‘Absolute terror’ / Flying? Not so fast / Yay, Trib

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‘Absolute terror.’ A lawyer and rapid-response immigration lawyer team member describes the ICE arrest early yesterday of a teacher at a North Side daycare center as parents and kids watched.
■ It was caught on video.
■ Politico: It happened just days after passage of a new Illinois law forbidding ICE arrests in and around daycare facilities.
■ The Washington Post (gift link): It’s one of the first instances during the second Trump administration in which immigration officers entered school grounds to make an arrest.
■ Hundreds of angry neighbors rallied outside that center last night.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “If they’ve run out of undocumented felons in the Chicago area to round up and are reduced to snatching up daycare workers, then they should get the fuck outta town and find another city to terrorize.”
■ The Onion deadpans: “Child Care Worker Proves No Match For Full Force Of U.S. Military.”
■ The Daily Northwestern’s assembled a guide to your rights in the face of the federal incursion …
■  … including tips for effectively recording immigration enforcement.
■ Columnist Christopher Armitage suggests that state attorneys general are “the secret weapon to defeating Trump and Republicans”—and he recommends citizens in Illinois and elsewhere demand investigations into federal crimes committed in their states.

‘People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets.’ U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman has laid down the law for ICE—ordering it to end overcrowded and filthy conditions at its Broadview processing facility, with 15 directives that include free bottled water on detainees’ request.
■ Read his full temporary restraining order here.
■ An ICE agent’s been charged with drunken driving after working a shift in Broadview.
■ The pope’s asking Homeland Security to allow communion to be administered at Broadview.

The feds’ ‘propaganda.’ The Sun-Times analyzes how Trump administration media strategy aims to portray Chicago as a city at war.
■ Federal Judge Sara Ellis was set to rule at Chicago Public Square’s email publication deadline on whether to extend her temporary restraining order on ICE brutality against reporters and protesters …
■  … after a day in which she grilled Justice Department lawyers about the behavior of, in the words of Wonkette’s Marcie Jones, “Border Patrol Commander / diminutive Nazi cosplayer Gregory Kent Bovino.”
■ Among evidence presented yesterday: Video in which Bovino tells agents, “Everybody fucking gets it if they touch you.”
■ Watch the Square account on Bluesky for updates.

Reasons to be cheerful. Popular Information spotlights six election results that didn’t make the headlines—including the ouster of a Pennsylvania sheriff who collaborated with ICE and progressives’ control of a Texas school board that censored books.
■ Lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell: “Republicans went down in flames on Tuesday because they refused to acknowledge that ‘We aren’t in 2024 anymore.’”
■ Heads Up News proprietor Dan Froomkin: “The resistance is ascendant.”
■ But, PolitiFact notes, Donald Trump’s not done pressuring states and Congress to change how next year’s elections will go.
■ Ex-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hanging it up.

Higher tollway fees, sales taxes ahead. The Sun-Times breaks down what Illinois’ new transit spending bill means for you.

Flying? Not so fast. Chicago and Midway airports are among those targeted for thousands of flight cuts beginning tomorrow—as the government staggers through this record shutdown.
■ The Washington Post (gift link): “A 10 percent cut at … O’Hare … could mean 121 fewer flights—or more than 14,500 fewer seats—a day.”
■ A Chicago Aviation Department general manager faces federal fraud charges, accused of grifting a quarter-million dollars from a snow removal company hired at O’Hare.

‘A hack move.’ Eric Zorn isn’t buying U.S. Rep. “Chuy” Garcia’s explanation for the timing of his decision not to seek reelection—giving his chief of staff a virtually unchallenged path to succession.
■ A Chicago City Council member nevertheless is considering a write-in campaign.
■ State Sen. Willie Preston—running for Congress from the South Side—is under scrutiny for his profane pro-Trump social media posts.

Yay, Trib. The official Homeland Security Twitter X account condemned the Trib for its reporting on inhumane conditions in Broadview.

A chattier Google Maps. The most popular navigation app is getting an AI upgrade that will, among other things, use landmarks instead of distance to advise drivers when to turn or exit.
■ Columnist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow revisits “the 40-year economic mistake that let Google conquer (and enshittify) the world.” (Note: He lays much of the blame on “Chicago School economists.”)
■ Hear him talk about his creation of the word enshittify in a Chicago Public Square podcast.

Dems rising / 3,000 missing / Calm? Calm?? CALM???

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Chicago Public Square was built for moments like this. Print newspapers, with their early deadlines, won’t round up Tuesday’s election results until … Thursday.
■ But Square’s here for you, thanks to those whose financial support—even just $1, once—keeps this service coming.
■ So let’s get to it:

Dems rising. In the first major Election Day since Donald Trump reclaimed the White House, Democrats dominated, coast to coast.
■ Axios: “In race after race, the margins of victory … were wider than expected” …
■ … across what Andrew Prokop at Vox says were “high-profile and low-profile elections.”
■ The New York Times: “Turnout was extraordinary.”
■ The AP rounds up the numbers from every state.
■ Columnist Steven Beschloss: It was “a good night for democracy and sanity.”
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: “If you are a fan of democracy and wanted to breathe, Tuesday night was a night for you.”
■ Former megachurch pastor and writer John Pavlovitz sees “irrefutable evidence that the beautiful collective heart of our nation is still functioning.”
■ Transgender journalist Erin Reed perceives “a stunning rebuke of anti-trans politics.”
■ New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie (gift link) says the results make clear that Trump is “an albatross around the neck of his party.”
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: “This was the first real test of Donald Trump’s political strength since winning the White House, and he fell flat on his face.”
■ Columnist Charlie Sykes: It was “a coast-to-coast repudiation of Donald Trump and all his works.”
■ Trump was not a happy guy.
■ The view from Portugal: Chicago expat—and Chicago Tribune alumnus—Kevin Williams: “Republicans erred in being too horrible for people to countenance because that horrible behavior is now affecting the lives of everyone.”
■ Economist Paul Krugman doesn’t expect an end to Republicans’ “attempt to consolidate authoritarian rule. … If anything, they’ll redouble efforts to rig the 2026 midterms, although California, by approving a major redistricting, has largely neutralized their gerrymandering plot.”

‘Zohran Mamdani is gonna be the mayor of New York, and also of America.’ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Don’t let anybody tell you normal New Yorkers are not giddy right now. It is palpable.”
■ The Lever’s David Sirota: “Mamdani’s victory could be a turning point for Democrats—if the party finally learns from its past leaders’ betrayals.”
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Democrats won back at least some minority voters and held on to Virginia’s federal workers despite the shutdown.
■ The American Prospect hails California’s referendum on congressional redistricting as proof that resistance works.
■ The Times: In a sign of the party’s newfound strength, Democrats even ousted two Republican members of Georgia’s utility board.
■ Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “The sleeping giant of America is up and roaring.”
■ And then, there’s the plainspoken Jeff Tiedrich: “Democrats, fuck yeah!”

3,000 missing. That’s the National Immigrant Justice Center’s estimate of how many Chicago-area immigrants have vanished from federal records.
■ 404 Media: Customs and Border Protection’s given state and local cops an app they can use to scan someone’s face as part of immigration enforcement.
‘The conditions would be found unconstitutional even in the context of prisons holding convicted felons.’ A federal judge said he’d issue an order today regarding what lawyers call inhumane conditions at the Broadview immigrant detention center …
■ … including overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that “tasted like sewer.”
■ Axios: “Attorneys quibbled about whether detainee meals come from Subway or Jimmy John’s.”
■ In another Chicago courtroom today, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis was to consider more evidence in news outlets’ and protesters’ suit complaining of excessive force by the feds …
■ … including footage from at least a dozen cameras worn by immigration agents …
■ Plaintiffs in that suit say Bovino made up a claim he was hit by a rock before he OK’d the use of tear gas.
■ Re: Yesterday’s item about prosecutors dropping a complaint against a man for injuring Bovino’s groin, reader Mary Cronin jokes: “Because it was a petty offense.”

‘We don’t have the air traffic controllers.’ More flights out of Chicago are getting delayed as the federal shutdown—now the longest in history—drags on.
■ Another D.C. record: House Speaker Mike Johnson’s delay swearing in an Arizona Democrat elected in September—a woman whose vote could free the files about Trump’s dead sex-offender friend Jeffrey Epstein—is eight days beyond the previous longest stall.
■ The Supreme Court today was considering the legality of Trump’s tariffs. (Hear here.)

‘A sleazy end.’ A Trib editorial condemns departing U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” García’s gambit to clear the way for his chief of staff to run for his seat with no opposition.
■ Axios: “This was once the norm for Chicago politicians of García’s ilk.”
■ The Sun-Times: As he runs to reclaim the House seat he surrendered in a corruption scandal, Jesse Jackson Jr. has been taking campaign cash from a guy under federal investigation.
■ Freedom of Information inquiries reveal that Chicago’s cultural affairs chief quit amid charges of sexual harassment and more.
■ Remember how Mayor Johnson agreed to be more transparent about all the gifts he’s received? The city’s inspector general says, um, not so much. (Read the report here.)

In Dick Cheney’s defense … Chris Geidner says the dead ex-vice president was an early Republican voice for treating same-sex couples fairly.
■ Closer to the Edge: “Whatever clarity came at the end doesn’t wash the blood from his hands.”
■ Jed Rosensweig at LateNighter: “Cheney became late-night TV’s perfect villain.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

‘A tech billionaire bet big on Trump. It’s paying off for Silicon Valley.’ Especially, ProPublica reports, venture capitalist—and University of Illinois graduate—Marc Andreessen.
■ The Washington Post (gift link): A secretive donor circle that lifted JD Vance is rewriting MAGA’s future.
■ Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports, the median age of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. has now reached a record high of 40.

Calm? Calm?? CALM??? Your Chicago Public Square columnist mounts the soapbox to complain about NBC News’ new slogan.
■ About to split from NBC, MSNBC—soon to be MS NOW—is spending big to let the world know.

Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better. 

Square up.

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