‘We are terrified’ / Watch your butts / ‘A must-see’

‘We are terrified.’ As Donald Trump’s agents descended on Chicago, a woman in the Hermosa neighborhood tells the Tribune that her parents ran to hide in their attic: “They took our neighbor’s dad.”
 Trump’s “border czar” reported close to 1,000 arrests nationwide Sunday.
 The AP: “The sheer number of federal agencies involved showed … Trump’s willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations.”
 Mayor Johnson said Chicago cops weren’t involved.
 Gov. Pritzker to CNN: “They’re going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two.”
 Coverage of the onslaught has been complicated by mistaken reports Friday from Chicago Public Schools.
 For some reason, Oprah Winfrey’s old pal Dr. Phil has been in the thick of it.
 Columnist Paul Krugman: “This will be ugly and scary. America may very quickly become a nation in which everyone—or at least every nonwhite—feels the need to carry proof of legal residence with them wherever they go, and even having the right papers may not protect you from detention or vigilante violence.”
 The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg: “We need to support the people Trump is stepping on.”
 The administration’s apparently successfully bullied Colombia into accepting flights of migrants deported from the U.S.
 Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich: “Elderly rage-baby melts down when called out for massive abuse of deportees.”

‘War on the watchdogs.’ Law & Chaos on Trump’s dismissal of 18 federal inspectors general: “If there’s no one around to catch you doing crimes, it’s like it never happened.”
 Law professor Joyce Vance: The brewing fight over the dismissals is about “whether Trump will get away with open and early defiance of the law.”
 Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: “The president fired these IGs because they were carrying out their responsibilities in a nonpartisan manner.”
 Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Democrats are outraged at the illegal firings and even some Republicans are expressing concern and have asked the White House for an explanation.”
 Popular Information: Trump and his son-in-law could profit from the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

‘Dear President Trump …’ Responding to the administration’s call for secret informants flagging anyone who advances anything resembling Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Accessibility protocols, columnist Gene Weingarten rats out the author of that memo itself—for “the insidious practice of using coded or imprecise language.”
 Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “My mole in the Department of Labor sent me this.”
 The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch: “The rapid reversal of 1960s-era gains for civil rights, women, LGBTQ, etc., has unraveled the story of our lifetimes.”

‘Medical facilities can’t order food and bandages. Which is kind of a bad thing to not be able to order when you are a hospital.’ Wonkette’s Gary Legum surveys the Trump administration’s approach to government health programs.
 Inside Medicine columnist and Harvard emergency medicine professor Dr. Jeremy Faust: “None of this has achieved anything good.”
 The Guardian: Doctors say the U.S. health insurance system is failing.
 The American Prospect’s David Dayen explains where to find Trump sycophant (or is it the other way around?) Elon Musk’s $2 trillion in federal savings—by focusing on “profit-hungry contractors, privatized boondoggles, systemic overpayments and a mountain of tax avoidance.”

Watch your butts. That’s the National Weather Service’s plea to smokers as a combination of high winds and a relatively dry winter puts the Chicago region at “elevated” risk of fire …
 … but the cold weather that burst pipes at a West Side senior apartment complex, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, is gone for now.
 Next for California: Rain-driven mudslides—which are helping firefighters but spreading a toxic mix of ash from incinerated cars, electronics, pesticides, asbestos, plastics and lead.

Unplugged. The Trib reports Illinois’ pioneering quest to get a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 is in trouble under Trump’s order to freeze funding for the state’s EV charging network …
 … but some legal experts suggest the order might not stick.

What’s on the mayor’s phone? The Freedom of Information Act has given the Trib access to Brandon Johnson’s text messages with City Council members, the governor and more …
 … revealing, among other things, that “aldermen frequently complain about each other to Johnson.”
 WTTW: A council member used $122,000 in campaign funds to pay legal fees—possibly in violation of the law.

Pedway pillage. Chicago cops have been on the lookout for four men who attacked and robbed two women in the underground walkway connecting the Blue and Red Lines at Jackson.

‘A must-see.’ That’s critic Bill Carter’s assessment of the “engrossing new documentary on the music legacy of Saturday Night Live” airing tonight on NBC, Ladies and Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music.
 Coming to IMAX movie theaters across the country Feb. 14, a live simulcast of a Radio City Music Hall event, “SNL50 Homecoming Concert.”
 In Saturday night’s SNL open, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton was upstaged by “Donald Trump.” (See the segment here.)

‘Big Journalism is going to treat a lot of what’s happening as almost normal. In fact, in some cases, they’ve been explicitly ordered to do so.’ News media watchdog Margaret Sullivan: “Mainstream journalists are not effectively communicating the bigger story.”
 She recommends “right-thinking Americans” consult ProtectDemocacy.org’s 29 things you can do to protect democracy—including No. 1: “Invest in local news.”

Get news and commentary around the clock. Follow Chicago Public Square on Bluesky for continual updates—like these, posted over the weekend:
 CNN: “Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 convicts. Now his DOJ is wiping evidence of rioters’ crimes from the internet.”
 Pro-Israel Political Update proprietor Steve Sheffey: “Yes, it was a Nazi salute. Actually, two Nazi salutes. Not one Republican member of Congress had a problem with it.”
 Trump says he’s considering “getting rid of FEMA.”
 Columnist and former Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath: “Trump and the Republicans have done more damage to our nation, our way of life, our future prosperity, than any foreign enemy could ever dream to do.”
 Author Cory Doctorow: “How Big Potato and the other food cartels did greedflation and got away with it.”
 Cartoonist Jack Ohman: “Your Week in Cartoons, Annotated.”

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Thanks. Mike Braden and Kathy Hirsh made this edition better. 

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