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well rolling back the insanity of the Obama era regulations. Tax reform. aggressive foreign policy that has led to European nations paying their share of NATO, standing up to China on a whole host of economic aggressions, Supreme Court appointments that prevented a progressive flip on the court. dealing with things like NAFTA (Which my friends on the left used to hate until Trump hated it) and TIPP.... etc
Trump isn't the lesser of two evils. He has been consistently right on a host of issues. Trumps great failure is in failing to back down and cow in the corner when the left makes some wild accusation.
Every count punch he lands makes me happy.
To me, Trump was the lesser of two evils - and I'm a Democrat. The rare occasion I voted for someone I didn't think of as the lesser of two evils, I ended up greatly disappointed - and that was Obama. But I have to say, I'm not unhappy with much of what Trump has done. And the Dems are losing their damn minds, so none of those being trotted out as presidential hopefuls are appealing to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thefragile
What is your issue here? Do all of you live in Chicago? No? Then it has zero impact on you.
What's your issue? Do you live in Chicago? Are you black? Are you male? Republican? You have whack opinions about a lot of things that don't concern you - that doesn't stop you from posting.
Revenue: supports progressive taxation and new tax on "big law firms." Standard "tax our way out of the problem" answer.
Pension crisis: opposes amending Illinois constitution, says all pension obligations must be paid in full and new employees should be offered pension benefits, as pensioners "are the backbone of the middle class." She never really addresses the Chicago pension crisis beyond vague bromides, but given her revenue answer, chances are good she will propose a tax that will "fix everything." Uhm, Chicago ranks dead last in fiscal health for the top 125 cities in the US, and has a long term obligation burden that is 290% of general revenue...and growing.
Guns: stop the flow of illegal guns into Chicago via inter-state and federal cooperation, but...
Violent crime: says "we cannot arrest our way out of our violence problem" and must address the underlying root causes of crime by (standard liberal canard roll call incoming...) "revitalizing economically distressed neighborhoods, ensuring access to quality schools in every neighborhood, eliminating food and medical deserts, and providing a pathway to good jobs that pay a living wage. "
(aside): She gives the standard liberal gun/violence solution -> blame the guns, not the wielder; blame the system, not the criminal; blame external forces, not internal behavior; blame the collective failing the individual, not the individual failing the collective. Sum it up, ad crime should go up while she is mayor.
Schools: freeze on any new charter schools, and charter schools should be under umbrella of Chicago Public Schools. Also, on her website, she lists this as #1 priority for schools -> "Structural, racial and other inequities disappear" which means meddling and moving money/resources according to racial demographics and not merit or need. Pretty standard "beholden to the teachers' unions" answers.
Immigration: She talks around the issue a bit, but in general wants to be a sanctuary mayor. Abolish ICE is on her website, so it's pretty clear where she's at on that.
Climate Change: all city buildings must be 100% renewable powered by 2025 and the entire city is renewable powered by 2035. Because America's most fiscally dysfunctional city has money lying around to rebuild its entire energy infrastructure.
LGBTQ?6%_13_expialadocious: From her website, this one jumped off the page -> "Guarantee participation in City government, including appointing mayoral LGBTQ+ liaisons" which means creating positions and staffing them according to demographic nepotism instead of need/merit.
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There. Now we know more about her.
Final analysis - boilerplate, identity politics driven, tax & spend liberal progressive. Expect exactly all of Chicago's outstanding issues to stay the same or get worse, since nothing in her platform is more serious than identity politics bumper sticker rhetoric. Chicago's implied bond rating is B to BB-, putting it firmly in "junk bond" levels of investment confidence, they have the aforementioned 290% long term obligation t revenue ratio, and her entire platform is about new and increased spending on everything on the identity politics menu.
Chicago stamps folks like her out off an assembly line. It's a testament to the power of capitalism that the city somehow continues to survive its own government. But she's a pretty bound and determined "spend it into the ground" liberal with barely a nod at the serious financial woes that city has.
Re: Pensions
State Supreme Court determined the benefits in place on the date of hire cannot be changed.
Amending the state constitution will not impact accrued benefits for any public pensions, state, county, municipal.
Schools: Soon to be former Mayor Rahm Emanuel was a huge advocate for charter and highly selective magnet schools. The union despised him.
Violent Crime: The state, not the city, determines Minimum Sentencing and Parole standards. A recently paroled person convicted of a felony using a gun has no problem acquiring another gun within hours of release, if that is his intention. In the 5/ 25 Police Districts that trend most violent it is reasonable to assume nearly everyone is doing the concealed carry thing, legal or otherwise.
Most of the shooting involve one or more gang members. Rarely does a witness surface despite that many of these shooting happen in public places. Surviving victims rarely will ID the shooter, despite knowing who.
Relatively loose Sentencing and Parasole, easy access to guns and rarely anyone willing to snitch for fear of the consequences.
The good news is that the masses are fleeing the roughest neighborhoods and the state.
To me, Trump was the lesser of two evils - and I'm a Democrat. The rare occasion I voted for someone I didn't think of as the lesser of two evils, I ended up greatly disappointed - and that was Obama. But I have to say, I'm not unhappy with much of what Trump has done. And the Dems are losing their damn minds, so none of those being trotted out as presidential hopefuls are appealing to me.
What's your issue? Do you live in Chicago? Are you black? Are you male? Republican? You have whack opinions about a lot of things that don't concern you - that doesn't stop you from posting.
Again, what is the issue with a new mayor in Chicago?
I know you were responding to another poster, however it is very naive to think a city that has only Democratic mayors going on 90 straight years does not speak to the party itself. Chicago is one of the most notoriously corrupt cities in the country, so don't try to pretend a lot of that cannot be blamed on Democrat governance.
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You can't blame crime rates on a particular political party, any attempt to do so is incredibly naive. I know how that game is played, a city with a high crime rate and a democratic mayor is called out as being proof that somehow democrats cause crime. The fact that the entire state might be red, as well as the state government is overlooked and all blame is placed on a mayor who has little if any impact on the crime rate; the mayor can't pass laws, he can't raise taxes, he cuts ribbons at grand openings and might be responsible for hiring the Police Chief. But that doesn't matter, just the fact that they mayor is a democrat explains why crime occurs.
It's amusing to note that in order to make this argument sound even vaguely cogent it is necessary to ignore Cities with high crime rates AND Republican mayors, like Tulsa and Mobile.
This is evidence that the Chicago machine is dying. Both Lightfoot and Preckwinkle were protest candidates (Bill Daley was the machine candidate). And of the two non-machine candidates, the protestier one won the runoff. Preckwinkle had been county board chair and was a known quantity.
I find it interesting that Ken Griffith donated to Daley. In many ways big business wanted the machine.
CHICAGO (CBS) — Socialism is surging in City Council.
A total of five democratic socialists, and possibly a sixth, won races for alderman either in February or in Tuesday’s runoff elections.
god bless
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