Snitstorm / Flood watch / 'A better pedway'

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Snitstorm. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake says Attorney General William Barr’s use of the word snitty to describe special counsel Robert Mueller’s letter criticizing Barr’s handling of Mueller’s report on the 2016 presidential election “accidentally gave away his game” …
■ … and it made snitty the word of the day.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst on Barr’s Senate testimony: “He will lie to your face about anything and everything, and he’ll do it under oath.”
■ The Tribune’s Rex Huppke: “Barr didn’t lie to Congress. He was just Trumptastically on-brand.” (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
■ Trib columnist Dahleen Glanton: “Like most stupid liars, Barr seems to think that he is smarter than everyone else.”
■ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet on the Barr hearing: “Sen. Cory Booker … wasted his allotted time with a rambling showboating speech.”
■ Updating coverage: Barr was represented by an empty chair and a prop chicken this morning after declining an invitation to appear before the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee.
■ David Frum in The Atlantic: President Trump’s “dike is sprouting more leaks than he has fingers with which to plug the expanding trickles.” (Insert “short fingers” joke here.)
■ Max Boot in the Post: How conservatives rationalize surrender to Trump.

Illinois tax overhaul. After a debate that the Sun-Times notes lasted less than the running time for the song Stairway to Heaven, the Illinois Senate has sent the biggest-ever change in the state’s income tax scheme to the House …
■ … where a more contentious debate is likely to outlast Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Flash flood watch. The National Weather Service says Chicago-area ground is already soaked, so the rain in today’s forecast may just roll into a basement near you.
■ Consumer Reports rates the best sunscreens.

Strike struck. After 10 hours of negotiation, City Colleges of Chicago staff ended a strike this morning …
■ … but walkouts continued to plague Chicago charter schools.

‘A better Pedway.’ A Tribune editorial cheers more improvements in Chicago’s underground walkway “in the last six months than … in the last six years”—and says the city shouldn’t stop now.
■ Discovery of a body on the tracks this morning forced Metra to reverse some trains between Summit and Joliet.
■ Coming to Chicago: Electric scooters—unless Mayor-elect Lightfoot says no.
■ A developer planning “as big a project as we see anywhere in the country” for a site near Soldier Field says his plans are so golden he doesn’t need taxpayer help covering the financial risk.
■ Demolition of Rogers Park’s venerable 43-year-old Heartland Cafe has begun.

‘The government cannot use the pretext of the border to make an end run around the Constitution.’ The American Civil Liberties Union says U.S. border agents are breaking the law when they search travelers’ electronic devices.
■ ZDNet: Apple has a “stupid reason … to try to stop you from fixing your own iPhone.”
■ Netflix sound is about to get better.

Thanks … to reader Mike Braden for editing fixes on this edition.