Trump declares yet another emergency, but don't break the glass yet — there are bigger ones to come
Thank you for your attention to these matters!
ericzorn.substack.com
8-14-2025 (issue No.205)
This week:
If you think these Trumpian "emergencies” are bad, wait until you see what he likely has in store
News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked about the necessity for public police disciplinary arbitration hearings; Gov. JB Pritzker’s misleading answer on “Meet the Press;” the effort to rename the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal; the Dexter Reed case and the flurry of outrages in Washington
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
Media notes — Robert Feder would have done this so much better, but he’s retired so I’m doing what I can
The end of the dial-up modem screech puts me in mind of other vanishing sounds
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 — An update on the Colorado Rockies as they look likely to avoid historical ignominy; the possibility of another record being set this baseball season; ESPN’s embrace of a phony “sport.”
Green Light — A recommendation for the Netflix dramatic series “Adolescence,” along with links to behind-the-scenes materials.
Last week’s winning quip
My wife is furious that our neighbor sunbathes naked in her backyard. Personally, I'm on the fence. — @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.
The real ‘emergency’ is still ahead
President Donald Trump on Monday declared a “public safety emergency” in Washington D.C., thus allowing him to put the local police department under federal control and paving the way for him to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops on the streets of the capitol.
Now, yes, crime is a problem in D.C. as it is in many places, particularly urban areas. But the fact that it’s a decreasing problem in D.C. and most of the country did not prevent Trump from declaring crime an emergency and exercising the broad, extra powers allowed a president under the National Emergencies Act of 1976.
Deploying the U.S. military for the purposes of routine law enforcement is an ominous look and arguably a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that curbs military interference in domestic matters.
But it still might be a popular move. Crime may be down but it can never be low enough, and the desire for increased safety is both primal and understandable. If National Guard troops serve to drive the rate of violent crime in D.C. still lower, Trump will relish and perhaps even win the political fight with blue-state big-city mayors who dismiss his offer of similar help.
So what’s really ominous here is the big picture: Trump’s promiscuous declarations of emergencies in order to climb over the guardrails designed to prevent a president from acting as a dictator.
On his first day in office, Trump declared a national energy emergency to increase drilling and a national emergency at the U.S. -Mexico border to increase the use of military personnel to stem unlawful immigration and the flow of illegal drugs. Then in April he declared a “National Emergency to Increase our Competitive Edge,” one of several emergencies he’s declared in order to give himself increased latitude in hiking tariff rates. He has also availed himself of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act meant to address "unusual and extraordinary” crises that threaten the nation.
These situations, as well as the situation with crime in D.C., were not screamingly urgent. None of them met the common definition of emergency — “ an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action; an urgent need for assistance or relief” — and all could have and should have been addressed through the normal legislative and political process.
Trump exhibits little patience for that kind of process. Here’s why:
The president can access more than 130 extraordinary powers by declaring a national emergency, including restricting travel, organizing and controlling domestic means of industrial production, closing communications facilities, and assigning military forces overseas. (The Project on Governmental Oversight)
There is no precise legal definition of “emergency” in the 1976 law, though the House version of the bill required that emergency actions be “essential to the preservation, protection, and defense of the Constitution, and … to the common defense, safety, or well-being of the territory and people of the United States.” The final version stripped out that language in deference to the presumption that presidents will act in good faith — that they will not willy nilly declare emergencies in order to facilitate the execution of their political whims — and in the realization that in genuine moments of peril and confusion the last thing we’d need is a paralyzing semantic debate.
And yes, Trump’s not the only president to abuse this power. President Joe Biden tried to pull a fast one by declaring a national emergency to try to cancel student debt, an effort shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court. But Trump is using/abusing the tactic so frequently that he appears to be testing its limits.
At this point, I consider it a strong possibility that, a year from now, if the campaign polls are looking bad for Republicans, Trump will cancel the midterm elections because of a national “emergency” rooted in crime, immigration, drugs, trade, foreign entanglements or whatever seems particularly pressing.
Before you roll your eyes at me or accuse me of suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, tell me when in his second term has the President shown the least respect for customary restraints on presidential power. Let me remind you of his eagerness to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and his affection for the Insurrection Act of 1807, both of which give him similar latitude. Then tell me why we should rely on his good-faith deference to unwritten traditions that balance his powers with those of Congress and the courts.
I’ll add another prediction: If Trump is still physically healthy in 2028 and wants to stay in office beyond this two-term limit, he’ll invent a national emergency to cancel the presidential election in November. And I imagine the flaccid U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority will decline to intervene in what it will deem a political rather than legal question.
And that, at last, will be an emergency.
News & Views
News: Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke will not prosecute the officers involved in the fatal shooting of motorist Dexter Reed in March, 2024.
View: It was the right call — Reed fired first on the officers who pulled him over. But see my detailed entries — “Video of the police killing of Dexter Reed leaves some key questions unanswered,” and “Yes, it matters what Chicago Police say about why officers pulled over Dexter Reed” — to see why I hope there will be proper trial in the federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Reed’s family so we can learn more about what exactly what happened and why.
News: A three-judge panel of the Illinois Appellate Court has ruled that arbitration hearings for Chicago police officers accused of serious misconduct must take place in public.
View: Excellent. The 2-1 ruling affirmed a lower court ruling last year that said allowing serious police disciplinary cases to be heard behind closed doors is bad public policy.
From the WTTW-Ch. 11 report:
“Hiding these proceedings from public view … would have undermined trust and cooperation between police officers and the public they serve,” Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry said in a statement. …
Arbitrations traditionally take place behind closed doors and are not open to public scrutiny. …If the decision is appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, the impasse will continue indefinitely, keeping 25 cases in limbo — including three that seek to terminate officers accused of killing Chicagoans without justification, including the officer that shot and killed 13-year-old Adam Toledo in 2021.
It’s absolutely vital that serious police misconduct allegations such as the ones still pending against some of the officers in the Dexter Reed case, be adjudicated in public, and the sooner after the incidents the better. We need clarity and resolution as quickly as possible in fairness to the alleged victims, the community, and, yes, to the implicated officers.
News: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker claims that the political maps in Illinois were drawn on the up and up.
View: Stuff and nonsense! Argle-bargle! Jiggery-pokery! On “Meet the Press” Sunday, Pritzker contended:
We held public hearings, legislative hearings. People attended them. They spoke out. There was a map that was put out. There were actually changes made to the map. And a map was passed, and it was done at the end of the census, the decennial census. So that's how it's done in this country.
C’mon, Guv! The process that resulted in 14 out of 17 Congressional seats for Democrats (87%) in a state that voted 44% for Republican Donald Trump in 2024 wasn’t on the up and up, and pretending it was isn’t a good look. Politics is a bare-knuckle game, and as long as gerrymandering benefits Republicans nationwide, you should have countered only that it would make no sense for Democrats not to throw punches where they can.
Be honest. Demand a federal solution to this nonsense.
News: Citizen groups are calling for a renaming of the Sanitary and Ship Canal and soliciting your suggestions.
View: Trenchy McTrenchface? I agree that the canal could use a spiffier name. The shade being thrown at the word “sanitary” has me flashing back to 1988 when the Metropolitan Sanitary District sought the public’s help in rebranding what was to become known as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
I reported (gift link) on some of the proposals:
The Cook County Commode and Conduit Authority
The Metropolitan Expurgation Network
The Chicago Sewage District
The Water Salubritory
Cook County Catharsis Department
Your Waste Is Our Command.
Metropolitan Sludge-Buster Treatment Department
News: “Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 26, includes a new feature designed to curb unwanted spam calls and text messages.” (gift link)
View: I’m celebrating, but Washington Post op-ed contributor Patrick Ruffini says not so fast:
The collateral damage from this update is likely to include local businesses — like those that text you to confirm a dinner reservation or doctor’s appointment — and legitimate survey research, encompassing everything from political polls to public health surveys from government agencies. …
Shutting down phone and text message polling, as iOS 26 seems poised to do, would have an immediate and disruptive effect on high-quality polls. … Local polling could all but disappear, as it becomes impossible to get enough people to tap over to their unknown senders screen. …Without a reliable way of measuring local opinion, holding elected officials to account will become that much harder. … Bona fide survey research, by definition unsolicited, (is) in the public interest in a way that sales and marketing aren’t. …
Apple does not seem to be paying heed to a decades-long consensus that there’s a public interest in allowing public opinion to be measured accurately.
He suggests, and I agree, that further technological innovations might be the answer: “AI could be used to allow legitimate polling calls and texts to go through, while filtering out fraud and scams.”
News: President Donald Trump wrings $500 million “settlement” from Harvard; plans to alter Smithsonian exhibits to fit his jingoistic view of America; fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the poor jobs report and replaces him with an unqualified stooge; celebrates the Confederacy; opens investigations and/or fires those who investigated him; plans a UFC fight at the White House; paves over the Rose Garden; declares another bogus emergency; continues to obfuscate on the Epstein files and on and on.
View: Some of these may sound trivial, but each is a further attempt to weaken through attenuation the outrage we feel and to increase our feelings of impotence in the face of his relentless shattering of norms. We have to keep noticing because we can’t stop caring.
That’s So Brandon!
Updates on the misadventures of Chicago’s mayor
Shortly after his inauguration in 2023, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson created a working group to study the city’s underfunded pension systems. In a strong editorial, this week the Tribune writes:
The mayor acknowledged last week that the group was dissolved without producing a report, a damning indictment both of the internal operations of City Hall and how this mayor doesn’t take seriously the cost side of Chicago’s ledger while obsessing over finding more revenue to feed the government beast. … If Johnson’s pension working group had managed to produce any recommendations, we’d have hoped that close to the top of the list would have been not to dig the city’s pension hole any deeper. Or, certainly not any deeper than what is minimally necessary to comply with federal rules requiring that pension benefits at least match what Social Security would provide.
Instead, Chicago got crickets. As recently as last April, we asked the mayor’s office when the pension report would be released and were told at the time that it would be “within the next two weeks barring unforeseen edits.”
Two weeks! The ol’ Donald Trump fortnight dodge!
Two weeks came and went; we checked back on the matter a month later. We were told the group “needed to go back and do some more work on it.” …
The group he appointed, unfortunately, was made up mainly of public sector union leaders and Democratic lawmakers allied with those unions. There was virtually no representation for taxpayers and businesses. …
Johnson told reporters last week that members of the ad hoc panel who supported the unaffordable and unfunded sweeteners (recently) signed by Pritzker won the internal debate.
Johnson called the result “a disappointment.”
What’s disappointing is evidence once again of a lack of leadership from this mayor.
Land of Linkin’
Must watch: John Oliver roasts Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer for frequently alluding to the sentiments of Joe and Eileen Bailey, constituents of his who, it turns out, are entirely fictional.
I contend that s’mores are vastly overrated, and a narrow majority of the PS population seems to agree.
“The Day I Killed My Father,” an essay by Gene Weingarten about the tough decision he made at the end of his father’s life. He tells his dad: “I know absolutely that once again, you knew that I knew what I was doing, and approved. You were always on your son’s side, and I was always on yours.”
Austin Berg: “Pritzker to city: Drop dead —The governor just pummeled Chicago with more than $11 billion in new pension liabilities at the worst possible time. Residents deserve answers.”
Made in Chicago Museum is an “independent historical research project focused on collecting, documenting, and celebrating the ‘everyday objects’ produced during Chicago’s 20th century industrial heyday” curated by Andrew Clayman. An introductory video is here.
“(Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth reposts video on social media featuring pastors saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.” Bless his heart.
An ominous essay: “Same-Sex Marriage Is Absolutely On the Chopping Block” by Rewire’s Imani Gandy: “When I caution folks that Obergefell is not as untouchable as they think, I get the same tired cocktail of denial and delusion: ‘It would be too complicated to undo. The polling is too strong. What about the Respect for Marriage Act?’ Yeah, well, a majority of Americans liked abortion rights, too—about 61 percent. The Court eliminated federal abortion protections anyway. Here’s the reality: Conservatives want to send same-sex marriage back to the states — the same way they sent abortion rights back to the states. And the way they’re going to do it is to claim that there’s no ‘history and tradition’ of marriage equality in the United States and therefore it should be left up to ‘the people.’”
“That seemingly innocent text is probably a scam” in Malwarebytes advises readers not to respond to what look like misdirected texts. I disregarded this advice and, at the suggestion of reader Marc Martinez, responded, “That is an unhealthy dependence. You need to enhance your agency and manifest your reality” to a scam text from Canada that said “Nothing feels right without you.” I regret that the scammer did not reply.
In Tuesday’s Picayune Plus I excerpted passages from U.S. Supreme Court Jusrtice Elena Kagan’s dissent in Rucho v. Common Cause, the 2019 case in which a 5-4 conservative majority upheld the rights of states to draw political maps that confer extreme advantages to one party over the other.
“'Dangerously uninformed’: … book says Trump didn’t know what happened at Pearl Harbor.” The book is “A Very Stable Genius” by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig and was published in 2020..
Twenty-three reasons “Why I hate your podcast” by former Reader writer Bill Wyman.
A transcript of Laura Loomer’s deposition in her defamation suit against Bill Maher.
In the Zmail queue this week was a note from a reader congratulating me for a poignant, 2000 column that appeared in the wake of the death of Tribune political cartoonist Jeff MacNelly. I excerpted that column in my reply — it’s a really good one! — and revealed the truth about who actually wrote it.
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:
■”Your favorite brands are funding anti-abortion legal campaigns.” Popular Information spotlights big-name companies — CVS, UnitedHealthcare, Airbnb, Zillow, DoorDash, Grubhub, Roblox and more! — that have funneled cash to the Republican Attorneys General Association.
■ Woof!? The Associated Press reports: “The top three individual actions that help the climate (are) avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity.”
■ “The first chapter of a new ‘1984’”: That’s what law professor Joyce Vance perceives in Donald Trump’s order of a review of Smithsonian Institution exhibits to “assess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”
■ Constitutional flaw: The Library of Congress has explained why big chunks of the U.S. Constitution vanished from its official website—coincidentally, People notes, parts of the document that Trump doesn’t like.
■ Economist Paul Krugman on Trump’s choice to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, E.J. Antoni: “Totalitarian regimes only hire incompetent hacks.”
■ The conservative National Review’s economics editor, Dominic Pino, says “Antoni is nowhere near qualified to be BLS commissioner”—and he has the receipts to prove it.
■ Columnist Camaron Stevenson: “Trump’s solution to the Epstein scandal? Lowering the age of adulthood (yes, really).”
■ Economist Paul Krugman—the target of a personal attack from Trump over the weekend: Trump’s playing the Carnage Card.
■ “A nuclear war that will end representative democracy”: Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch says Donald Trump’s efforts to remap Texas’ congressional districts is “a way to hold the 2026 midterms, yet effectively … canceling out your vote” (gift link, underwritten by those who support Chicago Public Square).
■ Columnist Harold Meyerson (no relation) calls it “The War Between the States, Part II.”
■ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “Nobody knows what Trump is talking about anymore and no one seems to care.”
■ Organizers are convening “Fight the Trump Takeover” protests across the country this Saturday.
■ The Guardian: Vice President Vance’s team had the Army Corps of Engineers take the unusual step of raising an Ohio river’s water level to accommodate his family’s boating trip.
■ Investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein notes a meme spreading “like a virus” through the Trump bureaucracy: “Nihilistic violent extremism.”
■ Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose defunding of mRNA vaccine research “is really good news if you are longing for the sweet release of death.”
■ “In less than 24 hours … more than 600 people unsubscribed”: Columnist and former Illinois U.S. Rep. Marie Newman recounts the response to her labeling of Israel’s assault on Gaza as “genocide.”
■ Chicago’s astronaut: Apollo 13 commander James Lovell’s death at 97 makes this an appropriate time to hear his 1987 reflections on his life in space—including the Apollo 8 mission that sparked a religious controversy: “After we came back ... we got sued.”
■ Cartoonist/columnist Jack Ohman: “Lovell and people like him really did make America great.”
■ Wanna stay private? The Markup and CalMatters have caught dozens of companies hiding legally required instructions for requesting your personal data be deleted. But here they are!
You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.
Media notes
WBEZ.org, the internet home of public radio station WBEZ-FM 91.5, ranks 21st in the nation in Nieman Labs’ “first monthly ranking of the top 25 local public media websites in the United States.”
The Tribune has re-hired laid-off reporter Lizzie Kane, a 2022 graduate of Davidson College who had been doing great work on the important housing beat and now will be able to continue. Good news for readers and for her.
The Tribune also re-hired laid off Bears beat reporter Sean Hammond, whose return coincides with the departure to unspecified greener pastures of veteran Bears beat reporter Dan Wiederer.
A brickbat to the Tribune for publishing an Aug. 7 op-ed that minimized the reign of terror under now-imprisoned gang leader Larry Hoover in calling for him to be released from prison. “Forced to navigate America’s unfair and corrupt socioeconomic order, he decided to operate outside of society’s norms,” wrote Jeremy Busby. I guess that’s one way of putting it. But a bouquet to the Tribune for publishing a set of letters five days later decrying the essay: “Busby makes not a single allusion, nor even a hint, at the wholesale destruction, misery and pain of not hundreds, but thousands of African-American families attributable to Hoover’s vicious stranglehold on the city’s South and West sides in the name of drug warfare for untold years,” said one. Another added, “Killing, or ordering the killing of, people; terrorizing communities; and selling poisonous drugs to said communities are good things? How is freedom justified?”
In “A Gaggle of Goldbricks,” Bill Grueskin of the Columbia Journalism Review explains how “Our White House press corps doesn’t meet the moment.”
WBEZ: “Eater lays off 15 staffers, including longtime Chicago editor.”
Shaw Local reports: “Eight northern Illinois newspapers owned by a Rochelle company have closed their doors after the company abruptly ceased operations Wednesday, Aug. 6. News Media Corp.‘s decision to end operations has led to the closure of the Rochelle News-Leader, Ogle County LIFE, Ashton Gazette, Amboy News, Mendota Reporter and three other northern Illinois newspapers, as well as newspapers in Arizona, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming.”
The Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, among the best community newspapers in the region, is going fully remote: “With a determined goal to put every dollar into reporting local news rather than paying rent, the nonprofit Growing Community Media this week is clearing out its long-time Wednesday Journal offices on Oak Park Avenue.”
Wee John Kass keeps poking the bear, so the bear dutifully pokes back
Diminutive Hoosier blowhard John Kass is at is again, recently posting:
The soddenly corrupt Chicago corporate media never holds Boss Toni (Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board) accountable. I tried but the left screamed and screamed about me since I began writing about Soros and his prosecutors. Some Chicago leftists are angry with me still, including a leftist blogger who keeps pathetically demanding that I invite him on the podcast, but I had to leave the Tribune. The newsroom was untenable after I wrote a column “Something grows in the big cities run by Democrats: An overwhelming sense of lawlessness.” And after I was offered a buyout, I grabbed it and started my own site.
To be clear, I am the “leftist blogger” to whom he refers, and my “demand” is an “any time, anywhere you fucking chickenshit liar” offer for him to publicly challenge any of the assertions in “The truth about John Kass’ dispute with the Tribune and the Tribune Guild.” I link to that essay every time I learn of Kass grossly misrepresenting what happened to him at the Tribune and slagging his former colleagues.
I also have some questions: What was “untenable” about “the newsroom” in Kass’ final year at the Tribune? The paper was still publishing four of his screeds every week and giving him the most prominent spot for columnists — ahead of two Pulitzer Prize-winning colleagues. Was he being harassed by others on the staff? Edited unfairly? Or was it just his sense that most of the other journalists didn’t like him or his column all that much?
It was nearly a year between the time he published the controversial column he links to above and when he walked out the door. And hey, a lot of us took the buyout offer at the same time. We just didn’t make up self-pitying excuses about why we left.
Say farewell to this sound:
AOL announced it will discontinue offering dial-up modem service at the end of next month, marking the end of the distinctive set of electronic tones that used to be part of our everyday lives.
Other obsolete sounds that come to mind:
It’s hard to predict which current everyday sounds will be obsolete in, say, 25 years. I’m thinking maybe the sound of a nozzle being removed and replaced on a gasoline pump. Any other ideas?
Quotables
A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately:
The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you that you’re overreacting. — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
Trump’s policies are dramatically raising key household costs, including healthcare, while job growth has ground to a standstill, interest rates are frozen, and the manufacturing sector is bleeding jobs. A foreign power could not have devastated the economy this effectively. — Jennifer Rubin
(The stones from famous places embedded on the outside of Tribune Tower are) a staggeringly misguided display of architectural homeopathy that would revolt us if we weren’t so familiar with it. — Neil Steinberg
As noted in a report by the Brennan Center for Justice back in January, Project 2025 — the policy blueprint for a second Trump presidency drafted by a team led by the Heritage Foundation — “proposes expanding federal control over local law enforcement in places where the administration disagrees with local policies and practices.” … With each new erosion of democracy and freedom, a president whose supporters begged for “a red Caesar” to crush liberals is testing the limits, to see what public opinion, the media reaction, and ultimately the courts and Congress will allow. This unwarranted military occupation of the American capital is the greatest test yet, which is why we need to be clear-eyed about what this is. Not a distraction. Dictatorship. — Will Bunch
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. ―Hannah Arendt
Donald Trump, a simpleminded, deeply dishonest man, thinks that if you don't test for COVID, you don't have as many cases; that if you don't honestly report bad jobs numbers, you'll have more jobs; and that if you destroy the satellite that monitors greenhouse gases, you won't have climate change. —Betty Bowers
America: Where you will be fully pardoned for storming the U.S. Capitol in order to kill your political opponents, but you will have a warrant out for your arrest if you don’t vote on redistricting. — Born Miserable
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 one about the birthday card was one of my favorite visual jokes of all time, but it came in fourth place!
The new nominees for Quip of the Week:
The towels in my hotel were so thick and fluffy, I could hardly close my suitcase. — unknown
The gall of Alvin to name his band “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” As if he’s not a fucking chipmunk too. — @stevesuckington.bsky.social
When I'm using the bathroom at friends' houses, I usually like to check their medicine cabinets, but just to make sure I don't buy them any medicines or creams they already have when their birthday rolls around. — @camerobradford
I respect your beliefs enough to almost always hide my contempt for them. — @wildethingy
The universe is beautiful and vast beyond comprehension, and yet we have pizza, its finest work, right here on Earth. — @donni.bsky.social
The me who writes my weekend to-do list and the me who wakes up on Saturday morning are two very different people. — @sweetmomissa
St. Peter: Why should I let you into heaven? Me: Once a coworker said "supposably" seven times in a meeting and I just let her. St. Peter: Get in here. — @itsabbyyep.bsky.social
"Mansplaining" isn't a word. (Slowly) it's called "EXPLAINING." — @citizenkawala
I moved to this city ten years ago with just the money in my pocket and a debit card that gave me access to the rest of my money, which was in a bank account. — @MartinPilgrim1
I accidentally passed my wife a glue stick instead of her lipstick. She’s still not talking to me. — unknown
The joke about stealing hotel towels is one of the more frequently stolen quips on social media — I found dozens of people offering it up as their own, original thought when in fact it dates back ages. I don’t often police the entries for plagiarism, but every so often I get notes from attentive readers calling my attention to thefts. I generally go back and change that attribution to “unknown.”
I’ve never stolen a hotel towel in my life, in part because it’s wrong to steal, and, probably, in part because I’m too cheap to stay in hotels with thick and fluffy towels.
Vote here in the poll and check the current results.
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
Cate Plys, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We discussed the decision not to prosecute the Chicago Police officers who killed Dexter Reed in a traffic stop, gerrymandering and presidential politics, the prospect of the Arlington Heights Bears, the Illinois tax structure that the mayor’s chief financial officer calls “the crime of the century” and the Trump Administration’s review of Smithsonian exhibitions.
All green lights this week:
John: “The Dig,” a 2021 movie on Netflix
Cate: “Criminal,” a Netflix series
Marj: Reruns of “Shark Tank” on Hulu
Eric: 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
Rock bottom?
Rather than remind you each week of the various records for MLB futility that 2025 Colorado Rockies are chasing, I have created this permanent link that explains the table below.
Two weeks ago I guessed that I would be discontinuing this feature by now because it was all but certain the Rockies would end up with a better record than the 2024 White Sox, but since there’s still an outside chance, I’m reporting in. The 32-88 (.267) Rockies will have to go 9-33 (.214) down the stretch to tie the record of the 2024 White Sox, or 8-34 (.190) to set the record for most losses in a season.
Just what Sox fans need — more bad news.
Speaking of baseball records …
Will Leitch at MLB.com writes:
On July 6, the (Cleveland) Guardians lost their 10th straight game. Worse than that, it was to the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers, who increased their division lead to 13 1/2 games over the Twins and a whopping 15 1/2 over fourth-place Cleveland. …
(A) 14-game deficit remains the largest any team has overcome to win a division title since the Divisional Era began in 1969. But don’t look now: There’s a non-zero chance that record ends this year.
The Tigers, my boyhood team, are clinging to a 6 1/2-game lead over the Guardians with 40 games left, with six of those remaining games are against the Guardians.
We could conceivably see the biggest division comeback EVER. … A Tigers lineup that was ninth in the Majors in (on-base percentage) in the first half (.324) is 29th in the second half (.289). …. Since July 9, the Tigers have a 5.47 (team earned-run average), third worst in all of baseball, ahead of only the Rockies and Nationals.
ESPN diving into non-sports
ESPN has entered into a partnership with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) which promotes theatrical, highly scripted fighting simulations that are no more a sport than the barroom brawls you see depicted in old western movies. I once enjoyed studio “wrestling” spectacles … when I was 13.
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.
My rave this week is for “Adolescence,” the fictional four-part Netflix series about a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a schoolmate.
It’s very powerful and thought provoking, and to say a whole lot more might give too much away. But nothing about it feels pat or even particularly familiar.
Once you watch, you might be interested in the bravura filmmaking and acting technique required to do each hour-long episode with one camera in one, long continuous take. Watching these behind-the-scenes videos might give away too much, but I’m not the bossa you:
Adolescence Breakdown — How They Filmed It & Details You Missed! — smart analysis by Jessica Clemons
Adolescence's Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty Break Down The Therapy Episode
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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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I have a very low threshold for shame, and if often results in feeling second hand cringe for people who are, well, shameless. That’s how I feel whenever I read anything by John Kass. The word “petulant” just immediately comes to mind.
I hope the journalistic popinjay Jake Tapper is at work on a chronicle of Agent Orange's obvious senility and how this addled egomaniac is being used by the likes of Miller and Vought to advance white "Christian" nationalism.
The esteemed writer of the Sentinel thinks that the Agent will run for president in 2028's sham election "if he is still physically healthy." Really? He does not look physically healthy in 2025 and is certainly not mentally healthy, why should that be a barrier?