‘Come and get me’ / Blonde cognition / Amazon crime?

‘Come and get me.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker’s response to President Trump’s demand he be jailed.
The New York Times (gift link): “Pritzker has had it with Democrats who won’t stand up to Trump.”
Block Club: A month into Trump’s blitz, “Chicago and Illinois are using every lever of power to push back.”
Columnist and former Chicago City Council member Edwin Eisendrath: “Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom.”
Closer to the Edge: “Federal agents shot a woman five times in a South Side Chicago neighborhood and they’re still hiding the goddamn video.”
Matthew Yglesias at Slow Boring: “The good news is that the harder Trump moves toward overt authoritarianism, the more backlash he tempts.”

‘A landmark day.’ The Tribune previews a federal court hearing this morning—at which Trump administration lawyers were set to defend the deployment to Chicago of National Guard troops …
 … a prospect that last night drew hundreds of protesters to a downtown demonstration.
Politico: A group of former governors from Republican-led states is siding with Illinois against Trump in this case. (Photo: A Chicago Public Square reader who was there.)
Contrarian Jen Rubin: “Lower courts are increasingly determining that accepting Trump’s disingenuous rationalization amounts to dereliction of their judicial duties.”
Block Club: Another court’s ruling against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s warrantless arrests could free hundreds of Chicago-area people.

Just when you thought the news media had it right. As journalists nationwide celebrated a First Amendment lawsuit Illinois news organizations filed against the Trump administration over repressive action in coverage of ICE in the Chicago area, the Illinois Press Association has withdrawn from that suit and its CEO has quit …
 … even as the federal judge in that case has at least temporarily upheld reporters’ right to do their jobs without unprovoked attacks by federal agents.
ProPublica co-founder Richard Tofel: Don’t think that freedom of the press is just a legal issue.
Poynter’s Tom Jones sees an unlikely ally for the anti-censorship movement: Sen. Ted Cruz.
Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich analyzes the media’s vulnerability to Trump—and what concerned citizens can do about it.
Tonight at 6, the League of Women Voters of Oak Park and River Forest and the nonprofit publisher Growing Community Media* host a panel discussion at the Oak Park Public Library, “Can Local Journalism Survive?

No names, no faces—and no plates. The Sun-Times reports that immigration agents—who’ve taken to hiding behind masks and not wearing ID tags—are now also driving vehicles without license plates.
The Chicago Public Schools system has created a command center to monitor ICE activity.
Restaurants especially are on high alert.
The Reader: ICE is now targeting Chicago’s homeless community.

‘Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud accidentally.’ Trump’s deputy chief of staff is under scrutiny after invoking the phrase “plenary authority”—suggesting the president has limitless power—before freezing mid-sentence.
Historian Steven Beschloss sees it as another sign Republicans “will do anything to expand their power and further dismantle our democratic system.”

‘Emotionally exhausted.’ The Sun-Times checks in with federal workers still on the job through the continuing government shutdown.
If you find yourself stranded or delayed at an airport because of the shutdown, know you have some rights.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in a newly elected Democratic representative who could cast a pivotal vote on the release of government documents about dead Trump pal and child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Blonde cognition.
Columnist Elaine Soloway challenges you to distinguish Attorney General Pam Bondi from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt …
 … and then imagines them swapping roles—to the notice of no one.
The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link, possible because readers like you underwrite the cost of Chicago Public Square’s production) that last month’s Truth Social post in which Trump publicly ordered Bondi to prosecute former FBI chief James Comey was indeed supposed to have been a private text.
Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinionator Jeff Tiedrich: “Pamnesia Pam can’t remember shit about Dear Leader’s dead pedo bestie.”

Amazon crime? A lawsuit contends the company’s Prime Day sales are a fraud.
In what columnist Cory Doctorow calls “a huge ideological victory,” California’s banned algorithmic price-fixing—by outfits that aggregate all the prices charged by every major seller in the market and then advise all of them to raise prices in sync.

‘iOS 26 has your reckless back.’ Gizmodo: Apple’s new iPhone software “just made driving like an asshole a lot easier.”
The AP: Another new feature can help keep junk calls at bay.
404 Media: Apple’s banned an app that simply archived videos of ICE abuses.

Chatting? Sure. News? Nah. Reuters Institute research finds people using ChatGPT twice as much as they did last year—but just as skeptical about AI in journalism …
 … which makes Chicago Public Square’s interactive online coaching session Nov. 3 on AI tools and fact-check tips even more timely. Sign up free here.

* On the board of which your Square columnist serves.

‘Mayor should be in jail. … Pritzker also!’ / Taking off again / Scam alert

‘Mayor should be in jail. … Pritzker also!’ President Trump took to his social media platform this morning to complain that Chicago and Illinois’ top executives aren’t protecting immigration officers.
Pritzker on Twitter X: “I will not back down.”
That followed Pritzker diagnosing Trump’s deployment of troops to Chicago and Portland as “dementia.”
The Guardian: Republicans have been using photos from South America to illustrate their support for National Guard presence in Portland.
Reporter Aaron Parnas: “A sitting president using his power to threaten, punish or imprison those who disagree with him … is an alarming sign of democratic backsliding.”
Protect Democracy columnist Amanda Carpenter: “The most immediate threat to our constitutional order is not on the streets. It is coming from inside the White House.”
Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin: Trump consigliere Stephen Miller “wants to start a civil war.”

They’re heeeeeeere. The Texas National Guard has arrived in a far southwestern suburb …
 … whose name is shared by one of the Blues Brothers.
A memo obtained by NPR calls for the troops to stick around for 60 days …
 … but the operation’s field director says he sees “no end date” for “Midway Blitz.”
Parnas again: “ICE is lying to the American public.”
Trump’s own Labor Department says immigration raids are causing a food crisis.
Mayor Johnson says federal agents who violate his ban on the use of city land for deportation operations should face criminal charges.
In ICE raids, author and radio host Thom Hartmann perceives echoes of Ku Klux Klan terror.
Comparing the present moment to the tinderbox that was America around 1969, cultural critic Bob Lefsetz writes, “as calm as the country might look today … be ready for tomorrow.”

There’s an ICE facility in my backyard.’ Columnist (and former Tribune TV critic) Maureen Ryan writes in Vanity Fair (paywalled article, but you can access it free in an incognito browser window): “Friday, with a newly purchased gas mask in my backpack, I went to the ICE building in Broadview.”
Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob reviews the ways journalists have demonstrated the “vital need for local news coverage” in the present crisis.
A mental health expert offers WBEZ tips for coping with the stress of immigration operations.
Amid rumors of an ICE presence at this weekend’s Chicago Marathon, the mayor’s nevertheless “encouraging everyone to get out to celebrate.”

‘A true American patriot.’ Journalist Terry Moran—you may recall that ABC fired him (June link) after he called Trump a “world-class hater”—talks to Chicago City Council member Jessie Fuentes, handcuffed by ICE agents as she asked them questions in a hospital.
The TRiiBE: 13 council members didn’t sign a letter of support for Fuentes.

‘I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump.’ Attorney General Pam Bondi—with what columnist and lawyer Joyce Vance calls “a level of snark better reserved for a high school gathering”—got into it with Sen. Dick Durbin during Senate hearings yesterday.
Lefsetz again: “If I acted this way at the dinner table, my father would have reached over and hit me.”
Moran again: Bondi “trashed a Senate hearing, but only soiled herself.”

Taking off again. After a ground delay triggered by a shortage of air traffic controllers in the federal shutdown, O’Hare was reportedly operating as scheduled today.
 Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “As I said last week, the shutdown ends when air traffic controllers have had enough.”
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link, possible because readers like you help cover the cost of publishing this newsletter): “Democrats need to hold a nationally televised news conference and announce … they won’t fund the federal government if Trump is going to use those dollars to invade blue cities.”

Illinois’ ‘hidden’ gunmakers. The Campaign for Gun Industry Accountability says hundreds of Illinois residents possess a federal license to manufacture firearms.
You can search by address and ZIP code to see if there’s one near you.
Former Washington Post columnist Philip Bump: A red-state invasion has worsened Chicago gun violence.

Scam alert. The Illinois Revenue Department’s warning taxpayers to ignore text alerts claiming a tax refund has been processed.

These activists want to dismantle public schools. Now they run the Education Department.’ ProPublica documents “a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars.”
The American Prospect: The department’s cutting funding to colleges that primarily serve minorities.

‘They want to replace women with AI.’ Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz—marking that column’s fifth anniversary: “It matters that one of the first AI bots forced upon us as a new vision of the future is a woman. It matters that in the cultural imaginings of men, she’s a pliable virgin.”
In an eye-opening Daily Show interview with Jon Stewart, tech ethicist Tristan Harris laid out the dangers of unregulated AI …
 … which reminds us:
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—but it’s not for journalists only. Online, Nov. 3, noon-2 p.m. Registration details here. Tell your friends, too!

Thanks. Not only did yesterday’s edition of Axios Chicago include a kind shoutout to Square from reporter Justin Kaufmann, it also inspired a dive into the archives for an audio tour of Chicago’s Harold Washington Public Library, which opened this week in 1991.
 Mike Braden made this dispatch better.

Soundtrack for production of today’s edition. Last night’s WDCB Bluesday Tuesday performance at FitzGerald’s by The Mike Wheeler Band.
Tedium’s David Buck marks the retirement of novelty radio icon Dr. Demento.

Square up.

🟥 Square on Bluesky: