Gracedale Rally Excuse to Campaign For Callahan, Sestak & Dertinger on County Grounds

Gracedale's supposed advocates tried their best to keep me away from an "informational" meeting yesterday afternoon on the County-owned property, refusing to give me any information. Since they were meeting outside on the lawns, they were pretty hard to miss. After watching them in action, I now know why they tried to keep me in the dark. You see, Gracedale was really just a pretext for yesterday's rally. The real purpose was to enable local Dems to engage in blatant partisan political activity on a County campus, especially for John Callahan, Joe Sestak and Charles Dertinger. Let me fill you in.

Northampton County Dem Chair Walt Garvin. Lehigh County Dem Chair Rich Daugherty. Democratic state house candidate Charles Dertinger. Democratic Council members Charles Dertinger and Ann McHale. Campaign workers wearing Onorato, Dertinger & Callahan buttons. An alphabet soup of union people, including people from the "International." This was most of a pitifully small crowd of about fifty or so people yesterday. Despite the beautiful Sunday weather, I only saw one or two honest-to-goodness families. Take away the unions and political hacks, and all you have are about ten people.

Of course, the hacks were all asked to speak. But first, there was a prayer to Jesus by phony preacher Mario Martinez, recited without any regard for an Orthodox Jewish photographer standing right in front of him. Among other things, Fake Rev. Martinez wants Buddy Christ to give him a hand with all the lies being told about him on the Internet.

Maybe Christ will send a thunderbolt up my ass or something.

When it was Dertinger's turn to bray, he gave this nonpartisan rant to the assembled union thugs, who took some time out from knocking over Dent signs (You can see the video here):

"Last year, we faced a horrible, horrible, election cycle. A horrible election cycle because we were taken over by the idea that we could cut our way to fiscal responsibility. As we started cutting services and started cutting away from the budget, things were going to be much better in this County. This is a clear example of just how wrong we were.

"Northampton County Council had gone from a very responsible group of folks worried about the care of those at the early stages of their lives and at the twilights of their lives. And yet now today we're faced with a circumstance where they're just worrying about the bottom line and not telling the truth about the bottom line."

His obvious message? Republicans bad, Democrats good.

Democratic Council members Lamont McClure and Ann McHale shared pearls of wisdom, too, as did union agents Jerry Green and Justus James. Although Ron Angle joined me in crashing the party, he was neither recognized nor was he asked to speak. Wrong party. Wrong views. He's only the Council President.

On my way out, some of the same union thugs from this rally were standing in the middle of County-owned roads on the Gracedale campus. That's the subject of the movie I posted above. They were handing out flyers to people as they left. A woman in a red shirt, who must have recognized me, told me to keep on going. But I wanted to see what they were passing out, figuring it would be a "Save Gracedale" flyer, and another, nicer, woman handed me two flyers.

"This is just to remember to vote on Novemebr 2," she lied.

Of course, the flyers had nothing at all to do with Gracedale, nor were they some gentle reminder of my civic obligation to vote. Instead, they were "John Callahan for Congress" and "Joe Sestak for Senate" endorsements, prepared by Labor2010. (I've since learned this is the AFL-CIO).

As I bounced along the road back into Nazareth, I saw three more union thugs standing inside a County road right by the 911 Center. Being the friendly person that I am, I decided to stop and say Hi.

Once again, people who only moments ago were at a Gracedale rally, were now handing out flyers for John Callahan, Joe Sestak and Charles Dertinger. They were clearly on County grounds, away from the public right of way.

"You're breaking the law," I protested.

"Show me the reason to care," responds union thug.

"Why are you promoting Charles Dertinger's campaign on public property?" I asked.

"You want to explain that to me, sir?" I asked after several moments of silence.

Then another union thug intervened. "I'll explain it to you. You're an ass."

As I left these three union stooges, all they could come up with was that I was driving a "Japanese-made" car, which is apparently evidence that I don't care about the County.

Northampton County Executive John Stoffa told me yesterday afternoon that there is a clear prohibition against political activity on County-owned property. Yeah, I believe it's called the Hatch Act, which does apply on a state and local level.

If these folks want to see Gracedale's federal and state funding well go dry, this is a great start.