Not dead yet. With two pivotal, lame-duck Republicans apparently now on board to confirm acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, law professor Joyce Vance says Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund—to reward his Capitol riot supporters and protect his family from future investigation—isn’t as gone as the senators seem willing to (say they) believe.
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: “Blanche doesn’t believe in the rule of law, and John Cornyn and Thom Tillis don’t care.”
■ The Senate discussion was streaming live at Chicago Public Square’s email deadline.
‘Trump and Pirro lied. Why can’t legacy media just say it?’ Columnist and MSNBC contributor Brian Tyler Cohen says that, in all the coverage of the administration’s prosecution of an Olympic canoest for touching the president’s beloved—and polluted—Reflecting Pool, “one word is conspicuously absent.”
■ Pirro seemed to be skating on thin ice with the president.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich asks, “How many Scaramuccis until Jeanine Boxwine gets shitcanned?” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Former AP D.C. bureau chief Ron Fournier: Trump’s Truth Social scam “should be impeachable, if not illegal.”
■ Poynter: Another reporter’s been targeted in Trump’s hunt for leakers.
■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob appeals to reporters: “Stop saying Trump is joking when he’s not.”
‘A reckoning for the Democratic establishment?’ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer is watching Michigan’s primary today.
■ The American Prospect: “The Michigan revolution is about old-fashioned politics.”
■ Illinois Democrats have been knocking on doors over by there.
■ Author and Emmy-winning veteran NBC and NPR broadcast journalist Jeff Kamen fears “Trump’s panic is going to explode in our faces before the midterm election, probably manifesting in an attempt to deploy our military as well as ICE and his Jan. 6 marauders into blue and purple states.”
■ The AP’s tracking today’s state primaries live.
Including Illinois. Twenty-five states are suing the Trump administration over its fresh round of tariffs, accusing it of “trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses.”
■ Capitol One, defending itself against a lawsuit filed by one of Trump’s companies, says it closed his bank accounts after they displayed characteristics of money laundering.
‘I sell with my daughter because there is no one else who can care for her.’ A single mother from Ecuador talks to the Tribune (gift link) about the growing number of migrant kids peddling flowers on Chicago’s streets—often at night, sometimes alone.
■ Illinois’ tax holiday for sales of back-to-school necessities returns Friday and runs through Aug. 16.
■ Love, Money + Real Estate columnist Ilyce Glink offers parents money-saving tips for that shopping.
■ A new law signed by Gov. Pritzker will require most Illinois stores to accept cash—as of 2028.
‘The second coming of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.’ That’s how the Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman says Mayor Johnson is derogatorily portraying Illinois Secretary of State and mayoral candidate Alexi Giannoulias, who says he’ll close some public schools if he’s elected.
■ For the second time in days, the mayor’s losing a member of his budget team: This time, it’s budget director Annette Guzman.
Divvy more. Chicago’s expanding bike-sharing opportunities along the lakefront.
■ But housing? Meh. Crain’s Dennis Rodkin (gift link) reports that only Alaska built fewer homes per capita than Illinois between June of last year and May of this year.
World in flames. Photos for The Atlantic (gift link) convey the devastation of wildfires that have sent thousands fleeing Spokane, Washington.
■ A Spokane man’s been charged with arson in connection with one of three fires.
■ Fires outside Athens, Greece, forced the evacuation of more than a thousand people.
■ Concerned about global warming? Consider filing a public comment on the future of natural gas in Illinois.
‘YouTube is the villain of this story.’ The pseudonymously-bylined Closer to the Edge newsletter details what happened, character-by-character, in a search for the phrase “T-R-U-M-P F-A-S-C-I-S-M” on Google’s video platform.
■ LateNighter: Fake Jimmy Kimmel monologues are multiplying on YouTube.
■ The Guardian details Google Earth’s “potential disinformation nightmare”—a feature that briefly let users overlay AI-generated images on locations of their choosing.
Into the mystic. Fans and family today were bidding farewell in Dublin to songwriter and honorary Chicagoan Glen Hansard (updating BBC coverage).
‘Get used to it, you all.’ That’s Mayor Johnson declaring Chicago’s Lollapalooza weekend a success despite the mess it’s made of Grant Park.
■ Police report arrests at the fest were down, but hospitalizations were up.
■ A co-founder of the Pitchfork festival has settled a lawsuit with the fest’s corporate owner, Condé Nast, over charges he misappropriated more than half a million dollars.
$1. Pitch in a just buck a month—really—to keep Chicago Public Square coming, won’t you? Then see your name listed atop tomorrow’s Squarians roll call.
A Square public service announcement in honor of an old friend …
… named yesterday to the Radio Hall Of Fame.
… named yesterday to the Radio Hall Of Fame.
