ChiPocaBlitz … now? Days after Donald Trump posted what columnist Eric Zorn calls an “extraordinarily ominous” and “batshit” declaration of war on Chicago, the Department of Homeland Security says it’s finally launching what it’s now calling “Operation Midway Blitz,” a crackdown on illegal immigration …
■ … but the details remained typically hazy.
■ Mayor Johnson says the city got no notice.
■ The operation’s supposedly in honor of a suburban woman killed in a crash with a man who lacked legal status.
■ Gov. Pritzker: “The Trump administration’s focused on scaring Illinoisans.”
■ The Sun-Times: What parents should know about sending kids to school amid immigration sweeps …
■ … as doctors encourage people in immigrant communities to consider telehealth visits.
‘Civic love, not war.’ The Tribune’s Robert Channick reports the city’s tourism bureau has launched a new marketing campaign under the banner “All for the Love of Chicago” …
■ … a move a Trib editorial (gift link) hails as “a necessary counter” to Trump’s “hellhole nonsense.”
‘Hypocrisy and not-so-veiled racism have become the law of the land.’ That’s USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke on the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority clearing the administration to resume indiscriminate Los Angeles stops ostensibly motivated by immigration concerns.
■ In what The American Prospect’s David Dayen calls “a perverse ruling at odds with a 90-year-old direct precedent,” Chief Justice John Roberts has cleared the president to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission.
■ Economist Paul Krugman: “A compliant Supreme Court that keeps granting emergency powers” is letting the president get away with “governing as if he has an overwhelming mandate” when “roughly speaking, the American public doesn’t support anything Trump is doing.”
■ Popular Information: Presidential son-in-law “Jared Kushner, who is being paid tens of millions of dollars in annual fees by the Saudi government and other Middle Eastern nations, has taken a central role advising President Trump on Middle East policy.”
■ Chicago columnist Elaine Soloway appeals to Trump: “Before you go, donate your crypto.”
What First Amendment? Homeland Security says recording video of immigration agents constitutes a prosecutable act of “violence” …
■ … as Trump complained that domestic violence is counted as a crime: “Things that take place in the home they call crime. … If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this is a crime.”
The only way Democrats can resist ‘the Trump catastrophe.’ Count ex-U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich among those calling for a government shutdown.
■ Columnist Christopher Armitage says Democratic-led states should “cut the failed red states loose.”
■ CBS News alumnus Dan Rather says it’s “time to play hardball”: Democrats “can’t wait for the 2026 midterms to check Trump’s power grab.”
Speaking of grabbing … The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link) that lawyers for dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s estate have given Congress a copy of the birthday book assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, including a creepy note with President Trump’s signature—a thing Trump’s said doesn’t exist.
■ Chicago news veteran Jennifer Schulze: “Trump lied. He said he didn’t send Jeffrey Epstein a suggestive birthday card but he did.”
■ Politico: “How much trouble is the president in? Under normal laws of politics, the answer should be … an awful lot.”
■ Politico: “How much trouble is the president in? Under normal laws of politics, the answer should be … an awful lot.”
■ The New York Times (gift link): “JPMorgan enabled the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.”
Trumplight Zone. TV critic Bill Carter: After five weeks away, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart went right for the president’s jugular last night—masterfully comparing Trump to a classic Twilight Zone episode in which a six-year-old boy terrifies a town by sending anyone who angers him “to the cornfield.”
■ The comparison proves spot-on. See for yourself.
■ Marking the 10th—and evidently final—anniversary of his run on CBS’ The Late Show, Stephen Colbert joked about running for president.
■ A Colbert lookalike contest yesterday broke out into a rally to save his show.
■ CBS’ new ombudsman for “journalistic integrity”: A guy who lavished Trump with praise in July.
‘I couldn’t name a current Bears player if you put a gun to my head.’ But columnist Neil Steinberg takes comfort in the team’s talk of moving to Arlington Heights: “Next time someone gives me grief about living in Northbrook … I can say, ‘Hey, at least I sometimes work in Chicago. That’s more than’—whoever the quarterback of the Bears might be—‘can say.’”
■ The team’s president says Arlington Heights is “the plan.”
Thanks, dear readers … for granting Chicago Public Square yesterday off to join a Northwestern University workshop on local journalism and artificial intelligence.
■ Your keepsake from that event: Access to University of Illinois Chicago professor and digital media pioneer Mike Reilley’s roster of AI and other digital tools—including a guide to customizing your interactions with ChatGPT.
■ And more to come. Watch this space.
■ The Guardian: Google’s shift to AI has upended the online news biz.
Quiz correction. Friday’s Square misstated the score necessary to top your columnist’s performance: That bar should have been 7 of 8 correct.
A Square public service announcement
Ice cream + nonviolence. You’re invited to an ice cream social at which you can meet peacekeepers from the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and learn what they’re doing to make the city safer. Friday, 4-7 p.m. in Oak Park’s Austin Gardens. Can’t make it? Donate here.