Showtime / 'Disgusted' / How'd your school do?

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Showtime. The U.S. House is set to take a historic first full vote on impeachment today—but, Vox explains, it’s not about whether to impeach President Trump.
The Tribune’s Clarence Page: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s team is poised to give Republicans the process they demanded—and now they’re stuck.
Back-to-back hearings today put federal judges in a position to decide how much evidence Democrats will be able to gather during impeachment. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
Live updates through the day from NBC News (whose digital journalists are pushing to unionize).
Trump’s campaign is tossing cash at senators who sign a resolution condemning the impeachment inquiry.
Trib columnist Steve Chapman warns Trump would consider acquittal after impeachment “total vindication of all he has done—and a license to do even worse.”
The Wall Street Journal: In Chicago Monday, Trump asked wealthy donors for a show of hands on clemency for convicted Illinois ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Twitter: No more political ads. The company’s decision to go cold-turkey could have wider implications for, among others, public-interest nonprofits.
Among the objectors: The Trump campaign and Russian state media …
 … and journalism critic Jeff Jarvis, who warns: “If we cut off inexpensive and efficiently targeted political—and, as it turns out, issue—advertising, then we likely will be left with big-money campaigns still using mass media (that is, TV) just as we had hoped to leave that corrupt era behind.”
Amazon is flooding the Seattle City Council election campaign with $1 million to elect Amazon-friendly candidates.
ZDNet: The guy who sent the first internet message has a plan to save the internet from its worst excesses.

‘Disgusted.’ Gov. Pritzker condemns Illinois politicians “who take advantage of the public” and praises the federal corruption probes snaring them.
Ethics reforms are gaining steam in the state legislature—but one lawmaker implicated is getting a pass for now.
A Sun-Times editorial: “Real reform … comes by way of FBI raids, secret recordings, indictments, trials and convictions.”
One Illinois’ Ted Cox ridicules conservatives’ objections to Pritzker’s plan for a graduated income tax: “An amazing 29.8 percent of Chicago Cubs full-season-ticket holders will pay more, but just 3.7 percent of those who bought one single ticket to a White Sox game this year will.”

Strike end nears. Chicago teachers have a deal, but their walkout continues because of a dispute over compensation for days missed in the walkout.
The Beachwood Reporter’s Steve Rhodes: Local and national coverage of the strike has displayed “a lack of sophisticated understanding of the bigger political machinations” …
 … including, for instance, the “heinous—and racist” property tax system perpetrated by deposed Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios, “who was defended to the end by his personal friend, Toni Preckwinkle, whom the union endorsed and vigorously supported in the last mayoral campaign.”
The next front: Restoration of an elected Chicago school board.

How’d your school do? Search the Illinois 2019 school report card database to see how your school rates: Exemplary, Commendable, Underperforming and Lowest Performing.
Four Chicago schools with majority low-income student populations rank among the state’s best.
An educational journal projects the University of Chicago will be the first four-year institution to reach a $100,000 sticker price for annual tuition.

Shelf life. Mayor Lightfoot’s decision to eliminate overdue fines has brought hundreds of books—a 240% increase in returns—back to the city’s libraries.
And library Sunday hours are on the way back.

‘If your son gets mad because you ate one of his 437 mini Kit Kats, ask him if he would like to start paying rent. Problem solved.’ The Trib’s Rex Huppke offers tips for a perfect Halloween.
Mother Nature to Chicago: Trick, no treat.
A Chicago-oriented episode in the new season of Netflix’s Bojack Horseman acknowledges the city’s tendency to get snow in October.

Deadspin spinout. A mass editorial exodus in protest of a corporate mandate to stick to sports has left the website high and dry.
The Daily Beast: A big advertiser pulled a million-dollar ad campaign from Deadspin’s parent company after editorial staffers raised hell.
The New Republic: “With the media industry in decline, we can only expect more of the same from the chuckleheads in the corporate class.”
The New York Times sounds the alarm about impostor local news sites backed by foreign governments promoting ideological agendas.




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