Keeping it brief: Please support Chicago Public Square. And now the news …
■ Fox News’ Howard Kurtz: “Should a horrible, drunken episode at the age of 17 ruin a man’s career decades later? But Kavanaugh says unequivocally this never happened. If lawmakers were to conclude otherwise, they could deem him to be lying—as an adult.” (Photo: Kavanaugh’s Yale yearbook.)
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■ A former sex-crimes prosecutor analyzes the charges against Kavanaugh for The Washington Post.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: “Delaying Kavanaugh’s confirmation—or even killing it—is about doing the job right.”
■ Snopes.com dismisses as “baseless” suggestions that Kavanaugh’s mother, as a judge in 1996, ruled against the parents of her son’s accuser: “It offers a prime example of … mistaking … tangential encounters for … substantial conflicts.”
■ Anita Hill, whose accounts of misbehavior by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas failed to derail his confirmation in 1991, offers suggestions for doing better this time.
■ Post columnist Margaret Sullivan: “Let senators—and the country—be informed … as they were not fully about Thomas.”
■ The Daily Beast on the Trump team’s game plan: “Pulling Kavanaugh at this moment would be akin to … signing its own political ‘death warrant.’”
A (bitter) laughing matter.
■ The Onion: “Senate Republicans Seek To Delay Kavanaugh Vote Until Accuser Properly Smeared.”
■ The Onion again: “GOP Releases New Letter Supporting Kavanaugh Signed By Orrin Hatch 500 Times.”
■ One more: “Kavanaugh Sweating Bullets After Betting Life Savings On Being Confirmed To Supreme Court.”
■ Close-to-the-bone satire from Alexandra Petri in the Post: “If this is the rule, no man is safe. Not the man who shouts at you as you walk down the sidewalk, or grabs you, or puts something in your drink.”
■ Andy Borowitz jokes in The New Yorker: “Merrick Garland Says He’s Still Available.”
Cyclists’ ‘grief and rage.’ The Reader’s John Greenfield recounts high emotion as bicycling advocates pleaded with Chicago to do more to improve bike safety after a week of serious and fatal bike crashes in the area.
■ Amsterdam-based mapping tech company HERE Technologies is teaming up with UPS, Microsoft and Accenture for a Chicago-based study to figure out how to keep the growing number of package delivery vehicles from bollixing up traffic.
■ HERE—you may have known it previously as Navteq or part of Nokia—has declared Chicago its North American HQ, with plans to hire, um, here.
■ PolitiFact concludes the Democrat running for Illinois attorney general, Kwame Raoul, has falsely portrayed the position on gay adoption held by his opponent, Erika Harold …
■ … who, PolitiFact finds, has been running a misleading ad about Raoul’s position on property taxes.
■ As we approach another season of candidate endorsements, a new podcast captures a Publicity Club of Chicago event praised by media critic Robert Feder as (ahem) a “thoughtful and enlightening panel on Chicago newspaper editorial boards.” Hear it here.
Taking the lead on lead. A coalition of Chicago aldermen wants public hearings on what to do about the city’s toxic lead water pipes—which the city required by law until 1986, when Congress outlawed them.
■ WBEZ: Political clout and union might contributed to the problem.
■ An old Irish clubhouse is now the HQ for an organization of black Chicago firefighters.
■ Acknowledging the federal government still hasn’t signed off on the thing, Obama Presidential Center-related construction has come to a halt in Chicago’s Jackson Park.
Chicago’s Emmy brags. Two North Shore natives walked away with trophies for their roles in Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
■ Amazon is investigating reports employees have been taking bribes to delete negative reviews.
■ Carson’s department stores, which closed weeks ago, are back—online.
Chicago Public Square is proud to co-sponsor the 2018 Studs Terkel Awards.
