BALBO BAGGING? The Sun-Times’ Michael Sneed reports Chicago aldermen are moving to remove a monument given to the city by Italy’s fascist president, Benito Mussolini, honoring Italian Air Force Marshall Italo Balbo
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■ Chicago’s Confederate Mound—a monument to soldiers of the Confederacy who died in custody at the city’s Camp Douglas—is under new scrutiny, too.
■ And similar debates are unfolding across the country, including Maine, whose governor compares removal of Confederate tributes to the loss of a Sept. 11 memorial.
■ Someone has burned a bust of Lincoln on Chicago’s South Side.
WELL, HE NAILS THE ‘COUNTRY BEING RIPPED APART’ PART. Doubling (or is it quadrupling or octupling …?) down on a failure to distance himself from white supremacists, President Trump has unleashed a fresh string of tweets on the subject—including one mourning “the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”
■ Abigail Tracy of Vanity Fair: “As long as Trump remains in the Oval Office, there will be no order imposed on the White House.”
■ The Tribune’s generally pro-Trump John Kass: Trump has “failed his morality test.”
■ Roger Simon in the Sun-Times: “Trump lost his moral authority? When did he have it?”
‘CAGED ANIMAL.’ That’s the way a person close to Trump describes the president under the administration of his chief of staff, John Kelly.
■ In an unsolicited interview with a liberal magazine, Trump strategist Steve Bannon labeled the far right “a collection of clowns”—and then bragged that he “changed the [media] narrative” with a single phone call.
‘IF I GOTTA GIVE HER UP, WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT COUNT.’ The mother of Heather Heyer, the woman killed Saturday as she demonstrated against Nazis in Charlottesville, told a memorial service yesterday that those who “tried to kill my child to shut her up … just magnified her.”
■ Huffington Post editor Chloe Angyal: “Heyer was the alt-right’s worst nightmare.”
‘UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS ARE NOT DRIVING VIOLENCE IN CHICAGO.’ Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson smacks back at U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who’s making the city his scapegoat in the Trump administration’s campaign against so-called sanctuary cities.
■ Without clear indication Sessions approves, the Justice Department is working on legislation to make an attack like the one in Charlottesville a federal crime.
■ A former member of the U.S. intelligence community is demanding the Pentagon “explain how the f--k” one of the right’s most unrepentant conspiracy theorists has Top Secret security clearance.
■ A Sun-Times editorial rebukes Gov. Rauner: “If anybody is ‘bailing out’ anybody, it’s the northeast counties of Illinois, with the mighty engine of Chicago at their hub, bailing out the rest of the state.”
■ A Sun-Times editor tells media critic Robert Feder reaction to the paper’s “FAKE PRESIDENT” front page Wednesday came as a surprise. (Third item in column.)
■ The Chicago Board of Ethics’ run of fines for unregistered lobbying is driving record levels of registration.
THE ECLIPSE FROM CHICAGO. DNAinfo visualizes what you’ll see from, for instance, Wicker Park—if the skies are clear.
■ Things not to do during the eclipse: Don’t wear 3-D movie glasses and don’t wear eclipse glasses while looking through binoculars.
PIMP SKIT SUIT. An acting student at Moraine Valley Community College is suing, complaining he was unfairly punished for what happened after his improv teacher assigned him to pretend to be a pimp trying to collect money.
