Rahm Emanuel has been declared the winner of the 2015 Chicago mayoral runoff over Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. Rahm held an overwhelming spending advantage (as much as $45 million spent in the 2015 primary and runoff by some estimates), media saturation and smear campaign, and reports of ballots pre-marked for Rahm.
Some 1.1 million out of 1.4 million registered Chicago voters (nearly four-fifths) didn’t vote for Rahm, and one progressive voting organizer has declared "The Rahm Emanuel we know is broken". Nevertheless, Chicagoans can expect four more years of continued school cuts, suspicious fiscal policies, protests against all of the above, and the christening of a new progressive electoral machine.
Additional Commentary: Jacobin Magazine: Four More Years | Politico: Rahm the Screwup | Salon: "Pushed to the brink of extinction": How Rahm Emanuel won — and became the biggest loser in Chicago | In These Times: Rahm Emanuel Won—But Chicago Progressives Actually Have Much to Be Happy About
For the first time since Chicago switched to non-partisan mayoral elections in 1996, Chicago will have 
Chicagoans have taken to the streets to protest the effective acquittal of police officers in Ferguson, Missouri (in the Michael Brown case) and New York City (the Eric Garner case).
September, 1, 2014 marks Labor Day in the United States, and it also marks the debut of the 100th episode of Chicago Independent Television, the monthly TV program of Chicago Indymedia. The 100th episode debuts at 11PM on September 1, 2014 on 
After 20 months in jail, three NATO defendants -- Brian Jacob Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly -- finally go to trial in the coming days on trumped-up, politically motivated accusations and a ‘crime’ wholly created and instigated by undercover cops engaged in police entrapment. In the run-up to the May 2012 NATO meeting in Chicago, officials militarized the city and clamped down on the freedom to protest. A linchpin in officials' justification of that state repression was the arrest and demonization of the NATO defendants, just days before the biggest purveyors of violence in the world -- NATO officials -- gathered in the Windy City. Opening arguments reportedly scheduled now for January 21. 
From the newswire - The blog of the website Privacy SOS featured a blogpost headlined "Is Facebook going to let cops block you from posting about protests?", with a particular focus on the Chicago police. Quoting from the post:
In a victory for free speech, activism, and education rights, an Illinois appellate court supported the free speech rights of a Chicago professor after her university tried to slander her using an Illinois law intended to shield citizens from powerful interests.
On the evening of Friday, August 16th, 
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) "brings together major U.S. corporations and right-wing legislators to craft and vote on 'model' bills behind closed doors. It has come under increasing scrutiny for its role in promoting 'stand your ground' gun laws, voter suppression bills, union-busting policies and other controversial legislation. Although billing itself as a 'nonpartisan public-private partnership,' ALEC is actually a national network of state politicians and powerful corporations principally concerned with increasing corporate profits without public scrutiny." [