SPOON! In a development that evokes the battle cry of super-hero The Tick, the humble spoon has become a symbol for government employees’ rejection of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” push to get them to quit.
■ Workers who lived through Musk’s Twitter purge have advice for federal workers …
■ … who face a midnight deadline tonight for accepting a (potentially hallucinatory) financial incentive to resign.
■ Veteran journalist* and Indivisible Chicago chapter leader Marj Halperin in the Tribune (gift link): “There has never been such a thorough effort to … undermine the fundamental goal of preventing political loyalty from replacing professional qualifications.”
■ Ending a call to Social Security yesterday, your Chicago Public Square columnist thanked the agent for her government service at a challenging time. As she hung up, she sounded close to tears.
■ Heads Up News: “Civil society is coming to the rescue of the civil service,” providing “resources and support for embattled federal workers.”
■ Wired: One of Musk’s teenage DOGE minions, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, has a past that might not pass a typical government background check.
■ The AFL-CIO mocks DOGE with its own made-up agency, the Department of People Who Work for a Living. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
‘We feel terrorized.’ ProPublica: “Hundreds of career employees at the Environmental Protection Agency have quit since the reelection of … Trump, but some staff members say his plans to reverse environmental protections have only strengthened their resolve to stay.”
■ The Washington Post (gift link): Trump’s moving to shutter environmental offices across the government.
■ Columnist Paul Krugman: “The war on science is turning deadly.”
■ With federal health agencies muzzled, pediatrician, immunologist and columnist Zachary Rubin rounds up what info he can about FDA drug recalls and shortages.
■ Mayor Johnson’s undone a requirement that city workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, prompting demands for back pay from cops and others who defied the mandate at the pandemic’s height.
‘That coup is … happening.’ Historian and On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder: “If we do not recognize it for what it is, it could succeed.”
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “Pam Bondi became the attorney general and promptly did just what she told the Senate at her confirmation hearing she wouldn’t do. … Revenge prosecutions are, in fact, on the table.”
■ Also: Disbanding the team of FBI specialists charged with fighting foreign threats to U.S. elections—you know, like the one Trump won in 2016.
■ Filmmaker Michael Moore: “At some point, Mr. Trump, the people will rise up against you” …
■ … but Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect says America doesn’t have a true opposition party—because “Democrats are part of the corruption.”
‘I’m sorry, that was just so shocking, it made me put a wig on.’ That’s Stephen Colbert’s reaction to Trump’s surprise announcement of a plan to take over the Gaza Strip.
■ Even Trump’s own administration seems not onboard.
■ Evidently in regret or embarrassment, “Arab Americans for Trump” has changed its name to “Arab Americans for Peace.”
■ Columnist Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump’s first two weeks reveal a chaotic and incompetent administration trying to mask weakness.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Announces U.S. Will Relocate Panama Canal To American Soil.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich: “Befuddled old coot blithers about ‘two-dollar plane tickets.’”
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Even Russian media can’t tell Trump’s ‘$50 million for bomb condoms for Hamas!’ lie without laughing.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “Fact-checkers spent all day on that and couldn't find any evidence. Then Trump went and doubled the amount.”
‘Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.’ Quoting the man just named an acting undersecretary of state, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah says Republicans’ assault on inclusion programs is actually aimed at resegregation.
■ Add Google to the list of companies scrapping diversity hiring goals.
■ Trump’s latest executive orders include one titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
■ The Daily Show’s rolled out a training video, “How to Un-DEI Your Workplace,” for creating “an environment where everyone is welcome to make everyone else feel unwelcome.”
■ A high school counselor on Chicago students thinking twice about applying for college financial aid—for fear of outing their undocumented parents: “It’s creating an additional barrier to keep brown kids out of college.”
Buh-bye. Politico: “Illinois House Republicans walked out … to protest the Democratic majority’s agenda attacking … Trump for pardoning Jan. 6, 2021, rioters and for tinkering with federal funds, DEI and tariffs.”
■ As part of a nationwide series of such demonstrations, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Illinois State Capitol yesterday to condemn Musk and demand Trump be impeached—again.
■ Mayor Johnson’s agreed to appear before Congress next month as Republicans turn the screws on “sanctuary city” policies here and in other big cities.
‘No one should be under any illusion as to what Fox … is.’ That’s Poynter media writer Tom Jones on the channel’s addition of a Trump to its payroll.
■ Warning of “Trump’s coming war on the press,” columnist Robert Kuttner says “big media outlets do themselves no favor by trying appeasement” …
■ … speaking of which: The owner of the Los Angeles Times has a financial incentive for supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as Health and Human Services secretary.
Walk with care. Chicago-area residents awoke to treacherously slippery pavement, but rising temperatures were likely to melt the ice away quickly.
■ A Tribune editorial celebrates Chicago’s “unappreciated suburban commuters.”
‘My mind is admittedly blown.’ Tedium proprietor Ernie Smith is astonished that Warner Bros. Discovery is dropping dozens of its archive films “on YouTube. For free. Without any sort of gating.”
■ Here are at least some of them.
Chicago Public Square mailbag. Reader Sherry Nord writes: “Thank you especially for linking to 5calls.org. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the current firehose of badness and this helped me do concrete resistance in a rapid, efficient way.”
■ Fans of that service may also find the 5 Calls newsletter useful.
■ Callers have been overwhelming the Senate’s phone system.
■ Former Treasury Labor Secretary Robert Reich has revised and expanded his list of “What You Can Do.”
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■ Rosemary Caruk and Janean Bowersmith made this edition better.