StopLouBarletta.com

The Scranton Times is reporting that Mayor Lou Barletta will officially enter the race for Congress, making a third consecutive attempt at representing PA’s 11th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.  Yesterday, Barletta made a post on his Facebook page saying that he would announce decision on whether to run or not by 10am today on his website.  Mayor Barletta has run for this same position twice before and both times has lost to the same opponent, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D).  Now that Lou Barletta is officially a candidate in this race, I would like to once again express my official opposition to his candidacy.

My views and opinions on Mayor Barletta are well documented on this website, which I established nearly two years ago to voice opposition to his second run for Congress.  As I’ve stated time and again, I do not feel that Lou Barletta is qualified to represent either the Republican Party (of which I am a member) or the constituents of the 11th Congressional District (of which I am also a member).  As mayor of Hazleton, Barletta has a long history of making things worse for the people whom he is supposed to represent.  In my mind, having someone who is so incompetent as a leader and an elected official voted into higher office would be a huge, costly mistake.

Allow me to now point out some of my more exact problems with Mayor Barletta…

• He has accepted campaign money from convicted drug dealers, refused to give it back, and then defended those convicted drug dealers as “hard working citizens.”
• He has been endorsed by David Duke, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan leadership.
• As mayor of Hazleton, one of Barletta’s first acts was to slash the police force in half.  Barletta then blamed the resulting spike in crime on an “illegal immigrant crime wave.”
• Barletta worked to pass one of the most extremist pieces of legislation in the country into law in Hazleton.  The law, which drew wide-spread opposition from all quarters, was deemed Unconstitutional by a US Federal Judge.
• Barletta illegally used Hazleton Pension Fund money, resulting in a massive financial problem for the city (one that might result in the city going bankrupt).
• Without proper authorization from Hazleton City Council, Barletta wracked up millions of dollars in city debt trying to defend his Illegal Immigration Relief Act in Federal Court.  After a court ruled that the city, and not its insurance company, is liable for that debt, Hazleton is on the verge of bankruptcy.
• Barletta’s most recent budget for the city of Hazleton is chock full of huge tax hikes, city layoffs, and cuts in city financed programs.  Worse, despite not receiving funding for this budget, Barletta is still pushing forward with it.
• As a political candidate, Barletta has proven inept at fundraising and has wracked up massive personal debt.  If he can’t properly finance his own campaign, how can we expect him to drive money into his district as a Congressman?

This is the type of “leadership” that Mayor Barletta is attempting to bring to the United States Congress.  As a Republican, the thought of Lou Barletta representing my party sickens me.  As a constituent in the district he is seeking to represent, I am horrified.  Barletta has run an entire city into the ground, doing his damnedest to keep the city buried under a mountain of debt, forcing businesses out of the city, and creating an atmosphere of hate and fear all through the city.  Simply put, Lou Barletta is probably the worst thing that can happen to the 11th Congressional District.

Mayor Barletta likes to fashion himself as a bold, charismatic leader who bravely fights hordes of illegal immigrants.  That is an illusion.  A closer look at Lou Barletta shows a man who is a bumbling fool and who tries to blame ethnic minorities for his mistakes and shortcomings.  It also reveals a man who’s morals are, at best, questionable and who’s grasp and understanding of basic financial principles is non-existent.  For all of these reasons, and more, Lou Barletta should not be elected to the United States Congress.

See also: Barletta Makes More Excuses for His Failures and Mayor Lou Barletta: Comedian

-Dan Cheek
www.StopLouBarletta.com
StopLouBarletta@gmail.com

PS
As always, I have a standing invitation extended to Mayor Barletta to respond to anything I post to this website.  I promise to post any such response unedited and without commentary.  To date, Mayor Barletta hasn’t taken me up on that offer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 9:57 am and is filed under The 2010 Election . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.