Blackout Friday. Protesting corporate greed and knee-bending to the Trump regime, activists are plotting a 24-hour economic boycott tomorrow—encouraging consumers not to spend anything anywhere, online or in person …
■ … and, in Chicago, immigrant advocates’ “full week of civil disobedience” in May.
‘It is really terrifying.’ In what may be the first such incident since Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown geared up in January, federal immigration agents yesterday detained an adult—a person with two kids in the car—as students were arriving at a Chicago school.
■ An audit concludes Gov. Pritzker’s administration sharply underestimated the cost of providing state-funded health insurance to Illinois’ non-citizen immigrants.
‘Once Social Security checks stop showing up, millions of Americans will finally understand the scope.’ Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas: “The full force of this administration’s destruction is about to hit.”
■ Social Security’s acting commissioner’s ordered managers to present a plan for cutting staff by half.
■ Economist Paul Krugman: Republicans are prepped to gut Medicaid.
■ Bluesky briefly took down—and then, after she protested, restored—Kabas’ post of that artificial-intelligence-generated protest video showing Trump sucking on Elon Musk’s two left feet.
‘This outbreak isn’t over.’ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina offers five takeaways on the first U.S. measles death in a decade …
■ … a victim of Texas’ biggest measles outbreak in almost three decades.
■ Health and Human Services brainworm host Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “We have measles outbreaks every year.”
■ With no explanation, the Food and Drug Administration’s canceled a meeting to identify next year’s flu strain.
■ Trump’s EPA is moving to abandon the axiom that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare.
■ Indivisible Chicago plans a downtown protest Friday—this time to “Stand up for Science.”
‘They are coming for the judges. And not just the judges.’ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance fears the rising drumbeat of court criticism from Trump, Musk and their sycophants.
■ In a move that Law & Chaos columnist Lyz Dye says “cuts the legs out from under every trial judge,” the Supreme Court’s chief justice has at least temporarily cleared the Trump administration not to free foreign aid funding a federal judge ordered released almost two weeks ago.
■ Under federal guard, the Associated Press reports, U.S. Agency for International Development workers fired or placed on leave under Trump’s dismantling of the agency today “began paying mournful final visits to their abruptly closed Washington headquarters … under the administration’s 15-minute windows to clear out their offices.”
‘The Post’s opinion section will now be a propaganda sheet, comforting the comfortable and smooching the behind of President Donald Trump.’ Columnist Eric Zorn condemns Washington Post and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ edict that the paper’s opinion section will henceforth be “writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
■ Veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher*: “Let me translate two things this libertarian light nincompoop is saying: Personal liberties means doing whatever the fuck I want. Free markets means doing whatever the fuck I want.”
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: Bezos is making a damning case against corporate media ownership.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones sees it as “more dirt” on the Post’s reputation.
■ Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz: “Friends who work at large outlets have told me that their editors are asking them to focus more on the stories of men.”
■ Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton: “The scale of the hypocrisy on display here is eye-watering.”
■ ProPublica cofounder Dick Tofel offers suggestions for what we all can do to protect a free press.
■ Status proprietor Oliver Darcy’s winning headline: “Post traumatic stress.”
■ Puck’s Dylan Byers (gift link, funded by Chicago Public Square supporters): Rachel Maddow’s criticism of MSNBC’s layoffs ironically misses the point that “she gets paid $25 million a year to effectively work one day a week … roughly equivalent to the combined salary of about—go figure—125 production staffers.”
‘A slap in the face to Americans.’ A Sun-Times editorial says Trump’s attempt to control the White House media pool is a clear attempt to drown free speech.
■ CNN: Trump’s first cabinet meeting of this go-round was loaded with false claims.
■ Desi Lydic at The Daily Show: “Today was a big day for Donald Trump. He had a meeting with every member of his cabinet, and he even invited the president [Musk].”
Musk vs. Jon Stewart. Mr. DOGE says he’ll appear on The Daily Show …
■ ProPublica: Musk’s team has gained access to confidential personal information about hundreds of thousands of alleged victims of housing discrimination—including victims of domestic violence.
■ Rolling Stone: Musk’s anonymous “data expert”—a woman who’s shown up on reactionary TV shows wearing sunglasses and a hoodie to conceal her identity—worked until this week for an artificial-intelligence-powered lending company that has for years tangled with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
■ Former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger: “Trump and Musk plan to save the rich by starving the poor.”
Chicago serial killings. Police have charged a man with six murders on the Southwest Side across several months in 2020.
■ The suspect, who was 17 at the time, reportedly knew none of the victims.
‘I’ve seen carcasses pile up for weeks.’ A doctoral student is pressing the Chicago Transit Authority to do something about pigeons getting trapped and dying on L platforms: “It’s a public health risk. Decomposing birds attract rats and spread bacteria.”
■ Chicago’s adding 50 new speed cameras around town to balance Mayor Johnson’s budget.
■ With Johnson casting the tie-breaking vote, the City Council’s approved a plan to borrow $830 million for infrastructure work.
■ Eric Zorn again: “Johnson needs to stop comforting himself looking at election results from nearly two years ago and start asking why he has lost the support and confidence of the public.”
‘This is disgusting.’ That’s MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, reacting to word that—under orders from Trump—the U.S. Marine Band canceled a performance with high school musicians of color.
■ Add Paramount—parent of CBS, Nickelodeon and others—to the list of companies rolling back policies designed to encourage diversity.
‘Commercial aviation is actually the safest mode of transportation ever devised that involves hurtling high above the earth at 500 miles per hour in a crowded metal tube.’ But Pulitzer winner Dave Barry** nevertheless says “the flying public is rightly concerned about airline safety.”
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* Here she is, interviewed by your Square columnist back in 1998, about the “War for the Web.”
** Let us not forget that Barry once suggested your Square columnist be fired.