The several simultaneous federal trials happening in Chicago are especially important for the fact that they are the only thing so far cracking open the Black Box of who these ICE agents are, how they think, and how they interact. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Very important investigatiom. These are the techniques by which people become persuaded that, some day, people like you and me need to die, to preserve their safety. If you can stomach it, check into right-wing media occasionally. Don't look away. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Chicago welcomes migrants. Sorry, MAGA.

The kidnapping was Wednesday morning. A thousand neighbors rallied in solidarity Wednesday night. That's how mobilized Chicago is. We shall overcome.

Congratulations to my friends in New York. Now can we please shift the focus to Chicago? (These items are all from today.)

Something for the history books, billionairws advocating "working well" with the dictator.

If you're still doing your DeJohnette deep dive--or if you're not. This is one of the epic blowing sessions of all time. youtu.be/2WyeEySgwps?...

The definitive account of the Watergate-style coverup Dick Cheney orchestrated after shooting that one guy in the face. www.salon.com/2006/02/15/c...

"The Chief Executive will on occasion feel duty bound to assert monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the law." Donald Trump has been following Dick Cheney's playbook.

In honor of the dearly departed, a preview from Chapter Two ("The 9/11 Lobotomy") my forthcoming (hopefully in a year) book THE INFERNAL TRIANGLE: HOW AMERICA GOT THIS WAY.

Unsurprising for anyone who has been following this sort of thing for any amount of time.

Sad next chapter to this post.

Those "little things" are actually huge things. The camaraderie, solidarity, common purpose, etc. are not only essential, they make public espousing of your values a deeply satisfying and fulfilling act. Get out and protest, folks! It feels real good! 😊

ICE has been staging in this parking lot. Local patrolers called an impromptu protest. Thousands of honking cars affirm to neighbors that the invasion cannot stand. Dozens getting to know each other, exchanging tips on identifying ICE cars to stop the next kidnapping, etc. Little things help.

Impressive propaganda, this framing. Another word for "fantasy" is VISION. Without which, I've heard it said, the people perish. And besides, it's only fantasy if you can't imagine or accept a fairer system of taxation.

This book should be really interesting.

Just had a little insight in my book-writing today that I wanted to put out there, because heroism has to be recongized: I just realized this guy, as a chronicler and moral tutor on the workings of evil, is to the rise and ruin wrought by George W. Bush that William Shirer was Adolph Hitler.

Sometimes it all comes together: an inquisitive, well-informed interviewer; a large national audience; success expounding on a profound public matter with both nuance and moral force. This historian and a citizen's dream come true. (Almost always, non-U.S. media, alas.) www.cbc.ca/radio/frontb...

Do not look away. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

The dictatorship has effected a serious escalation, indicting a congressional candidate, aldermanic chief of staff, municpal board of trustees candidate, and Democratic ward committee member, for doing things lots of people did--standing beside a car. blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/29/b...

Presidential power has expanded far beyond what the framers of the Constitution envisioned. In fact, the founders were terrified of such concentrated executive authority, says historian @rickperlstein.bsky.social. More in the latest episode of Democracy Decoded: campaignlegal.org/democracy-de...

What, generally, to do? Every antifascist person has to maximally participate in electoral politics (starting at party and municipal level) and, at an appripriate personal level of risk, street-level resistance. And every person prepare an "I AM A MEMBER OF ANTIFA" shirt or sign to have ready.

Interesting to watch the part about Netflix's "Hitler and the Nazis" where parliament willingly votes itself out of power in 1932 at the behest of the spring dictator.

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

What is this gesture Bovino gave on his way out of the courtroom flaunting his sidearm?

I can't emphasize this enough: millions of Americans live in a fascist bubble. They think we're terrorists who want to kill them. One of the aims in my next book is to demonstrate, with 2000 as an almost arbitrary baseline, how GOP propagandists slowly turned this into common sense.

She may just have saved lives.

This is what democracy looks like.

One of the valuable things about this hearing is it plainly reveals that these fascists have willed themselves into a complete state of unreality about the dangers they face. Like the unreality Nazis willed themselves into regarding Jews.

The government lawyers appear shell shocked.

The good thing about trials, as evidence for historians, as opposed to elite agenda-setting political journalism, is that there are no rigid genre conventions against plainly starting uncomfortable truth.

Maybe I should go to law school, being a federal judge sounds fun.

"Do YOU have children, Mr. Bovino?" would be a good line of questioning. Or maybe save for the Nuremberg-style trials.

Since he admits this, he's admits his agents are trying to kill people, or at least not trying not to?

Purjurer.

This part of the Washington Post subscriber survey looks for all the world to me like an attempt to see how wingnutty they can get without losing profit.

(NARRATOR: the camera was not his friend. Because then he would not have been able not assault untermenschen with impunity.)

"I mean, why would they follow the law? I don't."

"Of course we give them body cameras. We also let them leave them at home, duh."

There is no way humanly possible that Dan Bovino was following the law, in other words.

Common among Southern sheriffs in charge of state terror to disenfranchise African Americans. In Taylor Branch's "Pillar of Fire: American in the King Years, 1963–1965" you can read, for example of civil rights activists jailed for getting pistol-whipped. Literally, "Why did you make me hit you."

Yes. This happened. Too much news to follow, I know. Armed agents of the state, with a proven record of directly breaking the law, tear-gassed a neighborhood Halloween parade.

This is how you do it. It is simple. Federal agents are illegally assaulting people. So they must be locked up. This is where the rubber hits the road: liberty or fascism.

Peter Thiel says regulating this is the literal Antihcrist

Correction, court hearing.

Somehow missed that one time I quoted Marc Andreessen at a dinner party sounding like Heinrich Himmler.

Also: Dated MORGAN FAIRCHILD!

Is this actually viable?