Be like Owen Youngman and Patricia Skaja. Support Chicago Public Square. And now the news:
■ Updating coverage: A raft of suspects have denied writing it …
■ … including Trump’s director of national intelligence, former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats—a person MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell fingered convincingly. (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
■ Despite that telltale word lodestar, Vice President Pence’s office denies he wrote the letter.
■ CNN’s updating a whodunit rundown.
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce: “To hell with this person, whoever it is. … Stand up in the light of day and tell your stories.”
■ New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz: The author is “a moral coward.”
■ Trump—who Axios says now sees “snakes” everywhere—suggests the Times made it up.
■ Trevor Noah to the so-called “resistance” in the White House: “The 25th Amendment is there so you can use it. It’s like there’s a sign that says In Case of Emergency, Break Glass, but these guys were like, ‘I mean, we could break the glass, but then there’d be glass everywhere.’”
■ And a few minutes later, Stephen Colbert aired the same joke.
■ Politico’s Jack Shafer: The Times “did the right thing in publishing Anonymous” …
■ … but it stunned even people within the Times organization.
■ Washington Post and ex-Times columnist Margaret Sullivan: Publishing the anonymous article “wasn’t ‘gutless.’ But writing it probably was.”
■ Phrase to know: “The sleeper cells have awoken.”
■ The Sun-Times: Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s out of the running, but plenty of others are nosing around.
■ The Tribune’s John Kass says candidates-come-lately “are what’s wrong with our politics.”
■ Veteran mayoral political strategist Marilyn Katz: “With Emanuel no longer a convenient punching bag, they can’t just say what they are against. They will have to say what they are for.”
■ Emanuel’s preparing to return millions of dollars in campaign donations.
■ A suburban state representative’s been cleared of sexual harassment claims.
Pointed deal. The mayor and Madigan are close to a deal that would require Chicago cops to document every time they aim a gun at someone.
■ A Trib editorial: “Instead of worrying about his place on the ballot, Emanuel can … set Chicago on the path to safe and lawful policing.”
■ In Chicago, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions railed against “anti-police radicals.”
■ As the trial of Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke begins, the family of the man he’s accused of murdering wants no violence, regardless of the outcome.
Kavanaugh’s secret memos. “An unknown person” has given The New York Times several emails written over the years by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh—including one in which he comes close to suggesting abortion rights aren’t “settled law of the land.”
■ A senator says he’s willing to release more secret docs and risk ouster from the Senate.
■ CNN’s live video of the Kavanaugh hearings.
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■ Southern Illinois University’s Edwardsville campus has passed
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