5 ms·

Hah! Yeah, right. Money corrupts more than you think. Just look at Ricky Hendon, for example. He contracts his "services" to mayoral candidates and charges a

by bpchaps 11y ago

Hah! Yeah, right. Money corrupts more than you think. Just look at Ricky Hendon, for example. He contracts his "services" to mayoral candidates and charges a heavy, heavy penny. Hell, there's a conversation on facebook where he talks to Dock Walls and Willy Wilson in the same post about how he worked at getting Amara Enyia kicked out of the election. He did this after Enyia's team kicked him out of their offices because of his incredibly shady practices and stopped paying him. The inside folk I talked to at the time all agreed - he's a scumbag, ex Senator who should've been sent to jail for corruption charges. So, because of his selfish, monetary reasons, Chicago's candidate pool completely thinned. You can make the argument, "Yeah, that's just one person.", sure. But that one person fucked Chicago's election. Later on in that election, Bob Fioretti, who used Amara's campaign manager, dropped out of the race and gave his public support to Rahm - Because he received 50k to do so. Even though throughout that entire election, he was a hugely public critic of Rahm. If anyone thinks that money doesn't corrupt, or that it doesn't have strong negative influence, they're a god damn naive fool. "It never does", my ass.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
I'm taking the skeptical line. There's an old saw - "the plural of anecdote is not data." Those are extremely good examples but in the larger picture, the effects aren't nearly measurable. This could be nothing more than a lack of reporting. But social scientists have never been able to thoroughly prove that money matters in significant ways. And I never said "it never does." That'd be foolish. My point is more subtle - we don't much know. Actual stories of corruption are rare enough to be noteworthy.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  I'm not sure why you wouldn't consider this noteworthy. No, the effects aren't directly measurable. But why does this necessarily need to be an academic persuit? Trust me, I completely understand why purity of information/data/research is needed, but there's a certain point where "Yep, this signed document shows they're gaming the system for money" is all that should be enough. My "anecdata" is a clear example where money and collusion directly affects the lives of 2.6 million people. When four out of five candidates are swayed by money - directly or indirectly - in a way that effects that many people, it's significant!! Yes, thinning the candidate pool is god damn significant. Mind you, this isn't something that I saw or heard in the news. This was told to me out of the horse's mouth while sitting in Fioretti's office with his campaign manager and Amara's old campaign manager. This meeting was done about a week after two of my FOIA requests proved exactly what Hendon said over Facebook. Want to know why you don't see anything about this in the media? They never report it since they're dumbfoundedly not interested in any of it. Chicago's newspapers are the most disinterest group of asshats I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. Of course you're not going to hear anything from them. I know you love anecdata, but I'm going to give you an example of more, anyway. After the Chicago Tribune published an article that made national news on how they were simply suing the mayor for his mail/texting records, I called them and said I was suing for mayor's phone records. The journalist who wrote the article had zero care for his own article and basically said, "I'm just doing my job" and sent me to the person who did the research. I never heard a single thing from him. If these guys are supposed to be renowned journalists and this is the shit we get, of course you're not going to get anything that's researchable. Use your bayesian reasoning skills instead of naively throwing away "anecdata". Christ.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    I do consider it noteworthy. I hadn't heard it, and I appreciate the info very much. It is utterly shocking. I apologize; I didn't mean to come off as dismissive. And rereading, I did. It kind of didn't sink in properly. And the "meh" you've run into ( dude, you filed FOIAs - holy schnikies! ) is also rather appalling. Including mine. These guys are doing this out in the open? Damn. You'd think they'd be open for predation after something like that.
    - bpchaps 11y ago
      Yep! Check this out. I'm not the owner of the site, but it's pretty indicative of the situation in Chicago and blows my mind away. I didn't see any news from this, either. http://thamovement1.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-willie-wilson-financing-dock-walls.html http://thamovement1.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-willie-wilson-fi... FOIA's pretty interesting. You should seriously use it to look into things that interest you. I've learned more from it than any newspaper, magazine or website, and that's considering I'm not even trying to be involved that much. If you want to see what kind of things you can do with it, check these out: The city's legally obligated to fulfill [0] after a phone call tomorrow where they're going to try to simmer down the request.. They forgot to respond initially, so they're no longer allowed to use "unduly burdensome" as a rejection reason. [0] "Please provide any and all information, log files, log backups, documentation, code, reports and data that used for or by the City of Chicago, third parties, or any affiliates for the the use or analysis of CANVAS, its logs, log files, documentation, code, log backups, and all data since Jan 1, 2009 (excluding the data from my previous request)." The FOIA officer I'm working with is pretty great, too: "Great. (And I can neither confirm nor deny whether I’ll be filtering the “editorializing” from the people who were helping me understand your request.)" Another example which resulted in a disk with 18m parking ticket records: https://github.com/red-bin/chitickets https://github.com/red-bin/chitickets (And sorry if I sounded too aggressive there. Grumpy day, I guess D:!)
      - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
        No, perfectly fine - I had that coming completely. I'm glad you got me to reread things.

by bpchaps 11y ago

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

I'm taking the skeptical line. There's an old saw - "the plural of anecdote is not data." Those are extremely good examples but in the larger picture, the effects aren't nearly measurable. This could be nothing more than a lack of reporting. But social scientists have never been able to thoroughly prove that money matters in significant ways. And I never said "it never does." That'd be foolish. My point is more subtle - we don't much know. Actual stories of corruption are rare enough to be noteworthy.

bpchaps 11y ago
I'm not sure why you wouldn't consider this noteworthy. No, the effects aren't directly measurable. But why does this necessarily need to be an academic persuit? Trust me, I completely understand why purity of information/data/research is needed, but there's a certain point where "Yep, this signed document shows they're gaming the system for money" is all that should be enough. My "anecdata" is a clear example where money and collusion directly affects the lives of 2.6 million people. When four out of five candidates are swayed by money - directly or indirectly - in a way that effects that many people, it's significant!! Yes, thinning the candidate pool is god damn significant. Mind you, this isn't something that I saw or heard in the news. This was told to me out of the horse's mouth while sitting in Fioretti's office with his campaign manager and Amara's old campaign manager. This meeting was done about a week after two of my FOIA requests proved exactly what Hendon said over Facebook. Want to know why you don't see anything about this in the media? They never report it since they're dumbfoundedly not interested in any of it. Chicago's newspapers are the most disinterest group of asshats I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. Of course you're not going to hear anything from them. I know you love anecdata, but I'm going to give you an example of more, anyway. After the Chicago Tribune published an article that made national news on how they were simply suing the mayor for his mail/texting records, I called them and said I was suing for mayor's phone records. The journalist who wrote the article had zero care for his own article and basically said, "I'm just doing my job" and sent me to the person who did the research. I never heard a single thing from him. If these guys are supposed to be renowned journalists and this is the shit we get, of course you're not going to get anything that's researchable. Use your bayesian reasoning skills instead of naively throwing away "anecdata". Christ.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  I do consider it noteworthy. I hadn't heard it, and I appreciate the info very much. It is utterly shocking. I apologize; I didn't mean to come off as dismissive. And rereading, I did. It kind of didn't sink in properly. And the "meh" you've run into ( dude, you filed FOIAs - holy schnikies! ) is also rather appalling. Including mine. These guys are doing this out in the open? Damn. You'd think they'd be open for predation after something like that.
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    Yep! Check this out. I'm not the owner of the site, but it's pretty indicative of the situation in Chicago and blows my mind away. I didn't see any news from this, either. http://thamovement1.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-willie-wilson-financing-dock-walls.html http://thamovement1.blogspot.com/2015/02/is-willie-wilson-fi... FOIA's pretty interesting. You should seriously use it to look into things that interest you. I've learned more from it than any newspaper, magazine or website, and that's considering I'm not even trying to be involved that much. If you want to see what kind of things you can do with it, check these out: The city's legally obligated to fulfill [0] after a phone call tomorrow where they're going to try to simmer down the request.. They forgot to respond initially, so they're no longer allowed to use "unduly burdensome" as a rejection reason. [0] "Please provide any and all information, log files, log backups, documentation, code, reports and data that used for or by the City of Chicago, third parties, or any affiliates for the the use or analysis of CANVAS, its logs, log files, documentation, code, log backups, and all data since Jan 1, 2009 (excluding the data from my previous request)." The FOIA officer I'm working with is pretty great, too: "Great. (And I can neither confirm nor deny whether I’ll be filtering the “editorializing” from the people who were helping me understand your request.)" Another example which resulted in a disk with 18m parking ticket records: https://github.com/red-bin/chitickets https://github.com/red-bin/chitickets (And sorry if I sounded too aggressive there. Grumpy day, I guess D:!)
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      No, perfectly fine - I had that coming completely. I'm glad you got me to reread things.