■ … under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment—you know, the one targeted at those who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion … or given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United States.
■ Justices concurred with a lower court finding that the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol was an insurrection—in which Trump “engaged.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “These cases pose real problems for him.”
■ Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak: The Colorado case is a boon, not a setback, for Trump.
■ CNN analyst John Avlon: Colorado’s justices “decided that the U.S. Constitution still matters.”
■ Read the court’s full 213-page decision here.
■ Trump lost Colorado in 2020 and so might not have counted on it for 2024—but, as the AP reports, the danger for him “is that more courts and election officials will follow Colorado’s lead and exclude Trump from must-win states.”
■ A voter’s similar complaint against Trump’s North Carolina ballot spot has been dismissed.
■ Law prof Joyce Vance: “The U.S. Supreme Court is going to be busy over the holidays.”
OK, so he just thinks the same way? Trump Tuesday defended—and doubled down on—his assertions that immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country,” denying that he’d ever read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
■ Funny, because his ex-wife says he kept a book of Hitler speeches “in a cabinet by his bed.”
■ Ex-Tribune and Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob has assembled a list of dozens of “factual reasons why decent people must vote against Donald Trump.”
‘There aren’t enough doctors … there isn’t enough medicine.’ Migrants at Chicago’s crowded Pilsen shelter tell WBEZ illnesses are spreading quickly through the population of 2,300 there.
■ A Sun-Times editorial: A 5-year-old’s death signals a need to overhaul Chicago’s shelter program.
■ A Trib editorial says the City Council should be focusing on the “spiraling migrant crisis,” not war in the Middle East.
■ The latest numbers from the U.S. Census show Illinois as one of just eight states to have lost population between 2022 and 2023 …
■ … but it wasn’t clear how much those numbers reflect the state’s migrant influx.
‘Childhood sexual abuse.’ That’s a charge at the heart of fresh lawsuits filed against the Chicago Park District by two women who say male supervisors abused them when they were underage workers at public beaches in the years before a scandal broke open in 2021.
■ Mayor Johnson’s new anti-violence strategy will focus on four neighborhoods, chosen in part by rankings for school closings, shootings, unemployment, low education and a lack of doctors.
■ USA Today columnist Rex Huppke’s memo to far-right pundits and Republican fearmongers: “We were able to get a shocking number of people to believe Donald Trump was a good president. Surely we can keep them believing America is a lawless land of unchecked criminals and rabid death merchants, contradictory data be damned!”
Mixer menace. Sadly in time for a lot of holiday bakers, Consumer Reports is amplifying its warning about the dangers of the popular BlendJet 2 portable blender …
■ … and it’s encouraging those who’ve had problems with the thing to report to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
May your days be merry and bright. The Conversation: How an immigrant Jew wrote the quintessential Christmas song.
■ The IRS’ present to overdue taxpayers: A waiver of $1 billion in penalties for 2020 and 2021.
■ Rex Huppke again: Holiday gift guides for men read like “toxic masculinity in list form.”
‘An epochal choice between democracy and dictatorship.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin hopes for a day in 2024 when “a major newsroom changes course to fully recognize the threat posed by anti-democratic forces, and stops trying to be fair to both sides when one is lying and dangerous.”
■ The Washington Post says it’s met its goal for voluntary buyouts.
■ It stops short of saying more layoffs won’t follow …
■ … but its union says more staffers than expected agreed to leave and now management is trying to “bribe some … to stay.”
■ Retired columnist Robert Feder’s posted a “Chicago Media in Memoriam — 2023” list.
Squaring up 2023? Consider adding two things to your to-do list:
■ Vote for Chicago Public Square as Best Email Newsletter and Best Independent Website or Blog in the Chicago Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.
■ Kick in a little year-end financial support for Square—even just $1, once …
■ … as reader Jeff Herden did yesterday, “in honor of two of my friends, who were also two of your friends, namely Keith Taylor and Lin Brehmer.”