Chicago under assault / ‘Loop puncher’ nabbed? / Hackers’ delight

 … including, in the words of The New York Times (gift link), “drones, helicopters, trucks and dozens of vehicles.”
 The TRiiBE has a breakdown (link revised).
 Block Club talks to residents returning home after the raid: “It looks like hell.”

‘We know full well there will be more trouble at Broadview.’ A Tribune editorial demands Illinois governments do more to protect protesters in Broadview …
 … a facility that the Sun-Times and WBEZ report has become an immigrant detention center—with no beds, limited food … and toilets out in the open.
 Guardian video samples Chicago’s resistance.
 Columnist Christopher Armitage says local officials can fight back against federal violence through state criminal prosecution.
 The Better Government Association is pressing the Illinois attorney general to investigate reports that some local police departments are violating a state law forbidding them from participating in immigration enforcement.
 Cook County’s public defender and a coalition of other legal groups are petitioning the Cook County Circuit Court to forbid warrantless immigration arrests in or near courthouses.

‘If the American people don’t push back … the damage to our democracy could be enormous.’ Dan Froomkin at Heads Up News: Protesting against the militarization of blue cities is urgent—and helps protect the 2026 elections.

Big shutdown loophole. Time reports that the president’s taking wide latitude in deciding which federal workers are “essential.”
 Historian Heather Cox Richardson: President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget boss, Russell Vought, “has weaponized the shutdown by continuing his illegal impoundments of congressionally approved funding … solely against states with Democratic senators”—including Illinois.
 Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reports that 91% of Homeland Security’s staff remains on the job.
 The White House has fired most of the National Council on the Humanities.
 Planning to fly? The AP says that if the government shutdown lasts long enough, it could ruin travel plans—with longer airport wait times, flight delays and even cancellations.
 Former U.S. Labor Secretary (under Bill Clinton) Robert Reich: “I’ve been through government shutdowns. This one is radically different.”
 Congress has left town, meaning the shutdown will last at least until tomorrow.

‘Is it a worrisome thing if your country’s secretary of defense is openly lusting for death and destruction?’ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich reflects on that “terrifying and embarrassing” presentation to the nation’s generals from the president and his top military official.
 Poynter’s Tom Jones: “The Pentagon’s bizarre leak crackdown makes it harder for the press to inform the public.”
 Pulitzer-winning economist Paul Krugman sees cause for hope: “Stone-faced generals, Wall Street pushback and a government shutdown may save America’s quickly declining democracy.” (Cartoon: Mark Fiore.)
 Columnist Eric Zorn on the president’s “trifecta of awful AI videos”: “Every time you think Trump has gone as low as he possibly can, the limbo bar drops.”

Colleges under Trump’s thumb? The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link, possible because readers like you underwrite the cost of producing Chicago Public Square) that the White House is pressing nine colleges that it thinks could be “good actors” to sign a sweeping agreement banning the use of race or sex in admissions, freezing tuition and capping international enrollment if they want access to preferential federal funding.
 At Northwestern University—not one of those nine—a group of students are boycotting the school’s “antibias training video,” which they complain conflates antisemitism and criticism of Israel.

‘Loop puncher’ nabbed? A 37-year-old man’s in custody, accused of randomly attacking a 23-year-old woman on a Red Line platform Tuesday.
 John Greenfield at Streetsblog Chicago: The CTA needs to be safer, but “Trump shouldn’t use that as an excuse” to send in the National Guard.
 ProPublica: A Chicago cop who falsely blamed an ex-girlfriend for dozens of traffic tickets has pleaded guilty but will avoid prison.
 Chicago’s coming off a record summer for tourism.

‘Another pretend solution for high drug prices.’ The American Prospect’s David Dayen says the president’s hypothetical “TrumpRx” website would “just refer people to the drug companies, which use direct-to-consumer pricing to distract from continued high profits.”
 Lurie Children’s Hospital research finds kids at double the risk for long COVID if they’ve been infected twice.

Hackers’ delight. As Microsoft prepares to drop support in two weeks for its Windows 10 software, The American Prospect reports, up to 400 million computers will wind up vulnerable to mischief-makers—or as part of a billion pounds of electronic waste.
 Public Notice: Google’s joined “the presidential bribe club.”
 ProPublica: “Elon Musk’s SpaceX took money directly from Chinese investors … raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most important military contractors.”

‘The world’s conscience for animals.’ Dr. Jane Goodall is dead at 91 …
 Here she is on WTTW in 2010 talking to Chicago’s Carol Marin.

Thanks. Chris Koenig made this edition better.

‘The enemy within’ … Chicago? / Shut. Down. / Late-night worlds collide

‘The enemy within’ … Chicago? President Trump told the nation’s assembled generals he’s ready to send the military into Chicago and other cities as “training grounds.”
Hundreds rallied downtown last night to protest the notion.
A Tribune editorial (gift link, possible because readers like you underwrite the cost of producing Chicago Public Square): “No … Chicagoans are not ‘the enemy within.’
Popular Information: Trump’s use of that phrase evokes an ugly chapter in U.S. history.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch (another gift link): “Grandpa Trump … saw a five-year-old riot on Fox News, so he’s sending in the troops.”
Columnist Steve Chapman: “America is becoming … a country where only those who submit to his every demand can feel safe.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is threatening a lawsuit against the incursions.
The Daily Show: The Pentagon’s gonna need some new recruitment ads: “We’ll fly you to hostile lands like … Chicago, where you’ll defend America from people who make fun of our president.”

‘A crazy moment.’ A witness describes ICE’s chase of a bicyclist through downtown Chicago.
See it here.
Chicago congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh talks to Teen Vogue about the viral video showing her getting tear-gassed by ICE.
The suburb of Broadview has launched three criminal investigations of the agents who’ve been terrorizing demonstrators near ICE’s processing center there.
WBEZ’s published a transcript and unedited audio of the interview in which U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino admits his team has been choosing people to arrest based partly on “how they look.”
In a decision that lawyer and columnist Joyce Vance calls “startling” and “incredibly important,” a Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge has condemned Trump’s moves to deport pro-Palestinian academics.
404 Media: Reversing an earlier pledge, ICE is buying a tool that tracks the locations of hundreds of millions of phones a day.

‘Ghastly, inappropriate and embarrassing.’ USA Today’s Rex Huppke assesses yesterday’s military conclave to hear from “a former Fox News host and a convicted felon who received five military deferments during the Vietnam War.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
Historian Heather Cox Richardson: For 70 minutes, the president “spoke slowly … delivering to the hundreds of professionals who had rushed from around the world to attend this meeting a rambling, incoherent stream of words.”
Evan Hurst at Wonkette: “That Pete Hegseth speech could’ve been a spam email for boner pills.”
Axios says 11 quotes convey “Trump and Hegseth’s plan for a MAGA military reset.”

‘There is something genuinely wrong with this man.’ Diagnosing Trump with dementia, Gov. Pritzker is calling for application of the 25th Amendment to remove him from power.
On MSNBC last night, Pritzker addressed the president directly: “We don’t want you here.”

Shut. Down. Updating coverage: Much of the federal government’s officially closed for business today—with a quarter-million workers furloughed—and many potentially fired.
Jen Rubin at The Contrarian: “If Democrats do their job, Republicans may regret forcing through an agenda Americans detest” …
 … but, The American Prospect notes, because “the reactionary Supreme Court has given him Congress’s power of the purse … Trump could end any ‘shutdown’ immediately by just directing the agencies to reopen and the money to be spent. John Roberts certainly isn’t going to stop him. Is House Speaker Mike Johnson? Please.”
Trump told reporters yesterday he sees an opportunity here: “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things.”
In a suit filed last night, multiple labor unions accuse Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought* of using the shutdown as cover to fire federal workers illegally en masse.
The AP reviews previous federal shutdowns—including two under Trump’s first term.

Award declined. Facing anti-abortion forces’ objections because he’s supported legal abortion, Sen. Dick Durbin says he’s turning down an honor from the Archdiocese of Chicago for his work on immigration policy.
In remarks that Politico’s Shia Kapos describes as “both careful and bold,” Chicago-born Pope Leo himself defended the decision to celebrate Durbin’s career: “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
The Sun-Times: A priest later accused of child sex abuse was among the instructors at the future pope’s seminary high school.

Does Amazon owe you? Tom’s Guide explains what you’ll need to collect a share of the settlement of a suit accusing the company of tricking customers into signing up for its Prime service.
You’ll have to have enrolled after June 23, 2019.

Late-night worlds collide. ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and CBS’ Stephen Colbert were on one another’s shows last night—simultaneously …
Colbert shared never-broadcast footage of the moment he learned Kimmel’s show had been suspended …
 … and Kimmel said his suspension was “like a DUI in L.A., three days in jail where I couldn’t say anything.”
It’s comedian vs. comedian as some join a controversial comedy fest in Saudi Arabia.
Forty years after its debut, LateNighter offers an oral history of David Letterman’s “Top 10 list” …

Clarification. An item in yesterday’s Chicago Public Square failed to specify that the president’s AI-generated video showed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer labeling Democrats “a bunch of woke pieces of shit.”
Join us for a deep dive into the world of AI tools and fact-check tech—free. Chicago Public Square and Northwestern University’s Local News Accelerator are teaming up to offer you interactive online coaching already received by thousands of professional journalists. Online, Nov. 3, noon-2 p.m. Registration details here.

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