He’s baaaaack. Greg Bovino, President Trump’s ousted Border Patrol commander who led shock troops through Chicago and the Twin Cities, is running for president.
■ Bovino’s campaign website smacks of, in Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch’s words, “Nazi chic” (gift link).
■ The Senate’s sending the House a bill that would fund a $70 billion immigration crackdown—but that, over some objections, wouldn’t permanently kill Trump’s $1.776 billion slush fund for his supporters.
■ Writing for The New York Times (gift link), Pulitzer winner M. Gessen calls a White House web page demonizing immigrants “grotesque and terrifying.”
■ Block Club: Broadview protesters are picking up the pieces after their traumatizing—but ultimately victorious—legal battle.
Pulte pullout. Trump’s backing down from his choice of federal housing finance regulator Bill Pulte as “permanent” head of national intelligence.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst says Trump admitted yesterday that he picked Pulte only “because he is clinging to hallucinatory beliefs that Pulte can find THE TRUTH about the RIGGED ELECTIONS.”
■ … and Trump seems resigned to that.
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke hails “the faintest signs of embryonic spines” in Congress.
■ Variety: “Trump makes it official: The ‘Freedom 250’ concerts are canceled—to be replaced with ‘the Greatest Rally EVER!,’ starring him and (surprise) Lee Greenwood.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “The wheels are wobbling on the Trump administration bus.”
■ Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich suggests the reasons “why Trump keeps f*cking up” include his rejection of negative feedback.
■ Recapping a “timeline of how our democracy was taken from us,” columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman concludes, “We will turn this around. It’s just a damn big boat!”
■ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance marks four years of her Civil Discourse email newsletter: “We have more work to do than we did four years ago. … But I know who is walking it with me, and that makes all the difference.”
Challenging time. Half of the candidates who’ve filed to run for Chicago’s first fully elected school board face formal complaints about their petitions …
■ … but the Chicago Teachers Union says it didn’t file any.
Shooter at large. Police were on the lookout for a gunman who shot and killed an Amazon employee Thursday outside the company’s complex in Melrose Park.
■ Federal agents have joined the investigation of an explosion that killed one person and shut the Eisenhower Expressway for more than eight hours yesterday.
‘Remember their names.’ Columnist Mary Geddry calls out “the men who gathered in the Oval Office … to announce $700 million in emergency funding for the coal industry.”
■ The Onion: “Trump Diverts All Science Funding Into Locating The Smurfs.”
■ Acknowledging environmental concerns, Gov. Pritzker’s suspending a tax break program for Illinois data centers.
■ Quartz: Amazon workers are asking Seattle to exercise similar caution.
■ The Onion again: “Department Of Labor Cracks Down On People Getting Paid For Work.”
So close … Your Chicago Public Square columnist racked up a near-perfect 7/8 correct on this week’s news quiz from The Conversation’s quizmaster, past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel.
■ It was 4/5 correct here on City Cast’s Chicago-centric news quiz.
■ See if you can top your columnist’s 9/10 on Axios’ quiz about Chicago’s summer annoyances (email address may be required).
■ But hail this weekend’s Chicago Blues Festival.
■ If you’re planning a summer vacation, Pulitzer winner Dave Barry says his latest column “will not help at all.”
60 Minutes delivered to Trump ‘on a gold platter.’ When CBS’ neutered show returns to the airwaves this fall, viewers can expect what 60 Minutes alumnus Dan Rather predicts “will be a diminished, Trump-approved version,” thanks to “big business in bed with big politics to monopolize news for their benefit.”
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones speculates on why more reporters don’t stand up to Trump when he insults them.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich celebrates scandal-scarred Hunter Biden’s social media zingers: “You know what Hunter Biden can do that MAGA can’t? Laugh at himself.”
‘Part of the price of my avgolemono soup is going to pay rent to the Trump Organization.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg weighs the prospect of visiting a La Grange restaurant’s new outpost in Chicago’s Trump Tower.
■ The online petition to rename the tower’s street Obama Avenue had, as of this morning, gathered more than 15,000 signatures.
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week is the Ultimate Fighting Championship ring installed on the White House lawn: “Your country is now MonocratoMania. Which is like WrestleMania, but with smaller dick energy.”
A Square public service announcement
Chicago’s American Writers Museum invites you to a free weekend celebration, the American Writers Festival—featuring appearances by mystery writer Sara Paretsky, author and veteran broadcast journalist Bill Kurtis and 2026 Pulitzer winner Daniel Kraus.
■ Full schedule here.
Last call. You know how you can always support Square for whatever you think it’s worth? This week, you can underwrite this service for half what you think it’s worth! Might you normally pitch in $100/year? This week, make it $50! Might you otherwise toss $5/month into the tip jar? Hey, cut that to $2.50!*
■ And any contribution, in any amount, gets you $5 off a Square T-shirt or hoodie—in a bunch of new colors.**
Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.
* Offer not valid for those who’d normally pitch in less than $2—because there’s a $1 minimum.
** Also, even though this started as a joke, there is this: You get the perks associated with various levels of continuing support for half price.