A Gentle Reminder to Social Media Users...

The following is the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

(source:  findlaw.com)

If you read the above carefully you will discover that the First Amendment guarantees a RIGHT to free speech, but it does not guarantee a FORUM for free speech.  It doesn't say "you can exercise your right to free speech anywhere you want", it simply says that Congress can't restrict the exercise of free speech.

(from Rep Barletta's Twitter feed)

Practically speaking, this means that you can criticize the government all you want.  I can call Scranton Mayor Bill Courtright "grossly incompetent" and I can say that Representative Lou Barletta "looks like a Mexican" (that's ironic, get it?) all I want, and that's perfectly okay.

What this doesn't mean is that I have a right to express those opinions using someone else's property, be it physical or intellectual.  For example, the Facebook people can very well say that "no postings should be allowed that are critical of Lou Barletta" and that would be perfectly okay.  Why?  Because they own Facebook and they  can make up all the Facebook rules they want.  If I don't like that rule, well, I have to realize that there is no (contrary to what you actually read in some dark corners of Facebook) Constitutional right to free speech on Facebook.  My recourse is to simply go "old school" and talk to my friends about Lou Barletta or maybe even create my own social media forum where Lou Barletta can be criticized all day and night.  Think that's extreme?  Well go hunt down former Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty and ask him about www.dohertydeceit.com.

Rant concluded.

Charlie Bible Buck Hatchko

Local Atheist and general all around good guy (you can follow him HERE) Justin Vacula noted on Facebook that...

"Just putting the following out there...if the upcoming election in Luzerne County happens to be delayed or modified in some way because "Charlie Bible Buck Hatchko" is listed as a candidate on the ballot, don't blame me for complaining, but rather blame the persons who allowed this to go on the ballot. Thanks!"

As I think about this, it's pretty clear that Mr Hatchko is trying to alter his name in order to appeal for votes.  Fair enough.  What if others tried to do the same?  We could end up with combinations like...

Heinz "Jews Control the Media" Von Erich
Appealing to the neo-NAZI vote.


Walter "Abortion is Murder" Jones
Appealing to the Right to Life vote.


Bob "Scary Brown Horde" Smith
Appealing to Lou Barletta's supporters.


Fred "Popery" Carroll
Appealing to the anti-Catholic vote.


Lisa "Trick or Trout" Anderson
Appealing to the Dyslexic vote.


Larry "Uptight White Guy" Alden
Appealing to Rick Santorum's supporters.


Lisa "Black Helicopter" Rimes
Appealing to conspiracy nuts everywhere.


Tim "Freedom to Crap Anywhere" Simmons
Appealing to Occupy Wall Street supporters.


Charlie "Pretend it's Still 1954" Peters
Appealing to Rush Limbaugh's listeners.


Luther "I don't Care if Scranton is Actually Larger" Searfoss
Appealing to Wilke-Barre voters.


Steve "Who are You" Allen

Appealing to the dementia vote.


Lester "Doherty Caused my Psoriasis" Windstead

Appearing to supporters of Scranton City Council President Janet Evans


Steve "Lame-Assed Posting" Albert
Appealing to...well...no one.

Road Apples, #109

Earthquake...Kind of ironic that this was centered near Washington D.C., hay'na or no?  (By the way, did I use "hay'na" correctly?).  Anyway, I was working on staff mid-year performance appraisals when it all went down and I didn't feel a blessed thing.  People on the second and third floors of my building (including my oldest daughter) did feel it, so best guess that was that since I was sitting on a concrete slab I didn't but those sitting on open-web steel joists did.  Oh well.  In other news, apparently people in California...land of fruits and nuts...are mocking the earthquake response here in the east.  Big deal.  Let's see Los Angeles handle 6 inches of snow.

Family Genetics & Maine...As was documented ad nauseum here, I spent a week vacationing in Maine.  Loved it...and if you like the outdoors at all you should really consider going there once in your life.  Anyway, it seems that my cousin Jeanine also loves Maine, which makes me wonder if there is some kind of genetic thing going on.  Anyway, I really do recommend vacationing there, although it's not exactly a great place if you like swimming in the ocean.

WILK...I see & hear where WILK is thumping Lou Barletta (the man who has the whitest teeth I have ever seen on another human being) on a regular basis these days, as reported HERE among other places.  Now for the record I was pretty harsh in my criticism of Paul Kanjorski over the years, so no one can successfully label me as a shill for the Democrats.  However this is a self-inflicted wound for Barletta.  If you are going to be critical of the former incumbent for not having town hall meetings, then damn straight you had better have lots of them...and even more importantly...don't talk about how you can't have them because of disruptive constituents (or "nuts with cameras", as Kanjorski used to say).  Here's one other thing about Barletta that I want to get off my chest:  he can stop already with the canned, GOP-fed word for word talking points.  Barletta seems like a personable guy, so maybe he should leverage his people skills just a bit more by being himself.  Talk to people in the public domain.  Skip the scripts.  Doing stuff like having a closed door meeting at the uber-WASPY Westmoreland Club doesn't exactly inspire confidence.  Having the ability to handle critics well in the public domain can be a pretty positive thing.  Seeming to duck critics can be the opposite.  Man-up Lou.

NEPArtisan...I have an open invitation to continue posting at NEPArtisan, so I'm thinking I should actually write something one of these days.  It's so hard though for me to get excited about political stuff these days.  I normally find politics to be ever so slimy, and in this current political climate that normal layer of viscous sludge is growing even more repugnant.  What's more, I think they are all mostly self-serving bums in Congress anyway.  Excuses, excuses.

Movies...Movies that are coming out that I am interested in seeing include Apollo 18 and The Rum Diary. The former is your standard Sci-Fi horror thing, and the latter is a movie version of an early Hunter S. Thompson novel.  I never real this particular HST piece by the way, so it should be interesting.

S-WB Yankees...Apparently a local group of investors has come forth with an offer to buy the management rights of the S-WB Yankees.  Good thought, but probably isn't going to work, as I believe that there already is legal stuff in place to transition the ownership to the Yankees organization.

Sports...Finbar O'Brien has a great post on college football that you can link to HERE.  It's one of those things that I read and immediately wished I had written it.

School Starts....today for a number of local districts.  Here's to a safe and productive new year of learning for all the kids out there.  The first day of school was always this kind of magical time for me when I was a kid, and while I am now years past such things I can still recall that feeling of wonder/awe/anticipation.  

Blogger Meeting

Well it's nearly nine thirty on Friday night.  I just got off the phone with a friend and before that I was at the semi-annual blogger meeting in the thriving metropolis of Pittston.  Oh, and have I mentioned that I am running on about 3 hours worth of sleep last night?  

Maybe this kind of condition doesn't lend it self to any form of objective observational reporting, so I'll keep it to a short bullet list:

• It was a pleasure having something to eat with Mary Borthwick's son.  Speaking of Tom, since he is the most popular political blogger in Lackawanna County and there is only one other political blogger in Lackawanna County, does that mean I can lay claim to the title of "Second most popular political blogger in Lackawanna County"?  Just wondering.
• It was nice meeting Big Dan and Mrs Big Dan.  
• I had a great conversation with former Scranton Times reporter Jessica Durkin (you can find her work HERE).
• There is a picture of me speaking with Congressman Kanjorski somewhere out there.  It was nice meeting the Congressman again.
• Frank Scavo was there with some kind of bodyguard.  He must need protection from all those "Islam-o-fascists" that apparently are running amok all over the place.
• It was very nice meeting the face behind the blog of Loreley's Musings.  And a hardy "arrrrrggggggghhhhhhh" goes out to her.

All told, it was a somewhat thin crowd.  Rumor has it that Lou Barletta was going to stop by, but perhaps one of his scouts poked his head in, saw Frank Scavo, and immediately assumed he was an illegal immigrant (and we all know how Lou feels about "those people").

Have I mentioned how exhausted I am?

Anyway, that's about the best I'm going to be able to come up with in my current state.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll be rested enough to put more than a few errant phrases together.

Road Apples, #76

Book Burning...Lots of opinions out there in both the traditional and non-traditional media on the subject of book burning.  I love it.  I just finished writing a too long winded comment on Justin Vacula's blog about the subject.  I think my thoughts are pretty clear:  I'm against the burning of any book.  The world needs less anti-intellectual sentiments, thank you very much.  Thugs and cretins burn books.


Changes...When you stop changing  you stop growing; when you stop growing you start dying.  I've spent the better part of the last twenty years really not changing all that much.  That needs to change.  No, I'm not shaving my head and joining a commune, but I am re-evaluating a lot of different things.  I am, as they say, on the down-hill side of my life now.  Done a lot for some, probably not done enough for others, but definitely haven't done enough for me. Time to take inventory.


Obama's Tax Proposals...are D.O.A.  Must people don't realize that to make the changes the President is proposing, you are basically creating a whole new piece of legislation.  This isn't a case of simply taking a MS Word document and zeroing out the cuts for rich folks and re-submitting it for a vote.  Much more complicated than that, and it's highly unlikely that any Republicans will vote for any tax bill that doesn't cut taxes for high-earners as well.  What will happen?  The tax cuts will expire and this will be used as a political guided missile by both parties.  As usual, all of us will end up losing in the process.


Social Security...I still have a post coming on it, but I've been bogged down my Adobe's Captivate, which I am trying to learn on my own.  Not much success.  To quote that great philosopher Ralph Kramden, "one of these days...".


Howard Stern News...I am a self-proclaimed Howard Stern fan who has been listening to the show since the late 80's.  He has talked quite a bit about how he may not re-sign with Sirius.  If that's the case, the company can kiss my subscription good bye.  Fortunately, my current subscription runs out at the same time his contract does.  Synchronicity in action.


Fontage...I apologize for the larger font, but lately I have been having trouble seeing the screen.  

More Howard Stern News...I found this on-line.  If you are a fan you will enjoy it.

Strike Two for Lou...Barletta's anti-illegal ordinances lose yet again in court (story link HERE).  Not much of a shock there, as anyone with access to a copy of the U.S. Constitution can tell you that it is the federal government that is solely responsible for securing the national borders.  Unfortunately that doesn't preclude someone from trying to stoke xenophobic fears for political gain via an ill conceived piece of legislation that would turn landlords into INS agents.  The real sad part?  Ultimately it will be the taxpayers of Hazelton that will pay for all of this lawyer feeding.

Scranton City Council Member Pat Rogan

A Democrat politician and member of city council, Pat Rogan, has taking some extreme flack by hosting a fundraiser for Republican Lou Barletta.  How bad is the criticism?  Words like...

arrogance

little punk

politically stupid

pathetic

mutiny

...have been thrown around repeatedly on certain local message boards and Facebook pages.

My opinion?

Well for the record Mr Rogan was part of a Democratic ticket for city council headed by current council president Janet Evans.  I've been pretty critical of Mrs Evans' leadership, so that's strike one.  I despise the "beware of the great brown horde" message of Lou Barletta.  Anyone who runs a campaign that consists of the "be afraid" message is not to be trusted in my book.  That's strike two. But there is no strike three, at least not for me.

Yes, I think young Mr Rogan can support whomever he wants.  In fact, I'll say this much for him:  he is consistent.  During his last run at a city council seat, he campaigned on a laughable platform that supported Hazelton-esque illegal immigrant legislation for Scranton.  Yes, we are talking about the same legislation that would turn landlords into agents of the INS.  My brother Chris is a landlord.  The thought of him having to validate citizenship is scary at best, insane at worst.  Anyway, that platform was a joke, but this is America, and in this country you are free to be an ass if you really, really want to, and that's fine with me.

So why the anger?

It's just the politics of usual at work in this area.  If you are a Democrat, you are expected and required to tow the line for Democrats, no matter what.  Hitler could be a Democrat, and if he was running against Mother Teresa you would still have the party faithful pressing you to vote for the ticket.  That's how the game is played, and sadly, that's part of the reason why politics has become the sport of liars and thieves in this country.  I don't like Lou Barletta, but I'll be damned if I'm going to demonize someone who does.  Yes, I'd argue to the hinterlands that Barletta is political opportunist who is using "soft racism" to get elected, but that doesn't mean that someone who disagrees with me is somehow an "arrogant little punk".  No, it means that they disagree with me.  It's that disagreement that ultimately makes America a better place because neither political party has a monopoly on the truth, and in fact what is best can often be pulled together from ideas taken from both sides of the political isle.

Bottom Line:  People aren't angry at Pat Rogan for supporting Lou Barletta...they are angry because he is not following orders.  How sad is it that "compliant with political marching orders" has somehow become a trait that people bizarrely admire?  I admire an independent streak in my leaders.  I may not ever vote for Mr Rogan, but at least he is following his convictions.  Can the same be said for every other politician in the area?  Hell, do many politicians in this area even have convictions, other than a conviction to stay in office (or a conviction in federal court)?

Jobs? We Don't Need No Stinking Jobs!

Congressman Paul Kanjorski announces the prospect of 1,000 jobs coming to the area and Hazelton Mayor Lou ("beware of the great brown horde") Barletta immediately announces that he is opposed to the project.

Article link HERE.

Apparently Barletta wants to protect the pristine former mine land or something like that, and he believes that a "military style training camp" would be disruptive.  Now this facility would be run the by U.S. State Department, not the Marine Corps, but I suspect that Barletta would be opposed to Christmas if it could somehow be proven to be a Kanjorski idea (which makes no sense at all, because Christmas, in and of itself, doesn't involve sending public money to the Kanjorski family, but so I digress...). Regardless, while I'm not entirely convinced that this project will happen here, if it does it would be a great, great thing for the region.

I also think this is yet another example of how Barletta is a one-trick pony:  he sounds good when he is busy trying to scare the bejesus out of a certain audience worried about illegal immigration, but he falls flat when he talks about just about everything else, including his tenure as Hazelton's mayor.

After reading the story of Kanjorski's announcement yesterday on NEPArtisan I was skeptical about the project's prospects and worried that it might make the Congressman look bad if it didn't happen.  Well Barletta just solved that problem.  By immediately coming out against 1,000 jobs (in an area with unemployment in the 9.5% range and layoffs & outsourcing coming right and left) Barletta has just negated any advantage he could garner if this project doesn't come to fruition.  People are now going to be debating why Barletta is opposed to this, not whether Kanjorski is engaged in wishful thinking.  If this whole thing was Ed Mitchell's idea, then I have to hand to to the guy, as it's a stroke of genius.

This brings to mind a certain scene in a favorite movie...

On Thin Ground: Kanjorski & Outsourcing

I've been fighting the urge to comment on this all week, but alas, I'm going to give in.

Kanjorski's ire...local financial services company job outsourcing

The story appeared in the July 13th edition of the Scranton Times.

What's my take? Well it's hard not to view the Congressman's comments as being much more than the sort of posturing one would expect from a politician facing a tough re-election campaign. Of course I could be wrong, and if I am it will be clear as day for all to see, as the Congressman will be successful in doing something to stem the tide of the outsourcing. I doubt it though. Why? Well while Congressman Kanjorski enjoys the benefit of simply reacting to something he hears, the business referenced has no doubt been planning this action for a significant amount of time. As a result, I highly doubt that the business leaders in questions are going to react by saying "well Paul Kanjorski is mad at us now, so we had better scrap these plans".

For the record, it's not as if this kind of action hasn't happened before (both at this company and others, such as Met Life), without any noticeable results stemming from the harsh words of political leaders.

On the other hand, I think any kind of reaction on the Congressman's part is better than no reaction at all. What's more, I'm thinking that Paul Kanjorski probably does have the clout to actually arrange a meeting with the executives involved, which would provide something of a voice for those being displaced. About the only thing Lou Barletta could do in this situation would be to somehow blame illegals for the outsourcing.

For me, the events of this past week don't dramatically change my view of Paul Kanjorski. Opportunist? Yes. In the pocket of the Financial Services industry? Well maybe, but at least now he has the perfect opportunity to refute that charge.

Batter-up Paul: It's time to put up or shut up.

My Gun Control Law: Stupid People Shouldn't Be Allowed To Have Them

While I generally do support the right of people to bear arms, I think it's reasonable to make an exception for stupid people.

"A Hazleton man was charged with leaving a loaded firearm in a men’s room at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs casino. "

"State police said the firearm, a .45-caliber, had a full magazine with a round in its chamber."

You can read the whole sad tale HERE. Maybe he was afraid that one of Hazelton's many illegals would try and steal his winnings once he returned to Lou's lair.

As a side note, I've heard that it is illegal to bring a firearm into Pennsylvania casino. Given the amount of money flying around at casinos and the extreme security that no doubt already exists in such places, I'm thinking that's not an unreasonable rule.

2010: Hopes, Wishes & Aspirations

I actually wrote a blog entry last night, but alas it sits in draft status along with a few other friends that just didn't seem quite right enough to post. That's one of my problems: I write more than I actually post, so I end up with content that just sits there. Anyway, none of that has to do with the topic at hand, namely that of my hopes, wishes & aspirations for 2010. Here goes:

Lou Barletta
I hope 2010 brings to Mr Barletta a bit more of a conscience, one that steers him away from blaming every ill besetting Hazelton on illegal aliens. He can do better than that, and his anti-immigration crusade makes him appear to be nothing better than a modern-day Know-Nothing Party member. He can choose to wage a Congressional campaign based upon ideas that appeal to our better angels, or he can continue to appeal to our worst instincts (such as fear of those who look different than us); either way the choice is his and his alone.

Luzerne County Government
I hope the Federal house cleaning continues. As I noted in another post (a post for which at least one person slammed me), the residents of Luzerne County share in the blame for this mess through decades of complacency, so they also share in the responsibility to help clean it up. How? Let's just hope that attributes like "football hero" are no longer considered satisfactory qualifications for government service.

Lackawanna County Government
I'm actually somewhat pleased with how the county is being run. I see real efforts to reduce costs, although more needs to be done. The fact that they are actually trying to enforce a contract provision that benefits taxpayers is a welcome change. Related to this is...

Corey O'Brien
I hope Mr O'Brien soundly loses in the Congressional primary. No offense to Mr O'Brien, but he's simply not ready for the task. Being a less-than-full-term county commissioner isn't what I'd call a record to run by, nor is paying for your own talk show on WILK. Don't get me wrong: I basically like Mr O'Brien and I think he is doing a decent job as Commissioner. All the more reason to stay and finish the job. Ambition shouldn't be the enemy of success, and he is young enough that he could add to his resume and still be able to run for higher office in the future.

Scranton City Council's New Members
I hope they collectively get their heads out of their butts and realize that you are not going to balance the budget, cut taxes and raise employee salaries simply by "cutting the Doherty fat". That's an insult to the intelligence of every Scranton resident who has more than three firing synapses. By all means do cut expenses. By all means do make sure that our police are paid a fair wage for the great job that they do. By all means do try and reduce some of the taxes that stifle our local economy. But please stop acting as if Chris Doherty has this secret Swiss Bank Account full of taxpayer money that can be raided in order to solve our every problem. Get real, please. Work with the Mayor...disagree when necessary...but work with him never the less. There is enough ego room in City Hall for both Janet Evans and Chris Doherty.

Dunmore
Here's to hoping that the things finally hit bottom. Like the drug addicts that so many Dunmore residents seem to think don't exist within their borders, I truly believe that Dunmore government will have to hit bottom before they can actually make the substantive changes necessary to live in the real world. You simply can't have things like paid firefighters and the same wage tax that surrounding communities (that rely on volunteer firefighters) have; you can't add to your employee roster when you don't have the money to pay for your existing staff. Dunmore has to live within its means, and the longer its leaders pretend that fiscal gravity doesn't apply to them, the worse the final fall will ultimately be.

Oh, and also for Dunmore, it's my hope that some residents don't have to go through the pain of having a family member addicted to drugs before they seem the real value in substance abuse treatment. Dunmoreans: You may not want it in your back-yard, but I'm afraid it already is.

The Scranton Times
I hope that they continue to investigate the dealings, shenanigans, and down-right questionable actions of State Senator Bob Mellow. I'll be blunt: It is a flagrant conflict of interest that Senator Mellow serves on the boards of institutions he can have a hand in regulating, and it's an insult to Pennsylvania taxpayers that he had the state pay him to rent property that he had a hand in owning. The Scranton Times has done some good work in exposing this, and I hope that they certainly continue and in fact do more.

For Me
Last but not least, I have a few hopes, wishes & aspirations for myself:

- I hope my children stay healthy & happy
- I hope that I don't need a major tragedy to be reminded of just how precious life truly is
- I wish my extended family, friends and co-workers a healthy, prosperous New Year
- I wish that compassion and common sense be my guides in making important decisions
- I aspire to grow & evolve as a person for as long as I am allowed on this Earth


Happy 2010 to one and to all.

Lou Barletta

Picture this: you are the mayor of a small city in Pennsylvania's Anthracite coal mining region. Municipal revenues are down, the economy isn't producing jobs, the costs of providing city services keeps going up and your population is on a steady decline into oblivion. What do you do?

Well, if you are Lou Barletta, you start a crusade against illegal immigrants. Forget little "technicalities" such as:

• That the closest international border to your city is hundreds of miles away...it happens to be the U.S, Canadian border...and we haven't had too many problems with Canadians swimming Lake Erie to get here
• Only the Federal Government can enforce immigration law anyway
• The only growing segment of your city's population lies in the group you are trying your best to alienate
  

No, by starting this little crusade, you ensure that at least hard-working, narrow-minded white people will still like you. Oh, and those folks vote. Oh, and your little crusade will make you the darling on the modern-day version of the "Know Nothing" party set.

If I sound unnecessarily harsh in this post, then so be it. I have ZERO TOLERANCE in my life for racist swine, period. While I can't look into Mr Barletta's heart to know for certain that he is a racist, I can offer the following bit of evidence:

One of Mr Barletta's proposals was that landlords were to validate the citizenship of prospective tenants ("The act imposes a $1,000-per-day fine on any landlord who rents to an illegal immigrant"...link here). A landlord, "Bob" has an apartment to rent. Two prospective tenants approach him about the apartment...Carol (white, non-Hispanic) and Pedro (Hispanic). Now who is Bob more likely insist on seeing "papers" for? Hell, who is more likely to get the apartment, assuming that Bob is not even motivated enough (or scared of the $1000/day fine) to even want to see "papers"? How is that not racism in action?

I am not a fan of Paul Kanjorski, however the GOP needs to offer up something better than a race-baiter as an alternative.