‘Fake news … will say I got a very bad reception.’ That was President Trump’s prediction as he appeared at the Presidents Cup golf tournament outside Chicago—his first visit to the area in this term …
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: Trump “got to do one of his favorite things in the whole world: Stand next to a trophy that wasn’t his, and pretend he won something he didn’t.”
■ A mostly friendly reception nevertheless included what The Daily Beast says was a man shouting, “You’re a f--ing pedophile, Donald.”
■ See that here.
■ That was a day after Trump was booed loudly at “a college football game in deep-red Tennessee.”
■ Sources tell CBS Chicago a bulletproof suite built for the president went unused.
■ At least some of “The Front Row Joes”—the ardent Trump supporters who’ve followed him from rally to rally—are jumping ship; one of them tells Politico that if Trump “is impeached again, I will be walking the halls of Congress in support of that impeachment.”
■ Author and filmmaker Steven Beschloss: Republican “rats are fleeing the sinking ship—but they … are still too few in number to change the outcome of a likely Democratic tsunami.”
■ Columnist, former ad agency executive and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: “Never have I seen a worse TV spot for a brand than the current Trump TV ad” …
■ … for which you, taxpayers, are paying.
‘Israel’s survival is not on the line in the Michigan Senate elections, but our survival as a constitutional democracy is.’ Pro-Israel Political Update proprietor Steve Sheffey reassures Israel supporters reluctant to vote for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
■ John Oliver last night roasted Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
■ CNN: A Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission has repeatedly called for executing his political enemies—including Barack Obama.
Trump’s watching you. The Washington Sun reports that the White House app—riding a burst of popularity as the president launched his own 24/7 video stream amid a broadcast network boycott—includes scripts to monitor a user’s location several times per minute.
■ CNN: Trump’s still engaging in legally questionable “shenanigans” over who gets to cover him.
■ The president’s attorney general doesn’t seem to know the difference between inaccurate and unflattering journalism.
■ Ex-New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan: How you can demand better media coverage.
‘Shared values, not a quid pro quo.’ That’s Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s defense against a Sun-Times report that she’s been taking “millions of dollars in campaign contributions from labor groups that her administration negotiates collective bargaining agreements with.”
■ Chalkbeat reviews how Chicago school board incumbents up for reelection in November have voted on key issues.
Wrong-way crash. At least one woman is dead after a DuSable Lake Shore Drive collision that closed the road for hours overnight.
■ The driver of the car that was going the wrong way, causing a chain-reaction wreck, was in police custody.
Catastrophe-unready. More than a year after Illinois enacted a pioneering law aimed at anticipating migration to the state driven by climate disasters elsewhere, WBEZ and The Grist report the state seems likely to miss a self-imposed deadline.
■ The Sun-Times and WBEZ: Winning asylum in Chicago immigration court is nearly impossible.
■ A Washington Post story out of Champaign-Urbana (gift link): “She waited for hours and left untreated. The ER billed her anyway.”
‘A billion deaths.’ Microsoft founder Bill Gates tells NBC News artificial intelligence tech is powerful enough to do that much damage.
■ Tech watchdog Kim Komando: “A bad car gets recalled. AI can’t be. … Once it’s out, it’s out forever.”
■ Rolling out more digital price labels on its store shelves, Walmart pledges not to “set different prices based on who you are or the time of day.”
Thanks. Chris Koenig and Mike Braden made this edition better.
A Chicago Public Square public service announcement
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