Super PAC scorecard. The Sun-Times says it wasn’t all bad news for big money in this week’s Illinois primary.
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: “This was a devastating loss for AIPAC.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “We haven’t seen the last of Kat Abughazaleh.”
■ At Chicago Public Square’s email deadline today, the Democratic race for state comptroller was unresolved.
■ A Tribune editorial on Tuesday’s turnout: “Illinois Republicans aren’t just losing. They’re disappearing.”
■ The New York Times (gift link): “Republicans in Congress propose to ban most voting by mail.”
Welcome, tourists! Pay up. The Chicago City Council’s voted to increase the hotel tax—making it the nation’s most onerous.
■ The council’s voted to freeze the city’s “subminimum wage” for tipped workers, but the mayor says he’ll veto.
■ Approved unanimously: An ordinance giving the police oversight agency power to investigate charges cops helped immigration thugs—in violation of city law.
■ Ex-Mayor Emanuel—now a potential presidential candidate—is calling for a reset on immigration policy.
‘Off the rails.’ That’s how The Associated Press describes yesterday’s Senate confirmation hearings for President Trump’s choice to head Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin …
■ … who got into it with the Homeland Security committee’s chairman, Rand Paul—prompting The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper to applaud sarcastically: “Low blow, Markwayne, picking on someone with half of your names.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Sit back and enjoy Rand Paul ripping Markwayne Mullin several new ones.”
■ Mullin’s testimony kept PolitiFact busy.
■ Wonkette: “Mullin has never served in the military. He’s never managed anything bigger than his family’s plumbing company. He has an associate’s degree in construction, and made his name with a radio show … called House Talk.”
■ Regardless, the committee’s sending the nomination to the full Senate—with the support of one Democrat.
■ The American Prospect reminds us that Homeland Security funding is frozen, leaving us “in the midst of the quietest government shutdown in American history.”
■ Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Democrats walked out of a House briefing on the Epstein files by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
■ And yet, the AP reports, the Pentagon’s asking this impaired executive to approve another $200 billion for the Iran war …
■ … a conflict that Popular Information says is based on a lie from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard …
■ … who Wonkette’s Evan Hurst says “just blib-blabbed whatever contradictory words fell out of her mouth” yesterday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
■ Semafor: The FBI’s opened a leak investigation into the top Trump intelligence official who quit Tuesday in protest over the war.
‘Resurgence of deadly childhood plagues.’ That’s the threat ProPublica sees in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine agenda.
■ Inside Medicine columnist and doctor Jeremy Faust celebrates “a legal win for vaccines. But chaos is the point.”
■ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina looks back six years to the rise of COVID-19: “It’s striking how much remains unknown.”
■ Justin Kaufmann and your Square proprietor were trying to figure it out on WGN Radio six years ago this week.
‘The universe is righting itself.’ That’s Car Con Carne podcast host James VanOsdol, celebrating the Smashing Pumpkins’ scheduled first appearance ever at Lollapalooza in Chicago …
■ … tickets for which went on sale today.
■ Y’know what was fun? Working with James at Rivet News Radio (2015 audio).
Thanks. A lovely note from a reader got the day off to a nice start: “You have no idea how much I appreciate how you research and provide these sources of news and commentary for your readers.”
■ It wouldn’t happen if people such as these weren’t helping keep this service coming.
■ And a happy 40th anniversary to Newcity, which has been kind to your columnist over the years.