John
@localcelebrity.bsky.social
he/him Product Strategist. Printmaker. Chicago, comics, & punk rock. Anti-tech-bro tech worker. Privacy wonk. Opinions mine. Millennial cringe. Probably on my bike. Say hi. 📍 ✶✶✶✶ 🔗 subism.com/links
Honestly this is a company to watch. They’ve managed to disrupt a market dominated by an eBay subsidiary really by offering a better product.
Mana Pool@manapool.com · 19h agoIt's kind of a lot of packages going out each month now.
Jonathan Frakes: It Never Happened
Alt: Jonathan Frakes: It Never Happened
static.klipy.com
Papa Rides a Bike@paparidesabike.bsky.social · yesterdayShe also threw out the 'avid cyclist' trope, saying she rode from Little Village to city hall year round. She's pandering to the vocal minority in Brighton Park. Maybe Cardenas will pull out and give her the money he raised soon.
Susana Mendoza, incapable of hiding what a whiny little asshole she is even for the first month of her ultimately wasted mayoral campaign.
Papa Rides a Bike@paparidesabike.bsky.social · yesterdaySusana Mendoza just slammed the Archer Av. bike lanes as a debacle that has made traffic worse, saying that Archer used to be a great shortcut & a fast thoroughfare. On @wbez.org with @sashaannsimons.bsky.social Anyone who has ever traveled on Archer knows this is BS. It's always been a car sewer
Today in totally normal things to say from the intellectual godfather of the tech right
Alaina Hampton is a hero of mine and someone I’ve been proud to cross paths with a few times. She should be treated as royalty among those of us who are reform-minded. And I’m glad she’s speaking out about Speaker Welch. It’s time. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/03/o...
Alaina Hampton: Illinois House Speaker Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch should resign for his failures
When Emanuel “Chris” Welch was elected speaker, lawmakers elevated someone who had never answered questions about his own treatment of women.
chicagotribune.com
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.
Bluesky oldheads will remember that brief period of time when the conservative trolls tried to storm the place and were flummoxed by the idea they would have to organically grow an audience and that someone who didn't want to talk to them could nuke every interaction they ever had from orbit
He cites users' ability to mute & block folks as a positive, which is good. It's also why right wing chuds thankfully can't get a foothold here - b/c they violate community norms & get nuclear blocked out of normal people's timelines. Bluesky isn't a *liberal* bubble - it's a *decency* bubble.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
BlueSky leadership clearly resents what they’ve built. Far right trolls hate this place because the actually useful moderation tools and lack of a central algorithm combine to make traditional means of trolling ineffective. And libs and media don’t come here because right wing trolls aren’t here.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
Do you like 🚲 🚲 🚲 and 🍺 (in moderation, of course)? @bikegridnow.org hosts a State of the Grid session to recap their activities from the past year, discuss future, this Wednesday 8/5, 7-8:30 PM, at Beermiscuous, 2812 N. Lincoln, and online.
Chicago, Bike Grid Now!@bikegridnow.org · 3d agoImportant Announcement
The budget has gone up every year Johnson has been mayor with noticeable increases for 2 of the years btw.
Ben 🏳️🌈@bvigeant.bsky.social · 3d agoLove a sober and responsible with money guy opening with this completely contrary to all data shit
![Piton is a financial manager and father of five, with strong Christian fundamental beliefs. 2] A proponent of baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, despite receiving only 9% of the vote in his 2022 race, Piton refused to concede his election loss claiming hacked voting machines and the "uniparty" contributed to his loss. 3l
Piton was a witness in the November 30, 2020 hearing in which Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Michael Flynn associate Colonel Phil Waldron, presented testimony arranged by Arizona legislators Mark Finchem, Kelly Townsend, David Cook, among others, 41 Per the hearing transcript, Piton was introduced by Liz Harris (Arizona politician) who Piton was working with at the time carrying out a canvassing effort, presenting Piton's data introducing he believed the 2020 election was rigged by "phantom voters," which Harris claimed her group was working on validating through a canvass effort. 5]
In late April 2021, as the Arizona audit was underway, Piton had a private meeting with Arizona legislators including Congressman Andy Biggs, to push the Arizona audit which he live-streamed to the internet. 5]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:37jyxr67bqu6ilqaufa3r2hw/bafkreian3vd3wcfprh3vcklnbzdqrpqglxpar6dvbtps35j6rp4ei266li)
Good news everyone, John Oliver covered ShotSpotter today, and spoiler, everyone knows it's not great! (youtu.be/lnBPhelCdWE)
Mike Fragassi@refrag.bsky.social · 3d agoAlexi Giannoulias says: one thousand more Chicago cops, and bring back ShotSpotter www.reddit.com/r/chicago/co...
City Finally Safe After Every Single Resident Hired As Police
CHICAGO—In a rousing success story that has eliminated all criminal activity from the streets of the metropolis, Chicago was finally declared safe Thursday after every single resident was hired as a p...
theonion.com
jad 📸@aerojad.bsky.social · 2d agoAlexi Giannoulias doesn't go far enough, under my plan I would make all 2.7 million people in Chicago a cop
I understand that trying to make a living as an influencer/creator in any section of the internet is rough but the amount of interpersonal drama in the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ creator space seems especially exhausting.
If you’re a Chicagoan who thinks that it’s bad that literally every candidate wants to reinstall useless gunshot ‘detection’ systems, you should focus on convincing your neighbors of the reality that this tech doesn’t work and electing alders who agree.
This is the most important reason to oppose expanding CPD. They act with complete impunity at an organizational level because they never encounter any pushback.
🦉@smallmutuals.bsky.social · 2d agoI was very open to a giannoulias vote but planning to hire a thousand policd officers is disqualifying Not even from an acab perspective. Not even from a fiscal perspective (it would cost us $100m annually). But bc you are growing the criminal gang that rules our city undemocratically
Can’t wait to watch Mayor Johnson refuse to rule out bringing back a gunshot detection system later this week when a reporter asks. 🙃 (I would be THRILLED to be wrong here)
I want to talk more about this kind of messaging bc I think it's going to be very popular: "I will ask you to use your success to help lift up others, so that they can also achieve the American Dream. But, I’ll only do so after I’ve proven that the city will run efficiently.”
Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois' Secretary Of State, Enters Chicago Mayor's Race
Long rumored to be eyeing a run for City Hall, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced Sunday that he's jumping into the mayor's race. Giannoulias has amassed a massive political war c...
blockclubchicago.org
my neighborhood 7-11 closed a couple years ago and tried to reopen but couldn’t get the permit approved because there’s a preschool next door and 7-11s sell alcohol (the previous permit was grandfathered in). i saw a fence going up around the lot recently and looked up what was moving in: a gun shop
this is the problem. ending the ShotSpotter contract was only half the battle. the other half was being loud and clear about why it was bad and what we should be (and are!) doing instead. and I think that's where MBJ + allies have fallen short
John@localcelebrity.bsky.social · 3d agoI fear that, as bad as we know this is, these are popular positions folks.
I think I've seen at least three mayoral candidates now say that we need to A) balance the budget, B) reduce property taxes, and C) hire more cops does math work differently where they are from than it does here
Mike Fragassi@refrag.bsky.social · 3d agoAlexi Giannoulias says: one thousand more Chicago cops, and bring back ShotSpotter www.reddit.com/r/chicago/co...
I suspect that “Doing Mamdani but not authentically” is the future of the Democratic Party. Definitely in Illinois. JB is already trying but hasn’t figured it out.
RDS (formerly shawphd)@rds773.myatproto.social · 3d agoHe hits me as smarmy in a politician way Kinda like he’s doing Mamdani but not authentically
