Biden, ‘outraged.’ An Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers with Chef José Andrés’ nonprofit relief agency World Central Kitchen has, to quote CNN, “touched off fury and indignation inside the White House” …
■ … and further disrupted the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
■ Public Information: “The Biden administration’s current policy is to call on Israel to cease its military operations in Gaza while continuing to supply them with weapons essential to the operation. … That position is untenable.”
■ Author and filmmaker Michael Moore: “Israel has assured us it’s ‘only killing Hamas.’ So … we now know that World Central Kitchen … must be a terrorist operation.”
‘Make Trump pick up trash.’ Journalist and author Jonathan Alter says that’s the right call when Donald Trump violates his gag order.
■ Stephen Colbert on Trump’s repeated attacks on the daughter of the judge in a criminal fraud case: “How does he believe this is in any way going to help? … It’s like a baseball player walking up to the plate, hitting the umpire in the nuts with his bat and then saying, ‘Your son is next.’”
■ The Onion rounds up the “Best Parts Of Trump’s $60 God Bless The USA Bible.”
■ Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri rewrites the Bible for the age of Trump.
Republicans’ Wisconsin wins. Voters have OK’d a couple of election rule changes championed by Trump’s acolytes.
■ Message Box proprietor Dan Pfeiffer: Trump’s renewed calls to repeal the Affordable Care Act could prove a fatal political move …
■ … but Public Notice’s Lisa Needham warns not to discount the aim of the Trump-dominated Republican Party’s “Project 2025”: Trump as president for life.
■ At The American Prospect, columnist Rick Perlstein mourns not the death of former Democratic ex-Sen. Joe Lieberman: “I’m grateful it happened before he could do any more damage.”
‘Florida … just got a whole lot more interesting.’ USA Today columnist Rex Huppke says a state Supreme Court ruling green-lighting an amendment to protect abortion rights stands to give Gov. Ron DeSantis “his revenge on Donald Trump—just not in the way he expected.”
■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump: The decision makes Florida winnable for Biden …
■ … but Abortion, Every Day columnist Jessica Valenti says “the real, tangible human impact” of the court’s other abortion ruling—clearing enactment of a six-week ban—is really, really bad.
‘The technology … perpetuates … predatory behavior.’ Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is backing a bill that would broaden existing law to ban artificial intelligence-generated child pornography images and video.
■ Recalling the 1978 movie Superman, columnist—and former Superman comics editor—Mike Gold sees a slippery slope: “Is artwork created by humans that depict naked children child pornography?”
■ The 19th and American Public Media: Illinois’ sexual assault survivor law lets hospitals deny victims care.
‘Full speed ahead with his progressive agenda.’ That’s how one Chicago City Council member interprets Mayor Johnson’s choice of a former state senator as his new chief of staff.
■ Remember that wrongheaded order that House Democrats not talk to a Tribune reporter about “political matters”? The guy behind it—Speaker Chris Welch’s chief legal counsel—is outta here.
■ Hey, Dolton’s scandal-scarred mayor made the New York Post.
Take wing, Chicago. Landing on Chicago streets in July: Really big butterfly sculptures.
■ But first we need to endure another taste of winter.
■ Coming this fall, for the first time in more than a century: The Chicago River Swim.
■ Actually, I’m a Nice Person columnist Julia Gray: “Probably wouldn’t hurt to slather yourself in a couple of vats of Vaseline before jumping in.”
‘The scariest film I’ve seen in a long time.’ Variety’s Owen Gleiberman reviews Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s War on Democracy.
■ “Genius of a comedian” Joe Flaherty—Second City, SCTV, Stripes, Happy Gilmore, Freaks & Geeks star—is dead at 82.
Hacked at AT&T? CBS News offers guidance for those whose phones were compromised in a corporate breach.
■ To settle a class-action lawsuit accusing it of collecting user data during supposedly private “incognito” browsing sessions, Google’s offering to destroy “billions of data records.”
If you don’t follow the Chicago Public Square Facebook page … Here’s a sample of what showed up there over the long weekend (no Facebook login required; just tap the X if you get a password request):
■ Law prof Joyce Vance flags “a powerful story about why Donald Trump is unfit to be president.”
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce on the key to covering Trump: “No reason to seek out someone to say that they saw a duck walking down the street with some guy on his ass.”
■ Rex Huppke tosses his hat into the ring: “OK, I’ll be the No Labels presidential candidate. My platform is: ‘Vote for Joe Biden.’”
■ The Post on the feds’ new free alternative to TurboTax: “Surprise! The federal government made a website that doesn’t stink.”
■ The Reader’s Ben Joravsky memorializes the Cook County Board president who in 1991 started the process to reinstate abortion services at Cook County Hospital.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist on growing concerns about avian flu: “It may be smart to implement lessons learned from the COVID-19 emergency quickly. The time to prepare is now.”
■ Pandemic flashback, April 2, 2021: “Quote from a guy assigned to tell disappointed people showing up for driver’s license renewals at the Illinois Secretary of State’s office in Melrose Park that the office is open for appointment only in the pandemic: ‘The [SoS help] phone lines are full of shit.’”
■ Monday sentence of the day: “As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated ‘content’ in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels.”
■ Late night TV news: Jon Stewart says Apple asked him not to interview the chair of the Federal Trade Commission or say bad things about artificial intelligence …
■ … and Colbert cut his Monday night show short after the death of a staffer. (Your Square columnist was in the audience.)
Thanks. Square comes back after vacations because of readers whose financial support makes clear just how much they value this service—people including Anne Rooney, Kathy Downing, Matthew Hunnicutt, JM, Phil Grinstead, Stephanie Goldberg, Mary Gannon Pittman, Heather Alger, Werner Huget, John Jaramillo, Jan Kodner, Josh Mogerman, Kiki Marie-Henri, Dave Connell, Kathy Burger, Andy Simon, Robert Alan Innocenzi, Lynne Stiefel, Mary M. Jeans, Barbara Heskett, William Wheelhouse, Cynthia Martin, Mike Trenary, Jim Holmes, Lilia Chacon, Barbara Miller, Randall Kulat, Craig Kaiser, Ann Fisher, Paul Pasulka, Sandra Slater, Richard Milne, Lisa Krimen, Angela Mullins, Paul Clark, Walter W. Gallas, John D. Abel, Jeanette Mancusi, Carolyn Hosticka, Molly Allscheid, Robert Clifford, Cate Cahan, Christopher Comes, Arnie Weissmann, Ellen Mrazek, Chris Schuba, Ronald B. Schwartz, J. Michael Williams, Howie Anderson, Robert Jaffe, Eric Zorn and Donna Peel.
■ Join their ranks for whatever you consider Square worth—just $1 will do it—and see your name here tomorrow.
A Square public service announcement
Know an aspiring journalist? Spread this word from the Chicago Headline Club and the Chicago Headline Club Foundation: April 8’s the deadline to apply for the Les Brownlee Memorial Scholarship. A committed undergrad attending a Chicago-area institution can land $5,000. Apply here.