Didja feel it? / Platner out / ‘The End of Reading’

Didja feel it? Yeah, that was an earthquake centered in Lake Michigan yesterday afternoon rattling the Chicago region.

■ That could explain why your Chicago Public Square columnist’s monitor stand suddenly began wobbling.

■ If you felt it, the U.S. Geological Survey wants to hear from you.

■ The BBC last November: “Climate-induced earthquakes are brewing beneath our biggest cities.”

■ Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman: Brutal heat waves in the U.S. and Europe “represent the leading edge of serious damage—social, human, and economic—from a warming planet.”

‘A stage for one man’s unraveling.’ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese itemizes the “lies … coming from the man who controls our nuclear arsenal, commands our military, and is actively waging a war without consideration for his allies or permission from Congress” as President Trump joined the NATO summit yesterday.

■ The Iran war ceasefire that never really was is truly over.

■ Tom Nichols at The Atlantic (gift link): “Iran, not Trump, is in control of this war.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich mocks: “This is the guy who quite famously said he could have negotiated an end to the Civil War. How? By calling Jefferson Davis a stupid poopy-head?”

■ Trump’s flight home in an old Air Force One is raising new questions about that Qatari-bribed-gifted jet that took him to Turkey.

■ In what the AP describes as “a blistering speech,” potential presidential candidate and ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel—a Jew and longtime defender of Israel—told a Tel Aviv University audience that Israel’s present leadership has made that nation a “territorial pariah.”

Platner out. Credibly accused of sexual assault, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner’s withdrawing from the race in Maine.

■ Politico, which broke the story that broke his campaign: “It ended just the way it started—with an angry, gravel-voiced social media video.”

■ The party plans a nominating convention to replace him …

■ … but The American Prospect concludes that “the politician who can generate the same kind of excitement that the charismatic Platner did doesn’t exist in Maine.”

■ The Onion: “Platner Clarifies He Covered Penis With Tattoo After Learning About Its Troubling History.”

■ Columnist Eric Zorn on ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s absurd assertion that Republicans quickly abandon “bad” candidates: “I will not be lectured about propriety by any member of the Party of Trump” …

■ … who’s under a federal judge’s order to pay E. Jean Carroll $5.8 million for sexual abuse and defamation—now.

■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “Carroll is going to outlast Trump’s delay game.”

■ Add The Washington Post to the roster of media organizations that have whomped Trump in court.

‘The irony … gets this court extremely upset.’ Noting that “a ton of people … who, you know, tried to execute threats and harm to people who were law enforcement and government officials at the House of Representatives at the Capitol … all got pardoned,” a federal judge in Chicago nevertheless sentenced a suburban man to more than three years’ imprisonment for threatening Trump and others.

■ An ex-Wisconsin judge who helped a Mexican defendant dodge courthouse arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has been fined $5,000—but won’t do prison time.

■ Block Club: “ICE arrests are on the rise again in Chicago. Here’s what immigrants need to know.”

Fewer options for sick kids. Add the inpatient pediatrics unit at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet to the roster of such Chicago-area facilities getting shuttered.

■ Education columnist Jan Resseger: Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” has already begun damaging children’s well-being—and “it will only get worse.”

Spreading ‘myths about antidepressants.’ Popular Information: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a financial connection to a Scientology-linked law firm suing antidepressant manufacturers.

■ Project Democracy’s If you can keep it newsletter: “The federal government is now a superspreader of election lies.”

Compare and contrast. Wonkette’s Robyn Pennacchia: “The New York Times Would Like You To Meet This Totally Harmless Tradwife/Heritage Foundation Hack.”

■ Then flash back to this newly restored 1992 interview with Ms. Magazine’s then-editor-in-chief.

‘The End of Reading Is Here.’ That’s the title of an Atlantic piece (gift link) that begins, “Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.”

■ Former Tribune columnist and editor Charlie Madigan: “I miss all that printing, but I still have more information than ever. … Pretending the old days were full of diligent folks who just couldn’t stop reading is simply wrong.”

If not for you … Square wouldn’t have endured 9 1/2 years had readers including Matt Baron, Randy Young, Marcia Ferlin Hutnik, Michael Cornfield, Keelin Wyman, Judith Alexander, Ed Nickow, Rick Baert, Helen Kossler, Linnea Crowther, Wendy Greenhouse, Deborah Kadin, Lisa Fritz, Uri Toch, Margaret Benson, Jennifer McGeary, Fritz Mills, Elizabeth Austin, Ira Pilchen, Mary Novak, Lilia Chacon, Mark Hines, Phil Huckelberry, Josh Mogerman, Marni Curtis, Stephen J. O’Neil, Marjorie Isaacson, Deborah J. Wess, Jennifer Bartlett, Paul Zavagno, Bernard Schoenburg, Jay Gerak, Tim Powell, Rebecca Ewan, Kevin Iverson, Dave Tan, Maureen Stratton, Patrick Quinn, Scott Baskin, Ronald Paulson, Maureen Kelly, Taylor Kuether, Brian Rohr, John Metz, Mary Apcel, Rosemary Caruk, Victoria Long, Dan Schufreider, Arlene Johnson, Paul Kungl, Cynthia Wolf, Kiki Marie-Henri, Ken Shiner, Brian Doyle, Bonnie Saunders, Don Miner, Barry Winograd and Michelle Damico not made clear with their contributions that this service has true value.

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Shi… / Buckets ready? / Taste this, Chicago

Shi… The Illinois Public Health Department’s reporting an above-average caseload of cyclosporiasis—an intestinal illness linked to “explosive diarrhea.”

■ The state’s official guidance: Avoid “food or water that may have been contaminated with feces”—and scrub that produce.

Will he / Won’t he? Even though scandal-scarred Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has yet to resign from the race, the party’s already fighting over how to replace him.

■ Fresh revelation from The Washington Post: Platner’s ex-girlfriend says he removed condoms without consent during sex.

■ Handbasket reporter Marisa Kabas: “We didn’t need a rape accusation to know Graham Platner was unfit.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

■ Men Yell at Me proprietor Lyz Lenz saw it coming: “You don’t accidentally get a Nazi tattoo; you don’t accidentally threaten your girlfriends or accidentally sext other women when you are married.”

■ The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait (gift link): “Democrats Got Drunk on the Beer Test.”

■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein’s not retreating from his defense of Platner’s campaign: “Giving people a chance means that sometimes they won’t live up to it. No one should apologize for that.”

Hypocrisy in Texas. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune report that the state’s attorney general, Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who vowed to crack down on “illegal voting,” may have … um … voted illegally.

■ The Senate’s two top Republicans claim to have spoken separately yesterday with Sen. Mitch McConnell, whose aliveness has been widely questioned.

■ Gary Legum at Wonkette: “There was a time when a normal politician would have at least released a proof-of-life photo by now.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Republicans are going full Weekend at Mitch’s.”

Buckets ready? With more rain in the forecast tomorrow and Friday, the southern part of the Chicago area in particular is at risk of flooding as the Deep Tunnel network approaches overflow.

■ A pilot project is adding flood capacity on Chicago’s West Side.

Update your scorecards. Add cardiologist and Hines VA Hospital whistleblower Dr. Lisa Nee to the roster of Chicago’s mayoral candidates.

■ The Tribune editorial board’s queasy about Police Supt. Larry Snelling’s decision to resign with two weeks’ notice in the middle of summer—but recommends holding off on a permanent replacement: “A search now is highly unlikely to produce the best possible applicants given the fact that Chicago will elect a new mayor in less than a year.”

■ One of Mayor Johnson’s most persistent City Council critics, Marty Quinn, says he won’t run for re-election.

What’s in the report? Now that Illinois State Rep. Harry Benton has quit in the face of rumored sexual harassment charges, count Gov. Pritzker among those calling for release of the ethics report that led to his resignation.

■ Benton still holds a $72,000-a-year job as a suburban highway commissioner.

■ The Illinoize: Democratic State Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana and her husband, the Champaign County clerk, have been federally indicted—accused of using state grants to secure kickbacks and using campaign funds for personal use.

‘ICE is now investigating U.S. citizens who speak out against them.’ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese on a wave of intimidation against citizens who’ve been critical of the agency: “Authoritarian movements … begin by making examples of a few people and waiting to see whether fear spreads faster than outrage.”

■ The Bulwark: “ICE is shooting people again.”

■ The criminal justice and voting rights newsletter Bolts: Illinois is among the states that now let people file civil lawsuits against federal agents who violate their constitutional rights.

■ Sharing an immigration case on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” Law Dork Chris Geidner sees “yet another example of … cruelty the Trump administration is putting people through in service of its anti-immigrant extremism.”

‘As proof of concept, it’s a rousing success.’ Public Notice reviews D.C.’s Great American State Fair: “Trump was able to snatch congressionally allocated funds, commingle them with cash from corporations seeking favor from his administration, enrich his buddies, and throw himself two spectacular birthday parties.”

■ The Onion: “Report: Trump Made $1.4 Billion As President Off Selling Tupperware To Friends.”

‘Our major news outlets apparently aren’t up to the job.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin says that, rather than debunk Donald Trump’s “Big Lie … that Democrats are godless communists who want to destroy the country,” mainstream news orgs “have responded largely with mild stenography—effectively amplifying his lies.”

■ Ex-New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan calls on the Times to fix its milquetoast Trump headlines: “Less polite deference; more plainspoken directness.”

■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: Stepping up its fight against the Federal Communications Commission, ABC reminds the commission it already ruled that The View is a news show.

■ Media Institute senior fellow Stuart Brotman: “The country’s experience of watching the same thing at the same time has fragmented into something else that’s still being named.”

Chicago.com rising. Sun-Times and WBEZ owner Chicago Public Media is reviving a long-coveted but long-dormant web address …

■ … which now looks like this …

■ … but which the Internet Archive recalls looked like this in 1998.

Taste this, Chicago. Taste of Chicago is back, baby …

■ … and with it, some of the city’s most noteworthy outdoor concerts.

■ At Chicago Public Square’s 10 a.m. email deadline, a new batch of tickets to the Obama Presidential Center was set for release on the web.

‘The work you do every day, distilling so much into something so readable and so badly needed, is a treasure beyond measure. Sprinkled with your wit, bad news actually becomes palatable.’ Those kind words yesterday accompanied a generous round of support that keeps Square free for all.

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