$5,000! In what The Associated Press charitably dubs a “dubious promise” and what lawyer and columnist Robert Hubbell dubs “an act of desperation without parallel in American history,” President Trump’s pledging that much cash for every U.S. adult if Republicans keep control of the House and the Senate in November.
■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: “The president wants to buy our votes.”
■ Cartoonist/columnist Jan Kodner: “Wow! The words of a man who seriously believes he is bulletproof.”
■ In fairness, Trump did give each of three female White House aides $45,000 in cash gifts.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “It’s not normal for a president to ‘gift’ his weird stalker diaper nurse 45 grand.”
■ Popular Information: “Workers in the United States are earning a historically low share of the value they produce.”
‘A funeral for MAGA’s majority.’ That’s how MS NOW assesses Trump’s midterm convention in Texas.
■ CNN: “Trump spent about an hour and 45 minutes talking about … the kinds of things you normally try to ignore at events like this.”
■ Ex-Republican political strategist Rick Wilson saw “a man free-associating through his grievances like a drunk uncle reading his Facebook feed to the Thanksgiving table.”
■ Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “Trump is totally, utterly and completely bonkers.”
■ Casting doubt over his identification as a “Pennsylvania Democrat,” Sen. John Fetterman showed up in a video at the convention, praising Trump (Philadelphia Inquirer gift link).
Incumbent down. Rhode Island’s 75-year-old Democratic Gov. Dan McKee is the first U.S. governor in eight years to lose a primary …
■ … in this case to Helena Foulkes, the 13-years-younger former CVS exec who led the chain’s decision to stop selling tobacco products.
■ In a defeat for Republicans, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a push to use Trump-backed congressional maps for Missouri’s November election.
■ In an echo of a Stephen Colbert exploit, Jimmy Kimmel’s set to interview Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico today—but, under the shadow of FCC intimidation, the segment won’t be broadcast and instead will go straight to Kimmel’s YouTube channel.
Alder out. Chicago City Council member Matt O’Shea says he won’t seek a fifth term.
■ He bemoans the council’s commitment to “speaking out on things that happened halfway around the world.”
Rock on. Chicago’s asking citizens to name a 50-ton boulder unearthed during O’Hare airport construction work.
■ Columnist Eric Zorn asks some tough questions of Dave Lundy, who’s leading the push to connect O’Hare and downtown Chicago with a 15-minute bullet train ride.
■ The board of the Regional Transportation Authority’s successor agency—NITA, the Northern Illinois Transit Authority—meets for the first time today.
Walkout against racism. Students at one suburban high school exited class yesterday to protest the actions of some of their fellow students and a coach accused of racist behavior against another school’s athletes at a weekend cross country meet.
■ Faculty and staff joined the walkout, too.
‘History teachers have a responsibility.’ Ahead of tomorrow’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, New York City teachers talk to Chalkbeat about their teaching plans for the day.
■ On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder assesses the U.S. response to the attack: “We did not do the right thing. Instead, Americans in power did what the terrorists wanted.”
■ Straight Arrow News—a website coincidentally founded in 2021 by Cubs owner Joe Ricketts, who’d previously founded and then shut down Chicago’s DNAinfo after staffers moved to unionize—says photos and video show where and when Trump visited Ground Zero after the attacks of 9/11, and none of them back up his account of what happened that day.
■ CNN concurs.
Apple folds. The company’s unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the Duo, to early positive reviews:
■ Tom’s Guide: “Apple nailed it—and just put everyone else on notice.”
■ The Independent: “Opening and closing the device can be done thoughtlessly and without worrying, bringing none of the feeling in some other devices that every close could be the last and the hinge could fall apart.”
■ Gizmodo:“$2,000 is a lot of money” …
■ … but CNN says the Duo “might actually be worth it.”
■ Apple’s also overhauling its AI agent Siri, adding the capability to listen to, rewind and recap live conversations.
■ Author and columnist Elaine Soloway: “My Apple devices are shaming me.”
■ Gov. Pritzker’s calling for congressional action to address “the threat AI poses to humanity.”
Sunrise. The confusingly named news website NOTUS—which stood not for “Not Us” but for “News of the United States”—is rebranding as The Washington Sun …
■ … with a staff that has doubled in recent months, adding many former Washington Post staffers (Post gift link).
‘The Associated Press will refer to Lake Ontario by its original name.’ The AP’s not buying Trump’s name-change edict. (Neither is this newsletter.)
■ Cartoonist/columnist David Horsey: “In Trump’s world, everything will be called ‘America.’”
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Americans Traveling Abroad Attempt Canadian Accents.”
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