Off-year voting on. The polls are open in the first major Election Day since Donald Trump won his second presidential term …
■ … no race more watched than New York City’s mayoral contest.
■ Also: Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey.
■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob offers “12 helpful terms to understand American chaos.”
■ The Onion: “Breaking: The Darkness Returns.”
■ As the government shutdown drags on, Trump’s Agriculture Department says it’ll partly fund the federal SNAP food aid program through this month. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
‘The quantity of AI-generated articles has surpassed the quantity of human-written articles being published on the web.’ That was just one of the points cited yesterday as University of Illinois Chicago journalism lecturer Mike Reilley gave Chicago Public Square readers an overview of artificial technology and fact-check tech.
‘Chicago is really putting on a clinic in bravery.’ Rachel Maddow more directly praised the people of Evanston—and its mayor and congressional candidate Daniel Biss—for their stand against ICE oppression.
■ Block Club: “Homeland Security boss says federal immigration agents haven’t detained U.S. citizens. She’s wrong.”
■ A security guard at a Menards store in Cicero says he was fired after refusing to delete phone video of Homeland Security officers smashing the windows of a man’s pickup truck and hauling him off in an unmarked vehicle. (Menards has yet to answer Chicago Public Square’s inquiry about that incident.)
■ A Broadview village board meeting wound up early as anti-ICE protesters complained of their treatment outside the detention center there.
■ A federal judge was set to devote the whole day to consideration of a complaint that the Broadview ICE facility is a “black hole.”
■ Federal prosecutors have dropped a complaint against a man accused of injuring Border Patrol ringleader Greg Bovino’s groin.
‘Slimy disingenuousness.’ David Lurie at Public Notice: House Speaker Mike Johnson’s lies in the federal shutdown “keep getting lost in the facts.”
■ The American Prospect: “Trump lost the politics of the shutdown.”
‘The cruelty is the point, party edition.’ Don’t count Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman among those labeling Trump “tone deaf” for holding a lavish party at Mar-a-Lago as millions of citizens were about to lose food benefits: “He understood perfectly well that he was partying while ordinary Americans were suffering. And that … was a big reason he enjoyed the event.”
■ Rex Huppke at USA Today: “Trump puts a marble bathroom ahead of helping Americans.”
■ Jon Stewart: “Your premiums may be going up, tariffs may be shutting down your small businesses, you may be losing your food assistance—but it’ll all be OK because Donald Trump is building a ballroom that looks like the inside of Marie Antoinette’s vagina.”
■ Stewart’s agreed to stay on another year at The Daily Show …
■ … a deal that Oliver Darcy at Status calls “a smart business decision” that spares Paramount from “what would have been a major PR disaster.”
■ LateNighter’s Bill Carter hails host Seth Meyers’ comeback to Trump’s criticism: “A meticulous, hilarious takedown.”
‘An abdication.’ Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin offers questions 60 Minutes’ Norah O’Donnell should have asked the president.
■ Pulitzer winner Gene Weingarten: “Trump was right: He was in charge of this interview.”
■ CNN: Trump spewed at least 18 falsehoods in that interview.
■ PolitiFact: “Trump misled about his administration’s deportation strategy and his record on grocery prices.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn smells hypocrisy: “Wait, what? Trump doesn’t know anything about a guy he just pardoned?”
■ Cartoonist Ann Telnaes illustrates her take: “A big fat bullshit interview.”
A thousand a month. That’s how many complaints about smoking the Sun-Times reports the Chicago Transit Authority’s logged over the last year or so.
‘Classic Chicago political strategy.’ That’s Politico’s Shia Kapos on Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García’s announcement that he won’t seek re-election—conveniently, just as his chief of staff filed paperwork to run for his seat.
■ That makes at least five sitting Illinois congressmembers bailing on the House.
Right to die? Gov. Pritzker’s on the fence about whether to sign a bill that would let the terminally ill end their lives with a doctor’s prescription.
■ A Tribune editorial: “We hope he vetoes it.”
■ The Trib’s Chris Borrelli (gift link, courtesy of those who support Chicago Public Square) recaps “a lively visit” to the annual National Funeral Directors Association convention in Chicago.
Cheney dead. Former Vice President Dick Cheney—whom The Washington Post describes as the “chief architect of a post-9/11 war on terrorism that involved bypassing restrictions against torture”—is dead at 84.
■ Wonkette’s Erik Loomis: “Cheney was instrumental in creating the torture regime that completely dismissed all shreds of humanity the U.S. could ever claim.”
Friends in high places. Dilbert creator—and Trump supporter—Scott Adams had health insurance problems. Then he asked Trump for help.
■ Popular Information: A Medicare contractor whose products lack scientific backing—and that has benefited from a Trump administration delay in a Biden administration rule that would have cut its funding—secretly donated $2.5 million to Trump’s White House ballroom project.
■ The New York Times (gift link): Trump’s Food and Drug Administration chief has quit amid an ethics dispute.
■ You can see the full two-hour session here …
■ … and check out Reilley’s link-rich digital handout here.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link): “AI is coming for your job. Will the government pay you?”
R.I.P., Teen Vogue. What media watcher Brian Stelter calls “an unlikely and widely respected source of progressive political journalism”* has lost its writers and editors explicitly covering politics …
■ … in a merger with parent Vogue that has been condemned by the NewsGuild.
Square mailbox. Reader Benjy Blenner was unsurprised by yesterday’s item about a drop in 911 calls to police during the ICE crackdown here: “When I called the Evanston police on Friday to say that there appeared to be people potentially posing as ICE, police or feds at my children’s elementary school, I was met with ‘Well, what do you want us to do about it?’ Why would I ever call the police again?”
■ Thanks to the many (many!) readers who flagged yesterday’s misspelling of palate.
■ Your thoughts are always welcome here.
* Which has on occasion published work by your Square columnist’s daughter-in-law.