Pennsylvania AG Shapiro Has Been A Disaster - Time For Him To Be Failed Up
Josh Shapiro is Pennsylvania’s Attorney-General. By any measure, he has been a catastrophic failure in that job. So, of course, he wants to be promoted. He wants to be Governor.
Shapiro ran for Attorney-General promising to get tough on drugs and deliver Pennsylvania from the scourge of opioids. He is fond of telling everyone that he is the top law enforcement officer in Pennsylvania. He has repeatedly stated that his number one priority is waging war on those providing dangerous drugs to Pennsylvanians.
The drug problem in Pennsylvania has gotten worse every year since Shapiro was elected. It has now reached epidemic proportions.
A recent report from Shapiro’s own office paints a picture of a state being destroyed by the drug trade. It describes the use of opioids as “Pennsylvania’s most critical public health and public safety threat.” The report admits that fentanyl use is out of control and notes that in the first three months of 2022, Pennsylvania seized as much fentanyl as it did in all of 2021. The problem is not just massive. It is getting worse.
“The DEA Philadelphia Field Division noted several indicators of sharp increases in productions and supply of fentanyl within Pennsylvania. They reported the total weight of fentanyl seized and analyzed by DEA in Pennsylvania almost doubled from 2018 to 2020 (>160 kilograms in 2020). In 2021, the total weight of fentanyl seized and analyzed was more than eight (8) times the totals from 2016. Another sign of the increase in supply is the number of individual seizures of fentanyl of five (5) kilograms or more doubled from 2019 to 2021. This point also highlights the willingness of suppliers to send higher quantities together within shipments.”
Pennsylvania is third in the nation for overdose drug deaths, with 5,360 people dying in 2021. The death rate from drug overdoses jumped from 26.2 per 100,000 people in 2015 to 42.4 in 2020.
Last month, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives effectively ran up the white flag and admitted the drug dealers had won. The House passed a bill to legalize the possession and use of fentanyl test strips. These strips let you test the illegal drugs you just bought from your dealer so you can know the quality of the product you purchased. Unable to stop the drug trade, Pennsylvania is now working to ensure that you buy good quality poison to pump into your veins.
The drug epidemic in Pennsylvania is sparing no one. Cities like Philadelphia are filled with virtual zombies destroyed by drugs. But, even smaller cities and rural areas are being hit hard.
None of this should really be surprising. Shapiro may enjoy posturing for the cameras and acting as if he is some experienced law enforcement officer. He is nothing of the sort. He is a Democratic Party hack. His entire career has been dedicated to climbing the ladder within that apparatus.
After college, Shapiro went to D.C. and worked a series of jobs as an aid to a series of Democratic Senators and Congressmen. Then, having kissed the requisite number of rings and curried enough favor he ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
After a stint in the House, Shapiro moved on to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. His primary achievement in that position was raising property taxes. In 2015, Governor Wolf appointed Shapiro to be Chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency in a move designed to position Shapiro to run for Attorney General and allow him to claim some modicum of experience in criminal justice.
Politics was never intended to be the province of professional politicians. Democracy is not a spectator sport. The people are intended to rule, and their representatives are supposed to be people just like them who bring conviction and life experience to the job.
We have drifted a long way from that ideal. Increasingly, the people who run for office are individuals who have no real-life experience and are focused not on results but on advancing their own careers. They seek not to improve the lives of their fellow citizens but to increase their own power and prestige.
Shapiro is the poster child for this phenomenon. His entire life has been about climbing the ladder and serving the Democratic Party. He assumes, like Hillary Clinton, that in exchange he is entitled to be moved up continuously to positions of ever-greater power. A complete lack of performance is irrelevant.
Shapiro has been a disaster as Attorney General. Never mind. Time for him to be failed up. Time for him to be Governor.
"...the people who run for office are individuals who have no real-life experience and are focused not on results..." I disagree. They DO get results - the results their TRUE backers want, which is the destruction of the USA and it's citizens and legal residents... Despite being in tiny Wyoming, such empty people are hard at work here, too.