December 31, 2015

The city council is made up of 50 aldermen, 18 of which...

are members of the Black Caucus, another 11 on the newly formed Progressive Reform Caucus. By my math, that's > 25 with room to spare. Up to this point, this idiotic city council does little more than pay lip service, look the other way, and take favors. We're not that different from the rest of the country: $$$ = speech and Rahm, "Mayor 1%," outspent a virtual unknown Chuy Garcia 12-1, combined with low voter turnout. But in another way, we're not like any other city: we have the unfortunate distinction of POTUS being a hometown favorite son and stumping for his buddy, Rahm.


After the Laquon McDonald video was released, I became curious about the black vote, so I started doing some digging. What I discovered I'd liken to the graph I posted yesterday, which showed White Women still vote GOP:

Poor, Black Chicagoans Overwhelmingly Picked Rahm Over Chuy
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150409/englewood/poor-black-chicagoans-overwhelmingly-picked-rahm-over-chuy


That led me to question black leadership. Police brutality, school closings, unsafe neighborhoods, and neglect are their four tenets, and rightfully so. Surely they couldn't support another term for Rahm of all people, could they? But, incredibly (the title of this article says it all): Blame the Black Political Class For Re-Electing Obama's Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago

Garcia could not explain why practically no black Democrat from the president down endorsed him, and Emanuel narrowly carried every majority black ward in Chicago.
http://www.blackagendareport.com/black-misleaders-re-elect-rahm


We're really at a pivotal point in our history, regardless of whether Rahm stays or goes. Rahm's immensely unpopular now, black leadership should be under intense scrutiny, and the numbers certainly favor a power shift at City Hall.

December 27, 2015

#Demswillneverlearn

There go the Dems again, conceding the moral high ground to the Republicans. This strategy of turning W's biggest failure (Iraq) into his greatest success (Islam) will, predictable, blow up in their face.

I'm sure this puts the rest of the world at ease.

President Barack Obama, under pressure to be more aggressive on terrorism, regularly cites his predecessor's refusal to demonize Muslims or play into the notion of a clash between Islam and the West. It's a striking endorsement from a president whose political rise was predicated on opposition to the Iraq war and Bush's hawkish approach in the Middle East.

As Hillary Clinton put it, "George W. Bush was right."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/democrats-george-w-bush-muslims

December 20, 2015

Great question.

In the first 2 years, next to nothing at best. I even expect SCOTUS vacancies to go unfilled. Bernie is right, it's going to take a revolution, but the revolution isn't coming in 2016. Hillary is completely delusional if she thinks the Rs will treat her better than Obama. Obama's social agenda accomplishments is impressive which means he didn't leave much on the plate for Hillary. She'll play ball with WS, banksters, and war hawks and they'll undo progressive gains. Bernie will need that revolution in 2018. But in his first 2 years, preventing the 1% from making further gains is about the best we can hope for.

December 20, 2015

My favorite minute from last night's debate

Bernie: large multinational corporations "ain't going to like me, and Wall Street is going to like me even less."
- Not only is it consistent and honest, it's far from the PC thing to say. But because it comes as no surprise, it's not going to alienate him; he was there long ago. In fact, this is the message people are responding to.

Hillary: "everybody" should love me
- If you believe one's jokes are a reflection of their character, then let's look at Hillary's jokes. Hillary's given credit for things she doesn't deserve, like her foreign affairs expertise and her sense of humor. Both, however, completely blow-up in her face; both Iraq (a vote she regrets) and Libya are disasters. With respect to her sense of humor, at the first debate she identified a number of enemies, but stated she was most proud of having made the Republicans her biggest enemies &quot grin) hahahaha" (TRUE statement!). Afterwards, she got scorched and hammered over this. After being shamed into regret, she switches into damage control mode. Her joke about Libya had the same dynamic, "We came, we saw, he died (grin) hahahaha" followed by shame, regret, and damage control mode.

December 3, 2015

Rahm's low hanging fruit. Why did the aldermen circle the wagons?

They knew everything. That's not speculation: the settlement was based on the family's attorney's account after watching the video. He told the aldermen exactly what he saw, which completely refuted the police report. But the day after the video was released to the public, the black caucus called a news conference where they made the claim they were "misled."

Rahm is a Machiavellian douche who only cares about 1 thing, becoming president.

The black caucus failed its community. WTF? They didn't care in the least. That's the story here. They need to be held accountable for their inaction. But that story is going to get buried. It's almost as if they've been in office so long they're jaded to all of this, at best. At worst, they had something to gain from covering up and saving Rahm's career.

Rahm's not the only one who needs to go. Sadly, no one will glance at the aldermen who claim they were misled and didn't demand the video in February after a copy of the autopsy was obtained and after hearing the attorney's account of the video.