CHICAGO | Politics and Current Events

[Randomguy34]

Another day, another abuser gets caught

Ex-Ald. Ricardo Muñoz pleads guilty in fraud case, admits he used caucus money for personal expenses

Former Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22nd) pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud and money laundering in a rare in-person hearing at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

The onetime veteran alderman entered his plea just five months after a federal indictment accused him of using the Progressive Reform Caucus as a personal piggy bank, stealing thousands to pay for a relative’s college tuition, skydiving excursions, women’s clothing, a hotel stay — and even at Lover’s Lane.

Notably, the 29-page indictment alleged that Muñoz’s behavior continued even after the feds’ aggressive pursuit of public corruption had blown into full view in late 2018 and early 2019.

Muñoz, 56, was forced into retirement in 2019 after his wife accused him of physically abusing her. A Cook County judge found him not guilty of misdemeanor domestic battery in June of that year. He was also in counseling that summer for alcoholism.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2...sonal-expenses

[the urban politician]

Asians looking for a ward remap to create a majority Asian ward:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...nst-daley-clan

[Chisouthside]

That proposed map leaves out the whitest areas of Bridgeport and the most Mexican area of Mckinley park. With that being said I support this if the ward becomes a bigger port of entry for Chinese/Asian immigrants and helps the southside grow/densify more.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Asians looking for a ward remap to create a majority Asian ward:

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...nst-daley-clan

How is it even legal for political boundaries to be drawn up based on ethnicity and/or skin color? How is this progress? We are literally taking the racist/exclusionist policies of the past and bringing them back and claiming that it's progress. This is almost as bad as the new norm of universities offering segregated dormitories. I guess that old saying is true.. history does repeat itself.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

How is it even legal for political boundaries to be drawn up based on ethnicity and/or skin color? How is this progress? We are literally taking the racist/exclusionist policies of the past and bringing them back and claiming that it's progress. This is almost as bad as the new norm of universities offering segregated dormitories. I guess that old saying is true.. history does repeat itself.

I agree. This is absolute, 100% bullshit.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

How is it even legal for political boundaries to be drawn up based on ethnicity and/or skin color? How is this progress? We are literally taking the racist/exclusionist policies of the past and bringing them back and claiming that it's progress. This is almost as bad as the new norm of universities offering segregated dormitories. I guess that old saying is true.. history does repeat itself.

Redistricting is not a neutral act. No matter how you draw the map, you are giving and taking away power from different groups. That may seem distasteful to you but it’s unavoidable under our current system. Fairness is only achieved by having a City Council that reflects the overall demographics of the city.

The current 11th Ward is a gerrymandered mess stretching across the river into East Pilsen - 10 years ago this was the “white part” of Pilsen. The current map is designed specifically to keep the white Daley family in power.

Conversely the large and growing Chinese community is split across 4 different wards specifically so that it cannot get fair representation. The way to remedy this is to give them fair and equal representation. The proposed map is also pretty compact as well, it does not rely on excessive gerrymandering or lump together disconnected areas - this is a real and large community that deserves to be a single ward.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Redistricting is not a neutral act. No matter how you draw the map, you are giving and taking away power from different groups. That may seem distasteful to you but it’s unavoidable under our current system. Fairness is only achieved by having a City Council that reflects the overall demographics of the city.

The current 11th Ward is a gerrymandered mess stretching across the river into East Pilsen - 10 years ago this was the “white part” of Pilsen. The current map is designed specifically to keep the white Daley family in power.

Conversely the large and growing Chinese community is split across 4 different wards specifically so that it cannot get fair representation. The way to remedy this is to give them fair and equal representation. The proposed map is also pretty compact as well, it does not rely on excessive gerrymandering or lump together disconnected areas - this is a real and large community that deserves to be a single ward.

Why? Why does the City Council have to reflect the races of the city? And you don't even mean that. If there were zero white members no one would give a damn, because it doesn't matter. Black aldermen have done shit for their wards, so representation hasn't helped a bit.

The way to remedy all of this is to start from Rogers Park, and make as perfect squares as possible going south and then repeat throughout the city. If funny, in areas with primarily only one race, the districts look normal, then in the conversion zones, you get insane boundaries created by insane policitians.

The race game is a race to the bottom. You can already see this. First, no one gives a damn about white representation, that's an issue if we are playing the race game. Second, Asians want a ward, where will that come from? Third, Hispanics want "fair representation", where will that come from?

Whites and Hispanics will have to give up some areas to Asians. Blacks will have to give up a lot of power to Hispanics. That won't happen in this city. So you will just have race-based fighting that will never stop.

[Klippenstein]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Why? Why does the City Council have to reflect the races of the city? And you don't even mean that. If there were zero white members no one would give a damn, because it doesn't matter. Black aldermen have done shit for their wards, so representation hasn't helped a bit.

The way to remedy all of this is to start from Rogers Park, and make as perfect squares as possible going south and then repeat throughout the city. If funny, in areas with primarily only one race, the districts look normal, then in the conversion zones, you get insane boundaries created by insane policitians.

The race game is a race to the bottom. You can already see this. First, no one gives a damn about white representation, that's an issue if we are playing the race game. Second, Asians want a ward, where will that come from? Third, Hispanics want "fair representation", where will that come from?

Whites and Hispanics will have to give up some areas to Asians. Blacks will have to give up a lot of power to Hispanics. That won't happen in this city. So you will just have race-based fighting that will never stop.

Race based fighting? Can you give an example?

You seem a little inflammatory when you just look at the downside, which only seems to be that there will be “race-based fighting”. What does that look like? Do you think that fighting will go away if wards are perfect squares? That will continue part of the downside of gerrymandering, which is that there are distinctly different neighborhoods and areas clumped together that don’t have a defined neighborhood identity. A neighborhood identity is actually good for political cohesion. It’s part of our history and neighborhood identity that Chicago is segregated. You can’t just get rid of that tension by drawing perfect squares on a map and calling it fair.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Why? Why does the City Council have to reflect the races of the city? And you don't even mean that. If there were zero white members no one would give a damn, because it doesn't matter. Black aldermen have done shit for their wards, so representation hasn't helped a bit.

The way to remedy all of this is to start from Rogers Park, and make as perfect squares as possible going south and then repeat throughout the city. If funny, in areas with primarily only one race, the districts look normal, then in the conversion zones, you get insane boundaries created by insane policitians.

The race game is a race to the bottom. You can already see this. First, no one gives a damn about white representation, that's an issue if we are playing the race game. Second, Asians want a ward, where will that come from? Third, Hispanics want "fair representation", where will that come from?

Whites and Hispanics will have to give up some areas to Asians. Blacks will have to give up a lot of power to Hispanics. That won't happen in this city. So you will just have race-based fighting that will never stop.

I would agree with you in theory about having relatively square-shaped wards, but you of course have to take into account population density in order to have pretty much equal representation per ward. As long as the redistricting map isn't heavily gerrymandered, I'm honestly okay with it. I don't agree with forcing certain wards into particular racial percentages, but sometimes that will happen simply based on area.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Why? Why does the City Council have to reflect the races of the city? And you don't even mean that. If there were zero white members no one would give a damn, because it doesn't matter. Black aldermen have done shit for their wards, so representation hasn't helped a bit.

The way to remedy all of this is to start from Rogers Park, and make as perfect squares as possible going south and then repeat throughout the city. If funny, in areas with primarily only one race, the districts look normal, then in the conversion zones, you get insane boundaries created by insane policitians.

The race game is a race to the bottom. You can already see this. First, no one gives a damn about white representation, that's an issue if we are playing the race game. Second, Asians want a ward, where will that come from? Third, Hispanics want "fair representation", where will that come from?

Whites and Hispanics will have to give up some areas to Asians. Blacks will have to give up a lot of power to Hispanics. That won't happen in this city. So you will just have race-based fighting that will never stop.

Exactly. I'm pretty sure that having an Indian representative would be meaningless to me, but then I'm not all that into the whole "I want my race represented!" poison that has corrupted American society over the past 30 years. I didn't think Ameya Pawar was particularly representative of me, and I'm not a fan at all of Representative Raja--he's just another of a long list of Illinois Democrat tools.

I'd rather see a Willie Wilson type person in power (who is black, obviously), or Jim Oberweis (white guy), because I agree with their ideas. Their ideas fall in line more with mine. To hell with the douchy Indian guy who shows up to Diwali parties or Indian temples just to garner votes. Or the douchy politician who declares it "Indian recognition week!" I hate all of that stuff. It is a disease of late 20th century American politics that has done nothing but simply lead to a slow unraveling of the fabric of America society.

[Klippenstein]

^Not to mention that the wards need to be different sizes in order for each ward to represent an equal number of people since population density changes drastically from neighborhood to neighborhood.

[the urban politician]

Well, the only reason I care so much about Chicago politics is because I am so financially invested within the city. After all, I pay more property taxes in Chicago than the average city household income.

So I like to see how my tax dollars, and the stewards of it, are being wasted spent. Plus, crime is bad for business

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Well, the only reason I care so much about Chicago politics is because I am so financially invested within the city. After all, I pay more property taxes in Chicago than the average city household income.

So I like to see how my tax dollars, and the stewards of it, are being wasted spent. Plus, crime is bad for business

The one individual most responsible right now is Kim Foxx; she demurs FAR too much when it comes to gang violence; she has blood on her hands, and doesn't give two shits. The ONLY way to curb violence in Chicago is to have an actual DA who will do their fucking job.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by sentinel

The one individual most responsible right now is Kim Foxx; she demurs FAR too much when it comes to gang violence; she has blood on her hands, and doesn't give two shits. The ONLY way to curb violence in Chicago is to have an actual DA who will do their fucking job.

Could. Not. Agree. More. Even Lightfoot is totally fed up with her.

[the urban politician]

^ Yes, we learned politics 101 in grade school, so that's obvious. But that doesn't mean suburbanites don't CARE about Chicago politics.

Many don't--they just don't go to the city for anything. But there are a LOT who do. Whether they are people who commute to the city, do business with the city, go to the city for entertainment or events, have friends or family in the city, or just take interest in general. The notion that there can't be interconnectivity between what happens between the city and the suburbs is kind of naive. Obviously suburbanites can't vote for city Mayor, etc. But that doesn't mean they don't care who is Mayor of what is by far the most important city for 1000 miles in all directions

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Yes, we learned politics 101 in grade school, so that's obvious. But that doesn't mean suburbanites don't CARE about Chicago politics.

i was mostly just making fun of how out of touch you are by naming goofballs like wilson and oberwies as your desired city leaders.

i might as well waste my time ranting about how badly i want donald duck or kermit the frog to be mayor.



there's a difference between fantasyland and reality.

[the urban politician]

^ Good point. Clearly we're better off with the current people running things

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Good point. Clearly we're better off with the current people running things

i generally don't involve myself much in the business of whether we're better off with a giant douche or a turd sandwich.

but i will poke fun at people who are living in make believe land.

regardless of which path forward might be the better one to take, it at least has to be one that is actually available.

politics is a lot like poker; you can only play the hand you're dealt, not the one you want.

[the urban politician]

^ Amazing how hard it is for some people to grasp that.

[Vlajos]

^ Exactly, we have a government run for the benefit of the pols and public unions. The rest of us are simply a bank to fund the kleptocracy.