Birthright is … right / TV crew attacked / InfoWars reborn

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Birthright is … right. In a defeat for President Trump, the Supreme Court today upheld the concept that kids born to people in the U.S.—whether those parents are here legally or not, temporarily or not—are indeed entitled to U.S. citizenship.
■ In other action, the court upheld state laws banning transgender girls and women from school sports teams …
■ … and, in a victory for Republicans, struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties.

‘The Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.’ That’s Trump celebrating the court’s Monday ruling that historian Heather Cox Richardson says means “Even if the American people elect members of Congress who create agencies to protect our interests, the president can gut them and turn them to his own purposes.”
■ Political strategist David Axelrod: The court’s giving unfettered power to the president to fire federal regulators on a whim.
■ Law Dork Chris Geidner: The opinion stands to sow “chaos” across the federal government.

‘Illinois keeps counting as Trump fumes.’ Politico’s Shia Kapos says the justices’ ruling yesterday means Illinois can continue to honor vote-by-mail ballots that arrive after Election Day …
■ … but a Tribune editorial (gift link) maintains the state remains “out of whack on mail-in voting.”

‘A Watergate every week.’ When Vice President Vance declared that the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon would be just “a 12-hour news story” today, The Atlantic’s David Graham says he was right—but for the wrong reasons (gift link).
■ Journalism watchdog Margaret Sullivan was “disgusted” by Vance’s assertion. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ One of the editors on The Washington Post’s Watergate coverage dismisses Vance’s contention that “the deep state” brought down Nixon: “The truth did that.”

‘No one … can say that they did Nazi this coming.’ If Trump’s sharing of an apparently AI-generated image of a golden eagle attached to a White House balcony sends shivers down your spine, you’re not alone.
■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: “Authoritarian regimes throughout history have used oversized eagle imagery on government buildings as physical assertions of state power.”
■ Pondering the question “Am I proud to be an American?” columnist Eric Zorn says, “The word ‘pride’ doesn’t work its way into my thinking as we approach Saturday’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”

Is Chicago ready? Axios says this week’s extended heat wave is putting to the test the emergency response program the city enacted after the deadly 1995 heat wave.
■ The extreme heat warning’s been extended through Thursday night.

TV crew attacked. While a reporter and photographer for CBS News Chicago were prepping to go on-air yesterday afternoon near the Adler Planetarium, they were attacked by three men.

Lightfoot’s new gig. Chicago’s former mayor is joining Bally’s Chicago’s fight against widespread legalization of video gambling terminals … that aren’t, you know, at Bally’s casino here.
■ Mayor Johnson’s pushing a new tenant bill of rights for Chicago.
■ A bill on Gov. Pritzker’s desk would increase the state’s payouts to those who’ve been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

InfoWars reborn. The Chicago-based The Onion Thursday relaunches conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ misery-inflicting website as a force for good …
■ … among other things, giving more than $100,000 in sales from rainbow-themed InfoWars swag to the families of victims in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting—to whom Jones owes $1.5 billion for his lies.
■ Behind Onion/InfoWars ads like “Unlock the secret weath stream. Turn your piss into gold” is a fundraising pitch powered by the nonprofit News Revenue Hub …
■ The Onion’s corporate chief, NBC News veteran Ben Collins, tells A.V. Club the relaunch begins officially with a livestream broadcast Thursday night.

WhatsApp, doc? Addressing a security gap, the app’s letting people swap one’s phone number as an ID for a unique username …
■ … so you’re not giving your personal number to someone you just encountered digitally.
■ Apple’s updating its operating systems again—with security fixes that TidBITS’ Adam Engst recommends you adopt sooner than later.

Thanks, Bob. At Chicago Public Square’s email deadline, 10 a.m., veteran WDRV-FM The Drive DJ Bob Stroud was set to wrap up his career with a final “10 at 10” feature, “10 great songs from 25 great years” …
■ … and if you act quick, you can catch it live here.
■ Harry Politis made this edition better.

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‘Air you can wear’ / ‘Now, we have to go after them’ / To AI or not to AI?

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‘Air you can wear.’ That’s what a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago tells the Tribune (gift link) you can expect in a week of dangerously hot weather—especially today through Wednesday …
■ As the heat propels more people to Lake Michigan, longtime boaters tell the Sun-Times Illinois needs more rules over who can buy or rent a water vessel: “There’s no such thing as a driver’s license for recreational boating.”
■ Street closures have begun for Taste of Chicago, which returns a week from Wednesday.

Court’s grand finale. At the end of another term, the Supreme Court today handed down rulings in several big cases, including …
■ … defeat of a Trump-led challenge to states’ practice of counting late-arriving mailed ballots …
■ … rejection of the president’s push to toss a jury’s $5 million finding that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll at a New York department store …
■ … and dramatic expansion of the president’s authority to fire the heads of independent agencies.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance sees a few reasons to be cheerful: “Is it too much to hope that the rule of law could be rebounding as we head into the Fourth of July?”

‘Now, we have to go after them.’ Oak Park Village Trustee Brian Straw and his lawyer, Chris Parente, explain in a new Chicago Public Square podcast how they derailed the Justice Department’s case against Straw and five others in the government’s prosecution of Broadview immigration enforcement protesters—and what they’re gonna do next.
■ The Sun-Times reviews the broad impact of their fight: “High-profile cases are collapsing, judges want answers, and defense attorneys are calling for an investigation—and the possible prosecution—of Chicago’s top federal law enforcement official.” (Photos: Todd Bannor.)
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link): “The shocking 50-to-100-year prison sentences to leftist Texas protesters are more fascism than true criminal justice.”
■ Ctrl-Alt-Right-Delete columnist Melissa Ryan: “We’re all antifa (allegedly). The Trump Regime can’t define it. That’s the point.”
■ The Trib: The feds admit they detained for eight months and then deported a Chicago man to Venezuela because of a lousy “inadvertent error.”

Illinois passes. It’s one of several states opting out of Trump’s 250th anniversary celebration in Washington.
■ Ex-Jezebel editor-in-chief Laura Bassett: “No one showed up to the Great American State Fair except a masturbating Uncle Sam.”
■ Pulitzer winner Gene Weingarten went there: “I did not see throngs. I mostly saw small, scattered knots of folks who seemed stupefied.”
■ Everyone is entitled to my own opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: Trump’s “sleazy, for-profit attempt to hijack America’s 250th birthday … is quickly turning into a huge, stinky pile of shit” …
■ … and it’s getting worse.
■ Journalism watchdog Mark Jacob on a New York Times story about a billion-dollar mining deal that stands to benefit Trump’s sons (gift link): “The Trump regime has one goal: to stuff money in the Trumps’ pockets, no matter who gets hurt.”

‘As a centrist Democrat, I cannot accept new ideas. Or winning.’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke mocks those who fear the party’s moving so far left that it might win.
■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: “Corporate Democrats’ tantrums are not going to work.”
■ Former Trib columnist Charlie Madigan—who spent the ’70s as a correspondent in the Soviet Union—dismisses Trump’s “loudly voiced fear that election victories by Democratic socialists in recent primaries are signs of an emerging Communism being pushed by Democrats.”

■ Axios: The plan “underscores the pressure that media companies face to evolve as technology upends the way consumers engage with content.”
■ Spyglass columnist M.G. Siegler speculates on potential buyers—including Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
■ Another Times gift link: As a corporate merger threatens to put CNN under the same regressive leadership now steering CBS, its journalists are bracing for the worst.
■ The corporate parent of Saks and Nieman Marcus is out of bankruptcy—with a new name.

Swisher’s big swing. The AP says longtime tech journalist Kara Swisher is “betting the influence that made her a Silicon Valley force will translate into politics.”
■ Flashback: Swisher mapped the “war for the web” in a 1998 interview with your Square columnist—a sit-down that now feels like a time capsule from the dawn of the consumer internet age.
■ John Oliver’s begging for a role in a TV soap opera has paid off—with roles in two shows.

To AI or not to AI? An invitation in Friday’s Chicago Public Square to comment on reader and contributor Jan Kodner’s use of AI to generate editorial cartoons generated so much thoughtful response that … well, take a look at the first Square letters page.
■ LA Times alumnus and Rebuilding Local News policy director Matt Pearce: “It’s not journalism’s job to make AI more accurate.”

Like it or not … Please know that reader financial support keeps Square coming.
■ If you’re already a supporter, thanks.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

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