I don't see enough (any?) of the following thought process.
They successfully cheated in 2020 and in 2022. In 2020 they cheated openly in places like Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Philly. We watched it all on video. They were rubbing our noses in it with how openly and brazenly they cheated. In 2022 they were able to do it opaquely without much fanfare.
In both elections, in more than a few cities and precincts, the "participation" was north of 100% (um, for those of you math challenged, that isn't possible). Since 2020 when they changed the election rules illegally by using the courts or administratively, they have gone back and done the changes (think all mail ballots, sending out more ballots than there are voters, drop boxes, liberal ballot harvesting laws, making it illegal to do audits of elections (they actually did this!!), making it illegal to clean up voter rolls, etc.) thru the legislature which will make it nigh impossible to challenge successfully in the courts.
So, assuming what I have said is even half true. Why won't they do it again? Why wouldn't they? Did ANYONE go to prison for breaking the law? For rigging an election? Nope. In fact, no one was even prosecuted.
This is how bad it has gotten. They have placed questioning the outcome of the 2020 election outside the bounds of, not just polite discussion. No, they have made questioning when the Left wins, ILLEGAL!!! That is precisely what the prosecution of Trump is about in Georgia and D.C.!!!
That is why all the Jan 6 "paraders" are rotting in prison for right now.
Sorry, Mr. Carter, but our side ballot harvesting won't do the trick. They cheat!!! They go into nursing homes, memory care facilities and illegally fill out the ballots for the residents, even the ones who are in a vegetative state (which, TBH, is most Leftists anyway). They ballot harvest in dense, blue cities where one person can collect hundreds of ballots from one building. R's on the other hand live out in the hinterlands, spread out and sparsely populated (relatively). We aren't going to cheat to win. They are willing to do ANYTHING and have shown us that.
We can't do that. And we won't cheat either. Please watch Dinesh D'Souza's movie "2000 Mules" and get back to me. It is enraging and then depressing. He is a fabulous film maker. Then watch "Police State".
Have you ever wondered how these last few elections are so close, with 6 states being decided by a tiny, tiny percentage of the overall number of votes cast? The reason is simple. They cheat only until they have enough and then they stop. Makes sense.
Enjoy your work. Wish I could have hit a trading floor in NYC or Chicago when I graduated college in Jan of 83. I would have made it I am sure.
When I was a freshman in college, I had a room on a hall with a few guys from NYC and LA and they all said I had the moxie and intellect and swagger to make it in those places.
Should have tried. Now I have the worst job in the world. Taking care of a dementia addled mother who hates me but now depends upon me for life. Today was a tough one. If you know someone who is caring for a loved one, as spouse, a parent, be understanding. You have NO IDEA what they are going thru. Merry Christmas!
In the oncoming future, only the homeschooled can be counted on to possibly be educated. Most private schools, especially in urban and suburban areas have the same equity disease as the public schools. And a college degree won't be worth the $100,000 plus it is printed on.
I have a nephew in Chicago with a 1 year old. I'm praying he finds the sense to get out.
I have a daughter and son-on-law (a lefty) who live in the city of Chicago. They have a daughter. Their heads are firmly in the sand on the dangers. Idiot son-in-law when I bring up the violent crime, says, "Well it is dangerous everywhere".
On the private schools. We sent our five to a Jesuit HS. Last graduated in 16. Four of them went to my alma mater, a fairly conservative Southern Baptist Liberal Arts school in the south. The other went to West Point.
All institutions have since gone woke. The Jesuits completely, the Baptists to a lesser extent, but give them a few more years. And the academies went rotten during the Obama years. You go onto the grounds of any of the academies, you will think you are in Madison, Berkley or Boulder.
Homeschooling is the ONLY way out. Which is why, I can guarantee you, it will soon be outlawed outright or regulated to death in most blue states. You heard it here first.
I think that there is random crime in the city, but it's probably not as bad as we imagine. I was just there and my sample size is small. I stayed for two weeks in River North on Wells and there has been a lot of crime there. But, it's late at night mostly. If it were me, I wouldn't buy a house in the city, but I'd be okay with a building.
My folks made the decision to bolt for the suburbs in 1968. High school was on the horizon for me. Had we stayed I was bound for Lane Tech or Loyola. My younger sister’s options weren’t as clear cut. So we ended up almost as far west as you did, Jeff. The burbs of the 60s and 70s was a much better choice for a family then as it is today.
What you've described in Illinois/Chicago is what I call Team Sport Politics. My team wins, your team loses, by any means necessary, including changing the rules and moving the goal posts. It's the preference (voting loyalty) found with sports fanatics and "their team."
And it has nothing to do with policies, competencies or corruption. It has everything to do with the human instinct to prefer one's "own" over "the other." Tribalism, writ large.
Government is just an employment scheme to provide jobs for one's "own"--and lock-out "the other."
The goal of politics, today, is to assure that one's partisans are taken care of, and that nothing should interrupt that endeavor, while the route to that end is through preference and loyalty. In the final analysis, the ends justify the means--to the victors go the spoils.
It's a long way from Madison's competing interests as a way to avoid/prevent factions and partisanship.
I agree, but only that the Dems play this game and the R's don't. I give you George fucking Santos. Good guy? Absolutely NOT! But if he had a D behind his name he would not only still be in office, they would give him a plum committee assignment.
The Dems do two things and do them well. Reward their friends and punish their enemies. The R's do two things also, but not as well. They spend all their time apologizing for their friends while constantly trying to "work with" or "reach across the aisle" with their enemies.
Further, R's for the most part, don't even know that the Dem's are their enemy. Instead they are their friends across the aisle. Makes me sick.
One last thing. The bureaucracy is nearly 100% staffed with commies and leftists. 97% of campaign contributions from federal workers goes to Dem's. 97%.
Quite true. The Ds play a different game than the Rs, as you describe, and the Rs don't see it. Famously, Queensberry Rules Republicans assumed Ds have the best of intentions, as honest brokers, and reach across the aisle to meet them with compromise--while at the same time, failing to see that any compromise is not final, but the first step for Ds enroute to getting Rs complete capitulation, in time. Cheers.
Dec 17, 2023·edited Dec 18, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter
Not really, as the Republicans have been out of the loop for 20+ years statewide, and 40+ years county-wide and 90+ years in Chicago.
The Republicans are Charlie Brown's all stars, losing every time.
We used to practice patronage and award contracts to our Republican friends, but that got our guys in a lot of trouble. Now, we have the highest integrity Illinois Republican Party in my lifetime and we lose every election.
At the same time, they are incorrectly and unfairly demonized by a hard left wing press who parrots talking points-->AND THEY DON'T FIGHT BACK. This is not dissimilar from simps in Washington DC. Trump knew how to fight back which is why he has such appeal.
I question, from time to time, whether Illinois Republicans could go back to the good old days, of Pate Philips and the Fawell family.
By today's standards, they weren't at all corrupt, but they certainly did buy votes and built a machine that got Republicans elected for 20 years or so, including Ronald Reagan.
St. Thomas Aquinas was also of two minds, on whether corruption in politics was tolerable, as long as the good guys won. Dennis Hastert changed all that, as he was not a good guy. Would have been a pioneer in romantic relationships if he were a Democrat, but scorched the Illinois Republican Party.
Spot on once again! Time to showcase the test scores of CPS vs. Rest of the Nation. Though DEI/Gender Bender Indoctrination may not be "causal" to poor academic outcomes, it is indeed highly correlated. I feel very badly for any parent that is "stuck" in the CPS system - home school, go private, go parochial, anything but CPS. But getting rid of school choice is literally the death knell of Chicago. I don't know why anybody would opt to raise a family in Chicago. If I was a millennial raising my family in the city, I'd be evaluating my exit options right now.
The competition to get into Latin, Lab, Parker just got more intense. Competition to get into lower schools like City Day, more intense. Competition to get into Catholic schools, more intense.
The problem is the relationship between being completely uneducated and the democrats. People in blue cities are just as unhappy about things as most republicans: education, crime, the economy on and on. But they never vote against the leftist candidate selected by the local party. Even in primaries. If people stuck in blue cities voted republican just once, not on principal (I get that they are socialists at heart) but just to "send them a message" things would be a lot better. But being the victims of public schools, voters don't get how one connects to the other.
Soon as this socialist got elected mayor, with a lot of CTU support, the die had been cast. Sad for a once great city, which just keeps being torn down, one progressive Democrat at a time.
A place populated by a few rich people, no middle class, and a bunch of poor people is known as the Third World.
I don't see enough (any?) of the following thought process.
They successfully cheated in 2020 and in 2022. In 2020 they cheated openly in places like Detroit, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Philly. We watched it all on video. They were rubbing our noses in it with how openly and brazenly they cheated. In 2022 they were able to do it opaquely without much fanfare.
In both elections, in more than a few cities and precincts, the "participation" was north of 100% (um, for those of you math challenged, that isn't possible). Since 2020 when they changed the election rules illegally by using the courts or administratively, they have gone back and done the changes (think all mail ballots, sending out more ballots than there are voters, drop boxes, liberal ballot harvesting laws, making it illegal to do audits of elections (they actually did this!!), making it illegal to clean up voter rolls, etc.) thru the legislature which will make it nigh impossible to challenge successfully in the courts.
So, assuming what I have said is even half true. Why won't they do it again? Why wouldn't they? Did ANYONE go to prison for breaking the law? For rigging an election? Nope. In fact, no one was even prosecuted.
This is how bad it has gotten. They have placed questioning the outcome of the 2020 election outside the bounds of, not just polite discussion. No, they have made questioning when the Left wins, ILLEGAL!!! That is precisely what the prosecution of Trump is about in Georgia and D.C.!!!
That is why all the Jan 6 "paraders" are rotting in prison for right now.
Anyone have an answer? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
DeSantis is the only one who said he would ballot harvest. Executing is different.
Sorry, Mr. Carter, but our side ballot harvesting won't do the trick. They cheat!!! They go into nursing homes, memory care facilities and illegally fill out the ballots for the residents, even the ones who are in a vegetative state (which, TBH, is most Leftists anyway). They ballot harvest in dense, blue cities where one person can collect hundreds of ballots from one building. R's on the other hand live out in the hinterlands, spread out and sparsely populated (relatively). We aren't going to cheat to win. They are willing to do ANYTHING and have shown us that.
We can't do that. And we won't cheat either. Please watch Dinesh D'Souza's movie "2000 Mules" and get back to me. It is enraging and then depressing. He is a fabulous film maker. Then watch "Police State".
Have you ever wondered how these last few elections are so close, with 6 states being decided by a tiny, tiny percentage of the overall number of votes cast? The reason is simple. They cheat only until they have enough and then they stop. Makes sense.
Enjoy your work. Wish I could have hit a trading floor in NYC or Chicago when I graduated college in Jan of 83. I would have made it I am sure.
When I was a freshman in college, I had a room on a hall with a few guys from NYC and LA and they all said I had the moxie and intellect and swagger to make it in those places.
Should have tried. Now I have the worst job in the world. Taking care of a dementia addled mother who hates me but now depends upon me for life. Today was a tough one. If you know someone who is caring for a loved one, as spouse, a parent, be understanding. You have NO IDEA what they are going thru. Merry Christmas!
In the oncoming future, only the homeschooled can be counted on to possibly be educated. Most private schools, especially in urban and suburban areas have the same equity disease as the public schools. And a college degree won't be worth the $100,000 plus it is printed on.
I have a nephew in Chicago with a 1 year old. I'm praying he finds the sense to get out.
I have a daughter and son-on-law (a lefty) who live in the city of Chicago. They have a daughter. Their heads are firmly in the sand on the dangers. Idiot son-in-law when I bring up the violent crime, says, "Well it is dangerous everywhere".
On the private schools. We sent our five to a Jesuit HS. Last graduated in 16. Four of them went to my alma mater, a fairly conservative Southern Baptist Liberal Arts school in the south. The other went to West Point.
All institutions have since gone woke. The Jesuits completely, the Baptists to a lesser extent, but give them a few more years. And the academies went rotten during the Obama years. You go onto the grounds of any of the academies, you will think you are in Madison, Berkley or Boulder.
Homeschooling is the ONLY way out. Which is why, I can guarantee you, it will soon be outlawed outright or regulated to death in most blue states. You heard it here first.
I think that there is random crime in the city, but it's probably not as bad as we imagine. I was just there and my sample size is small. I stayed for two weeks in River North on Wells and there has been a lot of crime there. But, it's late at night mostly. If it were me, I wouldn't buy a house in the city, but I'd be okay with a building.
i think younger generations always minimize the threat of crime, when us older people are always calculating the odds for a given situation.
i went to a Jesuit high school in Chicago and when they veered hard left decades ago I stopped giving them money.
My folks made the decision to bolt for the suburbs in 1968. High school was on the horizon for me. Had we stayed I was bound for Lane Tech or Loyola. My younger sister’s options weren’t as clear cut. So we ended up almost as far west as you did, Jeff. The burbs of the 60s and 70s was a much better choice for a family then as it is today.
What you've described in Illinois/Chicago is what I call Team Sport Politics. My team wins, your team loses, by any means necessary, including changing the rules and moving the goal posts. It's the preference (voting loyalty) found with sports fanatics and "their team."
And it has nothing to do with policies, competencies or corruption. It has everything to do with the human instinct to prefer one's "own" over "the other." Tribalism, writ large.
Government is just an employment scheme to provide jobs for one's "own"--and lock-out "the other."
The goal of politics, today, is to assure that one's partisans are taken care of, and that nothing should interrupt that endeavor, while the route to that end is through preference and loyalty. In the final analysis, the ends justify the means--to the victors go the spoils.
It's a long way from Madison's competing interests as a way to avoid/prevent factions and partisanship.
I agree, but only that the Dems play this game and the R's don't. I give you George fucking Santos. Good guy? Absolutely NOT! But if he had a D behind his name he would not only still be in office, they would give him a plum committee assignment.
The Dems do two things and do them well. Reward their friends and punish their enemies. The R's do two things also, but not as well. They spend all their time apologizing for their friends while constantly trying to "work with" or "reach across the aisle" with their enemies.
Further, R's for the most part, don't even know that the Dem's are their enemy. Instead they are their friends across the aisle. Makes me sick.
One last thing. The bureaucracy is nearly 100% staffed with commies and leftists. 97% of campaign contributions from federal workers goes to Dem's. 97%.
Quite true. The Ds play a different game than the Rs, as you describe, and the Rs don't see it. Famously, Queensberry Rules Republicans assumed Ds have the best of intentions, as honest brokers, and reach across the aisle to meet them with compromise--while at the same time, failing to see that any compromise is not final, but the first step for Ds enroute to getting Rs complete capitulation, in time. Cheers.
Not really, as the Republicans have been out of the loop for 20+ years statewide, and 40+ years county-wide and 90+ years in Chicago.
The Republicans are Charlie Brown's all stars, losing every time.
We used to practice patronage and award contracts to our Republican friends, but that got our guys in a lot of trouble. Now, we have the highest integrity Illinois Republican Party in my lifetime and we lose every election.
At the same time, they are incorrectly and unfairly demonized by a hard left wing press who parrots talking points-->AND THEY DON'T FIGHT BACK. This is not dissimilar from simps in Washington DC. Trump knew how to fight back which is why he has such appeal.
I question, from time to time, whether Illinois Republicans could go back to the good old days, of Pate Philips and the Fawell family.
By today's standards, they weren't at all corrupt, but they certainly did buy votes and built a machine that got Republicans elected for 20 years or so, including Ronald Reagan.
St. Thomas Aquinas was also of two minds, on whether corruption in politics was tolerable, as long as the good guys won. Dennis Hastert changed all that, as he was not a good guy. Would have been a pioneer in romantic relationships if he were a Democrat, but scorched the Illinois Republican Party.
Spot on once again! Time to showcase the test scores of CPS vs. Rest of the Nation. Though DEI/Gender Bender Indoctrination may not be "causal" to poor academic outcomes, it is indeed highly correlated. I feel very badly for any parent that is "stuck" in the CPS system - home school, go private, go parochial, anything but CPS. But getting rid of school choice is literally the death knell of Chicago. I don't know why anybody would opt to raise a family in Chicago. If I was a millennial raising my family in the city, I'd be evaluating my exit options right now.
The competition to get into Latin, Lab, Parker just got more intense. Competition to get into lower schools like City Day, more intense. Competition to get into Catholic schools, more intense.
The problem is the relationship between being completely uneducated and the democrats. People in blue cities are just as unhappy about things as most republicans: education, crime, the economy on and on. But they never vote against the leftist candidate selected by the local party. Even in primaries. If people stuck in blue cities voted republican just once, not on principal (I get that they are socialists at heart) but just to "send them a message" things would be a lot better. But being the victims of public schools, voters don't get how one connects to the other.
Well said. Sadly.
TRUMP!!!!!!
Soon as this socialist got elected mayor, with a lot of CTU support, the die had been cast. Sad for a once great city, which just keeps being torn down, one progressive Democrat at a time.
My parents left the city for my education for the reasons outlined. Chicago has been and still is in trouble.