CBS News is dead to me

Its parent company bends the knee to Trump and pays him $16 million for a routine, defensible editing decision

7-3-2025 (issue No. 200)

This week:

• Media News & Notes — CBS surrenders, Tribune managers go mum, Ray Long retires, Amy Jacobson is shown the door, the Sun-Times euthanizes its “bulldog
  and more

• Last week’s winning quip

• The paperwork trap in the Big Hideous Bill that will inevitably cost and shorten lives

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Good Sports — An up-to-the-minute report on the Colorado Rockies’ bid for ignominy

• Green Light — A recommendation of AI generated “Animal Olympics” videos. Your inner child will laugh.

“Third of July” is a fiddle tune recorded here by my son Ben. We got it from Chirps Smith, who plays it in the key of F. In the 1930s, The Red Brush Rowdies recorded a nearly identical tune, “Cornshuckers Frolic,” in the key of G. Either way, happy Third. This marks 200 weekly issues of the Picayune Sentinel without a single vacation week, which Johanna thinks is a bit crazy. She’s not wrong.

Media notes

Paramount settles Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit with $16 million payout and no apology

Until Wednesday, when this news broke, I had my DVR set to record the “CBS Evening News” and “60 Minutes,” and my podcast app downloaded the audio version of the nightly newscast. No longer.

It is beyond disgusting to me that the cowards at CBS’ parent company, Paramount, are paying $16 million to Trump’s future presidential library to settle a blatantly and brazenly phony lawsuit that the network would have won easily.

Here’s Mark Jacob:

The suit was a blatant act of extortion and abuse of power. Trump sued over CBS’s editing of an interview of Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes,” arguing that it represented “election and voter interference” because the program didn’t include her full answer to a question. That complaint was ridiculous, challenging the kind of editing that happens every day in the news business.

CBS would have won the case, but Trump had a huge advantage: His highly politicized Federal Communications Commission has been stalling on a merger of CBS parent Paramount with Skydance Media. It’s clear that Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, decided to pay the ransom so Trump would stop holding the merger hostage.

It was a selfish, destructive act.

And here’s me to CBS:

News organizations have only the First Amendment to protect them from government intimidation and censorship. And they must stand together at this perilous time to defy attempts to control their reporting and their message. Appeasing Trump for business reasons is infamous, dangerous, sickening and wrong.

I chose the “CBS Evening News” because of my high regard for co-anchor John Dickerson. I am eagerly awaiting his reflections on this capitulation Thursday on Slate’s “Political Gabfest” podcast, where he has long been a regular panelist.

Anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger, a former U.S. representative from Illinois, described the suit as “a tantrum disguised as litigation” and CBS’ surrender as “giving aid and comfort to a man who has spent years trying to undermine the free press, warp reality, and dismantle the very institutions that protect American democracy” that “tells every autocrat and strongman wannabe that if you throw enough legal garbage at the wall, major American institutions will buckle. It tells journalists everywhere that truth isn’t a defense—it’s a liability. It spits in the face of what American troops have died to protect.”

Speaking of cowards …

The Tribune’s newsroom union posted the below to social media calling out Executive Editor Mitch Pugh and Managing Editor Phil Jurik for their silence on the buyout offer from Alden Global Capital that seeks to shrink the staff:

The Guild added, “We have no information on what the financial goals are for this buyout, whether they might lay off members or why this is happening. The company has only given a vague justification of economic uncertainty. Working with us to improve the terms of the buyout could help avert layoffs and minimize the damage to our product and our business. Instead, they're choosing to obfuscate.”

Union head Jake Sheridan added in another post, “The confusion they are creating hurts people. We deserve better, and our readers deserve better. We'll keep fighting for it.”

Of course, I reached out to Pugh and Jurik for their response, and of course, they didn’t reply. They absolutely never do, but I always make the effort. If they’re quietly working behind the scenes trying to save jobs and reduce the damage of staff reductions, they ought to stand on a desk in the newsroom and issue a statement of solidarity. But if they’re just Vichy managers, collaborating with Alden in a timorous attempt to keep their jobs, they deserve the above call-out from their staff.

It would be fairly easy to offer a meaningful but anodyne expression of support, the sort that true leadership demands. How about:

We know these are difficult and uncertain times, not just in our newsroom but the industry. Please know that we’re doing what we can to keep this newspaper strong at a time when strong media outlets are more necessary than ever. Our shared mission is important to us, and we value the work you do every day to advance that mission.

How hard would that be?

Union members have until Monday to choose the sort of voluntary separation that I and many of my colleagues chose to take four years ago. The last day of employment for those taking the offer will be Friday, and I’ll let you know next week what, if anything, I’ve heard about who’s leaving.

Meanwhile, Pugh has taken on additional duties out of state. He’s now “playing a role in leading” the newsroom at the Alden-owned Virginia Media (The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, The Virginia Gazette and Tidewater Review), which gave the gate to Executive Editor Kris Worrell on June 12.

Ray Long retires

Speaking of the mission of journalism, veteran political reporter Ray Long described it well in his valedictory message to Tribune colleagues upon his retirement early this week:

Thank you for the great honor of working shoulder-to-shoulder with you at the Chicago Tribune over the last 27-plus years. As always, I know I can count on you to:

• Be accurate, persistent, fast and fair.

• Tell truth, report facts, kick ass and refuse to cower to power.

• Write the stories that you know in your heart need to be done.

• Explain the ever-elusive why and how.

• Reveal secrets we all should know.

Millions of people need you to succeed. Your responsibility grows each day. Drive the beat. Don't let the beat drive you. Enjoy the journey. I did.

Long, 67, had been planning to retire anyway, so the buyout offer was fortuitous. Here’s a career rundown from Axios Chicago:

Long started at the paper in 1998, serving as the Springfield correspondent, breaking big stories on state government. He moved to the Tribune's investigative watchdog team in 2015.

Before the long stint at the Chicago Tribune, Long worked for the Associated Press, the Sun-Times and the Peoria Journal-Star, totalling up over 40 years covering Illinois politics.

He's won several awards for his work, including being a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice.

In 2022, he wrote a book about now-convicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan called "The House that Madigan Built." …

"He's made the city and state better through his work," Trib editor John Chase wrote in a staff email obtained by Axios. “He always led with passion and commitment, never allowing himself or others to take the easy way to get the story."

Amy Jacobson is out at conservative talk station WIND

Veteran area TV journalist-turned-conservative radio commentator Amy Jacobson will no longer be co-hosting a morning talk show with Dan Proft. Tuesday, she posted:

After 15 1/2 years at WIND AM560 radio, due to staffing reductions, today was my last day on the air. I am still processing this but I am happy to announce I have launched http://AmyJacobsonLive.com where I will be hosting a weekly podcast, posting behind-the-scenes blogs, livestreaming.

I disagree with Jacobson, 55, on nearly every political issue, but I have risen to her defense in the past. I’m not a listener to “Chicago’s Morning Answer”, the show she co-hosted with Proft, and I’m not privy to the station’s finances or its audience research. So I have no idea if WIND is doing her wrong. or if letting her go is a smart business move.

The bulldog no longer barks at the Sun-Times

On May 31, the Chicago Sun-Times quietly discontinued the Saturday edition of its Sunday newspaper — colloquially called the “bulldog” — as part of “ongoing efforts to align with evolving reader habits,” spokesman Victor Lim told me. “As more readers engage with our journalism in new ways, we’re focusing our resources on producing a robust full Sunday print edition and investing in other formats to deliver timely, impactful news.”

Readers who wanted to get a jump on reading Sunday newspapers and perhaps avail themselves of the grocery coupons within could pick up the bulldog at newsstands, but it’s been years since that’s felt necessary. Much of the content of the Sunday papers is now posted online by Friday. Printed grocery coupons are on the way out. And the Sunday papers have shrunk dramatically, making the task of reading them front to back far less daunting — last Sunday’s Sun-Times was 77 tabloid pages, not counting full-page ads.

The term “bulldog” dates back at least 99 years, according to Maclean’s:

The origin of the “bulldog,” newsroom lingo for “early edition,” is murky as ink, but the term likely became popular during the American newspaper wars when print editions were sold on street corners by avowed rivals. …

“I think the derivation refers to 19th Century newspapers competing like bulldogs for readers, back in the day when each city had many newspapers,” Gordon Crovitz, columnist and former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, told Maclean’s. …

The first reference to a “bull-dog edition” was noted in 1926 by the Oxford English Dictionary, which simply defines it as the earliest edition of a daily paper.

Meanwhile, starting this month, the Sun-Times’ “premium editions” — the mini magazines stuffed into the Sunday paper — will “appear as a separate, clearly labeled charge on subscriber invoices,” Chicago Public Media CEO Melissa Bell told me. “That charge will go into a designated ‘wallet’ and be applied only when a premium edition is published, rather than impacting the subscription term.”

Calling attention to the Tribune’s sneaky practice of charging Sunday home-delivery subscribers for these inserts has long been a hobby of mine. The Tribune charges subscribers’ account balances an additional fee of up to $15.99 for each of up to 15 annual inserts — they range from puzzle books to sports previews to gift and travel guides — none of which are ever labeled as “premium” or priced on the cover.

The Tribune will waive the up-charge if you call 312-546-7900 and slog through the phone tree to ask to opt out of paying, but the opt-out lasts just six months.

The Sun-Times charges much less for these occasional supplements — $3 for home delivery customers and $5 at the newsstand — Bell told me.

We’re also reviewing and improving the opt-out process to ensure it's more consistent, easier to understand, and fully supported by our customer service team. Our goal is to treat subscribers with respect and transparency — not just because it’s good business, but because we believe deeply in the trust that underpins public service journalism.

When Sun-Times readers opt out of paying for premium issues, the opt-out will be permanent, Lim said.

Legal notices. You’re paying for them

Last week, the Tribune printed a 119-page legal notice from the office of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi that contained assessed valuations of properties in Northfield Township. This information had to be had to due to the Newspaper Legal Notice Act in state law, a statute rooted in the quaint, pre-internet notion that newspapers are the best way to be sure to reach people. The Cook County assessor’s office alone has contracts with city and suburban papers to publish these agate-type listings at a cost to taxpayers of $866,000 a year, according to spokesman Christian Belanger.

Newspapers support the law, naturally. Here is a passage from a representative editorial from the State Journal-Register in Springfield published in 2021:

Newspapers have played a vital role in providing transparency about government by publishing public notices. It has worked for more than 150 years. As the neutral third party, newspapers help protect government from denying the public information they have the right to know about such as meetings, hearings, court actions, contract bidding, unclaimed funds and more. Along with open meetings, freedom of information laws, public notices are an essential element to keeping government transparent. … Newspapers and newspaper sites are the primary medium for public notices in all 50 states because they are accessible, independent, verifiable and archival. …

The best broadband coverage in the state is concentrated in northeastern counties, with comparatively less coverage in the southeast, according to Pew Center research. Pew also found broadband access is lower among older adults, minorities, low-income households and rural communities. Governments in many of those communities know when they want to publicize issues of concern, they get the message out through their local newspaper.

This week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law ending the practice:

Under the new law, public entities will be required to publish or advertise legal notices on their official website beginning March 1, 2026, with digital publication of such notices optional until that date. The law requires that the websites be free and accessible, with a direct hyperlink to legal notices placed “conspicuously” on the homepage. The secretary of state also would help set up a website to include notices from public entities statewide. …

Brett Ainsworth, president of the New Jersey Press Association, slammed the bill last week, saying it “diminishes transparency and erodes trust in government.”

Assemblyman Michael Inganamort (R-Sussex), a supporter, said the new law is a modern solution to a changing media environment. It allows residents to avoid paying for subscriptions to news outlets and securing physical newspapers, and instead access online information “from the comfort of their own home or their local library,” he said.

It also will save money for towns that were doling out public funds to pay for these notices, he added.

“We’re not in the ’70s anymore, and New Jerseyans, and frankly all Americans, are getting their information on primarily digital platforms,” he said.

Similar measures were recently rejected in Indiana, Georgia and West Virginia according to the Public Notice Resource Center, which advocates for newspaper publication.

A corporate tool says what?

At our core, we remain a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content. — Justin Dearborn, 6-2-16

In 2016 and up until 2019, Dearborn was the chairman and chief executive officer of the Tribune Publishing Co., and I kept this quote up on the wall of my office for many years to remind me how the suits with no feel for the importance of newspapers think. Yes, media organizations need people with good business acumen to keep them afloat, but they’re lost if they consider themselves “content curation and monetization” companies.

Last week’s winning quip

"The Iranians moved their uranium" sounds like the start of a Dr. Seuss book. — @WilliamAder

Once again, the vote at the top was so close that I want also to give a nod to the second-place quip:

Fun fact: Australia's biggest export is boomerangs. It's also their biggest import. — @ThePunnyWorld

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

What’s left to say about the Big Hideous Bill?

For a regime that claims to want to “Make America Healthy Again,” the omnibus Republican-agenda bill that party leaders are so urgent to pass seems likely to leave millions of people poorer, sicker and hungrier than they are today.

Your news feed is certainly filled with analytical pieces like this and polemics about the potential impact of the massive policy shifts the bill contains, so all I really want to add as the House dickers and dithers into the wee hours Thursday is this:

A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law,” according to the Associated Press. Illinois “advocates and experts warned that the measure’s $1.2 trillion in cuts would cost more than 500,000 Illinoisans their health care coverage and put about 427,000 people at risk of losing food assistance, according to the Sun-Times.

To stay on the rolls to get Medicaid reimbursement for health care, most able-bodied recipients would have to file paperwork every six months that proves they’re working, volunteering, or attending school at least 80 hours a month.

This might sound like a fine idea. But enforcing it would require the creation of a massive new government bureaucracy that, if it’s anything like other government bureaucracies, will be rife with frustrating inefficiencies of the sort I encountered during a brief period where I was attempting to access unemployment benefits from the state. Interminable hold times, confusing electronic forms, simple errors. And I was healthy at the time! How many sick people will just give up?

Here’s NPR:

The eligibility requirements themselves create a bureaucratic rigmarole that many who are eligible for benefits struggle to navigate. A ton of them get lost in the maze of paperwork and get kicked off the program. Call it the paperwork trap. …

In economics, this sort of red tape that makes it harder for people to do or get something is known as "administrative burdens" or "ordeals." … Studies suggest that low-income populations have a harder time dealing with these administrative burdens. They are often living paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes they're homeless. Sometimes they have disabilities or chronic diseases. They may have inflexible work schedules or not have a computer. They may have life stresses and struggles that lower their mental bandwidth, and it's hard for them to dedicate the time and effort to satisfy requirements even though they meet the criteria for assistance.

News & Views

News: President Donald Trump is threatening to arrest New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, deport him and take over the city if Mamdani wins November’s general election.

View: Yet more evidence that Trump is an authoritarian madman. “I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York,” he wrote on his Truth Social site Wednesday morning. “Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards.”

Here’s more evidence: “The Trump administration said Tuesday that it was looking into whether CNN could be prosecuted over its report on an Apple iPhone app that alerts users to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area.”

And more: “We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time. …Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that'll be the next job.”

News: The Supreme Court holds that public schools “are required to provide parents with an ‘opt-out’ provision that excuses their children from class when course material conflicts with their religious beliefs.”

View: OK, then, but where does it stop? The case was bought by parents who objected to books that dealt favorably with LGBTQ characters, but what happens when parents claim their religion objects to the teaching of evolution? Or to the study of war? Or to women working outside the home? Or to interracial marriage? Or to meat eating? Astrology? The use of alcohol? Automobiles?

Are we going to have to rule on the sincerity and validity of these and other religious beliefs and provide opt-out programs with supervision for every student whose parents hold some view they claim is divinely ordained?

News: Indiana and Illinois are hiking their cigarette taxes and now rank 12th and 13th highest in the nation, respectively

View: Anything that discourages the noxious and toxic habit of smoking is a good thing, I suppose. A National Institutes of Health study found that “increasing cigarette prices through tobacco taxation (is) a powerful strategy for achieving major reductions in smoking behavior among some, but not all, high-risk populations.”

Since Indiana has just added $2 a pack to its cigarette tax, Chicago-area smokers now won’t be able to slip across the state line for a cheaper carton. (Wisconsin’s tax is slightly lower, but still ranks 17th.) At some point, though, the levy becomes so onerous that it encourages bootlegging, similar to how dramatic new hikes in online gambling taxes stand to drive that activity back underground.

Here’s a handy table, updated for July 1:

Land of Linkin’

• Steve Chapman: “Congress and the Supreme Court approve Donald Trump’s drive for absolute power.” He writes that Trump’s whims “have proved more brazen, brutal and destructive than the nation has ever seen. The question is not whether Congress or the Supreme Court has the power to stop him but whether they will ever use it. The answer so far: not a chance.”

• All five episodes of "Howl" are now available. The podcast series is about the federal government's ambitious and controversial effort to bring wolves back to the American west. Johanna edited the series for Boise State Public Radio.

• Blind Listening Tests - Classical Instruments vs Moderns — “Every study seems to conclude that the best modern makers are producing instruments virtually indistinguishable from classicals.”

• Illinois Entertainer interviews WGN-AM’s Steve Bertrand

• MSN: “An AI-generated rock band has blown up online. Spotify won’t tell you they’re fake.” Related: “It’s music, but is it art? A discussion with readers,” from Tuesday’s Picayune Plus.

• Picayune Plus: “Can the Big Hideous Trainwreck be averted?”

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ Media weasel words: Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob flags five ways news outlets are sugar-coating Donald Trump’s fascism with euphemisms.

■ Zeteo: “The BBC refused to air this film on Gaza—so now we’re releasing it to the world.”

■ Gator garbage: PolitiFact takes a microscope to things Trump said as he visited Florida’s detestable “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention facility in the Everglades.

■ Law prof Joyce Vance: The official White House social media account shared “an absolutely disgusting image, associating Trump with the alligator and swamp-snake guarded prison” …

■ … and she warns that “the Civil Rights Division, the once proud crown jewel of the Justice Department, will participate in stripping naturalized American citizens of their citizenship.”

■ Politico: As Trump cuts federal library funding, Illinois is pitching in more.

■ See how much your library’s getting here.

■ Nasty, brutish and short: The Illinois Answers Project and the Sun-Times report that a Chicago cop who shot and killed his partner—the first Chicago officer to be killed by “friendly fire” in almost 40 years—has acquired a long disciplinary record over a brief career.

■ Oh, Brother: Millions of Brother’s well-reviewed printers are at risk of hijacking by cybercriminals. Got one? Make sure it’s running the latest software …

■ … and then consider columnist and science fiction author Cory Doctorow’s counsel (March link): Don’t connect it to Wi-Fi.

■ “First they came for ‘Calvin & Hobbes,’ and we peed on them”: Updating the rising tide of U.S. school censorship, Wonkette’s Doktor Zoom mourns Monroe County, Tennessee, schools’ banning of Bill Watterson’s beloved comics.

■ Meanwhile, reactionary internet personality Stew Peters has released what columnist Gary Legum says may be “the most racist children’s book ever.”

■ “Burn this place to the ground”: Men Yell at Me columnist Lyz Lenz sees a millennial revolution brewing.

■ Looking for fireworks on the 4th? You won’t find ’em at Navy Pier this year. Here’s where they will be.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

I'm not a perfect person, but at least I can wake up every day knowing I didn't vote for concentration camps and millions being stripped of health insurance and food assistance. — @SarahIronside6

Alligator Alcatraz was built in eight days. It took just over a week to create a massive concentration camp. Remember this the next time those in power claim they can't house the homeless, feed the starving or provide medical care to the poor. They can, they don't want to. — Kelly

I would never worship any God that gets offended I don't believe in him. — Wilde Thingy

I’d love to predict the imminent demise of the Republican Party, because none of this shit is popular. … Wait until the House passes this shitpile of a bill, Donny signs it into law, and Cletus finds out that Dear Leader lied to him about saving Medicaid — and now grandma has to come live with him because her health insurance went fuckity-bye, and the nursing home kicked her out onto the street. You would hope that Republican voters will remember how they got fucked, all the way to Election Day next year. But the average MAGA is basically the guy from Memento, who literally can’t remember what happened five minutes ago. — Jeff Tiederich

Do not doubt, do not second-guess and don’t ever challenge the president of the United States, Donald Trump. — Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson

Call me crazy, but my idea of making America great involves a lot fewer kidnappings and concentration camps. — The Volatile Mermaid

If you want to bring prayer into schools but not free lunch, you better stop pretending this is about Jesus. He would've fed the kids. — unknown‬

Final vote. 50-50. VP breaks the tie. One single GOP Senator could have stopped this abomination. Saved millions of parents from watching their child go hungry. Saved the lives destroyed when Medicaid disappears. They will all live forever with the horror of this bill. — Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy

It took less than a year to get from “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats,” to “Let’s feed them to alligators.” — unknown

Nowhere is the “currently under maintenance” sign more visible than downtown. Once the city’s economic engine, downtown is buckling under the weight of commercial vacancies and disinvestment. Tourists and office workers are avoiding downtown. Why? Businesses, especially in retail and hospitality, face higher security costs and reduced foot traffic. When businesses can’t protect their merchandise, when families don’t feel safe using public transit and when tourists start skipping Chicago for other cities, tax revenues dry up. It’s simple math. — Cook County Board of Review Commissioner George Cardenas

Breaking news! Adultery plummets among grade-school children in Louisiana after the Ten Commandments are posted in classrooms — unknown

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. — Proverbs 14:31

Quips

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers then vote for their favorite. Here is the winner from this week’s contest:

The new nominees for Quip of the Week:

• Someday, somebody is gonna shout, "There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!" and it'll be the last thing they do because that dude has got to be ready to snap. — @MelvinofYork

• I don’t know, I think the elephant ties the room together nicely. — @_indica_sky

• Remember that dog surrounded by flames who said, "This this is fine"? He died. — @WilliamAder

• Adulthood is saying, “But after this week, things will slow down a bit,” over and over until you die. — unknown

• Anytime I hear a song everyone knows, I act like I never heard it before. So if, say, “Hotel California” comes on the radio, I ask: “Is this the new Eagles?” — jakevig.bsky.social

• And to my children I leave my collection of grocery bags that I store inside of a grocery bag. — @Kica333

• A woman goes into a bar and orders an “entendre. Make it a double,” she says. So the bartender gives it to her. — unknown

• Eighth annual human sacrifice today. Everyone had a great time, except Jeff. — @viktorwinetrout.bsky.social

• By jingo I use a lot of obsolete expressions. — @jimmerthatisall.bsky.social

• Your ex won't know you're over them until you text them every day to remind them. Maybe twice a day. — @jakevig.bsky.social

Vote here and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why “quips”? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.” Also, I’m finding good stuff on BlueSky now as well.

Minced Words

Austin Berg, Marj Halperin, Jon Hansen and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We spent a long time talking about the massive Republican bill, and I became particularly animated when the conversation turned to the surrender to Trump by the parent company of CBS News. Other topics included the tipped minimum wage and whether ICE agents should be able to wear masks and conceal ID badges.

Traffic lights:

Austin — A green light for the Millennium Park Summer Music Series, particularly the July 21 concert featuring Joe Bataan and Novos Baianos.

Jon — A yellow light for “Stick,” a Netflix comedy starring Owen Wilson and Marc Maron (Marj offered a concurrence).

Marj — A green light for “The Daughters Of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War,” a nonfiction book by Catherine Grace Katz.

John — Green light for The New York Times’s list of the100 greatest movies of the 21st Century so far.

Eric — AI generated Animal Olympics videos (see below).

Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Good Sports

The 2025 Rockies remain on pace to out-lose the 2024 White Sox

If the Colorado Rockies lose 122 games or more this season, they will break the MLB record for most losses in a season set last year by our White Sox, who went 41-121 (.253)

After 86 games, the Rockies now stand at 19-67 (.221), which puts them on pace to lose 126 games. A winning percentage of .235 for a season is the low-water mark in baseball’s modern era, and was set by the Philadelphia A’s in 1916 when they went 36-117.

The Sox were 24-62 after 86 games in 2024.

A special, bonus, sportsy NewsWheel

Readers of the Tuesday Picayune Plus — become a paid subscriber and I’ll deliver it straight to your inbox!— are familiar with my NewsWheel puzzle. Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune, the puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — in this case a proper noun— reading either clockwise or counterclockwise. The solution, posted at the bottom this newsletter, is related to a story in the news or other current event.

Green Light

Green Light features recommendations from me and readers not only of songs — as in the former Tune of the Week post — but also of TV shows, streaming movies, books, podcasts and other diversions that can be enjoyed at home — i.e., no restaurants, plays, theatrical films, tourist sites and so on. Email me your nominations, and please include a paragraph or two of explanation and background along with helpful links, perhaps including excerpts from reviews or background articles. For TV shows, please include links to trailers/previews on YouTube and advice on where to stream them.

I laughed until I stopped at this AI-generated “Animal Olympics” video from kiidesign:

“How to create the Viral Animal AI Olympics Step by Step” explains how it’s done.

Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise. Browse and search back issues here.

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NEWSWHEEL SOLUTION:

ESSENGUE, as in Noa Essengue, the Bulls’ top draft choice this year, a pick that inspired Sun-Times sports columnist Scoop Jackson to write, “The Bulls have now gone beyond the head-scratching and entered into the laughingstock space.”