I'm so obsessed with the LA election freak-outs because people are just entirely convinced that their own small reactionary social group is somehow representative of the entirety of Los Angeles, one of America's most liberal cities.
@SteveKrak I’m sure there are people in LA who want some degree of change or accountability but aren’t willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and elect a MAGA-adjacent huckster. From an outsider perspective, Pratt delivered his pitch with a club not a scalpel
You’d think you’d hear from people who have been to no-phones concerts explaining that it’s fine and makes the show better. Unfortunately, every single one of them died of medical complications mid-show or was kidnapped
@booth44@JamesSurowiecki And in the last poll before the election she trailed Bass by 1% and led Pratt by 4%. Do you guys not get that there are people who might not like Karen Bass but still would never vote for a MAGA carnival barker? You deluded yourself into thinking this man had broad appeal
@booth44@JamesSurowiecki It’s okay if you’re stupid. Bass is popular with establishment/older Dems (people who tend to vote earlier) and Raman is popular with progressives/younger Dems (people who tend to vote later). Pratt told people not to vote by mail, now is surprised he’s not getting mail vote
Including Boeing in your “analysis” calls into question the credibility of your entire post — they relocated to Chicago in 2001 in an effort to separate the business from the engineers (famously didn’t work, given the crashes), and then left when previous tax incentives ran out
To anyone celebrating the Bears moving to Indiana because you think it saves us tax dollars: please wake up.
I hope you’ve been paying attention since 2022. This isn’t a victory; it’s a disaster. First it was Caterpillar, Boeing, Citadel, Tyson, and TTX. Now a $6 billion franchise is advancing a move across the state line because Illinois politicians refuse to create a competitive business climate.
When multi-billion-dollar corporations and their highest-paid executives flee the state, they take their massive tax revenues with them. Who do you think is going to pick up the tab for the state's massive liabilities when they're all gone? Hint: Look in the mirror.
And if you think the bleeding stops with corporate HQs, look at how our tax dollars are actually being prioritized. While state leadership claims we don't have the funds to incentivize major revenue-generating businesses to stay, state audits reveal that Illinois has spent an estimated **$2.5 billion to $2.8 billion** on state-funded healthcare, housing, and support services for non-citizens and undocumented immigrants over the last few years alone. Our politicians are actively funding massive cost overruns for non-citizens while letting our tax base walk out the door.
For those wondering how we can possibly have a massive housing shortage when our state's overall population has been declining since 2020 (White, 2023)—it's simple math. Population decline doesn't automatically mean empty houses when the state completely stops building.
Thanks to Illinois’ suffocating zoning laws, red tape, and the highest property taxes in the nation, new housing construction permits fell by 13% over the last five years. Available housing inventory in the Chicago area has plummeted by a staggering 54 since 2019. We have an existing deficit of over 142,000 housing units because the state has made it too expensive and heavily regulated for builders to build and for regular families to afford (Aurand, 2023; Corinth & Dante, 2022).
We are living in a state that chokes out supply, drives up home prices by 49%, taxes the middle class into oblivion, and spends billions on non-citizens while watching our biggest economic engines wave goodbye on their way to Indiana.
Stop cheering. Start paying attention.
### References & Sources
* **Illinois Demographics & Net Migration Trends:** Research from the University of Illinois Extension's Farmdoc Daily tracks how post-pandemic population dynamics, domestic out-migration, and low birth rates have driven continuous population decline in Illinois compared to neighboring states (White, 2023).
* **National & Local Housing Shortages:** Data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition documents the massive multi-million unit deficit in affordable housing options across municipal areas, driven by surging costs and a precipitous decline in overall rental and real estate vacancy rates (Aurand, 2023).
* **Regulatory Obstacles to Housing Growth:** A study published in the SSRN Electronic Journal details how strict zoning parameters and local municipal regulations function as a "regulatory tax" that severely suppresses housing stock expansion, compounding shortages even in areas facing negative net domestic migration (Corinth & Dante, 2022).
* **Chicago Housing Infrastructure Analysis:** The Metropolitan Planning Council outlines the regional constraints on the production and management of both private and subsidized housing units within northeastern Illinois (Lenz, 2023).
* **State-Level Non-Citizen Fiscal Outlays:** Official state budget presentations and audit reporting from the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) detail the state-funded Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (HBIA) and Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (HBIS) program expenditures, which drove the multi-billion-dollar non-citizen support infrastructure costs.
@DuPageCountyGOP Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s say I agree that Illinois’s tax burden is generally obscene — your suggestion is to fan the flames by giving the McCaskeys a huge tax break? There’s plenty of ordinary people in the state who deserve relief and the fact you can’t hold that line is absurd
> Completely destroys a historic landmark using taxpayer dollars
> Complains about how it sucks
> Destroys a historic Hoffman Estates horse track to build a new stadium in the suburbs
> Fucks off and moves to Indiana anyway, stealing $1 billion from Indiana taxpayers
the venn diagram of people complaining about chicago not giving the bears a bunch of tax money and the people complaining anytime chicago politicians collect and/or spend tax money is a perfect circle. genuinely what do you want!
"Look at the faces. It was kicked there on purpose. The jump was to disrespect the country"
Conservatives deeply unwell people. To them, daring to have fun in a park is a conspiracy against the state and must be met with violent force
@Philip_DT@growing_daniel Yes, American’s 77Ws are undergoing retrofit where first will be removed. The onboard experience has been bad for a long time
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has announced that California has officially certified the results of the 1992 Presidential Election in California. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton has won the state.
Maybe Mendoza’s position on ICE in the city warrants further probing, but I actually don’t think we need to protect the man who randomly murdered an innocent girl who was out enjoying the lakefront
@bergerdad American started selling upgrades more aggressively, a model Delta pioneered. You won’t be more successful with Delta, their elites complain about the same thing. Buy the seat you want.
So let me get this straight.
Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom.
Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land.
Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan.
Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted.
And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?”
Please.
The fact that the first paragraph is one paragraph and not two, despite the obvious break point where he starts whining about the meeting, proves Nick Bilton should go home and play with his kids