[Republishing this edition to correct items about a Sun-Times editorial and COVID tests—with thanks to the many readers who flagged those errors. Because, you know, um, everybody needs an editor.]
‘The Trump s*@#storm.’ Columnist and former Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger sees a front moving in on Donald Trump’s social media accounts …
■ … where Trump’s threatened to imprison his opponents if he wins another term.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s rant in Wisconsin Saturday “feels like a dramatic escalation of the themes we’ve seen for years.”
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: “Unless you work on the politics desk of The New York Times or Washington Post, it’s getting harder and harder not to notice the … dangerously unhinged nature of Donald Trump’s campaign appearances.”
■ News critic Margaret Sullivan: Journalists keep “sanewashing” Trump’s nonsense.
■ The Bulwark’s William Kristol and Andrew Egger: Tuning out Trump’s lean-in to the violence is “a luxury only afforded to Americans so long as Trump remains out of power.”
A double standard for hacked email. Popular Information: “For weeks, major American media organizations—including The Washington Post, Politico, and The New York Times—have possessed internal Trump campaign documents. What do these documents say? We don’t know because all three outlets have declined to publish the documents—or excerpt a single sentence.”
■ MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: “The news media broadly is falling.”
‘It is the biggest story in my journalism career.’ Professor Jeff Jarvis notes the unprecedented alliance supporting Kamala Harris—including conservatives Liz and Dick Cheney and liberals Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders: “The question is whether our national media will understand this moment—or whether they will continue to insist on their trope of a divided America.”
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “I never imagined I’d find myself admiring the good sense of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. But here we are.”
■ Tribune columnist Laura Washington marvels: “Trump acknowledged, for the first time, that he ‘lost’ the 2020 election. … Imagine that.”
‘Sorry, mom.’ The mother of a boy accused of the year’s deadliest school shooting so far—in Georgia—says that a text from her son prompted her to call the school half an hour before the slaughter began.
■ One of the teachers who survived confesses that she lied to her students to keep them calm—telling them it was just a drill.
■ A Sun-Times editorial commends criminal charges against the alleged shooter’s father: “If parents arm their children and then ignore red flags, they should be ready to share the blame for any resulting bloodshed” …
■ … but, The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin contends, putting mass shooters’ parents on trial is “a poor replacement for a pro-life policy of serious gun-control measures.”
‘And people wonder why conservatives believe the media swings way left.’ Marathon Pundit John Ruberry had an issue with Friday’s Square—specifically, its quoting of vice-presidential candidate JD Vance’s dismissal of school shootings as just “a fact of life”: “You left … out, ‘I don’t like that this is a fact of life.’”
■ Your Square columnist’s response: “A person who says ‘I don’t like that the sky is purple’ is nevertheless asserting that the sky is purple.”
■ Vance’s Democratic counterpart, Tim Walz: “That our children need to be shot dead in schools—that’s not a fact of life.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “No, you f**king ghouls, school shootings don’t have to be a ‘fact of life.’ Every other country in the world thinks we’re nuts.”
■ Chicago magazine’s Ted McClelland sarcastically calls for every rider to carry a gun on CTA trains: “Think of how much more civil they could become with a well-regulated militia on board.”
Pick your shot. City Cast Chicago surveys strategies for getting that next COVID-19 booster.
■ Time: At-home COVID shots tests aren’t what they used to be.
■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump: “I got COVID 16 days ago and … I’m still exhausted.”
Google this, Google that. The company today faces another antitrust lawsuit that threatens to break it up over its ad tech.
■ Wired: This one could make online ads less annoying.
■ Digiday: The Justice Department contends Google’s practices “choke off competition, drive up costs for advertisers, cut into publishers’ revenue and shrink choices for consumers.”
■ Apple was set for rollout of a new iPhone …
■ … with a livestream event to begin at noon Chicago time.
■ Author and tech watchdog Cory Doctorow: “America’s best-paid CEOs have the worst-paid employees.”
‘Always has been true, always will be.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg assesses a new guide to writing, Everybody Needs an Editor.■ One of the book’s authors says one goal is to prompt writers “to show more respect for people’s time and … use the Return key more.”
■ Your Chicago Public Square columnist contributed.
■ Relaunching his Reliable Sources newsletter for CNN today—now publishing mornings—Brian Stelter pledges it’ll be “shorter and sharper.”
‘A worthy celebration of a great writer.’ Critic Jack Helbig*** reviews Royko: The Toughest Man in Chicago, a one-man show running through the end of the month at the Chopin Theatre.
■ Axios Chicago tours a place Royko once worked, Tribune Tower, to assess its transformation into a luxury condo building.
■ Prefer PayPal? You can use that.
■ Beth Kujawski, Pam Spiegel and Mike Braden made this edition better.
*** Who’s described Square as the “best free daily roundup in your inbox,” so you know he’s discerning.