‘Demonstrate opposition.’ Hundreds of veteran journalists and at least six national journalism organizations today released a letter calling on the White House Correspondents Association, whose annual dinner for the first time this weekend welcomes President Trump, to address head-on his “systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press”—which “render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose.”
■ Former AP D.C. bureau chief Ron Fournier: “Why celebrate journalism with a man who hates it?”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter explains “why I’m going.”
■ Columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich updates his list of “The 10 Most Important Ways to Resist Now.”
Anger management issues. A White House leak reveals that Trump threw a tantrum so big during a delicate operation in Iran that aides banished him from a briefing.
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link) broke the story.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Can you imagine any other president … getting eighty-sixed from the center of operations?”
Good reason to deprecate any news story centered on the words Trump said. Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump’s triumphant boasting that the Strait of Hormuz had been permanently reopened … unraveled in less than 24 hours.”
■ Updating coverage from the AP: U.S. seizure of an Iranian ship near the strait has cast doubt on fresh ceasefire talks …
■ … aaaaand oil prices jumped again.
■ Judd Legum at Popular Information: “As Trump’s son-in-law returns to Pakistan for more talks with Iran, major news outlets are largely ignoring an egregious conflict of interest.”
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: America’s wealthiest families control our elections.
‘Trump’s attack is not just on the pope and not just on Catholics but on Christians and Jews and Muslims across the country.’ Chicago’s outspoken Rev. Michael Pfleger says the president’s feud with Pope Leo is “waking up a sleeping giant.”
■ John Oliver on the president’s assertion that the pope is weak on crime: “It’s like saying this possum is weak on Balkan geography: OK, but who gives a shit? It’s not a possum’s job to correctly place Bosnia and Herzegovina on a map.”
‘I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.’ FBI chief Kash Patel is threatening to sue The Atlantic over a report documenting colleagues’ concern about his excessive drinking and unexplained absences (gift link).
■ Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick to MS NOW: “I stand by every word of this reporting. We have excellent attorneys.”
■ The AP: Patel’s bureau and the Justice Department are scrambling to rebuild after a wave of departures.
■ The American Prospect: The U.S. labor movement is getting something it’s never had before: A centralized strike fund.
A Supreme Court ‘mess.’ As justices return today for the final run of oral arguments of this term, Law Dork Chris Geidner says a New York Times scoop “highlights the conservative justices’ brazen disregard for their own rules.”
■ Columnist Robert Hubbell: “John Roberts isn’t calling balls and strikes; he’s changing the rules.”
■ Here’s a gift link to the Times story: “Secret memos … illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine ‘shadow docket’ rulings on presidential power.”
Rivers rising. Even through a relatively dry weekend, Chicago-area waterways kept inching up.
■ Friday brought at least eight tornadoes to northern Illinois.
‘What was once possible only for highly-skilled hackers … will now be available to any bad apple who can plug Please shut down Chicago’s Jardine Water Treatment Plant into Mythos.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg fears AI platforms give hackers powerful new tools for cracking cybersecurity.
■ A University of Pennsylvania student newspaper editorial: “As Penn pours endless money and energy into AI advancement … the University is only quickening its own demise. AI cannot coexist with education—it can only degrade it.”
■ AI watcher Michael Amicangelo calls that AI-generated preview of a movie that doesn’t exist, Pi Hard, “a trailer for the next era of human-AI collaboration in the arts. It’s bold, it’s beautiful, and it’s a little bit terrifying.”
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