Chicago Public Square’s back after a few days. If you missed it—and that would be lovely—you can catch up via the Square account on Bluesky, where dozens of updates have appeared since Thursday’s edition. And now: Onward.
ICE ‘shit show.’ Gov. Pritzker says the Trump administration plans to unleash 100 “military troops” on the Chicago area to protect the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents whom he blames for “havoc” at the Broadview processing center …
■ … fulfilling the governor’s earlier prediction that the feds would aim to provoke Illinoisans so as to justify military deployment: “In any other country if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters when unprovoked … I don’t think we’d have any trouble calling it what it is. Authoritarianism. So let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.”
■ A CBS Chicago reporter’s “absolutely unprovoked” attack by immigration agents outside the Broadview detention facility is under investigation by the police.
■ A conflicted federal magistrate has ordered the detention of a man who brought a gun to a Broadview demonstration: “Who brings a loaded firearm to an ICE protest?”
■ Mayor Johnson, joining Pritzker, repeated that he’s ordered police “to protect the fundamental right to peacefully assemble.”
■ See that news conference in full here …
■ … or read his remarks here.
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link, possible because readers voluntarily support Chicago Public Square): “Even if dozens of heavily armed immigration enforcers have the legal right to patrol Chicago’s most heavily visited areas hunting for quarry, that doesn’t mean they should.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: President Trump’s Chicago escalation “may be a step toward giving him increased latitude in … canceling elections in the name of some ginned up ‘national emergency.’”
■ The New York Times (another gift link): Increasingly, U.S. citizens are ending up in Trump’s dragnet.
Be a reporter. Pritzker’s counsel to citizens concerned about the feds’ incursion: “Get out your cell phones, record and narrate what you see. Put it on social media” …
■ … as a number of people did Sunday, when agents loaded a whole family into a border patrol vehicle at Millennium Park.
■ WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell rides along with the People’s Patrol, a volunteer rapid-response network out to locate, document and, on the spot, oppose Chicago-area immigration enforcement activity.
■ Federal agents were out in force this morning in the South Shore neighborhood.
■ Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich recaps five best practices for engaging with ICE and Homeland Security.
■ The American Civil Liberties Union hosts an online session at 2 p.m. today to discuss efforts to safeguard First Amendment rights and ensure free and fair midterm elections. Register and submit your questions in advance here.
‘Disgusting video.’ That’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ evaluation of an unhinged social media post from the president after yesterday’s meeting with Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to head off a government shutdown in the face of a budget standoff.
■ The president’s (clarification) AI-generated video showed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer labeling Democrats “a bunch of woke pieces of shit.”
■ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell refused to play it.
■ The Lever: “Welcome to the shutdown circus, where everybody loses.”
■ Updating coverage: A D.C. standoff seemed likely to put thousands of federal employees out of work.
■ Follow the action live on the Senate floor.
■ The American Prospect: “The government has been shut down for months. Today is the day we stop pretending that it’s not.”
■ Columnist and lawyer Robert Hubbell: “The issue of Trump’s illegal impoundment of funds is being ignored by the media.”
■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer: “Dems can win the shutdown fight. Trump is so much weaker than the pundits realize.”
■ Shutdown or not, today’s the day federal funding for NPR and PBS goes away.
Exhaustion’s the point. Reporter Aaron Parnas: If following the news is wearing you out, know that Trump’s strategy thrives on that.
■ News-biz critic Margaret Sullivan slams a Times report on how the MAGA crowd’s feeling these days: “How many times do we have to hear ill-informed Trump voters praise the anti-science health travesties of RFK Jr.?”
■ Your Local Epidemiologist: The measles outbreak is spreading.
■ PolitiFact rates Rep. Jeffries’ assertion that “Republicans have effectively ended medical research in the United States of America” Mostly False.
Back to sleep. Abruptly summoning hundreds of the nation’s top military leaders to Virginia, Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth declared an end to “woke” culture—among other things, establishing “gender-neutral” physical fitness standards.
■ Trump before the meeting: “If I don’t like somebody, I’ll fire them right on the spot.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Audibly Counting Non-White Generals.”
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: Trump’s new national security directive poses “real danger” for tax-exempt organizations the administration chooses to demonize as “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American.”
■ Popular Information: Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner “has resumed his role as a top Trump foreign policy advisor while expanding his business partnership with the Saudi government.”
Another knee bent. Google sibling YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit over its suspension of Trump’s account after the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
■ A big chunk of that will go toward construction of Trump’s White House ballroom.
‘Shut the damn AI email prompt thing off.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg’s had it with Gmail’s attempt to shape his writing.
■ California now has a landmark law aimed at preventing the use of artificial intelligence for potentially catastrophic things like building a bioweapon or shutting down a banking system.
■ The showbiz union SAG-AFTRA is up in arms about the creation of a computer-generated actress, “Tilly Norwood.”
■ 404 Media: “Landlords are using a service that logs into a potential renter’s employer systems and scrapes their paystubs and other information en masse, potentially in violation of U.S. hacking laws.”
