’Tis the season. Chicago Public Square’s taking a few days off. Back here Jan. 2, 2025, if the fates allow.
■ Through the holidays, get your news and commentary fix via the Square account on Bluesky. (No Bluesky account required.)
■ That’ll include whatever happens in today’s Chicago school board showdown over the fate of CEO Pedro Martinez.
■ And watch for a special yearend news quiz extravaganza Friday, Dec. 27. (But Square supporters at the Advocate level or better get an early heads-up for each new quiz.)
■ Now, the news:
If government shuts down … Here’s what you can expect if Congress and—yes, he’s still there—President Biden can’t come to terms on a spending plan before midnight tonight.
■ Live updates: The AP’s tracking Capitol Hill drama through the day.
■ A Texas Republican took his House colleagues to task, declaring himself “absolutely sickened” by their failure to muster “an ounce of self-respect” in standing up to President-elect Trump and Elon Musk.
■ The American Prospect: “Musk declares himself president, shuts down government. And Donald Trump, for now, is fine with it.”
■ Columnist Jennifer Schulze: “This is America 2024: A country where the world’s richest man can force a government shutdown with a barrage of tweets consisting almost entirely of lies and conspiracy theories.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich: “Musk fucks around—and finds out that governmenting is hard.”
■ Stephen Colbert: “It makes sense that Musk would kill this at the last minute. Because he’s an expert at blowing things up on the launch pad.”
Uline hypocrisy. The Guardian: A Wisconsin company owned by two of Trump’s top mega-donors—Illinoisans Liz and Dick Uihlein, who’ve complained of an immigrant “invasion”—has routinely brought dozens of its workers from Mexico to staff its warehouses even though they don’t seem to have permission to work in the U.S.
■ Harold Meyerson (no relation) at The American Prospect connects the strike against Amazon with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ dinner with Trump and Musk, concluding they’ve joined forces “to make sure Trump doesn’t support even a scintilla of worker power.”
■ The Big Lots retail chain plans to close its 17 remaining Illinois stores.
Drama in Berwyn. Racist, far-right streamer Nick Fuentes says he was the target of a “would-be assassin” who was gunning for him at the time police shot and killed the suspect.
■ Dozens of elected officials are demanding Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans shake up the court’s Domestic Violence Division after a judge released a man later accused of killing his wife.
‘It took a clearly disturbed 26-year-old loner with a ghost gun to finally trigger a national conversation about … AI overruling your family doctor.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch suggests the rage against corporate America unleashed by a CEO’s assassination could show a way forward for the nation’s broken politics.
■ A Chicago guy went in for a colonoscopy. And then the hospital charged him for two.
■ A Senate report concludes that hospitals in states with abortion bans are leaving doctors high and dry when it comes to advice about how to treat women facing pregnancy complications.
‘Fear not: There are tidings of hard news as well.’ Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel’s sprinkled this week’s news quiz with plenty of holiday cheer …
■ Here’s one story that would have improved that score.
(Image: Microsoft Copilot.)
Home for the holidays? Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper lists his 10 best movies of 2024—and where to watch them.
■ Maybe turn off the Christmas lights overnight? ComEd’s won a rate hike—although it’s not as much as it sought.
■ In time for holiday gift-giving, tickets for September’s Riot Fest 2025 are on sale today.
■ Consumer Reports recommends a “healthier and safer” approach to eggnog.
■ And while you’re sitting around watching TV and drinking eggnog, how about casting a vote for Square in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll?
Black ice. It wasn’t a lot of snow overnight, but it was enough to trigger a ground stop at O’Hare International Airport …
■ … with a bit more likely this afternoon.
■ Block Club profiles a 94-year-old volunteer easing travelers’ holiday dread at Midway.
Propelled into the spotlight. Columnist Neil Steinberg profiles a Crown Point man who’s spent six years selling pinwheel hats on Chicago’s streets.
■ Coincidentally, the road to Chicago Public Square’s creation passed through an early encounter with a Beany Copter.
Media Personality of the Year. Poynter’s pick is neither Trump nor Musk but a guy “who once hosted a game/reality show where contestants drank gross concoctions.”
■ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin: The billionaires who own The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times using a “loss of trust” as a cudgel to attack their own news organizations are “full of bull.”
■ Podcaster and tech journalist Kara Swisher is launching a longshot bid to buy the Post …
■ … which makes this 1998 interview with her timely again.
■ Comcast is jacking up TV subscribers’ monthly sports fee—even as it blacks out Bulls and Blackhawks games.
■ The Heated environmental newsletter is abandoning the goal of growing into a reader-funded newsroom, reverting next year to a one-person newsletter.
Thanks. Walter Fyk made this edition better.