We got a kick recently from Claude, one of the new artificial intelligence applications. Here’s what it said when asked about our articles:
I have a strong feel for the Wirepoints voice. It’s data-heavy, blunt, contemptuous of political spin, uses short punchy sentences mixed with long data-driven paragraphs, references specific numbers constantly, treats Illinois politicians and cheerleaders with barely-concealed disdain, and frames everything as ordinary Illinoisans being failed by a corrupt or incompetent political class.
We’ll take that. Thanks, Claude.
I’d also like to set the record straight on a whopper occasionally told about Ted Dabrowski, our former President. Ted, you’ll remember, stepped away from Wirepoints last fall with our wholehearted support as he pursued bigger dreams.
In truth, Wirepoints took off when he joined us in 2017. We had huge fundraising years around 2020 and 2021, thanks mostly to Ted, and set goals for our expansion. We budgeted to spend down those funds over the following years, which we did. There were no “losses,” as some have claimed. Our contributors have always appreciated how much bang for the buck we deliver.
Who would say otherwise about Wirepoints in general and Ted’s leadership in specific? It apparently started with the Democratic Party of Illinois, which posted this when Ted resigned in September:
Shame on them.
And they undoubtedly know: Wirepoints and Ted have never attacked Illinois. It’s our government that we’ve criticized, because that’s all that’s wrong with Illinois. It’s insulting to equate the state with its government.
We’re at work on new alliances that will help us expand, as I’ve mentioned earlier. We’ll have news on that to share with you soon. In the meantime, thank you to all who’ve continued to support and encourage us.
-Mark Glennon
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
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Voted for Ted early in the primary and will do so again in the general election. I’m impressed with Wirepoints position on a variety of issues, educational and financial. I’m also immune to the lies of Democrat politicians..
So you’ll do a write in vote for the general election?
I reached out to the few people I still know in Illinois and urged them to vote for Ted. Also told them to go to TedforIllinois website. Pritzker and Johnson know zero about crime prevention and won’t work with law enforcement. My family and friends and I have experienced crime firsthand in Chicago (who hasn’t?). The Safe-T act, the Clean Slate Act etc. ensures the lawlessness will continue. (By the way, is there a clean slate for crime victims who have nightmares about being assaulted, robbed, or shot at?) Didn’t think it was possible but Pritzker and Johnson have made… Read more »
Same. I refuse to set foot in Chicago after reading Mark and Ted’s commentary on the place.
I am very sad. I wanted Ted to win.
What a weird post. I can’t tell if this laying the groundwork for Ted’s graceful concession, or if you two had a fight and this is some kind of public act of contrition.
I read it as an indirect comment on the recent news about Ted boycotting the Unity Breakfast.
There’s a lie going around that Ted won’t support the Republican candidate if it is not him. He has said openly that he will.
It is silly season, and Ted is best advised to avoid the silliness, because there’s a lot of noise out there. But those perpetuating that lie have forfeited any moral high ground.
What’s to concede? Latest polling I heard on the radio has Ted up by 50+ points over the rest of the field. This is gonna be a great and well-deserved victory for Ted. The first of many.
Go Ted! And the whole Wirepoints team!
“It’s insulting to equate the state with its government”
is it really though? voters are the one’s who elect the people who run the government and what else is a state but the sum of it’s population? the real problem is that there is no accountability so politicians promise whatever it takes to get elected and once in office do whatever they want regardless. the fact that corporations and ultra weathly essentially run state & federal governments is the true crime.
You say, “corporations and ultra wealthily essentially run state & federal governments is the true crime.” How can you say that when far left progressives control virtually all of IL government? Here’s what I demand an answer to: I say that every policy position we have advocated for here at Wirepoints has majority support (or real close to it), an often by huge majorities. The reasons why that hasn’t showed up in elections are complex, but don’t tell me that Illinoisans support the agenda of the far left in power.
“Here’s what I demand an answer to: I say that every policy position we have advocated for here at Wirepoints has majority support (or real close to it), an often by huge majorities. The reasons why that hasn’t showed up in elections are complex, but don’t tell me that Illinoisans support the agenda of the far left in power.” It’s actually not that complex Mark. While SOME of the policies you point to may have majority support, Illinois voters clearly don’t want some of the policies supported by many republicans in this state. Republicans stance on abortion is a no… Read more »
I totally agree 100%%%. Illinois requires moderate conservatives to run to win the state. I remember, like it was yesterday, how socially liberally (and former Mass. gov) Mitt Romney won Illinois, and walloped hardcore progressive Obama 57-40. And I also remember when RINO McCain in 2008 got 61% of the vote compared to Obama’s 36% of the vote. Oops, sorry, I got that backwards there. The moderate Republicans got their a**es handed to them them Illinois. It was Trump — the MAGA Republican — who received the highest Republican %age of the vote in a Illinois presidential election in decades… Read more »
Moderate Republicans that are pro choice or close have won statewide. Republicans that take a hard line stance against abortion haven’t. If it makes you feel better go ahead and tout how Trump got you a higher percentage vote but still can’t win. Yes, Trump energized the base but at the same time he energized the opposition to show up to vote as well. Trump lost to Biden by 1.025 million votes. Romney lost to Obama by 885K votes. But hey, the percentage was smaller so that’s something to hang our hat on. Then he only lost by 600k votes… Read more »
“voters are the one’s who elect the people who run the government and what else is a state but the sum of it’s population?” Completely true. Then your next sentence. “the real problem is that there is no accountability so politicians promise whatever it takes to get elected and once in office do whatever they want regardless. the fact that corporations and ultra weathly essentially run state & federal governments is the true crime.” You correctly state that the sum of the voters make up the state. Then in the very next sentence you assign blame to politicians instead of… Read more »
You describe some real losers there, and most certainly no statesman. Democrat pablum isn’t leadership.
Casted our ballots for Ted today.
Keep up the great work at Wirepoints and don’t worry about the haters.
I know that Ted and Mark have the means to escape Illinois if they so desired (as so many have), but they choose not to. They have made the decision to stay and fight for the state. It’s the reason Wirepoints exists. As a long time Wirepoints reader, I can’t ever recall them attacking ordinary citizens, only pointing out the corruption and cover up that exists in Illinois. The people know that Illinois is in a death spiral, the ruling class is only in it for selfish gain, and WP is the absolute best at exposing why and how – that’s… Read more »
All true but I have to ask — in what world do Ted (Citibank executive) and Mark (venture capitalist) not themselves qualify as members of the ruling class?
What a great question, since you might think so. But the real answer: Certainly not in Illinois. Think about the list of policies for which we have advocated. They all have popular support, but the true ruling class here rejects all of them.
You and Ted might not be the tippy-top of the ladder, but that doesn’t mean you two aren’t sitting pretty darn close to it. Most Illinoisians would kill to be as oppressed as you guys believe you are.
Go back to Reddit
The conservative forum on Reddit is a generally excellent source of news and discussion though.
To be a member of the ruling class you have to actually have the power to make rules. In Illinois the true members of the ruling class belong to public unions.
Venture capitalists and Banking execs are responsible for handling with care the money of private investors. They’re paid well when they do well. Politicians tax. They reward their friends and hold their positions by scaring the voters into voting against the candidates of change.
Five votes here in my family for Ted, although we feel as though that’s fighting a forest fire of Democrat corruption, public union deceit, and election rigging with a garden hose.
I don’t get it. The election’s not for another eight months. Not to tell you how to run this place but shouldn’t you be focused on Ted’s campaign?
“…a historically weak GOP field for Governor.” I guess the Demoncrats mean that there are no Combine people running. Meanwhile all the Demoncrat office seekers are atrocious!
Correction: Instead of having to think up some BS, they have a robot
think“think” up some BS for them.AI helps people avoid thinking. Instead of having to think up some BS, they have a robot think up some BS for them.
Please use Grok for objective AI analysis.
At least, compare and contrast Grok to startling leftist bias of popular AI platforms. Ask identical questions to all four and look at the political bias evident.
I work with a lot of AI tools and would not recommend using Grok for anything more serious than creating a cartoon of JB eating a cheeseburger.
Claude is my current favorite, though they are all improving rapidly. It’s essential, however, to double check them. Sometimes they are completely wrong in the meaning they take from sources cited. Susan’s suggestion is a good one — put the same question into several of them. And reverse your question to test what you think — ask it for an argument against what you are thinking.
I’m a big fan of Anthropic (owner of Claude) and look on with curiosity how OpenAI (owner of ChatGPT) and Anthropic will influence the future of AI with their chatbots and their coding languages. The future of software development and, the tech universe in general, will be greatly changed within the next 5 years,
Did you ask ChatGPT bout Wirepoint’s articles and, if so, what did it say?
ChatGPT spews woke nonsense written by America-hating hipsters. No thank you.
Agree Grok can be the best with data but can be argumentative if you tell it is wrong or question its assumptions. I try to remember AI is garbage in and garbage out. There are likely automated posts dumping into AI to say orange men and republican anything is evil. Chatgpt will even admit it is biased when you call it out and will rewrite its response from different sources to change its tone. It says it gets alot of its info from the NYT. Yikes. So imagine how much garbage is out there!
The largest AI source is Reddit. I’m not kidding. 90% of the time the answer to any question you ask comes directly or is indirectly sourced from some Reddit post. Keep in mind that post probably isn’t even correct, it could be bad advice. But AI treats it all as the truth. So much of the internet is walled garden, like facebook, instagram, tik-tok, that AI can’t access those places, so it’s forced to treat Reddit as the source of all truth.
Always appreciated the data driven approach; politicians lie but numbers don’t. I learned how to read CAFR’s and bond offerings which is why I moved. The numbers are staggeringly bad. The long term debt for Chicago thanks to kicking the can down the road is mind numbing. It’s not all due at once, but it’s all due. For the uninitiated look up the definition of cash accounting vs accrual accounting and you’ll see how the state “balances the budget.”
What do you expect from a Soviet-style party that despises free speech, and has repeatedly tried to silence any dissent.
are you seriously suggesting that trump and the GOP are not equally guilty of these tactics if no more so?
I dunno, maybe you guys mean well but I never got the feeling you liked this place all that much. You can say you are only going after the Dems or the governor or whatever, but I don’t know how many times either you or Ted spotlighted some story about “look what this rotten/insane Illinois resident did, how typical,” either here or on social media. Which is fine, but no need to pretend.
Just my opinion, but I can’t recall Wirepoints throwing the baby out with the bath water. If anything, they continue to stress what is positive about IL ( and its people ) while citing the states unrealized potential.
unless there’s a post I missed about how much Mark loves Starved Rock, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that this website sees any “unrealized potential.” Just lots of sometimes understandable but usually half-baked Texas envy.
You gotta be kidding. We’ve written endlessly about the state’s legacy and natural assets, and why it should be an economic powerhouse and not a drag on the national economy.
And a lot of good it has done. Wire Points speaks up against excessive spending and taxation, but nothing but higher spending and higher taxes have been the result. Fade whatever wire points prints as that is what will happen.
For starters, without voices like ours, you’d have a progressive state income tax, a progressive transfer tax in Chicago and nobody would know about our failing schools. And if you think we serve no purpose, I am not sure why you are here all the time.
I Do not think you serve no purpose. I think the state does not care about what you or I say or just about anyone else says. And the proof of the pudding is what actually happens. As far as the other taxes, who knows for sure if Wire Points had any effect on them. The poor school systems are all over the state and it is not a secret. Keep up all the effort, but I see it as pissing in the wind as long as the public sector unions run the city and the state.
This website has been live for 8 years. In that time, the IL GOP has gone from sad to irrelevant. If Ted and Mark can’t save us, who can?
Penske, U-Haul for starters.
Downstate needs to cheat better than Cook & DuPage counties. The law allows ballots to be counted up to two weeks after an election with no judicial oversight. The state passed a law specifically to prevent this after the DuPage County clerk was caught cheating by not matching signatures. Democrats don’t think Republicans have enough testicular fortitude to actually do it.