* Three of the Republican gubernatorial candidates debated on Fox 32 last night. At the 39:39 mark…

Q: You will likely be working with majority Democrats who don’t want to get rid of these sanctuary protections. How do you bring some of them over to your side?

Ted Dabrowski: Well, listen, I think on day one we stop what’s going on here. We need an emergency order. We got the direction of how to do it from Governor Pritzker. He had an emergency order. Emergency Order for three and a half years during COVID.

We’re going to do the same thing for crime and for illegal immigrant crimes. We’re going to work. We’re going to work to get rid of the SAFE-T Act. We’re going to work to get rid of the sanctuary state, and we’re going to for safety. We get all 102, sorry, should say 100 state’s attorneys from all the counties. Get them all together. We’re going to attack the CDL issue, where we’re handing out the licenses to, we have huge problems. Let’s unite everybody who wants to take on the legislature, and we do it because..

Q: That’s executive action.

Dabrowski: Executive action. We’re going to do it. We’re going to fight like crazy, because the people deserve it in Illinois.

The governor’s emergency orders were upheld by the courts time and time again because of longstanding state public health laws and solid judicial precedent. I don’t think there are provisions in statute or in the Constitution to declare the sort of emergencies described by Dabrowski above.

* Meanwhile, DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick snapped at Dabrowski for interrupting him. Click here.

* Rick Heidner brought up Wirepoints’ shaky finances during the debate…

My business, I was up 19 percent just in January from a year ago, one of my businesses. All right, you know, Ted wants to talk about business. I looked up his Wirepoints, and you know, he’s is 74% down in business since 2020 and 57%, his expenses are higher.

More on that here.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* We already talked about how Heidner basically admitted he contributed $25,000 to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign fund to get access to the mayor about some business matters. He also gave money to Speaker Madigan and Kim Foxx. Paris Schutz pressed him on it. His response…

Well, I’m a businessman in Illinois. I’ve been a businessman in Illinois for almost 50 years. And, you know, I work with both sides of the aisle. I always have, you know, you talk about Brandon Johnson, you know, I gave $100,000 to Paul Vallas, and you know, Paul didn’t win. And then someone reached out to me, a very good friend, and said, ‘Rick, you know, I’m trying to help him retire his debt. Would you be interested?’ It was a difficult decision for me to make, but my good friend asked me if I would help. So I did. And, you know, I went to a function where he was at and and I did have things that I wanted to talk to him about Chicago. I’ve got about 30 buildings in Chicago. I obviously would like to bring gaming to Chicago, which now, obviously it’s finally come in. Worked on that for 12 years. But, you know, I’ve always worked with both sides. I’ll always be able to work with both sides.

I’m very well respected by the Democrats and very well respected by the Republicans. And I think it’s a huge asset, you know, by other people here who think that if you ever work with a Democrat, well, good luck being the governor and not working with Democrats. So, you know, they have the majority, and I’m going to have an open door policy, and they can’t wait to come in and talk to me, to be honest with you, and there was, I’ve talked to many of them since I’ve gone to run, and they’ve actually called me and thanked me for running.

Ted…

Dabrowski: Let me be clear, a Republican candidate, a conservative Republican candidate, can’t be giving money to Brandon Johnson and Kim Foxx, right? These are people who hate police. They’re decarcerationist. You can’t imagine somebody giving to them. So that’s that’s a big deal.

And then the gaming industry is also very tough industry too, right? It preys on the on the working class. You don’t see gaming halls in in Glencoe and Winnetka, you see them in a lot of poor places. So we have to really talk about the gaming industry.

Heidner: Well, let’s talk about it. It’s legal. Okay? I got in it, I was in the amusement business since 1970…

Dabrowski: It’s legal, but maybe we should have a referendum on it, though. Maybe we should take it to the people, because it’s it’s a tough issue.

Heidner: Then go ahead and do that, and you can lose another billion dollars a year for this state.

* Heidner also told a story about what happened after he was accused of having mob ties (which were never proved) and his racino project was yanked by the state….

If you want to talk about gangsters sometimes, we could talk about what bankers can do to you. I mean, look what just happened to President Trump. Just didn’t one of the banks just come out and say, ‘Yeah, we did this to you because of politics?’ I mean, I know what happened to me when I was attacked, falsely attacked. Completely vindicated. My banks canceled my loans. My bank canceled my loan for for Gold Rush. $140 million loan. Called it. I went from 3% to 13 and a half percent, 13 and a quarter percent. My credit cards got canceled. You know, I had Eric Trump at my house for a fundraiser, and, you know, I told him the whole story, and had my family in the library, and we spent 35-40 minutes there. And when we were done with the whole function, before he left, he looked at me and he said, ‘Rick, sue everybody. Sue everybody.’

* I’m pretty sure that Darren Bailey won that debate by not showing up. How do I know? Check out this (partially redacted) since-deleted tweet from the pointy wires founder last night…

Flop sweat.