It's extremely annoying that it took this long for economists to realize the obvious, which is that neoliberalism causes a bunch of wholly unnecessary misery and no one should listen to Larry Summers and his blithe disregard for human suffering and agency. Alas, we're here now. Do better!

As a reminder: these are the DOJ lawyers that Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke just announced her new collaboration with.

When these charges were first announced I was surprised a grand jury indicted, given the politics of all this and a precedent for no bills in other national cases, like sandwich guy. Now it makes sense…

Fascinating argument: we had to charge them with federal crimes because if the ICE agent had chosen to, he could have killed or seriously injured them.

Statement from "Broadview Six" defendant Brian Straw:

Had to read this a couple times because it was so inconceivable it was something good

Not to be outdone, Ald. Sposato has now referred to the jobs of tipped workers as not real jobs. “I used to be a tipped worker. But when I got a real job.” “These jobs are not meant to be careers for people, they’re side jobs.” Good lord.

“.. Local opposition blocked or delayed at least 48 projects valued at some $156 billion last year, according to Data Center Watch. “.. A record of 20 were canceled in the first quarter ..” @wsj.com www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-...

NEW: A class action lawsuit is accusing OpenAI of sharing ChatGPT chat queries (!) + other personal data with Meta and Google. Reminder: no matter how friendly your chatbot is, it's probably surveilling you. futurism.com/artificial-i...

“But whole foods are only healthy if you have the time, bandwidth and resources to cook from-scratch meals. Slashing benefits and making it more difficult for stores to accept SNAP in the first place doesn’t make it easier for anyone to cook dinner” www.patreon.com/posts/158622...

Great rebuttals of the Trib's "Bikelash" editorial on the Archer project from @chiwho.bike and Tony Adams. And SBC cleared our name after being libeled as "demonizing *anyone* who dares to oppose their views as members of the 'right-leaning political class.'" www.chicagotribune.com/2026/05/07/l...

Every week or so I think about the fact that the cops/government shot a white man, Alex Pretti, in cold blood and nothing has happened to his murderers. The murderers still have their jobs and the unarmed white man is a cautionary tale for white people to not challenge the white supremacist state.

ICYMI, check out @propublica.org's new podcast, Paper Trail

It’s a birthday party for Illinois Families for Public Schools! Join us for an “old-school” celebration of our 10 years in the fight for public schools and a fundraiser to keep us moving into our next decade. Tickets and more info: bit.ly/June25party See you Thursday, June 25th, 6:30pm!

This plan is absolute madness. Building a data center that is SIXTY SQUARE MILES in mountain west drought land which on paper will raise the temperature of the entire area by 5-12 DEGREES F is mental Unless the reality show is to create an American Aral Sea www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

What stage of capitalism is this fortune.com/2026/05/12/l...

new: without any debate, the cook county board of commissioners votes to approve a $1 million expansion of sheriff tom dart's flock license plate reader network. this comes even after revelations dart ran the program for years without a contract. voting no: commissioners anaya, vásquez, stamps

“If commentators, analysts, pundits, and former presidents want to help Democrats win, ever again, they would do well to spend less time chastising the party for its messaging failures, and a lot more demanding it respond to fascism with some measure of urgency and resolve.” — @nberlat.bsky.social

“We do not really need more Dem politicians chastising each other about the best way to massage slogans & flip maybe a handful of Trump voters. What we need as messaging is absolutely unrelenting demands that Dem elites use their power in office to crush fascism.” open.substack.com/pub/noahberl...

Hey, remember how tech companies created a one stop shop education portal and it was hacked? Yeah, I’m sure there’s no way one stop shop health portal will end badly either.

NAACP Tennessee President Gloria Sweet-Love filed an emergency petition to stop a new congressional map from going into effect in Davidson County Chancery Court. The lawsuit was filed less than three hours after Gov. Bill Lee signed the new map into law. From @cstephenson.bsky.social.

“As restoration work continues, Warden, [president of Chi Ornithological Society] said the improvements benefit both wildlife, like bald eagles, and residents. ‘Everything that we’re doing for these birds is directly benefiting any of the people who live on the Southeast Side of the city as well’”

“It was only a matter of time because of the amount of work that’s been done on Chicago’s waterways, on Chicago’s ecology. We knew that they were going to return some day.” www.chicagotribune.com/2026/05/07/b...

These 7 adorable homes were originally numbered 24-36 when they were built circa 1895. By 1908, No. 26 (now 231) was home to the formidable Miss Maud Muriel Warner, who made headlines that year for becoming a dentist. She was the only woman in a class of 29.

If you just got hit on your bike on Damen at Elston/Fullerton, my in-laws saw the whole thing. Let me know if you need them, and I hope you’re OK!

"When you remove a space where young people gather, you are making a public safety decision. You are just making a bad decision, without the right people at the table, & without any plan for what comes next. Real violence prevention has to include youth infrastructure. You cannot separate the two."

"People buy homes across from parks on purpose. They are choosing the green space, the open air, the sound of life happening outside their windows. But a park with no rims, flooded fields, and broken facilities does not hold up its end of that deal." mrflenaugh.substack.com/p/they-took-...

“Video footage obtained by The Sun shows Students for a Democratic Cornell members Aiden Vallecillo ’26 and Hudson Athas ’27 being struck by the car. In the video, no person can be seen touching the vehicle before it drove into Vallecillo and Athas.” www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...

Thinking about the fact that my Daddy and all of his siblings did not have the right to vote until they were adults, and now he and his remaining brother (and the rest of our family) have the same political rights as he did in high school. Lord, have mercy.

We must understand the racist political rhetoric, the erasure and attacks on Black history, the reinstalling of Confederate names and monuments, all go hand-in-hand as the Court and Congress legitimize the taking of political rights and the end of multiracial democracy itself.

“Why are we charging stuff like this?” Charge the agents who shot Marimar Martinez, right? Stuff that actually matters to people in this district. Not ‘you delayed a car from getting into the entrance of the Broadview facility by 20 seconds.'” UPDATE: www.chicagotribune.com/2026/04/29/c...

I have been sharing the Magic 8 Ball analogy for a while now, but I think this is maybe the first time it's made it to print: >>

We must call them concentration camps. We must because Americans need to understand the urgency of this growing disaster, & that just letting a few cute kids out will not be enough. But don't listen to me. Listen to some of the smartest communicators alive explain why far better than I ever could.

Gerald Ford was targeted for assassination twice in 1975, just sayin

The amount of misinformation we’re getting about an incident that just occurred in front of 1,500 news reporters is truly the metaphor of our generation.

“Asked to describe the degree of fortification, he responded: ‘I mean, I would put it in the none category. From a drone defense capability … none.’” www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-wa...

“Along with the quarter of city residents who who don’t care where the Bears play, a similar percentage say they aren’t fans of the team, including nearly 40% of younger residents, between the ages of 18 and 24.” www.chicagotribune.com/2026/04/22/c...

“[A] review of the new materials released by the Justice Department shows for the first time how far Harvard professors went to help him, even after he became a convicted sex offender and Harvard banned his donations” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/u...

"This is the publicly endorsed worldview of a company that is rapidly becoming load-bearing infrastructure for the federal government’s surveillance and enforcement apparatus, and it contains arguments that would be at home in a white nationalist pamphlet." www.techdirt.com/2026/04/20/p...

It's also worth being clear about who's doing the arguing. Palantir sells operational software to defence, intelligence, immigration & police agencies. These 22 points aren't philosophy floating in space, they're the public ideology of a company whose revenue depends on the politics it's advocating.

In Chicago you can drop a pin on this map to request a bike rack bikeparking-chicago.hub.arcgis.com It made me so happy to see a family use this rack I requested for the first time 🥹

America is losing a talented researcher today. Rümeysa Öztürk, whose abduction by masked men prompted a search and her eventual release by ICE, has returned to Turkey. She wants to resume a career without "state-imposed violence and hostility." www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/17/m...

Texas' only licensed Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu legal interpreter is now languishing in a Raymondville detention center. She’s lived in America for 35 years: www.texasobserver.org/immigration-...

NEW: Chicago Progressive Partnership super PAC, which launched ads attacking Kat Abughazaleh and then eventually in favor of Bushra Amiwala as an apparent attempt to split the vote, has filed its FEC report, which reveals it was another shell group for AIPAC and its allies

BREAKING: The Chicago City Council failed Wednesday to override Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto of a measure designed to reverse a 2023 City Council vote to phase out the tipped minimum wage, keeping one of Johnson’s major legislative accomplishments intact. @wttw.bsky.social

Statement from Chair Rusty Hicks on Eric Swalwell’s decision to end his campaign for Governor.

Finally. www.nbcnews.com/politics/ele...

“Atlanta opened its first municipal grocery store last year. Plans for a store in Chicago have stalled.”