‘A day of clarity’ / Sodden City / Quizzes! / TV tips

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‘A day of clarity.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link): Donald Trump’s “unhinged genocide threats” demonstrate that “the fate of the Earth depends on removing Trump from the White House ASAP.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: The president’s Iran ceasefire “fell apart almost immediately.”
■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: His “civilization will die tonight” post has broken the MAGA movement.
■ Journalist and filmmaker Steven Beschloss: “How confusing it must be for Trump to discover that even his MAGA worshippers have had it with him.”
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Let's watch Trump fight with Tucker and Megyn and Candace and Alex.”

‘Shocking and abhorrent.’ Chicago-area faith leaders are appalled by the Trump administration’s co-opting of religious rhetoric to justify their war.
■ Lawyer and columnist Robert Hubbell: Defense Secretary Hegseth’s “embrace of Christian nationalism from the Pentagon pulpit violates the Constitution and desecrates the very Christianity he seeks to force onto the members of the U.S. military.”
■ Politico’s Shia Kapos: Barack Obama-allied political strategist David Axelrod’s visit with Chicago-born Pope Leo sparked “double-takes across social media.”
■ The Sun-Times: As the Democratic National Committee condemns dark money’s election influence, it’s rejected a resolution condemning the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s big spending in Democratic races.

‘Melania, girl, that Don’t ask me questions about my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein shirt sure is raising some questions about your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.’ Men Yell at Me proprietor Lyz Lenz: “We need to rename the Streisand Effect because now we all have a lot more questions.”
■ In what the AP calls an “extraordinary” and “out of the blue” White House statement, the First Lady demanded that “lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein … end today.”
■ Jeff Tiedrich: “Even Fox News was all ‘What in the actual fudge?’”
■ See it here.
■ Columnist Susan Berger: “Emails between Melania and Ghislaine Maxwell contradict what she characterized as a casual correspondence.”
■ Self-described “Jeopardy! third-place finisher” Zach Goldberg: “This is one speech Melania didn’t plagiarize from Michelle Obama.”
■ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s theories about why she did it include: “To revive interest in the Epstein scandal. You heard me right. The White House figures that Epstein is easier to handle right now than the fallout from the catastrophe of Trump’s war in Iran.”
■ Jimmy Kimmel differs: “He’s spent the past six weeks trying to bomb this Epstein story out of the headlines. Two days after the ceasefire, she puts it right back on top. She must really hate him.”

‘A place of fear.’ Condemning the immigrant detention center in Broadview, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch celebrates that chamber’s passage of a bill to forbid the feds from opening other such concentration camps within 1,500 feet of any home, school, day care center, park, forest preserve, cemetery or place of worship.
■ Block Club: Chicago-area immigrants are “wasting away” at a for-profit detention center in Michigan.
■ Also headed to the state Senate: A bill requiring that high schools offer eligible students a chance to register to vote.

Sodden City. Investigative reporter Brett Chase explains why Chicago flooding’s getting worse …
■ … and outlines ways to climate-change-proof the city.

Homeward bound. After setting a new record for the farthest human spaceflight, the crew of Artemis II was scheduled to splash down late this afternoon, Chicago time …
■ … amid questions about whether their heat shield will hold up during reentry.
■ Dave Barry: “Am I saying that Lockheed Martin bought a Shop Vac at Home Depot for $75, gussied it up a little and sold it to the American taxpayer as a space toilet for $23 million? Yes. No. That would be libelous.”

‘Trump talk, taking the 25th, and what in the world is a bin chicken?’ That’s past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel, setting the table for the latest news quiz from The Conversation.
■ Your Chicago Public Square columnist notched an above-average 7/8 right this time. Your turn!

More quizzes! Axios’ Justin Kaufmann challenges you to match the Chicago street to its designation: Road, avenue, boulevard, etc. (8/10 correct here.)
■ City Cast tests your knowledge of Chicago news this week. (3/5 right for Square.)

Sweet. Chicago’s beaten out Orlando and New York to become the permanent home of the Candy Hall of Fame Experience …
■ … at 830 N. Michigan Ave.—formerly home to Uniqlo, which has moved a few blocks south.
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg marvels at the hundreds of other uses for dental floss.
■ A Chicago Starbucks is a showcase for a comfy new look for the chain, with more of a coffeehouse feel.

TV tips. Advisorator Jared Newman spotlights YouTube TV’s hard-to-find—but cheaper!—new “genre” plans.
■ Also: Money-saving codes on streaming services and devices.

Illinois Local News Summit. Gov. Pritzker today addresses news media leaders on what some have dubbed a crisis for journalism …
■ … and you can watch along here at noon.

‘Your work becomes more important with each passing day.’ Those kind words for this newsletter accompanied a fresh contribution from a member of The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians—whose ranks include Mary Segraves, Doug Berman, Susann Slinic, David Hammond (again!), Katie Roberts, Stephen Schlesinger, Carol Lavoie Harper, Rick Blankenbaker, Jan Kieckhefer, Avis Rudner, J.J. Tindall, Joan Richmond, Peggy Fogelman, Mary-Carol Riehs, Tim Brandhorst, Brianna Considine, Mary Deady, Ann Spittle, Mike Fainman, Martin Berg, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Angela Mullins, Brian Cassidy, Paula Weinbaum, Robert Jaffe, Amy Lee Goodman, Alan Hoffstadter, Matthew Pestine, Melanie Minnix, Daniel Jares, Mike Salerno, Eric Zorn, Darrell Sherrod, Jenny Wittner, Eric Davis, Margaret Brennan, Bob Tucker, Paul Segedin, Helen Marshall, Barbara Kalina and Cindy Moriarity.
■ Pitch in as little as $1, just once, to keep this service coming and see your name atop Monday’s roll call.

Divvy + CTA deal / ‘The ceasefire doesn’t exist’ / R.I.P., Kindles / Happy Local News Day

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Divvy + CTA deal. If you buy a 30-day CTA or Pace bus pass, a pilot program launching this month will give you a $5 credit for Divvy bike and scooter rentals.
■ Mayor Johnson’s picked a bike-lane champion to head Chicago’s Transportation Department.
■ Also: A former Cook County public defender to serve as deputy mayor for community safety …
■ … who may be called on to deal with a new city inspector general report that finds “inconsistency” in the Chicago Police Department’s practice of stripping enforcement powers from cops under investigation.
■ Block Club: Police say Chicago’s infamous “Puffy Coat Bandits” are part of a crime ring that’s been targeting downtown diners for years.

‘Farewell to foam.’ That was one of the appeals to Illinois lawmakers as hundreds of environmentalists traveled to Springfield to push passage of bills to save the planet.
■ Also under consideration: Legislation to legalize a “green death option,” human composting …
■ … and a proposal to give those convicted of reckless driving an alternative to losing their licenses: Installation of devices that would limit their vehicles’ ability to exceed speed limits.

‘A program that is being proposed by this president with his intentions to destroy the Department of Education.’ The Chicago School Board’s OK’d a resolution calling on Gov. Pritzker to reject a federal program to divert taxpayer dollars to cover private school tuition.
■ Dentists caring for needy Chicago public school students are asking the state to take control of a program they say the city has mismanaged.

‘The ceasefire doesn’t exist. The future is awful.’ The American Prospect’s David Dayen: “Iran taking operational control of the Strait of Hormuz has enormous ripple effects.”
■ Jeff Tiedrich at Everyone is entitled to my own opinion: “Donny … agreed to a ceasefire without really understanding what the terms were—which is pretty much Donny’s entire business model, to act first and think never.”

‘A president shouldn’t be able to walk away from threatening to wipe out an entire civilization.’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “If Vice President JD Vance were smart—and I very much don’t think he is—he would use this disgraceful moment to turn on the president and position himself as a less insane choice to lead the country.”
■ Republicans across the country are coming to grips with a wave of election routs, in Wisconsin and elsewhere: “We got our butts kicked.”

‘The last person who should be running the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.’ Columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says the woman with that job now—and a leading candidate to become the next U.S. attorney general—“is intent on reversing civil rights” …
■ … witness her investigation of the star witness against Trump in congressional hearings about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot (New York Times gift link).
■ In the Justice Department’s declaration that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional, former U.S. prosecutor Joyce Vance sees the Trump administration “killing history.”
■ Popular Information: Trump’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission is going to war with states—to protect his family’s business partners.

MAD about late night. The venerable satire magazine’s June issue turns its sights on TV’s end-of-day shows …
■ That follows a “MAD about DC” satire that former DC Comics editor Mike Gold declares the magazine’s funniest issue in years.

R.I.P., Kindles. In a move that Wired says will spur a new wave of electronic trash, Amazon’s planning to cut off support—including the ability to download new e-books—for Kindle readers released before 2012.
■ Here are the 11 models affected.
■ ZDNet explains how to jailbreak one of those forlorn devices to become “the ultimate open-source reader.”

Mind those Ns and Qs. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square misspelled Iran—an error identified by several helpful readers, of whom the first was Barry Koehler.
■ Mistakes hurt, but having readers who take the time to set things straight eases the sting.

Happy Local News Day … a national day of action conceived by the founder of the Montana Free Press and being observed nationwide—by organizations including MS NOW (the former MSNBC), the Sun-Times and Investigate Midwest …
■ … which makes this an apt day to thank readers such as Vidas Germanas, Mark Dean, Clive Topol, John O’Connell, Ann Fisher, Maureen King, Peter Kuttner, Judy Hoffman, Geoff Anderson, Fritz Holznagel, Dave Kraft, Peggy Conlon-Madigan, Susanne Riedell, Heather Alger, Jon Lederhouse, Bob Back, Joan Berman, Robert A. Shipley, Brent Brotine, Ricky Briasco, Nancy and Barney Straus, Keelin Wyman, John Gilardi, Jessica Mackinnon, Susan Gzesh, Rosalind Rouse, Deirdre Walton, Avery Cohen, Geraldine Delaney, Clifford Johnson, Ian Morrison, Julie Martin, Steve Johnson and Louise Kiernan, Matt Griffin, Liz Meisterling, saknrad, Kathy Catrambone, Marianne Goss, Glenn Jeffers, Tim Colburn, Jerry Role, Debbie Becker, Bill Oakes and Carollina Song—who, over the last 9+ years, have pitched in to help cover the cost of producing Square.
■ Join their ranks today—for as little as $1, just once—and see your name atop tomorrow’s roll call.
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Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.

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