StopLouBarletta.com

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, all!  I hope this season finds you and your family safe, loved, and healthy.  During the holidays, I really haven’t posted to the site, but rest assured I intend to keep StopLouBarletta.com very active in the coming days, weeks, and months.  I believe, as I believed when I started this site, that this website serves as an important voice of opposition to Mayor Lou Barletta and his leadership.  This is why I have remained, and will remain, very active and vocal in my opposition to his candidacy for higher office.

I would like to take a moment to wish Mayor Barletta and his family a happy holiday, as well.  When blogging or talking about politics, it’s very easy to forget that there are people and families involved.  And while I am adamantly opposed to Mr. Barletta serving in the United States Congress, I hold nothing against him as a person.  In the heat of the moment, the distinction between the two can, and often does, get blurred.  Mayor Barletta is a career politician and I’m sure has a thick skin and is well experienced in brushing off my criticisms of his leadership and political aspirations, if he is even aware of this blog at all.  Regardless of how this election turns out, I wish nothing but the best for Mayor Barletta and his family.  I just hope that the best doesn’t involve him being elected to higher office.

I’m also planning to participate in Project 52.  For those that don’t know, Project 52 is a collection of bloggers, of all sorts, who have pledged to write at least one blog post per week, every week, in 2010.  It’s free to join and if you have a blog, it might be worth checking out.  The whole concept is to provide incentive and motivation to keep your blog updated and current, something many (most?) bloggers fail to do.

And while I’m at it, I’d also like to invite all of you to follow StopLouBarletta on Twitter (@StopLouBarletta) and on Facebook.  I’ve also set up a YouTube channel, where I hope to post several StopLouBarletta related videos over the coming weeks and months.  I’ve set all of this up because I sincerely want StopLouBarletta to be as interactive as possible.  I also want it, obviously, to have the biggest reach as possible.  Hopefully, with a strong presence across all of these platforms, both of those goals can be achieved.

So, as I said at the opening of this post, I hope all of you have a great holiday and a safe 2010.  We’ll have lots of time to scream, yell, hurl insults and accusations, and do as much as possible to hurt feelings and grind the opposition into the dirt.  However, for the next couple of hours at least, let’s just try to get along and enjoy our time of this spinning blue rock.  See you next year, all!

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

I’m happy to announce that StopLouBarletta.com now has both a Twitter feed and a Facebook page. I wanted to do this (and have been meaning to do it for a while now…) because I think that it’s important to utilize both of these powerful tools to broaden the reach of the website. Twitter has proven itself to be one of the most powerful communication tools of this decade, especially in light of how effective it’s been in the Iran election fiasco. And Facebook has become, I think it’s safe to say, the most popular and most useful social networking site on the Internet. Combined with the main website, I think both of these online platforms will make a nice addition to the StopLouBarletta family.

The StopLouBarletta Facebook page can be found HERE. Anyone can join and can invite others to join, as well. I’ll keep the page updated with the latest Lou Barletta news, as well as post some conversation threads. I hope that the page can be used to further the discussion and debate about Mayor Barletta and his quest to obtain higher political office.

To follow the Twitter feed, simply go HERE. In addition to posting alerts to new blog posts, I’ll also use the feed to offer additional thoughts and opinions about Mayor Barletta, his policies, and his positions (or lack therof…). To keep it from getting monotonous, I’ll also post some comments about other things, as well (current events, local/national politics, movies, etc.).

I’d really appreciate it if you’d consider joining the Facebook page and following the Twitter feed. And please, please, please, join in on the conversation with your own thoughts and opinions. As I’ve said repeatedly, I’d rather have a conversation than conduct a sermon. Thanks, guys and gals!

All for now.

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

The votes are in and I am very, very pleased to say that Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton will be keeping his job as mayor and will NOT be moving on to the halls of the United States Congress.  For months, Mayor Barletta waged a political campaign that has relied upon lies, misinformation, and scare tactics.  He refused to take stands on real, important issues.  In the end, the voters of Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District saw Mayor Barletta for what he truly is: A narrow minded politician who lacked any real leadership skills or intelligent ideas for moving this country forward.

As a Republican, I would have liked to see a Republican take Kanjorski’s place, assuming that the person was someone worthy of representing both the people of the 11th Congressional District and the Republican Party in the United States Congress.  Clearly, Lou Barletta was not that type of person.  He has a proven track record of failure and during his tenure as the mayor of Hazleton, has drilled that city so far into the ground that it will take years to recover from his blundered leadership.

According to the Associated Press, Paul Kanjorski won the election by getting 140,119 votes to Mayor Barletta’s 130,649.  This election was one of the most exciting and closest elections in the country.  Lou Barletta came close to obtaining the title of “Congressman”, but, for the second time, came up short.  I can honestly say that both the country and the Republican Party is all the better for it.  Had Mayor Barletta been elevated to the rank of Congressman, he would have almost certainly have embarrassed both.

It’s getting late so I’ll end this post here.  In the coming days, I’ll post some final thoughts on Mayor Barletta and my plans for the future of this site.  I would like to thank everyone who has helped make this site as successful as it has been.  Thank you to all of the bloggers who linked to this site.  Thank you for all of the people who emailed me and left comments.  Regardless of whether or not you agreed with me, I always respected your opinions and was glad to hear from all of you.

Lou Barletta has been stopped and that, I think, is a very good thing indeed.  Good night, all.

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

**Update 5 November 2008 7:10am**
Here is a video of Paul Kanjorski talking about his victory and where both he and Mayor Barletta stand going forward:

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About two weeks ago, I sat down for an interview with a reporter for The New Republic.  She had come to the area to gather research for an article that she was writing about Mayor Lou Barletta and his bid for the United States Congress.  In addition to me, the reporter, Marin Cogan, spoke to several other people who all had some insight into the race.  The article was published yesterday.

If you are interested in reading the article, and Ms. Cognan’s gathered insights on Mayor Lou Barletta’s bid for Congress, you can do so by clicking HERE.

On Tuesday, the nation goes to vote.  Between now and then, I will be posting a few more blog posts here, just summing up my main arguments against Mayor Barletta and why I feel he would be a poor choice to represent the 11th District in Congress.

All for now.

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

As you may have noticed, this website has undergone a massive upgrade in the past couple of days.  Almost every aspect of it has been upgraded and improved.  Even though this has kept me from writing new posts, I think the effort will prove worth it in the long run.  All of this upgrading and improving has been done in preparation of a big push to help keep Lou Barletta out of the United States Congress.

In the coming days, I plan to really ratchet up the StopLouBarletta operation.  Daily press releases will be sent out.  I will be submitting more letters to editors, to papers all over the 11th Congressional District.  Phone calls will be made to local and national talk radio shows.  I, along with some of my friends, are working on a series of videos to be displayed both on this site and on YouTube.  Flyers will be uploaded to this site so people can print them out and distribute them.

Additionally, with your help, I’m also planning on purchasing some anti-Lou Barletta advertising, probably in October and November, when the election gets closer.  You can donate, any amount, to the StopLouBarletta.com War Chest, via PayPal.  The donation button is on the right hand side of this site, over on the sidebar.  Any and all money raised will be used to help offset the costs of running this site and, primarily, used to purchase ad space.

I still have quite a bit of work to do, but I do plan on begin posting on a regular basis once again before the week is out.  I really appreciate all of the support that I’ve received from people.  Your emails and comments have helped me stay focused and given me the encouragement I needed to keep things going, here.  And to all of the people who’ve posted comments and sent emails criticizing me and this site; Thank you, too.  While we may disagree, on everything, I really do appreciate your opinions.

All for now.

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