And Chicago’s next? / Flocked up / Wanna stay private?

■

And Chicago’s next? Announcing his federal takeover of Washington’s police force and deployment of the National Guard to D.C., President Trump threatened to do the same here …
■ … calling Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson “incompetent.”
■ Pritzker says Trump has “absolutely … no legal ability to send troops in to the city of Chicago” …
■ … but the governor also acknowledges a parallel to the Nazi Party’s seizure of Germany’s government in the 1930s.
■ Popular Information notes that Chicago doesn’t even appear on the FBI’s 2024 ranking of violent crime rates per capita in 21 cities with populations over 200,000.

Here they come. Live updates: Guard troops began arriving in D.C. today.
■ Attorney Mitch Jackson: “This is not a law-and-order moment. This is the beginning of something far darker.”
■ Economist Paul Krugman—the target of a personal attack from Trump over the weekend: Trump’s playing the Carnage Card.
■ MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: It’s really about Trump’s “fondness for using the U.S. military to threaten and intimidate the American people” …
■ … but journalist and author Jonathan Alter calls it “just another dopey distraction stunt.”
■ Former Tribune editor Jim O’Shea: Trump’s grip on power is eroding in “a perfect storm of scandal, political blunders and global missteps.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Nobody knows what Trump is talking about anymore and no one seems to care.”

Guard on guard. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: “If the nearly half dozen Guardsmen I’ve spoken to about the deployment are at all representative, frustration with the order is widespread.”
■ CBS News legend Dan Rather: “There is no crime wave or homeless crisis in D.C., but there is a public relations emergency at the White House. It makes one wonder what Trump is trying to hide.”
■ Nevertheless, historian Heather Cox Richardson says, “The administration’s seizure of power is anything but imaginary” …
■ … and law professor Joyce Vance concludes: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is running the [D.C.] police for 30 days.”

‘Trump’s creeping authoritarianism must be met with peaceful resistance.’ CNN alumnus Jim Acosta: “Trump wants to crack some skulls, to hide his skeletons. It’s the art of the conceal. Don’t give him what he wants.”
■ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Trump’s cozy deals with corporate America: “It would be communism under any other dictator.”
■ Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect: “Someday, we will honor those who resisted Donald Trump. But first, we need far more courageous resistance.”
■ U.S. Senate candidate and Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi’s out with a “Trump Accountability Plan” to un-do what the president’s done—including a ban on masks for immigration agents and constitutional amendments to block self-pardons and a potential presidential third term.
■ Organizers are convening “Fight the Trump Takeover” protests across the country this Saturday.

■ Wary of the tech’s potential for abuse in immigration enforcement, Oak Park’s dumping its Flock contract.
■ A federal judge has cleared Chicago to join a suit aimed at blocking the Republican administration from defunding cities with laws forbidding law enforcement from helping federal immigration agents.
■ Chicago police are abandoning a handgun linked to hundreds of officer injuries.

Flood flashes. A national network of flooding sensors has been launched in Chicago, offering real-time alerts to help save lives and limit property damage in what the companies responsible say is now North America’s most flood-prone city.
■ The Tribune: Dozens of Chicago schoolyards have been transformed into flooding solutions.

Do-or-die for Chicago public transit. WBEZ: Without quick action from state lawmakers, the city could lose four train lines and more than 65 bus routes.
■ The Conversation: Next-gen passenger trains are here—just in time for U.S. rail to face an uncertain future.
■ Block Club has a bucket list for getting the most from the last weeks of Chicago’s summer.

Wanna stay private? The Markup and CalMatters have caught dozens of companies hiding legally required instructions for requesting your personal data be deleted.
■ But here they are!

Turning a page. The Associated Press has told its critics that it’s getting out of the weekly book review biz: “The audience for book reviews is relatively low and we can no longer sustain the time it takes to plan, coordinate, write and edit reviews.”
■ Sinclair—you may remember it as the Trump-friendly broadcast station owner that threatened to take over WGN-TV and Radio (2024 link)—is pondering a merger.

If you’re reading this for free … Thank those whose financial support for Chicago Public Square—including Jon Randolph (again!), Moondog (again!), Deirdre Walton, Michele Bukowski, Craig Kaiser, Joan Pederson, Taylor Kuether, Anne White, Christine Cupaiuolo, Scott Sachnoff, Molly Allscheid, Steve Nidetz, Donna Rigsbee, Heather Alger, Susan Karol, Eric Zorn, Marianne Goss, Maryanne Peterson, Susan Berkes, Nina Ovryn, Joe Hass, Teresa Powell, Ted Naron, Cat Reis, Walter Gallas, Harry Politis, Neil Parker, Mark Mueller, Craig Parshall, Mike Schultz, Kathleen Hogan, J. Michael Williams, Joe Hallissey, Doug Freedman, Candice Goldstein, Carol Gulyas, Maureen Kelly, Mike Hannigan, Jim Prescott, Rick Baert, Jim Owens, Phil Priest, Darrell Sherrod, Sara Burrows and JoBeth Halpin—has kept it coming for almost (it’s getting closer) 2,000 editions.
■ Pitch in as little as $1, just once, and see your name atop tomorrow’s roll call.

Trump’s D.C. power play / ‘Time for citizen action’ / Reporters dead / Dial-up’s dying

■

Trump’s D.C. power play. The president’s sending the National Guard into Washington to crack down on crime—and take control of the police force—in Washington …
■ … even though crime there’s at a 30-year low.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance is tracking a federal court trial that could determine whether Trump can do the same anywhere in the country.
■ See his news conference here.
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner celebrates a woman who may be the only appellate court Republican appointee in D.C. to stand up for a divided system of government.

‘Trump is an evil man and his idiocy gets good people killed.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg lays the death of a Georgia police officer on the president’s lap.
■ Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that shooting—which targeted the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters—“compounds months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification.”
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: “Those bullet holes are a haunting, terrible metaphor for what public health has endured over … the past six years.”
■ The gunman had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and (as it turns out, successfully) suicidal.

‘Time for citizen action.’ Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains how neighbors can join to provide help to families whose lives and well-being the Republican regime is threatening.
■ Contrarian Jennifer Rubin: “The deeper one goes into ICE’s operations, the more horrified one becomes.”
■ John Oliver mocks ICE’s recruitment of actor Dean Cain: “When you are reduced to pinning a badge on the 59-year-old star of The Dog Who Saved Christmas, maybe you are in trouble.”
■ The American Prospect: “With a new executive order and model state legislation criminalizing homelessness, the richest people in the U.S. are making it easier to lock up the poorest … people sleeping outdoors.”

‘What could possibly go wrong?’ That’s columnist and Tribune alumnus Charlie Madigan on the pending Trump-Putin summit.
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich on why they’ll meet in Alaska instead of much-more-mutually-convenient Europe: “America’s great frozen north is one of the few places on the planet where Putin can go without ending up in handcuffs.”

Fair weather turns foul. As severe storms knocked out power and closed roads, Wisconsin canceled the final day of its state fair.
■ Historically large rainfall triggered more than 600 calls for help—including water rescues.
■ You’re not imagining it: Much of the nation’s suffered record mugginess.

‘Return of the Rahmosaurus.’ Chicago magazine’s Ted McClelland puzzles over ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s stalking of the presidency.
■ Popular Information: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is down with stripping women of the right to vote.

‘The numbers added up quickly.’ Sources tell CBS Chicago that police can trace a rash of shootings in the Austin neighborhood to a blocks-long street party that stretched from Saturday night into Sunday.
■ Chicago’s citywide weekend violence toll: At least 34 shot, five fatally.

Reporters dead. Poynter’s Tom Jones: “The Israeli military killed more journalists on Sunday … and it appears to be no accident.”
■ The AP: “It was the first time during the 22-month war that Israel’s military swiftly claimed responsibility after a journalist was killed in a strike.”
■ Al Jazeera: The Israeli military targeted a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.
■ The Guardian updates the gathering of mourners for the victims.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters): “In L.A., police nightsticks are clubbing press freedom to death.”

No news is bad news. Dozens of communities across the country—including seven in Illinois—are without newspapers this week following their Illinois-based publisher’s abrupt shutdown.
■ Employees found out their health insurance was canceled immediately last Wednesday.

Chicago’s astronaut. Apollo 13 commander James Lovell’s death at 97 makes this an appropriate time to hear his 1987 reflections on his life in space—including the Apollo 8 mission that sparked a religious controversy: “After we came back ... we got sued.”
■ Cartoonist/columnist Jack Ohman: “Lovell and people like him really did make America great.”

Arts on the run. The American Prospect flags signs that Illinois is backing down from its historic pledge to put arts on the same footing as math and science in public schools.
■ The Tribune (gift link): New research concludes that college remains the best path to economic mobility—but poor and minority students are less likely to get there.

Dial-up’s dying. AOL—formerly America Online—next month will kill off its landline-based telephone connections to the web.
■ Flashback to 1998, when your Chicago Public Square columnist made the transition to a cable modem: “It's been hard—but fun—to shake the feeling that I have to get off to free up the phone or to keep our phone bill down.”

Square is free—as are almost all of its links. When people ask how long each of these editions takes to create, they’re often surprised to learn that one of the most time-consuming parts of the process is finding or creating links that won’t send readers headlong into a paywall. One tool: Paid subscriptions to publications that allow the sharing of gift links. And that happens only because, since the 2018 launch of our reader-support program, people like Brian Doyle, Alan Solomon, Randy Young, Jen Purrenhage, Steve Winner, Eric Hochstein, Jennifer McGeary, Emily Blum, Scott Baskin, Dave Walker, Mike Gold, Jason Sherman, Ted Cox, JM, Beth Kujawski, Kent Bridgeman, Thom Clark, Bob Kaige, Matthew Brenner, Anne Rowan, Mark Miller, Daniel Burke, Larry Dahlke, John Gilardi, Ann James, Stephan Benzkofer, Brian Gunderson, Margo Bristow, Craig Gunderson, Paul Engman, Anne Costello, Chris Rhodes, Jill DeVaney, Cate Cahan, Mary Cronin, Maureen King, Mary Kay O’Grady, Janean Bowersmith, Scott Knitter, Charles Sudo, Bill Herbert, Steve Ignots, Andrea Agrimonti, Joyce Winnecke, Keelin Wyman, Ruth Hroncich, Vidas Germanas, Paul Buchbinder, Margaret Benson, Sally Noble, Sarah Rodriguez, Fritz Holznagel, Ron Schwartz, Barbara Cimaglio, Jill Chukerman, Patrick Olsen, Stephanie Textor, Jeannie Affelder, Robert S. Gold, Jim Burns, Alternative Schools Network, Tony Judge, Emily Gage and Jerome Ostergaard have stepped forward to underwrite the cost of such things.
■ Join their ranks—for as little as $1, once—and you’ll see your name atop tomorrow’s thank-you list.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

A Square public service announcement
A benefit for the Lin Brehmer Scholars Fund. A star-studded lineup of Chicago-based musicians—including Jon Langford, The Linburgers (Matt Spiegel and Curt Morrison of Tributosaurus), Michael McDermott, Heather Lynne Horton, Scott Lucas from Local H and Eddie “King” Roeser from Urge Overkill—gathers at Metro Aug. 21 in a concert to fund college scholarships for high school seniors who face adversity and yet embody the values of the late WXRT-FM morning man: Curiosity, kindness, generosity and joy.
■ Tickets here.

Subscribe to Square.

It’s free.