Amazon + Chicago? / Democrats divided / 'Terrifying and chilling'

Amazon + Chicago? The list of finalists from 238 cities contending for Amazon’s new second headquarters includes Chicago … and 19 others.

Amazon calls the judging “very tough,” but the finalists include all the usual candidates. (Image: Amazon.)
Chicago’s also in the hunt to land Apple’s new second campus—and the 20,000 jobs it could bring.

‘When you rip the toilets out of your mansion to decrease your property taxes … that drives up every other Illinois homeowner’s taxpayer bill.’ In a Sun-Times editorial board forum, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss went after fellow candidate J.B. Pritzker.
Candidate Robert Marshall warned that a tape of Pritzker talking to since-convicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich makes Pritzker “unelectable.”
The whole session’s on video.

Democrats divided. Two of Chicago’s Democratic U.S. House members are supporting a challenger to one of their colleagues.
… lending strength to a campaign to unseat the state’s most conservative congressional Democrat.
Chicago’s elected women are sharing their #MeToo stories of harassment.
Who’s backing an “independent” government watchdog project in Chicago? A right-wing policy group.

‘All Italian, Irish, German and Polish immigrants … must leave immediately and be replaced by industrious Norwegians.’ The Tribune’s Rex Huppke follows the policies of “the decidedly non-racist people now deciding who’s fit to be an American” to their logical conclusion.
President Trump and his chief of staff, John Kelly, are at odds over the president’s campaign pledges of a border wall—a concept Kelly has labeled “uninformed.”

‘Federal employees should not be fired for doing their jobs.’ Sen. Bernie Sanders is defending an Energy Department employee ousted after leaking a photo of Rick Perry hugging a coal executive. (Coincidentally, it’s the same coal executive suing HBO news satirist John Oliver.)
A majority of the National Park Service’s advisory board members have quit in disgust with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
 Trump’s acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is asking Congress to provide no funding for the bureau.
USA Today: Inside Trump’s new Veterans Affairs office, early moves to help whistleblowers are drawing praise.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Republican Sen. Jeff Flake’s speech condemning the president for, among other things, referring to journalism as an “enemy of the people”: “He’s criticizing the President because he has terrible poll numbers.”

‘Terrifying and chilling.’ That’s how at least one journalist is labeling Trump’s belated awarding of his “Most Dishonest & Corrupt Media Awards.”
No. 1 on his list is
The Washington Post: Here are 11 real, imprisoned journalists.
The Huffington Post is ending publication of work by unpaid contributors.

‘As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.’ If you’ve ever quoted that memorable line, hoist a drumstick in memory of Hugh Wilson, who created WKRP in Cincinnati—and who’s dead at 74.
Where is Lanford, the fictional Illinois hometown of TV’s soon-to-be-revived Roseanne?

Are you getting the Chicago Public Square Annex—a Nuzzel-powered afternoon update on the news? If not, here’s some of what you missed yesterday:
Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury to become TV series.
Porn star Stormy Daniels to In Touch: Trump said I was ‘just like his daughter.’
Emanuel lectures City Council after 18 aldermen vote against him.
Obama Presidential Center activists shout ‘Shame on you!’ at aldermen.

Tomorrow’s edition of Square will arrive a couple of hours early, to give your publisher time to arrive at WBEZ’s studios for a 9 a.m. appearance on Morning Shift.

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