Don’t touch that dial / Hail, grannies! / ‘Miserable’ / Suspect email?

Don’t touch that dial. A final Senate vote could come today on President Trump’s plan to cut federal funding for public radio and TV stations across the country—a move that could force some stations off the air.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “This … would put Congress’s stamp of approval on those cuts, even though they change what Congress originally agreed to.”
Media watcher Simon Owens: The Daily Show’s relevant again.
Former Chicago TV news executive Jennifer Schulze: “All of us could pay the price for Paramount’s absurd capitulation to Trump.”

‘We want a special counsel.’ Columnist and law professor Joyce Vance says that’s what the death of Trump pal and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein demands.
Wired: Supposedly “raw” video footage of Epstein’s cell door in the hours before he was found dead is missing nearly three minutes.
Add Trump’s ally, House Speaker Johnson, to the growing list of those pressing for more “transparency” from the White House on the Epstein scandal.
The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol offers “A Guide for the Perplexed” in the Epstein case.
Jimmy Fallon: “Today, Trump was, like, ‘A dog ate the Epstein files, then people in Ohio ate the dog.’”

‘Environmental Protection Agency retaliates against employees protecting the environment.’ The American Prospect says the Trump administration’s targeting workers who signed a letter demanding that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin “affirm his oath and his commitment to EPA’s mission.”
The Washington Post (gift link, thanks to supporters of Chicago Public Square): As Trump moves to replace federal workers with AI, keep your eye on these six agencies.

Judge not. More than 75 former judges are urging the Senate to turn thumbs down on judicial nominee—and Trump’s former personal lawyer—Emil Bove.
Even as the Trump administration pushes ahead with mass deportations, it’s fired at least 17 immigration court judges—in Illinois and nine other states.

Chicago in the spotlight. Organizers of Thursday’s “Good Trouble” protests have declared the city the “flagship” for more than 1,600 observances nationwide.
Patch has links to more information and sign-ups for some of the Chicago-area demonstrations.

Hail, grannies! Headed to the full Chicago City Council today: A long-debated ordinance allowing the construction of so-called “granny flat” living spaces—including coach houses and basement apartments.
It’s not just the old folk who need those spaces: Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman—with kids in their 20s—says politicians have failed to bridge the “affordability chasm” of Gen Z not being able to afford their lives.

Driving while not-white. WBEZ’s analysis finds that, while Chicago police traffic stops plummeted last year, the percentage of those stops involving Black and Latino drivers skyrocketed.
Popular Information directs your attention to Baltimore, which last month saw fewer homicides than in any month in the last 55 years.

‘You don’t get to work for the government and defraud the government.’ Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s latest quarterly report spotlights a couple of city workers—an assistant housing commissioner and a Chicago cop—who faked their way into Payroll Protection Program funds designed to help businesses endure the pandemic.

‘Miserable.’ That’s NBC Chicago meteorologist Alicia Roman’s assessment of the air quality and humidity in store for the region today.
And, yeah: Then storms.

Solar surge. With a federal tax credit set to expire at the end of the year, Illinoisans are rushing to install home solar panels really quick.
Capitol News: “Illinois bet on solar to meet its climate goals. Trump has the industry in his crosshairs.”


Suspect email?
A free service called Snitcher.space can tell you whether strange mail is a scam.
Just forward that mail to scan@snitcher.space.
Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square scored a not-bad 90%.

Yes, chef. The Chicago-set TV series The Bear has 13 nominations for this year’s Emmys.
Other Chicago nods include Shrinking’s Harrison Ford and The Studio’s Ike Barinholtz for best supporting actor and White Lotus’ Carrie Coon for best supporting actress.

End pledge tyranny. Some newsletters dictate how much you pay to express your support. But you can back Square for any amount you choose.

Class dismissed / ‘Elmo can’t go back!’ / ‘A big fat bribe’

Class dismissed. The Supreme Court’s cleared Donald Trump to cut nearly 1,400 employees of the Education Department …
 … kneecapping the enforcement of civil rights protections for girls, students with disabilities, children of color and LGBTQ+ kids.
 Read the decision here.
 The American Prospect: The Republican wrecking ball is slamming through the U.S. medical system.
 Block Club: As pressure from Trump mounts, Chicago’s Rush Medical Center is rolling back its gender-affirming care for minors.

Try not to inhale. Blame wildfire smoke in part for an air quality alert in effect through at least tonight.
 Heavy rains across the Northeast triggered a state of emergency for New York and New Jersey, stranding vehicles and closing subway lines.

‘Companies are lining up to get out of repaying harmed customers.’ A former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director tells the AP that bureau employees are watching hopelessly as Republicans undo their work.
 Columnist Robert Kuttner: “Trump’s destruction and the needed rebuilding should be a theme in every election between now and 2028.”
 Ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “15 months—476 days—remain until the 2026 midterm elections. The ballot on Nov. 3, 2026, will contain every House seat, 35 Senate seats, and thousands more at the state and local level. If our democracy survives that long.”

‘Elmo can’t go back on the streets, Jon!’ In a comedy tour de force last night, Jon Stewart interviewed “Elmo” (voiced by Stewart) about the antisemitic remarks attributed to Elmo after the hacking of his Twitter X account …
 … only to have the puppet concede the tweets constituted pandering to Trump’s acolytes to avert cuts for PBS funding.
 See the whole bit here.

This Way Out. Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob offers five scenarios for averting a Trump dictatorship.
 CNN: Fox News has taken Trump’s plea for his allies to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein almost literally.
 USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke goes the other way, invoking Epstein’s name close to 50 times—concluding: “And definitely don’t look at the sentence that the first letter of each paragraph above spells out.”
 Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance gets out the popcorn to watch the war the Epstein saga has triggered between the FBI and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
 Reuters: Two-thirds of Bondi’s staff charged with defending Trump’s policies in court have quit. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
 Mother Jones’ Dan Friedman appeals to Democrats: “Stop taking the Epstein bait. … There are more than enough real Trump scandals.”

‘Fire fans contra ICE.’ That banner at Saturday’s game got ticketholders banned for a year.
 Newcity publisher Brian Hieggelke, who was there: “I started fearing an ICE raid … for no logical or apparent reason other than the times in which we are living.”
 Press Watch journalism critic Dan Froomkin says mainstream media’s anodyne coverage of Trump’s plans for “kidnapping our undocumented friends and neighbors and rendering them to random third countries where they may face torture, persecution or death” has “normalized evil.”

‘BOMB PLANTED.’ That threat to a Chicago city council member, posted on Facebook, has led to a Hyde Park man’s detention.
 Mayor Johnson’s come to terms with the city’s inspector general on an ordinance that would limit his office’s power to obstruct ethics investigations.

Watch that speedometer. Block Club: Chicago’s added six more speed cameras.
 See the full list of the city’s 200 or so camera locations here.

‘A big fat bribe.’ Back from a two-week break, Stephen Colbert didn’t hold back in condemning his Paramount bosses for their legal settlement with Trump.
 Probably for the first time, broadcast TV networks’ share of viewing last month dropped below 20 percent.
 Layoffs at Chicago’s WCIU include host, critic and podcaster Brandon Pope.
 Updating coverage: At Chicago Public Square’s email publication deadline, Emmy nominations were being announced.

What could go wrong? Days after Elon Musk’s pet AI, Grok, went full Nazi, the Pentagon’s announced a multimillion-dollar plan to use Grok for national security stuff.
 CNN’s Hadas Gold: Grok’s not the only AI entity easily nudged into antisemitism, misogyny or racism.
 Platformer tracks conservative efforts to outlaw AI entities’ criticism of Trump.

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