‘Gravedigger of American democracy’ / Mail call / Quiz!

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Chicago Public Square will take Monday off. Get your news and commentary between editions on the Square Bluesky account.

‘Gravedigger of American democracy.’ That’s New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie’s assessment of Sen. Mitch McConnell …

‘An election denier who comes to office with a published list of enemies he wants revenge against.’ Law prof Joyce Vance reflects on Senate confirmation for Kash Patel as director of the FBI.
■ An FBI alumnus tells Rolling Stone: “An unnervingly large percentage of the agency will be sympathetic to what Patel wants to do.”
■ Author and tech watchdog Cory Doctorow calls Google and Facebook parent Meta’s ability to target ads “an existential threat” to, among others, “protesters whose identities were served up to cops, teenagers who were tracked to out-of-state abortion clinics, people of color who were discriminated against in hiring and lending.”
■ Platformer proprietor Casey Newton says Meta’s concessions on “censorship” seem only to have emboldened the right.

Mail call. The Washington Post reports President Trump’s planning to dissolve the U.S. Postal Service and absorb it into his administration.
■ An Obama-appointed federal judge has given Trump and Elon Musk a green light for mass firings of federal workers.
■ Politico: The National Science Foundation went beyond the administration’s layoff demands.
■ The Sun-Times details how the cuts are playing out at the Chicago area’s biggest wild space, the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.
■ ProPublica: The “Department of Government Efficiency”—not really a department—is getting even more cash …
■ … even as Wired reports DOGE has imposed a $1 spending limit on government employees’ credit cards.
■ Quartz: “Musk’s DOGE is going after the agencies that regulate his companies.”
■ Trump’s (or is it Musk’s?) Justice Department has dropped a discrimination case against Musk’s SpaceX company.
■ Voting rights advocate and Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias answers Musk’s insult with an open letter: “I am Jewish, though many on your site simply call me ‘a jew.’ Honestly, it’s often worse than that, but I’m sure you get the point.”

‘I generally avoid obsessing about polls.’ But conservative columnist Charlie Sykes sees reason for cheer: “Reports of Trump’s ‘honeymoon’ were greatly exaggerated to begin with; his approval numbers are historically flaccid; and the public generally hates a lot of what he’s doing right now.”
■ Veteran Washington reporter Jamie Dupree (“Yes, I’m the radio guy who lost the ability to speak”): Republicans are starting to feel the heat on Trump’s cuts.

Bad cops database dead. Trump’s administration has shut down a nationwide tool for tracking misconduct by federal police officers—even though Trump himself proposed it in 2020.
■ A Chicago City Council member’s proposing to fire cops and other city employees linked to extremist organizations.
■ The Trump administration says the president’s clemency for Jan. 6, 2021, rioters also covers unrelated crimes discovered during investigations that ensued.

‘America will never bow before any king not named Burger.’ Stephen Colbert’s not buying Trump’s royal aspirations.
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Kings.
■ Columnist Evan Hurst: “It’s time to make fun of JD Vance” …
■ … who, HuffPost explains, yesterday told a conclave of regressives that America’s “broken culture” wants a world full of “androgynous idiots.”

‘If something happens, how is my mom going to know?’ Illinois students are skeptical of Gov. Pritzker’s call to crack down on phone use in public school classrooms.

Health insurance giant scrutinized. The Justice Department’s reportedly launched an investigation of UnitedHealth’s Medicare billing practices …
■ … following Wall Street Journal reporting that found “patients examined by UnitedHealth-employed doctors had huge increases in lucrative diagnoses after joining the company’s Medicare Advantage plans.”

‘If you’ve ever been sunburned by snow, followed the Aga Khan or scrubbed key words from a federal website, this week’s quiz is for you!’ Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel lays down his latest challenge …
■ … on which your Square columnist flubbed Qs 2, 4 and 8, for a measly 5/8 correct.

Retail tales. After Target slunk away from its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, Retail Brew reports that foot traffic dropped at its stores—while business rose at Costco, which refused to bend that knee.

‘Killer Death Rock of Doom update: Never mind.’ Columnist Dave Barry walks back his earlier alarm about an asteroid that no longer seems likely to strike Earth in 2032. But …
■ Beware a Chicago-made granola bar brand being recalled for the “potential presence of a piece of metal.” And …
■ Immunologist Zachary Rubin warns that bird flu’s spreading to indoor cats.

‘A chilling message to any journalist.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch flags an FCC investigation into coverage of federal agents’ immigration raids broadcast by a San Francisco radio station …
■ … owned by the company that also owns Chicago’s all-news WBBM, WXRT and others and that— probably not-so-coincidentally—has benefitted in bankruptcy proceedings from an investment by billionaire and conservative boogeyman George Soros. (September link.)

‘Just right for a chilly morning on the porch in Key West.’ That’s reader John Teets, sporting a Square hoodie.
■ Wherever you’re catching up with Square, thank those whose financial support keeps it coming—people such as Craig Dellimore, Sheila Flaherty, Steve Chapman, Paul Crossey (again!), Alison Thomas (again!), Scottie Kersta-Wilson, Andrew Nord, Frederick Nachman, Kathy Catrambone, Katherine and Michael Raleigh, Michael Carniello, Shelley Krause, Eric Davis, Jean Johnson, Reginald Davis, Andy Simon, Susan S. Stevens, Jamie Aitchison, Christine Mackey, Valerie Denney, Alan Dikty, Beth Kujawski, Frank Heitzman, Mike Cramer and Diane Scott.
■ Make it $25/month or $250/year and get a free hoodie or T-shirt.

‘Idiot’ / ‘Scared shitless’ / Water warnings

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‘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.”
■ Trump’s given new life to a classic “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoon.

‘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?”
■ 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.

‘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.’”
■ 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.”
■ 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.

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.”

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