And Chicago’s next? Announcing his federal takeover of Washington’s police force and deployment of the National Guard to D.C., President Trump threatened to do the same here …
■ … calling Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson “incompetent.”
■ Pritzker says Trump has “absolutely … no legal ability to send troops in to the city of Chicago” …
■ … but the governor also acknowledges a parallel to the Nazi Party’s seizure of Germany’s government in the 1930s.
■ Popular Information notes that Chicago doesn’t even appear on the FBI’s 2024 ranking of violent crime rates per capita in 21 cities with populations over 200,000.
Here they come. Live updates: Guard troops began arriving in D.C. today.
■ Attorney Mitch Jackson: “This is not a law-and-order moment. This is the beginning of something far darker.”
■ Economist Paul Krugman—the target of a personal attack from Trump over the weekend: Trump’s playing the Carnage Card.
■ MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: It’s really about Trump’s “fondness for using the U.S. military to threaten and intimidate the American people” …
■ … but journalist and author Jonathan Alter calls it “just another dopey distraction stunt.”
■ Former Tribune editor Jim O’Shea: Trump’s grip on power is eroding in “a perfect storm of scandal, political blunders and global missteps.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Nobody knows what Trump is talking about anymore and no one seems to care.”
Guard on guard. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein: “If the nearly half dozen Guardsmen I’ve spoken to about the deployment are at all representative, frustration with the order is widespread.”
■ CBS News legend Dan Rather: “There is no crime wave or homeless crisis in D.C., but there is a public relations emergency at the White House. It makes one wonder what Trump is trying to hide.”
■ Nevertheless, historian Heather Cox Richardson says, “The administration’s seizure of power is anything but imaginary” …
■ … and law professor Joyce Vance concludes: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is running the [D.C.] police for 30 days.”
‘Trump’s creeping authoritarianism must be met with peaceful resistance.’ CNN alumnus Jim Acosta: “Trump wants to crack some skulls, to hide his skeletons. It’s the art of the conceal. Don’t give him what he wants.”
■ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Trump’s cozy deals with corporate America: “It would be communism under any other dictator.”
■ Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect: “Someday, we will honor those who resisted Donald Trump. But first, we need far more courageous resistance.”
■ U.S. Senate candidate and Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi’s out with a “Trump Accountability Plan” to un-do what the president’s done—including a ban on masks for immigration agents and constitutional amendments to block self-pardons and a potential presidential third term.
■ Organizers are convening “Fight the Trump Takeover” protests across the country this Saturday.
Flocked up. Unraveled: A Palos Heights cop’s been disciplined after sharing his login to the city’s Flock license-plate reader system with a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
■ Wary of the tech’s potential for abuse in immigration enforcement, Oak Park’s dumping its Flock contract.
■ A federal judge has cleared Chicago to join a suit aimed at blocking the Republican administration from defunding cities with laws forbidding law enforcement from helping federal immigration agents.
■ Chicago police are abandoning a handgun linked to hundreds of officer injuries.
Flood flashes. A national network of flooding sensors has been launched in Chicago, offering real-time alerts to help save lives and limit property damage in what the companies responsible say is now North America’s most flood-prone city.
■ The Tribune: Dozens of Chicago schoolyards have been transformed into flooding solutions.
Do-or-die for Chicago public transit. WBEZ: Without quick action from state lawmakers, the city could lose four train lines and more than 65 bus routes.
■ The Conversation: Next-gen passenger trains are here—just in time for U.S. rail to face an uncertain future.
■ Metra’s beefing up train service for this weekend’s Air & Water Show.
■ Block Club has a bucket list for getting the most from the last weeks of Chicago’s summer.
■ The Onion: “‘We Get The Food And Then We Eat The Food Until All The Food Is Gone,’ City Of Chicago Announces Unprompted.”
Wanna stay private? The Markup and CalMatters have caught dozens of companies hiding legally required instructions for requesting your personal data be deleted.
■ But here they are!
Turning a page. The Associated Press has told its critics that it’s getting out of the weekly book review biz: “The audience for book reviews is relatively low and we can no longer sustain the time it takes to plan, coordinate, write and edit reviews.”
■ Sinclair—you may remember it as the Trump-friendly broadcast station owner that threatened to take over WGN-TV and Radio (2024 link)—is pondering a merger.
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