedro Lasch's Latino/a América, which was such an evocative way to convey the politics + poetics of cartography, and the importance of cartographic *materiality* — how maps carry traces of their own journeys

Liberals say the Supreme Court had destroyed our democracy. They're wrong—it has destroyed our Republic.

supreme irony that the party of lincoln is now the party of taney

NEW: In what appears to be one of the largest expansions of surveillance in IL history, we found hundreds of new Flock license plate readers—all paid for by AG Kwame Raoul's office in the last 3 years. Issues with Flock Safety's data sharing practices are mounting. Will our sanctuary status hold?

And then this. As always, everywhere, "tough on crime" policies require no ACTUAL data to back them up, just breezy correlations, bc they are seen as the natural, obvious solution. I doubt making low-level things tougher has led to a big increase in safety. But I can't compete w gut instinct.

I mean, it's the Platonic ideal:

Some of the people in line to apply for other companies are being handed these pamphlets. Hotel security here less than thrilled.

Happening now: protesters in Chicago are interrupting a hiring fair at the Congress Hotel, where U.S. Customs and Border protection is recruiting today. Banner reads, "stop kidnapping our neighbors!" It's quite the scene in here, and the DHS table has been blocked for several minutes already.

This bill was never only about eviscerating social services or enriching oligarchs, bad as that is. It’s also about using state power to build a private police force for the fascists—and spreading fear and destroying solidarity. Being brave and building solidarity is a big part of how we fight back.

Our guide to public records for Chicago tenants is now available online! In this series of videos, senior reporter Maya Dukmasova walks you through how to use free government databases to learn about any property’s building code violations and ownership. www.injusticewatch.org/knowyourbuilding

I just submitted my book for peer review. After 15 years of thinking, researching, and writing, and, as I keep saying, an NEH this year to finish up. I’m furious about the gutting of that institution, which makes so much knowledge possible. I hope this book eventually lives up to that honor.

All of the talk about "peaceful protest" makes me think of all the times I have been part of a protest where the police cracked someone over the head and then charged that person with assault. They will call you violent. You can't control that or other people.

Happening now: in Chicago, activists are holding a rally in Pilsen this afternoon in opposition to CPD's collaboration with ICE earlier this week at an immigration check-in site.

One thing is for certain after this week: Local cops in sanctuary cities—Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York—are working in lock step with DHS and ICE.

An archive of two decades' worth of exhibitions at the Leventhal Map & Education Ctr @ the Boston Public Library (@bplmaps.bsky.social) — from imaginary, climate, subterranean, and computer maps to school geography, women mapmakers, and cartographic deception

Between the El and Deep Dish, Chicago is sadly designed to be anti-Ninja Turtle

Justice Taney’s infamous Dred Scott line that black Americans had “no rights the white man was bound to respect” represents a dismally consistent thru line in our politics as applied to marginalized groups. But it’s also a fundamentally brutal and losing position. lpeproject.org/blog/outrage...

Maybe an apple print is more affordable than apples? At any rate, this one is for all the teachers. https://www.starshaped.com/small-prints/apple #letterpress

Cops out of traffic enforcement

Outside Cook County Jail yesterday, we chanted, “Free Our Moms, Free Them All!”

hello from outside division 10 of the cook county jail in chicago. i’m here for the free our moms day gathering. through testimony, poetry, and music, this annual event demands freedom for incarcerated mothers and people imprisoned everywhere—from immigration detention centers to palestine.

A report from the scene of a horrifying kidnapping on the streets of Worcester, MA today by @billshaner.bsky.social www.welcometohellworld.com/they-dont-ne...

youtu.be/d_YZhjWbBnI?... Premier explaining turntablism to Leno is the appetizer and then Guru says “Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal” and sends it out coast to coast for the main course

And remember, cops aren’t workers :) www.teenvogue.com/story/what-t...

Scenes from Chicago today, where some brief rain was no match for thousands of May Day protesters. Organizers and electeds vowed to protect undocumented workers from ICE snatch squads as they marched from Union Park all the way to the lakefront.

Massive Crowd at May Day protest in Chicago!