‘Live from the Trump Kimmel Center’ / ‘Day 1 impeachment’ / Quizzes

‘Live from the Trump Kimmel Center …’ With tomorrow’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner going comedian-less for the first time in years, Jimmy Kimmel last night delivered an eight-minute speech including “jokes a comedian might do if our president wasn’t … scared of comedy.”

■ The Freedom of the Press Foundation has your bingo card for the president’s dinner speech right here.

■ A petition calling on the association to confront directly Trump’s attacks on freedom of speech was closing in on 500 signatories (including this newsletter’s publisher) …

■ … even as Politico says D.C.’s in “full celebration mode.”

■ Kimmel’s won his first Peabody Award for a season in which his show was yanked off the air under pressure from FCC boss and Trump acolyte Brendan Carr.

Obama + Colbert. Stephen Colbert says that, on May 5, as his show approaches its finale, he’ll broadcast the first interview with Barack Obama from Chicago’s Obama Presidential Center.

■ The Daily Beast: “Obama Sticks It to Trump With Huge Favor to Colbert.”

■ In a fresh round of social media diarrhea overnight, the president called for Obama’s arrest …

■ … as he sticks with his idiotic approach to mathematics.

You bet. LateNighter: Prediction markets—a.k.a. gambling companies—are increasingly hosting wagers centered on late-night programming and hosts.

■ A U.S. special forces soldier involved with the capture of Venezuela’s president faces charges of using classified information to win a bet about the operation.

Naval gazing. The Daily Show’s Michael Kosta scans the resume of Trump’s acting navy secretary, Hung Cao—who’s expressed fear that Virginia would be overtaken by witches.

■ The New York Times (gift link): Cao’s predecessor was asked to resign because he failed to deliver on Trump’s wish for a new class of battleships.

■ Dan Rather: FBI chief Kash Patel may be next.

■ Patel’s new nickname: “J. Edgar Boozer.”

‘Day 1 impeachment.’ Axios reports that Illinois U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez is at the forefront of a Democratic movement to begin now building a fresh case against Trump so they can get right down to it if they retake the House in November.

■ The American Prospect: “Congress has become almost totally irrelevant.”

■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link) on the call for a general U.S. strike a week from today to protest Trump’s reign: “Look at this action as the beginning of something. Where it ends is up to us, the people.”

■ Law professor Joyce Vance calls the Justice Department’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center “a critical moment in the administration’s war on democracy.”

Don’t trust Dr. AI. The Conversation: A new study concludes that half of artificial intelligence’s answers to health questions are wrong—even though they seem authoritative.

■ The Times (gift link): A lawyer launched a newsletter to warn about AI’s dangers. If only his dad had listened.

■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to end the military’s flu-shot mandate: “Even George Washington knew he needed to vaccinate his troops.”

Weekly Dingus. Lyz Lenz’s pick: “The Ivan the Terrible of streaming. The Damien of YouTube. His government name is James Stephen Donaldson. But you know him … as MrBeast” …

■ … whose company’s being sued on grounds of sexual harassment.

Who knew you were such tough quizzers? With The Conversation’s quizmaster, past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel, taking the week off, readers devised this week’s eight questions …

■ … only five of which your Chicago Public Square columnist got right.

■ It was 3/5 here on City Cast’s Chicago-centric news quiz.

■ In honor of International Jazz Day, which will reunite Chicago’s jazz radio icons Sunday, Axios’ Justin Kaufmann’s assembled a Chicago jazz quiz …

■ … on which the guy to the left scored a middling 8/10 correct.

Independent together. More than 80 Chicago-area retailers tomorrow mark Independent Bookstore Day with a Chicagoland Bookstore Crawl.

■ The decaying Ford City Mall’s losing its last anchor store, JCPenney …

■ … but the mall itself has been granted at least a three-week reprieve.

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‘More people are going to get hurt’ / Ask your doc / ‘It’s alarming’

‘More people are going to get hurt.’ Chicagoan Marimar Martínez—shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in October—told Congress yesterday that the gunman’s flip text after the shooting read “like I was disposable to him.”

■ See that hearing here.

■ The feds prosecuting protesters at the Broadview detention facility plan to use the defendants’ “chants” as evidence of terrorist intent.

■ The Senate’s advanced a plan that would resume funding for Border Patrol and ICE.

‘Sometimes, two wrongs do make a right.’ Columnist Eric Zorn on Virginia voters’ approval of a congressional remap plan: “I despise partisan gerrymandering. … But that said, I’m thrilled that Democrats are fighting back.”

■ The Bulwark on President Trump’s objections to that outcome: “Even in the crowded catalog of Trump’s bogus fraud claims, this one stands out as laughable.”

■ HuffPost: “Trump started a redistricting war. Democrats are winning it.”

■ The Rights & Insights newsletter: “Trump has eliminated election safeguards and installed loyalist election deniers in key roles.”

Naval chief overboard. Trump’s Navy secretary—who had no previous military experience—is out, with no explanation.

■ In an early-morning social media post, Trump declared that he’s ordered the Navy “to shoot and kill any boat [sic]… that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

■ Concerned that his CBS show will end before the Iran war does, Stephen Colbert is bequeathing a big box of war jokes to Jimmy Kimmel.

■ Colbert’s also putting his giant “Late Show” sign up for charity auction—and bidding this morning had already topped $15,000.

■ Warner Bros. shareholders have OK’d a giant takeover by CBS parent Paramount.

Targeted killings, automated. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: “The U.S. military’s secretive Special Operations Command plans to establish its first-ever center for AI-driven missions.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: Trump “just heroically saved the lives of eight imaginary women.”

‘Also known as … wrong.’ Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nonsensical defense of Trump’s math is drawing ridicule.

■ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has blocked publication of a report showing COVID shots cut the likelihood of hospital visits.

■ The Onion: “Trump Conducts Marathon Reading Of Arby’s Menu In Appeal To Meat Lovers.”

Ask your doc. With a growing number of physicians using AI scribes to record patient conversations, tech watchdog Kim Komando recommends these four questions for your doctor on your next visit.

■ Block Club: A medical executive who fled to Dubai ahead of his indictment on charges of embezzling millions of dollars from Loretto Hospital finally appeared in court yesterday.

■ The Sun-Times: The owner of the property on which the shuttered West Suburban Medical Center sits is suing to take control of the place from his business partner, the CEO of the company that has ridden West Sub and Weiss Memorial to failure.

Library liberation front. Illinois lawmakers are weighing a bill to forbid publishers from charging libraries more for e-books and audiobooks than they charge the public.

■ Chicago-based historian Rick Perlstein talks to an acclaimed author of children’s and young-adult books about “the terror campaign against children's literature.”

■ The Trump-compliant FCC is investigating whether the TV ratings system is giving a pass to issues of gender identity in kids’ shows.

Breathe mindfully. A new American Lung Association report finds Chicago’s air quality among the nation’s worst.

■ Speaking of air quality: Trump’s reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug.

■ The CTA’s promising “refresh and renew” improvements for 28 train stations.

‘It’s alarming. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong.’ The New York Times’ executive editor condemns the FBI’s investigation of a Times reporter who documented fishy business under FBI Director Kash Patel.

■ The Times (gift link) calls it “an example of the Trump administration examining whether to criminalize … practices that are widely considered protected by the First Amendment.”

■ A free speech advocate tells CNN: “This … eerily echoes the bureau’s darkest days.”

■ Here’s the original Times report from February (also a gift link)—partly datelined from Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home, Dixon, Ill.

■ Wonkette: “Patel is a sober, cool dude who files reasonable lawsuits and has sex.”

■ Columnist Rick Wilson: Trump “picks people for loyalty, and loyalty in his world is inversely correlated with competence.”

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