Democrats' 'infomercial' / Blago, 'Trumpocrat' / Navy Pier sinks—again

Democrats’ ‘infomercial.’ The Associated Press assesses Night One of the pandemically remote Democratic National Convention: “Conventions have long been derided … as infomercials. Now the evolution is complete.”
Deadline: “A polished political ad that successfully masqueraded as an event.”
New York Times editorial board member Michelle Cottle: Recorded segments “fell into an awkward zone that felt both amateurish and canned.”

But then Michelle Obama showed up …
 … wearing a necklace with a message. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
PolitiFact’s review of the night: “Nothing jumped out as Pants on Fire false.”
The Daily Beast:It worked.”
Now backing Joe Biden: The former chief of staff to President Trump’s former Homeland Security secretary.

Blago, ‘Trumpocrat.’ Illinois’ disgraced—and presidentially pardoned sentence-commuted—ex-Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich headlines an Illinois Republican legislative candidate’s fundraiser next week “to celebrate President Donald J. Trump’s RNC 2020 nomination.”
Scheduled for an appearance at the Republican convention: The St. Louis couple who waved firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters.
Trump yesterday promised voters in Oshkosh “four more years.”
To honor the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, Trump said he’d pardon suffrage champion Susan B. Anthony.
The New York Times: A Republican-led Senate report “lays out an extensive web of contacts between Trump aides and Russian officials.”

‘Clearly trying to drive the Postal Service to its knees.’ Mayor Lightfoot characterizes the Trump administration’s USPS cuts as “a full-out assault on … the integrity of our elections.”
Politico’s Jack Shafer lists things you can do to help the post office deliver ballots in time to count.
The Conversation: The Postal Service provided a common bond that helped stamp an identity on America.
The postmaster general has a date with the Senate Friday and the House Monday.

‘Stop doxxing my innocent-until proven-guilty residents.’ A Chicago alderman’s complaint has prompted Chicago police to stop tweeting out the home blocks of people arrested during Saturday’s civil rights protest.
The police are under fire for “kettling”—the possibly unconstitutional practice of boxing protesters into a shrinking area, letting them leave only through an exit controlled by the cops.
The Sun-Times: Chicago officers are retiring at “unheard of” rates.
The Chicago Fire Department has closed its training academy because of a COVID-19 outbreak.

‘Ample reason … to question Foxx’s trustworthiness.’ Tribune columnist Rex Huppke assesses a special prosecutor’s finding that, in Huppke’s words, “Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the Jussie Smollett case was shambolic.”
The Sun-Times’ Rachel Hinton: The report hands Republicans “their best shot at recapturing an office they have not held since Bill Clinton was president.”
A Sun-Times editorial: Foxx still “needs to come clean with the public.”

Navy Pier sinks—again. A lack of visitors has prompted the city’s historically leading tourist attraction to re-close Sept. 8 and on into the spring.
Pizza Hut is closing 300 restaurants nationwide.
The pandemic is costing Chicago a beloved children’s playspace.
Johns Hopkins professors: How schools can lower the risk of COVID-19 spread among students.

Journalism! A day after the University of North Carolina student newspaper sounded a pandemic alarm in an editorial headlined “UNC has a clusterfuck on its hands,” the university canceled in-person classes.
An anonymous lawyer is proofreading The New York Times, in the words of The Ringer, one untactful tweet at a time.”

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Thanks to reader Phil Vettel for catching an error in the Blagojevich item above.

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