Signs of a spine / ‘The optics are horrible’ / Watch your mailbox

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Signs of a spine. The fourth try proved a charm as the U.S. House—with four Republicans joining Democrats—for the first time OK’d a war powers resolution that would kill President Trump’s war on Iran.
■ Predictably, Trump took to social media this morning to label those Republicans “bad” and “unpatriotic.”
■ But columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich sees a sign that Trump’s clout “is whooshing away. … Something important has changed.”
■ Heads Up News proprietor Dan Froomkin takes cues from Hungary in outlining how to “put Trumpism fully behind us.”

Not dead yet. Popular Information: Contrary to claims from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund” isn’t off the table.
■ Lawyer/columnist Robert Hubbell calls that “a sign that Trump no longer cares about Republican prospects for the midterms or 2028.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: The president’s choice of “soul-sold Trump toady” Bill Pulte to head the national intelligence operation “is a bad, bad choice that could put Americans in danger.”
■ Unearthed video shows Pulte getting a lewd award.
■ The Bulwark: “A ‘degenerate’ buffoon” now heads U.S. intelligence.

Trump health questions. Add ex-Vice President Dick Cheney’s old doctor to those calling for the president’s doctor to face reporters and address the president’s long disappearances from the public eye …
■ … although columnist Jeff Tiedrich notes that the president’s handlers yesterday “finally let him out of his spider hole so he could hold an Oval Bordello dog-and-pony show.”

California cliffhangers. The vote-counting continued today from Tuesday’s primary, with declarations of winners likely days—or weeks away.
■ A congressman unseen for three months won renomination in New Jersey’s Republican primary …
■ … prompting The Daily Show’s Ronnie Chieng to pronounce him maybe “the greatest politician of all time.”

‘The optics are horrible.’ Poynter’s Tom Jones writes: “Just when you thought the CBS News soap opera couldn’t get any more dramatic …”
■ The AP recaps “A dizzying week of public airing of dirty laundry”—including remarks to staff from news chief Bari Weiss and fired 60 Minutes’ anchor Scott Pelley’s response.
■ Jimmy Kimmel last night branded Weiss and company “Trump suck-ups” …
■ … but Weiss’ handpicked CBS Evening News anchor, Tony Dokoupil, last night saluted Pelley as “a journalist who valued truth at all costs.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg’s not all that sympathetic: “What was he expecting? His new boss to blink, smack his forehead and say, ‘My God Scott, you’re absolutely right! We are being vile corporate asshats.’”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn offers the memo CBS execs should have written instead of firing Pelley.

Watch your mailbox. Postcards going out offer longtime Comcast and Xfinity customers a piece of a $117.5 million settlement over a major data breach.
■ The deadline for filing is Sept. 14.
■ Tech watchdog Kim Komando: Using your phone to pay is safer than tapping or swiping.
■ Still relying on Microsoft Office 2019? Not for long.
■ TidBITS advises iPhone owners to jump on a new software update: “A bug that blocks charging precisely when you need it most is worth squashing with alacrity.”

‘401 North Obama.’ The campaign to rename Wabash Avenue—home to Trump Tower in Chicago—in honor of Barack Obama has a new website …
■ … and, as of early this morning, more than 13,000 signatures.
■ Columnist Susan Berger toured the Obama Presidential Center in Hyde Park: “The contrast to today is so drastic, I cried.”
■ The New York Times’ critic (gift link) sees the center as having two sides: “A lovely park and a forbidding tower.”
■ The Tribune’s A.D. Quig breaks down what to expect when you visit.

Pellet putdown. Among the many bills Illinois lawmakers passed in a hectic last few hours of this legislative session: One making the state the first in the Great Lakes region to classify plastic pellets as pollutants …
■ … and another creating a state-run investment fund for grants to nonprofit organizations.

Clarification. Yesterday’s Square erroneously suggested that thousands of local home listings vanished overnight this week—when in fact that happened last month.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

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‘Incompetence and unprofessionalism’ / Trump’s ‘shock defeat’ / 🤔 / Hey, kids! Facebook cares!

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‘Incompetence and unprofessionalism.’ Fired by CBS after slamming the regime of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley’s fired back with a list of grievances—including, “Management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
■ Read his words here.
■ Author and podcaster Kara Swisher says that letter of dismissal confirms Nick Bilton’s role as “a clownish patsy of powerful and incompetent owners.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Satirist Andy Borowitz: “Weiss Exits CBS to Run North Korean State Media.”

Dine on. The White House Correspondents Association—whose April dinner was disrupted by gunfire—is gonna try again next month with more security …
■ … and with President Trump.
■ Poynter media critic Tom Jones asks: Why?

‘If you thought Tulsi Gabbard was a problem …’ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance says President Trump’s choice of Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte as his next national intelligence director means that “Pulte, whose role will include advising the president on potential foreign interference in the elections, could aid with an agenda designed to ensure favorable outcomes—seizing ballots or election equipment, or even offering a rationale for canceling elections with claims of foreign interference.”
■ Mostly—and sadly—behind a paywall, columnist Julie Roginsky says Pulte “may be the most dangerous appointment Trump has made.”
■ If the name rings a bell, it’s because his family’s big in real estate. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman, on a roll.)
■ The Bulwark: “Pulte is a putz—but a dangerous putz.”
■ He’ll be doing double duty—continuing his role overseeing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac even as he assumes control of U.S. intelligence operations.
■ Speaking of real estate: In the continuing feud between Zillow and local industry leaders, thousands of local home listings vanished overnight last month.

‘We are not moving forward with the fund, period.’ Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says the president’s “anti-weaponization” slush fund is dead.

‘Chaos, deep internal dysfunction and alleged misconduct.’ Illinois Sens. Durbin and Duckworth are calling for the resignation of Chicago’s top prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, after the botching of the “Broadview Six” case.
■ Boutros has confirmed that he had unusual contact with federal grand jurors in the case.

‘Extreme and outrageous … intolerable in a civilized community.’ An ex-WGN-TV producer has filed a $10 million lawsuit against the feds over her violent treatment by federal immigration agents as she recorded their detention of a man in October.
■ You can see their actions, recorded by a neighbor, here.
■ Lest you think the ruthless behavior’s over in Chicago, consider this Sun-Times headline: “ICE agents shock man with Taser, barrel into car during chaotic arrest in Albany Park.”
■ Borderless: Illinois’ law to keep ICE out of courthouses isn’t working.

Trump’s ‘shock defeat.’ Surveying the results of Tuesday’s primaries, The New York Times (gift link) sees a rejection of the president in Iowa.
■ Updating coverage: California results were unclear.
■ The Supreme Court’s cleared Alabama’s Republicans to wipe out one of its two majority-Black congressional districts …
■ … which The American Prospect says sets the stage for bringing “the pre-1960s South … back from the dead.”

🤔. The Washington Post (gift link): “The newly operational Trump Presidential Library … says that it cannot find a single Twitter direct message sent by a president who tweeted more than 25,000 times during his first administration.”
■ In what Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch says may be New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie’s best column ever (another gift link), Bouie writes, “America broke something when it gave Trump a second chance.”
■ The Daily Beast: “The Daily Show humiliated Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner” for buying an Albanian Mediterranean island.
■ Popular Information: The property’s been the focus of mass protests and a corruption probe.

Hat in ring. Illinois Comptroller and former Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza’s formally running for mayor.
■ Here’s her launch video.
■ Politico: The state’s Democratic and Republican parties have filed to remove white supremacist Richard “Sieg Heil” Mayers from the November ballot under the “Germanic Aryan Supremacy Smokers, Gamblers” banner.

Oil execs boosting personal security. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein says the Iran war has “changed the calculus … for an industry that profits directly from people’s pain at the pump.”
■ Trump confirms that he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “fucking crazy” in a Monday phone call about the war.

Shedding light on sunscreen. Your Local Epidemiologist rolls out what we know and don’t know about protecting your skin from the sun.
■ Beware a widely sold brand of cheese bread—recalled for a salmonella risk.

Hey, kids! Facebook cares! Meta’s expanding its protections to keep teenagers from seeing potentially harmful content.
■ A Tribune editorial celebrates Illinois’ pending new law to limit cellphone access in the classroom.

Thanks. Mike Braden and Deborah Wess made this edition better.

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