Survey says … / Florida in fear / ‘I can handle anything’

Survey says … A New York Times computer analysis of convicted felon Donald Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts since 2015 finds his speeches “have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.” (Gift link, underwritten by Chicago Public Square supporters.)

■ Journalism critic Mark Jacob: “Let’s talk about Trump’s lack of patriotism. He waves the flag, but he also wants to waive our civil rights.” (Illustration: Jonathan Franklin.)

■ Axios and Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei: “If he follows through on threats to jail or target media critics, that would be a debacle for democracy.”

■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump has no doubt: “If given the power, he will have his vengeance.”

■ Ctrl-Alt-Right-Delete columnist Melissa Ryan: Special prosecutor Jack Smith’s unsealed brief against Trump “exposes a playbook of harassment and violence that Americans must confront again in 2024.”

■ Ex-Times public editor Margaret Sullivan: “Smith’s explosive brief should have landed like an asteroid. (It didn’t.)”

■ Popular Information: A Trump campaign contest to let someone join him onstage in Pennsylvania over the weekend sure looks to have been a scam.

Tech bros’ split. Venture capital mogul Ben Horowitz, who endorsed Trump over the summer, is now a Kamala Harris backer …

■ … evidently putting him at odds with his Andreessen Horowitz cofounder—and University of Illinois graduate and web-browser pioneer—Marc Andreessen.

‘It’s like reading a ransom note and going This cursive is so lovely.’ Last Week Tonight host John Oliver has little patience for journalists praising vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s “civility” at last week’s debate.

■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: “The far-right is advocating for the only freedom that seems to matter to them. The right to lie.”

■ Kamala Harris’ first late-night show interview since becoming the Democrats’ presidential candidate comes tomorrow night on Stephen Colbert’s show …

■ … a night after her running mate, Tim Walz, joins Jimmy Kimmel this evening.

■ Pod Save America host Dan Pfeiffer analyzes the mainstream media’s “fuming” over the Harris-Walz campaign’s media strategy.

■ The American Standard: Harris has been courting CEOs whose companies have been sued by the Justice Department.

Florida in fear. Updating coverage: The rise of Hurricane Milton marks the first time on record that three hurricanes have been churning the Atlantic Ocean simultaneously—and sets the stage for the state’s largest round of evacuations in seven years.

■ Columnist Brian Beutler: “Hurricane Helene lies are a trial run for the election.”

■ CNN reviews six days of Trump lies about the government response to Helene.

■ PolitiFact: An image of a little girl in a boat clutching a puppy amid rain and floodwaters, her face contorted in sorrow, is an AI fake.

■ The American Standard: “The Biden administration response to Helene has been good.”

‘There’s no such thing as a backdoor that only works when good guys use it.’ Tech watchdog and science fiction author Cory Doctorow: “State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others” using tech the FBI’s required every carrier to furnish under a law President Bill Clinton signed in 1994.

■ Add Comcast to the list of companies whose customers’ data has been stolen in a ransomware attack.

‘Free,’ but not forever. Chicago Public Square reader and Key West Voices publisher Bob Gold flags an issue with the feds’ latest round of free COVID-19 tests: “The packaging included the expected notice that the expiration date on the tests had been extended. Those we received were marked as originally expiring in December 2023, and have an updated expiration date of December 2024. In other words … a remaining shelf life of less than three months. It seems entirely plausible that the government has a surplus of old kits that are better off in the hands of people than in warehouses, but … what is the risk of using a test that has expired beyond the extended date?”

■ Short answer: Expired tests may render a “false negative” even if you’re actually sick. But positive results reliably indicate you’ve indeed caught the bug.

‘Extreme cause for concern.’ At least 41 of Chicago’s 50 Chicago City Council members are demanding a hearing into the mass resignation of the city’s school board.

■ Politico: Mayor Johnson was set this morning to “announce replacements to the public schools board at a church on the South Side.”

‘If you actually care about being embraced by readers in the future, perhaps you should avoid reflexive dismissal of every change that occurs on the way toward that future.’ After reading a former Northwestern University professor’s autobiography, columnist Neil Steinberg files a review it’s too bad someone else didn’t publish.

■ Steinberg’s Sun-Times colleagues are marking two years since they ripped down their website’s paywall …

■ … a possibility the paper’s then-new executive editor hinted at in a July 2022 edition of the Chicago Public Square podcast.

‘We take this very seriously and apologize for the oversight.’ Public Narrative regrets a technical failure that accidentally revealed the names, phone numbers and email addresses of respondents to its call for people interested in serving on one-hour focus groups to share insights and ideas for sustaining Chicago’s media.

■ The offer still stands—now with privacy protection: A $100 stipend for those accepted after filling out this really brief (like, one-minute) application form.

‘Now I know I can handle anything.’ Square supporter J.J. Tindall flaunts one of the hoodies in a new lineup of Squarewear.

■ Check ’em out here—including the return of T-shirts …

■ … all of which come with Raygun’s incredibly comprehensive any-reason return and exchange warranty …

■ … and get $5 off your purchase with any contribution—even just $1, once—to help keep Square coming.

■ PayPal’s an option, too.

'I’m mad as hell' / 'Insulting and demeaning' / 'Very scary'

‘I’m mad as hell.’ Angry Chicagoans jammed a community police meeting last night to demand more police protection on the CTA.
■ New analysis suggests most of the trips taken during Chicago’s three-month electric scooter trial ended at CTA train stations.

‘A conspiracy to conceal a criminal sexual assault at the highest levels of state government.’ Outrage is growing in response to an email written by an ally of House Speaker Michael Madigan.
■ Lawmakers are calling for criminal investigations and legislative hearings.
■ A Tribune editorial: “Who bestowed so much hubris on Michael McClain that he would ask [then-Gov. Pat Quinn’s] office to reward the cover-up of a rape?”

Coyote incursions. In separate incidents, a 5-year-old boy and a 32-year-old man were reportedly bitten by coyotes on Chicago’s Near North Side.
■ Bomb threats yesterday to downtown locations—including Water Tower Place and Block 37—proved unfounded.

‘Insulting and demeaning.’ A Republican U.S. senator calls a briefing from the Trump administration on the U.S. attacks that killed Iran’s Gen. Qassem Soleimani “the worst … I’ve seen.”
■ Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet: “It’s hard to trust Trump on anything.” (Illustration: Jonathan Franklin.)
■ CNN’s Brian Stelter: “What is the Trump admin doing to restore credibility? Not much that I can see.”
■ The Trib’s Rex Huppke: Trump “has purged from government most of the people who might give us reassurance that the administration is putting America’s interests above Trump’s own.”
■ The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan faults TV for relying on analysis from those who’ve supported previous wars.
■ Updating coverage: The U.S. House was set to vote today on a measure limiting the president’s ability to take further military action against Iran.

Trump Tower drama. One of R. Kelly’s girlfriends faces domestic battery charges after a fight—partly posted to Instagram—on his birthday yesterday with another of his girlfriends at his Trump Tower condo.
■ Google’s under orders to turn over a year’s worth of email, location and other data from the account of actor Jussie Smollett, who allegedly faked a racially motivated attack on himself.

‘Very scary.’ The owner of a Great Lakes resort is among those the Tribune says are grappling with a generation’s worth of water level changes in just a few years.
■ The New York Times: With the biggest change in decades to environmental protections, the Trump administration is moving to clear pipelines and other big infrastructure projects without detailed federal review.

Less-fast food. A plan on its way to the full Chicago City Council would let food trucks stay put for four hours instead of just two.
■ McDonald’s faces two female executives’ federal lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against African American employees, franchisees and customers.

‘If Chicago airports are letting departing travelers drop cannabis in these amnesty boxes, shouldn’t they let arriving travelers take weed out of the box?’ Journalist Mark Jacob tweets an idea in response to Chicago airports’ deployment of depositories for people to surrender their now-legal-in-Illinois marijuana before breaking the law by taking it on a plane.
■ Chicago doctors are reporting a spike in pot-related emergency room visits.

‘Renounce your titles, you cowards.’ London-born Los Angeles Times (and formerly Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times) journalist Kim Janssen praises Harry and Meghan for “their intention to wean themselves from the teat of the British state, upon which they have feasted for far too long. But why stop there?”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg: “Two royals decline to obstinately infest the stage.”

No laughing matter. The CollegeHumor website is on life support—almost its entire workforce fired.
■ The NewsGuard website rating tool, designed to help spot “fake news,” won’t be free anymore.

Happy birthday to ChicagoPublicSquare.com. This domain was registered three years ago today. Want to celebrate? Here you go.

‘The kind of generals that Hitler had’ / ‘Poor Rudy’ / McDanger

‘I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.’ The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg attributes those words to Donald Trump, whose “preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.”

■ Talking Points Memo: That makes it now “two of the military men that Trump disparaged as ‘my generals’ publicly denouncing him as a fascistic threat to the rule of law.”

■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch, who witnessed Trump’s infamous Saturday celebration of Arnold Palmer’s genitalia: “Trump voters … have something in common with you: They are also incredibly anxious about Nov. 5.”

■ The Onion: “Both Campaigns Release Ads Showcasing Trump’s Most Racist Comments.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)

‘An embarrassing failure.’ Slamming media coverage of Trump over the last decade, columnist and former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan calls on every news organization to correct those errors by conveying that “Trump is a danger … and that the prospect of a radical, but much younger, President Vance is very real.”

■ Press Watch proprietor Dan Froomkin: If Trump wins, blame the Times.

‘Poor Rudy. And I’m not expressing empathy by the way, I’m saying Rudy is literally poor now.’ The Daily Show’s Michael Kosta reacts to news that Trump henchman Rudy Giuliani’s under orders to turn over his New York City apartment, sports memorabilia, dozens of luxury watches and a 1980 Mercedes to a mother-and-daughter team of Georgia election workers he defamed—leading to death threats against them.

■ Trump niece Mary L. Trump: “It’s gratifying that Giuliani is going to lose every … material thing he has, especially since so much of what he has acquired is the result of grift.”

It coulda been a debate. But because Trump refused to show, CNN hosts a “town hall” session with Vice President Harris tonight at 8 p.m. Central.

■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson details “stark differences” between the futures Harris and Trump propose for the U.S. economy.

■ Stephen Robinson at Public Notice: “A major reason that Harris isn’t ‘running away with this’ is because an overwhelming majority of white voters don’t find Trump’s malicious nature and fundamental unfitness disqualifying.”

■ Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer offers Democrats four reasons to be cheerful, including: Harris has “a (slightly) easier path” to Electoral College victory.

Voting records falling. Close to 20 million people nationwide have already cast their ballots for next month’s election …

■ … and Illinois, where early voting opportunities just expanded this week, is looking to break records this year.

■ Ready to punch your ticket? The Chicago Public Square Voter Guide Guide’s here.

McDanger. An E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers has sickened at least 49 people in 10 states—killing one and hospitalizing at least 10.

■ An updating map from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed none of those cases in Illinois as of Chicago Public Square’s dispatch deadline.

■ Tribune columnist Laura Washington is incredulous: “McDonald’s-loving Donald Trump is going to ‘Make America Healthy Again’? Sure.”

■ McDonald’s has disavowed Trump’s campaign stunt at one of its restaurants, but that didn’t keep people from flooding Yelp with negative reviews of that establishment.

■ Jimmy Fallon, showing a photo of McDonald’s “99 Billion Served” sign: “McDonald’s won’t endorse Trump but they are willing to keep track of all his lawsuits.”

■ VP candidate Tim Walz, campaigning in Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday with ex-President Obama: “There’s something … cruel about a billionaire using people’s livelihood as a political prop.”

■ Also: He called Elon Musk a dipshit.

Rats! For the 10th straight year, Chicago tops the Orkin pest control company’s list of the nation’s rattiest cities.

■ Champaign’s No. 44.

‘Know what’s a great motivator for dieting? The prospect of going blind.’ Acknowledging that “nobody wants to hear an ill person prattle on endlessly about his sickness,” columnist Neil Steinberg nevertheless continues to discuss his new diagnosis—because, after all, “I managed to write a three-part series on picking up after dogs in 2021.”

■ Breast cancer diagnoses are on the rise among women under 50.

Mail call. The Illinois state treasurer’s office has sent close to 140,000 people checks for unclaimed property—including things like abandoned savings accounts, uncashed payroll and refund checks, insurance payments and utility deposits.

■ Check here to see if there’s anything waiting for you.

Are you a Public Square? Prove it by wearing a brand-new Chicago Public Square T-shirt or hoodie …

■ … by nominating Square in the Reader’s Best of Chicago awards …

■ … or by contributing as little as $1, once, to help keep this service coming.

A Square public service announcement

ART FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. A Friday night reception celebrates the power of cartoon and animation—including three artists whose work has illustrated Chicago Public Square over the years: Jonathan Franklin, Kathy Hirsh and the late Keith J. Taylor: Friday, 7-9 p.m. at the Oak Park Art League.

(Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)