Welcome back. Assuming you’ve been following the Chicago Public Square Bluesky account these last few days, let’s dive right into the latest.
Election Day?! You’d be forgiven if today’s suburban primary elections snuck up on you.
■ Enter your address and the League of Women Voters will show you who and what’s on your ballot.
■ The ACLU: Know your voting rights.
■ Here’s where to track results tonight.
Axis of … us? The Trump administration joined those of (other?) dictatorships—including North Korea, China and Belarus—in rejecting a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Donald Trump has embraced Russian propaganda about its invasion.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “This country is on a shameful, frightening path.”
‘Warning: If you have kids … get them in here to see how great this is.’ Someone hacked monitors throughout the Housing and Urban Development D.C. headquarters to loop an AI-generated video of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet, with the caption “Long live the real king”—a thing that delighted Stephen Colbert.
■ PolitFact: Yes, the video played—and yes, it was AI-generated.
■ A Trump administration spokesperson pledges “appropriate action … for all involved.”
■ The Onion: “Musk Holds Office-Wide Contest To Guess How Many Sperm In Cup.”
‘5 bullets’ mess. Law Dork Chris Geidner: Musk’s demand that all federal employees detail “what they got done last week” has turned Trumpsters against Trumpsters.
■ Rolling Stone: Musk’s getting a flood of “very rude” replies …
■ … which may or may not traumatize the artificial intelligence programs that reportedly will be analyzing the responses.
■ Columnist Mary Schmich answers Musk’s call: “Hello, Your Royal Highness …”
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: “The angry townhalls are back. This time, voters are furious about the chaotic, clumsy and counter-productive cuts.”
‘It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot.’ The Associated Press: Of the contracts canceled by Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” almost 40% won’t save taxpayers a penny.
■ Politico: “The Trump administration keeps citing an untrue stat as it targets federal workers.”
■ Daily Show host Jon Stewart last night showed Musk how to save “billions of dollars in 11 seconds” …
■ … after, in a moment of (maybe feigned) outrage, he smashed a mug and cut his hand.
■ NPR: A new document undercuts Trump administration denials about a deal to spend $400 million with Musk’s Tesla.
■ The American Prospect: “Don’t expect corporations to save us from Trump.”
‘A Trump sycophant whose focus has been delegitimizing any and all legal steps taken against the president.’ Wired takes a critical look at Dan Bongino, the Infowars alumnus who’s now Trump’s No. 2 guy at the FBI.
■ Vanity Fair: “America’s food safety is now in the hands of Don Jr.’s hunting buddy.”
■ Patricia Marx at The New Yorker envisions a call to a federal agency in the months to come: “You have reached the U.S. government. We are currently unable to answer your call, because everyone has been fired except Bob …”
Law school shift. The American Bar Association’s at least temporarily suspending enforcement of its diversity and inclusion standard for law schools.
■ Mother Jones: LGBTQ federal workers are bracing for a purge.
‘I like to trash Trump some, so there’s a lot of things to keep it off my mind.’ Former Republican Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar talks to Politico’s Shia Kapos about his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
■ The AP spotlights former Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger in a report headlined “The few Republicans who still oppose Trump gather in search of a path to oppose him.”
‘The way we run public transit in Chicagoland is really, really weird.’ Columnist Richard Day scrutinizes the byzantine scheme governing how we get around—especially troublesome after the pandemic “blew a hole in ridership numbers.”
■ A Tribune editorial: “Why did Metra pay a team of outside lawyers $1.57 million to investigate its Police Department?” (Gift link, courtesy of Chicago Public Square supporters.)
■ WTTW: Chicago’s sitting on $142 million in federal pandemic relief funds.
■ Chicago Public Square five years ago today: “Travel or not?”
‘That ‘nothing-baby’ was … responsible for this laptop I’m writing on, the phone that’s in my pocket, the iPod shuffle that I’ve had for a decade and holds 1,000 of my favorite songs.’ Author and filmmaker Michael Moore shares a cautionary tale of Trump’s obsession with immigration.
■ Evanston’s City Council has passed a first-in-the-state law giving service workers—at Northwestern University, in particular—job protection if the contractor they work for gets replaced.
Not paczki! Not paczki! Rising egg prices threaten the price and supply of dough for Chicago’s regional seasonal treats.
■ Northwestern University research: “Brewing tea naturally adsorbs heavy metals like lead and cadmium, effectively filtering dangerous contaminants out.”
‘A move driven largely by spite.’ Advisorator Jared Newman walks you through how to download your Kindle ebooks—and explains why you might want to do the same before Amazon strips away that right tomorrow.
■ ProPublica: “As Facebook abandons fact-checking, it’s also offering bonuses for viral content … pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts the company once policed.”
■ HBO’s John Oliver explains how to change your Meta settings to make yourself less valuable to Facebook and its sibling platforms.
■ Platformer: Google’s quietly turned off a feature warning searchers that they might be getting unreliable results.
■ ZDNET reviews the best free software for filing your taxes.
(MS)NBC ya later. NBC Nightly News host—and former Chicago news anchor Lester Holt—is stepping down from that job to contribute more to Dateline NBC.
■ As part of what The Daily Beast calls a “bloodbath of non-white anchors,” soon-to-be-severed-from-NBC channel MSNBC’s canceled Joy Reid’s show.
■ Rachel Maddow, arguably MSNBC’s biggest star, slammed the decision: “It is a bad mistake … and it drops the bottom out of whether … this is a good place to work.”
■ Jimmy Fallon joked: “I got an email from NBC asking what I accomplished last week.”
‘Journalism shouldn’t look like feeding time at the aquarium.’ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob sees an upside to Trump’s White House ban of the AP—“if it makes the news media … less dependent on news items that politicians dole out.”
Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.
