‘Whatever it takes’ / ‘A nightmare’ / What ChatGPT’s telling kids

■

‘Whatever it takes.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker on last night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert—refusing to rule out the possibility that Illinois could redraw its own congressional map if Republicans do the same to add a prospective five seats for their party in Texas.
■ Colbert challenged Pritzker on the state of maps here: “You already have some crazy districts in Illinois. … It’s like the stinger on a scorpion down here” …
■ … a complaint Pritzker deflected with a joke before asserting that the problem with Texas Republicans’ plan is that they’re redrawing the map between census counts instead of waiting for the next one.
■ The Wall Street Journal calls Illinois “a gerrymandering hot spot” …
■ … recalling Pritzker’s 2021 retreat from his support for an independent commission to draw Illinois’ legislative map.
■ Texas’ governor is asking his state’s Supreme Court to remove from office the Texas House Democratic leader—one of several huddling in Illinois to forestall a vote on the new map.
■ Colbert’s show opened with a musical tribute to his ol’ home, Chicago—ending with a cut of Pritzker doing a shot of Malört.

Forward—to the past. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is canceling $500 million in funding for vaccine development.
■ Trump’s administration is restoring and replacing a couple of Washington statues honoring the Confederacy.
■ Mother Jones: “Right-wing activists have long warned of the coming federal invasion. Where are they now?”

‘Big Balls’ beaten. One of the most prominent members of the Trump/Musk “Department of Government Efficiency,” Edward Coristine, was reportedly attacked in a Washington carjacking attempt …
■ … prompting Trump to threaten a federal takeover of D.C.
■ Popular Information: The federal immigration crackdown could cripple local law enforcement.

‘Trump’s economy is telling you a story the president doesn’t want you to hear.’ USA Today’s Chris Brennan sums up the president’s approach: “Everything his opponents do is designed to destroy it, and only he can fix it.”
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz, in a post that he insists is “100% factual”: Trump’s a math dunce. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Flashback to 1981: Meet [then-future Pulitzer winner] Jack Ohman—at 19, the youngest syndicated U.S. editorial cartoonist, ever.

‘A nightmare.’ The founder of a small nonprofit that investigates civil rights violations tells ProPublica Trump’s war on Big Law has made it tougher to find help challenging the administration on a range of issues.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: Trump’s desecrating the Justice Department.
■ The Better Government Association’s Illinois Answers Project: Medicaid managed care organizations are seeing billions in profits as small clinics and hospitals drown in denied and delayed claims—and as some stop accepting Medicaid altogether.

‘You cheated the very thing you put a face to at the City Club of Chicago.’ A federal judge has sentenced longtime Chicago lobbyist and City Club chief Jay Doherty to prison for his role in a scheme to bribe (also convicted) former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
■ The judge said Doherty’s contrition came “too late in the process.”

‘The situation in Gaza involves people being deliberately starved.’ Columnist, former U.S. Rep. and “wife and mother of Jewish Americans” Marie Newman: “It is time for Americans to stand up and demand peace.”
■ The AP: In what would be a major escalation of the war, Israel’s considering reoccupying Gaza.
■ The Guardian: Israel’s relying on Microsoft services to play back cellular communications—“a million calls an hour”—made by ordinary Palestinian civilians.

What ChatGPT’s telling kids. New research—including hours of audio interactions between the AI entity and researchers posing as teens—delivers what the AP calls “startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use … or self-injury.”
■ On a road trip to Michigan, Tribune columnist Laura Washington sees a pattern in all the billboards hawking marijuana shops and personal injury attorneys—and little else.

If you’re counting on ESPN for objective coverage of pro football, count again. The NFL’s selling most of its media businesses to Disney—in exchange for 10% of ESPN …
■ … making life tougher for ESPN reporters.
■ Disney’s CEO says ESPN’s journalism won’t change. (But he would say that, right?)
■ The Hulu app’s time is near its end.
■ If the season premiere of South Park grabbed your attention, check out Episode 2 tonight.

Public radio’s online strength. As federal funding evaporates, Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton is launching a monthly ranking of NPR stations’ website audiences.
■ WBEZ’s No. 21.
■ College of DuPage-owned blues-and-jazz-oriented WDCB’s launched its own app.

Thank you. Readers including Randy Kulat, Kathy O’Brien, Steven Yandel, Conrad Wayne, Kathy Catrambone, Deb Abrahamson, Jennifer Packheiser, Ted Slowik, Leigh Behrens, Cecelia Kafer, Ralph Culloden, Keri Lynch, Aya A, Daniel Parker, Carolyn Roberta Berg, Ann Johnson Arellano, Arlene Johnson, Laura Putre, James Gardner, Kathy Downing, Chris Mcintosh, Mike Trenary, Karen Gray-Keeler, Deb Humiston, Patricia Skaja, Jennifer Thiele, Lloyd Sachs, Sarah Hoban, Sue Omanson, Charlene Thomas, Tony Recktenwald, Cynthia Farenga, Joe Lynn, Bill Utter, Ira Pilchen, Lynne Stiefel and William Wheelhouse have—over the last 7 1/2 years of Chicago Public Square’s 8 1/2-year existence—pitched in to cover the cost of its production and distribution, keeping it free for all to read.
■ Join their ranks—for as little as $1, just once—and see your name atop tomorrow’s contributor roll call.
■ Jeffrey L. Wiseman made this edition better.

Welcome, Texans / ‘A consolidating dictatorship’ / Fox, Fox everywhere

■

Welcome back. If you missed Chicago Public Square through the long weekend— Well, you wouldn’t have missed it as much if you’d been following Square on Bluesky. Catch up there before diving into the news for today:

Welcome, Texans. Politico reports some of the Democratic lawmakers who fled their state to block the redrawing of a congressional map that would stack the deck for Republicans and against voters of color have been huddling in a high-security convention complex in the suburb of St. Charles.
■ Texas’ Republican House speaker has signed warrants for their civil arrest.
■ They’re encouraging Democrat-dominated states to redraw their maps in retaliation.
■ California’s talking about that.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Yeah! Democrats finally figure it out: We’re in a war for democracy.”
■ A plane bearing the message “MESS WITH TEXAS” flew over Springfield yesterday—with more such stunts planned for other Democrat-dominated capitals.
■ Axios notes that Wisconsin Dems followed the same strategy in 2011, to no avail.
■ The AP reviews the nation’s long—and legally questionable—history of partisan map-making.

‘A consolidating dictatorship.’ That’s MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night, assessing the Trump administration, with its “secret police,” “black site prison camps” and “shows of force”—and concluding that the thing Americans have been dreading has indeed come to pass.
■ The American Prospect, with Capital & Main: “Border patrol and ICE agents are arresting U.S. citizens in immigration raids” …
■ Block Club: Mayor Johnson’s pushing for an investigation into whether Chicago cops assisted in an ICE immigration raid.

‘Trump is spiraling.’ Brian Beutler at Off Message: “This is good news—but also, prepare for turbulence.”
■ The Bulwark: “Maybe the American experiment isn’t dead yet. Death by a thousand cuts still requires a thousand cuts.”
■ A House committee’s issued subpoenas not just for the Justice Department’s files on dead sex offender and Trump pal Jeffrey Epstein—but also for depositions with former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight former top law enforcement officials.

‘No, you fool! Now there’s one less job!’ That’s Stephen Colbert on Trump’s firing of the commissioner of labor statistics after she announced that job growth has slowed dramatically …
■ … a dismissal that historian Heather Cox Richardson says “has drawn a level of attention to Trump’s assault on democracy that other firings have not.”
■ Ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, with Colbert last night: “All the data coming out of the government is now questionable. Because you’ve got a president who does not want facts.”
■ Wake Up to Politics’ Gabe Fleisher: Trump’s moving closer to prosecuting his political rivals.
■ Chicago news veteran Andy Shaw: “If Trump’s toxic style becomes the norm after he leaves the stage … we’ll lose the kind of people who are worth electing.”

‘It makes no sense for the president to be excluded from a stock trading ban.’ Popular Information: Trump supports ethics laws—as long as he’s exempt.
■ Paul Waldman at Public Notice says, whether it becomes law or not, a ban on stock-trading by members of Congress would at least provide “an opportunity to get everyone running for office on record.”
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Trump’s team is drafting an order to punish banks perceived to discriminate against conservatives.

Jobs cleaned out. Chalkbeat: Chicago Public Schools is cutting 480 custodian jobs and ending private custodial contracts.
■ Federal budget cuts are creating what faculty and staff call a dire situation at Northwestern University.
■ The Hyde Park Herald: Hundreds of millions in federal research funding and tuition revenue are on the line as the University of Chicago faces increased federal scrutiny of its admissions practices and international student enrollment.

Reasons to be fearful.
■ Flesh-eating bacteria cases are on the rise along the Gulf Coast.
■ Justin Timberlake’s Lyme disease diagnosis is a reminder that tick season’s returned in force.
■ The Conversation: “A tick just bit into your skin. Here’s what happens next.”

Not random. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein spotlights another “censored” manifesto—the “note that law enforcement won’t release and the news media is happy to quote from selectively but won’t publish”—this one from the so-called “NFL” shooter …
■ … whose actions Reuters says have brought new focus on concussion risks in sports …
■ … as rising threats against corporate executives have fueled record spending on security.

Chatted with ChatGPT lately? 404 Media says nearly 100,000 conversations with the AI entity have been searchable on Google …
■ … and, even though parent OpenAI may work to remove that content, that doesn’t mean third parties won’t have snarfed it up before then anyway.

Fox, Fox everywhere. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox operation—or, as CNN’s Brian Stelter dubs it, his “outrage-industrial complex”—launches its own news/sports/entertainment streaming service later this month.
■ As NBC moves to spin off MSNBC, correspondent Jacob Soboroff is the highest-profile journalist to pick MSNBC.
■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob: “It’s reasonable to fear that real journalism will become impossible in the United States.”

But satire’s alive and kicking—for now. South Park returns Wednesday—with a focus on immigration raids and more on Trump and Satan.
■ The Daily Show will be out of action for five weeks—but host Desi Lydic last week reassured viewers who might fret: The break was “planned months and months ago. So don’t freak out. Have a great summer and we’ll see you in September when we can all freak out together.”

Chicago Public Square’s approaching its 2,000th edition. It wouldn’t have come close to that number if readers—including David Heisler, Ed Hansen, Mark Ruda, Maureen Stratton, Jon Randolph, Ron Magers, Leo Bonnie Dohogne, Avis Rudner, Laura Braden Temple, Ken Davis, Brian Cassidy, Leslie Sutphen, Mike Nowak, M. Braun, David Augustus, Suzy Le Clair, Don Miner, John Lewis, Carolyn Grisko, Dave Tan, David Leonard, Jim Kelly, Howie Anderson, Sandy Ridolfi and Rosemary Caruk—hadn’t stepped up over the last seven years to cover the cost of its production and distribution.
■ Pitch in today—as little as $1, just once—and see your name atop tomorrow’s acknowledgements.

Subscribe to Square.

It’s free.