Miss Chicago Public Square over the last week-and-a-half? You must not have been following the Square Bluesky account, where more than 225 links to breaking news and commentary have appeared since this newsletter’s last regular edition Feb. 28.
■ But, hey, we’re back just in time for the eighth(!) annual National Support Chicago Public Square Day. (Details below.)
‘Terrified.’ That’s what a Justice Department lawyer fired last week—apparently for opposing the restoration of gun rights to actor and Donald Trump friend Mel Gibson after his 2011 domestic violence conviction—says Americans should be over the department’s current leadership.
■ She told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes last night: “What’s going on … in terms of silencing dissent, is so frightening that I felt like I needed to share this story.”
■ 404 Media: “A contractor for … U.S. government agencies has developed a tool that lets analysts more easily pull a target individual’s publicly available data from a wide array of sites, social networks, apps and services across the web at once, including Bluesky, OnlyFans, and various Meta platforms … allowing them to map out a person’s activity, movements, and relationships.”
■ Chicago cops yesterday arrested 11 workers and supporters staging a sit-in at one of the city’s unionized Starbucks shops.
Lesson in layoffs. The U.S. Education Department plans to cut more than half its staff—axing its leases on buildings in Chicago and other cities.
■ That reportedly includes all Chicago employees.
■ ChalkBeat: Affected staffers would be placed on leave March 21, but were told to leave their offices by 6 p.m. yesterday.
■ WBEZ: “Most of the funding for Illinois schools comes from state and local sources,” but “federal funding makes up about 16% ($1.3 billion) of the $8.4 billion Chicago Public Schools operating budget.”
■ Gov. Pritzker laid into Trump: “Instead of proposing any plans to improve math and reading scores for students, he’s … making it harder for working-class kids to get ahead.”
■ The AP: “The Education Department was created to ensure equal access. Who would do that in its absence?”
■ A new report finds Illinois’ teacher shortage is easing …
■ … although the Chicago Teachers Union says the city’s evaluation system disproportionately targets black teachers.
‘Attacks on education, like attacks on free speech and tolerance, are attacks on Jews.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg rips into the Trump administration’s withholding of $400 million in funding from Columbia University—allegedly because it’s not doing enough to fight antisemitism.
■ At least two Illinois universities have gotten Education Department warnings that they face penalties if they don’t crack down on pro-Palestinian campus protests.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “Columbia grad student Mahmoud Khalil’s detention means we are just a hop, skip and jump away from political persecutions.”
R.I.P., ‘environmental justice.’ Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency plans to close all its offices dedicated to addressing pollution in poor and minority communities (New York Times gift link) …
■ … but the Army Corps of Engineers has scrapped a plan for a toxic dump along Lake Michigan on the South Side.
■ A new global report for 2024 ranks Chicago the nation’s seventh most-polluted major city—but that’s down from No. 2 the year before. (Gift Tribune link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters.)
DOGE Tracker. Popular Information’s Musk Watch has launched a tool to “cut through the spin” about Elon Musk’s purported savings …
■ … and it finds his “Department of Government Efficiency” has overstated its claims by 92%.
■ Wired: “Musk has wanted a government shutdown in part because it would potentially make it easier to eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers.”
■ As Congress wrestles with a resolution to avert a shutdown, columnist James Fallows calls on Democrats: “Do not vote Yes on it. Make the GOP own a government shutdown instead—rather than allowing them to dismantle the government.”
■ CNN: “As the Office of Personnel Management oversaw the layoffs of thousands of federal workers and pressed others to justify their positions, the agency’s chief spokesperson repeatedly used her office for a side hustle: Aspiring Instagram fashion influencer.”
■ Stephen Colbert on the plunge in value for Musk’s Tesla stock: “It’s a phenomenon called ‘Everybody f*cking hates that guy.’”
■ Reuters: “Trump says violence against Tesla is domestic terrorism.”
■ Musk reportedly plans to dump $100 million on Trump-allied groups in the days ahead.
■ The Onion: “Musk Creates Federal Employee Revenge Porn Database.”
‘He currently holds no office and hasn’t been on a ballot for a decade.’ But Politico says former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is “road-testing” a run for the presidency …
■ … which makes this an apt time to revisit your Square columnist’s intense year covering Emanuel almost daily.
■ The American Prospect: Right-wing donors and foundations spent $1 billion to keep people from voting last year.
‘I’m mayor of the city of Chicago because of young people.’ And so Mayor Johnson says he opposes a curfew for unaccompanied minors downtown …
■ … even though the head of the city’s public safety committee attributes the shooting of a 46-year-old tourist walking with her son in Streeterville Sunday night to large teen gatherings downtown.
‘An affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice.’ Big Law firm Perkins Coie is suing the Trump administration over an executive order targeting the firm for—among other things—representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
■ Lawyer George Conway—ex-husband to Trump thrall shill Kellyanne Conway—salutes the firm representing Perkins for putting “*14* individual lawyers’ names in the signature block of their complaint … sending a clear message: We are not afraid.”
■ A Tribune editorial demands: “Chicago needs a new presidentially appointed top federal prosecutor. Immediately.”
This means (trade) war. In response to Trump’s imposition of tariffs on foreign goods, Canada was set to announce its own fees on U.S. stuff …
■ … and the European Union’s targeting American beef, whiskey and motorcycles.
■ But Trump himself is doing OK: Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is sending cash his way by putting all seven seasons of The Apprentice on Prime.
■ Humorist Andy Borowitz: “Trump Starts Selling Trump Eggs for $60 an Egg.”
COVIDiversary. Chicago Public Square on this date in 2020: Tom Hanks and his wife tested positive for COVID-19, Congress closed to the public, the NBA suspended the rest of its season, late-night TV shows gave up live audiences, Chicago canceled its St. Patrick Day parades.
■ The Atlantic’s Roxanne Khamsi looks back to writing a March 2020 article that “risked ruining my journalistic reputation”—about “the possibility that the new coronavirus could travel easily from person to person through the air.”
■ Johns Hopkins University—the nation’s top spender on health research and development—is planning big layoffs and program eliminations after the Trump administration’s cancellation of $800 million in grants. (Wall Street Journal gift link.)
■ Wired: “This is how measles kills.”
‘The sad day Southwest Airlines became like every other airline.’ A Tribune editorial calls the end of its bags-fly-free policy “the nail in the coffin of all that made Southwest special.”
■ Need one of those new Real ID cards quick? The state’s opened a downtown “supercenter” to expedite the process.
‘AI chatbots keep failing every accuracy test thrown at them.’ Media watcher Simon Owens counsels caution—for news reporters and news consumers.
■ Columbia Journalism Review: “We compared eight AI search engines. They’re all bad at citing news.”
It’s National Support Chicago Public Square Day. Welcome to the eighth annual observance of this august—um, March—event. This publication is free for all, but it’s not free to publish. Readers keep it coming …
■ … with their financial support—as little as $1, once …
■ … by recommending it to a friend.
Thanks. Mark Wukas made this edition better.
