Chicago Public Square will take a couple of days off—in part to attend the 2024 Chicago Local News Summit.* Back Friday, with a fresh news quiz.
■ Between editions, follow Square on Bluesky for breaking news and perspective.
‘Chicago’s in trouble.’ That’s President-elect Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, threatening to launch a mass deportation program here.
■ He appealed to Mayor Johnson and Gov. Pritzker to “come to the table,” but he tells Politico “they need to reach out to me.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “The courts and common sense tell us … any baby born within our borders is automatically deemed a citizen.”
■ Axios Chicago: Mass deportations could trigger labor shortages—spiking food prices, shuttering restaurants and leaving food rotting on the vine …
■ … even as the state’s population of undocumented people falls.
■ Chicago magazine sees city politics fueling a housing shortage.
‘A personal element.’ Johnson’s refused to comment on the fact that his top adviser voted last month in Texas, even though he’s sworn that Chicago is his home.
■ WBEZ: Johnson’s chief of staff “denies that she recommended using a ‘peace circle’ to address allegations of sexual harassment or misogyny against former communications director Ronnie Reese.”
Made at McDonald’s. Police descending on a fast-food restaurant in Pennsylvania arrested Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, in connection with the murder in New York of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
■ The Daily Beast: “Something happened to Luigi Mangione in 2023.”
■ NBC News: A friend recalls that Mangione once belonged to a group of Ivy League gamers who played assassins.
■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein shares Mangione’s 2020 resume.
■ Zeteo’s Prem Thakker compares Mangione with another 26-year-old acquitted yesterday in New York after killing a homeless man.
■ The story’s created a field of comedic landmines for late show hosts.
Chicago vs. Syria. A federal grand jury here has charged a couple of high-ranking Syrian intelligence officials with war crimes.
■ In what some Middle Eastern neighbors are calling a “land grab,” Israeli troops have advanced into Syria.
■ CNN takes you inside deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad’s garage full of luxury cars.
■ The Conversation: One guy atop the revolution has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
‘If some of his nominees seem ludicrously unqualified— Well, who better to reduce the administrative state to rubble?’ Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow surveys the kakistocracy taking shape under Trump II.
■ Politico characterizes Trump’s strategy for bringing skeptical Republican senators around on the troubled nomination of Pete Hegseth to head the Defense Department: “Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him.”
■ A Sun-Times editorial warns that Trump’s administration and a Republican-controlled Congress will “send Amtrak’s renaissance off the rails.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ ProPublica: “Trump controls a publicly traded company. Now he will pick its regulator.”
■ His use of a photo showing First Lady Jill Biden smiling at him—to promote his new line of fragrances—inspired a round of late-night mockery.
‘Trump seems to be taking over Washington without a whimper of opposition.’ Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich asks: “Where’s the Democratic leadership? Who’s speaking up for the rule of law right now, other than Liz Cheney? Why have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris seemingly disappeared?”
■ Columnist and NBA icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: “I wish Biden hadn’t pardoned his son, yet I’m secretly glad he did.”
■ Stephen Robinson at Public Notice: “Even if the president won’t come out and admit it, something important is in fact different now: Kash Patel … Trump’s pick to be FBI director … has vowed to weaponize the DOJ against Hunter Biden.”
■ Luke Goldstein at The American Prospect: “The Democratic Party had more money than God this election. At what cost?”
■ Goldstein’s colleague, Robert Kuttner: “MAGA wins because leading Democrats have failed to narrate why so many Americans feel screwed by the system.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Don’t worry, forgotten men and women. Be confident that Trump and Musk … and all the other totally trustworthy and altruistic non-elite billionaires know what’s good for you. Because you’re about to get it, regardless.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich sees Trump’s assertion that Democrats “want all future Presidential Elections to be based exclusively on the Electoral College!” as evidence that the president-elect is “a blithering imbecile, lost and wandering in an ever-thickening fog of dementia and delusion.”
No kidding. The HelloFresh meal kit company’s Aurora plant is under federal investigation on charges of violating child labor laws.
■ Popular Information: Florida’s new sex education curriculum is almost completely sex-free.
‘Mindboggling.’ Google says it’s devised a quantum computing chip capable of completing in minutes takes tasks that’d otherwise take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.
■ A 60 Minutes feature on artificial-intelligence-fueled tech from online education pioneer Khan Academy raises questions about the future of teaching.
■ Founder Sal Khan sees an AI tutor for every kid.
Real-life Succession. Surveying the family drama over control of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire—including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post—media writer Tom Jones concludes that “sometimes life not only imitates art, it influences it.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “A different Fox media empire would almost certainly disrupt the right-wing bubble.”
■ NPR: A top editor at The Washington Post killed an article on a colleague’s departure for The New York Times.
■ Columnist Paul Krugman is quitting the Times.
■ Newsletter author Gabe Fleisher, who’s been journaling the news since he was 9, has become a credentialed Capitol Hill journalist at 23—but he questions the antiquated process involved.
■ Who’s best? Let the Reader know what you consider the greatest things about Chicago—by voting in this year’s Best of Chicago poll.
■ Already voted? You can support Square in other ways—for as little as $1, once. Really.
Thanks. John Meissen made this edition better.
A Square public service announcement
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* Also to experience the joy of esophageal manometry.