Welcome to Chicago 312: 3 Headlines. 1 Big Question. 2 Red Flags. Every Wednesday. Subscribe here.

What To Know This Week — We’re still messing around with National Guard PR chicken while ICE is deployed, the city did not put out trucks to block ICE, and the people yearn for balkanization.

Here we go:

3 Headlines:

1. National Guard in Chicago: Part ???

WTTW: DHS has rolled out Operation Midway Blitz, branding it as a sweep of “criminal illegal aliens.” The press release leaned on one horrific DUI crash to justify citywide raids. In practice, at least 13 people were already arrested in Latino neighborhoods — many of whom don’t match DHS’s own descriptions. The Supreme Court’s new 6–3 ruling makes this worse, allowing ICE to use ethnicity as a “relevant factor” in stops.

Why It Matters: A single crime is being spun into license for federal dragnet policing of an entire city. The Supreme Court ruling isn’t neutral law — it’s an invitation to racially profile.

This is a deliberate effort to make Chicago dependent, delegitimize its leaders, and normalize immigration raids as public safety. We’re paying ICE agents to terrorize our neighbors.

2. ICE Truck Misinformation

Unraveled Press: This week, videos went viral claiming Chicago parked salt trucks to block ICE raids. Thousands of people shared them as proof the city was resisting Trump. But those trucks weren’t anti-ICE barricades — they were the same setup the city uses every summer to wall off Taste of Chicago and other festivals.

And it wasn’t just the trucks: engagement farming accounts recycled old footage as “breaking,” using old clips and saying they were current Chicago standoffs.

Why It Matters: Viral “resistance” stories get engagement, but they leave organizers chasing ghosts while real raids continue. Misinformation wastes energy, confuses rapid response, and creates a fantasy of local defiance that never happened. If we’re serious about protecting people, we can’t afford to get high on our own propaganda.

3. Why Keep Paying for Our Own Occupation?

Tribune Letter: Marj Halperin’s new Tribune column argues blue states need to stop begging Washington.

Corporations that tried submission got burned — Paramount axed Colbert to get a merger approved, Target gutted DEI and lost $12 billion, law firms handed Trump $1 billion in free legal work. Those that fought — like Harvard and Jenner & Block — are winning some battles in court, but it’s slow and costly.

In contrast, ACOG walked away from nearly a million dollars in grants this year to stay true to evidence-based care. That’s a fraction of Illinois’ $28 billion donor state gap. ICalifornia, Oregon, and Washington formed the Western States Health Alliance to keep vaccine guidelines intact without RFK Jr.’s anti-vax HHS.

If they can go cold turkey, why can’t we start building our own safety net?

Why This Matters: Trump cuts anti-violence funds, threatens the National Guard, then dares states to beg him for help. But Illinois sends $28 billion more to D.C. each year than we get back. We’re subsidizing all of this. If ACOG can walk away from a million, if the West Coast can build its own health standards, what would it take for Illinois to use its own dollars to build parallel budgets for the basics: violence prevention, mental health, housing, and childcare. Illinois pays the federal government billions more than it ever gets back. Washington, Oregon, and California are building their own vaccine rules—independent of Trump’s distorted CDC.

Is this fringe? Maybe — but the fringiest of the fringe are in the process of gutting and dismantling the federal government while funding a massive secret police.

1 Big Question: 

If Trump is dismantling the federal government in real time, why are we still pretending Illinois can’t govern itself?

2 Red Flags Stressing Me Out Today: 

1. Surveillance Lifestyle

WIRED tested Friend — a $129 AI pendant that listens to your conversations 24/7 and texts you sarcastic, often hostile commentary. Reviewers found it invasive, antisocial, and straight-up unpleasant.

Why it matters: If people tolerate always-on surveillance when it’s packaged as a toy, it softens the ground for when the state contracts the same tech as “safety.” First it’s a necklace, then it’s a bodycam on every worker, a condition for parole, or a requirement for public housing.

2. Blueskyism

Garbage Day: Increasingly wondering if I should just rename this section to ‘whatever was in Garbage Day' this week. But they covered Nate Silver’s thousand-word blog trying to define “Blueskyism” — a supposed left-wing ideology born on the app.

Why This Matters: “Blueskyism” is made up. It’s not a movement, it’s not an ideology — it’s a label Nate Silver cooked up so he can feel like he’s diagnosing something big and scary. What’s actually happening is obvious: distribution power as a whole is shrinking, splintering, and losing for most people who once reached hundreds of thousands on old social media sites. The pundits are stuck in a fractured ecosystem too. Worth reading through.

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