Where they stand / 'We were so shocked' / What're you worth?

Where they stand. Politico offers “the most comprehensive guide anywhere to the issues shaping the 2020 Democratic presidential primary,” searchable by candidate, issue or category.

Bernie Sanders is introducing a bill to wipe out every American’s student loan debt.
Vox: Democrats’ argument about free college, explained.
To fund veterans’ health care, Beto O’Rourke proposes to tax wealthy families whose members don’t serve in the military.

Buttigieg’s ‘crisis.’ The Atlantic dissects the challenges a police shooting poses for the presidential campaign of South Bend’s “Mayor Pete.”
A town hall meeting he held yesterday in South Bend “descended into chaos.”
The Daily Beast: Asked about his support from South Bend’s African American leaders, Buttigieg couldn’t name one.
 Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush: Joe Biden’s “woefully ignorant of the nuances of the black American experience and that is, in itself, beyond disappointing.”
The Intercept: “Biden says he can work with the Senate. The last time he tried, Mitch McConnell picked his pockets.”
Vox: “Biden has been talking about income inequality a lot lately—to his rich donors.”
 Elizabeth Warren supporters are plotting to raid Biden’s support.

‘We were so shocked.’ The New Yorker talks to a member of a court-ordered legal team assigned to report on the “dirty, neglectful, and dangerous conditions” confronting refugee children at Texas Border Patrol facilities. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
A Republican Texas congressman says migrant detention center conditions in his state are the worst he’s seen, and he’s calling on Congress to “take care of these children.”
Border Patrol agents found four bodies—those of a woman, two infants and a toddler—near the Rio Grande River.
In the face of—but not necessarily in response to—vows of resistance from Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot (and, among others, Oak Park’s Mayor Abu-Taleb), President Trump backed down from his threat of massive immigration raids in cities across the country.

Trump needled. The administrators of one of the world’s biggest knitting websites say they’ll ban users who express support for Trump, which they maintain constitutes “white supremacy.”
The Tribune’s Dahleen Glanton: Six ways Democrats could help reelect Trump.
Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver on Trump’s retreat from the brink of war with Iran: “It’s amazing to watch him do the right thing in the same exact style that he does the wrong thing.”

‘Scooters will make it easier for people to get around Chicago, whether you’re riding one or not.’ A dissenting view from the Trib’s Ben Meyerson. (Yes, relation. Photo: @ChicagoFails on Twitter.)
A coalition of grassroots groups is going to court to block public funding for the massive Lincoln Yards development along the Chicago River.

Another one bites the …? Ex-Chicago Ald. Willie Cochran faces the prospect of prison today as he appears for sentencing on, among other things, stealing $14,000 from a charity fund.
WBEZ: What the feds are probing in their investigation of Ald. Carrie Austin.
Mick Jagger at the Rolling Stones’ Friday night show in Chicago: “Sorry [indicted Ald.] Ed Burke couldn’t make it.”
 Ex-patriate Expatriate Chicagoan (and former DC Comics editor) Mike Gold on Illinois’ pending legalization of marijuana: “It’s been a rough couple of decades for the preposterously pious.”


Carp! The Tribune’s Tony Brisco introduces you to the gluttonous herbivore grass carp, a third variety of the marauding Asian carp, now menacing Great Lakes wetlands. (P.S.: Thanks a bucket, golf courses.)
Trump’s Agriculture Department has been burying studies spotlighting the dangers of climate change.
CNN: Rivers have become plastic’s highway to the oceans.
Forecast: Global oil demand will peak—but not for at least another 15 years.
WBEZ listeners have launched a petition drive to save the Chicago-oriented global affairs show Worldview.

What’re you worth? A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators is proposing to require that big tech companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter disclose what they make off your data—to clarify what their “free” services really cost you.
Guardian columnist John Harris warns: Facebook’s plan to create its own currency would “bring unlimited corporate power into areas we still consider subject to the checks and balances of democracy.”
Irony Dept.: The New Republic is seeking an “inequality editor”—a job that doesn’t include benefits. [Update, 6:07 p.m.: TNR takes it back.]

Thanks … to readers Paul Clark for inspiration this issue, Mike Braden for a reminder that “Rio Grande River” is redundant, and Pam Spiegel for general encouragement not to suck.

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