@straythoughts.bsky.social
Bioinformatics, history, photography, cats
Reposted
1/ I’d like to share what’s happened since Sept. 30, the night of the most dramatic raid of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. Under the cover of darkness, 37 immigrants were taken from an apartment complex …🧵
November 16, 2025 at 3:17 PM
November 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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This week Lawfare launched a new project aimed at tracking domestic deployments.

Loren Voss discusses the monthlong effort to track domestic deployments which revealed a troubling lack of transparency on why & how military forces are used on U.S. soil. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/coun...
Counting the Boots: Tracking Domestic Deployments, One Missing Report at a Time
A monthlong effort to track domestic deployments revealed a troubling lack of transparency on why and how military forces are used on U.S. soil.
www.lawfaremedia.org
November 15, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Hard, fast rule from a veteran police reporter: Excepting anyone engaged in infiltrating a criminal conspiracy in an undercover capacity, any law officer who hides his identity from the public is a shitheel is doing vile shit and is, in fact, actively destroying the credibility of law enforcement.
This really hasn’t gotten enough attention this week.

@wired.com #ICE
www.wired.com/story/fbi-wa...
November 6, 2025 at 2:57 AM
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Hey Pam Bondi. This is John Mitchell. Gird your loins because you actually work for the people and not the president and you will eventually find out what that means.
November 15, 2025 at 1:53 PM
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I spend a lot of time thinking about how to write about Chicago, especially right now, and the late, great Tony Fitzpatrick gave me a perfect metaphor: Chicago is a boxer. dansinker.com/posts/202…
November 14, 2025 at 5:49 PM
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A recent spate of reporting indicates that Kash Patel’s time as director is going about as well as could be expected — which is to say, it’s an organization-soul-crushing and morale-killing disaster that imperils national security. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/kash-patel...
Kash Patel, the FBI's Agent of Chaos
The biggest little scandal in Washington right now is how bad Patel is at being FBI director
www.doomsdayscenario.co
November 13, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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Chicago day care worker detained by immigration agents released after community support www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news... #ICE
Chicago day care worker detained by immigration agents released after community support
Diana Santillana Galeano's detention at a day care was unusual even under "Operation Midway Blitz," which has resulted thousands of immigration arrests since early September.
www.nbcnews.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:50 PM
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Some news: Last April, I left Ginkgo Bioworks after 8+ years as a software engineer there. Since then, I’ve been working on starting a new company called GenHub with a couple other ex-Ginkgo people, Bob Van Hove and Chris Mitchell. (1/5)
November 5, 2025 at 11:10 PM
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Of course
November 9, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
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UPDATE: Reached out to the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister who was there that day and has been active in religious demonstrations at Broadview.

“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
November 8, 2025 at 2:08 PM
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CBP has been hitting Skokie, outside of Chicago, hard today. At 10:45 today, they jumped out of their vehicles and arrested a man on Lincoln Ave.
November 7, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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It's not yet on the Supreme Court's website, but here's a link:

georgetown.box.com/s/t9p9pbsj35...
25A319.pdf | Powered by Box
georgetown.box.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:19 PM
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An important read if you're from Chicago, because this is the lens some people in the rest of the country are seeing us through right now
November 6, 2025 at 4:48 PM
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Federal agents pulling a woman out of Rayito Del Sol, a daycare by Lane Tech high school
November 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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This was horrific to watch. Agents entering a daycare, wrestling with and abducting a teacher in front of small screaming children. I just… what the fuck are we doing here.
this morning, ICE went into a Spanish language immersion daycare and took a teacher from the building in front of screaming and crying kids and parents at dropoff and the daycare had to shut down for the day (near Lane Tech, where they were yesterday). Really hoping today's "theme" is not "daycare."
November 5, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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District Judge Sara Ellis on the bench for today's injunction hearing re: federal immigration agents' violent behavior in Chicagoland.

If entered, the injunction will replace a restraining order Ellis entered against the feds in early October - which attorneys say the feds have repeatedly violated.
Now heading inside to attend the hearing proper.
November 5, 2025 at 3:16 PM
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this morning, ICE went into a Spanish language immersion daycare and took a teacher from the building in front of screaming and crying kids and parents at dropoff and the daycare had to shut down for the day (near Lane Tech, where they were yesterday). Really hoping today's "theme" is not "daycare."
November 5, 2025 at 2:22 PM
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Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
London Lives
www.londonlives.org
November 5, 2025 at 11:24 AM
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WOW. A federal judge says he's going to issue a Temporary Restraining Order requiring ICE to make changes at the Broadview facility in Chicago, a facility that until January was only for stays under 12 hours "absent exceptional circumstances," but has become, in Judge Gettleman's words, "a prison."
U.S. Robert Gettleman is now giving his thoughts. He says, "I think the evidence has been pretty strong that this facility is no longer just a temporary holding facility. …

"It has really become a prison."
DOJ's Jana Brady steps up next but says she'll largely "rest on our brief that we filed."

She wants any TRO to not "interfere with the executive branch."
November 4, 2025 at 10:29 PM
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November 4, 2025 at 7:13 PM
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This is a disturbing court filing: A top ICE official “shockingly answered ‘No’ when asked if he agreed ‘agree that it's unconstitutional to arrest people for being opposed to Midway Blitz?’”
November 4, 2025 at 2:21 PM