Don TACO, last night:
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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 10:31 PM
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No Donald, Chicago is not your war zone
— Tammy Duckworth (@duckworth.senate.gov) September 6, 2025 at 9:18 PM
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Trump: "ICE is coming to Chicago!"
Chicago: "We have salt trucks."— Arturo Dominguez 🇨🇺🇺🇸 (@extremearturo.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:21 PM
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Literally!
Chicago Mayor Deploys Salt Trucks as Mobile Barricades to Block ICE Operations
— Raider (@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:17 PM
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Authoritarians thrive on your silence — be loud — for America.
— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) September 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
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Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago on Saturday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and President Donald Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to the city.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) September 6, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Lots of very real things to worry about with the media and lots of dangers, but if you think that Trump has already finished off the US free press you're *massively* jumping the gun.
— Jonathan Bernstein (@jonathanbernstein.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 9:09 PM
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Fellow Dems: we don’t have to just accept the Republican frame on everything and run scared from issues that Trump is losing ground on bc they are traditionally “bad” issues for our Party. We have the option to use our own megaphones to create our own issue frames.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru…— Anne Caprara (@annecaprara.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 6:30 PM
… Before immigration agents descended on Chicago and the threat of a National Guard deployment loomed, there was Pritzker, showing off the city on social media and in TV interviews. One interview featured him walking on a sunlit path along Lake Michigan, and another had him sitting in a restaurant in the city’s Little Village neighborhood. This week, he staged a news conference in front of a Chicago River teeming with summer tourists and Trump’s hotel prominent in the background.
Pritzker and his team were laying out an intentional visual record. Their strategy was to stock national media with footage of a typical day in Chicago to show it was far from the “worst and most dangerous city in the World,” as President Donald Trump has proclaimed on his Truth Social platform…
Pritzker’s tack is the latest employed by Democratic leaders from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to Baltimore who have become the target of a White House that has threatened to send — or has already sent — National Guard troops into their states.
In Chicago, Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson have made clear that the Trump administration slashed public safety funding, including canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, with specific impacts on anti-violence programs in the city, even as it is calling for law enforcement escalation. Johnson also criticized red states for lax laws that he said enable the flow of guns into his city…
Brian Hopkins, who heads the Chicago City Council’s public safety panel, said the city would thrive with a boost in federal resources and agency coordination. But he said sending in National Guard troops would not accomplish that.
“It should be obvious to anyone involved that their true intentions are not to assist us, but they’re to embarrass us. They’re to score political points at our expense, and they’re using law enforcement tools as a pawn in their game,” Hopkins said. “It’s despicable and offensive and unconstitutional and wrong.”
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Yeah, Illinois Democrats* are actively refusing to treat it as a crisis
*Except the governor, both senators, the congressional delegation, the Attorney General, the mayor of Chicago, the Cook County board president, the legislative leaders, etc.,— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 4:51 PM
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Dick Durbin actively refusing to treat it as a crisis…by calling Trump’s threats disgusting, then marching in the Mexican Independence Day parade in the overwhelmingly Latino Pilsen neighborhood
[Yesterday he, Duckworth, & Cong. Schneider went to Naval Station Great Lakes] bsky.app/profile/jake…— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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Not at ALL significant it was in Pilsen
Stancil really showing he understands Chicago!
[And FTR, there’s probably nothing Dick Durbin is more passionate about than protecting immigrants & refugees. Dude shows up at little know your rights trainings all over the place.]— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:24 PM
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Sometimes I get pissed about malign bullshit & don’t fully explain why it’s bullshit. Stancil mocking Durbin going to GROUND FUCKING ZERO of expected ICE raids to march in one of the only Mexican Independence Day events not cancelled was an act of solidarity, a serious act of representation
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:37 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,291: The Toll from this Morning’s Deadly Hours
Aussie Sheila
If that demented deranged criminal arsehole sends troops into Chicago, I have full confidence in the people of that great city putting him back on his arse. I love the people of that city in the relatively short time I was there, although not the weather in winter of course!
They will make him look like the fascist coward that he is.
However, I’m thinking he might be having second thoughts.
Let’s hope so.
The people united (in Chicago), will never be defeated!
matt
Will Stancil can go ahead and eat shit.
p.a.
🤡 in DC could gain traction because of DC’s ridiculous legal position.
🤡 in LA shat himself but the 🪼MSM was… 🪼
🤡 in Chi is hitting a wall now that the targets have organized & developed plans. And the 🪼 now sense a story and totally incidentally might actually do their job of informing the public and holding power to account. Maybe.
eclare
That is awesome.
Aussie Sheila
@p.a.:
Let’s hope so.
But whatever the media says, I’m confident that the people will set the arseholes back on their heels. Bad decision to taunt and fuck with Chicagoans.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
One thing I can say from here on the ground in DC is that the ONLY place I have seen a national guard presence is at the Navy Yard Ballpark metro. And there it’s only a handful – literally I’ve seen like 5 max, usually only 1 to 3. I haven’t spent any time on or right around the national mall but I did walk from the Navy Yard to Noma along 3rd Friday afternoon to go to the REI and didn’t see any national guard presence anywhere along the way. I was only 3 blocks east of the capitol and nothing. Also earlier this week walked from Columbia Heights to Washington Hospital Center and then from there to Ft. Totten. Got off metro at Takoma. Didn’t seem any national guard presence then either.
I don’t want to minimize what’s going on but to me it sure seems like they don’t have a lot of manpower, and this is with the national guard from like 5 red states augmenting the DC guard. DC is tiny compared to Chicago both geographically and population-wise. I kinda wonder if it might not be wise for Democrats to point out how pathetically inadequate the force they seem to be able to muster is. And this arguably peak surge because the folks from TX don’t want to be here indefinitely – they have families and jobs and lives back home. What’s happening sets a terrible precedent and I’m pissed about it but it’s also demonstrating that the resources they have at hand at least for now are not anywhere near adequate to the task.
Also we could start pointing out that Trump is spending YOUR.money and using YOUR national guard resources to “clean up crime” in OUR blue cities when they could instead be helping YOU where YOU live. If there’s one thing those red staters hate it’s spending their hard earned money on things that benefit those dead beat city folk.
Rusty
It’s good to see the Dems starting to stand up and fight back. Uncooperative local government makes any kind of federal intervention much harder. I suspect Trump will eventually move onto a softer target, a blue city in a red state where there will be less resistance from the governor and federal representatives. We are working out how to resist, create friction, slow everything down, build positive media coverage, this is good.
Doc H
Nope on the salt trucks. Chi Sun Times: No, Chicago salt trucks are not being used to interfere with ICE.
Professor Bigfoot
Democrats doing something right?
Bloody hell, was there another experiment at CERN recently?
zhena gogolia
I love Dana Houle. I have no idea who he or she is, but they always speak sense.
Ramalama
Plenty to gripe about re Dick Durbin but he gave my parents an audience and was agreeable. My mother didn’t come away wanting to spit nails, like she had going in, so yeah. He’s got some things going for him. Heading a Mexican parade during this time in history is fierce . Read the bloody room, Will Stancil
(My parents flew to DC long time ago to meet up with their senator, Dick Durbin, rather than meeting him in his IL office, to talk to him personally about American private, for-profit prisons. They were against them, vehemently. )
Baud
@Ramalama:
No one gets famous on the Internet by praising Democrats.
JML
@Baud: gotta remember: Will Stancil lost a DFL primary for state house. probably some sour grapes that the party didn’t immediately see his infinite wisdom and anoint him leader…
BritinChicago
I used to live in an apartment overlooking Lake Shore Drive (happy days!, and I remember those salt trucks on the Drive. A very impressive sight! (I seem to remember there was a mayor—Jane Byrne? no, I think the one before her—who lost a re-election attempt because of a failure to keep the streets adequately plowed. Subsequent mayors took the lesson to heart.
satby
@Doc H: picayune “fact check”, because the salt trucks pictured were there to block streets and provide crowd control for the weekend events. Salt trucks are mobile and ICE doesn’t publicly announce where they’re going, but they were in a central spot from where they could be easily redeployed to several potential ICE target neighborhoods.
Also, hard to provide visual evidence of a future possible event, so it’s not unusual to use example footage as an illustration. The dedication of certain media types to provide a fact check without noting all that background context (or any context) is why our media has often failed us in this country.
redoubtagain
I’ve been gone for thirty years but it’s still home. And to paraphrase Casablanca, “There are parts of the South and West Sides I would not advise you to invade.”
Shalimar
@zhena gogolia: Dana Houle is a professional political consultant, though I have no clue as to all the campaigns he has worked on. He also has had an online presence as long as there have been blogs. He was one of the first front pagers at DailyKos as DHinMI 20 years ago.
chemiclord
This entire thing is why I roll my eyes at the entire, “Fight, Damn You!” criticism. It was very clear very early on that for most of the people issuing the call that it was entirely in bad faith. They intentionally targeted people who you really shouldn’t be expecting to lead the charge, intentionally targeted people who really couldn’t “fight” the way they were being demanded to, and either ignored or deflected from the masses who were doing precisely what the critics wanted.
And if they were forced to address the actual “fight” going on… well… then the “fight” wasn’t being done the right way. Because, of course.
lou
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot more of them. I live on Capitol Hill and do a lot of walks on the Mall. They are there, looking bored out of their minds. They were at Lincoln Park the other day. It’s usually full of college students on blankets studying, caregivers with babystrollers chatting, and retirees on benches people watching. The park was pretty empty while the guard was there. They also have been at Union Station. Weirdly, when I went into the office last week, I didn’t see them at Union Station, but I did see a group at Dupont Circle. Go figure. I did see them in the park area catty corner to the Nats Stadium when we went to a ball game.
What was interesting is that not a sign of them or ICE during the Free DC March. There were a bunch of Park Police in front of the White House and in front of City Hall at Freedom Plaza. Other protesters were speculating that was deliberate to make it look to their audience like, “see! we’re not interfering, what a bunch of crybabies.”
satby
@chemiclord: and on this blog, two of the most vociferous voices on the subject aren’t even citizens who live in this country. Ironic.
lou
Also, about Chicago, they still have pretty fierce journalists there, even though the Studs Terkel, Mike Royko days are over. Unlike the suckups in DC.
Another Scott
The latest in the continuing saga… WARNING TheHill.com:
It’s clear to me that another extended CR is in the cards. Whether the MAGA folks actually can pass a budget later is TBD.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ramalama
@Baud:
In Kramer-like fashion (a la Seinfeld), I’d love to put together or see a coffee table book filled with pictures of dogs interspersed with names and faces of journalists and other media types who wield large megaphones and have been corruptly wrong and no consequences.
Maybe call it Consequential Dogs of America.
planetjanet
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Come to Union Station.
dnfree
@Ramalama: Sometime right around 2000, I attended the annual conference of Illinois school board members in Chicago. Dick Durbin spoke to a subgroup my district belongs to (LUDA, large unit districts), and he was passionate about the direction of the country. He said (paraphrasing, obviously), “At the turn of the 20th Century, the United States was building high schools, all over the country. Do you know what we are building going into the 21st Century? PRISONS.” He was passionate on the subject that we were arresting and imprisoning too many people for minor crimes, and that it had be a for-profit business. So I think he is on the same side as your parents.
dnfree
@BritinChicago: Yes, Jane Byrne was the mayor who won the election after the snow removal disaster.
John
That Bluesky post about salt trucks has been thoroughly debunked. Any way to edit this post to say as much or maybe even remove it altogether?
AnnaC
@BritinChicago: Yes, and the mayor that Byrne beat because he didn’t take snow removal seriously from the Blizzard of 79 was Bilandic (sp?).
I grew up in Chicago and still live in the metro area but I am so proud of our Democratic leaders in Illinois for not taking any shit from Trump!