‘4 years in the hands of a … madman’ / Illinois’ Trump bump / Test your Chicago radio savvy

‘We spent four years in the hands of a … madman.’ Esquire’s Charles Pierce reflects on Jan. 6 committee testimony from ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who told Congress that Donald Trump on that day, in Pierce’s words, “wanted to join what he knew to be an armed mob … and he assaulted a member of his own Secret Service detail when they refused to let him do so.”
Also: That Trump tossed his lunch against a wall when his attorney general told him voter fraud was not widespread. (Cartoon: Pia Guerra on Twitter.)
The Washington Post highlights “all the bombshells” Hutchinson dropped.
The Post’s Dan Balz: “Trump has had some bad days recently, but perhaps none worse than Tuesday.”
Pierce again on Hutchinson’s testimony: “She was clearly aware that she was handling live ammunition. But she never wavered or faltered.”

‘The case for prosecuting Trump is stronger than it's ever been.’ Conservative columnist David French at The Dispatch: Hutchinson may have produced a smoking gun.
Politico media writer Jack Shafer: Hutchinson’s revelations “damaged the Trump edifice in a way that … a hundred political speeches couldn’t.”
Trump, enraged on social media, criticized her handwriting.
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson closed yesterday’s proceedings with a challenge to “those who fear Donald Trump” and others implicated by Hutchinson’s testimony: “If … suddenly … you discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open.”
New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik: Yesterday’s House session “played like the Watergate hearings as punched up by the writers’ room of 24” …
 … but CNN’s Oliver Darcy counsels, “If you were under the impression that the hearing was going to play differently in MAGA Media than scandals of the past, it is most certainly not.”
Indeed, TV ratings suggest that Fox News viewers, in the words of the AP’s David Bauder, “have made clear they’d rather be doing something else.”

Illinois’ Trump bump. Yesterday’s primary results show the state’s Republican Party clearly in the ex-president’s sway.
Witness Trump-backed “MAGA-loving, Bible-quoting grain farmer” Darren Bailey’s handy victory in the race to challenge Gov. Pritzker …
 … and, in what Politico’s Shia Kapos calls a “stunning” result, Rep. Mary “Hitler Was Right” Miller’s primary defeat of fellow incumbent Rodney Davis.
Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown: Pritzker gets the matchup he wanted …
In another matchup of incumbents, Rep. Sean Casten bested Rep. Marie Newman.
Jesse Jackson son—and brother of convicted ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.—Jonathan Jackson beat 16 competitors for the nomination to the 1st Congressional District seat.
In a four-way race with no incumbents, Illinois State Rep. Delia Ramirez took the Democratic nod for the newly redrawn 3rd District.
Former Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias defeated Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia, among others, for the Democratic secretary of state nomination.
Cook County’s incumbent Democratic leaders—Preckwinkle, Dart, Kaegi—won renomination.
In yesterday’s primaries across the country, the Post sees “good results for Republicans who supported a Jan. 6 commission (mostly).”

Snip blip. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, demand for vasectomies and tubal ligations seems to be on the rise.
Law professors tell the Trib that corporate plans to cover travel costs for employees seeking abortion face legal headwinds.
Slow Boring columnist Matthew Yglesias’ advice to those across the nation hoping to make a difference in the fight over abortion: “Focus on Kansas.”
Coloradans yesterday handed a victory to what the AP calls “a rare Republican who supports abortion rights.”
Meanwhile, Vox reports, the Supreme Court last night handed down “very bad news for Black voters.”

Next COVID booster. Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina looks ahead to updated protection this fall against the Omicron variant.
Chicago’s rolling out family clinics to get shots in the arms of the city’s littlest.
Canadian researchers have a clue to what causes long COVID.

Test your Chicago radio savvy. Robert Feder challenges you to match catchphrases with the personalities who made them famous.
The Daily Beast: How “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” saved the career of Saturday Night Live alumnus Jenny Slate.

Thanks. Angela Mullins and Chris Koenig made this edition better.

Subscribe to Square.