‘Putin is now our ally’ / Cockroaches, ‘black slime’ / Better buses?

Chicago Public Square will take Thursday off to join the News Product Alliance Summit in Chicago. Back Friday with a news quiz. But here’s what’s happening now:

‘Putin is now our ally.’ The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson (no relation): President Trump’s “alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s neo-Tsarist imperialist regime hasn’t yet stoked the level of horror and rage it deserves.”

■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “On the same day Russia murdered that little girl and mass-murdered five more, including another young child,” Trump said that “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine” …

■ … which makes this 2018 cartoon from the late Keith J. Taylor all the more timely.

■ Today would’ve been Keith’s birthday.

■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “A blockbuster story in The Wall Street Journal … says that it was billionaire Elon Musk who ordered SpaceX to slow down its service in Ukraine, rendering some drones that stopped incoming missiles and others aimed at Russian targets useless.”

■ Maybe cutting Trump a bit of slack from critics, Russia’s freed an American it held in prison for four years …

■ … and reportedly has agreed to resume peace talks with the U.S. and Ukraine.

■ The Atlantic: Donald Trump Jr.’s privately broken with his dad on the Iran war.

‘Trump lost control and ordered me to be quiet in the Oval Office. Then it got personal.’ A first-person account from The Independent’s White House correspondent, Andrew Feinberg.

■ Trump’s warning to Feinberg: “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich on Trump’s offer of bounties for those who report government fraud: “This is straight up Nazi bullshit.”

■ Fresh dirt from The New York Times: “A Billionaire Wanted a Trump Pardon. His Family Gave [Trump lawyer] Alina Habba a $50 Million Deal.”

Hey, if the My Pillow guy says you need a nap … MAGA loyalist Mike Lindell concedes the president’s looking exhausted.

■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: Every time Trump says something deplorable about immigrants, “I think about the people who cared for me during emergency surgery in the spring of 2020.”

‘Trump is the word, is the word.’ Recapping last night’s Illinois Senate debate between Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Republican Don Tracy, Politico’s Shia Kapos (free registration may be required) says the president loomed large over the evening.

■ See the broadcast here.

■ Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has belatedly taken credit for an ad featuring what HuffPost’s Paul Blumenthal calls Democrat Amy Acton’s “pedophile-protecting mother.”

■ Columnist and former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger calls that ad “beyond the pale.”

■ Ex-Jezebel editor-in-chief Laura Bassett says it’s “so repulsive it could drag down other Republicans.”

■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link): “From cash to censorship, Big Tech is all over the election. It’s backfiring.”

■ The American Prospect: ICE profiteers are trying to buy the Senate for Republicans.

■ Brooke Binkowski at Wonkette: “Trump DOJ Finds At Least One Sad Old Non-Citizen Voting Man, Arrests Him In His Pajamas, And That’s Why We Can’t Have Elections!”

■ MSNBC’s MS NOW’s Hayes Brown: “The GOP has found its ‘migrant caravan’ for the 2026 midterms”—the riots in France.

■ The Onion: “AOC Tidies Up In Case Federal Agents Stop By For Raid.”

■ Ready to cast your ballot? Check the Chicago Public Square Voter Guide Guide.

‘Sad and unfortunate.’ The Illinois High School Association says it’s working with both Evanston Township and New Trier Township high schools to figure out what should happen next in the investigation of New Trier fans’ hateful actions at a football game Friday night.

■ An Evanston fan who was there—writing not for attribution—says New Trier “did a great job of outfitting every kid in that student section. Everyone matched in their NT gear. Problem is, when it got cold, they all put their hoods up … and it was a wall of thousands of white kids in white hoods. Not a good look at a televised event with thousands of black spectators.”

Meanwhile, at college … A second woman reports that she was sexually assaulted at a University of Chicago frat party—a block away from another frat facing a similar accusation.

■ She’s suing both the local frat and its national parent organization.

Cockroaches, ‘black slime.’ Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center’s Rendezvous Cafeteria is outta commission after health inspectors found things amiss.

■ Columnist and former Illinois Democratic Rep. Marie Newman: “Grey’s Anatomy debuted 20 years ago. American healthcare has not aged as gracefully.”

■ A new report on the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning of the right to abortion concludes more than 900 women have been arrested for pregnancy-related “crimes” (none in Illinois).

Heads up. In a budget proposal set for formal introduction today, Mayor Johnson reportedly was to endorse a “head tax” of $33 per employee on companies with more than 500 workers in Chicago.

■ Also: A revival of the city’s mental health clinic …

■ … and millions more for libraries, homeless programs and the city’s summer youth jobs program.

■ On the way to six Chicago police districts: A new gunshot detection system.

■ Aggravating a split with the Chicago Teachers Union, Service Employees International Union leadership is backing Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias for mayor over Johnson.

Better buses? The CTA wants your thoughts on how to improve its bus service.

■ Those who submit ideas here could win a $100 gift certificate.

‘Rampant and repugnant.’ The Tribune’s Zareen Syed (free link) bemoans the growing number of Chicago restaurants and cafes using “bizarre or misleading” images on their menu boards and promotional signage.

■ Columnist and author Cory Doctorow mourns Google’s devolution from a company that once pledged to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible” into an “AI-fueled … parasite.”

‘It will delight gadget nerds and early adopters and likely frustrate everyone else.’ Among the first extended hands-on reviews of Apple’s new foldable iPhone Duo, The Verge is unwowed.

■ CNN’s Mike Andronico: “Is the iPhone Duo worth $1,999? I used it for a week, and it’s complicated.”

Thanks. Kurt Wehrmeister and Mike Braden made this edition better.

Screen spleen / ‘Thanks for the 💩, Trump’ / Teachers cut

Screen spleen. President Trump planned an address tonight to take, in the words of the AP, “his election obsession to primetime.”

■ At Chicago Public Square’s deadline, TV networks had yet to announce whether they’d air the thing live.

■ Poynter media critic Tom Jones: They need to weigh “the public’s need to know against the risk of amplifying falsehoods.”

■ ProPublica: As CBS (and possible CNN) parent Paramount needed approval for billion-dollar deals, Federal Communications Commission officials took pricey gifts from the company.

■ Politico: Trump’s speech puts Republicans in a tough spot, too.

One Republican. That’s all it’d take to derail the nomination of Trump’s sycophantic and evasive attorney general nominee, Todd Blanche …

■ … as the Senate today was hearing witnesses about his qualifications.

■ You can watch here, live or after the fact.

■ Collaterally attacked by Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy in yesterday’s hearing: Chicago’s ex-Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

■ See that here.

Man, oh man. In a move that Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth ironically labels “gender-affirming care,” Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has announced what The Atlantic (gift link) calls “a questionable plan to monitor the hormone levels of every service member over 30.”

■ A new acronym for your vocabulary: Marco Rubio’s State Department has begun flinging around “FLT”—“far-left terrorism,” which investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein says takes Republican dogma “to another level of crazy.”

■ Expat Chicago journalist Kevin Williams, now living in Portugal: “The Iran war is going to continue because … people have gotten used to paying what fuel costs now.”

‘Thanks for the 💩, Trump.’ The American Prospect traces the worst diarrhea outbreak of the century—the “MAHA Trots”—back to the president …

■ … which makes this an apt time to revisit a 2019 cartoon from the late Keith J. Taylor:

■ Michael Kosta on The Daily Show: “We cut the funding for the program that tracks forever diarrhea, and now people are getting forever diarrhea. Let me see if I can figure this out.”

Vance’s security detail ‘fed up.’ Secret Service agents have shared concerns with MS NOW about the vice president and his office pressing them for inappropriate and unprecedented use of their services.

■ They’ve also created coins and stickers to mock those demands.

Teachers cut. Chicago Public Schools are laying off 760 teachers and furloughing all staff—that is, docking their pay—for five days that had been designated as non-attendance days for kids.

■ ProPublica: “Public money is fueling an explosion of private schools. States often don’t care how they’re run.”

‘Unacceptable Risk.’ That’s the assessment of Google Search’s AI Overview and AI Mode in a new report from kid- and parent-centered Common Sense Media.

■ Former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal tech reporter Geoffrey Fowler: “Google’s unavoidable AI answers do kids’ homework, invent facts and miss signs of crisis.”

■ The Illinois State Board of Education’s AI guidance for schools and districts was written in part with help from artificial intelligence.

Hazy-crazy days of summer. More than 100 wildfires in Ontario have blanketed the Chicago region in smoke …

■ … sticking us with some of the world’s worst air …

■ … so try to keep your breathing to a minimum?

Chill in the air. The Tribune reports (gift link) ICE enforcement in Chicago is on the rise, with at least four vehicle encounters this week.

■ Chicago’s inspector general says a police department cadet has quit after revelation that he goose-stepped across a high school stage and saluted while wearing a Nazi-like uniform as a student at Jones College Prep—and his mom, also a department employee, reportedly faces dismissal, too.

‘A $425 million risk worth taking.’ With some reservations, a Tribune editorial backs City Council approval of a big infrastructure outlay to support a privately financed Chicago Fire stadium in the South Loop.

■ Also OK’d: $200+ million for the undeveloped Foundry Park site on the North Side.

Tollway thoughts? Got an opinion on plans for Illinois’ largest-ever passenger tollway increase? You have just a couple of weeks to submit them online or at public hearings.

■ Taking the CTA to or from downtown over the next two weekends? Be ready to walk a bit, because three stations will be closed Saturdays and Sundays.

‘Save Standard Time.’ Noting opposition to a congressional push for daylight saving time throughout the year, columnist Eric Zorn says it would mean that “sunrise in Chicago …will be after 8 a.m. from Dec. 4 until Feb. 3.”

■ This wouldn’t be America’s first shot at year-round DST.

Rest in peace, Jim. Zorn notes the passing of longtime Tribune technology columnist James Coates, whose 1990s reporting on the rise of the internet partially inspired your Square columnist to make the leap from radio to the web.

Stand tall, Squarians. Continuing our occasional roll call of those whose support keeps this thing coming: Thanks, Jon Langham, Amy Reynaldo, Kathy Manofsky (again!), Bill Drudge, Sally Noble, H. Evan Williams, Norm Spiegel, Werner Huget, Jon Hilkevitch, Richard Milne, David Colaric, Lisa Krimen, Stephen Schlesinger, Sharon Halperin, Susan Benloucif, Myrel Cooke, John Morath, Sherie Palmer, Bill Oakes, Libbey Paul, Frank Maggio, Alice Cottingham, Doug Strubel, Glenn Jeffers, Robert Clifford, Charles C. Allen II, Charles Marker, Len Jaster, Beth Mrkvicka, Marge and Hank Arnold, Michael Soriano, Cassandra West, Kathy Wyman and Doug Waco, Thomas Yoder, Scott Knitter, Sandy Kaczmarski, Kristina Zaremba, Kathleen Clark, Denise Pondel, Susy Schultz and Jack Ohman.

■ Join them today for any amount—even just $1, once—and see your name atop tomorrow’s list.

■ If you’re a first-timer, we’ll run your name in italics.

A Square public service announcement

They’re here / Go fish / ‘Hope you like enshittification’

They’re here. Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein says a military advance team’s on the ground in Chicago, responding to a Homeland Security request for “immediate Department of Defense support.”

■ A Donald Trump fundraising email yesterday pledged, “WE’RE GOING INTO CHICAGO.”

■ Gov. Pritzker: “What we’re hearing is they’ll be ready to go on Friday.”

■ Sources tell the Sun-Times agents at the North Chicago Naval Station Great Lakes base have been practicing with shields and flash-bang grenades.

■ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg looks back through Chicago’s long history of troops in the streets and concludes they often made things worse.

■ A coalition of military vets and lawyers is encouraging service members to resist potentially illegal orders.

And yet … In Trump’s suggestion yesterday that he might instead target New Orleans, Politico’s Shia Kapos perceives a presidential blink.

■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “Even the insouciantly headstrong blowhard Trump knows that, absent an actual insurrection or rebellion, sending military personnel out to fight crime in an American city against the wishes of the mayor and the governor violates the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.”

Whistles against ICE. Facing the prospect of federal agents targeting Pilsen’s Mexican Independence Day parade Saturday, organizers are equipping volunteers with radios, phones and whistles to report trouble.

■ With families wary of being targeted and separated by immigration raids, the Chicago Teachers Union is urging the school system to offer families online learning options for keeping kids at home.

■ A woman who was, in the words of a courthouse advocate, “just trying to come to court” yesterday was snatched by federal immigration agents.

■ Interested in accompanying at-risk people to court or ICE check-ins? Volunteer here.

■ The TRiiBE rounds up trainings, workshops and resources for Chicagoans ahead of a federal incursion.

■ Columnist Dan Froomkin: All eyes are on Chicago’s resistance.

Go fish. The Illinois Elections Board is telling Trump’s Justice Department it won’t comply with a demand for the state’s full voter registration database—including birthdates, signatures and partial Social Security numbers.

■ Columnist Christopher Armitage: “Republicans broke democracy. Here's how to fix it without them.”

‘An attempt to turn a Texas abortion ban into a nationwide abortion ban.’ That’s how one Democrat describes Republicans’ passage of a bill that would let private citizens sue manufacturers, doctors and anyone who mails abortion pill medication to anyone in Texas—the most common abortion method. (Regrettably timeless 2021 cartoon by the late, great Keith J. Taylor.)

■ The Guardian recaps last night’s South Park: “Trump is having a lovechild with Satan.”

What could go wrong? Florida’s set to become the first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine requirements.

■ Updating coverage: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a date today with a congressional committee asking questions about the turmoil he’s unleashed.

■ The Onion: “Study Finds Ultra-Processed Foods Make Up Over 50% Of Americans’ Thoughts.”

M.I.A. Injustice Watch: The guy who for a decade has run Cook County’s Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has rarely been seen there—and might not even live in the county.

■ A federal judge court has overturned a lower court ruling, concluding the CTA and Metra can indeed forbid guns on public transit.

Not dead yet. PolitiFact conducts an autopsy on those “untimely and untrue” rumors of Trump’s demise.

■ ProPublica cofounder Dick Tofel offers journalists some tips on how to wrest the news agenda back from Trump. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

■ Satirist Andy Borowitz and Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes team up to envision how Trump might revamp the Smithsonian’s art collection.

‘Hope you like enshittification.’ Author and tech watchdog—and guy who coined that word (2024 link)—Cory Doctorow says the case against Google has led to “the worst possible antitrust outcome” …

■ … a decision that The American Prospect’s David Dayen calls “embarrassing” …

■ … although columnist Mathew Ingram says it was the right one.

■ Amazon’s cutting off a perk that’s let Prime members share free shipping with relatives who don’t share the same primary address—you know, like kids away at college.

■ Axios: Aldi’s yanking self-checkout stations from Chicago-area stores.

‘No tax on tips’ list. The Treasury Department’s issued a preliminary roster of occupations that qualify for the new income tax break …

■ … including restaurant servers, rideshare drivers, barbers … and digital content creators, such as social media influencers and podcasters.

■ Hey, might that include email newsletter columnists?

■ Five years in, Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz has posted a reader survey: “This time, men, it’s OK to yell at me.”

■ Rosemary Caruk, Meg Tebo and Mike Braden made this edition better.

A Square public service announcement

The Institute for Latino Progress (Instituto del Progreso Latino) is committed to the fullest development of Latino immigrants and their families through education, training and employment. Donate here.

‘Surge manpower’ / CDC ‘courage’ / Quiz!

Chicago Public Square’ll take the long weekend off. Be here Tuesday.

■ Meanwhile, get breaking news and commentary via the Square Bluesky account. (Hey, play your cards right and you could be the 1,000th follower there.)

‘Surge manpower.’ That’s what sources tell NBC News multiple federal agencies are planning next week in Chicago as they ramp up immigration enforcement.

■ President Trump’s border czar confirms a “large contingent” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is headed this way.

■ Chicago police said they’d heard squat from the administration about those plans, so they’re resurrecting their playbook from the 2024 presidential convention. (That’s a 2019 cartoon, timely again, from the late, great Keith J. Taylor.)

■ The Sun-Times and WBEZ: Residents of Chicago’s most violent block don’t want the National Guard.

■ The Lever details a “decades-long plan” to “funnel disaster-relief funds to immigration enforcement, even as climate disasters threaten millions.”

■ Columnist Jamison Foser: “Trump’s military occupation of American cities is unpopular. The media is trying to manufacture consent for it.”

■ The American Civil Liberties Union’s launched an online petition: “Tell Congress: No Troops on Our Streets.”

■ A Labor Day protest march through Chicago will target Trump, oligarchic billionaires and knee-bending corporations, including, um, Target.

‘May all who hold the reins to power be haunted.’ Poet Lynn Ungar marks the shooting at a Minneapolis church full of school kids with a different kind of thought and prayer, including this passage:

May the soul of each and every

child shot in school follow

those with AR-15 pins on their lapels

through the halls of Congress, poking them

and demanding with the dreary repetition

of a bored child on a long car trip to know

Where are we going? What are we doing?

What is the plan?

■ Or, to quote Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion proprietor Jeff Tiedrich: “Shove your thoughts and prayers.”

■ Investigators say the shooter “expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable” and was “obsessed” with the idea of killing children.

■ A 12-year-old girl injured in the attack was sent to a hospital in whose intensive care unit her mom was working at the time.

■ Prosecutors say the shooting death of UnitedHeathcare’s CEO has inspired followers.

CDC ‘courage.’ Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina praises Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees’ “solidarity and a refusal to be silent” in the face of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-science regime.

■ One of those quitting in protest says Kennedy’s never been briefed by CDC experts before making major public health decisions.

■ Columnist Robert Hubbell: “The chaos at the CDC makes all Americans less safe.”

■ The White House is backing Kennedy’s decision to fire the CDC’s director.

■ Her acting successor: A former investment executive with no medical background.

■ NOTUS: The Senate gets a say on whomever Trump picks as a permanent replacement.

■ USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “Get on the phone and urge your lawmakers to get off their tails and boot this nutter out of the powerful seat he so clearly has no business occupying.”

■ The Bulwark: “RFK Jr. f*cked around. Now we get to find out.”

■ Stephen Robinson at Public Notice: “The White House is lying about Trump’s health. Their explanations are absurd and it’s time to start asking questions.”

An ‘erratic, vindictive’ call. Trump’s cutting off Secret Service protection for his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Harris—just as she launches a nationwide book tour. (Wall Street Journal gift link, underwritten by those who support Chicago Public Square.)

■ Investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein: In the Democratic Party’s first national meeting since Trump returned to the White House, chair Ken Martin complained the party’s brought just “a pencil to a knife fight.”

■ Columnist Paul Street: “Trump’s dictatorship is quite far along.”

■ The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols compares Trump to The Boys’ evil version of Superman, Homelander: “The corporations and public-relations spinmeisters who created and sold him to the public now realize that they are powerless to stop him.”

■ A year after Trump threatened to imprison Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Platformer says Zuckerberg “has the administration fighting battles for him around the world.”

Chicago’s lead problem. WBEZ’s analysis finds the threat of water contamination is worst in the city’s majority Black and Latino neighborhoods.

■ Enter a Chicago address to find out whether its water service is compromised by lead.

Mayor Johnson schooled. The Chicago Board of Education’s OK’d a new budget that rejects the mayor’s call for big-time borrowing to cover pension payments.

■ WBEZ: The Trump administration’s threatening to yank millions of dollars from the state unless it dumps teaching materials that acknowledge gender nonconformity.

■ Trump administration budget cuts have prompted layoffs and budget cuts at the University of Chicago.

‘A step toward drowning freedom of speech.’ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg sounds a warning about the president’s unconstitutional order to ban flag burning.

■ Neil Young broke out a new Trump protest song at his Chicago performance this week: “Big Crime.”

■ He’s released downloadable audio of the tune from his Wednesday soundcheck at Northerly Island.

One of our guys made it—and then didn’t. Chicago-born Emil Wakim’s among the casualties as Saturday Night Live trims cast members ahead of the new season.

■ Some fans note that he was the only SNL actor to deliver a pro-Palestine segment (October 2024 link).

■ The Hollywood Reporter praises as “thoroughly engaging” a new documentary profile of Chicago-born investigative reporter Seymour Hersh—still at it after close to 60 years.

‘This one’s for the workers!’ Past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel’s clocked in with a nine-question Labor Day weekend news quiz.

■ Get at least eight of those questions right and you’ll have topped your Chicago Public Square columnist’s score.

‘The audience experience must be flawless.’ Assessing The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s plan to eliminate its print edition as of Jan. 1, Poynter’s Tom Jones cautions, “That means no delays logging in, no issues using the app and no hurdles navigating the site. And, needless to say, the journalism must be elite.”

■ Media watcher Simon Owens: More papers should do the same.

‘All the cool newshounds know: It’s hip to be Square.’ Those kind words for this service from reader and Square supporter Al Slater make an apt epigram for our roll call of those whose financial support keeps this service coming—including Patrick Olsen again just yesterday.

■ Join their ranks anytime—for as little as $1, just once—and see your name added to The Legion of Chicago Public Squarians.

Whoops / Who’s getting into your genes? / Ignorant new world

Whoops. Updating coverage: The Trump administration’s top “intelligence” officials were to face the House today—a day after embarrassing news that the president’s security team, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted advance plans for military strikes on Yemen to a supposedly “secure” group chat that included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg …

■ … who wrote in a first-person account (gift link): “I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.”

■ Politico veteran Garrett Graff says you gotta read that account: “I promise you the headline and whatever summary you’ve heard is way less weird, way less troubling, and way less eye-popping than the reality.”

■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich has an ironic flashback: “Remember when that commie rat-bastard Hillary Clinton ran a private email server?”

■ Hegseth blames Goldberg: “Nobody was texting war plans.”

■ Goldberg fired back on CNN: “That’s a lie.”

■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein appeals to The Atlantic: Publish the whole darned chat thread.

■ Wired: After the bombing began, those in the chat joined a $1-million-per-seat party at Mar-a-Lago.

■ CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf: “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.”

■ As Jimmy Kimmel put it: “Our national security is being guarded by a bunch of doofs you wouldn’t trust to throw your cousin a surprise party.”

■ Jon Stewart on The Daily Show: “Back in my day, if you were a journalist who wanted leaked war documents, you had to work the sources, meet them in a dark garage, earn the trust. … Now? You just wait for the national security advisor to be distracted by The White Lotus while he’s setting up his ‘Bomb Yemen’ group chat.”

■ National security adviser Mike Waltz’s job was on the bubble for what Politico calls “one of the dumbest security breaches of recent times” …

■ … but Trump sounded forgiving on NBC this morning: “Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”

■ Humorist Andy Borowitz: “Americans Demand Breathalyzer Be Attached to Pete Hegseth’s Phone.”

■ Grudge Report proprietor Bess Kalb offers “Other Texts with Pete Hegseth.”

Returned to sender. After five years in a job he was given by Trump, U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy has quit.

■ The Washington Post says he refused to play footsie with the DOGE bros.

■ Post veteran Gene Weingarten has crafted a letter to the paper’s owner: “Dear Jeffrey Bezos …”

■ Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect: “A handful of rich guys will burn human society to the ground rather than pay a dime in tax.”

‘The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is a big deal.’ Public Notice on next Tuesday’s election: “An already high-profile race will be seen as a referendum on the current administration. A win is crucial … for the country as a whole.”

■ Illinoisans (outside Chicago) vote next week, too—and the Chicago Public Square guide to voter guides is here to help.

■ Looking ahead to 2026’s Democratic primary, progressive Gen-Z social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh is challenging Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky—even though Abughazaleh doesn’t live in the district and moved to Illinois only last year.

■ Rolling Stone: “That’s kind of the point: She is a normal person—with a rental lease she can’t break before it’s up, financial pressure bearing down on her, and prescription medication that she needs to function properly and that has been challenging to obtain since Elon Musk went after her employer, and she and many of her colleagues were laid off.”

Protect your digital privacy. As the Trump administration gets intrusive with travelers to and from the U.S., Wired offers “a few steps you can take to minimize the risk of Customs and Border Protection accessing your data.”

■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “If people have no opportunity to contest the legality of actions the government takes against them, if grotesque injustice is being layered on top of grotesque injustice by our government in our name, it becomes increasingly difficult to call ourselves a democracy.”

Who’s getting into your genes? The DNA of 15 million 23andMe customers is on the line as the company files for bankruptcy.

■ 23andMe’s board chair says it’s “committed to continuing to safeguard customer data,” but that pledge may not survive new owners.

So long. The Trump administration’s closing the federal Office of Long COVID Research and Practice.

■ Chicago Public Square five years ago today: “Cellphone location data shows Illinoisans are among those leading the nation in staying home.” (2020 cartoon: The late Keith J. Taylor.)

The archdiocese strikes back. Lawyers for Chicago’s Catholic Church tell the Tribune a conversation recorded on a prison line 12 years ago shows that a group of Chicago criminals conspired to bring false charges against one of the church’s most notorious child sexual abusers.

■ Key soundbite: “They’ve got everlasting money, bro.”

Ignorant new world. Popular Information: Texas lawmakers are out to make it a crime for school librarians and teachers to give students access to books that, like Brave New World, The Odyssey and Catcher in the Rye, contain sexually explicit content.

■ Education watchdog Jan Resseger: The endangered U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has a new mission: Terminate civil rights.

■ A first-of-its-kind study finds kids with smartphones doing better than expected …

■ … as Platformer’s Casey Newton warns that chatbots could spark the next big mental health crisis.

■ Wired’s Jason Kehe says Angelina Jolie’s character in the 1995 movie Hackers was prophetic: “RISC architecture is gonna change everything.”

The best place to live in the U.S.? One ranking says it’s Naperville—again.

■ Further west: Illinois has officially returned 1,500 acres of stolen land in DeKalb County to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.

Square happens because readers back it voluntarily. Most readers don’t. If you have, thanks. If you haven’t, please consider tapping this link …

■ … or this one if you prefer to use PayPal.

■ Mike Braden made this edition better.

A public service announcement from (ahem) Square

‘Idiot’ / ‘Scared shitless’ / Water warnings

‘Idiot.’ Gov. Pritzker went there in his State of the Budget address (see it here; read it here), condemning Donald Trump and his billionaire enabler Elon Musk for thinking “we should eliminate emergency response in a natural disaster, education and healthcare for disabled children, gang crime investigations, clean air and water programs, monitoring of nursing home abuse, nuclear reactor regulation, and cancer research.”

■ Comparing Trump’s administration to Nazi Germany, Pritzker warned: “After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities—once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends—after that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face—what comes next?”

■ Pritzker also laid out his budget plans …

■ … and advanced the notion of a limit on mobile phones in public school classrooms.

He just can’t wait to be king. As his administration struck down New York City’s congestion pricing traffic controls, Trump crowned himself, declaring “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

■ MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell calls those words “utterly insane.”

■ Trump’s given new life to a classic “Schoolhouse Rock” cartoon.

‘Incompetence … is a feature, not a bug.’ Wired reviews a series of seeming mistakes by the president’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”

■ The AP: DOGE is gaining ground in the courts …

■ … and, The Atlantic reports, it has “‘God Mode’ access … unprecedented ability to view and manipulate information at many federal agencies.”

‘They’re scared shitless.’ A veteran of Trump’s first administration tells Vanity Fair the fear of political violence—“death threats and Gestapo-like stuff”—is keeping Republican lawmakers in the president’s thrall.

■ The Washington Post: “After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds.”

■ Updating coverage: The Senate was near a vote on Trump’s choice for FBI director.

■ Economist Paul Krugman sees “frantic lying” at the White House as a symptom of dysfunction: “I don’t think any past administration has ever failed so thoroughly in its first month.”

‘Let your favorite news outlets know that if they go along with Gulf of America without acknowledging that this is Trump’s name for the Gulf of Mexico, you’ll unsubscribe or stop watching.’ Columnist Eric Zorn says the president’s geogra-phuckery (Chicago Public Square’s coinage, you’re welcome) is a test of journalists’ mettle …

■ … but Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer says “the press is too weak to stop Trump from banning the AP.”

■ Axios says Republican grievances against the AP go well beyond just that standoff—to include AP style guidance “on topics like race, gender and immigration.”

■ Editor & Publisher’s open letter to Fox: “Will it continue shielding Trump and those amplifying his most extreme positions, or will it foster a broader, more honest discourse in conservative media?”

‘The United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.’ Historian Heather Cox Richardson sees Trump “leaning into his alliance with dictators.”

■ Ex-Republican Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger: “Are we now the bad guys?”

■ Poynter media writer Tom Jones: “Good on the media for calling out President Trump’s falsehoods on Ukraine.”

■ Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s word to watch: Emergency. “Often declared in the wake of some real or invented crisis, states of emergency give illiberal leaders expanded powers, letting them do things they’ve wanted to do anyway.”

Water warnings. Chicago’s inspector general says sewer lines are too close to water lines in more than 1,200 spots around town—threatening contamination.

■ The water at a Cook County government building that also houses a daycare facility has been contaminated with the bacteria that cause Legionnaire’s disease.

■ The Onion: “‘How Different Could Purified And Distilled Water Really Be?’ Thinks Humidifier Owner About To Enter World Of Shit.”

‘We apologize for this inconvenience.’ Without reason, the Trump administration has un-fired at least six of the 40 Environmental Protection Agency workers fired in Chicago last week.

■ Stephen Colbert: “Rehiring people on Tuesday that you fired on Friday does not scream ‘government efficiency.’”

■ Also out: 6,000 Internal Revenue Service workers.

■ Once an environmentalist, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has cut funding for National Institutes of Health climate change and health programs.

■ The New Republic: Trump-Muskers have wrecked an NIH center once praised by Republicans for its work against Alzheimer’s.
■ A woman fired at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “It’s scary. I am a single mother of two kids.”

■ Researchers and faculty members at Chicago-area universities rallied yesterday to sound an alarm about Trump’s research grant cuts.

Not so slow. Chicago’s City Council has rejected a plan to lower the default citywide speed limit to 25 mph.

■ WTTW: The city’s settlement with the family of a woman killed by a driver Chicago cops were pursuing brings the total for such settlements since 2019 to almost $102 million.

Not-so-friendly skies. Five airlines are suing to overturn a Transportation Department rule requiring them, um, not to damage wheelchairs.

■ Columnist Dave Barry is not reassured by the odds a “killer death rock of doom” asteroid won’t strike Earth in 2032: “There’s a reason you virtually never see major airlines using this slogan: ‘Fly (Name of Airline)! There’s a 98.7 percent chance your plane won’t crash!’”

Food for thought. Workers’ vote to unionize at a Chicago Trader Joe’s could run aground at a National Labor Relations Board paralyzed by Trump’s firing of one board member.

■ A last-minute grant has averted the shutdown of Heartland Alliance Health’s two health clinics and three food pantries in Chicago.

Chicago Public Square mailbag.

■ Reader Rosemary Caruk writes about a link in yesterday’s edition: “The collapse that Ryan Cooper talks about works exactly in their favor in the sense that chaos makes it nearly impossible to counteract what’s going on. There’s so much of it, it’s coming at us so fast … the result is that it’s unclear what our recourse is. And it’s looking more and more like it’s not the courts—because they deal with legal rules and definitions and what’s happening now doesn’t fit any of them. Congress’ role is to make and change laws. They have yet to do anything and they may not. … On the other hand, we’ve gradually been heading in that direction for decades.”

Square has always been free for all—because that’s good for democracy. But it wouldn’t be free—wouldn’t be here at all—if generous readers such as Mary Paxson, Beth Mrkvicka, Jill Brickman (again!), Patricia Solano, Theresa Rattenbury, Alexander Domanskis (again!), Marianne Griebler (again!), Jeff Herden, David Weindling, Bob Tucker, Alison Price, Charles C. Allen II, Carmie Callobre, David Boulanger, Anne White, Peter Kuttner, Deb Abrahamson, Stephanie Textor, Elaine Soloway, Joyce Cook, Dave Walker, Laurie R. Glenn/Thinkinc., Dave Connell, Paula Donato, David Mausner, Arnie Weissmann, Al Hoyt, Riva Reed, Zarine Weil, Sheridan Chaney, Evan McKenzie, Sarah Hoban, Ann Keating, Tanya Surawicz, Joan Pederson, Steve Nidetz, Susan Benloucif, Victoria Engelhardt, Jan Menaker Brock, Jeff Baker, Craig Kaiser, Lana O’Brien, Jeanette Ruby, Jack Hafferkamp, Laurie Huget, Leslie Hodes, Liz Meisterling, Dawn Haney, Beth Bales Olson, Jane Williams, Ted Naron, Anne Rowan, Daniel Burke, Jim Parks, Len Jaster, Susan Yessne, Rick Baert, Tom O’Malley, Mike Trenary, Richard Milne, Andrew Thackray, Jason Grey, Marjorie Isaacson, Susan Tyson, Marie Dillon, Valerie Valenzo, Eric Reinert, Cheryl Foertsch, Bill Drudge, Neil Parker, Maureen Gannon, Paul Kubina, Tim Bannon, Jan Czarnik, Jeanette Mancusi, Teresa Savino, Donna Barrows, Tony Marturano, Emily Gage, Anne Rooney, Paul Noble, Jeffery Angevine, Gene Paquette, Rob Breymaier, Mike Gold, Judy Karlov, Ronald A. Fox, Peggy Conlon-Madigan, Mark Wukas, Owen Youngman, Joseph Sjostrom, Eric Hochstein, David Green, JoBeth Halpin, Leslie Sutphen, Garry, Elizabeth Denius, Jeryl Smith, Christa Velbel, Jim Prescott, Ian Morrison, Skip Yates, Anne Costello, Ron Castan, Kelly Martin, Nancy Burns, Tom Barnes, Mike Fainman, Donna Peel, Amy Lee Goodman, Gail Frost, Avery Cohen, Ann Johnson Arellano, Martha Intrieri, Maria Garvy, Bill Paige, Tim Woods, William Wheelhouse, Marc Magliari, J. Michael Williams, Larry Dahlke, Cynthia Barnard, David Augustus, Charles Kepner, Jeffrey Nelson, Paul Buchbinder, Lawrence Perlman, Matt Baron, Matthew Brenner, Russ Williams, Taylor Kuether, Ila Lewis, Cynthia Martin, Lucy Smith, Susan Gzesh, Paul Clark, Paul Pasulka, Sue Omanson, Keith Huizinga, Jennifer Thiele, Jerry Wolin, Paul Engman, Jeremiah Woods, Lynne Stiefel, Cathy Schornstein, Moondog, Helen Marshall, David Clauter, Jo Patton, Jill DeVaney and David Hammond hadn’t stepped forward over the last eight-plus years to help cover production and distribution costs.

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