‘She’s a horror show.’ President Trump yesterday attacked an ABC News reporter who dared to ask him a critical question …
■ Award-winning former radio reporter turned media critic Rob Archer: “The press is no longer off limits. At protests, journalists are being treated like everyone else in the crowd.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: The Atlantic isn’t backing down in the face of Trump administration intimidation.
So much for a ceasefire. The fire continues in the conflict with Iran.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “It’s looking more and more like the guy who lied about bone spurs and lied about hush money and lied about his dead pedo bestie and lied about how tariffs work and lied about being able to point to a camel and lied about his weight and lied about his golf scores and lied about his wealth and lied about a hurricane and lied about a pandemic and lied about his taxes and lied about a million other things has been lying to us about just how swimmingly his don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran is going.”
■ The Bulwark asks, “Has Trump considered shutting the eff up?” (Answer: No.)
‘Gerrymandering war … to preserve their stolen power.’ Noting that Tennessee Republicans’ new U.S. House map carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, Marc Elias at Democracy Docket says this is “the week Jim Crow came back to the South.”
■ In what The Washington Post (gift link) calls a “a major setback for Democrats,” a voter-approved congressional redistricting plan for Virginia went down today before that state’s Supreme Court.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst holds out hope that all this could “bite Republicans in the asses”—adding, “Republicans think they birthed a nation yesterday. Looks like they birthed something else instead.”
■ Columnist Thom Hartmann: “While Americans were trained to fear immigrants, trans kids and each other, the billionaire class quietly extracted trillions from the middle class and captured the nation’s politics, media and courts.”
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: “A guy so tangled up in the Trump business empire that he can’t see his own ass from a conflict of interest” and who “compared the phrase ‘tax the rich’ to racial slurs.”
‘Congratulations, you all are no longer charged with felonies.’ A federal judge has officially dismissed the main conspiracy charges against the “Broadview Six” immigration protesters …
■ … who still face misdemeanor charges.
■ And four Broadview demonstrators are suing the feds, alleging unconstitutional collection of their DNA after their arrests.
Cities vs. Pritzker. As Illinois’ governor—a potential presidential candidate—pushes a plan to expand the state’s housing supply by overriding local governments’ restrictive density regulations, the Illinois Municipal League’s pushing an alternative that would instead offer state funding as an incentive for towns to ease off.
■ The Illinois Answers Project: As the Obama Presidential Center nears its opening next month, efforts to keep housing in the neighborhood affordable are falling short.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link) sees “a blow to [Pennsylvanial Gov.] Josh Shapiro’s White House dreams” as emails expose his “cozy relationship” with Amazon.
Fermata. Announcing the layoff of its seven administrative staffers, the Chicago Sinfonietta says it’s pausing artistic and educational activities at the end of this season.
■ Its official statement declares a “strategic renewal period” into January 2027.
Above average. Your Chicago Public Square columnist racked up a near-perfect 7/8 score on this week’s news quiz from The Conversation’s quizmaster, past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel.
■ Tip: Subscribers to The Conversation’s newsletters often get an edge in these quizzes.
■ Axios’ Justin Kaufmann has assembled a quiz on Illinois’ colleges and universities—with an 80% score here. (You may need to enter an email address to play.)
■ And it was a modest 3/5 correct for Square on City Cast’s Chicago-centric quiz.
The files are out there. The Pentagon’s begun releasing more files on UFOs—um, “unidentified anomalous phenomena” …
■ The New York Times (gift link): “The initial files are murky images that show what could be anything.”
■ Meanwhile, Mark (Luke Skywalker) Hamill is on the administration’s shitlist.
Comic care. The national nonprofit Comedy Gives Back is sponsoring a new organization devoted to providing health care for Chicago comedians.
■ Tribune critic Chris Jones (no paywall) raves about Second City’s new revue: “Such are the times that a performer … can start to scream on that venerable comedy theater’s stage and, within the shake of a lamb’s tail, an entire audience has joined in without prompting.”
How to save TV’s late-night shows. Second City-trained comedian Stephen Colbert last night sought answers from the experts: Kids …
■ … and then he produced the show they recommended.
■ Status: Two press freedom groups that hold shares in CBS parent Paramount are demanding internal records that may show the controlling Ellison family’s agreed to compromise CNN’s editorial integrity if they take over parent company Warner Bros.
‘To Tell the Truth: The Future of Local Media.’ That’s the title of a discussion your Square columnist will moderate Saturday afternoon—free tickets for which you can register in advance.
■ Also: Refreshments!
Thanks. Amy Parker made this edition better.