Councilmembers Kendra Books and Rue Landau
From the Editors: Radicals on City Council want to make Philly into the next Minneapolis. Don’t let them.
After witnessing the month of tumult, chaos, and even death that Minneapolis has endured in their winter of discontent, some of Philadelphia’s leading progressive lights have asked, “why not us?”
Councilmembers Rue Landau, a progressive Democrat, and Kendra Brooks of the socialist Working Families Party have proposed laws that would limit the already minimal cooperation between city officials and ICE officers.
Philadelphia already has a sanctuary city policy enacted by former mayor Jim Kenney — Landau and Brooks would enshrine this in law, to prevent any flexibility or compromise by Mayor Cherelle Parker or other city officials. They would prevent city workers from helping with immigration enforcement, providing data from city files to ICE, or even inquiring about a person’s immigration status.
These are within Council’s power, at least, but they will only inflame tensions between federal and local governments without doing anything to change the fact that federal officials are permitted to enforce federal law. Local governments don’t have to help, but they cannot prevent it. Helping federal officials certainly makes things smoother and less chaotic — handing over criminals who are here illegally is better than having ICE have to find them on their own, through their own sometimes over-the-top means — but our federal system means that states can’t be forced to help, even if it’s a good idea.
Other proposals from the left-wing duo included requiring ICE agents to show their faces and badge numbers, an idea that — whether you agree with it or not — is beyond the power of a city council to impose.
But the actual text of the laws matters less than the message Landau, Brooks, and others on the far-left are sending. That message is, “we want more chaos, more violence, and more of everything that most normal citizens of Minneapolis wish wasn’t happening there” — because no city ordinance is going to make the federal government give up on enforcing federal law — nor should it. Local authorities have tried to nullify federal laws almost from the moment this country was born, in different times and for different reasons. They never succeed.
Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a 19th-century Russian socialist, wrote that the Tsar’s abuses and overreactions were ultimately good, because they pushed more people who would not ordinarily sympathize with communists to begin doing so. Vladimir Lenin adopted this idea — pithy summarized as “the worse, the better” — and it continues to animate extremists and radicals of various stripes to this day.
It is the kind of reaction that separates people who want to fix the system and those who want to tear it all down.
There are responsible people in city government who, while they disagree with the Trump administration and sympathize with illegal immigrants, do not want blood in the streets of our cities. And there are others who want that blood, as long as it ratchets up the tension and brings us closer to collapse. Things are starting — hopefully — to cool down in Minneapolis. Philadelphia’s city council should not try to heat them up here.
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets an eye knocked out. Cut off all federal funding to sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with constitutional federal law, send in ICE to do the job we voted for, and follow it up with National Guard when protests get violent. If Krasner and Bilal interfere, lock them up. This isn’t fascism. This is Law and Order. Oh – and take a look at the education, health and welfare spending records and voter rolls while you’re at it.
Who, Why, (and will there be “When” in Philadelphia?)
We saw this playbook during Covid…
WHO: Elites and oligarchs are funding these politicians and militant radicals that just a few short years ago were clamoring for you to be put in camps and have your children taken from you for refusing an experimental so-called “vaccine.”
WHY: They are constantly pushing to create an environment of chaos to make it easier to tear away established rights of We The People (e.g. Patriot Act 2001), and enact more government controls (e.g. CISA, digital programable money, proposed vaccine passports, etc.) because the ultimate goal is to constrain tax paying citizens’ resistance to policy of privatizing their oligarch wins while socializing their losses (e.g. Bank bailouts in 2023 that stopped the regional bank avalanche, Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, Trump Admin’s Big Beautiful Bill, etc.)
Trump Admin temporarily stopped 10mm+ border invasion. But his Admin is not kicking those people out en masse, at all. In fact, Trump and Vance are trying to expand H1B1 for manual jobs quoting the lies of Ford’s CEO. The Trump Administration is doing exactly what Kamala Harris Administration would have done (except secure Panama canal) via following: Epstein clients protected, more Gov debt, more surveillance, more globalist policies, etc.
The Dems and Republicans give us different QBs but are playing for same Oligarch Team. We saw less riots during 2021-2024. But Dems are hard at work trying to trick confused US tax paying citizens this is about Orange Man Bad. They are actively planning a massive protest in Minnesota for March 28, 2026 organized by Ezra Levin.
Who locally can do some investigative reporting and start putting actual names to these elites and oligarchs? Here’s a start: (e.g. Minnesota Twins Pohlad family, or say various Lurie families – both Philadelphia Eagles, Jeffrey Lurie or the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune (via Daniel Lurie, current Mayor of San Francisco, and his family, including mother Miriam “Mimi” Haas) [Now those Lurie families are different and distinct families, but pointing out there are dozens of these families in every major city] These elites and oligarchs use organizations (e.g. Pohlad Family Foundation, or Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, or Lurie Family Foundation) to send their money to certain groups (e.g. Partners for Justice, or Everytown for Gun Safety, etc,) because they promote “acceptable” and polite mainstream progressive causes (e.g., social justice, gun restriction advocacy, reproductive rights) but THEN very often those groups go on to fund other groups (e.g. Unidos MN (immigrant advocacy, providing “know your rights” trainings and rapid response) which get out the radicals and provocateurs to hopefully create chaos. Elites and oligarchs are funding it all. Wells Fargo doesn’t think for itself. The human beings running Wells Fargo are the ones that decided to give $25mm+ to groups that then fund other groups. So where is the list of these elites and oligarchs? They try to hide. What are the names of those human beings? Let’s drag them into the sunshine.
How about you start with the Philadelphia based provocateurs and work backwards and see which elites are funding them, and give us a heads up on the days and times they are planning chaos for Philadelphia? Who are the specific people funding the groups that go onto fund: Juntos (vamosjuntos.org), New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia (NSM) (sanctuaryphiladelphia.org), Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PIC) (paimmigrant.org), ACLU of Pennsylvania, HIAS Pennsylvania, etc.? Then let’s start asking those specific humans hard questions about who, and what they are funding. Violence is never the answer but we can vote with our checkbooks.
Why was I the only Republican who spoke out against these proposed laws at yesterday’s city council meeting? Channel 10 actually filmed a bit of what I had to say, but it didn’t help that I was the only one in the room fighting this insanity… even though I asked Philly GOP ward leaders and my own members of PhillysRep dot NET to attend, no one did. In fact, for the past few years I’ve been the only Republican regularly speaking at these meetings. I look like very lonely lone wolf. It’s a pathetic situation. But, Democracy doesn’t defend itself. We need many more people to stand up and be counted! What about you?
Lynn Landes,
The Republican Party is almost completely dead in the Greater Philadelphia area. Most people that lean towards Republican presume there are competent leaders, structure, and volunteers. Registered Republicans aren’t voting; because most of them are busy trying to just live their lives and their time and attention is pulled elsewhere. In our suburban township of 50,000+ in DelCo, the GOP leadership is completely dysfunctional and there are less than 20 people loosely trying to get it turned around. The average age of volunteers in our Township seems to be 65+. We are working on trying to engage younger families with family gatherings. It is in the nascent stages. This way the adults that want to gather and talk politics can meet together without there being resistance internally from their immediate family, and at those gatherings their other family members (spouses and children) can focus on the adjacent activities (bowling league, kick ball at a park, barbeque, etc.) We need to rebuild the GOP and it has to be family oriented. It will help spouses and children understand they are part of the silent majority. 85% of all US taxpaying citizens want the same things. We are going to stand up to the elites and refuse this color guard they are attempting.
Thanks for your reply! Very true what you said. What would also be great is for the national GOP to conduct a general and massive national campaign to recruit Republican candidates, committee people, and volunteers. We all get lots of campaign literature from national promoting specific “candidates”, but what we need is a huge “organizational” push. With or without national’s support, we all need to do much more with Instagram, TicToc, etc.. I know I’m having to force myself to learn this technology (at 73), because that’s where the action is.
Since Philadelphia lost Joe DeFelice amd a few other young energetic people (Terry Tracy as well) to roles outside the party, it has failed to stand on its own amd replace new emerging individuals. How do you approach a 30 yr old and tell them they should be active when they could lose their job and put their professional future to a halt. We used to have Republicans in the SE legislature, but moderates were run out. There isnt a place for support to recruit easily, but the party needs to get organized, come up with an action plan and then ask for assistance from national/state party.
Dung Mastriano, You won’t even use your actual name. Thus, your opinion on the matter is mute. Go jump in a lake.
That is truly insightful. The person’s name carries so much weight to a point that you can disregard it completely. Amazing. You sound very smart. All this time I haven’t given a crap what your name is and I still considered yours.