‘Mass protests … mobilization … disruption’ / Pain made plain / Take that, early adopters

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‘Mass protests … mobilization … disruption.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos says that call over the weekend from Gov. Pritzker for action against Donald Trump’s administration has struck a nerve among Republicans and Democrats.
■ In Pritzker’s remarks, historian Heather Cox Richardson perceives “a change afoot in the Democratic Party … as its leaders shift from trying to find common ground with Republicans to standing firmly against MAGAs.”
■ See his full address here.
■ Pritzker calls Republicans’ assertion that he was urging violence “ridiculous.”
■ Off Message proprietor Brian Beutler dismisses some Democrats’ “carefully orchestrated rebranding exercises. … They can actually do just fine being the party of people who understand that Trump is bad.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “I assume from their lack of outrage that Republican lawmakers are in favor of citizen-toddlers being denied due process.”

‘Trump is under the impression that he … rules the world.’ But Wonkette’s Evan Hurst undercuts that assertion from the president in one of two interviews with The Atlantic—noting that Trump “just lost the Canadian election.”
■ As The Associated Press puts it: “Canada’s Liberals celebrate a stunning win.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Donny is toxic right now in Canada.”
■ Daily Show host Jon Stewart brought Trump down a peg: “You are not the keeper of our pot of gold. You are a temporary leprechaun.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones marvels at the quality of The Atlantic’s work on the story—and that the interview happened at all.

■ The AP reviews those days through its news alerts issued since Trump regained the presidency.
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer says Trump II’s first weeks nevertheless give Democrats a rough idea for “a roadmap back to power.”
■ Trump’s signed an executive order requiring a list of sanctuary cities and states—potentially to target them for cuts in federal funding.
■ Also one requiring that pro truck drivers be proficient in English—and that the Transportation Department put those who aren’t “out of service.”
■ The University of Illinois Faculty Senate has OK’d a resolution urging university leadership to join a Mutual Academic Defense Compact with other campuses rallying against Trump’s crackdown on academic freedom.

Exodus. In the wake of a shift in Justice Department civil rights policy— to focus on combating antisemitism, transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports and what Trump and his allies have described as anti-Christian bias—The Washington Post reports (gift link) that about half the civil rights division’s lawyers have quit.
■ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance sees “a massive attack on the protection the department provides to the right to vote.”
■ ProPublica: Trump’s interim U.S. attorney in D.C. is weaponizing the Justice Department.
■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob: The Post should apologize for endorsing Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi.
■ Popular Information: A Fortune 500 company has abruptly fired a lawyer who helped an immigrant family.
■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein: Federal law enforcers are blurring their own faces in news releases.
■ David Dayen at The American Prospect: Trump’s “hatchet job” on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is “even worse in the details.”

Fiery crash on the Edens. At least one person was dead and the Edens Expressway was blocked for hours by an early-morning accident.
■ Police say a crash that killed four young people at a Springfield-area after-school program building wasn’t targeted.
■ A Chicago-area transportation advocate makes the case for a central city tunnel connecting the Metra Electric and Metra Union Pacific train lines.

Take that, early adopters. If you bought one of the first Nest smart thermostats, brace for it to get dumb in October …
■ … but you’ll get a discount on a replacement.
■ The Lever: Meet the tech companies vying to sell your personal information.
■ Employee benefit services company VeriSource is just now reporting that the personal info of four million people was stolen … more than a year ago.

Plastic in the news. Illinois lawmakers are considering a ban on single-use plastic bags and most polystyrene containers.
■ A new study links common household plastics to deaths from heart disease.

Sign here, please. As journalism faces unprecedented assault from the Trump administration, Chicago Public Square has joined the Press Freedom United campaign—a national community of journalists and concerned citizens sending an open letter to Congress and the White House demanding immediate action to uphold the First Amendment.
■ We invite you to sign by Wednesday at noon for delivery May 1.

‘News outlets have built a border wall.’ Editor & Publisher columnist Jessie Shi says one reason Trump won is that mainstream media have put “credible, fact-based news” behind pay and registration barriers—while lie-filled “pink slime” sites remain free.
■ From its launch eight-and-a-half years ago, Chicago Public Square itself (if not all its links) has been steadfastly paywall-free—partly because of generous reader support.

Thanks. Harry M. Politis and John Herrbach made this edition better.

‘The end of the beginning’? / You, too, protesters / ‘60 Minutes’ fires back

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The news keeps coming. Which is why you should be following Chicago Public Square on Bluesky. (It’s free.) Among items posted there over the weekend:
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: The Trump administration’s arrest of a Milwaukee judge is “one more marker of the country’s constitutional distress” …
■ … and a thing that Public Notice columnist Lisa Needham sees as “a 5-alarm escalation: What would you say if you saw it in another country?”
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: “A.G. Bondi reverses Garland policy against subpoenaing journalists.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Shh! Don’t wake the elderly golfer. Funerals make him sleepy.”
■ Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “I urge you not to dwell solely on the loss. We have much to do” …
■ … including considering the prospect of a national civic uprising.
■ A Wall Street Journal gift link, courtesy of Square supporters: “Elite universities form private collective to resist Trump administration” …
■ … which The Free Press says is separately threatening Wikipedia’s tax-exempt status.
■ Wonkette’s Gary Legum: “George Santos goin’ down to prison, lawd, lawd.”
■ And now, the news of today:

‘It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ Quoting Winston Churchill two days before 100th day of Trump’s second term, Contrarian editor-in-chief Jennifer Rubin concludes he’s worse off than he was 100 days ago.

‘A brazenly corrupt scheme to profit from the presidency.’ Popular Information says Trump’s “invited virtually anyone, including foreign governments, government contractors and people under federal criminal investigation, to compete to see who can personally enrich Trump the most.”
■ Semafor’s Ben Smith raises the curtain on “a giant and raucous Signal group that forms part of the sprawling network of influential private chats that … have fueled a new alliance of tech and the U.S. right” …
■ … revolving mainly around venture capitalist and University of Illinois graduate Marc Andreessen.
■ Journalist Tom Scocca is more blunt: “Smith lifts up a corner of the plush comforter under which our would-be overlords have been huffing each other’s farts for the past few years as they collectively dream their way back to the cutting-edge ideas of the late 19th century.”
■ Heather Cox Richardson eyes warily the opening of an exclusive new D.C. club backed by Donald Trump Jr. and a Trump megadonor.
■ Axios: Trump’s Cabinet officials, advisers and friends have developed “a playbook to scuttle ideas they consider dumb, dangerous or undoable.”

You, too, protesters. ICE says prosecutors are coming for bystanders who challenged a raid on a Charlottesville courthouse.
■ In one of the biggest such raids so far, ICE took more than 100 immigrants into custody early yesterday in Colorado Springs.
■ Speaking of immigrants: Trump says Columbus Day will again be just … you know … Columbus Day.

A big boost. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s bid for the U.S. Senate seat held by retiring Dick Durbin now has Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s backing.
■ In New Hampshire—historically a key state in presidential primary campaigns—Gov. Pritzker yesterday slammed “do-nothing” Democrats failing to stand up to Trump, instead choosing “to blame our losses on our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants, instead of their own lack of guts.”
■ Even though, in the six years since Pritzker took office, the Tribune reports (gift link), “members of the Illinois General Assembly have run afoul of the law at a staggering pace … strengthening the state’s ethical safeguards doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the top of the agenda in Springfield.”

Illinois State University shooting. The campus issued an emergency alert last night after one person—not a student—was shot near the student center.
■  As summer nears, the Chicago City Council’s wrestling with the question of how to address raucous “teen takeovers.”

‘They’re taking my Chicago Public Library card away?!?’ Neil Steinberg protests a crackdown on nonresidents exploiting the library’s digital assets.
■ … just one of the initiatives that HBO’s John Oliver sees as a sign that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is someone “clearly in way over his worm-riddled head.”

60 Minutes fires back. Days after the resignation in protest of the show’s executive producer, correspondent Scott Pelley told viewers that parent company Paramount—seeking Trump administration approval of a merger—“began to supervise our content in new ways.”
■ Radio veteran Perry Michael Simon cautions talk radio hosts—even those of the MAGA mindset: “Broadcasting from the White House is always a bad idea.”
■ Pulitzer-winning columnist Dave Barry recounts a visit to New York City: “I will never be able to pass a drug test again, because I was breathing an atmosphere consisting of 15 percent oxygen and 85 percent marijuana fumes.”

If you’re a few days behind on Jeopardy!, don’t read this article … about a 20-year-old contestant from the University of Chicago.

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