‘Idiot.’ Gov. Pritzker went there in his State of the Budget address (see it here; read it here), condemning Donald Trump and his billionaire enabler Elon Musk for thinking “we should eliminate emergency response in a natural disaster, education and healthcare for disabled children, gang crime investigations, clean air and water programs, monitoring of nursing home abuse, nuclear reactor regulation, and cancer research.”
■ Comparing Trump’s administration to Nazi Germany, Pritzker warned: “After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities—once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends—after that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face—what comes next?”
■ Pritzker also laid out his budget plans …
■ … and advanced the notion of a limit on mobile phones in public school classrooms.
He just can’t wait to be king. As his administration struck down New York City’s congestion pricing traffic controls, Trump crowned himself, declaring “LONG LIVE THE KING.”
■ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell calls those words “utterly insane.”
‘Incompetence … is a feature, not a bug.’ Wired reviews a series of seeming mistakes by the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”
■ The AP: DOGE is gaining ground in the courts …
■ … and, The Atlantic reports, it has “‘God Mode’ access … unprecedented ability to view and manipulate information at many federal agencies.”
‘They’re scared shitless.’ A veteran of Trump’s first administration tells Vanity Fair the fear of political violence—“death threats and Gestapo-like stuff”—is keeping Republican lawmakers in the president’s thrall.
■ The Washington Post: “After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds.”
■ Updating coverage: The Senate was near a vote on Trump’s choice for FBI director.
■ Economist Paul Krugman sees “frantic lying” at the White House as a symptom of dysfunction: “I don’t think any past administration has ever failed so thoroughly in its first month.”
‘Let your favorite news outlets know that if they go along with Gulf of America without acknowledging that this is Trump’s name for the Gulf of Mexico, you’ll unsubscribe or stop watching.’ Columnist Eric Zorn says the president’s geogra-phuckery (Chicago Public Square’s coinage, you’re welcome) is a test of journalists’ mettle …
■ … but Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer says “the press is too weak to stop Trump from banning the AP.”
■ Axios says Republican grievances against the AP go well beyond just that standoff—to include AP style guidance “on topics like race, gender and immigration.”
■ Editor & Publisher’s open letter to Fox: “Will it continue shielding Trump and those amplifying his most extreme positions, or will it foster a broader, more honest discourse in conservative media?”
‘The United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.’ Historian Heather Cox Richardson sees Trump “leaning into his alliance with dictators.”
■ Ex-Republican Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger: “Are we now the bad guys?”
■ Poynter media writer Tom Jones: “Good on the media for calling out President Trump’s falsehoods on Ukraine.”
■ Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s word to watch: Emergency. “Often declared in the wake of some real or invented crisis, states of emergency give illiberal leaders expanded powers, letting them do things they’ve wanted to do anyway.”
Water warnings. Chicago’s inspector general says sewer lines are too close to water lines in more than 1,200 spots around town—threatening contamination.
■ The water at a Cook County government building that also houses a daycare facility has been contaminated with the bacteria that cause Legionnaire’s disease.
■ The Onion: “‘How Different Could Purified And Distilled Water Really Be?’ Thinks Humidifier Owner About To Enter World Of Shit.”
‘We apologize for this inconvenience.’ Without reason, the Trump administration has un-fired at least six of the 40 Environmental Protection Agency workers fired in Chicago last week.
■ Stephen Colbert: “Rehiring people on Tuesday that you fired on Friday does not scream ‘government efficiency.’”
■ Also out: 6,000 Internal Revenue Service workers.
■ Once an environmentalist, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cut funding for National Institutes of Health climate change and health programs.
■ The New Republic: Trump-Muskers have wrecked an NIH center once praised by Republicans for its work against Alzheimer’s.
■ A woman fired at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “It’s scary. I am a single mother of two kids.”
■ A woman fired at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “It’s scary. I am a single mother of two kids.”
■ Researchers and faculty members at Chicago-area universities rallied yesterday to sound an alarm about Trump’s research grant cuts.
Not so slow. Chicago’s City Council has rejected a plan to lower the default citywide speed limit to 25 mph.
■ WTTW: The city’s settlement with the family of a woman killed by a driver Chicago cops were pursuing brings the total for such settlements since 2019 to almost $102 million.
Not-so-friendly skies. Five airlines are suing to overturn a Transportation Department rule requiring them, um, not to damage wheelchairs.
■ Columnist Dave Barry is not reassured by the odds a “killer death rock of doom” asteroid won’t strike Earth in 2032: “There’s a reason you virtually never see major airlines using this slogan: ‘Fly (Name of Airline)! There’s a 98.7 percent chance your plane won’t crash!’”
Food for thought. Workers’ vote to unionize at a Chicago Trader Joe’s could run aground at a National Labor Relations Board paralyzed by Trump’s firing of one board member.
■ A last-minute grant has averted the shutdown of Heartland Alliance Health’s two health clinics and three food pantries in Chicago.
Chicago Public Square mailbag.
■ Reader Rosemary Caruk writes about a link in yesterday’s edition: “The collapse that Ryan Cooper talks about works exactly in their favor in the sense that chaos makes it nearly impossible to counteract what’s going on. There’s so much of it, it’s coming at us so fast … the result is that it’s unclear what our recourse is. And it’s looking more and more like it’s not the courts—because they deal with legal rules and definitions and what’s happening now doesn’t fit any of them. Congress’ role is to make and change laws. They have yet to do anything and they may not. … On the other hand, we’ve gradually been heading in that direction for decades.”
Square has always been free for all—because that’s good for democracy. But it wouldn’t be free—wouldn’t be here at all—if generous readers such as Mary Paxson, Beth Mrkvicka, Jill Brickman (again!), Patricia Solano, Theresa Rattenbury, Alexander Domanskis (again!), Marianne Griebler (again!), Jeff Herden, David Weindling, Bob Tucker, Alison Price, Charles C. Allen II, Carmie Callobre, David Boulanger, Anne White, Peter Kuttner, Deb Abrahamson, Stephanie Textor, Elaine Soloway, Joyce Cook, Dave Walker, Laurie R. Glenn/Thinkinc., Dave Connell, Paula Donato, David Mausner, Arnie Weissmann, Al Hoyt, Riva Reed, Zarine Weil, Sheridan Chaney, Evan McKenzie, Sarah Hoban, Ann Keating, Tanya Surawicz, Joan Pederson, Steve Nidetz, Susan Benloucif, Victoria Engelhardt, Jan Menaker Brock, Jeff Baker, Craig Kaiser, Lana O’Brien, Jeanette Ruby, Jack Hafferkamp, Laurie Huget, Leslie Hodes, Liz Meisterling, Dawn Haney, Beth Bales Olson, Jane Williams, Ted Naron, Anne Rowan, Daniel Burke, Jim Parks, Len Jaster, Susan Yessne, Rick Baert, Tom O’Malley, Mike Trenary, Richard Milne, Andrew Thackray, Jason Grey, Marjorie Isaacson, Susan Tyson, Marie Dillon, Valerie Valenzo, Eric Reinert, Cheryl Foertsch, Bill Drudge, Neil Parker, Maureen Gannon, Paul Kubina, Tim Bannon, Jan Czarnik, Jeanette Mancusi, Teresa Savino, Donna Barrows, Tony Marturano, Emily Gage, Anne Rooney, Paul Noble, Jeffery Angevine, Gene Paquette, Rob Breymaier, Mike Gold, Judy Karlov, Ronald A. Fox, Peggy Conlon-Madigan, Mark Wukas, Owen Youngman, Joseph Sjostrom, Eric Hochstein, David Green, JoBeth Halpin, Leslie Sutphen, Garry, Elizabeth Denius, Jeryl Smith, Christa Velbel, Jim Prescott, Ian Morrison, Skip Yates, Anne Costello, Ron Castan, Kelly Martin, Nancy Burns, Tom Barnes, Mike Fainman, Donna Peel, Amy Lee Goodman, Gail Frost, Avery Cohen, Ann Johnson Arellano, Martha Intrieri, Maria Garvy, Bill Paige, Tim Woods, William Wheelhouse, Marc Magliari, J. Michael Williams, Larry Dahlke, Cynthia Barnard, David Augustus, Charles Kepner, Jeffrey Nelson, Paul Buchbinder, Lawrence Perlman, Matt Baron, Matthew Brenner, Russ Williams, Taylor Kuether, Ila Lewis, Cynthia Martin, Lucy Smith, Susan Gzesh, Paul Clark, Paul Pasulka, Sue Omanson, Keith Huizinga, Jennifer Thiele, Jerry Wolin, Paul Engman, Jeremiah Woods, Lynne Stiefel, Cathy Schornstein, Moondog, Helen Marshall, David Clauter, Jo Patton, Jill DeVaney and David Hammond hadn’t stepped forward over the last eight-plus years to help cover production and distribution costs.
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