Trump’s Supreme break. Updating coverage and reaction: The Supreme Court today extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against Donald Trump on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election—dimming the odds he’ll be tried before November …
■ … but, in sending the case back to a lower court, justices nevertheless concluded that ex-presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within [their] … constitutional authority.”
■ Here’s the ruling.
■ Guess who dissented?
■ No such luck for Trump enabler Steve Bannon, off to prison today to begin a four-month sentence on charges of contempt of Congress.
‘Supreme power grab.’ That’s how Popular Information assesses the impact of justices’ reversal of a four-decade precedent used to define how laws are enforced.
■ Public Notice sees it as part of “the biggest power grab in modern U.S. history” …
■ … that columnist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich sees arising from “a corporate strategy launched 53 years ago.”
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “Want to know if you can use the abortion drug mifepristone? Despite studies confirming the drug is safer than Viagra and Tylenol, that decision is up to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas. If he decides the FDA was wrong to approve it, well then, he can deny women access to medication abortion.”
■ People’s Parity Project executive director* Molly Coleman: “In a democracy, we are supposed to be ruled by the people and our elected representatives. The far-right, antidemocratic Supreme Court is committed to ensuring that we live in a country ruled by judges.”
Meanwhile … The Lever notes a curious thing: “In 2016, Donald Trump routinely went after CEOs and corporate power. Now he’s their mouthpiece. What happened?”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s remarks in last week about “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” echoes almost two centuries of political leaders “warning their voters that some minority group is coming for their jobs.”
■ ProPublica: “Conservatives Go to War—Against Each Other—Over School Vouchers.”
■ ProPublica: “Conservatives Go to War—Against Each Other—Over School Vouchers.”
Should he stay or should he go? Amid escalating debate over President Biden’s quest for another term, the Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg compares Biden’s status to his dad’s declining health: “My father holds patents in nuclear reactor design, but I would not ask him to design a nuclear reactor now, nor would I want to live near one he had worked on recently.”
■ Axios: Biden’s team is pinning its hopes in part on “a grand-slam speech at the Democratic convention in Chicago” …
■ … which the Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet says is no longer “on course to be a highly scripted, four-night show with no surprises.”
■ Columnist—and Superman’s former editor—Mike Gold, who says he’ll support whomever the Democrats nominate, nevertheless concludes that Biden “is not in shape to run this nation during what quite likely is going to be a continuing … right-wing Christian Nationalist takeover.”
■ Stop the Presses proprietor Mark Jacob: “CNN’s fact-check-free hosting of last week’s presidential debate and to NBC’s and ABC’s interviews with Trump adviser Steve Bannon before he heads to prison Monday” constituted “infomercials for insurrection.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “To keep the rabble from moving on to the next shiny object, the media’s… inventing controversy, because it’s a sure-fire way of stoking the outrage-furnace.”
Dig deeper. Illinois’ gasoline tax is up as of today.
■ As of today, the minimum wage for Chicago’s tipped workers begins a series of annual increases through 2028.
■ Also now the law: Motorists who aren’t U.S. citizens can get a standard Illinois driver’s license.
■ Block Club Chicago: A first-in-the-nation law crafted in part by young people who’ve grown up in the age of social media requires families to establish trust funds for kids under 18 who appear in family videos monetized online.
‘A mass arrest.’ Updating coverage: That’s what Chicago police ordered—for reasons unclear at Chicago Public Square’s email deadline—after a night of post-Pride Parade celebrations in the Lakeview neighborhood.
■ Politico Illinois Playbook columnist Shia Kapos (middle of today’s sixth-anniversary column): Before he marched in the parade, Gov. Pritzker signed two bills promoting LGBTQ+ rights in Illinois.
Big Gulp battle. Crime-focused news site CWBChicago says the suburb of Flossmoor is violating the law by refusing to surrender documents related to the alleged battery of resident—and Cook County State’s Attorney—Kim Foxx, who accuses a man of dousing her with a Big Gulp cup filled with root beer.
■ So the site’s filed a complaint against the town with the Illinois attorney general’s office.
■ A shooting on a CTA bus left a passenger dead and the driver injured.
A climate of crisis. One of the nation’s iconic environmental groups, the Sierra Club, faces its first employee strike tomorrow.
■ The Washington Post: “Dengue fever is surging worldwide. A hotter planet will make it worse.”
Curtains down. Block Club reports that, ending a 15-year-run, the South Loop’s ShowPlace Icon movieplex is closing …
■ … the latest victim of a bad few years for movie joints (April link).
A connoisseur of cross words. New York Times Games columnist Deb Amlen, who landed one of that dwindling supply of “Too far left for me. Sorry I ever signed up” Chicago Public Square T-shirts, writes: “We just finished a bike ride and people loved the back of the shirt!”
■ A few of those remain, along with other styles, and you can get one gratis this week by supporting Square at the Enthusiast level or better.
■ And anyone who backs Square at any level—even just $1, once—gets $5 off Squarewear.
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* And daughter-in-law to your Square publisher.