‘Samuel Alito should resign’ / What if … ? / ‘Sorry, Ken’ / Trib v. Trib / Quiz

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‘Samuel Alito should resign.’ That’s ex-Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob’s reaction to reports that Justice Alito’s home displayed an upside-down American flag—a symbol associated with Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud—in January 2021.
■ Alito blames his wife.
■ Stephen King is … um … horrified.
■ Law professor and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance: “Alito should “at a minimum, recuse himself from … the presidential immunity case and the case deciding whether the statute that criminalizes interference with an official proceeding applies to January 6.”
■ Public Notice: “A right-wing Supreme Court majority could well place Trump effectively beyond the reach of the nation’s criminal justice system.”

Biden’s ballot bind. An obscure provision of Ohio law could keep the president off ballots there.
■ Add a vice-presidential debate to the roster of political face-offs to come. Maybe.

What if … ? Journalist Dan Rather and his team at Steady ponder what the media has been underplaying: The possibility that the Republican nominee for president could soon be a convicted felon.
■ Trump’s criminal trial in New York resumes Monday, after a heated cross-examination yesterday of his former fixer Michael Cohen …
■ … who got caught up in the details of his alleged interaction with a 14-year-old prank caller …
■ … in what CNN analyst Stephen Collinson calls Trump’s best day of the proceedings so far.
■ Joyce Vance again: “The defense made the kind of points you’d expect: Cohen has lied a lot, including under oath. Cohen wanted a big White House job, and Trump rejected him.”

Guns at large. The Tribune reports that more than 112,000 Illinoisans have lost the right to own guns, but the state can’t confirm that 84,000 of them have truly been disarmed.
■ The Trace: More than 52,000 police guns—many of them resold by law enforcement agencies—have been involved in crimes since 2006.

■ A Trib investigation has sparked legislation that would require doctors’ offices and clinics affiliated with hospitals to report complaints of patient abuse.

‘Sorry, Ken.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg has bad news for the Museum of Science and Industry’s new namesake.
■ The president of Chicago’s Civic Federation is turning thumbs down on the plan for a new Bears stadium on the lakefront—instead suggesting the empty site Chicago acquired for an Olympics that never happened.

Spectacular—but maybe not that surprising. Slate analyzes just what went wrong with the implosion of the merged Foxtrot and Dom’s grocery chains.
■ Block Club: A pop-up market in Chicago this weekend and next aims to benefit vendors screwed by the stores’ abrupt closure.

Trib v. Trib. Seven Chicago Tribune journalists—filing on behalf of more than 50 others—are suing the newspaper and its corporate owner, complaining of sexual and racial discrimination.
■ The New York Times reports tension in the ranks of National Public Radio staffers over the still-unidentified source of funding for a new layer of editing to be imposed on all the organization’s media channels. (Gift link; you’re welcome.)
■ USA Today parent Gannett has cleared artificial intelligence tech to slap bulleted “key points” atop the work of participating reporters.
■ Bloomberg: Fake AI reporters are making it tougher for readers to tell truth from fiction.
■ Platformer: Google’s response to Gaza demonstrations exemplifies how the tech sector’s soured on employee activism.

Take out your (digital) pencils, please. Time for a fresh news quiz, courtesy of past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel.
■ Get more than six of eight answers right and you get bragging rights over your Chicago Public Square columnist.
■ Y’know who gets early access to the quiz each week? Those who think Square’s worth at least $10 a month.

‘This is a famous space.’ Critic Chris Jones reviews Timeline Theatre’s final production inside its longtime North Side home …
■ … which, back in 2012, hosted a memorable play about Chicago police torture.

Thanks. Square comes your way solely because readers make clear through their support that it’s useful. You can join their ranks for any amount here.
■ Joe Hass made this edition better.

‘Closed to everyone’ / Thank Howard Stern / Raw milk risks

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‘Closed to everyone.’ At the direction of DePaul University’s president, Chicago police this morning cleared out the city’s last—and the nation’s longest—anti-war college encampment, at the quad and all other green spaces on the Lincoln Park campus.
■ Officers wielding batons pushed away students and reporters.
■ Police reported no confrontations but said two people were arrested.
■ Popular Information puts the lie to the myth of “woke” indoctrination at American universities.
■ An Interior Department staffer has become the Biden administration’s first Jewish political appointee to quit in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Thank Howard Stern. CNN says President Biden’s interview with Stern put the gears in motion for tentatively scheduled Biden-Trump debates next month and in September …
■ … events that remain a longshot—partly because the candidates have yet to agree on the rules.
■ Jimmy Kimmel: “One of Biden’s debate conditions was not having an audience. So that explains why it’s on CNN.”
■ Seth Meyers: “Biden is looking forward to laying out his 2024 agenda, while Trump is just happy to go somewhere where nobody will draw him while he sleeps.”
■ The future’s grim for the sidelined nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates.

‘Maybe hanging-by-a-thread House Speaker Mike Johnson shouldn’t have gone up to New York … to violate Trump’s gag order on his behalf and babbling Republican conspiracy theories about the judge’s daughter.’ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: Democrats are now “all tripping over themselves to tell Axios that they hate Mike Johnson and next time MTG [Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene] is free to f**k him however she wants.”
■ Follow live updates on Trump’s criminal trial, with his former fixer, Michael Cohen, on the stand for cross-examination.

‘There’s a reason why some say the Times has contempt for ordinary people. It’s because the Times has contempt for ordinary people.’ Yale fellow John Stoehr rips into The New York Times for asking an irresponsible question in one of its presidential election polls.

The Supreme Court can still surprise ya. In a 7-2 ruling that constitutes a defeat for the predatory payday lending industry—an opinion written by Clarence Thomas—justices upheld the existence of the federal Obama-era watchdog Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
■ That, a day after the court issued an order that likely gives an edge to Louisiana Democrats this fall.
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg encourages a reader to reconsider leaving the country if Trump wins again: “I plan to stay, write whatever I can, resist however I can. … I can’t imagine a greater accolade than to be sent to prison by the second Trump administration. It would be my crowning achievement.”

‘More confidence than accomplishment.’ Reviewing—and linking to—a bunch of first-year-in-review pieces about Mayor Brandon Johnson, columnist Eric Zorn gives Johnson a C.
■ A Tribune editorial: In his refusal to overhaul leadership of the CTA, Johnson “is playing with fire.”

Raw milk risks. Your Local Epidemiologist sees no likely immune benefits—and it increases your odds of catching bird flu, H5N1.
■ NOTUS: Farmers distrustful of the federal government are likely hiding bird flu cases among their cows.
■ Editor & Publisher explains what NOTUS is.

‘Rather than … sorting through the garbage Google is either paid or tricked into serving up, why not just stop serving up garbage?’ Count science fiction author and tech activist Cory Doctorow among those skeptical about artificial-intelligence-enhanced search.
■ Wired: Prepare to be manipulated by emotionally expressive chatbots …

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