WEBVTT - Bad Mayor Monday: Vallas X Lightfoot, a Chicago Double Feature 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.080 Welcome to Shitty Mayor Mondays, a name we're not actually 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.480 allowed to use as a title of our podcast because 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:12.559 it breaks a bunch of search shit in the background. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.840 I'm your host, Mio Wong, coming to you live from 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.520 a crumbling basement and contested Chicago that may or may 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:20.279 not be hit by a tornado in the next hour. 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.560 This is it could happen here, so true. It could 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.960 all happen within this next recording session. It could happen 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:34.279 in me it's basement. Yeah with me, I'm of Garrison 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:39.960 and James. Hello, welcome to Hell. Hi, I'm tornado free. 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.520 San Diego did have a tornado warning yesterday. Luckily I'm 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:49.400 in the ever stable Pacific Northwest where nothing bad can happen. Yeah, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.479 it's contractually contractually obligated. It says no, no no bad things, 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.320 No no earthquakes here that that are overdue, no forest 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.680 fires or record temperatures. It's great up there. So true. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.080 So today we're doing a sort of special episode of 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.119 Shitty Mayor Mondays, which is that we are we are 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:13.319 doing the Chicago double feature because our previous Shitty Mayor, 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.920 Lloyd Lightfoot I, managed to become the first I think 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.640 I think the first Chicago mayoral candidate in forty years 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.960 who was an incumbent and lost reelection. And not only yes, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.760 she lose reelection, she went out so okay, the way 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.840 the way the Chicago mayor elections have like a trillion candidates, 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.720 like I think they were like nine this time, and 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.000 if no one can get about fifty percent, it goes 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.480 to a runoff, and she got knocked out before the runoff, 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.759 which is unbelievably funny. Um, So we're gonna talk about 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.880 her first as the sort of Loyd Lifewood is sort 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.240 of the shitty Chicago mayor passed, and then we're gonna 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.559 talk about the maybe future shitty Chicago mayor, Paul Vallis, 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.360 who sucks so much that he was the reason I 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.720 specifically wanted to do this series. But first, what do 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.960 you talk about fucking Lory Lightfoot, a person who I 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.079 don't I don't know. I feel like people outside of 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:15.519 Chicago don't know much about her. Yeah, I mean I 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.520 know that she's like like has gerebody failed to do 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.560 all the things that he was supposed to do and 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.680 in a kind of general sort of Democrat Matt model 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.160 has sucked. But I'm excited to hit the specifics. Yeah, 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.040 she's a super well okay, Ay. The funniest thing about 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.600 her is it's just just Google pictures of her hats. 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.200 She has just like an incredible hat game. It's just 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.040 always appearing and just an incredible like she has so 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.760 many hats. It's it's wild. It's just every single picture 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.840 she's in it's just like a random, different, wild hat. 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:52.360 It's amazing. But she's also kind of in some sense, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.080 like a kind of uniquely incompetent politician. So okay, So 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.760 Lightfoot was elected mayor in like an absolute landside in 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.000 twin nineteen, and she ran this very weird campaign which 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:04.760 it was based on sort of three main things. It 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.040 was one was not being a machine candidate. And this 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.359 is actually very important, is it. Lightfoot is not actually 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.600 part of the Chicago political machine that controls like most policy. 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.120 Why there's there's the kind of that kind of separate 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.120 parts of the machine. This is a complicated thing we're 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.840 not going to fully get into here. But she's like 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.320 not a machine candidate. She like kind of is an 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.600 outsider in some sense um, and that was a big 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.480 part of why people voted for her. There's another thing, 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.720 which is this sort of like identity tokenism thing, which 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:33.240 is like, I'm going to be the first black, lesbian 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.800 mayor of Chicago, which she is. And then the third 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:37.520 thing she was running on was building a ship ton 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:43.480 of police academies. Now I now, in twenty nineteen, I 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.560 was in Chicago fifth election and I was like, do 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.120 not fucking vote for her. She's gonna build these cop academies. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.920 And everyone was like, no, it's gonna be great. She's 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.920 not the machine she's like. So she gets elected in 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.960 twenty nineteen, and this means that when she gets into office, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.840 like almost immediately, twenty twenty happens. And Okay, so no 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.160 mayor has like a good response of twenty twenty. Um 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.040 Lfefoot's is like catastrophic. So I've talked about this a 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.840 bit at the show, But but what twenty twenty in 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.720 Chicago is this really really kind of wild and weird thing. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.360 It doesn't map onto a lot of the other sort 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.560 of twenty twenties, but like the first thing that happens 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.120 basically is Chicago has this thing called I think it's 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.599 I think it's the Magnificent Mile. It's something milds I 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:30.640 can remember when it was magnificent, a miracle because it's 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.440 a fucking bullshit tourist thing, but it's it's like the 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.760 Chicago's like it's like a mile of like really rich 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.039 shopping districts, and the cops just lost control of it. 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.279 Like people just took it. It was like fully looted. 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.080 It was just this, It was just this. There was 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.359 this sort of incredible moments of like Chicago's working class 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.880 that it'd been getting shit on for two hundred fucking years, 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.680 like finally stormed their way into their pas and just 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.279 the fucking Bougee part of Chicago would destroyed it and 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.640 it fucking ruled. But after that happened, Lifefoot was like, 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.160 oh shit, we can never let protesters get back there again. 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.560 So she started raising the fucking drawbridges that lead that 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.440 lead across the fucking rivers, like she was like she 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.200 basically turned the entirety of like like that that event 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.599 part of Chicago into a fucking fortress that you could 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.719 not get onto. Amazing. I just raised she did this, 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.800 like she raised the bridges multiple fucking times. Like we're 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.240 gonna get to another story of her raising the bridges 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.680 where it's like it's un like like she doesn't so 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.919 many times that like even times where she claimed she 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:31.920 didn't do it on purpose, people are like, I think 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.920 she raised the bridges. This is you know, and so 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.520 this is her basically when when she raises the bridges, 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.520 she just like declares war basically on like half of Chicago. 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.640 And okay, so this is like not a great thing 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.039 to do if if you're trying to be a popular politician, 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.599 is to just like physically declare war and like do 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.039 fucking medieval fortress shit to like half half your fucking city. 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:02.640 And so her popularity starts tanking immediately. This is in 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.240 like the this is I'm guessing as a consequence of 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.640 the Black Lives Matter protest, right, yeah yeah, yeah yeah. 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.719 So her reprover rating is like fucking absolutely dog should 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.640 I think, Oh, I'm trying to find I should have 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.560 looked this up earlier. I meant to, and I forgot. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.240 I think her approve rating was like thirty percent when 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.120 she left office. It might even be lower than that. Yeah, 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.120 so but you know, but she she she does this 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.440 kind of unique thing where she basically goes around and 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.440 alienates like every single voting block in the city. I 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:35.840 guess before we get to this, we should get we 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.320 should get to how she pissed off the cops, because 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:39.839 one of her big things where she came into office 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:41.279 was she was trying to sort of like do this 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:46.120 alliance with the police. But instead of her sort of 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.039 actually like forming this, you know, she she was trying 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.320 to form sort of sent a right wing bass. Right, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:52.560 She's trying to both sort of play this kind of 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.680 like identity tokenism thing and then also build a bass 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:56.599 with the cops. But a the cops are racist and 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.520 be Okay, do you two know the story or about 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:05.000 the Chicago Columbus statue. I don't think. Wait, is that 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.040 one of the ones that got taken down? Sort of? 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:10.640 I think this is one of the ones that So 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:12.640 in twenty twenty, I wrote a story about how to 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.800 tear down statues and then became the guy that everybody 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.040 sent pictures of statues getting torn down to for a while. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.960 So I'm sure I've seen it. Amazing. Yeah, it was great. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.920 Ben Shapira had a whole fucking seizure about it. We've 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.240 got lots of trouble with various federal agencies, but yeah, 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.920 it was a very amazing story I did. Don't don't 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.360 affiliate link to the ingredients to things which may or 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.520 may not be illegal if you combine those ingredients in 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:46.080 your story. So true. Yeah, yeah, many popular mechanics editors 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:50.160 have tried this. It was great. I was on Russia today, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.600 not not with my knowledge, but yeah, tell us about this, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.520 tell us about this other statue. Me okay, So there 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.160 is a giant like statue thing sitting on our like 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.600 sitting on this big column that was made nineteen thirty three, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.400 and it's it's this giant statue of Christopher Columbus. I'm 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.680 also on this statue. So there there, there, there's like 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:13.120 a series of like important Italian people like on the column. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.480 One of these things, one of the people who has 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:17.840 picked it on this column like very much seems to 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:24.080 be Benito Mussolini holding a bunch of fascies. Cool. Now, 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.120 the sculptors, the sculptor's son denies this, but this was 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.640 made nineteen thirty three. It really looks like he is 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:36.480 definitely holding fascies. So all right, this this statue, this 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.120 is like in like the middle of the fucking city, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:39.760 right in like this park in the middle of the city. 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:45.240 Um and this became the so okay so in twenty twenty. 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.080 In Chicago, the way the protests work is you have 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.120 like the first initial like phase where the cops like 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.679 lose control of the city, and then the cops kind 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.200 of like retake it over the next few days and 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.760 there's a kind of lull, but then it starts another 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.000 like sort of wave of it starts back up again, 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.800 like a rounds specifically around this statue, and there's this 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.280 whole thing that cops are trying to keep it up, 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.880 and there's this whole thing where like there's like like 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.120 rings of activists like surrounding a group of cops standing 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.160 around the statue, like throwing shit at them, and it 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.880 fucking ruled and eventually the city is like, Okay, we're 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.080 gonna We're just gonna take down the fucking statue. And 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.240 this was a lightfoot thing, but but this pissed off 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.800 the cops and specifically so we talked about this before 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:25.800 on the show, but like this is one of the 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.920 sort of unique things about Chicago is that Chicago has 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.760 like I guess the technical term is like white ethnic 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.320 like groups that like do shit. And one of those 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.960 things is like there's like an Italian American cop association 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.080 that is very powerful, and the Italian American cop Association 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.320 is like, like, we will keep the statue at all costs. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.320 This is like our fucking guy, like, hey, we're yeah, 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.280 and and Lightfoot is like, you guys, If you guys 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.640 don't take this statue down, people are gonna fucking like 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.720 burn the Miracle Mile again. And she gets to this 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.160 giant fight of them, and these emails eventually get I 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.000 think I can't remember saying. I think they get released 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.920 part of a court case or something, but these these 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.960 emails come out that it like Lightfoot is yelling that 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.080 she has the biggest balls of anyone on the table. 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.040 She's gonna put her balls at the table because she's 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.280 trying to like keep the cops alive. So she gets 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.280 in this giant fight. It just pisses off all of 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.160 the cops in the city. So she's she she has 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:21.679 pissed off like like from from from from the initial 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.959 wave of protests at the Drawbridge stuff. She has pissed 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.439 off like anyone who's even sort of vaguely centered left 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.600 and anti racist and like a huge proportion of the 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.240 city's black population and then she like systematically she's now 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.280 pissed off like the sort of like white ethnic cop 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.840 groups who are also very powerful, and then she does 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:49.480 something like like really genuinely unforgivable and horrific, which she is. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.480 In twenty twenty one, Chicago police shot thirteen year old 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.679 Adam Toledo. She's so much Chicago paper called the tribe. 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.000 At a press conference after the shooting, Mayor Louis Lightfoot 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.880 out to find the people responsible for quote, putting a 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.760 gun in the hands of Toledo, who Chicago police and 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.960 prosecutors insisted was armed. So, okay, they shoot this kid 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.800 who is fucking thirteen years old. His name is Adam Toledo, 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.920 and immediately the cops of prosecutors and the mayor said 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:19.480 that he's armed. They're going to find the person who 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:21.280 put the gun in his hand. So two and a 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.240 half weeks later, the video comes out and it turns 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.240 out that not only was Adam Toledo not armed, the 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.480 cops shot him while he was while his hands were 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.640 up while complying with their instructions. I think I've seen this, 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.840 buddy cam. Yeah, yeah, it's fucking awful. And then like 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:39.720 two years, two days later they killed another guy, and 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:42.160 there were there was, there was, there was there was 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.080 another round of like huge protests, I mean, and they 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:45.920 weren't as big as twenty twenty one, but like there 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.000 was another round of like really big protests in this 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.160 and Lightfoot was you know, like actively involved in a 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.240 conspiracy to lie about this fucking thirteen year old kid 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.439 who was killed and called blood. And so this pisses 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:03.200 off like this. This this like basically means that her 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.199 support among like the Latino population drops to basically zero 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.880 because she fucking accused a thirteen year old kid of 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.480 being a gang, an armed gang member, and then he 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.839 got fucking after he got shopped by the cops. So well, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:18.839 the other fun thing about this is so our like 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.640 prosecutor Kim Fox is like there's like this whole thing 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.880 about how she's like a progressive prosecutor and like the 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.400 rights trying to unseat her. None of the fucking officers 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.480 involved in this or the other shooting two days later 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.880 were ever charged with anything after they again it shot 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.120 like killed in cold blood a thirteen year old kid 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:40.360 with his hands up. Now, the sort of regular Chicago 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:42.640 right hates her because she's both black, and a lesbian 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.520 and there's some like well, we'll talk about this a 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.240 bit when we gets a Vallis, but there's just genuinely unhinged, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:58.880 horrifying sort of like racism and like homophobia, and like 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.760 she's getting basically like splash damage transphobia from it because 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.079 of how racist these people are. And so but that 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.079 means that like, you know, she has like no support, 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.080 right she she managed to get she like she she 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:13.920 manages to get into a fight with Chicago is like 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.800 normally pretty conservative like Black Caucus and the Black Hawcus 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:19.520 gets so pissed at her, but they forced through a 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.880 police reform bill that has just like oversy committees. She's 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:30.840 just like win. And so you know, like on on 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.079 Forbruary twenty eighth, there's an election and all of the 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.599 sort of like everyone in the city of Chicago is 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:37.439 like she's fucked Like she's a unique She's like a 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.559 uniquely unpopular candidate. Everyone fucking hates her. She has systematically 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.080 pissed off every single possible voting block in the entire 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:49.240 city of Chicago. And she loses, and you know, there's 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.600 this whole sort of media junket that happens her Everyone 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.760 it's like, this is like a referendum on crime in Chicago, 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.120 and it's like, no, no, it's not like everyone just 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.240 hates Lightfoot because she sucks, and she sucks some like 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.760 a unique combination of ways that pisces off everyone who 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.040 can possibly vote in the city. And so she gets 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.559 sixteen percent of the vote, which I think sixteen percent 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.880 of the vote is like the actual sort of like 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.200 top limit cap of the number of people in Chicago 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.080 who Jenny Winely like her. Like, I think it's exactly 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.080 fifteen sixty percent of the city and there's fucking no 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.960 one else. So she comes in third. It's also very 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.760 funny she spends the entire like a bunch of her 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.320 money running campaign ads, like against the guy who comes 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:34.600 in fourth instead of the other two. Yeah, and so 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.200 the man who came in second, who is on the 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:39.960 by the time this episode comes out, the election will 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.160 be fucking tomorrow. Um. The person who came in second 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.840 in that vote is Brandon Johnson, who's the progressive candidate. 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.640 He's backed by like the teachers Union. He's like fine, 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:50.880 he is like as good as you're going to get 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.360 for a mayor. Oh though I will remind people that 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.280 like Johnston is say much better candidate the other fucking 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.240 guy we're gonna talk about. But i we need to 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.720 talk about a little bit about the limits of electoral politics, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.520 and like, you know, I'm I'm just gonna point out 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.800 here if that like Nepal, for example, of routinely elects 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:09.320 Maoist governments and like, do you know, how do you 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.560 know how much Baoism those guys do, Like fucking nun, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.440 there is no Maoism happening, right. There were some cool 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.400 socialist mayors in Spain who led the population of the 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.360 city to expropriate the landowners around the city in the 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:22.360 nineteen thirties. Yeah, but that was in the nineteen thirties, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.080 is about twenty Those are old. Most people's fucking grandchildren 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.600 are like maybe around. But yeah, like you're you're not 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.240 gonna get you know, like we're not going to get 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:34.960 a socialist city off of this. On the other hand, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.720 the person who comes in first, who Brandon Johnson will 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:39.680 be facing tomorrow when you listen to this, is a 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:41.840 demon in human form. He is near your liberal lives 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.160 as a bag man. He is the fucking reactionary republican 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.000 dog of the Chicago political machine, and that Manton's name 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.800 is Paul Vallis, and as as as Vallis would fucking want, 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:53.520 we are going to talk about him after we go 0:15:53.560 --> 0:16:06.280 to ADS. All Right, we're back from ADS. We're here 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:12.680 to talk about Paul Vallis. Just the worst guy. Okay, 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:19.480 So Paul Vallis sucks ass, um. The thing he's most 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.440 famous for sucking ass for is for being the school 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.880 privatization guy. So we're gonna start with him. The beginning 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.240 of a sort of political career is in two thou 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.160 In nineteen ninety five, he gets appointed as the CEO 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.880 of Chicago Public Schools, and he holds that position from 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.960 nineteen ninety five to two thousand and one. Now, okay, 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.640 so there's a few things that he like, really likes. 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:48.320 One is insulating schools entirely, insuletting any mechanism and any 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.600 sort of like part of how a school works from 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.120 any kind of community democratic control. Chicago used to have 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.800 these sort of like democratic councils that could like do 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.720 stuff within the school and violence is like, fuck that, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.560 We're getting rid of all that shit, like absolutely not. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.399 The other thing he loves is charter schools. So we 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.920 should explain what a charter school is. Yeah, so okay, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.800 the way a charter school works is that instead of 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.600 like the state or like the city or a town 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:21.600 or like a local government running a school, which is 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.440 the way that schools normally work, you instead give out 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.600 a charter to either like technically an NGO or just 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.159 a for profit company, and then that company takes a 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:31.879 bunch of tax money, like takes a tax money that 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.359 would have gone to a public school and then uses 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.320 it to run their own fucking school. So bait like 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.440 it is. It is privatization that they've relabeled like charter 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.280 quote unquote because if they actually called it privatization to schools, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.320 people would fucking hate it. And Vallis loves this shit. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.000 This is this is what he spends most of his 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:56.399 time across like on multiple continents doing schools bullshit, like 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.679 attempting to push for the other specific thing that he 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:01.560 really likes this and this this is like this is 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.240 sort of the Paul Vallas signature. Like classic thing is 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.439 military academies. They used to like basically not be military 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.000 academies in Chicago, and Vallas is like, We're gonna open 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.800 so many fucking military academies and these are these are 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.719 like regular and the thing is okay, like there are 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.399 sort of like disciplinary quote unquote military academies, which is 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.199 like you get sent there instead of prison. These are 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.119 like just like normal schools that are like quote unquote 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.160 military academies. But these schools like they're they're barely schools. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:31.560 Like like there there there. There are a lot of 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.600 people who went to these schools who in multiple cities. 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.400 And we'll get into more of this sort of later 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:37.520 when we get to Philly, but like people will go 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.520 to these schools and like their textbooks have pages torn 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:45.720 out of them and like which page Smith? You know, 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:47.879 here's the thing, right, you would think this is like 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.960 like a kind of like Republican style, like uh, we're 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.399 taking out the pages to talk about like Columbus being 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.080 bad Like no, no, no no, no, just random fucking like 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.199 just pages torn out of it because they like these 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.000 schools on any fucking money, Like they don't have actually curriculu. 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.399 There's like they just like don't have sports. They just 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.840 don't have like anything to fucking do. Um. And then 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.239 this is another thing with charter schools. So all right, 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.520 if you want to like be a regular teacher, you 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.639 have to have like teaching teaching certificates, all right, if 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.000 you work at a charter school. Yeah. So I think 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.480 that the standards depend on the state some of them. 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.760 I think Illinois is like two thirds of the teachers 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.199 have to have teaching certificates. But that means that a 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.080 lot of kids are being taught by teachers with no 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:32.639 teaching certificates, which is like, you know that teaching and 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.919 it turns out is not in fact easy enough that 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:36.640 you could just put a random person there who doesn't 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:38.680 know how to do it, and you know, like have 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:43.440 kids be taught correctly. Ademies, these Milter academies, they have 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.720 teachers who just like don't fucking teach right, like they're 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.760 they're they're just a complete shit show. But he opens 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.760 a bunch of these and but okay, and the other 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:56.399 big thing the Vallas is supposed to and this is 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.280 the thing all all the people who like Fallois would 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.359 do this thing where they're like he's like a budget wizard, 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.080 and he's like the guy he's like the technocrat, like 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.000 smart policy want guy who you bring in to like 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.160 like bail out a school district that's underwater financially and 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:16.000 oh boy, oh boy, is that not true? He Okay, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.120 So there there's there's a very good report called Passing 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.800 the Buck, which is written by the Action Center on 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.639 Race in the Economy or ACRE, which I recommend people. Look, genuinely, 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.760 people should go read this. It's like twelve pages long. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.440 It's very short, and like, uh, like it's not even 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.760 twelve like three of those pages dissertations. And they wrote 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.679 a report on Vallis's time in various school districts. And 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.080 here's some of the ship that he did to make 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.360 it look like he had his balanced, his budget balanced. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.760 So all right, let's let's talk about his pension scheme. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.480 I feel like I actually should explain how pensions work, 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.280 because like, nobody fucking has them anymore. So a pension 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.280 is a thing where like you, the worker, or in 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.280 this case the Chicago teachers, you take some of your 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.560 current pay and instead of taking the money now, it 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.800 gets taken out of your paycheck and put towards a 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.639 pension fund to fund your retirement. And then this fund 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.840 is invested in the stock market to get returns to 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.960 pay out pensions that like support you when you retire. Right, Yeah, 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.760