JB Pritzker gave 'em hell in New Hampshire
But no, he didn't urge anyone to commit a violent act
5-1-2025, Rabbit rabbit (issue No. 191)
This week:
All about JB’s blockbuster speech in New Hampshire on Sunday
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked
That’s so Brandon! — Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s maladroit mayor
Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go
Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go
Mary Schmich — Quotes from a Nieman Storyboard interview with Schmich
Nerding on wording: What does it mean to “go on tilt”?
Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists
Good Sports — Shedeur Sanders’ legend has yet to be written
Tune of the Week — “You Must Come In at the Door,” a terrific country gospel number
Pritzker unleashes the weapon of words against the Trump regime
Usage note, AP style is to refer to the “Trump administration,” but EZ style henceforth will be to refer to the “Trump regime.” As Vocabulary.com explains, “Regime takes its militaristic and government feel from the Latin word regimen ‘to rule.’ A political regime has a negative association to it that makes you think of totalitarian governments.”
The following passage, from Gov. JB Pritzker’s keynote address Sunday at a New Hampshire Democratic Party fundraising dinner in Manchester, has gotten a lot of attention and some pushback:
Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.
They must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history with our democracy intact — because we have no alternative but to do just that — that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors. … I'm telling you what I'm willing to do, and that's fight for our democracy, for our liberty, for the opportunity for all of our people to live lives that are meaningful and free.
The Illinois Republican Party rushed to the fainting couch in a news release Monday headlined, “Pritzker Calls For Violence Toward Republicans.”
JB Pritzker’s attempt to woo New Hampshire Democrats as he barrels towards the 2028 Democrat primary was full of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric. Pritzker’s obsession, to insult and to chastise President Trump, showed forcefully as he stoked the crowd in calling for political violence against Republicans.
The Tribune reported:
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, reposted a clip of Pritzker’s speech on social media and asked, “Are you trying to inspire a 3rd assassination attempt on my dad?” And deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller in Washington also criticized the remarks, saying they “could be construed as inciting violence.”
“The destruction of property sits directly adjacent to the — to attacks on humans, physical attacks,” said Miller, who also cited the past assassination attempts on Trump.
Easy there, Grand Old Paranoids. Fighting with “every microphone and megaphone that we have” is call for protests and rhetoric, not a call to take up bear spray, baseball bats and flagpoles, as those who answered the call from Dear Leader did on Jan. 6, 2021.
You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. … And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Donald Trump’s fondness for violence and violent rhetoric is well documented and includes:
Suggesting that outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be executed as a traitor for having back-channel conversations with the Chinese.
Saying to police, “If you had one really violent day … one rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out, and (crime) will end immediately.”
Declaring that “radical-left lunatics” should be “handled by the National Guard, or, if really necessary, by the military.”
Suggesting that never-Trump former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney be confronted “with nine barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it ... when the guns are trained on her face.”
Saying, “I’d like to punch him in the face,” about a heckler at a campaign rally.
Praising then-Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a journalist by saying, “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my guy!”
See also “We analyzed 9 years of Trump political speeches, and his violent rhetoric has increased dramatically” in The Conversation.
And of course, Trump pardoned everyone convicted of violent attacks on police on Jan. 6. I seem to have missed the Illinois Republicans’ lamentations about that.
So they can spare us their feeble pleas for civility.
Pritzker’s speech was a call to action, not to arms. He is urging Democrats to protest at the offices of Republican elected officials, not threaten them with stun guns, punch them in the face or poop on their desks.
“The peace that I’m talking about (in saying ‘Republicans cannot know a moment of peace’) is making sure that they know at all times that the American public opposes the policies of congressional Republicans and of the White House,” he said Monday when questioned by reporters.
Sure, the speech was obviously another move to position himself as the Democratic nominee for president in 2028 — he’s going to be on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” tonight on ABC — but it should also play well at home where he may run for reelection next year.
If you don’t have time to read the whole speech, here are some other highlights:
Fellow Democrats, for far too long, we've been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell you that America's house is not on fire, even as the flames were licking their faces. Today, as the blaze reaches the rafters, the pundits and politicians whose simpering timidity served as kindling for the arsonists, urge us now not to reach for a hose.
What I find ironic about the current conversation surrounding our party is that the voices flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families are the same ones who, when it comes to relief of the struggles of real people, have been timid, not bold. They didn't want to fight the health insurance companies and the drug manufacturers. They didn't want to demand an increase in the minimum wage or require paid family leave; they gave in to the powerful hedge fund managers and tech bros whose blind pursuit of profits is now destroying everything that matters to middle-class families, from home ownership to health care to veterans benefits.
Voters didn't turn out for Democrats last November, not because they don't want us to fight for their values, but because they think we don't want to fight for our values.
We have to abandon the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow the cruelty and the callousness with barely a cowardly croak. It's time to fight everywhere and all at once.
Today, it's an immigrant with a tattoo. Tomorrow, it's a citizen whose Facebook post annoys Donald Trump.
We Democrats believe that undocumented people who are convicted of violent crimes shouldn't be allowed to stay in this country. We want public safety just as much as Republicans do, and when we get back control of the Congress — and we will — and when we get the White House back — and we will — Democrats need to make it a priority to pass real, sensible immigration reform that we need to secure our border.
(Republican leaders are) so afraid of the felon and the fraud that they put into the White House that they would sooner watch him destroy our country than lift a hand to save it. Democrats may have to fix our messaging and our strategy, but our values are exactly where they ought to be, and we will never join so many Republicans in the special place in hell reserved for quislings and cowards.
It’s time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who don’t know how to organize a group chat. It’s time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy and wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of children’s cancer research. Time to stop thinking that we can reason or negotiate with a madman.
Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering when we need to fight.
If it sounds like I'm becoming contemptuous of Donald Trump and the people that he has elevated, it's because I am. You should be too. They're an affront to every value this country was founded upon.
Last week’s winning quip
That awkward moment when you're not sure if you actually have free time or if you're just forgetting something. — @andshewasgone1
Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.
News & Views
News: The Trump regime is assessing ‘ways to persuade women to have more children’
View: Proposals include a $5,000 cash baby bonus and funding for “programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles — in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive.” But how about working hard to mitigate the effects of global climate change, implementing a “Medicare for All” option, and subsidizing child care and extended parental leave policies?
I have heard from some young women that they’re reluctant to bring children into a world that feels as though it’s spinning dangerously out of control. Offer hope for a brighter future in a safe, clean, peaceful world, and they and their partners would be likelier to reproduce.
You don’t convince women in a free country to have more babies for the sake of the fatherland. If you want to encourage family formation and increase the birth rate, you can’t treat women as breeder mares.
All this pearl-clutching about birth rates, hiding behind the guise of overly concerned economists, is not about the tax base or the economy. If it were, we’d be seeing an increase in hybrid work and efforts to expand parental leave. And we most certainly wouldn’t be rounding up families and deporting them. Cutting off access to abortion and birth control, forcing women out of public life and back into the home — all these measures are justified as a way to support American families and increase the birth rate. But there is no evidence those things will increase the birth rate. What this is about, what it has always been about is controlling how women live.
News: The Tribune Editorial Board twists its collective hankie and decries coarse language from Democrats
View: Give me a fucking break. No major figure in American politics has ever done more to inject vulgarity and impolite language into our discourse than Donald Trump. Here’s The New York Times reporting on an Oct. 28 Trump rally at Madison Square Garden:
Mr. Trump has always been more prone than any of his predecessors in the White House to publicly use what were once called dirty words.
But in his third campaign for the presidency, his speeches have grown coarser and coarser. Altogether, according to a computer search, Mr. Trump has used words that would have once gotten a kid’s mouth washed out with soap at least 140 times in public this year.
Counting tamer four-letter words like “damn” and “hell,” he has cursed in public at least 1,787 times in 2024. … The thousands on hand at Madison Square Garden cheered and laughed at the F-bombs, S-bombs and other bombs thrown out by the various speakers and warm-up acts for Mr. Trump. It clearly is part of the testosterone-driven appeal: Real men curse. Mr. Trump is a real man. What they want is a real man for president.
In total, a computer search of 17 of the speakers at Madison Square Garden found epithets used at least 43 times. One of the most prolific was Sid Rosenberg, a conservative radio host. “What a sick son of a bitch,” he said of Hillary Clinton. “The whole fucking party, a bunch of degenerates, lowlives, Jew haters and lowlives. Every one of them.”
Scott LoBaido, an artist, flipped the bird to the Democrats and called Mr. Trump “the greatest fucking president in the world.” … Mr. Trump himself was somewhat more reticent at Madison Square Garden, deploying an “ass,” a couple of “damns,” eight “hells” and a “shit.” But at other recent rallies, he has called Ms. Harris “a shit vice president” and used the same word at a Catholic charity dinner in front of New York’s cardinal.
At one appearance in February before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Trump spiced his speech with no fewer than 44 epithets. “I got indicted four times by this gang of thugs for nothing, or as I say respectfully to the people from foreign countries, for bullshit,” he said at one point.
So now comes the Tribune Editorial Board to wag its institutional finger at … the Democrats?
If Democrats think the path back to voters’ hearts runs through a minefield of f-bombs, they’re in for another rough election cycle. … At a time when politics demands clarity, civility and leadership, it’s a misstep to embrace vulgar language as a tool to signal authenticity or passion. Instead of elevating the conversation, it lowers the bar, reinforcing the corrosive idea that rage and vulgarity are substitutes for thoughtful persuasion.
The fact that in the second paragraph of the editorial, the board contends that “Democrats got walloped” last fall — a false summation of a very close election that the editorial board clings to, who knows why — by a cheerfully, brazenly profane opponent did not derail this prissy scolding.
That’s So Brandon!
Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s mayor
One of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s asks as he journeys to Springfield hat in hand this week is for an extension of the $5 a month emergency 911 surcharge on phone bills. That adds up quickly in a household. And though we do need a modern, well-functioning 911 system, I feel the need to point out that this is a regressive tax.
In interviews, Johnson is continually invoking his desire to “invest in people.” And though this sounds good, what does it mean? People want clean, safe streets, good schools, robust businesses, and job and public recreational opportunities, all of which government ought to invest in. So which government investments are not investments in “people”?
Land of Linkin’
When asked about the possibility that he might run for U.S. Senate, Rod Blagojevich declared, “Never say never.” Well, I said never in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus. (Delivered weekly to premium subscribers!)
The January concert in memory of the great local songwriter and entertainer Michael Peter Smith is now available on YouTube. “The raucous afternoon of music and humor remains a highlight of my year to date,” wrote Mark Guarino, author of “Country & Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival” in a Facebook post. “If just one person across the world discovers these songs this way, it's a win!” Smith died in 2020 at age 78.
Columnist/author/raconteur Neil Steinberg and ace fiddler (and my son) Ben Zorn will be among the performers at “An Evening of Resistance,” a benefit for not-for-profit agencies harmed by federal budget cuts. The “evening of stories, poetry, history and music focused on Chicago, on change, and resilience” will be next Wednesday, May 7, at 7 p.m. at the Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia in Chicago. Details.
“I’m not sure I want somebody somebody sent” is my reaction to the speedy endorsement of Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s bid for the U.S. Senate by Gov. JB Pritzker and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth. It’s a play on this famous Chicago saying.
Related: Edward McClelland of Chicago Magazine throws a bucket of cold water on Stratton’s candidacy, noting that Illinois’ lieutenant governors have “limited responsibilities, and no opportunities to build a record of their own. … Practically, the LG’s only job is to wait for the governor to die or, this being Illinois, get indicted. … Soon, (Stratton) is going to have to face politicians with actual records to run on.”
CBS News: “Despite Trump's promised cuts, U.S. spent more than $200 billion more in first 100 days than last year”
I still don’t know the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, yet I enjoyed “50 years ago, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ showed us what comedy needs — and doesn’t” (gift link), Tribune film critic Michael Phillips’ glowing tribute to a classic comedy movie that has aged well.
Sun-Times political reporter Tina Sfondeles posted that she received a text poll on the 2027 Chicago mayor’s race asking for her opinions on Luis Gutierrez, Willie Wilson, Maria Pappas, Brandon Johnson, Anna Valencia, Alexi Giannoulias, John Kelly, Kam Buckner, Bill Quinlan, Ja'Mal Green and Susana Mendoza. It’s unclear who paid for the poll, but I’ll look for results should the sponsors ever post them.
Once and for all, did President Andrew Jackson say of an averse U.S. Supreme Court ruling, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”? No. Nor did Jackson defy the court.
Some PS readers want more media coverage in this publication. Here is my response to that.
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:
■ Wrong-home horrors: An Oklahoma mom and her daughters—all U.S. citizens—were “traumatized … for life” after armed federal immigration agents mistakenly raided their home, took their phones and computers and life savings, leaving them, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explains, no contact information or guidance on how to get it all back.
■ The city of Chicago’s settled with a family whose home cops mistakenly raided, pointing guns, during a 4-year-old’s birthday party.
■ “Mass protests … mobilization … disruption”: Politico’s Shia Kapos says that call over the weekend from Gov. Pritzker for action against Donald Trump’s administration has struck a nerve among Republicans and Democrats.
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson perceives “a change afoot in the Democratic Party … as its leaders shift from trying to find common ground with Republicans to standing firmly against MAGAs.”
■ Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—a potential presidential candidate—shared a hug with Trump.
■ The Associated Press reports that Trump’s aiming to use a little-known federal agency to overhaul U.S. elections.
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst asks: “Would you like some truly happy news? … Time for some poll porn!”
■ Everyone Is Entitled to My Own Opinion columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Shh! Don’t wake the elderly golfer. Funerals make him sleepy.”
■ The New Republic: “Fox News Forced to Admit That Everyone Hates Trump.”
■ Forward: An “Antisemitism Awareness Act” advancing in the U.S. Senate now has a clause to protect those who preach that Jews killed Jesus.
■ The New York Times (gift link): In what looked at first like a scam, the Trump administration texted dozens of current and former university employees with a text message asking if they’re Jewish.
■ Wisconsin’s Supreme Court—controlled by liberals, 4-3—has suspended a judge accused of helping a man evade immigration authorities.
■ Columnist Charlie Sykes sees CBS parent Paramount on the verge of “the most pathetic surrender so far.”
■ One journalist not bowing: ABC’s Terry Moran—who The Daily Beast says fact-checked Trump right to his face.
■ Take that, early adopters: If you bought one of the first Nest smart thermostats, brace for it to get dumb in October—but you’ll get a discount on a replacement.
■ If you’re a few days behind on “Jeopardy!,” don’t read this article about a 20-year-old contestant from the University of Chicago.
■ Cord Cutter Weekly’s ever-insightful Jared Newman on (HBO)Max’s password-sharing crackdown: Don’t pay until they force you to—and there are ways to avoid being forced to. Also: How to get around Netflix’s anti-sharing rules.
■ “Secret” radio: With local news in decline on commercial airwaves, Nieman Lab turns a spotlight on audio information services where—every day, around the clock, across the country—hundreds of volunteers read local, national and international news—and books and magazines, too. (In Chicago, it’s CRIS.)
■ In a first for Illinois, a new suburban theater will extend some movie scenes onto the auditorium’s left and right walls.
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Mary Schmich: Highlights from a podcast interview
My former colleague Mary Schmich was interviewed recently by Mark Armstrong, editor of the Nieman Storyboard podcast, about “Division Street Revisited,” the seven-part documentary audio series that updates the lives of a group of people Studs Terkel interviewed for his 1967 oral history “Division Street.” Here are a few excerpts from the transcript:
I came into column writing at a point in my life where I didn't really think I wanted to write a column. When I was younger, I did. I was very full of opinions. And then I had to be — got to be — a real reporter for a long time. I covered the South for the Tribune. And I came to just understand how little I knew and not trust myself to have huge opinions on whatever the news of the day was. Because I came to see that if you have not reported the news, you don't understand the news. Even when you do report it, you're having trouble understanding it. But wow, you're just reading about it and reacting? What are you talking about?
So, I mean, I always had an approach to column writing, which was a melding of opinion and storytelling. Because I do think the stories you choose to tell express ideas, express viewpoints. Sometimes better than the hammer-on-the-head opinion.
One thing I got from column writing — a really important thing — was how to write tight and short. Because for most of my time at the Tribune, the column was literally in a box. And you couldn't break out of the box. Every now and then you could. But you had to figure out, what can I say in the space and time I have today? Over the years, I cultivated three essential mantras, which (were):
Panic is my muse.
Deadlines crowd out doubt.
It always gets done. …
I started writing (the comic strip “Brenda Starr”) having no clue what I was doing. I learned along the way. But once again, I think all of these forms of storytelling are different, and they require different skills. And yet, a story's a story. So with writing the comic strip, first of all, there's no reporting. You’re just making stuff up, right? But I think on some level, it did help me to visualize stories. Obviously, I wasn't doing the drawing, but I had to write in a way that would allow the artist to draw. I don't know how to get too lofty about that, but I do think it probably accentuated my sense of how characters and dialogue help to carry a story. …
On the global phenomenon that was “Wear Sunscreen”:
(“Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young,” a column known colloquially as “Wear sunscreen”) was a column I wrote in an afternoon, in a panic, because I had nothing else to write. So, we're going back to my "deadlines crowd out doubt, panic is my muse, it always gets done" philosophy, right? I just thought, well, it's graduation time, I'll write this fake graduation speech. M&M's and a cappuccino and a deadline, and I wrote it.
And I remember thinking, “Oh, I kind of like that.”
I wouldn't always think that, but “I kind of like that. “
And then it just took on this unbelievable life of its own. It was early days of the internet, and it went viral before I think “viral” was even a term. (The speech got) attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, which helped to elevate it, because now it's attached to a famous, cult-famous writer. And then the fact that it wasn't really him elevated it a little more.
So now you've got the whole element of, “Oh my God, look at this evil internet, what it can do, the lies it can tell.” And then Baz Luhrmann swoops in and puts it over some music that he'd used in his movie "Romeo and Juliet." Turns it into a spoken-word piece.
Originally around seven minutes. Did well in Australia. And then some radio station cut it down to five minutes. … And then The New York Times did a little blurb. I mean, the steps in this are fascinating, the steps to something rising in the cultural consciousness.
Then it was off. And all of a sudden, it was just everywhere. Part of what I take from it is, just do your work, because you never know what's going to come of it.
I always say there was a ghost in that piece. There was some unspoken stuff in that piece that people felt.
… also known as the Axiom of Choice
Math nerds will know why I am inspired to highlight this post. One of my grandfather’s other contributions to the world was serving as the founding editor and publisher of the first iteration of the Picayune Sentinel.
Slanted expression
Here are three quotes from Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, from an interview published in the Sun-Times over the weekend.
You’re more under stress in Greater Grand Grossing, so you’re more likely to go on tilt.
It’s basically the sort of social program that helps people be less likely to go on tilt, to use the poker term.
They can have really big impacts in reducing people’s risk of going on tilt and getting involved in violence.
I wasn’t familiar with the idiom, though in context, the meaning of “on tilt” is fairly clear. It refers to making irrational decisions fueled by frustration or other forms of emotional distress. But what’s the connection to poker?
In his 2015 book “Gambling with the Myth of the American Dream,” University of Nebraska communications professor Aaron Duncan wrote:
The term originated from the game of pinball and frustrated players would attempt to cheat the game by tilting the pinball machine period. To combat this technique, pinball machines were designed with sensors, and if a player tried to cheat, the machine would freeze and flash the word “tilt.”
“Going on tilt” has thus become synonymous with losing control and letting one's emotions get the better of you.
In her book “Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts,” former poker champion Annie Betts writes:
The origin of tilt in pinball is apt because what's going on in our brain and moments of tilt is like a shaken pinball machine. When the emotional center of the brain starts pinging the limbic system (specifically the amygdala) shuts down the prefrontal cortex. We light up. Then we shut down our cognitive control center.
In his 1984 book “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi,” author Bob Woodward described the coked-up actor at one point as “like a pinball machine on tilt, out of control.”
Pinball has since largely been replaced by video gaming, and the poker players — and criminologists — have taken the term for their own. But it seems useful enough that we should all adopt it.
While I’m trying to make an expression happen …
I’m not sure whom to credit for “The Art of the Kneel” — a play on Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” — but it’s a handy bit of wordplay to use as shorthand for whenever a news organization, university, law firm, corporate CEO or foreign leader capitulates to Trump’s bullying tactics.
Minced Words
Cate Plys, Austin Berg, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We chatted about the upcoming Senate race, JB Pritzker’s speech, efforts to contain plastic waste and other topics in the news.
Traffic lights:
John changed the yellow light he gave last week to the Netflix series “Call My Agent” to a green light now that he’s further into the show.
Austin: A green light for “The Rehearsal,” a reality-based series on HBO/Max in which Nathan Fielder “stars as the director of rehearsals, which are elaborately staged scenarios re-creating parts of ordinary people's lives that are meant to help them prepare for a big moment in their lives.”
Marj: A green light for Robert B Hubbell’s Substack Today's Edition Newsletter
Cate: A green light for Community Supported Agriculture — specifically the produce delivery service run by Videnovich Farms in Bridgman, Michigan.
Eric: A green light for “The Parole Room,” a locally produced podcast available only on Audible that explores the concept of justice through the case of Johnny Veal, who was convicted in the 1967 slaying of two Chicago police officers when he was 17.
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.
Quotables
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately
Never forget that Medicare exists only because private insurance doesn’t want to cover old people. — unknown
Ben Smith lifts up a corner of the plush comforter under which our would-be overlords have been huffing each other's farts for the past few years as they collectively dream their way back to the cutting-edge ideas of the late 19th century. — Tom Scocca
The Polls from the Fake News are, like the News itself, FAKE! We are doing GREAT, better than ever before. — Donald Trump on the raft of major polls showing public disenchantment with his first 100 days in office.
Americans may have been shockingly, unnervingly ready to let Trump do a remarkable amount of damage. But on issue after issue, his administration’s conduct has been so hamfisted, heavy-handed, and hubristic that it has already rattled millions of them back to their senses. — Andrew Egger
After 28 years, (Illinois) U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is retiring. I knew him well when I was in Congress & Governor. He is a career politician, hyper partisan Dem. & political insider whose wife used to lobby me. I'm surprised he is leaving. Making America Great Again one retirement at a time. — Rod Blagojevich
It’s so funny that "Make America Healthy Again" does not include free healthcare. — Update the Grids
America: We want more babies Also America: But not those babies. — Born Miserable
Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more. — Donald Trump, downplaying the tariffs on Chinese goods
I felt like I was at a Rolling Stones concert. The crowd was virtually all white and mostly older people like myself. — Cliff Questel, 62, about the April 5 anti-Trump march and rally downtown.
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 (which I failed to include in the email edition of this newsletter!)
The new nominees for Quip of the Week:
My husband is out of town, but the cupboard doors are still open, so now I have to face some hard truths about myself. — @deloisivete
There's a secret to folding a fitted sheet and it's simple: Have low expectations. — @itsabbyyep.bsky.social
"Yes, he destroyed the building, but his story completely checked out." [scene from "The Credible Hulk"] — @jakevig.bsky.social
I’m not getting old. They’re just making socks harder to put on. — @pleasebegneiss.bsky.social
Me: Hey, what's up? M.C. Escher: I have no idea. — @frovo.bsky.social
In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God said let there be sunshine and moonlight and good times. And then God blamed it on the boogie. — @wildethingy
A photographer was killed when a huge lump of cheddar landed on him. To be fair, the people being photographed did try to warn him. — @BigBearF1
Waiter: May I take your order? Mary: I’ll have the lamb. Waiter: What size? Mary: Little. Waiter: Would you like it to go? Mary: Sure, to go. — @frovo.bsky.social
I wish I could listen to my headphones when I go for a run and not have to worry about getting attacked, but sadly we do not live in a world where I go running. — @beccafacexo
I once dated a woman who was actually a ghost. I had my suspicions the moment she walked through the door. — @ThePunnyWorld
Vote here and check the current results in the poll.
For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.
Why the new name for this feature? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.”
Good Sports
The legend has yet to be written about the ‘legendary’ Shedeur Sanders
The story of Shedeur Sanders, the University of Colorado’s star quarterback, has yet to be written. Sanders was so sure he was going to be a high first-round draft pick in last weekend’s NFL draft that he outfitted a whole room for the celebration, complete with huge dollar signs and the word “Legendary” everywhere you looked:
But round after round, he went undrafted. This defied the prognostications of the cognoscenti in sports media and sparked accusations of racism — even though the first three players chosen were Black — along with an outpouring of schadenfreude that the extremely cocky son of NFL Hall of Fame defensive back (and MLB standout) Deion Sanders was being brought down more than a few pegs for not being nearly as potentially “legendary” as he thought.
The obvious response to this is not outrage or happiness, but a reflective, “We’ll see, won’t we?”
NFL owners and general managers want to win. And the fact that all 32 teams passed on Sanders until the fifth round when the Cleveland Browns finally called his name suggests an overwhelming consensus that he’s likely to be a drag on the team that selects him.
The story will end either when Sanders washes out of the league in a few years, proving the consensus right, or when he plays his way into the starting lineup and proves the doubters wrong with performances that have others calling him “legendary.”
Owners and general managers have been wrong before. NFL greats chosen in the fifth round or later include Herschel Walker, Tyreek Hill, Tom Brady, Terrell Davis and Shannon Sharpe. Talent has a way of winning out in professional sports. We’ll see how much of it Sanders actually has.
Sox Watch
Updated and corrected: After Wednesday night’s loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the White Sox are 7-23. Their current winning percentage of .233 puts them on pace to 124 games, three more than they lost last year when they set the mark for most losses in a Major League Baseball season.
Tune of the Week
Exercising personal privilege to highlight a country gospel song I heard recently that had somehow escaped my notice:
Oh, the Baptists go by water and the Methodists go by land
But I'll tell you, my friends, if you wanna get to heaven,
Well, you gotta go hand in hand …
So low, you can't get under it
So high, you can't climb over it
So wide, you'll never get around it
You must come in at the door
Watson referred to “You Must Come In at the Door,” credited to Tin Pan Alley songwriter Sunny Skylar, as “one you can pat your foot to.” It’s a version of “So Hi,” a song I learned from recordings of the Kingston Trio. The notion of heaven being too large shows up in the Black gospel tradition as well.
I can’t identify the Bible verse that might be closely related to this sentiment. A little help, exegetes?
I’ve been opening up Tune of the Week nominations in an effort to bring some newer sounds to the mix. I’m asking readers to use the comments area for paid subscribers or to email me to leave nominations (post-2000 releases, please!) along with YouTube links and at least a few sentences explaining why the nominated song is meaningful or delightful to you.
Mistakes were made
When I become aware of errors in the Picayune Sentinel, I quickly correct them in the online version, but since many of you read just the email version, which I can’t correct after the fact, I will use this space periodically to alert you to meaningful mistakes I’ve made. (Not typos, in other words.)
In the Tune of the Week in PS 190, I typed that Tom McNamee had retired as editorial page editor of the Sun-Times in 2001, when he actually retired in 2021 (as the link to a Robert Feder column correctly said). This is not the first time I’ve gotten my fingers tangled when it comes to 2021 and 2001, and I have no excuses or plausible explanations, only regrets.
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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Thanks for reading!
The Axiom of Choice line reminds me of a favorite: Have you noticed that when migrating geese fly in their familiar "V" formation, one side of the "V" is always longer than the other? We'll, after years of study, scientists have discovered the reason: ...there's more geese on that side.
Raising children is so expensive. I'm guessing that's the big factor for the lower birthrate today. It's going to take a lot more than $5K cash to entice someone who's on the fence about having kids.