An ‘ill-chosen word’ / TrumPoem / Starbucks shuttering stores

Chicago Public Square will take a break. Friday will bring you an abbreviated edition, with The Conversation’s weekly news quiz as usual, and Square will return at full strength Tuesday morning.
 Through the extended weekend, catch breaking news and perspective by following Square on Bluesky.

An ‘ill-chosen word.’ Taking issue with Mayor Johnson’s assertion that “jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness,” columnist Eric Zorn writes, “Using the word ‘sickness’ to describe the men and women who risk their lives to keep us safe and to describe the institutions that incapacitate those who prey on our communities is something new.”
 Sen. Durbin’s hoping to meet with ICE about its Chicago-area raids.
 The Pokémon Company says it was “not involved in the creation or distribution of … and permission was not granted for the use of” its imagery and language in a Homeland Security video promoting ICE raids to strains of “gotta catch ’em all.”

‘You can’t believe they gave me my job back? I can’t believe we gave you your job back!’ In his second show after a suspension, Jimmy Kimmel cut President Trump no slack.
 Kimmel’s homecoming ratings—on-air and online—have been through the roof.
 Vice President Vance says the Federal Communications Commission chair’s threat to can Kimmel’s show was just “a joke on social media.”
 With the Nexstar and Sinclair TV chains still refusing to air Kimmel, the American Civil Liberties Union’s launched a petition drive encouraging both companies to change their ways.
 Lawyers representing, among other Disney shareholders, The American Federation of Teachers and Reporters Without Borders are demanding Disney/ABC turn over internal documents tied to Kimmel’s weeklong exile.
 In the words of one lawyer: “ABC was the network to run the series Schoolhouse Rock more than fifty years ago. Its leadership should pay attention to the important lessons it taught.”
 Lyz Dye at Public Notice:Disney set itself up for this shakedown when it settled Trump’s weak defamation suit last year.”
 Mark Stenberg at Adweek has four unanswered questions about Kimmelgate.
 The Lever: “A 1996 law from a Democratic president created Donald Trump’s censorship machine by consolidating media, broadband and tech firms. We can stop it.”
 Disney+ and Apple TV+ are both raising prices.

‘Censorship undermines the city’s ability to defend its residents against President Trump’s right-wing attacks.’ A group of artists says the Chicago Public Library has censored an exhibit critical of Trump.
 A statue of the president prancingly holding hands with convicted—and dead—sex offender Jeffrey Epsein has been removed from Washington’s National Mall. (Photo: The Secret Handshake Project.)
 Let columnist Neil Steinberg, back from a trip to D.C., introduce you to a disparaging word spotted on an anti-Trump poster.
 South Park was back at it last night—depicting Trump’s efforts to kill his and Satan’s unborn child.

Budget brinksmanship. As tensions rise between Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the White House has told federal agencies to prep plans for mass firings.
 Chalkbeat says Chicago will lose millions in federal funding for magnet schools because Trump’s Education Department disapproves of the school district’s services for Black and transgender kids.
 Newsweek sees in Trump’s fiscal policy a “Great Boomer Bailout: In America, the young pay while the old collect.”
 Columnist Christopher Armitage: “Republicans run 8 of America’s 10 poorest states. Maybe they should stop.”

TrumPoem. Columnist Mary Schmich’s latest lyrical lampoon of the president’s thinking on Tylenol includes this passage:
You’re pregnant with a fever
And you’re crying out in pain?
Just buck up, ladies, tough it out!
Don’t whimper and complain.
 Gov. Pritzker’s beefing up his new Autism Data Privacy Advisory Group.
 Grudge Report proprietor Bess Kalb satirically lists things that do and don’t contribute to autism.
 Columnist Matthew Yglesias: “It’s dangerous to have the White House … controlled by people with terrible epistemics.”

‘Hands Off Chicago.’ Organizers have set Saturday, Oct. 18, for the city’s next “No Kings” rally and march.
 The Tribune: ICE’s suburban Broadview facility has become “the place to be seen for candidates running in next spring’s primary elections.”

Starbucks shuttering stores. The company says it’s closing hundreds of outlets around the world …

Cubs’ ‘firestorm.’ Axios’ Justin Kaufmann assesses the criticism faced by the team for its management’s—and at least one player’s—political and media ties.
 Chicago-born John Mulaney will headline Wrigley Field’s first comedy show.

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Unbowed, unbent / ‘A dark fantasy’ / 100 miles of bikeways

Unbowed, unbent. If Disney/ABC placed any restrictions on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night after a suspension over his remarks about the assassination of reactionary influencer Charlie Kirk, they were nowhere in evidence last night as he struck what Variety’s Michael Schneider calls “the perfect tone.”
Angie Han at The Hollywood Reporter: “Kimmel met the moment with his powerful, tightrope-walking monologue.”
See it here …
 … or read highlights here.
Politico: Kimmel was close to tears as he praised the words of Kirk’s widow: “Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. … That is an example we should follow.”
This drew a standing ovation: “This show is not important. What’s important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
In a skit that followed the monologue, Robert De Niro played President Trump’s new Federal Communications Commission chief: “It’s just me, Jimmy, the chairman of the FCC, gently suggesting that you gently shut the fuck up.”

Trump rants. The president took to Truth Social to whine about Kimmel’s comeback: “We’re going to test ABC out on this. … Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter: That fulfilled a Kimmel prediction, providing “another crystal-clear example of the president using his government power to cajole a privately owned media company into changing its content.”
Emmy-winning comedy writer Merrill Markoe—David Letterman’s longtime head writer—warns that President Trump’s attacks on the First Amendment aren’t over. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

Meanwhile, on other channels … Kimmel’s timeslot competitor Jimmy Fallon told viewers last night: “You’re watching the wrong Jimmy.”
Stephen Colbert: “Thanks to everybody … watching from home—which might be just my wife, Evie. Because everybody else is probably watching ABC.”
But that wouldn’t include ABC affiliates owned by the right-skewing Sinclair and Nexstar station chains …
Nexstar’s NewsNation, sprung from the soil of the formerly Tribune Co.-owned WGN, is marking its fifth anniversary.
In other programming regression: Apple TV+ has postponed the premiere of a series about an investigator who infiltrates online hate groups with the goal of taking ’em down from the inside.

‘A strongman forced Kimmel off the air. The people brought him back.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link, possible because readers support Chicago Public Square with a buck or two): “Millions of democracy lovers found their voice, and … a renewed belief that we are going to win.”
The Big Picture: “On multiple fronts, Trump has been pushed back or forced to dig in and defend.”
Economist Paul Krugman sees in the Kimmel saga a sign that the tide’s turning against the president: “We may not be Russia or Hungary.”
Chicago-born journalist Terry Moran—fired from ABC after a tweet critical of Trump: “Solidarity works. That’s the lesson.”
Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin cheers signs The New York Times is “finally getting real about Trump” with some “surprisingly unflinching” articles.

Thanks, Trump. Gov. Pritzker’s ordering state agencies to trim their budgets by 4% as a buffer against federal cuts under the Republican administration …
 … which is scrambling to rehire hundreds of federal employees laid off under its aborted “Department of Government Efficiency.”

‘A dark fantasy of narcissism and Christian nationalism.’ Historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews Trump’s … oh, let’s say … whack-job speech to the United Nations …
 … two minutes of “deranged” highlights from which Zeteo provides here …
 … and in which the president told those nations, “Your countries are going to hell” …
 … repeatedly complaining about embarrassing escalator and teleprompter malfunctions that the UN later attributed to Trump’s own team.
Emily Atkin at Heated calls it the “dumbest climate speech of all time … so stupid and unoriginal, it was actually kind of funny.”
He also complained about the UN’s flooring.
CNN and PolitFact had their hands full fact-checking Trump.
One senior foreign diplomat texted a Washington Post columnist: “This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?
Columnist/lawyer Robert Hubbell: Trump’s destroying a U.S. legacy of goodwill.

‘End your dangerous operations in Illinois.’ The state’s Democratic congressional delegation is demanding Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem call off her deportation efforts here and provide definitive accounts of just what they’ve achieved.
Former Illinois Democratic Rep. Marie Newman: “We must … prepare to send a louder and more pervasive economic message: A General Strike.”
The TRiiBE surveys Chicago-area doorbell and security cam footage catching ICE agents in the act …
 … and shares Washington, D.C., organizers’ advice to Chicagoans on what to expect from Trump’s show of military force here.
The American Prospect: “While the president howls about crime in liberal cities, he is taking drastic action to make it worse everywhere.”
Updating coverage: Three people were shot at a Dallas ICE facility and the shooter’s dead from a self-inflicted wound, according to the agency’s director.

‘Deaths will follow.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg condemns Trump’s “lethal advice” to parents on Tylenol.
USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: That news conference “was a historic embarrassment for America.”
Coming Friday, Oct. 3, to Chicago’s WTTW-TV: A new Chicago Stories documentary, “Inside the Tylenol Murders.”

100 miles of bikeways. That’s how many more Mayor Johnson says have been built in Chicago since he took office.
A Tribune editorial complains: “Teens on e-bikes are having accidents in the suburbs. We need real rules.”

Thanks. Ron Schwartz and Jim Parks made this edition better.

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