Erika Poethig's Avatar

Erika Poethig

@erikapoethig

Chicagoan. Policy nerd. Houser. Mom to two boys & wife to fellow policy nerd @raysendeja

271
Followers
301
Following
17
Posts
12.11.2024
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Erika Poethig @erikapoethig

Preview
Pope Leo calls for ‘deep reflection’ about treatment of detained migrants in U.S. “Many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now,” Chicago-born pope says.

"Pope Leo said Scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world:

'How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made about what is happening'..."

chicago.suntimes.com/pope-leo-xiv...

06.11.2025 05:02 👍 23081 🔁 6445 💬 617 📌 270
Preview
Chicago biz groups push back on Trump's National Guard plan Three high-profile organizations representing Chicago’s business community issued an unusual joint statement over the weekend rapping President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy Illinois National Guard tr...

Business stands with Chicago.
www.chicagobusiness.com/politics/chi...

05.10.2025 19:17 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A DOGE kid gets beat up in DC and it’s DefCon1; hundreds of bullets into federal buildings with officer killed in Atlanta and it’s crickets; violent mob attacks Capitol wounding dozens of officers and it’s pardons for all.

12.08.2025 17:29 👍 4920 🔁 1733 💬 144 📌 60

We have self-reports or news accounts from 320 of the 2,000 No Kings Day events across the US today. Up to an unofficial tally of about 575,000 people now. Extrpaolating from that, total would be around 4.5m people, or about 1.3% of the pop. Some error I'm sure. Thanks to everyone crowdsourcing!

14.06.2025 20:31 👍 1280 🔁 296 💬 68 📌 20
Post image

Chicago's massive "No Kings" march has taken to Downtown streets.

Follow along for live updates: blockclubchi.co/44id2A8

14.06.2025 18:30 👍 456 🔁 110 💬 3 📌 0
Preview
Utah governor pushing for help from local leaders to get more homes for first-time buyers Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wants more help from local leaders on his starter home initiative.

"All I’m asking is that you are all as passionate about [housing] as I am, understanding that the very future of our state hangs in the balance here." - Utah Governor Cox
www.deseret.com/utah/2025/05...

02.06.2025 14:29 👍 11 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 1
Post image

The Biden manufacturing construction boom is over:

02.06.2025 14:28 👍 691 🔁 238 💬 19 📌 39

Many years ago, I was a NSF graduate fellow. When I started my NSF funded research, hardly anyone was interested in the process we were studying. Now there are hundreds of papers on this process, and it usefulness in agriculture. Thank you NSF for believing in vegetative phase change!
#WithoutNSF

04.05.2025 01:10 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1
Preview
Immigrants prove they are alive, forcing Social Security to undo death label The immigrants who have requested a reversal and been reinstated in Social Security databases include a Haitian asylum seeker and a minor child.

Exclusive: Immigrants falsely labeled dead by the Social Security Administration are showing up at field offices with documents proving they are alive, leading staff to reinstate nearly three dozen people over the past week, according to records obtained by The Post.

18.04.2025 17:05 👍 19362 🔁 5940 💬 613 📌 372
Post image

Quite literally whitewashing the purpose of the Underground Railroad www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

06.04.2025 17:18 👍 11313 🔁 4174 💬 576 📌 470
Post image

This guy is in one of the worst prisons in the world with no way out and may spend the rest of his life there because, it appears, he has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his little brother.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

26.03.2025 23:46 👍 56376 🔁 21317 💬 1991 📌 1365
Text of an Executive Order stating the "non-statutory components and functions of the [Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund] shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and [the CDFI Fund] shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law..."

Text of an Executive Order stating the "non-statutory components and functions of the [Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund] shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and [the CDFI Fund] shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law..."

Post image Post image

I oversaw the CDFI Fund while at the Treasury Department. The White House Executive Order gutting CDFI Fund is wrong and short-sighted.

CDFIs are mission-driven lenders that deliver critical investments in low-income communities, including a lot of rural communities in Republican-leaning states.

15.03.2025 16:13 👍 34 🔁 12 💬 3 📌 3
Post image

Artists can apply to design a mural visible from the Kennedy Expressway. buff.ly/LnWDsgk

15.03.2025 03:00 👍 51 🔁 14 💬 0 📌 1
Preview
Presbyterian Outlook banned by Instagram - The Presbyterian Outlook Presbyterian Outlook’s Instagram was suspended by Meta without explanation. Learn what happened and where to find us now

Meta banned the leading publication of the Presbyterian Church USA without explanation. I encourage you to follow @presoutlook.bsky.social on @bsky.app

08.03.2025 22:02 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Chicagoans rally in support of Ukraine after Zelenskyy’s contentious meeting with Trump Politicians, activists and residents criticize the White House’s handling of Ukrainian president’s visit.

Hundreds in Chicago gathered Sunday in thunderous support of democracy in war-torn Ukraine — two days after President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance confronted the Eastern European nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

03.03.2025 01:09 👍 282 🔁 41 💬 4 📌 3
The photo of four actors in dramatic red costumes is by Massimo Schuster from “Birdcatcher in Hell” by Bread & Puppet Theatre, one of the oldest, nonprofit, political theatre companies in the country.

The photo of four actors in dramatic red costumes is by Massimo Schuster from “Birdcatcher in Hell” by Bread & Puppet Theatre, one of the oldest, nonprofit, political theatre companies in the country.

Sharing a new Substack post by @erikapoethig.bsky.social with @johannapoethig.bsky.social on how to put Timothy Snyder's fourth lesson from On Tyranny into action. postcivilized.substack.com/p/take-respo...

02.03.2025 14:15 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Trump administration to slash funding for enforcement of fair housing laws President Donald Trump’s administration has begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act by taking complaints, investigating and litigating housing discrimination cas…

President Donald Trump’s administration has begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act by taking complaints, investigating and litigating housing discrimination cases for Americans across the country.

01.03.2025 17:30 👍 218 🔁 150 💬 28 📌 36
Preview
Map: Where Medicaid Enrollment in the U.S. Is the Highest As Republicans weigh deep cuts, these congressional districts — some red, some blue — have the most to lose.

There are 26 districts held by Republicans with more than 30% of constituents enrolled in Medicaid. All of them voted for the budget resolution that will cut $2.2T in Medicaid benefits over the next 10 years.

28.02.2025 12:03 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
A new document undercuts Trump admin's denials about $400 million Tesla deal The State Department claimed a plan to buy thousands of armored Teslas was left over from the Biden administration. A document obtained by NPR shows the Biden plan was far smaller.

The State Department claimed a plan to buy thousands of armored Teslas was left over from the Biden administration. A document obtained by NPR shows the Biden plan was far smaller.

24.02.2025 17:32 👍 2223 🔁 529 💬 101 📌 74
Preview
HUD cuts expected to worsen America’s housing crisis, staffers say The Department of Housing and Urban Development is expected to be slashed in half, according to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post.

Major cuts planned for HUD will cause major disruptions in the housing market and slow housing production = ⬆️ housing prices

23.02.2025 20:25 👍 5 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0

NYC>Chicago is legitimately a great corridor for high-speed rail, if states of NY, PA, OH, IN & IL could unite for it.

You could hit:
—NYC—20m
—Philly—6m
—Harrisburg—600k
—Pittsburgh—2.4m
—Youngstown—400k
—Cleveland—2.2m
—Toledo—600k
—Ft Wayne—500k
—South Bend—300k
—Chicago—9m

On a ~straight route

22.02.2025 18:12 👍 313 🔁 48 💬 17 📌 9
Preview
They Worked to Prevent Death. The Trump Administration Fired Them. Public health teams are being gutted, imperiling efforts to safeguard organ donation and prevent maternal and infant death. Many workers expressed fear at what would happen to the work they left behin...

Public health teams are being gutted, imperiling efforts to safeguard organ donation and prevent maternal and infant death. Many workers expressed fear at what would happen to the work they left behind. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

23.02.2025 19:29 👍 370 🔁 148 💬 20 📌 9

Something is shifting. They are still breaking things and stealing things. And they will keep trying to break and to steal. But the propaganda magic around the oligarchical coup is fading. (1/2)

22.02.2025 14:06 👍 48437 🔁 11268 💬 1503 📌 902
Preview
Trump Costs America Highlighting the real people whose lives have been ruined, the good American jobs that are being destroyed, and the important public goods being lost.

Please share the stories of American public servants who have been unjustly fired by the Trump administration/Elon Musk and his DOGE

23.02.2025 15:44 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you!

18.02.2025 19:31 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?

17.02.2025 14:12 👍 81943 🔁 20262 💬 2284 📌 918
When the case reached the Supreme Court, the Court held that systems of political patronage like the one established by Thompson violate the First Amendment. Quoting one of its first patronage decisions, the Court reaffirmed that “conditioning public employment on the provision of support for the favored political party ‘unquestionably inhibits protected belief and association.’” Doing so “pressures employees to pledge political allegiance to a party with which they prefer not to associate, to work for the election of political candidates they do not support, and to contribute money to be used to further policies with which they do not agree.” It is “tantamount to coerced belief,” something the First Amendment plainly forbids. Nor did it matter that Thompson had not issued a direct order specifying that only Republicans would be hired, because “what the First Amendment precludes the government from commanding directly, it also precludes the government from accomplishing indirectly.”

When the case reached the Supreme Court, the Court held that systems of political patronage like the one established by Thompson violate the First Amendment. Quoting one of its first patronage decisions, the Court reaffirmed that “conditioning public employment on the provision of support for the favored political party ‘unquestionably inhibits protected belief and association.’” Doing so “pressures employees to pledge political allegiance to a party with which they prefer not to associate, to work for the election of political candidates they do not support, and to contribute money to be used to further policies with which they do not agree.” It is “tantamount to coerced belief,” something the First Amendment plainly forbids. Nor did it matter that Thompson had not issued a direct order specifying that only Republicans would be hired, because “what the First Amendment precludes the government from commanding directly, it also precludes the government from accomplishing indirectly.”

Right now, DOGE is saying that any new hires have to be approved by their office.
In 1980, when IL Governor Thompson said any new hires had to be approved by his office, the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional politicization of hiring.
What about now?
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

15.02.2025 23:03 👍 1237 🔁 360 💬 23 📌 6
Preview
Avian flu leads to increased bird deaths in Northwest Indiana, statewide Avian influenza spreads in birds, cows and other animals, and it can sometimes spread to people. In the United States, there has been 68 total reported human cases and one death.

Avian influenza spreads in birds, cows and other animals, and it can sometimes spread to people, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seen 68 total reported human cases and one death.

15.02.2025 18:30 👍 58 🔁 33 💬 3 📌 0

Make your calls. Go to your town halls. Ask your state and local officials what they are doing under state and local law. Rest. Hydrate. Make soup for the hungry. Don’t let people tell you that you’re doing it wrong. Not a sprint. Not a marathon. A relay. Find your team. Thank you.

15.02.2025 02:28 👍 28200 🔁 7031 💬 478 📌 339
Preview
Trump’s cuts hit red states, triggering GOP pushback — POLITICO GOP lawmakers try to intervene with the Trump administration as local fallout grows.

We need more coverage like this:

apple.news/Arq6wSGQNRgu...

15.02.2025 15:31 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0