What part of ‘and justice for all’ does the Trump administration not understand?
& a peek inside the PS suggestion box
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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.
What part of ‘and justice for all’ does the Trump administration not understand?
We’ve known for more than three weeks now that, on March 15, undocumented Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia "was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” according to the U.S. government’s own court filings. Yet the White House has repeatedly been thumbing its nose at courts that have ordered Garcia’s return from a prison in El Salvador where he’s being held even though he hasn’t been charged with or convicted of any crime.
The denial of due process for Garcia is the most ominous development in three months of ominous developments under President Donald Trump. Why? Because it suggests that his administration wants to reserve the right to continue deporting without judicial oversight not only undocumented immigrants but also foreigners here on work and student visas and, perhaps, American citizens accused of crimes.
Like many of you, I’m furious and frightened by this development. But I want to remind my friends on the left not to engage in Queen of Hearts justice — “Sentence first, verdict afterwards!" — when it comes to other cases. I’m thinking of numerous high-profile incidents involving allegations against law enforcement officers or those identified as being right-wingers.
For consistency’s sake, be sure your demands for justice are framed as demands for due process and fair trials. That way you preserve the leg you’re now standing on as you demand due process and a fair trial for Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
From the suggestion box
Again many thanks to the more than 2,200 of you who responded to my recent reader survey. Many of the hundreds of extra comments you postedwere very kind, but I’d like to focus for the next few weeks on responding to some of the critical suggestions, from various readers, quoted below:
More ideological balance
They wrote that they would like to see:
… an occasional invitation to a guest columnist with conservative views.
… more debate on the issues.
… libertarian viewpoints.
… me spar more with people I don't see eye to eye with — smart, articulate people who just see things a bit differently.
… dialogue.
… less vitriol about conservative viewpoints. Many of us are educated people who are unhappy with the virtue signaling from the left. I'm not a monster; just someone who doesn't have the same perspective as many of your subscribers.
… a monthly point/counterpoint column.
… me attempt to put myself in the shoes of those on other side of the political spectrum.
… honest criticism of the far left. Just like the far right gets deservedly hammered, I’d see the same approach to the far left. Maybe that will get both parties to move towards the center.
… more diversity of opinion.
There was dozens more similar pleas for more conservative representation, which surprised me a bit since my survey showed only about 7% of my readers put themselves on the right side of the political spectrum.
I do try to highlight dissenting views when I get them because I don’t want the Picayune Sentinel to become just an echo chamber. I find that spirited, civil disagreements are interesting and even sometimes persuasive.
My old “Change of Subject” blog at the Tribune had a muscular cohort of conservative commenters but I lost nearly all them in the transition, perhaps because comment privilege are reserved for paid supporters, like those of you who received this email first thing Tuesday morning. This brings me to the next suggestion:
Open the comments up to non-subscribers
Opening the comments to non-subscribers would reduce the echo chamber effect.
My experience with moderating an open comment thread was bad enough that I’m not going back. The vitriol often made the threads unreadable and, in the end, dull. And I’ve been very happy in general with the tone of the PS comment threads.
That said, I am open to posting email messages from free subscribers in the Zmail portion of Tuesday’s issue, and I read everything sent to ericzorn@gmail.com.
Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses
The city sure is spending a lot on outside counsel to defend police misconduct cases
Marc Martinez — In your item expressing approval that Chicago seems likely to defend the civil suit filed by the family of Dexter Reed rather than cough up a $1.25 million settlement, I was floored by the fact that city will almost certainly spend more than that on private attorneys to defend the case. I can only presume that the city contracts a huge portion of the legal work to outside firms. Seems like a stupid way to spend money for a city that has such a huge demand for legal services.
Zorn — I certainly understand why a municipality might every so often have to bring in outside counsel to assist in unexpectedly demanding legal work, but there’s nothing unexpected about the numerous claims every year of police misconduct. And yes, sure, the police killing of Dexter Reed is complicated, but is it thousands of hours of legal and factual research complicated?
Don’t bash renters!
Brian Soudi –- I’m glad that you approve of the proposed state law encouraging construction of Accessory Dwelling Units — coach houses and basement units that are sometimes called granny flats or in-law apartments for how they often facilitate intergenerational living. Housing affordability is the biggest issue our country is facing, and it has fueled a ton of the resentment that has led to our current political culture.
That said, I object to this line of yours: "With increased density can come parking shortages, and an increase in the number of renters can change the character of a neighborhood of single-family homes."
This is usually a line used by old people to stop even modest apartment buildings in their single family home neighborhoods and to keep ethnic and racial minorities out. Single family zoning has its roots in segregation/racism. And, renters are people too. Theygenerally are good neighbors just like owners.
Zorn — Renters can be great neighbors, for sure, and some put down roots in communities that are far deeper and stronger than some homeowners who come and go. They do tend to be more transient than homeowners and therefore, generally, less committed to neighborhood institutions and improvement efforts, but I agree with you that this observation is not sufficient to discourage the construction of ADUs.
I found the essay “How Discussions of 'Neighborhood Character' Reinforce Structural Racism” on the Twin Cities public television site to be a good read, though I reject the idea that anyone who raises concerns about parking, density and other impacts of adding supplemental apartments is necessarily racist.
Brickbats for ‘Coffin flop’ and ‘Casket catastrophe’
Mark K. — You took a poll last week asking if readers thought the news video of “Casket Catastrophe,” and the “Coffin Flop” segment from the Netflix series “I Think You Should Leave” were funny. I went back and watched the news video and I'm firmly in the "not funny"camp. The anchor in the news story clearly says "all of the men suffered injuries.” The mishap looked dangerous, and it wasn't due to clumsiness or anything that could be seen as funny. I'm not opposed to morbidly dark humor, but this wasn't even morbidly funny — it was just a work site accident.
Jill Brickman — I often like dark humor, but this didn't strike me as funny in the least.
John Houck —The older I get, the less I find such accidents funny. Some restaurants like to show Chive TV which seems like mostly cringe-inducing videos of stunts gone wrong. To me those are one step removed from snuff videos.
Zorn — Though the click poll results were narrowly in favor of “funny,” nearly all the comments are letters I got were in the “not funny” camp.
Praise for a school portrait artist
Shelley Riskin —- Thanks so much for interviewing photographer Chad Leverenz! As soon as he began talking about his process, I realized that Chad is a photographer who is a true artist, thinking deeply about his work, while also having the special gift of connecting to young people in a way that some artists don't. School pictures (from the point of view of the staff) can be hectic and noisy, but he clearly has found a way to make it work, and to bring joy to the entire experience---quite an accomplishment! Thanks for introducing him to us, Eric!
Melinda A. K. — I'm delighted to hear that there are people doing school photos besides VIP, which does all the photos for most of the schools in my area. My kids graduated in 2023, I still get emails from them wanting me to buy school pics, athletics pics, etc.
Give the Rascals a try!
Gary K. — I thoroughly enjoy “The Mincing Rascals” podcast and encourage all PS readers to try it. It needs more conservative representation. I will say that Jon Hansen, John Williams and Austin Berg are fair and open minded.
Zorn — Hey now! Cate Plys, Brandon Pope and I can be heterodox and open-minded too, though admittedly with a lefty slant. Marj Halperin is far closer to an orthodox liberal, but I find her thoughtful and I admire her passion. I can’t speak for our host, John Williams, but as an OG Rascal (I was part of the crew along with Kristen McQueary, Steve Bertrand and John when we started about 10 years ago), I’ve never wanted it to turn into into an argument show.
Don’t thank your chat bot
Jay G. — I see that when users submit a prompt to AI, using "please" and "thank you" collectively ends up costing the AI provider tens of millions of dollars a year in additional electricity charges
Monica Metzler — Am I the only one left who's concerned about AI's energy consumption and what its explosive growth is doing to the planet? According to a report by Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query. I am in no way a Luddite; I've seen the amazing advances it can facilitate for scientists and medicine. But I'm not clear on how destroying people's ability to craft a sentence, not to mention ending art as we know it, and injecting deep fakes into our political discourse — for 10 times the energy — is a plus for society.
Zorn — This from the coverage of politeness to AI jumped out at me: “A December 2024 survey by Future found that 67% of American users are polite to AI assistants, with 55% doing so because it's the right thing to do, and the other 12% doing so out of fear that mistreating the bots could come back to haunt them.”
Italics mine.
The idea evidently being that when the bots take over, they won’t consign the polite humans to toil in their sugar caves. I share Monica Metzler’s concern about the energy demands of AI (on top of the energy demands of crypto currency) but can’t imagine any way to halt the international advances of both technologies.
Media note
In Monday’s Sun-Times:
I’m guessing that focus group research has told the Sun-Times that opinion content is at least somewhat expendable when money is tight. This subscriber, however, would like to see more commentary and more columns, perhaps in pro/con format. I natter at the Tribune’s opinion section for this and that, but I appreciate very much the space the paper still devotes to polemics.
I recently wrote that newspapers still have a key role in advancing civil public debate by publishing responsible opinions on various sides of important issues and “if the Sun-Times continues to do that, it will continue to fulfill its mission.” This announcement is therefore disappointing.
My remark above was in the context of shrugging off the elimination of unsigned editorials, a view that was not widely shared. This brings me to this week’s potentially unpopular opinion:
Unpopular opinions?
Last week’s result
This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.
NewsWheel
Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper noun; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.
Answer below
The week’s best visual jokes
Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:
A finally, a bit late, a Passover joke:
There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!
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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.
Contact
You can email me at ericzorn@gmail.com or by clicking here:
I read all the messages that come in, but I do most of my interacting with readers in the comments section beneath each issue.
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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle
DEPORTEE
Could it be the Sun-Times is discontinuing opinion columns on Tuesdays and Thursdays because it cannot compete with the juggernaut that is The Picayune Sentinel?
It’s interesting to me that it is the people who consider themselves to be “conservative” or “libertarian” who feel that there needs to be more viewpoint balance here, I guess either in the Picayune Sentinel itself or in the comments. Also that “virtue signaling”by people on the left was a complaint. I looked up “virtue signaling,” and learned that it’s stating what one considers to be a popular opinion or viewpoint even though one doesn’t really support the opinion or viewpoint. These suggestions on how to improve the Picayune Sentinel sure make “conservatives” and “libertarians” seem pretty fragile! “Why don’t others agree with me!” seems to be a common refrain. “I’m not a monster!” was one of my favorites. They have repeatedly called me, in the comments section of the Picayune Sentinel, a “biological man,” said I should not be allowed in women’s locker rooms even though I have female parts, told me I should be ashamed of myself for comparing discrimination against transgender people to discrimination against black people, and then they have the chutzpah to say there is too much “vitriol” against “conservative” and “libertarian” viewpoints! Poor privileged babies! Talk about snowflakes. “Gee, Mom, people don’t like me because I support someone who separates immigrant families, and wants to disappear people to a Central American gulag without a court hearing! The world is so unfair!” Give me a break! By the way, I was interested to learn that the old definition of “vitriol” was sulfuric acid.