SNL’s Britt skit. Critic Bill Carter says Saturday Night Live delivered “just about as perfect a satirical dissection as could be executed with only two days’ notice” in its show opener with Scarlett Johansson parodying Sen. Katie Britt’s State of the Union rebuttal.
■ See it here.
■ Evan Hurst’s satire for Wonkette: “Stop thinking too hard about exactly what was happening three years ago, or why today’s Republican talking point is ‘three years ago’ instead of ‘four years ago.’”
■ A sex trafficking survivor says Britt’s use of her story was bogus …
■ … a revelation made by a former AP reporter.
■ Press critic Mark Jacob: Why didn’t “a news org with the resources of WaPo, NYT or Politico … break the story”?
Chicago and the Oscars. Last night’s big winner—in a ceremony that the AP notes was shadowed by war—was Oppenheimer …
■ … which was helmed by Best Director Christopher Nolan, who the Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper notes grew up partly in Evanston—and which starred, among others, Best Supporting Actor Robert Downey Jr., whose wife Susan was Schaumburg High School’s class of 1991 valedictorian.
■ The song “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie made Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas the youngest and second-youngest double-Oscar winners ever.
■ Here’s the full list of winners.
■ The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg explains why Poor Things outperformed Barbie.
■ Donald Trump trolled host Jimmy Kimmel last night—but Kimmel got the last word.
Chubb club. Federal Insurance Co., a subsidiary of the Chubb Group, has stepped forward to give Trump the almost $92 million he needed to appeal the $83 million judgment in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him.
■ Popular Information: “Trump and Chubb have a history.”
■ Stephen Robinson at Public Notice: “The media can’t resist teasing us with the possibility that Trump will suddenly start behaving like a mammal.”
■ President Biden’s nomination of April Perry to be Chicago’s first female U.S. attorney has now been on hold for eight months and counting—blocked by Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. “Hillbilly Elegy” Vance in a protest of Trump’s prosecution.
■ Doonesbury over the weekend encouraged kids to be “sedition hunters” by helping identify Trump acolytes who trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
‘I don’t want to do anything like that again.’ Ex-Mayor Lori Lightfoot tells Chicago Magazine why she’s out of politics for good.
■ An excerpt from Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt’s new book The City is Up for Grabs: How Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Led and Lost a City in Crisis details how she dealt with the riots of 2020.
Measles hitting migrants. A third Chicago case—the second at a city-run refuge for migrants—has been diagnosed in a child who’d been sheltering there …
■ … but who was reported in good condition at a hospital.
CTA’s spring thing. Chicago’s transit system is promising a major cleanup at its rail stations.
■ Tedium goes waaaay back to find the origin of the red-circle-with-a-slash symbol.
‘All religions are scams.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg considers the bigger news in Scientology’s controversial new South Loop center that “somebody opened something in downtown Chicago.”
■ Columnist Steve Sheffey: “Israel's government is changing for the worse, and at the worst time.”
‘Leave the party.’ Responding to an item in Friday’s Chicago Public Square, reader Benjy Blenner writes: “I'm growing tired of Republicans like Adam Kinzinger, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and countless others who leave Congress complaining about the state of the GOP. If you really believe the GOP is the problem you claim it to be, drop your R.”
■ Former Republican Illinois Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra writes in today’s Tribune: It is my fondest hope in the 2024 election that voters reject the charlatan Trump.” (Gift link, thanks to contributions from Square’s most devoted readers.)
■ Trump supporters in Wisconsin say they’ve gathered enough signatures to force a recall vote for Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos over his refusal to decertify Joe Biden’s 2020 win.
Women vs. disinformation. The Illinois League of Women Voters has launched a task force to expose lies and deception in this year’s political campaigns.
■ Ready to take a stand? Check the Square Primary Voter Guide Guide.
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