Guilty ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ / Digital deception / Quizzes!

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Guilty ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Former special counsel Jack Smith told the House yesterday that President Trump engaged in criminal activity—and he had the evidence to prove it.
■ Over the course of almost five hours, Smith confirmed that his investigation—killed by Trump’s administration—confirmed that “Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, it was foreseeable to him, and … he sought to exploit the violence.”
■ You can watch it all here.
■ Trump was watching—and commenting on social media.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “Smith was great but did y’all see … former D.C. cop and Jan. 6 survivor Michael Fanone almost beat the shit out of a far-right conspiracy theorist creep, while wearing a Dropkick Murphys ‘Fighting Nazis Since 1996’ T-shirt?”

Not guilty. A federal jury rejected charges that a Chicago man engaged in a murder-for-hire scheme against Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino.
■ The Sun-Times: “Thirty-one known defendants have been charged in Chicago with non-immigration crimes tied to ‘Operation Midway Blitz.’ … 15 of them have been cleared and nobody has been convicted.”
■ Bovino’s Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week.

So bending the knee doesn’t count for much? Never mind that JPMorgan CEO—and one-time Chicagoan—Jamie Dimon seemed to warm up to Trump last year (July link): Trump’s suing Chase and Dimon for $5 billion, complaining that the company cut off his banking services for political reasons in 2021.
■ Forensic and social psychiatrist Bandy Lee on Trump’s brain: “The entire world now sees what mental health experts have warned against since 2016.”

Digital deception. The AP says that, on the White House Twitter X page, the administration shared a manipulated image that falsely portrayed the arrest of a Minnesota civil rights lawyer …
■ … charged along with at least two other people accused of disrupting a church service.
■ ICE’s new trick: At least one school warns that flyers offering Twin Cities residents “food assistance” are a trap.
■ A massive “economic blackout” was underway in Minnesota today to protest the immigration crackdown.
■ In Minneapolis, Vice President Vance falsely attributed the chaos unleashed by the administration to “far-left people” and state and local law enforcement.
■ Addressing Vance’s defense that “you’re always going to have mistakes made in law enforcement,” Trump niece Mary L. Trump writes: “If mistakes are inevitable, then accountability is optional. Vance has no interest in lowering the temperature.”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Even MAGA voters don’t buy it. Podcaster Joe Rogan has compared ICE to ‘the gestapo.’”
■ Catherine Rampell at The Bulwark flags Trump’s “chilling weaponization of confidential government records: Remind me—who else in history made lists of Jewish intellectuals and people with disabilities?”

‘People are dying in Trump’s squalid concentration camps.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link) says the death rates at ICE detention facilities are running nearly 10 times the rate of the Biden years.
■ A federal judge in Chicago says the administration has to release video footage and data on conditions at the Broadview ICE detention center.

One at a time. Dave Barry (a Pulitzer winner, remember) sees the U.S. “facing two major foreign-policy crises: 1. Greenland. 2. Where King Charles III will go to the bathroom.”
■ McSweeney’s: “I, Don Quixote, Vow to Conquer Greenland.”
■ The U.S. House has rejected a Democratic resolution to clamp down on Trump’s power to wage war in Venezuela.
■ It also—with the support of seven Democrats—approved of continued funding for Homeland Security …
■ … even as federal budget cuts prompt Illinois to suspend almost half a billion dollars in state spending.
■ Public Notice columnist Lisa Needham asks, “What if we just stopped paying taxes?”
■ Dan Rather’s Steady newsletter calls Congress “the doormat branch of government … ineffective, unpopular, and our last best hope.”

‘An egregious, unnecessary and unlawful shooting.’ A lawyer for the family of a man shot in the head and killed by a Chicago cop says the victim posed no threat.

Frozen stiff. Much of the region’s on shutdown today amid a milestone cold spell.
■ Metra trains are running on reduced schedules.
■ Today’s Polar Plunge into Lake Michigan was canceled.
■ Block Club: A Chicago crossing guard carried students to safety after a water main broke and flooded an intersection.
■ School’s out for many students.
■ A Tribune editorial (gift link) decries “remote learning” for schoolkids on days like this: “If not school, then a snow day.”
■ Chicago’s dodging the worst of it.
■ The AP recommends alternatives to rock salt.
■ If you find yourself stuck at home through the weekend, maybe dig through your junk drawer? Kim Komando’s Current newsletter says your old iPods, first-gen iPhones and vintage video games could be worth thousands: “Apple killed the iPod in 2022, and now everyone wants one.”

And now, The New York Times. Trump’s threatening the paper—again.
■ Congrats to Chicago journalists Steve Bertrand and Asal Rezaei, named to the roster of Radio Television Digital News Association Foundation First Amendment Award winners.

This week, a perfect _____! For a change, your Chicago Public Square columnist got all the answers right in past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel’s latest news quiz—this time out, featuring fill-in-the-blank challenges. Your turn.
■ Your sadly non-foodie columnist scored a lousy 4/10 on Axios’ “top chefs” quiz …
■ … and only 2/5 on City Cast’s Chicago news quiz.
■ Coming Monday: A reader survey that’ll help gauge the involvement of Chicago’s news readership—and that’ll give you a chance to win a $100 gift card.
■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

Knock, knock? / General strike! / ‘War on the Constitution’ / Oscars record / Clone yourself

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Knock, knock? In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, federal immigration officers assert “sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant.”
■ The American Civil Liberties Union’s Illinois legal director says that “just emphasizes the fundamental lawlessness under the second Trump administration.”
■ Federal agents Tuesday detained a 5-year-old boy arriving home from a Twin Cities-area preschool—allegedly then using him as “bait” to see who was inside.
■ The Illinois Human Rights Department’s investigating reports that federal agents who violently raided a South Shore building in September were directed there by the building’s landlord.
■ Mother Jones: ICE has become President Trump’s “very own paramilitary force.”

General strike! Heads Up News proprietor Dan Froomkin says Friday could bring “a seminal moment in this new civil rights movement. Minnesota unions, religious groups, and ordinary citizens are planning a massive statewide strike and economic boycott. … No work, no school, no shopping.”
■ In a bit that was recorded during rehearsal but didn’t make it to the air last weekend, Saturday Night Live castmember and St. Paul native Tommy Brennan mocked an immigration agent’s pratfall on the ice: “I’m not reveling in another person’s pain. If I wanted to do that, I would join ICE.”
■ After the mayor of Michigan’s fourth largest city—a former Republican—accused ICE of “terrorizing” peaceful communities, he denied worrying that would make his town the president’s next target: “Fuck that. That is not courage.”

‘Calling Greg Bovino a b*tch raises thousands for Minnesota immigrant rights.’ Handbasket reporter Marisa Kabas turned her disparagement of “the pint-sized CBP chief with the Nazi haircut and matching wardrobe” into a big fundraiser.
■ The trial of a Chicago man accused of a “murder-for-hire” scheme against Bovino seemed headed to a jury soon.
■ Journalist Dan Sinker—you may remember him as the guy behind that fake @MayorEmanuel account on Twitter (2011 link)—sounds a note of despair and hope: “Minneapolis needs your help, your money, your supplies, absolutely right now. But so does the community you live in. … But honestly I’ve never felt more hopeful that … we can do the impossible, even when it seems insurmountable” …
■ … and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has some ideas on how to pull that off.
■ Next on ICE’s hitlist: Maine …
■ … where law prof Joyce Vance says close to 1,000 people there joined an ACLU session to get trained in how to resist.

‘War on the Constitution.’ After House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday endorsed impeachment articles against judges who don’t support Trump’s agenda, Salty Politics columnist Julie Roginsky declares the U.S. in “the terminal phase of democratic breakdown.”
■ The Illinois House—well, the Democratic majority, anyway—has advanced a pack of resolutions blasting the Trump administration for “illegal and corrupt actions.”
■ After a guy filed as a Republican for an Indiana seat in Congress specifying “Sieg Heil” as his middle name, the Lake County, Indiana, Republican Party chair says he’ll pursue legal means “to remove this moron” from the ballot.

Greenland, Iceland—what’s the difference? Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Trump repeatedly referred to Iceland while talking about Greenland. Then the press secretary denied what the video plainly shows.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “It was as pure an example of White House gaslighting as we’ve seen. … But the cost of this to Trump is that those of us not in his thrall no longer believe anything he says.”
■ Stephen Colbert: “As George Orwell wrote in 1984, ‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Karoline Leavitt is a dumbass.’”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “TACO Donny’s baaaaack, baby … and quite predictably, folded like a pack of cards.”
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein on “Homeland Security’s domestic terror obsession: Forget Greenland; the American public are the real target.”
■ Popular Information: The Trump administration has admitted staffers affiliated with the “Department of Government Efficiency” shared Social Security data with election deniers.
■ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer: “Trump’s Greenland problem is … the rare idea that is putrid politics and policy.”
■ Economist Paul Krugman: “Canada’s leader is a sane adult. America’s leader isn’t.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Jimmy Kimmel on reports his show’s still in the sights of the Trump-compliant Federal Communications Commission: “I might need your help again.”

‘Potentially catastrophic ice storm.’ The AP breaks down by the numbers the historically cold weather about to grip the nation this weekend.
■ Some Chicago-area schools have already planned to close or go remote.
■ The Guardian: Half the world’s climate-menacing carbon dioxide emissions come from just 32 companies.

‘When you make something illegal, you create a black market, making the sale completely unregulated.’ Mayor Johnson says he’s considering vetoing an ordinance that would make Chicago the first big U.S. city to outlaw the sale of some hemp-derived products.
■ Chicago’s inspector general says the city’s paid tens of millions of dollars in overtime to workers who potentially didn’t deserve it.

An Oscars record. Sinners today netted the most nominations for any movie ever.

Clone yourself. Chicago-based Orbit Media explains in six steps how to create an AI version of yourself—“always available to answer questions, offer guidance and make recommendations, even if you’re busy or offline.”
■ Meet founder Andy Crestodina’s clone of himself.
■ The Current: Five popular apps—ostensibly designed to make your life better—are ratting you out to an insurance company, which can use the data to raise your rates.
■ After spending weeks with Amazon’s Echo Show 11 smart display, ZDNET’s Maria Diaz was wowed by its AI powers but also developed trust issues.

Chicago Public Square wouldn’t be approaching its ninth anniversary later this month without you. Your contributions—even just $1, just once—help cover the cost of its production and distribution.
■ But you can support Square in other ways—for free—just by reading, or by sharing this with a friend.
■ Mike Braden and Rick Kaempfer made this edition better.

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