Ciciline (Dem. RI) leaving Congress in June

Happy Valentines 💘 Day

Any Wayback DUers remember Nadin?

I do. Just found her on Mastodon.

Musk and Murdoch

70 y/o Beaten, stripped and jailed trying to cash $600 check at credit union

Ex-Employees Suing Twitter: Musk Cheating and Grifting

Sounds interesting

Vallas doesn't make the grade with Indivisible

I am definitely not going to vote for Vallas—never was. He was featured on WCPT weekly with Joan Esposito and I stopped listening to his incessant Monday-morning-quarterback criticism of Lightfoot.

Anyway …. I got this email today and it comprehensively explains why he’s unfit to be mayor.

Your thoughts?

With several progressive candidates in the race for Mayor of Chicago, Indivisible Chicago Alliance has not made an endorsement. However, our leadership across the city is unified in opposition to Paul Vallas, who we believe would be a dangerous choice for our city. A close look at his track record reveals Vallas to be a failed administrator who blows up budgets, promotes plans to eviscerate public education, and welcomes the embrace of right-wing extremists.

Leaving a trail of higher taxes, surprise budget deficits.
From Chicago to New Orleans and Philadelphia, Vallas’ budget disasters left taxpayers holding the bag. In Chicago, Vallas fostered the pension crisis taxpayers are paying for today. He won legislative approval to delay payments into the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) teachers’ pension fund. Pushing those payments into the future, he proclaimed himself a hero for ending with a $1 billion surplus. Vallas traded CPS and pension fund stability for his short-term bragging rights. Today, that reckless bargain means Chicago homeowners shovel more than a half-billion dollars a year in property taxes into the pension fund hole Vallas created.

Vallas continued smoke-and-mirrors budgeting as he moved to head school districts around the country. Four months after he told the Philadelphia City Council he created a balanced school budget (and a month after his contract was renewed), the district suddenly revealed a $73 million deficit. Vallas was soon fired. In New Orleans, four consecutive years of audit failures under Vallas’s watch revealed “sloppy record keeping” and millions of dollars unaccounted for.

This “education expert” backs vouchers and charters.
Vallas calls for “100% choice” in Chicago through a combination of vouchers and unlimited charter schools, a threat to public education for many because they limit inclusion. It’s a failed strategy that’s wrong for Chicago. Vallas gave unprecedented independence to charter schools in New Orleans, where top-performing students were prioritized to boost test scores, experienced black educators were squeezed out in favor of younger, mostly white teachers willing to work 12-14 hour days, and disadvantaged kids fell farther behind. He left New Orleans in 2012; by 2016 the State Legislature of Louisiana reined in the charters and returned them to local oversight.

Vallas aligns himself with right wing extremists.
No one should trust a conservative tightly aligned with and endorsed by the MAGA leadership of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) to make our city safer. Vallas continues to campaign side-by-side with disgraced FOP President John Catanzara, an apologist for the January 6 insurrectionists. He stood with Catanzara at the 2021 rally where the FOP boss compared COVID vaccine mandates to Nazi extermination showers. Catanzara even rebuked cops who knelt in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters, mocking their actions as “ridiculous” and threatening to expel them from the union. All of this spells danger for those too often victimized by police violence and for everyone in our City who understands the complexity of crime prevention.

Just as troubling: Vallas was a featured speaker at an Awake Illinois fundraiser. This group leads the mostly suburban, homophobic and transphobic movement to censor books in school libraries and take over local school boards. They even called Illinois Governor JB Pritzker “a groomer.” First downplaying the controversy, Vallas eventually denounced Awake Illinois – but only after helping raise money for their cause. Vallas has a pattern of aligning with extremists–backing off only if controversy makes the association too hot.

How can you help Chicago voters see through the Paul Vallas myth? Spread the truth.
Now that you know Vallas’ real record, make sure your friends and family know too. Forward this email, share the indivisiblechicago.com/vallas link on our website, retweet our social media posts and create your own. To choose a more responsible candidate for Mayor, start from your own values and seek the candidate that can best implement those values in City Hall. These are the guidelines Indivisible Chicago developed to help voters evaluate the platforms of all candidates for public office, both citywide and at the ward level. Against these standards, Paul Vallas doesn’t make the grade.

This is the election that can move our city forward or further tear it down. Make sure your vote is based on facts.

In solidarity,
The team at Indivisible Chicago Alliance

Just finished phone banking to reach WI voters

I just finished phone banking with fellow Dems from https://indivisible.org to reach voters about Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election with early voting running now thru 2/17.

It was a first for me. I volunteered for 2 hours. We met on Zoom before making calls. I was briefed and everyone stayed logged in to Zoom while simultaneously working from the program that auto dialed numbers. (It’s a pretty efficient system. You don’t even know the phone numbers of the people just names. You don’t get patched through unless someone actually picks up the call.)

The last 15 minutes we came back together and shared our experiences. There were lots of Dems contacted. One obstacle for the election is that political affiliations aren’t disclosed on the ballot so our job is to clarify who’s who.

It was rewarding to connect with like-minded people and talk to lifelong Democrats who pledged to vote—especially in a “red” state.

I’m in Chicago but Indivisible’s valuable work spans nationwide. I just provided my email and they periodically send me volunteer opportunities. It’s a great organization worth joining.

Email from Penzey's Spices about the Philadelphia store