Music, man / Temperatures rising / Snake on a train

■

Music, man. So when it came time for late-night hosts to respond to CBS’ cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show, music played a central role …
■ But Stewart took the cake with his longest Daily Show ever …
■ … climaxing in an un-bleeped, profanity-laced gospel choir song-and-dance routine aimed in part at his and Colbert’s Paramount corporate bosses …
■ … a bit for which the show sought and got an upgrade of its broadcast rating—to TV-MA.
■ Colbert’s predecessor, David Letterman, posted a YouTube montage showcasing his mockery of CBS through the years.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn confesses he’s not a viewer: “I’m part of the reason that CBS plans to axe The Late Show.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Stewart himself agrees: “We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records.”

‘How did American media … lose their spines?’ Ex-New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan: “If you believe, as I do, that American democracy needs a strong, robust press to survive, there’s a lot of reason to feel depressed right now.”
■ The transplant surgeon who’s done plenty to strip the Los Angeles Times of its spine, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, told Jon Stewart in a surprise announcement yesterday that he’s going to take the paper’s ownership public.

Temperatures rising. The National Weather Service has posted an extreme heat watch for the Chicago area from tomorrow into Thursday.
■ Yeah, it’s time for another heat dome—fueling what CNN says is the deadliest form of extreme weather in the U.S.
■ The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s search and rescue chief has quit in protest of FEMA’s response to Texas flooding.

‘People are at very great risk of dying on the job already.’ The AFL-CIO is sounding the alarm about Trump administration plans to deregulate workplaces.
■ The American Prospect says a 90-day countdown’s begun to the time when millions of Americans will learn about massive increases in their out-of-pocket costs for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

‘No safe place for legal immigrants in Trump’s America.’ The American Prospect examines the plight of those afraid to show up at court hearings—for fear of getting snatched by Trump’s deportation gangs.
■ Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were reportedly shackled with their hands behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food “like dogs.”

‘Follow the money.’ Popular Information tracks Trump’s $2 billion pivot from Truth Social to bitcoin.
■ Marc Elias at Democracy Docket says alarm bells need to get louder: “This is a slow, internal coup. And one day, we’re going to wake up and democracy as we know it will be over.”

Christmas behind bars. Ex-Commonwealth Edison CEO Anne Pramaggiore’s set to report Dec. 1 to begin her federal prison sentence for bribing convicted ex-House Speaker Mike Madigan.
■ The verdict’s guilty for a man accused of shooting and killing Chicago police officer Andrés Vásquez Lasso in 2023.

Snake on a train. Oak Park firefighters rescued a pet ball python that escaped from its owner and got stuck in a CTA Green Line car’s control box panel.
■ Although no charges had been reported, the transport of a ball python seems to violate CTA policy. (Photo: Oak Park Fire Department. More here.)
■ City Cast’s new quiz tests your CTA savvy. (Your Chicago Public Square columnist scored 6/9 correct.)

Thanks. Mike Braden and Suzanne Vestuto made this edition better.

A Square advertiser

Trump’s racist demand / Don’t get comfy / WWCD?

■

Trump’s racist demand. The president’s threatening to kill a deal for a new football stadium if Washington’s team doesn’t forsake the name Commanders and return to a word offensive to indigenous people.
■ Trump’s also fantasized on his Truth Social platform about tossing Barack Obama in jail—as his administration takes steps that could lead to just that …
■ … all of which brings to mind a vintage internet meme.

Did Trump write it? Rising to the challenge of Trump defenders who contend a note The Wall Street Journal says he wrote to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein doesn’t read like Trump’s work, Popular Information begs to differ—and has the receipts.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Trump’s suit against the Journal “is designed, in part, to scare all media outlets.”
■ Liz Dye at Law & Chaos calls it another of Trump’s “garbage pleadings … consisting of just 18 threadbare pages larded with inflammatory rhetoric. … As to actual law … not so much.”
■ Lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell: “Ever since the Watergate scandal, it has been accepted political wisdom that ‘The cover-up is (usually) worse than the crime.’ Not so here. Both the cover-up and the crime are depraved.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson notes social media skepticism about the president’s health: “Chronic venous insufficiency is a condition where the veins in the legs have difficulty drawing attention from the fact that the Epstein Files still haven’t been released.”

Chicago on ICE alert. A Tribune analysis finds a big increase in the number of immigrants detained in the area—especially of people with no known criminal background.
■ Axios: In January, ICE arrested 160 people in Illinois, of whom 31% faced no criminal charge.
■ Veteran Chicago journalist Jeff Kamen: “I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that most of the FBI and DEA officers who are being pressed into supporting brutal performative ICE operations are nauseated.”
■ Block Club: Federal agents broke a Chicago mom’s car window to detain her outside her Montclare home.
■ She shared much of the encounter on Facebook Live.
■ Vandals spray-painted “ICE rules” and swastikas on Little Village buildings—including the office of a state senator.
■ The AP: Volunteers are flocking to immigration courts to support migrants getting arrested in the hallways.
■ The Sun-Times: A Chicago soccer club for kids, founded by an immigrant, is sending players to the pros and the Under-17 World Cup.

Don’t get comfy. Chicago’s air today ranks as “unhealthy,” with a return to the 90s by Wednesday.
■ [Missing link added] The Trib reports: The Midwest’s “silent killer,” climate-change-fueled topsoil erosion, has crop experts worried.
■ Young climate activists yesterday gathered to push Illinois legislation that would make the fossil fuel industry fund environmental protection programs.
■ Gov. Pritzker’s pushing lawmakers to take action against State Farm for a huge increase in homeowner insurance rates—a thing the company blames on climate-driven extreme weather events.
■ See an armadillo or a black bear in Illinois—pushed north by warmer weather? The state wants to hear from you.

‘Downtown Day.’ Block Club reports that hundreds of kids from the West and South Sides gathered Saturday for a celebration organized by Chicago-based nonprofit My Block, My Hood, My City—to show them city perks they rarely experience.
■ Newcity publisher Brian Hieggelke: “It is time to put red-light cameras at every intersection in downtown Chicago.”

WWCD? CNN media-watcher Brian Stelter speculates on what to expect as Stephen Colbert tonight delivers his first Late Show since announcing that CBS would cancel the series in 10 months.
■ Stelter says local CBS stations have reason to fear loss of “the Colbert bump” for their 10 p.m. (Central) newscasts.
■ Public Notice columnist Noah Berlatsky fears that “execs at CBS’s parent company Paramount may have dumped Colbert not to appease Trump, but to join with him.”
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters like you) is hopeful about that 10-month grace period: “The host and his staff have the chance for lots of unfettered comedic and political creativity. It can be freeing to know you are on your way out.”
■ Journalism visionary Jeff Jarvis conceives a future in which Colbert takes a stand against “fascist authoritarians and craven capitalists … by making his own, independent media.”
■ From 2011: The Tribune’s Chris Borrelli assessed the political consequences of Colbert’s growing sphere of influence.
■ Even though he’s not gone yet, Common Cause has launched an online petition to “Tell CBS: Bring Colbert back.”

A home run. John Oliver was on hand before a record-setting crowd as the minor league baseball team he rebranded, the Detroit Tigers’ Pennsylvania minor league affiliate, made its debut as the Erie Moon Mammoths.
■ He waxed enthusiastic about the sport: “Over half the league was willing to … put their trust in the hands of a group of people who are untrustworthy. That’s a bad decision. And it is that kind of bad decision-making that I love about Minor League Baseball.”

‘My son, Neil Steinberg Jr., will be taking over this space.’ Neil Steinberg’s joking as he warns against replacing a Chicago City Council member with that guy’s son.

Subscribe to Square.

It’s free.