‘Disgusting images.’ Columnist Nina Burleigh bemoans photos from Washington on Independence Day: “Hundreds of self-anonymized white men in matching beige khakis, navy shirts, wearing white gaiters to hide their faces, marching with Confederate flags, in front of the U.S. Capitol, beating drums and chanting about reclaiming America.”
■ A Reuters picture of a black woman surrounded by members of the white supremacist Patriot Front group on a D.C. train has gone viral.
■ Hope for America proprietor Heather Delaney Reese: President Trump’s silence as 400 white supremacists marched through Washington constituted approval.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “I feel kinda sorry for … haters who are so insecure about themselves they feel they can’t compete.” (Image by ChatGPT. Dialogue, direction and editing by Jan Kodner.)
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger: “Every generation of Americans has faced a version of this fight, and every generation that chose to engage rather than despair has won it.”
■ Declaring “independence from the rest of the world,” an Onion 4th of July editorial asserts that “all tangible connection between ourselves and the remainder of the earth is and ought to be totally dissolved, such that forever after we do not have to exist in a reality where other countries do.”
At it again. Trump’s published another racist post with a doctored photo of the Obamas on a graffiti-blasted Air Force One.
■ And he’s inserted his presidential nose into World Cup refereeing.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones details reporters’ uncovering of Trump’s “unprecedented” meddling.
Oh, it was unforgettable enough. NOTUS documents the fiasco that was Trump’s “Great American State Fair”—a thing he’d promoted as “the most unforgettable birthday party any country has ever had.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance on the weekend in the capital: “Dysfunction was on brand, almost predictable.”
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman on Trump’s efforts to slap the “communist” label on Democrats: “Spoiler: He’s terrified.”
‘If your credit card is connected … they can find out who you are, they can track where you got on or off.’ The American Prospect sounds an alarm about a company doing business with ICE contractor Palantir—and also running the payment systems for public transit agencies in Chicago and other big cities.
■ Wired: “ICE’s internal watchdog is now investigating online critics.” (If you hit one of those shortsighted and antidemocratic paywalls, open that link in an incognito browser window.)
■ The AP: A new Louisiana holding facility could accelerate the Trump administration’s deportation of kids.
‘A serious crisis demands serious management.’ Former Better Government Association chief Andy Shaw says Mayor Johnson’s call for a standalone city department dedicated to reducing gun violence is not that.
■ Weekend shootings left at least four dead and 20 hurt in Chicago.
■ Separate shootings minutes apart in Gary left a 10-year-old Chicago boy dead and seven others injured.
■ A plane landing at Midway Saturday night was hit by a firework.
■ At least three deaths now have been linked to Chicago’s weekend heat wave.
History under fire. A White House report released over the weekend condemns the Smithsonian Institution’s leadership for “extreme political activism.”
■ Block Club: The Trump administration’s shuttering of the National Archives and Records Administration’s outpost here means that transcripts from the Trial of the Chicago 7, maritime records for the Great Lakes region and documents on tribal nations will wind up … somewhere else.
Data center down. Ahead of one suburb’s plan to vote on transformation of a patch of farmland into property for a power- and water-hungry AI services center, the developer’s withdrawn the request.
■ The Sun-Times surveys how—or whether—Illinois’ Congress members are using AI.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich wants to know “What … is going on with Glitch McConnell? Is he like, y’know … dead?”
You coulda bet on it. Public Notice and Popular Information have teamed up to expose fishy business as CNN and CNBC push the prediction market gambling platform Kalshi on viewers without telling them the whole story.
■ As a lawsuit against Kalshi plays out in Michigan, the company’s begun blocking Michiganders’ sports bets.
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