How they lean / Oh, the places he went / Christmas streams

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How they lean. The Associated Press pores over Supreme Court justices’ words in yesterday’s historic arguments over abortion rights to discern where they’re likely to wind up.
■ HuffPost’s Alanna Vagianos: “Roe v. Wade is in serious danger.”
■ Charlie Pierce at Esquire sees “dead precedents walking.”
■ Columnist Irv Leavitt was surprised to learn from the proceedings that almost a quarter of American women have gotten an abortion: “A quarter is a lot of people, even if they’re just women.”
■ Journalist Dan Rather: “If Roe is gutted and not replaced by new laws, a wave of desperation will engulf the nation.”

‘Enforcing even simple measures like mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint.’ The rise of the omicron COVID-19 variant is giving new life to controversy over unpopular restrictions.
■ Yes, it’s here in the U.S.
■ How’s it pronounced? Take your pick.
■ Remember that time Chicago sued the police union over failure to comply with vaccination requirements? Never mind.
■ Pierce in Esquire again: “A Trump-appointed, Federalist Society-approved judge named Terry Doughty blocked the administration’s nationwide vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. The distance between Judge Doughty’s reasoning here and that in your drunk uncle’s Facebook post that got him disinvited from Thanksgiving dinner is not vast.”
■ Cartoonist Joe Fournier imagines a strategy huddle among the COVID variants.
■ One year ago today, your Square columnist laughed at something that seemed funny—for a little while, anyway.

■ BuzzFeed News has won a key victory in a years-long legal battle to unseal some parts of the Mueller report about Donald Trump Jr.
■ A Logan Square community activist and Trump supporter is among the latest to be indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

‘Jussie Smollett’s story never made any damn sense.’ Columnist Eric Zorn condemns Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for a “lack of transparency in the process of criminal justice” that “has deeply infected” the actor’s trial on charges he filed a false police report about what prosecutors say was a staged attack.
■ In testimony yesterday, one of Smollett’s alleged attackers said Smollett recruited him and his brother to pretend to beat him up.

Uplifting news. New federal funding for infrastructure improvements means the CTA’s 42 stations could get elevators and other upgrades to become fully accessible sooner rather than later.
■ But Chicago’s new ward map is now on a slow(er) track.
■ Yesterday’s deadline for the City Council to avert a public referendum on the map wasn’t real.

Christmas streams. Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper spotlights three holiday movies set in Chicago—on Disney+, HBO Max and AMC+.
■ You may have a tougher time finding the perfect Christmas tree.
■ Broken holiday lights? Don’t toss them in the recycling bin.
■ Consumer Reports directs your attention to 35 products on deep discount in December.

‘No can do.’ A Tribune editorial calls for dismissal of anchor Chris Cuomo—sibling to disgraced ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo—because he “worked his CNN sources on his brother’s behalf … while anchoring a nightly news show.”

Welcome news for Chicago Public Square. Reflecting an emphasis on new tech like blockchain, departing Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s financial-payments system Square is changing its corporate name to Block.
■  … but, as reader Brian Ritzel observes, maybe not the best news for Block Club Chicago …
Dollar Flight Club is a Chicago Public Square advertiser.
The year-end roll call of thanks continues. Square would long since have gone gently into that good night had readers such as Mario Greco, Jon Hilkevitch, Adam Broad, Cynthia Martin, Michael Weiland, Suzy Carlson, Tim Bannon, Susy Schultz, Robert Toon, Barbara Miller, James Haglund, Mike Fainman, Ken Trainor, Ellen Mrazek, David Layden, Brian J. Taylor, Peggy Conlon-Madigan and Nile Wendorf not stepped up to show how much they value this service.

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