Epic sunset right now as seen from the remnant prairie alongside Rte. 83 in Hinsdale
Jake Wertz
@jakewertz.bsky.social
Living + gardening just west of Chicago. PhD sociologist doing research + transformation in a large suburban public school district. 🏡🪴🌉📈📊👨🏫
wild that nobody is giving the mayor (Brandon Johnson) credit for this. If it was Rahm there would be a 60 minutes profile on how Rahm was the savior of Chicago
Jared Rutecki@jaredrutecki.bsky.social · 2d agoThere were 37 homicides in the city last month, the lowest total for any such month dating back to at least 1970. That total is down 18% compared to July 2025, and is less than half the totals of July 2020 and 2021, which each saw more than 100 killings.
Imagine being so incompetent at politics that your most notable accomplishment in public life is losing a US Senate seat to an Illinois Republican, and then having the chutzpah to make ‘competence’ the theme of your next campaign
It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough
Just to be clear, I reported an exhaustive piece about the allegations against Max Miller on July 18. The New York Times published their story, without crediting me, on July 28. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Assault, misogyny, verbal threats: Records detail new allegations against Rep. Max Miller
Police reports and filings in a bitter custody dispute raise new questions about the conduct of an Ohio Republican as he campaigns for a third term.
motherjones.com
Dude lost Obama’s US senate seat to a Republican. I don’t understand how he got to have a future in Illinois politics after that. Or why any Chicagoan would want him as mayor.
WTTW - Chicago PBS@wttw.bsky.social · 3d agoIllinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias launched a bid for Chicago mayor Sunday, joining an already large field of candidates. In a video, he said he was running because Chicagoans “need to demand better from City Hall.” https://to.wttw.com/4wwrznH
“We should return to an older and more accurate name for the Civil War: the Slaveholders’ Rebellion. If a country unquestioningly adopts language that obscures its bloodiest crimes to absolve their worst perpetrators, how can we expect successive generations to remember the new assaults on democracy
Opinion | The ‘Civil War’ Is a Lie. Let’s Call It the ‘Slaveholders’ Rebellion’ Again. (Gift Article)
To face our own history, we must be honest about it.
nytimes.com
What do the MAHA moms say about forcing babies to breathe down wildfire smoke each summer of their childhood?
Stephen Judkins@stephenjudkins.bsky.social · 4d agothis absolute scumbag www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/20...
Capital One has done more to stop Trump than Hakeem Jeffries.
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 4d ago“.. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to U.S. President Donald Trump's family business.” @reuters.com $COF www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.
The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor
The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.
futurism.com
It's pretty infuriating that Trump is denying disaster aid to Oregon for political reasons and I have barely heard anything about it, while Biden was falsely accused of doing the exact same thing to North Carolina and millions of people believed that
whenever someone tells you that it's simply impossible for police to be charged with misconduct or criminal charges, you can tell they're wrong because some cops do get charged regularly — when they are whistleblowers or reformers prosecutors are actually extremely eager to help drum them out!
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 5d agoProsecutors charged an LAPD officer with felony eavesdropping for making secret recordings of his colleagues’ racist, sexist and homophobic comments on the job
10 years ago Ally Brueger, a student of mine, was murdered in broad daylight while she was out jogging. To this day there have been no arrests. But someone out there knows something. If you know anything that could bring some closure and peace to her parents, please contact Michigan State Police.
Who shot Ally Brueger? After 10 years, jogger's killing remains a mystery
Students at Western Michigan University are helping digitize and organize the case file.
freep.com
Reiterating that Musk's literal voter bribery last time was an unambiguous go-directly-to-jail felony, for which people have been successfully prosecuted over vastly smaller amounts. It wasn't just pouring money into a PAC, whatever one thinks of that. It was a black-letter plain-as-day crime.
Yes, Elon Musk’s Vote-Buying Is Against the Law
People have gone to prison for comparable schemes.
thebulwark.com
Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 6d agoMusk got away with his $1 million vote-buying scheme in 2024. Why wouldn't he try something similar this November?
The full statement from UEFA is remarkable. Members vow not to participate in FIFA competitions unless the entire proposal is scrapped and assurances are made it is gone for good.
Genuine question: did this artwork inspire the board game “Guess Who”?
Luke Knox@lukeknox.me · 7d agojust became aware of William Howard Taft’s 1908 campaign poster
All the Fauci stuff is a modern day version of the POW/MIA stuff after Vietnam - a way to try to rewrite the history of a huge failure of conservative ideology to be instead a story about how liberals and foreigners stabbed us in the back.
Running out of body bags, using forklifts to transfer corpses into makeshift morgues, a mortician conducting 200 funerals in a month when he usually does 30, crematories running at double capacity… And these senators just want to memory-hole it all www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/n...
‘We Ran Out of Space’: Bodies Pile Up as N.Y. Struggles to Bury Its Dead (Gift Article)
The coronavirus crisis is overwhelming New York’s system for burying the dead.
nytimes.com
Dr. Fauci is a hero. He really is. He helped guide America thru a mass death event. Millions more could have died but they did not, thanks to him. Everyone over 70 owes him a debt. It is disgusting that we live in a country that not only dishonors him but actively smears his good name.
Again, the point at which Democrats needed to burn it all down & stop the authoritarianism in its tracks was December 12, 2000, when the Wizards In Robes decided that people's votes didn't need to be counted. Everything since has been the inevitable outcome of that levee breaking.
mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · last wk.a real indictment of Democratic voters of the era that the Supreme Court just straight up stole the Presidency from them and were back up to 60% approval like 3 years later
ukranian special forces have been the most effective environmental activists of the 21st century
Simon Evans@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · last wk.Wind and solar have just overtaken fossil-fuel power in Germany www.carbonbrief.org/...
Coming soon to a student protest near you
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · last wk.Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters The plastic, non-lethal aircraft, which can smash windows and ram attackers will be at the ready at certain schools in Colorado, Florida and Georgia www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...
This is a 1938-level story from Nazi Germany
Gabe Ortíz@tusk81.bsky.social · last wk.“‘Should I keep paying my mortgage?’ Haitian families confront impossible choices around #TPS. As Haitian TPS nears an end, families are asking who will care for their children, whether to sell their homes and whether they can survive what comes next.” haitiantimes.com/2026/07/27/h...
Let it be clear - Chicago claimed Batavia for Chicago long before Batavia claimed Chicago for itself. If a Batavian ever tells you that she’s from Chicago, she’s only following a century of tradition founded in the city of Chicago
100 years ago news@100yearsagonews.bsky.social · last wk.July 27, 1926: "Chicagoland" as a term for the Chicago metro area is coined in a headline that runs in the Chicago Tribune over the beginning of a series on the area's cultural treasures and tourist destinations. Publisher Robert McCormick will relentlessly plug the phrase for years.
Noah Kahan… seems to have completely come out of nowhere to enormous stardom on the back of a couple mediocre Mumford tribute tunes? What am I missing here?