Outta there / Behind the shift / ‘Thoughtfully thrilling’

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Chicago Public Square will take Wednesday off. Back Thursday. As ever between editions, check the Square account on Bluesky for breaking news and commentary.

Outta there. Amid fallout from the murder of Alex Pretti—which The New York Times (gift link) says has “posed one of the gravest political threats to Mr. Trump since his inauguration”—Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who’s become the poster boy for ICE behaving badly, was reportedly set to leave the Twin Cities today …
■ … to be replaced there by Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich celebrates: Bovino “is being sent to a big farm upstate where he’ll have lots of room to run around and pepper spray all the other dogs.”
■ Flashback to September: Trump’s Justice Department shut down an investigation into Homan for accepting a bag of cash during an undercover FBI operation.
■ A Wall Street Journal headline: “Homan In, Bovino Out as Trump Hits Panic Button.”
■ CNN: Homeland Security’s reportedly suspended Bovino’s access to his social media accounts.
■ The Atlantic: “Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her close adviser Corey Lewandowski, who were Bovino’s biggest backers at DHS, are also at risk of losing their jobs.”
■ Former AP D.C. bureau chief Ron Fournier: “Trump and his team lied about what we all saw in Minneapolis. Now they want us to believe they’re atoning. Don’t.”
■ Evan Hurst at Wonkette: “No matter how much they send Tom Homan to Minneapolis to slur and mush-mouth fascism at the locals … we’re stronger than we understood yesterday, and they know it.”
■ The Atlantic: “Minnesota proved MAGA wrong.”
■ Columnist Robert Hubbell declares “a victory by the people of Minnesota and a tactical retreat by Trump. Do not relent!”
■ Salty Politics proprietor Julie Roginsky: “I know it’s hard to believe, but we’re winning.”

Behind the shift. The AP: Trump’s about-face in Minnesota after Pretti’s death is the latest in a pattern of sudden shifts …
■ … this one seemingly at least partly driven by backlash from Second Amendment advocates (link added) …
■ … and following a letter from Minnesota-based corporations—including Target, Best Buy and General Mills—asking ICE for “immediate de-escalation of tensions” …
■ … although Adweek’s Robert Klara says that letter amounted to weak tea.
■ Popular Information asked all 68 companies that signed the letter: “Do you condemn the killing of two Minnesotans by federal officers?” None had an answer.
■ Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times: “The refusal of the American business community to take a strong stand against Trump’s policies has been a long-lasting scandal.”

‘They all blame the shooter, one of their own.’ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, talking to federal agents on the ground, finds them “uncomfortable with the mission creep that is taking them away from actual immigration enforcement. … ‘Fuck this,’ a senior ICE officer said.”
■ The Conversation: Minnesota’s trauma raises unprecedented constitutional issues.

‘Alex Pretti was brandishing his gun. Wait, no, he was carrying it but deserved to be shot. Wait, no, we have to wait for an investigation.’ Columnist Eric Zorn is gobsmacked by “the unbelievable, ever-evolving excuses from the Trump regime about the tragedy in Minneapolis.”
■ Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel were more blunt: “Bullshit!”
■ Kimmel was in tears as he honored Pretti: “An ICU nurse who treated veterans, which is about as patriotic as it gets.”
■ Jon Stewart raged at Republicans, who he says “jettisoned the entire integrity and belief of their political worldview” for Trump, “a guy who really doesn’t give a fuck.”

‘We cannot look away.’ Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot talks to Chicago magazine about her ICE Accountability Project—gathering evidence from anyone, anywhere, about federal immigration agents’ abuses.
■ A Chicago woman shot and wounded by a federal agent during “Operation Midway Blitz” is asking a federal judge to let the public see the evidence against her—including bodycam video.
■ A federal judge in Minnesota’s threatening the acting director of ICE with contempt: “The Court’s patience is at an end.”

Places, everyone. In the first debate of this year’s Illinois race for U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton was the only one of three candidates to call for abolishing ICE …
■ … complaining that U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi “voted to thank” ICE and took “funding from ICE contractors.”
■ You can watch the whole session here.
■ Alex Vindman—the former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who provided key testimony against Trump in that first impeachment—is running for Senate from Florida.

New AirTag. Apple’s unveiled the next-gen version of its help-you-find-stuff device …
■ Apple CEO Tim Cook’s brown-nosing attendance at that White House screening of the Melania Trump movie is fueling calls for an Apple boycott.
■ Pinterest’s laying off 15 percent of its staff—because AI.

End of an era. Southwest Airlines today abandons open seating in favor of assigned seats.
■ Here’s how it works now.

‘Thoughtfully thrilling.’ The Tribune’s Rick Kogan (gift link) recommends the new HBO documentary about Mel Brooks.
■ Stephen Colbert revealed last night that his final Late Show will air on CBS May 12 21.

R.I.P., a classic newspaper competition. The Detroit News is getting bought by the Detroit Free Press’ parent, USA Today Co.
■ Media critic Simon Owens: “Jeff Bezos has given up on The Washington Post.”
■ Mediaite: “Post journalists are appealing to owner Jeff Bezos to step in and ‘save’ the paper … amid reports ‘massive layoffs’ are about to decimate … the newsroom.”
■ Chicago Media Journal scouts the field of potential buyers for The Daily Herald.

Chicago news needs you. If you can spare about 10 minutes for a survey, you can help news organizations working with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism to better understand the public they serve—and you could win a $100 gift card.
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■ Mike Braden, Beth Kujawski and Lee Coleman made this edition better.

‘Summarily executed in public’ / Even Trump / Voter files, huh?

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‘Summarily executed in public.’ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link) says the murder of 37-year-old community volunteer and Veterans Administration nurse Alex Pretti by ICE agents “is beyond politics. This is about good vs. evil.”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Once again, masked thugs who have been conditioned—not trained, but conditioned—to shoot first and think never have gunned down a civilian in cold blood.”
■ Pretti was born in Illinois …

A headline you could have written in your sleep. The AP: “Videos of the deadly Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti contradict government statements.”
■ The New York Times (gift link): Videos analyzed second-by-second show Pretti was holding his phone, not a weapon, when the feds pulled him to the ground, firing at least 10 shots in five seconds.
■ Cartoonist and columnist Mark Fiore: “Fascism is now out in the open, captured by angry observers on mobile phones for all the world to see.”
■ Tom Jones at Poynter: “It’s the second time in less than three weeks that … videos from bystanders … appear to contradict the federal account of the killing.”
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “What if the only accounts came from Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, depicting Pretti as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ imagining he wanted to ‘massacre’ officers?”

Even Trump. The president’s been reluctant to back Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s unsupported assertion that Pretti’s shooting was justified.
■ Journalist Aaron Parnas: Centrist Democrats who previously voted to fund ICE are now backing impeachment for Noem.
■ Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth wants an independent investigation.
■ A growing number of Republican senators are doing the same …
■ … a response that The Daily Beast sees as “markedly different” from the party’s reaction to the death of Renee Nicole Good three weeks ago.
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Republicans, Alex Pretti should be your breaking point.”
■ Saying he can’t support the Trump administration’s “retribution” against Minnesota, a Republican candidate—a lawyer who’s been representing the ICE agent who killed Good—has dropped out of the race for governor there.
■ Even the National Rifle Association is at odds with Trump’s team on this one.
■ Columnist Mary Geddry: “The gun debate, long calcified into pure tribal reflex, is starting to fracture under the weight of lived reality.”
■ Law prof Joyce Vance: “The administration cannot hope this will just all go away.”
■ The killing has increased the odds of another federal government shutdown.
■ Nobel-winning columnist Paul Krugman: “Centrist Democrats, who have spent weeks trying to ignore Minneapolis so they could talk about the price of eggs, are finally taking a stand.”

‘Is it so hard for journalists to clearly state that the Trump administration is lying?’ American Crisis columnist Margaret Sullivan bemoans sycophantic coverage of the story: A Times headline “magnified the statements of federal officials, even as the Times knew better.”
■ Media Matters’ Matt Gertz: Fox News’ “primary purpose” now “is to explain to viewers why it is good that masked agents of the state are executing Americans on the street” …
■ … and yet, Fox’s corporate sibling, The Wall Street Journal, is calling for ICE to stand down in Minnesota.

‘Nobody opens their door anymore, knowing that the next knock might be a federal agent demanding to know where the Brown people live in your neighborhood.’ But, a St. Paul City Council member—your Chicago Public Square columnist’s daughter-in-law—writes for Slate, “Our neighborhood has never been more united.”

‘ICE murders moms and nurses.’ That was one of the protest signs yesterday as hundreds of Chicagoans demonstrated along Michigan Avenue.
■ Popular Information calls out “the corporate enablers of the ICE crackdown” …
■ … including Amazon, whose White House screening of a Melania Trump-produced documentary about herself drew plutocrats including the chiefs of Apple, Zoom, GE and others Saturday, even as the nation mourned Pretti.

Hm. Voter files, huh? Attorney General Pam Bondi’s offering to pull ICE out of the Twin Cities if the state turns over its voter registration records.
■ Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon: “No.”
■ Columnist and former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman says that lays bare the administration’s true goals: “It was never really about fraud or corruption. … Now … begins the extortion of state leaders.”
■ Marc Elias at Democracy Docket: “In the wake of a tragic killing, Bondi sought to leverage the state’s need for calm into turning over sensitive voting data on millions of citizens. While this might seem outrageous, it was not random.”

Votin’ time’s near. With Illinois’ primary less than two months out, WBEZ tonight airs—and streams—a debate among the three leading Democrats hoping to become the state’s next U.S. senator.
■ The Tribune (gift link): An Illinois law passed to protect public officials from politically motivated violence is making it harder to learn whether they actually live in the communities they serve.

Still cold. The snow’s passed out of Chicago, but the chill remains.
■ The city’s schools are open today …
■ … but not so in Northwest Indiana.
■ Axios digs through public records to find which neighborhoods file the most complaints about “dibs”—the practice of reserving shoveled-out parking spaces by putting lawn chairs, etc., in the public roadway.
■ Climate journalist Emily Atkin vows to keep that work up despite, well … “How am I supposed to keep writing about, and caring about, climate change and pollution and government capture by Big Oil, when the government is executing people in broad daylight?”

Shape the future of Chicago news. Take a survey to help news organizations, working with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, better understand the public they serve—and you could win a $100 gift card.
■ Taken the survey for another news organization? Do it again and get a bonus shot at that gift card.

■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

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