‘ABC Apologizes for Freedom of Press.’ That’s satirist Andy Borowitz, mocking the network’s agreement to settle Donald Trump’s defamation suit by paying $15 million toward his presidential library …
■ … for what Public Notice’s Lisa Needham calls “George Stephanopoulos’s completely defensible on-air statement that Trump had been found liable for rape.”
■ The Bulwark calls the settlement “a truly ominous moment.”
■ Noting that ABC’s “owned by Disney, a huge corporation with a lot of turf to protect,” American Crisis columnist Margaret Sullivan says this “sure looks” like “a simple case of kissing the ring,” obeying a tyrant in advance.
■ Jeff Tiedrich at Everyone is Entitled to My Own Opinion: “These cowards are paving the way for their own demise.”
■ Law & Chaos: “ABC’s cowardice highlights E. Jean Carroll’s unique bravery. She sued a sitting president, knowing that it would subject her to a lifetime of harassment and threats.”
■ Oliver Darcy at Status: “What’s going on inside the Magic Kingdom? Is something in the water?”
■ Quoting an email to staff from Axios’ senior counsel, Semafor observes that “media organizations are increasingly on high alert as multiple incoming members of the administration have expressed a willingness … to pursue legal action against journalists.”
■ A law professor perceives “an attitudinal shift” in mainstream media: “Today’s press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom.”
‘That should buy Mark Zuckerberg a pretty nice prison cell.’ The Onion razzes the Facebook founder’s decision to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund …
■ … just months after Trump threatened to imprison Zuckerberg for life.
■ Popular Information calls it “a striking turnaround” for Zuckerberg, who’s “gone from advocating for humane treatment for undocumented immigrants to offering his financial support to a president-elect who has pledged a brutal crackdown.”
‘We won’t shut up.’ That tops a list of 28 things Stop the Presses proprietor Mark Jacob says Americans of good conscience won’t do when Trump takes over Jan. 20.
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: “If Trump follows through on issuing pardons for the insurrectionists in his first days in the White House, it would … provide Democrats with a golden opportunity to start our comeback.”
■ Radio host, ex-Chicago City Council member and former Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath: “We need to push senators to stop him while they can.”
■ In Republicans’ lineup for House committee leadership next year, columnist and law professor Joyce Vance sees “the demotion of women to second-class citizens.”
■ Trump ally Steve Bannon says Trump could run for a third term in 2028.
‘The first real demonstration of just how much Americans resent the health insurance system.’ Chicago writer Irv Leavitt—who wrote in August that he’d been spending less time over the previous year “with a keyboard than with ambulances, MRIs, wheelchairs, nurses”—ponders “the memes and jokes about the irony of the head of America’s most niggardly health insurer being assassinated.”
■ CNN: A backpack manufacturer has been targeted by threats after reports its CEO told police he spotted one of the company’s bags in video of the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
■ Mourning that “to many Americans right now, appeals to decency or the Rule of Law itself are seen as … a naïve throwback to a world that no longer exists,” Charlie Sykes asks ironically, “Who do we kill next?”
■ NewsGuard shoots down false claims about Thompson’s murder.
■ The story reminds Melissa Ryan at Ctrl-Alt-Right-Delete of “The Ballad of Jesse James”: “Americans love an outlaw and hate our healthcare system.”
■ The Lever: “Health insurers gave $120 billion to shareholders while denying your claim.”
■ Ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich spells out how “Trump’s unelected multi-billionaires … plan to gut Medicaid.”
‘Council Wars 2.0.’ That’s how Politico’s Shia Kapos bills the Chicago government standoff over a new budget.
■ Mayor Johnson was hoping a property-tax-increase-free spending plan would clear this council this afternoon …
■ … which makes this an apt time to tip a hat to comedian Aaron Freeman, whose Star Wars-inspired comedy routine gave us the concept of “Council Wars.”
Climate change’s toll. Lake Michigan saw its warmest November in 30 years—increasing the risks of shoreline erosion and invasive species.
■ Downtown San Francisco on Saturday endured its first tornado warning.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson marks a fraught 50th anniversary for the Safe Drinking Water Act.
■ After a warm and foggy Monday, Chicagoans may see some snow later this week.
New life for old things. Chicago Union Station’s set for an overhaul next year—the incoming administration willing.
■ The Spirit of Progress statue atop the old Montgomery Ward building’s getting a facelift for spring.
Black plastic fears dispelled. If you’ve been alarmed by widespread reports of health threats posed by black plastic kitchenware, stand down: The National Post says those warnings are premised on a simple math error …
■ … specifically: “60 times 7,000 is not 42,000. It is 420,000.”
‘Reporters are expensive meatbags, and they complain a lot. What if you could just replace them with robots?’ That’s Wonkette’s Marcie Jones’ take on BuzzFeed’s latest pivot.
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “AI doesn’t replace a person, yet. … I’ve had several unexpected human encounters in the anonymous electronic churn of online commerce.”
‘I realize there is nothing free in this world but I prefer not being reminded of it at every turn.’ A reader’s unsubscribe note last week makes this a good time to stress that Chicago Public Square is indeed always free for everyone—but that it remains so because support from a relative few readers covers its production costs. So …
■ No guilt if you’re not paying. Free access to news is central to this newsletter’s mission; finding—or paying for—alternative links to paywalled content when possible is a significant part of the job here.
■ Thanks if you can chip in—even just $1, once.
■ And, of course, it costs you not a penny to vote for Square in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.
