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Ben Panko

@btpanko

Chicagoan. Writer. #RVA native, Pittsburgh expat. Politics and Star Wars nerd, leftist, crazy cat guy. Same username on 🧡 and the other site. He/him.

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Latest posts by Ben Panko @btpanko

06.03.2026 19:48 πŸ‘ 249 πŸ” 33 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

i think jesse jackson was one of the most important american political figures of the post-war era and i think that his 1984 and 1988 campaigns for the democratic nomination still have a great deal to teach about forging a path to a more egalitarian world. RIP.

17.02.2026 13:36 πŸ‘ 12371 πŸ” 1646 πŸ’¬ 152 πŸ“Œ 72

The maga divide summarized: does the gutter racism that is the mortar of our coalition apply to Jews or not? And if it doesn’t do we mean that or are we just pretending for the moment?

22.12.2025 12:33 πŸ‘ 1873 πŸ” 383 πŸ’¬ 34 πŸ“Œ 11
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One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself

22.12.2025 12:40 πŸ‘ 3131 πŸ” 392 πŸ’¬ 153 πŸ“Œ 100

it is just incredible how far bari weiss got without ever having an audience other than the rich men she flatters

22.12.2025 05:05 πŸ‘ 599 πŸ” 48 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 4

not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture β€” and specifically nostalgia bait television β€” is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.

20.12.2025 14:44 πŸ‘ 8264 πŸ” 1015 πŸ’¬ 336 πŸ“Œ 162
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Woman comes to US at age 6. Graduates nursing school. Work permit. No criminal record. Snatched and imprisoned by ICE for 6 months now. About to be forced back to Honduras. A life destroyed and one less nurse. Merry Christmas.

www.nola.com/news/educati...

20.12.2025 13:22 πŸ‘ 7703 πŸ” 3342 πŸ’¬ 186 πŸ“Œ 158

Think about how Marjorie Taylor Greene was actually dumb enough to believe that the Epstein files mattered to Trump, and her disillusionment. There were people dumb enough to believe that the right-wing β€œfree speech movement” was actually about free speech.

22.12.2025 01:32 πŸ‘ 395 πŸ” 68 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 3

I think it’s pretty likely Bari Weiss quits far sooner than anyone expects because if there’s anything we learned from her tenure at the New York Times it’s that this lady hates working, absolutely despises it, and she probably had to send like four emails today

22.12.2025 03:20 πŸ‘ 6196 πŸ” 629 πŸ’¬ 97 πŸ“Œ 45

There are five hundred and ten (510) days until the next mayoral election in Chicago, set for Feb. 23, 2027.

01.10.2025 22:33 πŸ‘ 71 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1

My fav quote in here is from Sen. Gallego:

02.10.2025 19:27 πŸ‘ 615 πŸ” 110 πŸ’¬ 18 πŸ“Œ 6

Like gravity is a theory

03.10.2025 01:42 πŸ‘ 1764 πŸ” 244 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, pulling men, women and children β€” some of them allegedly naked β€” from ...

I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...

02.10.2025 23:59 πŸ‘ 13482 πŸ” 5744 πŸ’¬ 363 πŸ“Œ 283
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ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: β€˜We Are Determined to Fight This’ Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. β€œI am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

03.10.2025 02:38 πŸ‘ 16516 πŸ” 6997 πŸ’¬ 743 πŸ“Œ 447

Close enough, welcome back Spiro Agnew

22.09.2025 16:52 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

i genuinely do think a big part of triangulation discourse is people avoiding that inflation was the biggest pain point for swing voters

22.09.2025 05:13 πŸ‘ 289 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 8

i really have not seen yglesias et al reckon with the fact that kamala ran exactly the campaign they would have suggested and lost.

22.09.2025 14:50 πŸ‘ 986 πŸ” 105 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 5

it is remarkable how they apparently have been scared off blue city/blue state approach

13.09.2025 22:08 πŸ‘ 491 πŸ” 95 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 8

Just you wait until Bari Weiss hears about this, she and the free speech absolutists at The Free Press are gonna be STEAMED

13.09.2025 14:30 πŸ‘ 219 πŸ” 52 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 0
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Amazing headline.

12.09.2025 14:28 πŸ‘ 814 πŸ” 145 πŸ’¬ 50 πŸ“Œ 127

right now, the Supreme Court's approvals are upside-down without anyone attacking them.

08.09.2025 17:39 πŸ‘ 119 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

The root problem with this piece is that the people tweeting Luigi memes not only don't vote for democrats, they don't vote.

08.09.2025 17:27 πŸ‘ 172 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 1

it’s great too that when district courts follow the law as written, one of the chuds on the Supreme Court pops up to scold them for not treating trump like a very special boy

08.09.2025 16:27 πŸ‘ 5793 πŸ” 1185 πŸ’¬ 59 πŸ“Œ 13

Three SCOTUS stories before lunch on a Monday when the court isn't even in session perfectly encapsulates how the increasing importance of the shadow docket has completely reoriented how the court operates and what captures the public's attention.

08.09.2025 16:08 πŸ‘ 2225 πŸ” 636 πŸ’¬ 37 πŸ“Œ 24
Preview
Supreme Court upholds 'roving patrols' for immigration arrests in Los Angeles The Supreme Court says immigration agents may stop and question people they suspect are here illegally based on little more than working at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin.

"Half the population” of greater Los Angeles "now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion," in the wake of today's 6-3 SCOTUS ruling.

www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

08.09.2025 17:02 πŸ‘ 3222 πŸ” 1530 πŸ’¬ 208 πŸ“Œ 169

very easy to overindex vibes here and elsewhere but it really feels like the bottom is going to fall out towards the end of the year

08.09.2025 00:28 πŸ‘ 286 πŸ” 25 πŸ’¬ 18 πŸ“Œ 3
The injunction is silent as to the use
of force. And it is not necessary for the injunction to address
that use-of-force question because the Fourth Amendment’s
reasonableness standard continues to govern the officers’
use of force and to prohibit excessive force.
To the extent that excessive force has been used, the
Fourth Amendment prohibits such action, and remedies
should be available in federal court. I agree with the
dissent on that point. But to reiterate, this injunction
against brief stops for questioning does not address the useof-force issue.

The injunction is silent as to the use of force. And it is not necessary for the injunction to address that use-of-force question because the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard continues to govern the officers’ use of force and to prohibit excessive force. To the extent that excessive force has been used, the Fourth Amendment prohibits such action, and remedies should be available in federal court. I agree with the dissent on that point. But to reiterate, this injunction against brief stops for questioning does not address the useof-force issue.

It's not the most important part of the issue but Kavanaugh saying "well they should just sue if they're the victims of excessive force from ICE" when he himself has previously voted to bar lawsuits against federal officers for violations of the 4th Amendment in immigration cases takes chutzpah.

08.09.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 12998 πŸ” 4408 πŸ’¬ 524 πŸ“Œ 221

There's a increasingly wide gulf between what you might call "local abundance"β€”which largely consists of liberal and progressive activists and local electeds trying to do YIMBY-type thingsβ€”and "DC abundance," which hosts conferences where Oren Cass is a speaker for some reason.

04.09.2025 20:37 πŸ‘ 982 πŸ” 160 πŸ’¬ 16 πŸ“Œ 29