'Biden delivered … brilliantly' / 'Terrified' / City Council rebels

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'Biden delivered … brilliantly' / 'Terrified' / City Council rebels

‘Biden delivered … brilliantly.’ Columnist Charlie Madigan reflects on Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at “the most unusual political convention I have ever watched.”
■ Politico Illinois Playbook’s Shia Kapos: “Mission accomplished” …
■ … without Biden mentioning Donald Trump by name.
■ The Daily Beast: “Biden Wants You to Know He’s Not F—king Around.”
■ A Fox News commentator declared Biden’s speech “a home run.”
■ Read the speech transcript here.
■ The Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell:”Biden’s life story … is as compelling as any you will hear from people living on the West or South sides of Chicago.”
■ CNN contributor Jill Filipovic questions why the evening was so “very, very Christian.”

■ PolitiFact goes over Biden’s speech with a fine-toothed comb. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor.)
■ In her speech last night, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth labeled Trump the nation’s “coward-in-chief.”
■ More than 70 former Republican national security officials are endorsing Biden.

‘The bravest and most inspiring moment.’ Poynter’s Tom Jones hails last night’s speech by a stuttering 13-year-old Biden’s mentored. (See it here.)
■ Democrats took a chance with host Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who portrayed a hilariously reprehensible vice president on Veep …
■ … but Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg says she delivered “probably the sharpest line of the night.”

‘I don’t want to risk my life to do it.’ But journalist Irv Leavitt says he’ll be an election judge in November anyway—persuaded by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who’s “made it meaningful.”
■ Updating coverage: Testifying to the U.S. Senate today, DeJoy said he had “no idea” mailboxes and sorting machines were removed from post offices and promised for the first time to prioritize ballots over other mail.
■ ProPublica: Death threats have become part of the job for election administrators across the country.
■ The New York Times: Facebook is making contingency plans—including a political ad “kill switch”—in the event Trump tries to delegitimize election results.

‘Terrified.’ Hundreds of Chicago Catholic school teachers worried about resuming in-person classes during the pandemic are calling on the Archdiocese to reverse that decision.
■ A veteran Archdiocese teacher—age 63, married to a cancer survivor—has been fired for refusing to return.
■ Encouraging words on COVID-19 from Dr. Anthony Fauci to The Washington Post: “We will get out of this. … Don’t despair.”

‘Prosecutors … appear to have missed the memo.’ Associated Press analysis: The arrest of former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon is “a stark reminder that no one who has been within the president’s inner circle is automatically immune from federal scrutiny.”
■ The Daily Beast: Fox News helped boost Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” scam.
■ The Conversation: The charges against Bannon, explained.

Pritzker’s utility play. Illinois’ governor is pushing new ethics rules for scandal-scarred ComEd and other utilities—among other things, ending their ability to make charitable contributions “to curry favor with elected officials” using money they’ve collected from you.
■ The City of Chicago is launching a new citywide planning initiative, “We Will Chicago,” for the first time since 1966.

City Council rebels. With an unprecedented move and over the objections of Mayor Lightfoot, four Chicago aldermen called a special meeting for this morning—at Square’s email publication deadline—to press for more action to prevent violence amid civil rights protests. (See it here.)
■ The mayor’s defending a police ban on protests outside her home in Logan Square.
■ A Sun-Times analysis finds that, as murders soar in Chicago, judges are freeing more violent crime suspects on electronic monitoring.

‘Clearly it was racially driven.’ A Skokie man who’s Black talks to James VanOsdol about his encounter with a white 65-year-old Northfield woman who told him he had to leave a Winnetka pier.
■ She’s been arrested.
■ A new study from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies concludes that people of color make up 40% of the U.S. population, but only 11% of the top staff in the U.S. Senate.

Correction. Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square left the word vaccine out of this item: Nine reasons you can be optimistic a COVID-19 vaccine will be widely available in 2021. Reader Marc Magliari was first to note the error—a thing for which Square is always grateful.

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— Charlie Meyerson, August 21, 2020

But wait—there’s more!

■ Previously in Square:
'If Trump isn’t scared …' / Bannon bagged / 'Game-changing'
Old white guys’ night / Welcome, Cheeseheads / Earth's warmest ever?
Democrats' 'infomercial' / Blago, 'Trumpocrat' / Navy Pier sinks—again
'An army of officers' / 'A nine-alarm fire for American democracy' / Fresca case solved
Mail wail / Stay home, Chicago / Macy's dismay

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