Brilliant and disturbing. If foundations and people with significant resources don't support progressive media, we will lose it entirely.

So grateful for Alder Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez's courage & dedication to her constituents. If warning people about to be taken to a detention center with deadly conditions is "obstruction" - certainly not of justice - we are all at risk. Help Dayanne Figueroa if you can. blockclubchi.co/4ozWzin

During Thanksgiving and holidays, people want to do food drives where they collect canned goods etc... and I really would love to offer that food banks need MONEY so if you can collect and donate MONEY please do that. They can then use those funds to purchase what's needed AT DISCOUNTS.

Great article on the work being done to support pregnant people in custody, including a bill that would require deferred sentencing to keep moms and babies together. Congrats and gratitude to Pamela Winn of RestoreHER US. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Chicago-area friends, let's support the things that have helped support communities and prevent crime. In the face of federal defunding of proven strategies, Cook County needs to invest in health and prevention.

The one time I met Paul Vallas was at a conference and after a very brief conversation he showed me a plan for a "reform school" project he was pitching. The man was carrying plans for a jail for children on his person and just...showing it to people. That guy came really close to being mayor.

This is important.

Illinois' lawsuit against the deployment of the National Guard. Includes a downloadable PDF of the full complaint.

Qs journalists can pose to any official with exec power (gov, state police dir, AG, county state's atty, sheriff, mayor, city police chief): -What have you done to investigate potential state law violations by the federal govt -Whose job is it to follow up + when did you last discuss it w/ them

Huge proportion of food aid has been canceled, as we are seeing more need than we have since the Great Depression. Informative report with compelling illustration. Do you know what happens to people, especially kids, who don't get enough protein? projects.propublica.org/trump-food-c...

Been thinking a lot about how things keep escalating, and rather quickly. From the beginning, Trump has followed a pattern of doing something outlandish to test the response. If the response is sufficiently negative, he pulls back. If he sees he’s given an inch, he’ll take a mile. Repeat.

Cook County leads the nation in wrongful convictions. Eileen O'Neill Burke's Convictions Integrity Unit now has no lawyers with criminal defense expertise. She tightened rules to exclude more people from raising innocence claims. The unit has not exonerated anyone in a year.

My husband was detained by ICE today Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away I have had zero contact or updates since #SOS @duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov

And before you come at me let me be crystal clear I say this not out of any desire to police shame or schoolmarm anyone or out of any faith whatsoever in “the law” or our “rights” but to try to help keep people I love (even if I don’t know you) on this side of the walls and bars to *keep* resisting

If you speak spontaneously before during or after they do or don’t read you your rights - whether in direct response to an LE question or, just in front of them, say to someone filming you, they can use what you say against you. So, in short, once in police custody it is in your interests to STFU.

It’s your friendly neighborhood lawyer again with a Friday (fr this time) fun fact: Law enforcement *don’t* have to read Miranda rights when they arrest you (that’s a law & order TV myth) - only *before* they question you *after* detaining you. Then you *have* to say you are asserting them & STFU

Congrats to Starling Thomas, a winner of the 2025 Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize. "We were mothers ripped from our children, daughters robbed of our dignity...And yet, even in the belly of the beast, we refused to be broken. We sang, we prayed, we dreamed of freedom."

Congrats to E.M.--This essay is a winner of Truthout’s 2025 Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, awarded to formerly or currently incarcerated people for essays related to imprisonment or policing.

In late September the Trump administration abruptly announced that it was ending hunger surveys, after strong-arming Congress into passing a budget that eviscerates spending on food stamps by more than $180 billion — a cut which would put the food benefits of roughly 5 million people at risk.

“Fuck them kids.” That’s literally what an ICE agent said when ICE, the FBI et al. raided an apartment in Chicago, including with a Blackhawk helicopter, separated children from their parents, and zip-tied them to each other. abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

Really horrific. ICE waging war on our community and families.

The number of times Chicago police officers used any kind of force against members of the public increased 75% between 2021 and 2024, as documented by the number of Tactical Response Reports filed by officers. The consent decree is failing. news.wttw.com/2025/09/24/r...

This is a nightmare. truthout.org/articles/tru...

Great commentary from Kate Caldwell. Important for all of us to take what action we can, as soon as we can, to prevent this. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/24/o...

"Women’s incarceration stubbornly remains at near-historic highs in the U.S., while the country’s overall incarceration rate has been falling." Illinois has a higher rate of incarcerating women than Chile, Venezuela, or Nicaragua.

We need to stop the flow of prison admissions by funding housing, education, job development, and services in the community. And stop criminalizing survivors of gender-based violence.

One correction to the below--They are almost ALWAYS further harmed by the carceral system itself, which mirrors the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that led them to drug use to begin with, exercises coercive control, and separates them from their children.

This type of criminalization & overreliance on mass incarceration has helped make the U.S. stand out in a shameful way. Importantly, this is not a partisan issue. Even a "progressive" state, like California, outpaces the rest of the world when it comes to incarcerating women:

With 50% of women in SD prisons needing treatment for substance use and 10% receiving treatment, the state is on its way to spending itself into bankruptcy on prisons. Worse, it creates and exacerbates intergenerational trauma and harms children who lose their mothers, instead of helping.

Three U.S. states incarcerate women at a rate higher than El Salvador, a country that's been described as an authoritarian police state. The rest are not far behind – take a look at who holds the top 10 spots for women’s incarceration around the world:

Hmm, this looks like municipal law enforcement closing off a street and setting up a perimeter in aid of civil immigration enforcement

5 ILCS 805/15

Two Chicago local district councilors are calling for ICE to release Alejandro Fraire Valdez who was taken by ICE on Friday. According to the statement, ICE refused to tell family where he was being held. He has since described overcrowded, inhumane conditions w people sleeping on bathroom floors.

Bothers me when people discuss Left movements in the U.S. w/out underscoring the GENERATIONS of repression, surveillance, violence directed at movements. The "Left" is so disorganized is used as a joke but I hardly ever see those same people saying 'THE LEFT WAS TARGETED & DISORGANIZED by the STATE'

new EO dropped. I mean, the very first sentence is wrong: “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Interview on the success of the Pretrial Fairness Act and the ending of cash bail. Crime is reduced, people show up for their hearings, and judges make more thorough assessments of risk. This is what this pres wants to end in IL. boltsmag.org/chicago-publ...

Local rapid response saw the same vehicle in the area yesterday, warning "Cicero Ave continues to be a target location for ICE and other federal officers."

@schakowsky.house.gov @quigley.house.gov @durbin.senate.gov @duckworth.senate.gov Bovino urging more killing by immigration agents in Chicago and suburbs. What are you doing to hold them accountable?

We've been retained by the family of Demartravion "Trey" Reed — the 21-yo Delta State University student whose body was found hanging from a tree. Trey was a young man full of promise and warmth, deeply loved and respected by all who knew him.

I'm telling all of you that they are going to do what they ALWAYS do. What you do or do not say has no impact on what THEY WILL DO AND SAY. [just going to leave that here]

The crazy part is everyone actually wants public goods. They just don’t want to share them with others.

I think it's worth pointing out that using the past tense to refer to the pandemic is a way of stigmatizing those who still mask indoors in public, who test before seeing loved ones or before flights, and who still feel a strong obligation to community care.

Related to this: today ICE agents were at Chicago's main domestic violence court on Harrison Street, harassing survivors of gender-based violence, according to court advocates from anti-domestic violence organizations. Beyond cruel, utterly unconscionable: misogynistic, racist, and xenophobic.

Israel’s actions in Gaza “meet the legal definition of genocide,” an overwhelming majority of the world’s leading scholars on the subject said on Monday.

“I love this city fiercely. It has given me every good thing in my life. It has given me my children. It has given me my friends who are now my family. It has given me purpose.“ thetriibe.com/2025/08/trum...

“ILLEGALS” MY ASS! Green card holder Rami Othmane speaks out after being snatched off the street by ICE while driving to the grocery store. He’s a documented immigrant and the husband of Dr Wafaa Alrashid, chief of staff at a local hospital. He was locked in detention for 13 days.

September 13, Joliet. Family Day + Teach-In. Know your rights! $4 Tacos, kids eat free! Share with folks who could use this or who work with justice-involved parents! Free but you must register. forms.gle/vCgRVY21d7vC... or use QR code below.

H/T to @slkollmann.bsky.social. I really needed this laugh. The best: 800-588-STFU. Can't you just sing along to the jingle? #Chicago