As someone here in Chicago and who has made a couple of trips out to the infamous Broadview facility, Trump is using my city as a training ground for his own personal national goon squad. (Sweet Summer Child, do you really think that ICE will be limiting themselves to immigration matters in a year?) Here, ICE is NOT engaged in a law enforcement mission, but it's being used as a proving ground where men and women of conscience resign, and those that remain inure themselves to attacking and kidnapping American citizens. (Once you've shot a priest in the head, who WON'T you shoot in the head without giving it a second thought?)
If this were a law enforcement mission, you wouldn't see ICE goons creeping around schools to abduct children and their parents[1], but instead engaging in targeted sweeps to root out foreign gangs. You wouldn't see them manhandling television producers[2], but instead going after traffickers importing illegal gun into the city. They would be tracking down violent criminals instead of detaining members of Chicago's City Council[3].
The fact that Chicago (and Portland) hasn't been MORE chaotic has put a crimp in Stephen Miller's plan to turn independent State governors into Trump's personal vassals. As we're seeing with the prosecutions of James Comey and Leticia James, Trump and his team are speedrunning a vengeance program, and given that Chicago was where Trump's main nemesis emerged (Obama), the President of the United States couldn't care less what happens to this City as his goons use it as a scrimmage field to prepare assaults on his opponents' other strongholds, regardless whether they are under ICE or Border Patrol jurisdiction.
We are blessed in that of all potential fascists who could come to power, we landed on the *stupidest* ones. A smarter authoritarian would have waited to go after Chicago until he built up SOME record of success in a more sympathetic venue like Memphis, and used that record to divide Chicagoans with respect to action in our city. Instead, we have an impatient narcissist, who believes that he can manifest his own reality into being, uniting a fractious population against him, as his LAZY goons primarily go after vulnerable people in order to meet a stupid quota set by a Dollar Store Himmler - Stephen Miller - and a DHS secretary more interested in making TikTok videos showing off her new face and hair than actually protecting the homeland.
We'll see if Chicago survives these morons, but they have made resisters jobs MUCH easier in their moronic actions and stupid lies - as a judge put it last week the Administration's accounts are "simply unreliable" - illustrate just how *naked* Trump's power grab is, instead of being something carried out for the benefit of the people who live here. And on the plus side, resisting all of this idiocy has had the positive side-effect of bringing neighborhoods together in ways that I've never seen[4] to resist the invasion of goons in their communities.
I'm too close to all of this to predict how this will ultimately unfold or what the endgame will be, but the Administration is playing a REALLY stupid game at the moment. That said, if you want to REALLY know how the administration is doing - don't look at the number of people detained, look at the number of people indicted and convicted if you want to see how much of this is for show and how much is for real. Detaining someone and accusing them of being ANTIFA on social media is cheap. Pushing those cases through the court system and securing a conviction is much more difficult[5], esp. once you've run off all the competent folk who would work for you.
I think a lot of ICE’s current strategy is explained by the fact that when you have quotas for deportations, you grab the low-hanging fruit rather than spending time tracking down hard-to-find violent criminals.
I agree that they won’t be sticking to immigration crimes. We don’t need a Marine Corps-sized agency for that.
ICE are the Amazon "independent contractor" delivery drivers of the law enforcement community. (If you've dealt with these guys, you know what I mean.)
Remember when conservatives would decry federal bureaucracies that never seemed to get smaller? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
I joined your prayer that we have not gone too far. I am encouraged this morning by the fact that Fox News and other right wing news has joined with CNN and NBC to tell Hegseth to take a flying leap. They understand his loyalty oath and pledge not to publish anything they don’t approve of is not how a “free press” works. We all need to continue sharing videos and post of what is actually happening in Portland and Chicago. The people need to see what is really going on and not listen to the propaganda coming out of the White House.
If you want a good picture of what's going on in Chicago, I cannot praise Block Club Chicago enough. They're really proving themselves as local journalists in covering this since the beginning.
Thanks. The photography is excellent. My only comment is that still photography shows only what the photographer wishes to be seen. I see protesters assembling and some protesters being subdued and the aftermath of some encounters. The instigating incidents are not shown.
I read only one story about an encounter in your link to the blockclubchicago. It plainly stated that protesters were locking arms and interfering with arrests. That's a crime.
Fortunately, there's no shortage of video of these events if you want to see more.[1] (The Status Coup folks post a LOT of live video as events are unfolding.)
As for the arrests (and detainments), ICE makes a lot of noise on that front, but are not making a lot of progress in terms of getting convictions. One of the biggest issues ICE has had is that their officers claim one thing, and there's enough video and photo evidence that shows that the officers are lying. It happened enough in enough cases that make it to court that judges no longer grant them the traditional deference and benefit of the doubt.[2] In some cases, ICE's own video has outed them as liars.[3]
And that doesn't cover all the incidents where arrests aren't made, but folks keep catching ICE doing goon stuff, such as deploying tear gas near a school to get a guy on a scooter to move[4], shooting a priest in the head with a pepper ball[5], and abducting, detaining, and zip tying American citizens without any regard for their citizenship status[6].
The press encouraged Pentagon employees to leak information, some of it classified, and in other ways did not follow the rules. There is no constitutional right to gather military intelligence. The military is not an open society for all to meddle in.
Are you sure that case has not been dismissed? It has nothing to do with the press corps attempting to steal and release military secrets. Once that happens, it's out and nothing can be done about it. Try to punish and there is outrage and it's almost impossible to determine who the leaky traitors are. I would not allow the press into the Pentagon except to a briefing room.
Sometimes, when self-described anti-MAGA conservatives feel the need to top off their hate-Trump tanks, they resort to reading radical left-wing media. And then they begin spewing left-wing talking points, mostly suppositions and opinions about the impending loss of our freedoms.
A political cabal that controlled the auto pen was elected president because of Trump hate. It will take decades to undo the damage. Trump hate damn near got an air head, drunk dingbat elected president.
Doing the hard things takes determination. The total Trump package beats any combination of the cabal and Biden and the auto pen and Kamala.
Curtis, you have a standing invitation to come stay at my place in Chicago and witness firsthand what a violent and riot-ridden city this is. We'll dine on our rations of Chicago deep dish pizza, hot dogs (from a place that once cooked for that Antifa figurehead Obama's White House), and I'll take you to all the dive bars where the local left wing cabals make their sinister plans over pints of Old Style and shots of Malört.
Just give me a day or two's warning so I can establish a secure route through the Prohibition-era tunnels to the local laundromat to make sure you have fresh sheets and towels.
(And if we're lucky and have a decent line of sight to Midway, we can track Captain Thornton's plane approaching with food and supplies like our own Greta Thunberg.)
I financed five weeks room and board and transportation for my granddaughter's five-week stay there on a scholarship program six years ago. She sent me all the pictures I need - especially one of her at a Wrigley Field Cub's game. There was even one at a beach that I did not know existed. Good thing it was July, and the snow was still several weeks away.
It would take more than a pizza and a few drinks to get me there. I do not fly and it's a long drive. Thanks anyway. I would probably enjoy it.
OMG, Thornton. Where there is light you search for darkness and, not finding it, decide that it must exist in the shades of grey that, of necessity, exist.
David is the Edgar Allan Poe of our time. He sees the Trump boogeyman under every bed and in every closet in every bedroom in every house in every neighborhood in every state in America.
Trump also faced two federal indictments in 2023 and surrendered following both.
Classified Documents Case (Florida): He was charged with unlawfully retaining national defense documents after leaving office. Following his 2024 election win, the Justice Department dropped the case.
Election Obstruction Case (Washington, D.C.): He was charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election. After he won the 2024 election, this case was also dropped by the Justice Department.
As someone here in Chicago and who has made a couple of trips out to the infamous Broadview facility, Trump is using my city as a training ground for his own personal national goon squad. (Sweet Summer Child, do you really think that ICE will be limiting themselves to immigration matters in a year?) Here, ICE is NOT engaged in a law enforcement mission, but it's being used as a proving ground where men and women of conscience resign, and those that remain inure themselves to attacking and kidnapping American citizens. (Once you've shot a priest in the head, who WON'T you shoot in the head without giving it a second thought?)
If this were a law enforcement mission, you wouldn't see ICE goons creeping around schools to abduct children and their parents[1], but instead engaging in targeted sweeps to root out foreign gangs. You wouldn't see them manhandling television producers[2], but instead going after traffickers importing illegal gun into the city. They would be tracking down violent criminals instead of detaining members of Chicago's City Council[3].
The fact that Chicago (and Portland) hasn't been MORE chaotic has put a crimp in Stephen Miller's plan to turn independent State governors into Trump's personal vassals. As we're seeing with the prosecutions of James Comey and Leticia James, Trump and his team are speedrunning a vengeance program, and given that Chicago was where Trump's main nemesis emerged (Obama), the President of the United States couldn't care less what happens to this City as his goons use it as a scrimmage field to prepare assaults on his opponents' other strongholds, regardless whether they are under ICE or Border Patrol jurisdiction.
We are blessed in that of all potential fascists who could come to power, we landed on the *stupidest* ones. A smarter authoritarian would have waited to go after Chicago until he built up SOME record of success in a more sympathetic venue like Memphis, and used that record to divide Chicagoans with respect to action in our city. Instead, we have an impatient narcissist, who believes that he can manifest his own reality into being, uniting a fractious population against him, as his LAZY goons primarily go after vulnerable people in order to meet a stupid quota set by a Dollar Store Himmler - Stephen Miller - and a DHS secretary more interested in making TikTok videos showing off her new face and hair than actually protecting the homeland.
We'll see if Chicago survives these morons, but they have made resisters jobs MUCH easier in their moronic actions and stupid lies - as a judge put it last week the Administration's accounts are "simply unreliable" - illustrate just how *naked* Trump's power grab is, instead of being something carried out for the benefit of the people who live here. And on the plus side, resisting all of this idiocy has had the positive side-effect of bringing neighborhoods together in ways that I've never seen[4] to resist the invasion of goons in their communities.
I'm too close to all of this to predict how this will ultimately unfold or what the endgame will be, but the Administration is playing a REALLY stupid game at the moment. That said, if you want to REALLY know how the administration is doing - don't look at the number of people detained, look at the number of people indicted and convicted if you want to see how much of this is for show and how much is for real. Detaining someone and accusing them of being ANTIFA on social media is cheap. Pushing those cases through the court system and securing a conviction is much more difficult[5], esp. once you've run off all the competent folk who would work for you.
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/mclean.bsky.social/post/3m326trw4qs2r
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm7KpwfDLeA
[3] https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/03/federal-agents-handcuff-chicago-alderperson-who-tried-to-help-immigrant/
[4] https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/08/chicago-neighbors-are-forming-watches-near-schools-to-protect-students-guardians-from-ice/
[5] https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/10/10/federal-grand-jury-refuses-indict-couple-guns-outside-ice-facility-broadview
I think a lot of ICE’s current strategy is explained by the fact that when you have quotas for deportations, you grab the low-hanging fruit rather than spending time tracking down hard-to-find violent criminals.
I agree that they won’t be sticking to immigration crimes. We don’t need a Marine Corps-sized agency for that.
ICE are the Amazon "independent contractor" delivery drivers of the law enforcement community. (If you've dealt with these guys, you know what I mean.)
Remember when conservatives would decry federal bureaucracies that never seemed to get smaller? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
I joined your prayer that we have not gone too far. I am encouraged this morning by the fact that Fox News and other right wing news has joined with CNN and NBC to tell Hegseth to take a flying leap. They understand his loyalty oath and pledge not to publish anything they don’t approve of is not how a “free press” works. We all need to continue sharing videos and post of what is actually happening in Portland and Chicago. The people need to see what is really going on and not listen to the propaganda coming out of the White House.
If you want a good picture of what's going on in Chicago, I cannot praise Block Club Chicago enough. They're really proving themselves as local journalists in covering this since the beginning.
https://blockclubchicago.org/
And if you're looking for what it is actually like on the front lines of places like Broadview, Adriano Kalin's photojournalism is EXCEPTIONAL.
https://adrianokalin.substack.com
If you subscribe.
You can click the "No Thanks" link and it'll still take you to his page.
This (interstitial subscribe pop-ups) is something that Substack is doing more and more often.
Thanks. The photography is excellent. My only comment is that still photography shows only what the photographer wishes to be seen. I see protesters assembling and some protesters being subdued and the aftermath of some encounters. The instigating incidents are not shown.
I read only one story about an encounter in your link to the blockclubchicago. It plainly stated that protesters were locking arms and interfering with arrests. That's a crime.
Fortunately, there's no shortage of video of these events if you want to see more.[1] (The Status Coup folks post a LOT of live video as events are unfolding.)
As for the arrests (and detainments), ICE makes a lot of noise on that front, but are not making a lot of progress in terms of getting convictions. One of the biggest issues ICE has had is that their officers claim one thing, and there's enough video and photo evidence that shows that the officers are lying. It happened enough in enough cases that make it to court that judges no longer grant them the traditional deference and benefit of the doubt.[2] In some cases, ICE's own video has outed them as liars.[3]
And that doesn't cover all the incidents where arrests aren't made, but folks keep catching ICE doing goon stuff, such as deploying tear gas near a school to get a guy on a scooter to move[4], shooting a priest in the head with a pepper ball[5], and abducting, detaining, and zip tying American citizens without any regard for their citizenship status[6].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoobmuQoKWM
[2] https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/judge-blocks-national-guard-deployment-to-illinois/
[3] https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10/06/marimar-martinez-anthony-ian-santos-ruiz-border-patrol-shooting-brighton-park
[4] https://www.instagram.com/reels/DPXP2kWDjMJ/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lxk5fOVRNIo
[6] https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/us/chicago-apartment-ice-raid
The press encouraged Pentagon employees to leak information, some of it classified, and in other ways did not follow the rules. There is no constitutional right to gather military intelligence. The military is not an open society for all to meddle in.
There are already laws against leaking and misplacing classified material. Trump’s federal indictment has some details.
Are you sure that case has not been dismissed? It has nothing to do with the press corps attempting to steal and release military secrets. Once that happens, it's out and nothing can be done about it. Try to punish and there is outrage and it's almost impossible to determine who the leaky traitors are. I would not allow the press into the Pentagon except to a briefing room.
Sometimes, when self-described anti-MAGA conservatives feel the need to top off their hate-Trump tanks, they resort to reading radical left-wing media. And then they begin spewing left-wing talking points, mostly suppositions and opinions about the impending loss of our freedoms.
A political cabal that controlled the auto pen was elected president because of Trump hate. It will take decades to undo the damage. Trump hate damn near got an air head, drunk dingbat elected president.
Doing the hard things takes determination. The total Trump package beats any combination of the cabal and Biden and the auto pen and Kamala.
Curtis, you have a standing invitation to come stay at my place in Chicago and witness firsthand what a violent and riot-ridden city this is. We'll dine on our rations of Chicago deep dish pizza, hot dogs (from a place that once cooked for that Antifa figurehead Obama's White House), and I'll take you to all the dive bars where the local left wing cabals make their sinister plans over pints of Old Style and shots of Malört.
Just give me a day or two's warning so I can establish a secure route through the Prohibition-era tunnels to the local laundromat to make sure you have fresh sheets and towels.
(And if we're lucky and have a decent line of sight to Midway, we can track Captain Thornton's plane approaching with food and supplies like our own Greta Thunberg.)
I financed five weeks room and board and transportation for my granddaughter's five-week stay there on a scholarship program six years ago. She sent me all the pictures I need - especially one of her at a Wrigley Field Cub's game. There was even one at a beach that I did not know existed. Good thing it was July, and the snow was still several weeks away.
It would take more than a pizza and a few drinks to get me there. I do not fly and it's a long drive. Thanks anyway. I would probably enjoy it.
OMG, Thornton. Where there is light you search for darkness and, not finding it, decide that it must exist in the shades of grey that, of necessity, exist.
David is the Edgar Allan Poe of our time. He sees the Trump boogeyman under every bed and in every closet in every bedroom in every house in every neighborhood in every state in America.
What was Biden's endgame, besides jailing Trump?
What evidence do you have to support that assertion?
Biden's DoJ arrested Trump.
The DoJ never arrested Trump.
Georgia's Fulton County "arrested" Trump (mugshot and immediate release).
Federal arrests
Trump also faced two federal indictments in 2023 and surrendered following both.
Classified Documents Case (Florida): He was charged with unlawfully retaining national defense documents after leaving office. Following his 2024 election win, the Justice Department dropped the case.
Election Obstruction Case (Washington, D.C.): He was charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election. After he won the 2024 election, this case was also dropped by the Justice Department.
He was not arrested in either example.
And DoJ dropped both cases because of DoJ policy surrounding putting a sitting president under trial.
And I suppose day and night you were reading post and seeing stories on the news about how Biden wanted retribution against Trump right??