You can’t uphold the law if you break the law.
I can’t support any potential lawmaker who is a lawbreaker. City Hall is not supposed to be a morgue for laws.
Sanctuary Cities break the law by interfering with the federal government’s ability to identify and perhaps deport those who broke our laws by coming here illegally.
No matter the good intent, so-called supervised injection sites, which are in the pipeline, will break the law by enabling the sale, purchase and use of illegal drugs. (One judge recently ruled that the site itself does not break the law. That ruling is being appealed. The site is used by those breaking drug laws.)
The theory: Addicts who come to the sites will be offered treatment and services. But they can be offered the same thing, right now, by outreach teams on the street.
Let me ask you this: Would you help someone shoot up heroin for the first time? My guess is you answer “no.”
Why would you help someone shoot up for the 50th time?
My solution: Arrest drug addicts and offer them jail or treatment in a facility. They will choose treatment and we have a shot at getting them off drugs.
At the so-called harm reduction sites, allowing them to shoot up, OD and be revived just extends their zombie misery.
On the Sanctuary City issue, we have an incumbent for mayor who did a Three Stooges dance when a judge, in a narrow ruling, said the feds could not deny funds to the city for failure to cooperate. This is despite the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that prohibits municipalities from impeding immigration enforcement.
Flying in the face of simple truth, Jim Kenney says the illegals have done nothing wrong.
Yes, they have, they broke our immigration laws.
Even worse, if they commit a felony — and some have — Kenney will not voluntarily cooperate with ICE to remove them. He puts the safety of Philadelphians at risk out of some misguided notion of social justice. You know about the 5-year-old girl who was raped by a convicted foreign felon that Philadelphia did not turn over to ICE.
ICE enforces laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
Philadelphia — and other Sanctuary Cities — are nullifying laws. I don’t know about you, but I taught my children to obey the law.
Republican mayoral candidate Billy Ciancaglini says he will return Philadelphia to lawful status by ending Sanctuary City status.
Under his watch, there will be no supervised injection sites in any Philadelphia neighborhood.
If you don’t want a city-supervised shooting gallery in your neighborhood, vote for Ciancaglini for mayor. He has his own program for opioid treatment which I covered last week. He has other ideas for government and taxation that are within sane norms.
You get to vote for five candidates for City Council At-Large and this is more important than you think.
Seven candidates are elected — the top five vote-getters (always Democrats) — and the top two minority party vote-getters, traditionally Republican.
This year, however, the Working Families Party is making a strong push to elect two At-Large. If they were replacing Democrats, big whoop.
However, if they knock off the two Republicans, that will give Democrat/progressives a death grip on Council, with no one* left to apply the brakes to whatever costly and harebrained schemes they might invent.
[The * denotes Allan Domb, the only business person on Council and the only one to apply brakes to a “spend first, figure out how to pay for it later” mindset.]
Electing more progressives would not be good for democracy and it will not be good for Philadelphia.
I can’t vote for anyone who supports law-breaking.
I looked through the websites of the Council candidates and found only two who unequivocally oppose Sanctuary Cities and supervised injection sites.
Both are Republicans — Bill Heeney and Matt Wolfe.
I can tell you a bit more about each.
> Heeney has filed a right-to-know request to find out what crimes D.A. Larry Krasner has declined to prosecute. Krasner has been ordered to produce the documents.
> A dog lover, Wolfe pledges to help increase funding for the city’s under-funded animal shelter.
Yeah, I know it’s some kind of heresy in Philadelphia to vote for a Republican even though Philadelphia Republicans would be conservative Democrats anywhere else.
I wish I could recommend a Democrat — any Democrat — but they believe they don’t have to obey any law they don’t like.
That is a recipe for anarchy.
Finally, a voice of reason in the sea of misguided progressive be bold damn the consequences world. Thank you.
Just shared your article on Facebook, along with this comment:
This. What I love about Stu is that he votes the candidates and the issues, not the party, like me. Yellow dog Democrat voting put this city where it is, in the toilet. Voting the issues and candidates instead can save it.
For those not from Philly who don’t know Stu Bykofsky, he is a Democrat, like my parents and grandparents were. The mind frazzling reality in Philly today is that most of the Democrats who are still sane recognize they have to now split the ticket to save our beloved city. I never thought I’d live to see this day.
What if a vote for Wolfe and Heeney cancel out the two present republicans? And two D’s take their place? 16 Democrats..Unless I’m missing something?
Scary! Please help Stu.
The two GOP have not been as strong as I would like in opposition. Too much go along to get along. I like them personally, but this is principle.
I was once a D like my parents but always conservative. I just hope O’Neill, Minority Leader remains here in NE or 17-0!
Everyone I talk to is so outraged at this Progressive wave that has overtaken the City yet they seem to be maintaining their hold on the local government and are getting stronger; what’s wrong???
What’s wrong is the people who feel like us do not turn out to vote.
This biggest problem with elections in this city is most all the people are democrats and the conservative democratic people do not know how to split party tickets. They just automatically vote all democrat because that’s what they have always done. People who don’t agree with extreme liberal/progressive democratic need to look into the all the candidates and select the best for the City even if that means you have to split your ticket and vote for a republican.
Thank you for the endorsement, Stu.
Good luck! This life long democrat voted for you and the other republicans mentioned above, sick of taxes, sick of the crime, sick of DA, etc…
And how did I forget, sick of the mayor too!
This column succinctly says it all. However, I don’t believe that Philadelphians are prepared to abandon one-party rule.
Great article Stu. If you are a hard working, middle class citizen of this city you have no business in voting for any democrat in any election. You will face nothing but increased taxes because you live in a decent neighborhood that you worked your ass off to move to. The public school system is in shambles, the violence throughout the city is downright scary and the quality of life is deteriorating; Neighborhoods that were once a great place to grow up 10-15-20 years ago are now desolate dumps. You will get nothing in return from voting democrat. While Billy is a long shot to win this thing, he will get my vote and if you are tired of pouring your hard earned money into this sinking ship of a city, take 10 minutes out of your day on Tuesday and give the under dog a chance to turn it around. Even if he doesn’t, it can’t be worst than what we have going on now. I think I speak for majority of the middle class when I say we are tired of the BS…Billy4Philly
HAPPY FRIDAY !!!
yo pallie,
Ya hit it out of the park again ! I suppose that time and space did not let you really rip the pols in city hall.
This is an ongoing problem as also mentioned by “SP”. The poor management of Philly is continuously driving out the middle class and the business population. Is there a fix ? Sure. But it’s gonna hurt – big time.
DRAIN THE SWAMP in Philly ! Start this election with Bill C !
Tony
I like your article. I wish that all of the voters would think of this when they go to the polls on the 5th. If they did approximately 90 % of the Democratic candidates would not get any votes. To the voters in Philadelphia I ask you to see what the Democrats have done to our once beautiful city. Sanctuary status, being taxed out the wazoo, trash all over the streets, homeless and drug addicts all over the streets, needles strewn all over. Vote for a positive change in Philadelphia – Vote Republican !
This Democrat, who voted for Kenny, is going to vote straight Republican for 2019. I’m not gonna vote for Trump 2020 but this is a protest vote. Jim Kenny win will, but not because he’s popular. Just because. Let’s make it closer. Make them think about it. If a candidate with no resources and no money can get a lot of votes, it’ll be food for thought. They won’t all be votes because people love Billy. They’ll all be votes against Kenny. Billy for Philly!
Send a message, yes.
I call election day in Philadelphia “The Night of the Living Dead.” The zombie voters will march in gape-mouthed lockstep to the polls to re-elect the same bozos they elected previously — or the new bozos to replace the old bozos who retired to clip coupons. The zombie voters will once again deliver the city over to the plunderers. It ain’t pretty, but it’s Philadelphia.
Stu,
Law Breakers everywhere. On one side you have a party the peddles fear and another that is complacent. Sticking you head in sand doesn’t make the problem go away. Junkies are going to shoot up supervised or not. Treating the drug problem a a crime hasn’t worked, I would prefer they do it in a centralize location then worry about finding needles in parks , sidewalks wherever they choose to get high.
As far as my foreign born neighbors, if they’re not hurting anyone it’s none of my business i don’t need to know their legal status. These are good hard working people. That’s all I need to know.
Having said that, I will be voting Republican tomorrow not because of fear. I just hate complacency
I am glad you will be voting for the law, even though those who break it are not a problem for you.