Win, win / #ShowMeYourHellhole / Quizzes!

Chicago Public Square’s taking a few days off. We’ll meet here again Wednesday.
 Until then, catch breaking news and perspective via the Square Bluesky account.
 Forthwith, the news for now:

Win, win. In a pair of federal court victories for Chicago and Illinois yesterday:
 One federal judge has blocked the Trump administration—for two weeks—from “ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois” …
 … also ordering immigration agents not working undercover to wear visible ID in the Chicago area.
 Could make for a less fraught Chicago Marathon Sunday.
 Chicago-born Pope Leo yesterday: “Doing the work of a journalist can never be considered a crime. … It is a right that must be protected.”
 A federal magistrate judge was set to rule this afternoon in the case of an Oak Park native* accused of shoving U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino after Bovino had pushed him and other protesters at the Broadview ICE facility.
 Parodying a Tribune editorial putting the onus on Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson to keep their cool during the federal incursion, press critic Mark Jacob envisions the Trib’s response to the Wicked Witch’s assault on the Emerald City: “Show some civility, Dorothy.”

Trump’s immigrant crime math ‘is for the birds.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg rips into the president’s calculations.
 A Chicago elementary school teacher joined the mayor yesterday to share the trauma of tear gas that made it into her classroom last week as she taught first graders addition and subtraction.
 WBEZ and the Sun-Times: Long before that jarring immigration raid, “unlivable” conditions festered at a Chicago apartment building.
 Former Trib photographer Alex Garcia shares images from years ago, when the paper was one of a small group of organizations allowed inside the Broadview facility to document the whole deportation process.
 Chicago columnist and Politically Correct Bedtime Stories author James Finn Garner says it’s been tough to write amid all this—noting ironically that “the governor of Texas … piled immigrants into buses and sent them up to Chicago in the dead of winter. We helped those poor folks out, because WTF else are you going to do?

#ShowMeYourHellhole.
Jimmy Kimmel’s inviting residents of Chicago and Portland—towns Trump has described as “hellholes—to submit YouTube video with that hashtag, illustrating “all the horror the administration is defending you from” …
 … and, among others, Gov. Pritkzer has complied: “We’ve seen people being forced to eat hot dogs with ketchup on them.”
 Public Notice: Trump’s reason for invading Portland is “impossibly dumb.”
 USA Today on a viral photo of Chicago’s hefty new occupants: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told hundreds of top military commanders last week that it was ‘tiring’ to see ‘fat troops.’ The arrival of the Texas National Guard to Chicago could leave him exhausted.”

Mideast ceasefire. In what the AP calls “a key step toward ending a ruinous two-year war,” Israel and Hamas today announced a pause in hostilities ahead of an exchange of hostages and prisoners …
 … under a deal brokered in part by Trump, with “a whole lot of help from Arab and Muslim allies.”
 A Trib editorial addresses Trump: “Bringing about the conditions for peace must be a great feeling. We hope you start to employ these same tactics back at home.”
 The deal didn’t come in time to get Trump that Nobel Peace Prize.

Another check on Trump’s ‘enemies list.’ Cameron Peters at Vox explains the indictment of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who convicted Trump and his family of fraud.
 Lawyer/reporter Aaron Parnas: “The Justice Department has become an arm of the president’s political machine.”
 In that case and the charges against former FBI Director James Comey, lawyer/columnist Robert B. Hubbell perceives disgrace for the Justice Department.

‘What’s going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene?’ Add The Atlantic’s Will Gottsegen to the roster of those surprised by the Georgia Republican representative’s turn to the left.
 The progressive cohosts of ABC’s The View want her on.
  Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: CBS News’ new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss—who “makes Ron Swanson Burgundy look like Walter Cronkite.” (Updated, 10:16 a.m. Lenz has posted a correction.)
 The Verge offers a “Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed.” (Behind a registration wall, but you can see it by opening an incognito window.)

‘Go 8 for 8 and award yourself the Nobel Prize for Smartyness.’ That’s the pitch from past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel (seen above, wearing his Square hoodie), inviting you to try your hand at this week’s news quiz.
 Sadly, your Square columnist is an also-ran for that Nobel—scoring just 7/8 correct.
 Worse: Just 5/10 here for Axiostest of your Chicago memories …
 … but 4/5 on City Cast’s Chicago-centric news quiz.

A tip he should have kept to himself. Ignore Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s false assertion linking autism to circumcision.
 Wonkette’s Evan Hurst mocks: “Trump and RFK Jr. can tell if kids are autistic just by looking at their dicks.”

 Witnessed or been affected by book bans or educational censorship? 404 Media wants to hear from you.

‘AI is changing how politics is practiced in America.’ The American Prospect assesses tech’s impact on next year’s midterm elections …
 … making this an apt time to remind you that Square and Northwestern University’s Local News Accelerator are teaming up Nov. 3 to offer you interactive online coaching in the world of AI tools. Sign up free here.

2,800. That’s about how many people have unsubscribed from Square since its launch in 2017. Of course, that’s the way of the news biz: People subscribe, people unsubscribe—some because they’ve moved (on to another geographical location, or away from the news); some because they’re bored; some because they’re overwhelmed; etc. But this publication’s fortunate always to be welcoming new readers—a few of whom have found it worthwhile enough to support financially.
 You can join their ranks—for as little as $1, just once—here.
 Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.

* Who grew up down the block from your Square columnist.

‘Come and get me’ / Blonde cognition / Amazon crime?

‘Come and get me.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker’s response to President Trump’s demand he be jailed.
The New York Times (gift link): “Pritzker has had it with Democrats who won’t stand up to Trump.”
Block Club: A month into Trump’s blitz, “Chicago and Illinois are using every lever of power to push back.”
Columnist and former Chicago City Council member Edwin Eisendrath: “Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom.”
Closer to the Edge: “Federal agents shot a woman five times in a South Side Chicago neighborhood and they’re still hiding the goddamn video.”
Matthew Yglesias at Slow Boring: “The good news is that the harder Trump moves toward overt authoritarianism, the more backlash he tempts.”

‘A landmark day.’ The Tribune previews a federal court hearing this morning—at which Trump administration lawyers were set to defend the deployment to Chicago of National Guard troops …
 … a prospect that last night drew hundreds of protesters to a downtown demonstration.
Politico: A group of former governors from Republican-led states is siding with Illinois against Trump in this case. (Photo: A Chicago Public Square reader who was there.)
Contrarian Jen Rubin: “Lower courts are increasingly determining that accepting Trump’s disingenuous rationalization amounts to dereliction of their judicial duties.”
Block Club: Another court’s ruling against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s warrantless arrests could free hundreds of Chicago-area people.

Just when you thought the news media had it right. As journalists nationwide celebrated a First Amendment lawsuit Illinois news organizations filed against the Trump administration over repressive action in coverage of ICE in the Chicago area, the Illinois Press Association has withdrawn from that suit and its CEO has quit …
 … even as the federal judge in that case has at least temporarily upheld reporters’ right to do their jobs without unprovoked attacks by federal agents.
ProPublica co-founder Richard Tofel: Don’t think that freedom of the press is just a legal issue.
Poynter’s Tom Jones sees an unlikely ally for the anti-censorship movement: Sen. Ted Cruz.
Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich analyzes the media’s vulnerability to Trump—and what concerned citizens can do about it.
Tonight at 6, the League of Women Voters of Oak Park and River Forest and the nonprofit publisher Growing Community Media* host a panel discussion at the Oak Park Public Library, “Can Local Journalism Survive?

No names, no faces—and no plates. The Sun-Times reports that immigration agents—who’ve taken to hiding behind masks and not wearing ID tags—are now also driving vehicles without license plates.
The Chicago Public Schools system has created a command center to monitor ICE activity.
Restaurants especially are on high alert.
The Reader: ICE is now targeting Chicago’s homeless community.

‘Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud accidentally.’ Trump’s deputy chief of staff is under scrutiny after invoking the phrase “plenary authority”—suggesting the president has limitless power—before freezing mid-sentence.
Historian Steven Beschloss sees it as another sign Republicans “will do anything to expand their power and further dismantle our democratic system.”

‘Emotionally exhausted.’ The Sun-Times checks in with federal workers still on the job through the continuing government shutdown.
If you find yourself stranded or delayed at an airport because of the shutdown, know you have some rights.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in a newly elected Democratic representative who could cast a pivotal vote on the release of government documents about dead Trump pal and child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Blonde cognition.
Columnist Elaine Soloway challenges you to distinguish Attorney General Pam Bondi from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt …
 … and then imagines them swapping roles—to the notice of no one.
The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link, possible because readers like you underwrite the cost of Chicago Public Square’s production) that last month’s Truth Social post in which Trump publicly ordered Bondi to prosecute former FBI chief James Comey was indeed supposed to have been a private text.
Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinionator Jeff Tiedrich: “Pamnesia Pam can’t remember shit about Dear Leader’s dead pedo bestie.”

Amazon crime? A lawsuit contends the company’s Prime Day sales are a fraud.
In what columnist Cory Doctorow calls “a huge ideological victory,” California’s banned algorithmic price-fixing—by outfits that aggregate all the prices charged by every major seller in the market and then advise all of them to raise prices in sync.

‘iOS 26 has your reckless back.’ Gizmodo: Apple’s new iPhone software “just made driving like an asshole a lot easier.”
The AP: Another new feature can help keep junk calls at bay.
404 Media: Apple’s banned an app that simply archived videos of ICE abuses.

Chatting? Sure. News? Nah. Reuters Institute research finds people using ChatGPT twice as much as they did last year—but just as skeptical about AI in journalism …
 … which makes Chicago Public Square’s interactive online coaching session Nov. 3 on AI tools and fact-check tips even more timely. Sign up free here.

* On the board of which your Square columnist serves.

Square up.

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