Hey, look! For the ninth year in a row …
And now the news:
‘Stupid.’ That’s Donald Trump, condemning his own supporters for pressing him on the case of his ol’ pal, dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
■ Also: “Weaklings”—prompting USA Today’s Rex Huppke to conclude, “Whatever’s in those Epstein files must be white hot and devastating for the Lord of MAGA Manor. Even a weakling can connect these dots.”
■ Those adjectives apparently apply to Trump’s former political partner, Elon Musk, who yesterday ripped into Trump’s Epstein defense.
■ Curiouser and curiouser: Trump’s Justice Department has fired ex-FBI director James Comey’s daughter Maurene—a prosecutor who just happens to have worked on the Epstein case.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump seems to be in full panic mode.”
■ Stephen Colbert translates Trump: “If you insist on asking me about Jeffrey Epstein, please turn in your MAGA hat, your golden shoes, your golden watch, your Trump golden guitar. … Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
■ Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic: “Nobody (not even Trump) can control the Epstein story.”
■ Seth Meyers’ snarky reaction to Trump’s insistence those files were created by Democrats: “Makes total sense to me. Everyone knows the number one rule when you manufacture dirt on a political opponent is: Do not release it to the public!”
■ Earworm of the day: Wonkette’s Evan Hurst recommends singing “Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, Epsteeeeeeeeeeeein” to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
‘Who among us hasn’t accidentally told people that our uncle taught the Unabomber?’ The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper takes a shredder to Trump’s completely false story …
■ … which CNN explains “could not possibly be accurate.”
■ Popular Information calls out “a massive Trump scandal” that has gotten “miniscule media attention”: His financial entanglements with foreign nationals.
‘One company just forced the state of Illinois to fork over $1.3 million for a detention center it never built.’ The American Prospect introduces you to “the disaster capitalists behind ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance explains the dangers of politicizing the military.
■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued new “grooming standards”—banning eyelash extensions and offering government-funded laser hair removal procedures.
Sorry, Elmo. The Senate’s sending the House $9 billion in spending cuts to federal programs including public broadcasting.
■ That’s two years’ of federal cash for NPR, PBS and more than 1,500 local stations—probably killing off some of them …
■ … with some cherished kids’ shows hanging in the balance.
■ ProPublica founder Dick Tofel: Whatever happens next, public broadcasters need to focus now on “innovation, not just restoration.”
Supreme Court mystery. New York Times reporter Adam Liptak (gift link, underwritten by Chicago Public Square supporters like you) says justices keep ruling in Trump’s favor, but don’t say why.
■ Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “The high court is allowing Trump … to fire over half the people who work for the Department of Education until there’s a full hearing. … But by then it will be too late.”
■ Now in the court’s hands, according to Law Dork Chris Geidner: The future of the Voting Rights Act …
■ … legislation dear to the heart of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, in whose honor today’s nationwide “Good Trouble” protests will be held.
■ Chicago’s begins at 5:30 in Daley Plaza.
■ The unbylined Closer to the Edge: “Lewis was … a living, breathing, fire-blooded example of what happens when the human spine refuses to bend—even when batons come down hard enough to fracture it.”
Things undone. The City Council has put off action on an ordinance to legalize “granny flats” and coach house residences in Chicago.
■ In what one 15-year-old activist calls a win, the council failed to override the mayor’s veto of an ordinance that would have let cops impose youth curfews with as little as a half-hour’s notice …
■ … but, in a victory for public transit fans, the council removed a bunch of parking requirements for residential properties …
■ … it OK’d a fresh round of ethics reforms …
■ … and spent two hours praising retiring council member Walter Burnett.
Back to the future. Chicago’s Ford City Mall—a retail center born as a manufacturing facility in World War II—could again become an industrial complex.
■ City Cast reviews the Chicago area’s roster of shopping malls that endure.
■ For the first time since the Rauner administration, Illinois now has a vehicle emissions testing location within Chicago city limits—but just barely—at 6959 W. Forest Preserve Dr. (You may remember it as a COVID testing station.)
Powerless. Yesterday’s storms toppled trees and downed power lines serving thousands of Chicago-area customers.
■ ComEd’s $10 million summer heat relief fund is almost empty after just a week.