‘Bye Fel-ICE-a!’ / ‘Ashamed’ / Chicagoans of the Year

‘Bye Fel-ICE-a!’ Columnist Eric Zorn says the U.S. Border Patrol’s decision to fly south for the winter ends a Chicago “reign of terror” that “looks more and more like a reign of error.”

■ Former Politico editor Garrett Graff: “Border Patrol retreated from Chicago in defeat, not victory” …

■ … but, WBEZ reports, a coalition of Chicago minority groups is prepping for a return in the spring …

■ … and Chicago museum leaders are training for ICE raids—the way they conduct active shooter drills.

■ At least six people arrested in Homeland Security’s horrific raid on a South Shore apartment building could be freed.

■ Popular Information: The Trump administration sparked a health crisis for ICE detainees.

‘It’s not safe. My kid’s scared to go to school.’ Citing a death threat and a bomb threat, the mayor of Broadview—home to the Chicago area’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center—declared a civil emergency and took last night’s board meeting virtual.

■ Mayor Johnson says police are investigating a Friday night arson attempt at Chicago City Hall.

Charlotte-Chicago connection. As immigration agents target North Carolina, Chicagoans are offering help—and whistles.

■ The granddaughter of author E.B. White is condemning the Trump administration’s co-option of his book’s title, Charlotte’s Web.

‘10 times worse than I thought.’ More than 60 lawyers who quit or were fired from Trump’s Justice Department talk to The New York Times (gift link).

■ Three Times staffers share their stories in video: “We followed the rules. ICE jailed us anyway.”

■ 404 Media: ICE has an app capable of tracking vehicles and owners across the country—tech enabled by Chicago-based Motorola Solutions and media conglomerate Thomson Reuters.

■ Chicago-area demonstrations have been targeting AT&T’s stores to protest its contracts with “the federal agencies running Trump’s deportation machine.”

■ AT&T’s announced a nationwide speed boost for 5G phones and internet service.

‘Ashamed.’ Ex-Harvard president, Clinton administration Treasury Secretary and Obama-era National Economic Council director Larry Summers says he’s stepping back from public commitments after release of emails showing he sought romantic advice from Donald Trump’s pal, now-dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein …

■ … but he says he’ll keep teaching at Harvard.

■ As the House headed toward a vote on a bill that would force the Justice Department to release its Epstein files, The Bulwark says “it sure looks like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s winning her breakup with Donald Trump.”

■ Lawyer and Human Rights Campaign board member Jay Kuo: “Donald and Marjorie are really going at each other’s throats. And honestly, I kind of love this for them.”

■ ProPublica: In what experts say was a highly inappropriate move, the White House intervened in a federal investigation of accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate.

‘Journalists … should make Trump’s desperation abundantly clear.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin praises a few who are doing just that: “The media turns on a president when he appears weak. They’re like sharks smelling blood. And Trump is starting to hemorrhage.”

■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob: News outlets are papering over “the ugly pasts of right-wing extremists.”

‘Our lives will be a lot worse off.’ A senior adviser to the Federation of American Scientists warns that presidential orders and the government shutdown have gutted access to demographic and health data—sending journalists, researchers and communities scrambling.

■ The Times: The federal government has, for the first time, linked a measles outbreak in Texas with Utah and Arizona—endangering the United States’ status as a nation that’s eliminated measles.

■ After six inept months on the job, Trump’s acting Federal Emergency Management Agency chief has quit.

‘You guys! They said my name on TV!’ Seth Meyers was uncowed last night by Trump’s latest attack on him.

■ A Trump administration order forbidding artistic and political messaging on public roadways means the end of a Buddy Holly-themed crosswalk in Holly’s hometown, Lubbock, Texas.

Chicagoans of the Year. Chicago magazine’s out with its 2025 list …

■ … including a lawyer who quit her job with a big law firm ahead of its capitulation to the Trump administration.

Christkindlmarket’s back. Chicago’s outdoor holiday bazaar returns to three locations Friday.

■ Metra’s holiday-themed trains have already sold out.

■ Block Club’s assembled a guide to shopping local in Chicago for the holidays.

Ben vs. Ben & Jerry’s. The ice cream brand’s cofounder, Ben Cohen, has launched a MoveOn petition demanding its corporate owners stop silencing its progressive political values.

■ Signatories get a chance to win a pint of his new, independently produced sorbet—but you can also enter the raffle without signing.

■ Speaking of corporate tension: Disney’s lost its Roger Rabbit rights.

Thanks. Chicago Public Square’s monthly delivery charge from Mailchimp took a leap this month, which means extra gratitude for those who underwrite the cost of producing and distributing this service—readers including Heather Kenny, Barry Koehler, Peggy Kell, Steve Ignots, Randall Kulat, Joe Sjostrom, Mana Ionescu, Tom O’Malley, Rick Lunt, Ronald Paulson, Diane Meiborg, Susan Benloucif, Rosalind Rouse, Bridget Hatch, Joyce Winnecke, Sandra Slater, Paulette Cary, Sue Omanson, Laurie R. Glenn, Alan Hommerding, Christine Koenig, Mark Ruda, Dave Kraft, Charles Sudo, Matthew Pestine, Mary Cronin, Owen Youngman, Patrick Dahlstrom, Susan Berkes, Kathy Burger, Lynne Duffy, Doug Strubel, Deborah Kadin, Joe Hallissey, Jan Kieckhefer, Harlene Ellin, Ryan Arnold, Susanne Riedell, Susann Slinic, Elaine Soloway, Ken Saydak, Leslie Hodes, Charlene Thomas, Cathy Schornstein, Elan Long, Cate Cahan, Daniel Parker, Martin Yeager, Sheila Flaherty, Susan Tyson, Mary Szpur, Brian Rohr, Jim Walz, Lynne Taylor, David Henkhaus, Peter Economos, Judy Karlov, Ian Morrison, Frances Brady, Tracey Thomas and Neela Marnell.

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Unrelated developments / Trump’s ‘startling reversal’ / ‘Brutal flu season’

Unrelated developments. Texas and California National Guard members have been decamping from the Chicago region, returning home as Homeland Security has departed from its Naval Station Great Lakes hangout after a weekslong immigration enforcement effort.

■ The Associated Press: “In Japan’s Northern Alps, residents battle monkeys to protect homes and farms.”

‘The response from Chicago is a bunch of obscenities and No.’ A North Sider talks to the AP about the region’s reaction to the immigration crackdown—pushback now considered “a model for other cities” …

■ … including Border Patrol’s latest obsession, Charlotte, North Carolina …

■ … where Wonkette says Greg Bovino “is bringing his brand of terror to anyone who looks like an immigrant there, indefinitely!”

■ City Cast recaps “Two months of ‘Midway Blitz.’”

‘I had my hands raised in prayer, saying I was nonviolent.’ Two pastors arrested by local cops Friday while trying to pray with detainees at the Broadview immigration facility are asking Gov. Pritzker to investigate what they consider excessive use of force against them.

■ The Evanston Roundtable’s Rich Cahan rode along to that protest with “the God Squad”—a rabbi and five ministers.

■ The Tribune: The governor’s commission to hold the feds accountable for atrocities committed in Illinois has yet to get serious.

‘I could not be prouder of Chicago’s local journalists.’ Columnist and former Chicago TV news exec Jennifer Schulze talks to some of the retired local reporters who came together to raise the alarm about “state-sponsored terror in Chicago.”

■ McKinley Park News’ Justin Kerr defends his publication’s use of words like abduction to describe Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s actions here—and knocks other news organizations that “apply standard crime reporting language … that markets ICE’s actions as legitimate.”

Trump’s ‘startling reversal.’ In a rare about-face, the president last night called on House Republicans to vote for release of all files in the case of his now-dead friend, sex offender Jeffrey Epstein …

■ … and then he launched what The Daily Beast calls “a late-night pity party” on his Truth Social platform.

■ Politico: “Trump shifted position because he was going to lose anyway” …

■ … but AP alumnus Ron Fournier recommends you not “take Trump at face value. He still could:

• Kill the bill in the Senate.

• Veto the bill.

• Order the Justice Department to scrub the files of damning information.”

■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “I don’t give a damn if Clinton … gets brought down by the release of the Epstein files.”

■ The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch (gift link, underwritten by Chicago Public Square supporters): “If the evil banality of the world’s most powerful people exposed in the Epstein emails doesn’t cause a revolution, nothing will.”

■ Journalism ethics watchdog Margaret Sullivan: “Contrast this to a … New York Times feature story that puts a nostalgic gloss on Epstein’s world … ‘Epstein Emails Reveal a Lost New York.’”

■ Next major anti-Trump protest: Remove the Regime, this weekend in Washington …

■ … an event for which the pseudonymously bylined Closer to the Edge has generously drafted Rachel Maddow’s script.

■ The Epstein files were central to several Saturday Night Live bits—a sign that critic Bill Carter says shows “new spark—and a willingness to confront Trump.”

■ The Onion: “Trump Imposes 100% Tax On Movies Where Slaves Escape.”

‘Trump is in the process of sending millions of dollars in taxpayer money directly to his political allies—and himself.’ Popular Information details a case of “grand theft government.”

■ A joint Illinois Answers Project / Trib investigation finds record property tax increases for Chicago homeowners as downtown landlords see their bills fall.

■ The Cook County treasurer’s office sees black neighborhoods hit hardest.

■ A Trib editorial: “Own a home in Chicago? You should be cheering for commercial property values in the Loop.”

■ The Sun-Times: A school board serving three suburbs has rejected calls for an investigation of alleged bribery and extortion.

■ A 35-year-old man’s been arrested, accused of holding a staffer for Illinois Senate President Don Harmon at knifepoint during a robbery at Harmon’s Oak Park office Friday morning.

‘A brutal flu season.’ Your Local Epidemiologist explains that the latest flu mutations surfaced right before the season, meaning your vaccination “will likely recognize some, but not all, of this updated virus.”

■ Bird flu cases are on the rise among the turkey population, spelling higher prices for Thanksgiving.

‘She kept at that reporting even … as her house and those of her parents and her boss were vandalized.’ John Oliver last night celebrated the work of WBEZ alumnus Lauren Chooljian as he spotlighted Republican defunding of public media …

■  … and then he launched an online auction of Last Week Tonight relics—including Russell Crowe’s jockstrap and a giant sculpture of President Lyndon Johnson’s testicles—in a fundraiser for those broadcasters.

■ The bidding’s quickly gone astronomical.

Next: Seth Meyers? Echoing what befell Jimmy Kimmel, Trump’s calling for NBC to dump Meyers’ show—and Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair reposted it.
■ The Hollywood Reporter: Trumpophiliac broadcaster Sinclair has its eye on 61 local broadcasters across the country—“consolidation that was simply not possible” before Trump took the White House and the FCC.

Corrections. Friday’s Chicago Public Square had a bad link to Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week and lacked a link to Sun-Times analysis that found Border Patrol poster boy Greg Bovino and his agents have favored Trump and Republicans in their campaign giving.

’Tis the season … Thanks to all the readers whose financial support has kept Square coming through the years—including Kathy O’Brien, Jim Owens, Peter Kuttner, James Madigan, Timothy Baffoe, Alex Riepl Broz, Alison Thomas, Cate Plys, Geoff Anderson, Daniel Honigman, William Bork, Jim Peterson, Timothy Mennel, Jerry D. Mason, Sarah Murphy, Yolanda Bada, Meghan Strubel, Walter Gallas, Dave Tan, Sonya Booth, Michelle Damico, William O’Donnell, Mark Nystuen, Marcie Dosemagen, Eric Reinert, William Lindsey Cochran, Holly Wallace, Paul Kungl, Katherine and Michael Raleigh, Ed Nickow, Carollina Song, Jayson Hansen, Jan Kodner, Ken Davis, Mena Boulanger, John Meissen, Anne Costello, Heather Alger, Peter Fuller, Taylor Kuether, Mike Dessimoz, Ronald Melody, Mark Mueller, Joanne Rosenbush, Maureen and Jerry Peifer and Kaiser, Stephan Benzkofer, Peggy Swanson, Lisa McNulty, Marc Blesoff, Helen Marshall, Judith Galleazzi, Paul Wedeen, Teresa Powell, Leslie Sutphen, Susan Karol, Jon Lederhouse, Lisa Fritz, Sarah Williams, Stephen Brenner, Margaret Brennan, Dave Walker and Annemarie Kill.

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■ Mike Braden made this edition better.