‘More people … than I’ve ever seen.’ A DuPage County board member was struck by the huge crowd that turned out for a board meeting yesterday to address the county sheriff’s refusal to enforce Illinois’ new assault weapons ban.
■ With support from the National Rifle Association, opponents of the ban have brought in high-powered legal help for their challenge.
■ Public Notice: “Mass shootings are just the most obvious sign that the U.S. doesn’t care for its people.”
What’s up? Docs. Add former VP Mike Pence to the growing roster of ex-U.S. officials found in possession of classified documents.
■ Political analyst David Axelrod: “Man, we’re going to be lousy with special counsels!”
■ The Onion: “Biden Claps In Amazement After FBI Agent Pulls Classified Document From Behind His Ear.”
Moving violation. An ad for Chicago mayoral candidate Chuy Garcia—showing him walking down a street alongside a couple of cops—may run afoul of a rule forbidding political activity by those wearing “a uniform or any part thereof which would identify the individuals as a Chicago Police Officer.”
■ Politico sees an “ad war” erupting in the mayor’s race.
■ Here’s Block Club’s guide to Chicago’s 2023 elections.
‘The pictures help.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg commends The New York Times for publishing “images of aborted fetuses images of early abortion “that did not resemble Gerber babies.”
■ The Conversation: Fossil teeth reveal how brains developed in utero over millions of years of human evolution.
DOGBARF, WACKJOB, FARTLEK. Axios Chicago updates Daily Herald reporting cited in Monday’s Chicago Public Square—offering examples of license plate requests the state’s rejected …
■ … and even more here.
‘The story no one wants to touch.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin slams the Jan. 6 Committee and the media for failing to explore “why Capitol Police leaders chose not to prepare for combat, despite mounds of intelligence pointing directly toward such a scenario.”
■ Musical satirist Randy Rainbow’s newest target: “Speaker of the House Kevin Mc____head.”
‘The pry-bar that reopens all the questions that everyone thought were closed.’ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce says a documentary prepared in secret shines new light on “the shady details” of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
■ The Intercept: Twitter and YouTube caved to pressure from India to remove a BBC documentary critical of that nation’s right-wing leader.
■ Reactionary channel Newsmax is out of the picture for DirecTV subscribers.
‘We apologize to Ms. Swift.’ Testifying before the U.S. Senate yesterday, the CEO of Ticketmaster’s parent company confessed to having done something bad.
■ NBC News has assembled a 52-second supercut of senators making Taylor Swift references.
■ The Judiciary Committee, led by Illinois’ Dick Durbin, is considering what to do about a concert ticketing system that Sen. Richard Blumenthal called “a monopolistic mess.”
■ But the Senate has been making sounds like that for at least 14 years—since before the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.*
■ Platformer’s Casey Newton says an antitrust lawsuit against Google raises the odds that “something at the company is going to have to give.”
■ Antitrust suit veteran Microsoft reported outages early today to its online services, including Outlook email.
‘Are you supposed to be grateful to the company whose primary leadership strategy seems to be keeping its workers trapped in fear?’ Columnist Anne Helen Petersen expounds on the cost of “layoff brain” for those who don’t lose their jobs.
■ Layoffs hit The Washington Post yesterday.
■ News biz watcher Brian Morrissey: “The media business is running out of rackets.”
90 seconds to midnight. The Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has pushed ahead its metaphorical gauge of the world’s proximity to total human-caused destruction.
■ The right responded with mockery.
Strictly personal. By at least one measure, today marks the 50th anniversary of your Square columnist’s tour of duty as a paid journalist—a career I wouldn’t trade for another.
■ Don’t forget to vote for Square—as Best Email Newsletter and Best Blog—in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.
■ Janean Bowersmith made this edition better.
* And, yes, that’s your columnist’s son’s byline there.
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