Your booth awaits. Illinois’ municipal elections officially fall tomorrow, but you don’t have to wait. The Illinois Board of Elections can tell you where to vote today.
■ The board says President Trump’s executive order on elections has no effect on this round of voting.
■ The Chicago Public Square guide to voter guides is here to help you vote smart.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin … The state Supreme Court has refused to stop Elon Musk from handing out million-dollar checks to sway tomorrow’s election in favor of his preferred Supreme Court conservative candidate …
■ … a practice that a Tribune editorial says “should deeply concern Democrats and Republicans alike” (gift link, courtesy of Square supporters) …
■ … or, in the words of Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Nobody voted for you, bro—yet … you used your obscene generational wealth to buy yourself a government, and treat it like your own personal plaything.”
■ Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin to Politico’s Shia Kapos: “Not since Rasputin has there been someone who’s … had such a dominating impact.”
‘He’s converting a constitutional government into a monarch’s court.’ That’s how The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson (no relation) sees Trump’s stripping of bargaining rights from most federal workers.
■ The Onion: “Pentagon Cuts All Employees With Weak Jawlines.”
‘The Social Security Administration and DOGE are gaslighting Americans.’ Popular Information: “They are trying to pretend like they were never planning to close field offices.”
■ Time: How to prepare for Social Security’s new ID policy.
Ill winds. As the Midwest’s tornado season arrives like clockwork, meteorology experts tell the Trib the danger’s more acute because of Trump’s National Weather Service cuts (another gift link).
■ With thousands still without power today, more rough weather was yet to come Tuesday and Wednesday.
‘Monumentally stupid.’ That’s how columnist Michael Rosenbaum sees the debate over the U.S. penny: “Yes, it costs more than a cent to mint one, but you’re not using it just once.”
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “You can imagine my surprise this weekend when, having just returned from buying $17,000 worth of groceries at notably non-down prices, I heard President Trump tell NBC’s Meet the Press that he ‘couldn’t care less’ if his new tariffs cause the price of foreign-made cars to go up.”
‘Don’t you dare tell them we don’t belong.’ That’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Precious Brady-Davis—Cook County’s first elected Black transgender woman—speaking yesterday to almost 1,000 people at a downtown demonstration on behalf of transgender rights.
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg compares the experiences of a Chicago firefighter who’s gay and a fictional gay firefighter on NBC’s Chicago Fire.
Mayor Johnson, interrupted. Speaking at a South Side church, the mayor was confronted by shouts from people who’d been close to a man shot and killed by two Chicago cops in January.
■ See it at 3:50 in this video.
■ CWBChicago: “Mayor calls for more ‘safe spaces’ after teen mobs overrun Streeterville, already one of the safest spaces in Chicago.”
‘Terrifyingly easy.’ Rolling Stone reports the ACLU has obtained an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement document detailing how simple it is for the Trump administration to designate a Venezuelan immigrant as an “alien enemy.”
■ Law & Chaos aims “to name and shame … the legal foot soldiers who made this era of lawlessness possible.”
■ David Lurie at Public Notice: “The Supreme Court faces an existential dilemma of its own creation.”
■ Invoking Shakespeare’s line, “Kill all the lawyers,” People’s Parity Project executive director* Molly Coleman writes for Slate: “Lawyers are a critical tool for upholding the rule of law and preserving democracy. … And so it is unsurprising that the first president to amass felony convictions in his post-presidency is determined to force the legal profession into subservience.”
Speaking of subservience … A.V. Club’s William Hughes calls the White House Correspondents Association’s decision to uninvite comedian Amber Ruffin from its April 26 dinner “a truly inspiring display of speaking tiny, baby-voiced mewls to power.”
■ That followed Ruffin’s refusal to bend a knee: “They were like, ‘You need to be equal and make sure that you give it to both sides and blah blah blah.’ I was like, ‘There’s no way I am going to be freaking doing that, dude.”
■ In what CNN’s Brian Stelter calls “the Trump administration’s latest assertion of power over the press corps,” Trump’s team is stripping the association of its power to set the White House briefing room seating chart.
■ Journalism critic Margaret Sullivan: “The first sentence in a New York Times article this weekend ticked me off.”
■ Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis grades The Atlantic’s coverage of that leaked Trump team Signal chat about imminent military operations in Yemen: “This is unquestionably an A+.”
Who’s against more college? Among those opposing Gov. Pritzker’s proposal to let Illinois community colleges issue four-year degrees: The state’s existing four-year universities.
■ Bloomberg profiles Pritzker: “This billionaire Democrat is ready to brawl.”
Rock out. Ending a nearly 40-year run, Chicago’s Hard Rock Cafe is done.
■ Management had yet to explain why—but one of its final customers suggests that “young people don’t listen to rock music anymore.”
* And your Square columnist’s daughter-in-law.
