Sorry about ‘hellhole,’ Chicago / ‘How stupid it is’ / ⌘-Shift

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Sorry about ‘hellhole,’ Chicago. In a new campaign video, Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey admits he “said something dumb” about the city in his last campaign …
■ … and then proceeds to hit the town.
■ You’re not alone if that reminds you of a scene from Blazing Saddles.

‘The court has declared the Trump administration’s unlawful orders defunct.’ Illinois’ attorney general hails a federal judge’s decision to toss a lawsuit over President Trump’s plans to send the National Guard into Chicago—because the plan’s not in effect anymore.
■ Gov. Pritzker: “Trump’s deployment … was a reckless and illegal abuse of power.”
■ Nevertheless, immigration enforcement fears have prompted Chicago to cancel its Cinco de Mayo parade for the second successive year.

‘She is beholden to law enforcement.’ A coalition of elected officials, clergy, journalists and lawyers seeking a special prosecutor to investigate “Operation Midway Blitz” has uncovered emails that it says show Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has failed to challenge the Trump administration’s immigration actions for fear of compromising her office’s “excellent working relationships with … federal partners.”
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: “The Department of Homeland Security is developing specialized smart glasses that will allow federal agents on American streets to automatically identify ‘illegal aliens’ from a distance.”

‘You've disgraced yourself and a great department.’ Columnist and ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich to resigning Trump Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer: “Goodbye and good riddance.”
■ She’s leaving after what the AP describes as “multiple allegations of abusing her position’s power, including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Donny is in way over his head, overmatched and totally unaware of just how horribly everything is going.”

‘Here’s how stupid it is.’ Political analyst Rachel Hurley has read FBI Director Kash Patel’s lawsuit against The Atlantic about his problematic behavior: “Let’s start with the typos …”
■ Popular Information: The suit “puts Trump in a difficult position. If Trump fires Patel now … it effectively confirms The Atlantic’s reporting”—which you can read here in a gift link.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “That the story was still prominent on its website … tells you all you need to know about The Atlantic’s confidence in its reporting.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg says the only question remaining is “which is shitcanned first, the lawsuit or Patel.”
■ An independent news ratings site is cautiously celebrating “a big win against government censorship. … The FTC dropped its investigation of NewsGuard. Now it’s organizing a boycott instead.”

Trump vs. English. The U.S. Education Department is dissolving the office supporting the teaching of English to public school students for whom it’s not the native language (Washington Post gift link).
■ Education columnist Jan Resseger calls that move “disturbing” …
■ … but it ups the chances for parody as Trump was slated to appear in a video reading a passage from the Bible.

CTA double-dipper? WTTW reports that a former Chicago Public Schools employee declared ineligible for rehiring after allegedly defrauding the district through a dual-employment scheme now has a six-figure job at the Chicago Transit Authority.

‘We’ll build this into a bigger comedy network.’ The Chicago-based Onion has a new plan to take over conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars by the end of the month.
■ Although a Texas judge has yet to approve the deal, The Onion’s make-believe CEO sounds optimistic: “Nothing can stop us now that we’re in charge of a website” …
■ … and it’s already designed a new logo:
■ The Onion’s real chief, Ben Collins—a.k.a. “Tim Onion”—more seriously explains “why we decided to persevere through all of the bullshit. … There's just gotta be a line somewhere.”
■ The company’s hired Cartoon Network “Adult Swim” alumnus Tim Heidecker to run the new Infowars …
■ … even as Jones vows to keep spewing the same crap under the banner Alex Jones Show.

⌘-Shift. Apple’s getting a new CEO—the guy who’s been overseeing iPhones’ design.
■ Journalism critic Margaret Sullivan is “baffled by the [New York] Times’ decision to devote its entire Sunday business cover to a fluffy feature story on [Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ spouse] Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who professes how much fun it is to be rich.”

‘Implications are vast, exciting and troubling.’ Columnist Eric Zorn assesses “the hilarious, ominous trailer … for Pi Hard, a movie not coming soon to a theater near you.”
■ YouTube’s offering actors, athletes, creators and musicians at risk of seeing their likenesses co-opted a proprietary detection tool to identify and request removal of deepfakes on its platform.

Chicago Public Square mailbag. Reader Benjy Blenner writes: “Trump is clearly not running the country. Who is? And why is that not a bigger story?”
■ Related: Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob writes, “More than a year into Trump’s second term … journalists— even lazy journalists—can’t miss this authoritarian rot. It’s not cluelessness anymore. It’s cowardice and complicity. And it’s inexcusable.”
■ Recapping this month’s Illinois Local Media Summit, Chicago Media Journal proprietor Igor Studenkov writes, “It was a good concept, and it had some interesting discussion—but I have some notes.”

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‘Demonstrate opposition’ / Anger management issues / Rivers rising

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‘Demonstrate opposition.’ Hundreds of veteran journalists and at least six national journalism organizations today released a letter calling on the White House Correspondents Association, whose annual dinner for the first time this weekend welcomes President Trump, to address head-on his “systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press”—which “render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose.”
■ You can read the letter—whose signatories include Chicago Public Square’s publisher—here.
■ Former AP D.C. bureau chief Ron Fournier: “Why celebrate journalism with a man who hates it?”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter explains “why I’m going.”
■ Columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich updates his list of “The 10 Most Important Ways to Resist Now.”

Anger management issues. A White House leak reveals that Trump threw a tantrum so big during a delicate operation in Iran that aides banished him from a briefing.
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link) broke the story.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Can you imagine any other president … getting eighty-sixed from the center of operations?”

Good reason to deprecate any news story centered on the words Trump said. Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump’s triumphant boasting that the Strait of Hormuz had been permanently reopened … unraveled in less than 24 hours.”
■ Updating coverage from the AP: U.S. seizure of an Iranian ship near the strait has cast doubt on fresh ceasefire talks …
■ … aaaaand oil prices jumped again.
■ Judd Legum at Popular Information: “As Trump’s son-in-law returns to Pakistan for more talks with Iran, major news outlets are largely ignoring an egregious conflict of interest.”
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: America’s wealthiest families control our elections.

‘Trump’s attack is not just on the pope and not just on Catholics but on Christians and Jews and Muslims across the country.’ Chicago’s outspoken Rev. Michael Pfleger says the president’s feud with Pope Leo is “waking up a sleeping giant.”
■ John Oliver on the president’s assertion that the pope is weak on crime: “It’s like saying this possum is weak on Balkan geography: OK, but who gives a shit? It’s not a possum’s job to correctly place Bosnia and Herzegovina on a map.”

‘I’ll see you in court—bring your checkbook.’ FBI chief Kash Patel is threatening to sue The Atlantic over a report documenting colleagues’ concern about his excessive drinking and unexplained absences (gift link).
■ Reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick to MS NOW: “I stand by every word of this reporting. We have excellent attorneys.”
■ The AP: Patel’s bureau and the Justice Department are scrambling to rebuild after a wave of departures.
■ The American Prospect: The U.S. labor movement is getting something it’s never had before: A centralized strike fund.

A Supreme Court ‘mess.’ As justices return today for the final run of oral arguments of this term, Law Dork Chris Geidner says a New York Times scoop “highlights the conservative justices’ brazen disregard for their own rules.”
■ Columnist Robert Hubbell: “John Roberts isn’t calling balls and strikes; he’s changing the rules.”
■ Here’s a gift link to the Times story: “Secret memos … illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine ‘shadow docket’ rulings on presidential power.”

Rivers rising. Even through a relatively dry weekend, Chicago-area waterways kept inching up.

‘What was once possible only for highly-skilled hackers … will now be available to any bad apple who can plug Please shut down Chicago’s Jardine Water Treatment Plant into Mythos.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg fears AI platforms give hackers powerful new tools for cracking cybersecurity.
■ A University of Pennsylvania student newspaper editorial: “As Penn pours endless money and energy into AI advancement … the University is only quickening its own demise. AI cannot coexist with education—it can only degrade it.”
■ AI watcher Michael Amicangelo calls that AI-generated preview of a movie that doesn’t exist, Pi Hard, “a trailer for the next era of human-AI collaboration in the arts. It’s bold, it’s beautiful, and it’s a little bit terrifying.”

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