Lou Barletta and Mark Sanford
What does Lou Barletta have in common with disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford? No, unlike Sanford, there is no reason to believe that Mayor Barletta has cheated on his wife. However, they do share something in common: Both are embarrassments to the Republican Party. The difference is that while Mark Sanford’s political career is clearly over (or very close to it), Mayor Lou Barletta is contemplating running for the United States Congress. Again.
This is problematic for the Republican Party (of which I am a member), I think. It seems to me that the reason that the Republicans have had their asses handed to them in recent elections is due in large part to the quality, or lack thereof, of the candidates they are presenting to the American people. Lou Barletta is a prime example of the type of politician that, I think, the Republican Party needs to wash their hands of. I say this for a number of reasons.
For starters, Lou Barletta has accepted campaign money from both convicted drug dealers and dirty politicians. Worse, in the case of the drug dealers (who happen to now be local businessmen in Barletta’s home city of Hazleton), Barletta has defended these scumbags as “decent, hardworking” people. Additionally, Barletta has also built some to ties to known racists and white supremacists. During Barletta’s previous congressional campaign, he was endorsed by David Duke, a self-professed racist and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. And just recently, Barletta and Peter Brimelow (another admitted white supremacist) served as guest speakers at an event hosted by Pat Buchanan, an event whose theme seemed to be, “Republicans need to get back to our white American roots.” Disgusting.
But wait, it gets worse. Barletta, as mayor, has been a disaster. One of Barletta’s first acts as mayor was to cut the Hazleton Police force in half. Barletta then blamed the resulting rise in crime on an “illegal immigrant crime wave”, which was proven to be an outright lie in Federal Court. Barletta also has drilled the city of Hazleton so far into debt that it will probably take a generation for that city to see the light of day. Then there’s the matter of Barletta receiving a “loan” from a Hazleton bank, the type of loan that never needs to be re-paid and never accrues interest. In attempting to explain this embarrassing little incident away, Barletta ended up offering no less than three different stories in the span of eleven days. And on, and on, and on it goes.
All of this is why I think Lou Barletta should be considered political scum and is an embarrassment to not only the Republican Party, but decent Americans in general. If the Republicans insist of holding people like Lou Barletta up as shining examples of what the Republican Party represents, then they had best be prepared to continue to be embarrassed in epic fashion at the polls. Lou Barletta should NOT be elected to the United States Congress. He doesn’t deserve the opportunity and the American people and Republican party can do better.
-Dan Cheek
www.StopLouBarletta.com
StopLouBarletta@gmail.com
UPDATE:
Perhaps there IS reason to believe that Mayor Barletta cheated on his wife. According to The Accountability Moments Blog , Lou Barletta, several years ago, fathered a child with an underage, illegal immigrant. The website even cites an interview conducted with Barletta in which he doesn’t deny the rumor, directly, but kind of talks around the issue. At any rate, I haven’t seen enough evidence (any evidence, really) that would support such allegations, but still, it does make an interesting read.
