Don’t let the deep pan hit ya on the way out. A number of reports suggest the U.S. Border Patrol’s withdrawing from the Chicago area …
■ … maybe to return in fourfold strength after the weather gets nicer.
■ Block Club: Despite a pledge to protect free speech, state police keep arresting protesters at the Broadview detention center.
■ Indivisible Chicago planned a rally in Chicago’s Federal Plaza at lunchtime today—to protest the arraignment of six people indicted for demonstrating outside Broadview.
■ The Onion: “Woman Trying To Find Nonpolitical Way To Say Her Cleaner Was Deported.”
Kimmel’s loss. Why Jimmy Kimmel canceled his Thursday show: His bandleader—and friend since Kimmel was 9—Cleto Escobedo III died at 59.
OpenUp? The longest U.S. government shutdown in history could end today—in the AP’s words, “with almost no one happy with the final result.”
■ In what Politico’s Shia Kapos calls “a rare public break between the two senators,” Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth says she “couldn’t be more disappointed” with her colleague Dick Durbin for his vote to end the shutdown.
■ Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: “So what happens next? Schumer and the old guard need to go.”
■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein is more blunt: “Schumer should be humanely euthanized* … (*politically/metaphorically, of course).”
■ The American Prospect explains “one weird trick” to remove Schumer: “Any single Senate Democrat can force a vote on Schumer’s job as minority leader.”
$2,000 for your trouble? President Trump’s promising that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.’’
■ The administration’s also weighing creation of—wait for it—the 50-year mortgage …
■ … or, as The Daily Show’s Josh Johnson put it, “the opposite of affordability. This man is creating generational debt. They’re going to be fighting to get out of grandma’s will.”
■ The Wall Street Journal (gift link): Federal investigators are probing whether the guy who’d be in charge of that program, Northwestern University grad Bill Pulte (Oct. 10 link), improperly got Democratic officials’ mortgage records.
■ Popular Information: Rocket Money is getting out of the Tucker Carlson business.
What Trump knew. In email obtained by Congress, convicted and dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wrote that that the president had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims. (New York Times gift link.)
■ As the U.S. House returns to work for the first time in months, a pivotal Democrat—who could cast a deciding vote on release of the Epstein files—finally gets sworn in.
‘Mercy for allies.’ ProPublica details how Trump has exploited pardons and clemency to reward his supporters.
■ Case-averse Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “you know who doesn’t know what magnets are? Donny. he’s every-accusation-is-a-confessioning again. Donny’s mystified by magnets. all he knows is they stop working if they get wet.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
‘Doubling down on stupid.’ California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s piling on Trump’s environmental policies.
■ The Onion: “EPA To Monarch Butterflies: ‘Count Your Fucking Days.’”
■ Late-night critic Bill Carter praises Kimmel’s on-air farewell to Escobedo for “grabbing viewers by the throat and the heart.”
■ Kimmel’s show’s taking the rest of the week off.
A $4,700 week-long trip to a luxury Hawaiian resort. That’s just one of several abusive incidents of Chicago Public Schools employee travel documented by the system’s inspector general after an infusion of federal pandemic relief cash.
■ Read the full report here.
‘Women drivers.’ Launching in Chicago today, Uber is offering that new safety feature for female travelers—giving them the option of choosing drivers of the same gender.
■ Travelers who used the Sonder platform to book rooms with Marriott’s Bonvoy reservation system found themselves abruptly kicked out of those places after the company’s partnership collapsed.
■ Wendy’s is planning to close hundreds of stores across the country.
■ New York Times opinion from Kelly Karivalis (gift link): “Dying shopping malls are the Roman ruins of our civilization.”
To track or not to track? Advisorator Jared Newman wrestles with the creepy and reassuring aspects of sharing one’s location with relatives—and explains how to implement your preferences.
■ He also advises caution when buying a Roomba vacuum—because its maker’s running out of cash.
■ Tech sentinel Cory Doctorow shares a tale of three customer service chatbots: “Two were worse than useless, one betrayed its masters.”
A Square public service announcement …
… courtesy of a Square supporter.
Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.