‘Particularly perverse.’ Law professor and Civil Discourse columnist Joyce Vance analyzes the fake 2020 elector scheme alleged by Wisconsin’s attorney general in charges against Donald Trump acolytes.
■ Questioning the notion that Trump’s a “first-time offender,” alumnus Bob Garfield pens an open letter to the judge who’ll sentence Trump: “Wasn’t Trump University found liable in civil court for fraud? Wasn’t the Trump Foundation fined and disbanded for pocketing charitable donations earmarked for children with cancer? Wasn’t the Trump Organization just found guilty of tax fraud? Didn’t the convict himself publicly and repeatedly boast about the very frauds perpetrated by him or in his name?”
■ American Prospect columnist Rick Perlstein recommends that, “rather than visiting red-state diners, reporters ought to journey to the … conservative message board where the talk after the Trump verdict was nihilistic and bloody.”
‘I will not be intimidated.’ Attorney General Merrick Garland smacked down Republican representatives who tried to intimidate him yesterday with conspiracy theories about the prosecution of Trump.
■ Columnist Clarence Page on Republicans’ similar treatment Monday of pandemic hero Anthony Fauci: Politics at its most paranoid.
■ Live updates: Garland’s department continues its prosecution of presidential scion Hunter Biden.
‘It’s not very popular to have no control over who immigrates to your country, OK? Just ask the Native Americans.’ The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng was among late-night hosts mocking President Biden’s order to close the U.S. border with Mexico …
■ … a plan that Popular Information calls “more severe than a bipartisan deal negotiated earlier this year in the Senate.”
■ The Onion: “Now he’ll lose Ohio by slightly less!”
■ The AP explains how it’s supposed to work.
■ The ACLU says it puts thousands of lives at risk.
■ Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet: It’s drawing fire from the right and the left.
■ Israel’s government reportedly secretly targeted U.S. lawmakers with a $2 million campaign to gain support for the war with Gaza.
Baby food alarm. Consumer Reports tests of kids’ puff snacks revealed “more lead than any of the 80 baby foods CR has tested since 2017.”
■ It’s launched a petition demanding the Food and Drug Administration take action.
‘Cloudy with a chance of disaster.’ The Lever says climate change is raising the likelihood of catastrophic landslides …
■ … and the Federal Emergency Management Agency finds the Chicago region at “relatively moderate” risk.
■ The World Meteorological Organization sees an 80% chance that average global temperatures will, within five years, blow past a critical threshold identified in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
‘A Right to Warn about Advanced Artificial Intelligence.’ That’s the title of an open letter from ex-staffers at OpenAI calling for whistleblower protections in the AI biz.
■ Color Platformer’s Casey Newton skeptical: “The AI safety argument has begun to feel a bit tedious over the past year, when the harms caused by large language models have been funnier than they have been terrifying.”
■ Twitter X says it’ll now allow consensual adult nudity and other pornographic content.
‘The diversity part is off to a rough start.’ Media writer Tom Jones notes that the Washington Post management shakeup means that the “owner, publisher and three heads of the newsroom will all be white males.”
■ Dan Froomkin at Press Watch: “The Tory takeover … might not be entirely a bad thing, although it probably will be.”
■ Jack Shafer at Politico expects the new leadership will “Wall Street Journal-ify and Rupert Murdoch-ize” the Post.
■ CNN explains the “astonishing indictment” of the pro-Trump media outlet Epoch Times, which allegedly funneled tens of millions of dollars in a money laundering scheme.
‘We would like more clarity about our direction.’ WBEZ Morning Edition host Mary Dixon is among members of the union filing its first complaint of unfair labor practices at the station.
■ Parent organization Chicago Public Media pointedly locked down its Monday board meeting to a Zoom presentation, silencing employee critics.
■ Advisorator Jared Newman explains how to turn an old radio into “one of the most joyful tech things I’ve ever set up.”
‘Riveting’ and ‘essential.’ Critic Richard Roeper bestows 3 1/2 stars on a new six-part series, Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial, which he says recounts the “Third Reich’s horrors for the Netflix generation.”
■ Max (formerly HBO Max) is raising ad-free plan rates by a buck a month.
■ LateNighter says “John Oliver called it”: His latest show on Max has been blocked in India.
Blues oohs. The Tribune offers a guide to this weekend’s (free!) Chicago Blues Fest …
■ … after which this year’s attempt at a NASCAR Chicago Street Race begins shutting downtown streets.
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