‘A disappointing spectacle.’ Better Government Association chief David Greising says the relatively light sentence for convicted ex-Chicago City Council member Ed Burke makes clear the need for an ethics crackdown.
■ Noting that the two-year sentence in practice may wind up reduced to just months, a Tribune editorial calls the punishment “scanty” …
■ …which may explain why he was smiling afterward.
■ And he still can appeal to a higher court.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: Unlike convicted ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, “who multiplied his own prison time by being too stupid to realize he’d done anything wrong, Burke copped to his guilt” …
■ … and a Sun-Times editorial considers the case “a testament to the notion that eventually, justice will be served.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: That white-collar criminals such as Burke get “to walk free for three more months … suggests to the lay observer that, oh, the system doesn’t really take their crimes all that seriously and doesn’t want to make their punishments too disruptive. … Why not take him into custody now?”
■ Burke’s 14th Ward successor, Jeylu Gutierrez, declined comment—pleading, “I just need to read more about the case.”
Ya think? In a first for his office, the U.S. surgeon general has declared gun violence a public health emergency …
■ … but the declaration carries little weight without congressional action, so, yeah, good luck with that …
■ … at least until the next election.
■ A 16-year-old boy’s been charged with the murder last week of a retired Chicago police officer.
‘This is how you do it.’ Poynter’s Tom Jones celebrates CNN anchor Kasie Hunt’s cutting short an interview with a Trump campaign official who refused to stop attacking Thursday night’s presidential debate moderators.
■ Popular Information’s Judd Legum sees the debate as “a critical opportunity to get Trump on the record” about whether he’d let women get abortion pills.
■ An ACLU report details how a second Trump presidency would “imperil abortion access and reproductive rights nationwide.”
■ Humorist Andy Borowitz: “Biden to Wear Shark Costume at Debate.”
Credit jarred. A groundbreaking Illinois law that would forbid banks and credit card companies from slapping their upcharges on sales taxes and tips has financial institutions in a tizzy …
■ … running panicked ads like this.
‘Has Facebook stopped trying?’ 404 Media details the overrunning of Facebook by AI spam and scams—as experts say the company’s stopped asking them for help.
■ Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow sarcastically hails the future in which we’re living right now: “A media ecosystem that allows everyone to choose their own reality!”
‘The world has changed in more ways than we can account for.’ The director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois Chicago confirms that traffic here’s gotten worse since the pandemic—but that that might not all be bad news.
■ Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous says this month’s heat waves make clear the need to tackle the climate crisis head-on.
■ Wired: If earthlings return to the moon, governments need to figure out the legal, ethical, and practical implications of … poop.
‘The good people of this world will never forget your sacrifice.’ Author and filmmaker Michael Moore—who, 14 years ago, posted $20,000 in bail money for classified document purveyor and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—celebrates Assange’s pending freedom.
■ Updating coverage: Assange was on his way around the world to enter a plea deal with the U.S.
Lurie lost. A self-described hippie who transformed Chicago’s charitable landscape, former intensive care nurse Ann Lurie, is dead at 79.
■ The Tribune’s Rick Kogan: “It would take many pages to catalog the manifestations of her largesse.”
‘Two decades of culture reporting’ gone in a flash. The A.V. Club calls the disappearance of the MTV News website and its archives an omen of “our encroaching digital dark age.”
■ It’s the latest sign of trouble at struggling corporate parent Paramount Global …
■ … which is about to raise the price of its Paramount+ streaming service.