Monday, March 16, 2015

Sun-Times Interviews Cappleman, Crawford About Runoff Election

Al Podgorski/Sun-Times Media photos

The Sun-Times has an article focusing on the runoff elections in the 43rd and 46th Wards.  Read it here.

33 comments:

  1. Actually not a bad article. However, Crawford's campaign smacks of opportunism. Also, now that she has the backing of the crazy people (who hate gay people) there is no way anybody should vote for her. Cap deserves another term. This hood is so much better already than it was four years ago. Go Cap.

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  2. Go Team Cappleman!

    Phooey Team Crawford!

    ABA Anyone But Amy!

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  3. I obtained this video of Amy's new campaign manager's first peptalk to Team Amy earlier today. At least it was her new campaign manager last week. Is there another new one yet?

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  4. I don't like that Amy is trying to pawn off her paid work as an hired outside attorney for an activist group as community service. I think of community service as volunteering for the good of the community. What she did was her job. She got paid for it.

    She has no boots on the ground in this neighborhood. Absolutely none. Nobody has ever seen her at a community meeting or addressing a community issue. And its not like she doesn't live but a few blocks from last year's chaos in the streets and murders. No one has seen any volunteer time from her. Hers is not a record of community involvement. It is simply a job resume.

    Uptown is a tough nut to crack. Until you work in the trenches with the myriad of special interest groups, neighborhood associations, social service agencies and police you have no idea of the dynamics that run this community. I wouldn't want to go to war on tough issues with her in the trenches next to me.. She'd be singing kum ba ya while the rest of us did the heavy lifting and took all the shots.

    Cappleman has been digging Uptown out of the hole that Shiller put it in. It is an uphill battle. At least he understands the task at hand and the factions that have to be brought together. In a very divided neighborhood, where race baiting and haves and have nots were played against each other for decades he has brought a calmness in which issued can be addressed instead of used to divide. Yes, progress does move slowly. But, you can't make the kind of drastic changes some people demand in this neighborhood until the neighborhood itself is ready for it. It has to grow into it.

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    1. Uptown Girl, do you work for Cappleman? Are you going to be out of a job when he loses the run-off? It sure seems like it, but I give you full credit for doing this and other online trolling at night, when you probably aren't in the ward office.

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    2. Chicago Mumma, your Twitter account said you lived in Albany Park until Amy hired you to sent tweets on her behalf. Hope you're enjoying the paychecks. Do you get extra money for commenting on blogs?

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    3. Wait, I could be getting paid for my stupid comments? Would I get paid by the word or by how silly my comment is? Does spelling count?

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    4. Nope. Never worked or volunteered or gave money to Cappleman. Not into politics. HOWEVER, I have worked tirelessly for my Uptown community for over 25 years.

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    5. My Twitter account never said I lived in Albany Park. It merely listed Albany Park in my profile, along with Uptown. My kids go to school in Albany Park, so I'm interested in what happens there too. And Amy Crawford doesn't pay me to tweet for her. I tweet what I think, which is that this neighborhood continues to languish and that I'd really like to be able to walk my kids to the park or the lake without worrying about gunfire - in the middle of the day.

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    6. CM,

      mind if I call you CM? Anyhoo please don't be disturbed or upset that some people may doubt you. May I ask a few questions on behalf of the class?

      Now when you say Amy doesn't pay you to tweet for her I believe you. I happen to think you're just an enthusiastic Amy supporter. Go TEAM AMY! Others are more suspicious than me though so I will ask some questions on their behalf since Amy is all about "nuance".

      Have you, Chicago Mumma, received anything of value from Amy Crawford or her campaign or affiliated entities in any way? This would include gift cards, both plastic and e gift cards, promises of a position after the campaign, help finding a job, discounts at the one restaurant near the ward supporting Amy, legal advice, children's clothing, frequent flyer miles, a signed first edition Littleton print, etc etc etc.

      I kid. Just when it comes to Amy everything is about "nuance" and parsing. We have to be careful. After all Amy is all nuanced regarding casinos, pensions, low income housing and some other stuff too. Hell she has a crime plan too which calls for "leadership" and "integrivity" and balloons and probably even free pony rides for all the children of her voters. Capplevoters won't get free pony rides. GRRRR. Making a pouty pander bear face when I say that. I suspect even some of her votes would like a pony ride. Littleton, would you like a pony ride?

      By the way has anyone checked out the parody Amy website today?

      Also thanks to the person who sent me this. A tweet from Amy over the weekend:

      Amy Crawford
      ‏@amyfor46
      Very excited to have this great group of dedicated volunteers out walking for me on this beautiful day! http://fb.me/4mdgsqems

      Unfortunately, the link for the pic doesn't work. Maybe that's because it had Amy standing in front of POP46 founder and FB friend of gangbangers D'Angelo Boyland. I now have the photo though. Go Team IrishPirate!

      I will post it at some point in the future. Just to help Amy! Go Amy!



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    7. People are also a bit suspicious when Amy's other biggest twitter fan has at least 5 different accounts. Let's see:

      @UptownUpgrade (seems not to have gone active with this one since he was outed)

      @RaunerDemocrat

      @QGPlasma

      @UptownChgoRocks

      @GOP4Cappleman

      All clearly the same guy. I suspect he has a few more accounts too, but it really wasn't worth my time to keep looking. Now if I were being paid by a campaign, HELLO AMY!, I might be more motivated.

      Mumma compared to that guy your pro Amy activity is tiny. He has websites, twitter accounts, loads of comments over at various sites etc. Mumma, you need to step up your game! GO TEAM AMY!

      I do think that Mumma is probably who she claims to be. The mope with five accounts is sort of a low grade FGFM with many fewer IQ points and a much less "developed" back story. Fivesie guy claims to be a nearing 60 yr old man who made a load of $ in real estate and lost most of it and is now slumming it in Uptown with his wife. In reality he's more likely 30 years old and has a whole lot of fashion industry links on his FB page. Yes, the fashion allusion is a suggestion that it might not just be his age and marital status he's BS'ing about. Accept yourself FIVESIE! Do you really want to emulate Aaron Schock? De Nile is not just a river in Egypt!

      What I really like about FIVESIE though is he put together a montage of famous female attorneys with Amy centered on the montage. We're talking Senators, Supreme Court Justices and That's Our Amy. It brought tears to my eyes.




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    8. I should have provided a link to the fine work that FIVESIE has done for Amy's campaign. Here's the montage.

      Try to avoid snickering. Really.

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  5. Just saw this on Crawford's FB account:

    46th Ward Reception
    Wednesday, April 1 at 6:00pm
    The Reservoir 844 Montrose

    Anyone besides me see the immediate comic possibilities in that?

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  6. I wish this site would give more in depth coverage of this aldermanic election. What are the issues and how do the candidates differ on these issues. The only posts I see from this site are remainders about the election. The posts should be more analytical.

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  7. Well, according to Amy's mailing today, she really DOESN'T know the ward. And she certainly doesn't know who does what.

    "She has a plan to make our neighborhoods stronger." Well, she's not articulating a plan--just spouting talking points that don't mean anything.

    "Amy will be a proactive leader for an elected school board, smaller class sizes, and early childhood education." Hmm. And what does the Alderman play in these things? Getting an elected school board requires the Illinois General Assembly to change the law and the governor to sign it. No alderman there--best to go to Springfield, Amy. Smaller class sizes? That's a function of CPS, not the City Council. Same with broadening early childhood learning. And they will all cost a LOT more money--where does she plan to find the money? Double property taxes just for CPS? Ask the Mayor to appoint you to the Board of Education if you want to change school policy, Amy--the aldermen don't do it.

    "Amy will promote youth violence prevention and job training programs. She'll collaborate with 46th Ward neighbors to 'curb gang proliferation'." Can we ask Amy how stupid does she think we are? First, WHERE HAS *SHE* BEEN? What has SHE been doing herself up to now on violence prevention and job training? "ABSENT." "UNKNOWN." "MIA." Second, we don't have a problem with "gang proliferation", which she would know if she was already engaged in the community--the number of gangs is steady, the number of members is mostly steady (the ones who get shot or jailed seem to equal the new recruits). The problems are the drug dealing, the turf wars, and the intimidation of people who live around them. If she really had a clue of what the problems and solutions are--and if she was really part of the community she claims she wants to represent--she would already know that Cappleman pushed very hard to do things like youth basketball. Unfortunately, AMY, the gang turf war is so intense that a neutral site isn't available where turf boundaries wouldn't be crossed. So, how do you propose to fix that? A group hug?

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  8. Amy's mailer, Part 2:

    "More Jobs." "Attract small businesses and economic development." Yeah, those are the bones that every neophyte politician tries to rattle. How 'bout putting some MEAT on the bones? How would you propose to create jobs by adding businesses when you want to tax the businesses out of existence before they even get created? Why not just skip the B.S. and tell your out-of-ward campaign contributors to open up shop here and employ our residents? Make it less expensive and easier to do business here, and the storefronts might be filled--but we haven't seen anything proposed by Amy to do that. Cappleman, on the other hand, has been working with the business community--unlike his predecessor.

    "Bigger, more effective police force." Ok. What's the cost of hiring 1000 new cops? If you use a conservative estimate of $50K salary and $25K fringe for each new cop, that's a minimum of $75 million. In a city trying to plug a $350 million budget shortfall, with $500 million coming due in pension arrears, with a governor who wants to slash the state budget--and the amount of cash coming to the city--the question becomes: How do you pay for it? What are you willing to cut? Are you willing to jack up property taxes and user fees so high to pay for all the largesse you want to throw around so casually that you're willing to see people sell out and leave the city because they can't afford to pay the taxes? See how reality works? And really, response time has never been a real issue--and perhaps Amy hasn't been in the hot spots to see how the police do target the hot spots when they get hot.

    And therein lies Amy's problem. When you don't know your neighborhoods and the people and problems in them, and when you rely on your paid campaign consultants from Hyde Park and Columbus, Ohio, to figure out how to sell you to the ward, you obviously don't have a good handle on or understanding of the neighborhoods you want to convince to elect you. WAH-waaaah. No ma'am. Trust hasn't been earned. Promises are easy to give before an election, hard to keep after it's done.

    And it finally occurred to me who comes to mind when I see her photos: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Jabba_the_Hutt.png

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    1. Bear bear bear,

      gay men v lesbian is like vampires v werewolves I understand, but the Jabba comment was uncalled for. That gets me to recalling Princess Leia and the chain. Then Jabba laughing.....then Leia killing Jaba with said chain. Very bad for my indigestion before lunch.

      I prefer to think of the Ewoks dancing after the victory over the Empire. If you think of Cappleman's election in 2011 as a revolution then you know that for every revolution there is always a counter revolution. Amy is the counter revolution and her partners at Kirkland are largely paying for the counter revolution. LIfe is amusing sometimes.

      Politics is bizarre and around here it's even more bizarre.

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    2. Indeed, IP. And in case you were thinking that I was referring to Jabba's amorphous mass in the comparison, it was the eyes.

      By the way, I have kept myself from commenting about aggressive, overbearing lesbian stereotypes. I can't think of a way to bring it up with humor. Wanna try?

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    3. I actually thought you were referring to Jabba's laugh and sense of entitlement. I missed the eyes suggestion.

      I'm picturing Crawford having Cappleman frozen as one of her minions, Ryne Fett, stands by guarding the proceedings with his overwhelming sense of self regard and narcissism. Perhaps a Boba Fett/Snow White mashup would have to do. "Mirror, mirror on the wall who's the prettiest bounty hunter of all."

      I'm avoiding the gay man v lesbian battles. I pee standing up, yet I'm good with plumbing and dress badly so I feel I have commonality with both camps.

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    4. IP Thank you thank you for your time & input. Jesum crow you are funny.

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  9. I've really got to ask--where has Amy been during the time she claims to have been living in Uptown? How has she bought into the neighborhood and participated in its daily life? What has she done to give back to it? What has she done to demonstrate that she is truly committed to this ward and the well-being of its residents, businesses, and institutions?

    Before he was elected, Cappleman was very active around the neighborhood--he was very involved with the Uptown Chicago Commission, worked with the Chamber for Uptown businesses, participated in meetings about the Wilson Yard construction, attended CAPS meetings in several beats, organized Positive Loitering events, volunteered for charities and small events, and showed up for block club meetings outside of his own. You saw him out picking up rubbish and calling the police, being active and proactive.

    And what about Amy? Has anyone ever seen her at a neighborhood association meeting? Or a CAPS meeting? Has she ever shown up at public meetings over developments proposed in the Ward? Has she ever volunteered for community events or cleanups, or helped out with fixing up something like the Sunnyside Mall or Clarendon Park's Sunshine Garden? Has she volunteered to serve Thanksgiving dinner at one of the homeless shelters or worked at a food pantry or helped out at the Brown Elephant? Does she pick up refuse on her block? Has she even done pro-bono legal assistance to help the less fortunate people in Uptown? There are literally dozens of opportunities for her to give back to the community and be seen, even if it's showing up for a gallery opening or a new store or restaurant's grand opening, and I have yet to hear of one instance of *anything* where she has been seen anywhere in the Ward doing anything to demonstrate her support for the community and its people. If she hasn't been seen doing anything now, how can we trust that she would be there for us when we need her if she got elected? If she has been AWOL up to now, it's reasonable to guess that she would be AWOL as alderman. The Ward can't afford that.

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    1. She came to the CAPS meeting last week. First time ever! She came in 20 minutes late. She immediately took out her phone and texted someone or tweeted. She took out a legal pad and took notes. Now THAT's some community involvement right there, by golly!

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    2. I have never been team Cappleman but who is this Crawford lady seems like she just came up for ground hogs day and decided to run. Uptown is very divided and Cappleman has played his part in that. so on election day I will have to choose the lesser of both evils. Maybe I should just write my name down SMH

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  10. Apparently the link I provided to the parody Amy Crawford website doesn't work.

    Thppppppt!

    This should work
    .

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  11. Have to laugh about Chicago Mumma's plaintive "I'd really like to be able to walk my kids to the park or the lake without worrying about gunfire - in the middle of the day" missive. The last time that got said to someone in an aldermanic office, it was a mother who got told by past candidate Deniece (when she was still Alderman Shiller's chief of staff), "This ain't your college campus, sweetie." Since Deniece and Amy are BFF's now, Amy probably offered Deniece her old chief of staff job back if Amy wins...so if you pose that "walking kids without gunfire in the middle of the day" bit to her, she can say that to you directly, too.

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  12. Have any kids been shot on their way to the park or lake ever in the 46th ward?

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  13. CW,

    no kids have been shot on the way to the park or lake in my memory which goes back to the eighties. That being said a number of innocent bystanders have been shot in Uptown over the years. Young woman standing with her child was shot at Broadway and Wilson maybe 6 years ago. Truman college student shot and killed near there a few years before that. He was an African immigrant. Young woman shot and injured around Sheridan and Lawrence I believe on Christmas Day maybe 7-8 years back. Obviously when the five people were shot in front of Uptown Baptist they were not all targets. Just standing or sititng when that idiot banger with the AK 47 tattoo on his face drove by...supposedly. He's still sitting in county awaiting trial.

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  14. In an earlier comment I mentioned I had a photo the Amy is Awesome campaign deleted from their twitter/facebook feed. Thankfully someone was kind enough to send it to me. Here it is.

    Bon apetit!

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  15. Oh, you’re right. I feel much better now that IP has confirmed no one has been shot whilst walking their kids to the park or lake in the 46th Ward since the 1980s or earlier. …… Um, but is it good enough that the people who have been shot were not the people that really matter in his apparent estimation? WTF? I’m not sure what IP even means by "innocent bystander." Is it Cappleman's view, which seems to be that as long as the victim is gang-related, it doesn’t matter that he was shot and/or killed and in broad daylight next to our homes. (Surely, by innocent bystander he can’t mean “white person”!?)

    Well, at least IP remembered the FIVE people gunned down in the middle of rush hour at Wilson and Sheridan (a block from my house) in 2013. Still, I can’t help but notice that the rest of his list consists of shootings that happened before Cappleman was Alderman, whilst omitting some non-gang-banging folks shot in the 46th Ward last year, including Brion Payne (April - Wilson & Broadway) and Leonardo Matias (December - across from Truman). Those are just two I remember, bringing it to 7 “innocent bystanders” that IP and I can think of in just two years. Oh my, they all also happened to occur on Wilson, you know, the lifeblood of our Ward and where crime is reportedly “down 39%”!!!

    But what of the others? People like Troy Phelon (3/2015 Agatite & Sheridan) and Isaiah Johnson, a FOURTEEN year old (8/2013 Wilson & Broadway), both who the cops say had gang-affiliated friends, but weren’t gang members …. and, good god, what about all the confirmed gang-related shootings? Does none of that not matter to you folks?

    I think anyone who is comfortable with the amount of violent crime in Uptown just because they can’t think a white person or little kid that’s been shot needs to get his head checked.

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  16. From where does gun crime emanate?

    From the CHA and section 8 housing pep peppered across Uptown and Rogers Park.

    As long as we allow those gang havens to persist, then you are not going to see the problem abate.

    Lets start with the properties administered by Voice of the People Mumma. How come they have allowed the gangs to terrorize manyof their properties openly for year?

    All the while collecting 10's of millions of dollars in state and federal funding to run those properties.

    How come their "tenant coordinator" - D'Angelo Boyland- was facebook friends with the Black P Stone rapper who was shot down behind 4650 Malden? Is that how he "coordinates" his tenants, like Phillip Payne who rolled the mayor's kid for an iphone (and whose gang initiation in a VotP CHA propert is immortalized in a video)?

    You think a vote for Amy Crawford is the best way to go when she is backed by POP46, the front organization of the non profits running these gang incubators...And headed up by D'ngelo Boyland?

    We may hear all kinds of "nuance" from Amy...but given who her benefactors in this campaign are, we -WILL NOT- see the root causes of crime in the ward addressed.

    Why? Because those non profits don't care about the slum conditions they are warehousing people in. There's years of proof of that, or the gang problems would be long gone, and more deserving folks would inhabit their properties.

    Bottom line: A vote for Amy Crawford is a vote to return the 46th Ward to a Shiller 2.0 era.


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    1. Sid,

      funny you should mention Mr Boyland. Actually it's not. You mention him alot. Anyhoo here is a photo that Team Amy tweeted of herself and her volunteers last weekend. Sadly they seemed to delete the photo. The young guy in the photo standing behind her? That's D'Angelo Boyland. ZOINK. Ka Pow. Bam.

      I would like to say one thing to Team Amy. Two weeks and two days to go. That's sixteen days by my math. Now your campaign is showing some signs of what I would call paranoia. Deleting pics, new campaign managers, complaining about parody websites etc etc. Now your cartoon flyer piece on Cappleman was good. I don't know if it will be effective, but it was good. Keep up the good and toss the paranoia aside.

      There's not a damn thing you can do to stop me and some others from hitting your campaign over the next few weeks. The best is yet to come. It's all in the timing. Just like the takedown of Aaron Schock. Drip, drip drip. Then KAPOW.

      Thankfully, you won't be facing any legal consequences after the election. Young Aaron of the ABS is facing legal consequences. So you have that going for you. If you play your cards right next time the Dalai Lama is in town I will ask him to give you total consciousness on your deathbed. Hopefully you won't need it for 4 or 5 decades. I may even ask him to provide you with a working knowledge of the concept of "shame". Shame isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can keep us from doing bad things like taking one position in one forum and the opposite position in another forum.

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  17. Actually I should have included the recent Matias shooting. That's fair. He was just a working guy doing his job and got shot by an idiot banger shooting at another idiot banger.

    Also in one of the shootings I mentioned the non gang affiliated victim was white. I don't think it was ever solved. Now you don't know which shooting that was do you mamma? Truth is neither does your savior Amy.

    Now I'm not going to suggest you get your head checked because you seem to really believe Amy Crawford has a viable answer to reducing or eliminating gang shootings here. I mean criminologists, cops, philosophers, columnists, politicians, religious leaders, civic leaders, and many others have debated this type of thing for decades or millenia depending on how you want to look at human violence and until the advent of Saint Amy of Kenmore in October of last year no one had the answer.

    We're luck that Amy sits among us at the head of the table of philosopher royalty.

    Now how does Amy propose to eliminate gang shootings. Leadership. Street leadership. Integrivity. That's integral with an "ity" It's not even a word, but it fits her platform which is basically elect me because I'm a leader who leads. I'm proven. Bullshit. She will magically fart out a few hundred more cops and integrate that with her street leadership and jobs programs and voila.......gang shootings down. Now it may take her awhile to get all this leaderfying leadership going. I wouldn't expect gang shootings to stop in her first six months. However, once her magic programs takes effect, say six months, all of the 46th ward will be crime free and the birds will sing and light shall down upon us.

    Then fast on her saving the 46th Ward she will take her leadership and its magic powers statewide and run against Rauner in 2018. That's assuming the Lord just doesn't come down and appoint her, AMY CRAWFORD, leader of street leadership the Lord Protector of Illinois and perhaps even America.

    Amy is full of shit. Virtually no real experience in anything but being a corporate lawyer and six months working to get then Senator Obama elected Prez. Hell she even did that in Ohio. To her credit he did carry Ohio. I wish Gore had carried Ohio in 2000 and then we would have been spared the Iraq war.

    Even Amy's spouting off about her experience at Christopher House is about a decade or more out of date. Those kids she worked with are college age now. Think about that. Oh the credit union bit. Yeah, isn't that right around the corner from her condo? Wouldn't want to put her out walking a few blocks.

    END of PART ONE

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  18. There are quick ways to eliminate crime in Uptown or anywhere else for that matter. Amy wouldn't be for them and no sane person would be for them. We have a constitution and laws and we just can't call in the military to round up the bangers and intern or shoot them. Some people would be fine with that. I wouldn't and I doubt she would be.

    I could be wrong though. Perhaps she might eventually take over the Rudy Giuliani role in American politics of being the little man looking for a balcony. Her gender is wrong and I hope she's better than that, but you never know. Ambition warps some people.

    You really wanna know what frosts my mug about Amy though? How dumb she must think the voters of the 46th ward are. I mean she gives one answer in one place and another answer somewhere else. Casinos, pensions etc etc. Maybe she's right. People did vote for Bush twice. People elected Rauner. Hell my own mom believed Bill Clinton was innocent in the Lewinsky matter until he fessed up. I was like "Mom, please. He did it. He's a guy. It's obvious". People can be dumb even my sainted mumma.

    Here's a link to my long takedown of Saint Amy. It's long and it takes but I'm down with it. Quarky of Uptown Upgrade and all his sites doesn't like it. He seems to think I'm a hot mess alcoholic. I hardly drink. It's all part of my IrishPirate performance art schtick. I've had 12 Guinness sitting in my "icebox" since Xmas. Unopened. Forlorn.

    I will give you one thing Chicago Mumma. Unlike Amy's other defenders you don't seem to be flat out crazy. You haven't created half a dozen sites to promote her. You don't Retweet your stuff through multiple ID's. You're not a sex worker/political activist/political donor/revolutionary. You're not an 'artist" living in Mercy Housing. You're not a supertroll living outside the neighborhood with a fantasy that you're a highly successful gay man who works on Lasalle Street and went to Truman College. Nope by the standards of Amy's biggest promoters you're down right sane and I'm glad of that.

    You're still wrong about Amy though. :)

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