Pritzker to Trump: Call me ‘JBeefy’ / Dirty business / Quizzes!

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Pritzker to Trump: Call me ‘JBeefy.’ Joining Jimmy Kimmel last night, Gov. Pritzker embraced the notion that the president will give him an insulting nickname or two.
■ The governor repeated his call to action: “It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once” …
■ … a concept embraced yesterday in Chicago, Alabama and across the nation …
■ … as well as lawyers gathered in Chicago, New York and elsewhere to mark a “National Law Day of Action” in defense of a legal system under assault—and to reaffirm their oaths to uphold the rule of law. (Photo: Lawyers in Chicago’s Federal Plaza.)
■ Microsoft’s ditching a law firm that bent the knee to Trump in favor of Chicago’s Jenner & Block, which has been fighting back against executive orders punishing firms that have represented his political opposition.
■ Caught in the middle of Trump and corporate parent Paramount’s legal dance, 60 Minutes isn’t backing off—reportedly planning a segment Sunday on how law firms are responding to White House pressure.
■ The American Prospect: “Apple’s monopoly is finally held accountable—and within hours of a Wednesday court ruling, innovation on smartphones is exploding.”

‘Finally—finally—a member of the Trump administration faces lasting consequences that lasted three and a half hours.’ That’s Stephen Colbert on Trump’s decision to dump sloppy Signal chatter Mike Waltz as national security adviser …
■ … only to nominate Waltz shortly afterward as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations …
■ … and to give the security adviser job to Secretary of State and man wearing a buttload of professional hats these days Marco Rubio.
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Attorney General Pam Bondi.
■ Columnist Dan Pfeiffer says all this is evidence of “a president who can’t get the most basic things right” and “an administration in chaos.”

Trump’s birthday bash. The Associated Press has uncovered plans for a military parade on the president’s birthday—coincidentally, the date of the Army’s long-planned 250th anniversary festival—at a potential cost of tens of millions of dollars.
■ It’s a thing he’s long coveted.
■ Former Vox correspondent Dara Lind: “One way to read stories based on leaked docs: Look at time from being circulated to docs getting published. … That’s the amount of time it took to a) get someone pissed enough to agree to leak and b) get enough also-pissed people to confirm. These are slides dated April 29-30, published May 1.”
■ The president’s mistaken announcement of a plan to commemorate the end of World War II next week drew criticism from podcaster Keith Olbermann: “Trump is a complete moron.”

Education Department gutted. ProPublica surveys the impact of Trump’s cuts: Investigating discrimination in schools is now practically “impossible.”
■ The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch: “Human rights nightmares show ‘the crazies’ who wanted to abolish ICE were right. The nightly parade of horror stories about an American secret police proves the current system is broken beyond repair.”
■ MuskWatch recaps “The Week in Musk.”

Dirty business. NBC 5 Chicago reports that Pritzker’s team is bringing political muscle to bear against candidates considering opposing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton for Dick Durbin’s Senate seat …
■ … notably including disparaging remarks about Rep. Lauren Underwood.

‘Dumpster misfire.’ The Illinois Gaming Board has halted construction of Bally’s new casino—on the site of the old Tribune printing plant—after a Sun-Times investigation revealed the involvement of a waste hauling company with an “ugly history” …
■ … putting the matter in Pritzker’s lap.

‘At least half of today’s questions mention animals in some way—maybe more, depending on how you define the term.’ That’s this week’s challenge from quizmaster and past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel.

■ Your Chicago Public Square columnist’s score: 6/8 correct.
■ Axios Chicago’s Justin Kaufmann invites you to quiz yourself on Illinois’ Senate campaigns. (A lousy 5/10 here.)
■ City Cast offers a fresh Chicago news quiz. (3/5 here.)

Public broadcasting’s reckoning. Trump’s signed an executive order “to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS” …
■ … although CNN’s Brian Stelter notes that “the Corporation for Public Broadcasting … is a private entity that is supposed to be protected from executive orders.”
■ Wonkette: A special White House briefing for “new media” this week welcomed a woman “who was once convinced for seven days straight that the moon had disappeared.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg: “The only avenue open to resist what is happening is to tell the truth. … And who is doing that? The media, or what is left of it. Which is why World Press Day—Saturday, May 3—is extra important.”

Measles is here / Mass deportations signups / Musk out? / Touch that dial, please

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Measles is here. For the first time this year, two cases have been confirmed in Cook County—one, an adult Chicagoan who traveled internationally through O’Hare airport.
■ Wired: Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Department has ordered a lab studying deadly infectious diseases to knock it off.
■ Illinois hospitals overall have moved up 10 spots from last year in Leapfrog Group’s rankings for safety—but more are getting Ds.
■ Check your hospital’s rating here.
■ Culture Study columnist Anne Helen Petersen praises Max TV’s hospital-based series The Pitt, which she says is really “a show about America.”

‘No extra dolls for you, little girl.’ Columnist Charlie Sykes on Trump’s dismissal of concerns that his tariffs will mean a shortage of toys for kids at Christmas: “I hesitate to speak for Trump voters, but I’m skeptical that this is what they thought the Golden Age would actually mean.”
■ Evan Hurst at Wonkette: “Remember to tell a MAGA child exactly who stole Christmas this year.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion opinionator Jeff Tiedrich: “I know you’re not going to believe this—but the lifelong failure who failed at running a real estate empire, and failed at running casinos, and failed at running an airline, and failed at running a football team, and failed at fighting a pandemic, and failed at selling steaks, and failed at selling water … has failed to preserve the strong economy he inherited from Joe Biden.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Here we are with our shrunken economy, looking at empty ports and staring at pain yet to be felt, with a so-called leader who’s only capable of blaming others for his own failures.”
■ The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic: “Now, obviously, the economy is a complex interaction of multiple markets, so it’s difficult to point to any one factor—but it’s all Trump. It’s Trump. It’s Donald Trump.”
■ The Sun-Times: As higher prices loom, the Chicago Tool Library is stepping up to help people repair stuff they might otherwise have to replace.

‘Destroying America was the plan all along.’ HuffPost’s Paul Blumenthal says Trump’s determined to smash the country built in the 20th century.
■ The American Prospect and the Revolving Door Project: “This administration’s attack on … the Freedom of Information Act in general will harm the public in ways that will be difficult to directly appreciate for some time.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Author and columnist Cory Doctorow: Republicans have found a way to make student debt worse.
■ Popular Information: Beginning in the next school year, Oklahoma students will be required to learn about Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud.

Mass deportations signups. The Associated Press reports that the number of local police departments and state agencies joining Trump’s drive for mass deportations has now passed 500.
■ A judge has freed a Columbia University student activist Trump wants deported.
■ The American Prospect suggests “one weird trick” to keep the feds out of your city.
■ Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin calls “Trump’s ludicrous tattoo tirade … a great case study for journalists.”
■ WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell reports that Chicago saw fewer murders last month than in any April since … 1962.

If Pritzker were running for president … Illinois’ governor has waved off questions about his White House aspirations, but his media schedule this week sure suggests otherwise. Tonight it’s a shot on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
■ Dismissing Republican complaints that Pritzker’s New Hampshire encouragement of “mass protests … mobilization … disruption” against Trump’s regime constitutes an incitement to violence, columnist Eric Zorn says it was a “call for protests and rhetoric, not a call to take up bear spray, baseball bats and flagpoles, as those who answered the call from Dear Leader did on Jan. 6, 2021.”
■ The Daily Beast: Trump’s attorney general’s been bragging about plans to kill Americans.

‘A graveyard for political ambitions.’ Chicago magazine’s Ted McClelland dismisses Pritzker’s pick to succeed Dick Durbin in the Senate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton: “There’s a long history of lieutenant governors trying to move up … and a history just as long of lieutenant governors failing.”
■ Stratton—so far the only confirmed high-profile candidate for the job—was unable to tell Capitol News Illinois what her first bill would be should she win.

Musk out? The Wall Street Journal (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters) reports that Tesla’s board has opened a search for a CEO to replace Elon Musk …
■ … who yesterday held what Axios’ Alex Isenstadt says “had the feel of a de-facto exit interview” at the White House.
■ Wired: Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” assigned a college student to use artificial intelligence to rewrite government regulations.
■ New York Times columnist Julia Angwin (another gift link): “DOGE is building a surveillance state.”
■ The Reader: More than 1,400 pieces of Illinois public art are in limbo after DOGE’s downsizing assault.

‘We have never admitted our guilt in this genocide, never apologized, never shown a speck of remorse, never made any reparations.’ Filmmaker Michael Moore says yesterday—the 50th anniversary of the end of the U.S. war on Vietnam—should have been a national holiday.
■ The forest-devastating herbicides dropped by the U.S. still haunt the people of Vietnam.

■ The audience at a town hall session hosted by WGN’s corporate sibling, NewsNation, burst into laughter when Trump said he hasn’t made any mistakes since returning to the White House.
■ The White House has launched its own Drudge Report-like news site designed to, in Axios’ words, “present itself in a positive light.”

* Where your Square columnist spent almost two years as news director.

Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.

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