#ChicagoChickens. That tag got a bump on Twitter yesterday when Greg Jacob, a former counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, told the House Jan. 6 committee that Donald Trump’s lawyer—and fellow University of Chicago Law School alumnus—John Eastman tried to bring him around to Trump’s point of view on the 2020 election with the phrase, “Just between us Chicago chickens …”
■ Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal jokes: “It was ‘University of Chicago Chickens,’ so normal Chicagoan self-regard doesn’t apply.”
■ Bloomberg’s June 9 profile of Jacob: “Labor Lawyer Seizes Spotlight to Foil Trump.”
■ The Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet: Unlike Trump, Pence passed history’s test.
■ A lifelong right-wing federal judge’s warning to the committee, in what Esquire’s Charlie Pierce declares “a remarkable assertion of one man’s unshakable patriotism”: “Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”
■ A Yale lecturer in public health policy tweets: “The Jan. 6 hearings are like Watergate but if dozens of staff testified that the president told them to break into the Watergate … then publicly shamed his vice president for not breaking into the Watergate … then continued to insist that breaking into the Watergate is very good.”
■ Journalist Dan Rather: “Truth is being served and history will know that a president attacked his own country.”
■ Veteran reporter Jonathan Alter: “The steady stream of revelations and new video … makes it significantly less likely that Trump will be nominated in 2024.”
■ Columnist Irv Leavitt: “The hearings might help convince independents, but keep in mind that half of those are intellectually challenged.”
Supreme Court ‘tumult.’ The Washington Post on Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife’s emails with Eastman: “It’s hard to imagine an uglier scenario for the justices.”
■ The Fox News website is amplifying—without criticism or irony—a Teen Vogue opinion piece* that contends the court’s “radically conservative supermajority” is illegitimate.
■ The Biden administration has been working to get more coverage from Fox’s website.
11 days. That’s how many remain before the Illinois primary. Take the weekend to study up with the Chicago Public Square election guide.
■ WBEZ: A Republican Cook County commissioner who’s up for reelection and who’s loudly complained about security details for County Board President Preckwinkle and Mayor Lightfoot has himself benefitted for years from “special attention” police have given his Palos Park home.
■ Donald Trump and Mike Pence are planning separate stops in the state before June 28 (middle of today’s Illinois Playbook).
Ripped off. An Illinois state audit concludes that fraudsters stole more than half the money paid by a special pandemic unemployment fund.
■ The Tribune: Spiking food and gas prices are putting the pinch on Chicagoans like a single mother of five who quit her factory job because she couldn’t cover both the price of gas and child care.
‘Unjustified.’ Chicago’s top cop is recommending dismissal of an officer who dragged a woman out of her car by her hair and knelt on her neck at Brickyard Mall—a confrontation caught on video.
■ The Chicago inspector general’s office concludes the city’s police disciplinary process risks unfair and inconsistent outcomes.
Unexpected consequences. Russia’s war to control Ukraine has prompted a move toward Ukraine’s admission to the European Union.
■ Columnist Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: The U.N., for its crowdfunding plan to avert a disastrous Red Sea oil spill .
‘Book bullies.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg explores a nationwide phenomenon: People hiding titles about Black and LGBTQ people at bookstores and libraries.
■ The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch: Republicans’ “violent, expanding war on LBGTQ kids should make you think about 1930s Germany.”
Happy Juneteenth. Monday’s a federal holiday.
■ Rainbow Cone has free cones for dads on Father’s Day.
■ The Onion offers a gift guide for every type of dad.
‘Spammy content.’ That’s the reason a Chicago Public Square reader gave for unsubscribing after opening yesterday’s edition.
■ You can help replenish the readership ranks by recommending Square to a friend.
■ Crissy Terawaki Kawamoto made this issue better.
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* Co-authored by your Square publisher’s daughter-in-law-to-be.