‘Sporadic arrests, nonstop anxiety.’ That’s the Page 1 headline on the Sun-Times’ recap of the first full day of President Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz” crackdown on Chicago.
■ Riding along with ICE: A confrontational social media troll.
■ Politico: “Trump appears to be pulling back on his threat to deploy the National Guard to Chicago.”
■ The Washington Post (gift link, possible because readers support Chicago Public Square with a buck or two): The Guard’s own internal documents show troops’ “shame and alarm” over their domestic deployments.
■ Hundreds of protesters blocked traffic downtown for hours last night. (Photos: A Chicago Public Square friend. Share your news photos to the Square photo pool on Flickr.)
■ NPR: “Trump says he's fighting crime. Illinois Gov. Pritzker sees a power grab.”
■ Public Notice columnist Noah Berlatsky: Trump dreams of making Chicago a colony …
■ … and Berlatsky’s colleague, Liz Dye, sees in the Supreme Court’s decision “allowing ICE to snatch any non-white person off the street and lock them up until they ‘prove’ their citizenship” Justice Brett Kavanaugh explaining “that SCOTUS really IS doing racism. He showed his whole hood.”
■ Satire from McSweeney’s: “ICE’s training manual for determining who to terrorize.”
■ WBEZ and the Sun-Times: What to know if ICE shows up at your workplace.
■ Local colleges are encouraging students to keep calm and carry their student IDs at all times.
■ The Onion: “U.S. Citizenship Test To Include 4-Year Imprisonment Section.”
■ Columnist Christopher Armitage: “What abolitionist John Brown can teach us about being allies in this moment.”
Your COVID shot awaits, but … Although the updated vaccine’s in stock at the Chicago area’s bigger pharmacies, you may not be able to get it until doctors get clearer counsel from the Trump administration.
■ HuffPost: What alarms docs the most about COVID right now.
■ The American Prospect: The U.S. now leads the world in COVID deaths.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina: “RFK Jr. has named eliminating pharmaceutical ads as one of his goals. And believe it or not, I’m with him on this one. (Gasp!)”
■ Trump’s signed an order that could thin those ads’ herd.
■ Abortion, Every Day: The administration will destroy 30,000 abortion pills.
‘You really need to see Epstein’s birthday book for yourself.’ Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic: Trump’s creepy “wonderful secret” sketch for dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein “is far from the most disturbing or lecherous of the book’s contents.”
■ You can see it here.
■ The American Prospect: A couple of House special elections Democrats seem likely to win this month could add the votes to release the Epstein files.
■ Journalist Nina Burleigh spotlights the Victoria’s Secret billionaire behind Epstein’s fortune.
■ Below the Beltway: The Senate’s investigating American oligarch and Vice President JD Vance sugar daddy Peter Thiel’s financial ties to Epstein.
■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “Who hasn’t wished a pervert happy birthday?”
■ The Onion: “Trump Claims He Can’t Be Expected To Remember Every Birthday Card He Sends To Child Molesters.”
■ Jimmy Kimmel on the seeming authenticity of Trump’s signature: It consistently ends “with a long ‘D,’ which I can only assume is Trump overcompensating for a small ‘D.’”
‘Plastic recycling 2.0: This time, with more toxins.’ The Lever (behind an unfortunate and counterproductive email-address paywall): The Republican-controlled EPA’s cleared the way for “an unproven set of technologies that the oil and plastic industries are pitching as a panacea to the world’s plastic pollution crisis.”
■ A new report from the Alliance for the Great Lakes warns that the rising number of data centers around the region could lead to water shortages.
■ Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “We’re paying Big Oil to kill the earth.”
■ PolitiFact takes the wind out of arguments that wind and solar power are “worthless” when there’s no wind or sun: A business professor says, “That's like saying that a commercial aircraft is worthless when it isn't flying.”
Tesla terror. Bloomberg reports that one of the most visually appealing features of Tesla vehicles—electrically powered doors that aren’t easily visible—can prove fatally perplexing for first responders because of manual releases that are hard to find and may not work after a crash.
■ The former Musk Watch newsletter—now redubbed Oligarch Watch: A little-known think tank is pushing Trump to replace the federal workforce with AI.
■ Columnist Cory Doctorow: Trump’s directive that the Federal Trade Commission stop enforcing its ban on noncompete “agreements” will cost American workers $400 billion over the next decade.
‘Why won’t the media say Trump is becoming a dictator?’ Press watchdog Mark Jacob’s answer: “Because they’d get in trouble with their bosses, who either don’t want to appear biased or don’t want to antagonize Trump or don’t want to alert the public because they’re pro-dictatorship as long as they can make money from it.”
■ Wonkette’s Doktor Zoom: “CBS News to see if ‘Let Fascists Lie All They Want, Live!’ is good business model.”
Thanks. Garry Jaffe made this edition better.
A Square public service announcement
Thinking solar? Put the Sun Day Solar Fest on your calendar for Sept. 21 at Chicago’s Montrose Beach, where more than 30 groups, including solar installers and nonprofits, will share ways to go solar—including community solar programs to cut your electric bill. Also: Live music and hands-on science activities for all ages!