‘Come and get me.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker’s response to President Trump’s demand he be jailed.
■ The New York Times (gift link): “Pritzker has had it with Democrats who won’t stand up to Trump.”
■ Block Club: A month into Trump’s blitz, “Chicago and Illinois are using every lever of power to push back.”
■ Columnist and former Chicago City Council member Edwin Eisendrath: “Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom.”
■ Public Notice columnist Lyz Dye: “Trump is the insurrection. And the Supreme Court’s conservatives are his shock troops.”
■ Closer to the Edge: “Federal agents shot a woman five times in a South Side Chicago neighborhood and they’re still hiding the goddamn video.”
■ Mother Jones: “ICE is hounding Chicago-area locals with excessive chemical munitions.”
■ Matthew Yglesias at Slow Boring: “The good news is that the harder Trump moves toward overt authoritarianism, the more backlash he tempts.”
‘A landmark day.’ The Tribune previews a federal court hearing this morning—at which Trump administration lawyers were set to defend the deployment to Chicago of National Guard troops …
■ … a prospect that last night drew hundreds of protesters to a downtown demonstration.
■ Politico: A group of former governors from Republican-led states is siding with Illinois against Trump in this case. (Photo: A Chicago Public Square reader who was there.)
■ Contrarian Jen Rubin: “Lower courts are increasingly determining that accepting Trump’s disingenuous rationalization amounts to dereliction of their judicial duties.” ■ Block Club: Another court’s ruling against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s warrantless arrests could free hundreds of Chicago-area people.
Just when you thought the news media had it right. As journalists nationwide celebrated a First Amendment lawsuit Illinois news organizations filed against the Trump administration over repressive action in coverage of ICE in the Chicago area, the Illinois Press Association has withdrawn from that suit and its CEO has quit …
■ … even as the federal judge in that case has at least temporarily upheld reporters’ right to do their jobs without unprovoked attacks by federal agents.
■ ProPublica co-founder Richard Tofel: Don’t think that freedom of the press is just a legal issue.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones sees an unlikely ally for the anti-censorship movement: Sen. Ted Cruz.
■ Columnist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich analyzes the media’s vulnerability to Trump—and what concerned citizens can do about it.
■ Tonight at 6, the League of Women Voters of Oak Park and River Forest and the nonprofit publisher Growing Community Media* host a panel discussion at the Oak Park Public Library, “Can Local Journalism Survive?”
No names, no faces—and no plates. The Sun-Times reports that immigration agents—who’ve taken to hiding behind masks and not wearing ID tags—are now also driving vehicles without license plates.
■ The Chicago Public Schools system has created a command center to monitor ICE activity.
■ Restaurants especially are on high alert.
■ The Reader: ICE is now targeting Chicago’s homeless community.
■ Axios surveys Chicago grassroots organizations’ efforts to help immigrants afraid to leave their homes.
‘Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud accidentally.’ Trump’s deputy chief of staff is under scrutiny after invoking the phrase “plenary authority”—suggesting the president has limitless power—before freezing mid-sentence.
■ Historian Steven Beschloss sees it as another sign Republicans “will do anything to expand their power and further dismantle our democratic system.”
‘Emotionally exhausted.’ The Sun-Times checks in with federal workers still on the job through the continuing government shutdown.
■ If you find yourself stranded or delayed at an airport because of the shutdown, know you have some rights.
■ Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to swear in a newly elected Democratic representative who could cast a pivotal vote on the release of government documents about dead Trump pal and child sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
■ … and then imagines them swapping roles—to the notice of no one.
■ The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link, possible because readers like you underwrite the cost of Chicago Public Square’s production) that last month’s Truth Social post in which Trump publicly ordered Bondi to prosecute former FBI chief James Comey was indeed supposed to have been a private text.
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinionator Jeff Tiedrich: “Pamnesia Pam can’t remember shit about Dear Leader’s dead pedo bestie.”
Amazon crime? A lawsuit contends the company’s Prime Day sales are a fraud.
■ In what columnist Cory Doctorow calls “a huge ideological victory,” California’s banned algorithmic price-fixing—by outfits that aggregate all the prices charged by every major seller in the market and then advise all of them to raise prices in sync.
‘iOS 26 has your reckless back.’ Gizmodo: Apple’s new iPhone software “just made driving like an asshole a lot easier.”
■ The AP: Another new feature can help keep junk calls at bay.
■ 404 Media: Apple’s banned an app that simply archived videos of ICE abuses.
Chatting? Sure. News? Nah. Reuters Institute research finds people using ChatGPT twice as much as they did last year—but just as skeptical about AI in journalism …
■ … which makes Chicago Public Square’s interactive online coaching session Nov. 3 on AI tools and fact-check tips even more timely. Sign up free here.
* On the board of which your Square columnist serves.