Lehigh Valley Project 9-12 Tea Party Group

Got this in my e-mail seconds ago:

Joe Hilliard wrote:


and I'd just like to say that it's a bald -faced lie.

MUCH of the "manifesto" we apparently all received in our email boxes this evening consisted of claims which were....well, less than factual.

Further analysis will undoubtedly yield more examples, but the one the jumped out at me in particular is the claim that House Republicans voted to expand ObamaCare.

This, also, is a bald faced lie.

House Republicans voted to REPEAL ObamaCare. They also voted, along with the Senate, to repeal the onerous 1099 reporting provision. House Republicans also voted to reform Medicare and halt funding for implementation of ObamaCare's provisions and to repeal ObamaCare as a provision of an agreement to raise the debt celing.

right on..

It's probably time to just let this whole unfortunate situation go. Let the past be past. Each of us including Joe will be judged by what we do in the future, not what we said in the past. There is no sense spending any more time on a conflict where everyone lost.

Eric Neubauer

While I agree that a big dose of moving on is a great idea, Eric, I cannot and WILL NOT let false statements stand.

The lie about expanding ObamaCare was used once before, and when I called him on it, he simply didn't respond.

I don't intend to let anyone in this organization think that there have been any efforts or movements on the part of the people who are working hardest to get rid of ObamaCare to expand it.

The false claim about expansion was a direct shot at the ALSO FALSE "lack of focus" on ObamaCare on the part of the FORMER health care committee of LVTP (a charge levied every time I engaged in debate about any other issue) in not having managed to get the PPACA repealed yet.

Even in the interest of moving on, I WILL NOT stand quietly by and let the hard work of that committee (which is no longer part of LVTP largely due to the conflict created by the newest EX-board member) be demeaned, and I WILL NOT let blatant, in your face lies stand as unchallenged "fact." FAR TOO MUCH of that has gone on in the past several months and the loss of MANY good people has been the result of letting lies, arrogance, and paranoia go unchallenged.

I'd offer to resign....but the health care committee has already DONE that.

Apparently our "sister" group The Lehighton 912 Group must be just as dense as we are and just "don't get it", imagine (gasp!) inviting a politician to one of their meetings!

Announcing a new Meetup!
LEHIGHTON 9/12 PROJECT
Meetup
ANNOUNCING - Senator Pat Toomey - Town Hall
Added by Sandy Dellicker
When: Where: RSVP:
Thursday, September 8, 2011
10:30 AM

Penn's Peak
325 Maury Rd
Jim Thorpe, PA 18229

ANNOUNCING SENATOR PAT TOOMEY - TOWN HALL Thursday, September 1st, 10:30 AM Penn's Peak - 325 Maury Road - JimThorpe

A detailed response to Joe Hilliard's resignation letter can be found here:

Response to Joe Hilliard

Joe or anyone else are welcome to leave comments there.

Eric N wrote:


Eric,

I speak here as an individual, not as a board member or member of rhe website committee.

You are mirroring the position that the board (corporately and/or as individuals) has usually assumed in dealing with these contentious matters. I've observed this "hunker down and wait for it to blow over" mentality since before I arrived there in March. That works fine with hurricanes, but not in situations like this IMHO.

I have participated in the "hunker down" mentality here for quite a while and in my opinion it's one of the reasons things got so bad, the problems were never faced up to. And it's not just "this board" but in all the previous boards that were in place since the constant churn of resignations began. Do not attribute evil intentions to it, it's probably just part of human nature. Like I said, I participated in it myself.

As you can see, I'm done with "hunkering down". I'm not breaking any commandment, just perhaps an unspoken one. And to their credit no one on the board has contacted me in any way, pro or con, over my actions except for a "Thank You" clicked on a post and these gentle nudgings from you.

My actions here were my attempt to face the problem. As I said in that other thread:

Wayne wrote:


If you read my response, especially the large paragraph near the bottom you may get a feel for what I mean by "alarmist and contentious".

Now, in reference to Joe's resignation letter, my contention is that it is one long subtle lie. It's subtle in that someone who believes in our by-law prohibition, as I do, has to agree with all the points he brings up about not endorsing or supporting. It's a lie in that it sets up the strawman that our just talking about what is allowed or what we may wish to do, within the bounds of that prohibition, is a slide straight into endorsement. It is the logical fallacy of applying the slippery slope argument without any proof that it is the inevitable end result. That is the lie and the bludgeon that he has weilded. It has been my purpose to expose that and the manner in which he did so.

Like Donna has said:
DonnaRovito wrote:


I heartily echo her sentiments. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to do so, either here or on my blog.

If the board thinks that my actions are too provocative there are board members with the ability to lock or delete threads and they are quite free to do so. You have my word that I would not retaliate but would freely relinquish all my higher level privledges to the website, in a heartbeat...

Wayne, I think you've shown a lot of courage and integrity in the past months. You've also made yourself a bit of a target, and that takes a special kind of courage.

The thing I find most fascinating about Mr. Hilliard's email resignation/manifesto is that he continues to reiterate discussions and disagreements which were over LONG ago - and which HE APPARENTLY WON BY DEFAULT, as person after person who disagreed with his limited point of view (and I don't mean limited government here) and I'm-right-you're-wrong-and-if-you-don't-agree-with-me-100%-you're-stupid-or-evil attitude resigned from either the board or as a committee head.

First Mat Benol went; then Barbara Walters resigned as chair; then Joan Campbell decided not to put up with the constant personal attacks any longer and left completely; I resigned as health committee chair; then Ronnie DelBacco resigned from the board; then Mike Lordi resigned from both the board and the media committee; and at some point in that time frame (so much happened so fast I honestly can't remember the exact order of events) the entire health care committee voted to become an independent entity. That covers pretty much everyone who had ever "argued" with Joe in public on any aspect of the much-touted (by Joe) "Hilliard paradigm." (Which consists, according to Mr. Hilliard's own definition clearly stated at this year's PA Leadership Conference, of making peoples' lives "hell" unless they do what he wants.) Oh, and it also covers people who may have rolled their eyes at Joe's rigidity, who may have called him arrogant, and who may have sat next to the "wrong" person at a meeting.

Then of course, Kim resigned, but I think that was a calculated maneuver designed to allow Joe to bludgeon his detractors with the loss of the founding member of this organization and thereby elicit outraged sympathy for himself - that's just my humble opinion, of course.

At that point, who was left on the board or among the committee heads, other than possibly you, Wayne, who had even disagreed with Joe's theory that elections should be ignored, or questioned his assertions about what LVTP is "allowed" to do under PA or federal regulations, or pointed out that there are worlds of difference in the meanings of the words "acknowledge" and "endorse?" One particularly insightful member pointed out that everyone who disagreed with Joe Hilliard had "left the battlefield" by resigning, leaving a default victory for his point of view.

Personally, I think the fact that 24 (or 26, I can't recall) active members of the group voted TO REMOVE him from membership, and that member after member talked about engaging elected officials and getting involved beyond pure education during the open discussion forum at that same meeting (as well as what's been posted online) had to shake his ironclad belief that everyone other than a "tiny minority (all of whom had already skedaddled in one form or another) who advocated for the destruction of the group" agreed with him.

Clearly, it isn't just a "tiny minority" of LVTP members who think that there's nothing wrong with inviting an elected official (of EITHER party) to one of our meetings to answer to us on our own turf. Clearly, it isn't just a "tiny minority" who think that it would not only be OK, but would actually be a good idea, to list the members of the group who are running for political office, with clear disclaimers that none of those candidates are ENDORSED by LVTP. And clearly, it isn't only a "tiny minority" who think that even members with whom we might disagree should be listed.

Having been personally attacked on this discussion board more than once, I suspect that, had he been listed with other members as a candidate in the primary, Dean Browning (Joe's favorite straw man, who is apparently the most evil creature to ever walk the face of the earth based on Hilliard's comments) would have gotten quite an "earful" from people who disagreed with his vote on the Lehigh County budget, and I suspect much strong discussion would have ensued about whether Browning deserved support from fellow tea party members. LISTING someone as a candidate doesn't mean the group listing them ENDORSES that candidate - and unless Mr. Hilliard thinks all of the members of LVTP are pretty damn stupid, I think we're all capable of making an electoral choice based on MORE than just the candidate's membership in a single group.

I also think that recent research done by other members of the board into the restrictions on 501 c 3 and 501 c 4 non profit organizations began to demonstrate that perhaps LVTP's activities weren't REALLY as restricted as they'd been led to believe. (I find it extremely ironic that the only time Kim has posted on this website in months was to outline what 501 c 4 non profits are allowed to do under IRS regulations - when the board has forbidden much of that very same activity for quite a while now.) In effect, for a long time now, LVTP has operated under guidelines mandated not by the state of Pennsylvania or the IRS, or even our own bylaws, but by Joe Hilliard and Kim Schmidtner, based, apparently, on Joe's rigid belief that elections don't matter and that people shouldn't have ongoing contact with their elected officials, or that talking to an elected official is the same thing as endorsing that person.

Effective political and legislative advocacy consists of three parts - EDUCATION (so you know what you support and you're able to educate others about your point of view), ENGAGEMENT (maintaining consistent contact with elected officials so they know how you want them to vote, with the ever-present threat of throwing them out of office in the next election if they don't vote the right way), and ELECTIONS (working to ensure that the people who support YOUR issues are in a position to enact - or repeal - the kinds of legislation you support - or- conversely, working to remove elected officials who've been a disappointment.)

So how does LVTP stack up in these important categories?

Education - LVTP has it DOWN. Great job.

Engagement - Not so much - apparently talking to an elected official as a group, even if you're telling them everything you hate about what they did or plan to do - is the same as "endorsing" them. Except that anyone with half a brain knows.....that's just not accurate.

Elections - Well, we've been told they don't COUNT. False "choices" were offered between doing exactly what LVTP does now and actually endorsing candidates or political parties, as though there weren't a myriad of additional choices in between the two extremes. In Mr. Hilliard's world, if you thought we should talk about the possibility of inviting legislators (of both parties) to defend their own actions in front of "the angry mob," then you obviously wanted to ENDORSE that elected official. His complete inability to accept or acknowledge that you can talk to an elected official without endorsing that person is at the root of much of the discord which has infected LVTP in recent months.

And his complete inability to just stop attacking anyone who has ever disagreed with him on these issues kept the ugliness alive and severely damaged the group - and his own resignation proves that he hasn't let any of it go (despite the resignation of virtually everyone who opposed him) and that he is apparently incapable of agreeing to disagree and moving on to more important things.

Let me say it clearly and simply:

NO ONE WHO RESIGNED FROM LVTP BELIEVED THAT LVTP SHOULD "ENDORSE" CANDIDATES OR A POLITICAL PARTY.

Just in case someone missed it, let me say it again:

NO ONE WHO RESIGNED FROM LVTP BELIEVED THAT LVTP SHOULD "ENDORSE" CANDIDATES OR A POLITICAL PARTY.

All of the disagreements were about OTHER issues - whether elected officials should be invited to general meetings to defend their actions, whether members of LVTP who were running for office should be acknowlged (NOT ENDORSED) to the general members, whether it was OK for Joan Campbell to make a single phone call to confirm that a rumor a member had reported to then-chair Mat Benol about Joe Hilliard being employed by the Lehigh County Republican Committee was false (the so-called "opposition research" charge.)

Once again now:

NO ONE WHO RESIGNED FROM LVTP BELIEVED THAT LVTP SHOULD "ENDORSE" CANDIDATES OR A POLITICAL PARTY.

Mat Benol didn't believe it, Joan Campbell didn't believe it, Ronnie DelBacco didn't believe it, Mike Lordi didn't believe it, and I certainly don't believe it.

None of these people ever "advocated for LVTP to endorse candidates."

Yet every single disagreement came back to that one point - if a person disagreed with Joe Hilliard about any aspect of LVTP's activities, that person was accused of wanting to endorse candidates - even though NO ONE EVER ADVOCATED ENDORSING CANDIDATES and many of us said over and over again that we did NOT support LVTP endorsing candidates. Yet no matter how many times we said it, Mr, Hilliard apparently didn't hear us - or didn't want to.

State and federal law and our bylaws CLEARLY state that endorsing candidates is a no-no. They don't prohibit most of the OTHER activities which have come into question, but NO ONE ever wanted to breach that wall. NO ONE EVER WANTED LVTP TO ENDORSE CANDIDATES.

I hate to "shout" so much, but it's really important that everyone understand that the entire point on which most of the disagreement of the past several months, that a "tiny minority advocated destroying LVTP by endorsing candidates" was FALSE, WRONG, UNTRUE, INACCURATE, etc.

Yet it seemed to become one of those false "truths" against which we all rail - that global warming is a "fact," that Israel "stole" Palastine from the Palastinians, that Republicans are homophobic and anti-woman, that government subsidized "green" energy is the only solution to high energy prices, that American health care is the worst in the world, yada, yada, yada.

And this argument was made again and again and again....and yet again, in Joe's resignation.

It's a FALSE ARGUMENT, based on a FALSE PREMISE - which is kind of a nice way to say it's a "bald faced lie."

Eric, I know you want to move on, and so do I. But propagating a false premise or even allowing it to stand unchallenged is counter-productive, and I sincerely believe that people need to know that virtually all of the ugliness of the past months was based on that single FALSE premise.

Knowing that there really aren't evil-doing trolls in LVTP who want to "destroy the group by endorsing candidates" should give everyone confidence that we really ARE on the same page, and that we really CAN move on.

Perhaps now that the board member who consistently judged EVERYONE by what they said or did in the past is gone, we really can put this whole unfortunate situation behind us.

Here's hoping.....

DonnaRovito wrote:


Although IRS regulations do not permit the advertisement of endorsed candidates OUTSIDE of the membership (orits press list) without penalty, neither state law or federal law forbid (c)4s from making endorsements. However, the LVTP bylaws do, and it is a fine prohibition.

Admittedly, I am an outsider looking in, but it appears to me that the interpretation of that bylaw has neutered the lay members (with whom I feel a kinship, despite not having attended the requisite meetings) who have floundered in limbo because of the conflated and nebulous issue of "tacit endorsement."

I apologize for not having posted these rules of the road sooner, but I continue to believe that the board should be able to interpret the language in the bylaws and create rules as it sees fit.

To be sure, other activities as they relate to elections--or even tacit ELECTIONEERING for that matter--MAY be a problem for (c)4s. But, making endorsements known to members is not one of them. As always, I am available to research or discuss these matters further.

It may be useful at this point to briefly summarize the LVTP policy of how our organization will relate to elected representatives and those individuals running for office.

Elected Representatives: Those individuals to whom we have given the responsibility to promote and protect the welfare of the people of the Lehigh Valley can and should present their views and explain their legislative decisions to the members of the LVTP. The only question is how best to do this. To host them individually is to risk subjecting the membership to their self-promoting opinions. This is why the idea of a legislative panel seems to offer a way of limiting the bloviating and at the same time better inform the membership about the issues being discussed. Unfortunately, we have only had one such panel (SB-1) to date, and also unfortunately, we had only a modest turnout. Nevertheless, we need to host more of these panels.

Candidates: As had been said ad nauseam, LVTP does not and will not endorse candidates or political parties. But, though our focus is on issues, we do need to know which candidates embrace which issues so that we can make an informed decision come election-time. The LVTP attempts to address this need by sponsoring Candidate Forums and Meet & Greet events, as well as issue Candidate Evaluation Reports. Unfortunately, many of these efforts are met with poor attendance. We have an inherent contradiction of members stating they want more exposure to candidates, but then do not show-up when those opportunities are presented to them. We need more feedback as to why these events are not better supported.

Thank you, Matt, for the clarification, and for your ongoing support of the activities of community-based organizations which want to take back our country. Matt is an outstanding source of information about what is and isn't "legal" activity for non-profit organizations.

And thank you, also, Matt, for your valuable support and assistance in the creation of the Lehigh Valley Coalition for Health Care Reform.

For those who may not know, Matt is the director of of the Pennsylvania Commercial Action Network (Pa-CAN), an outstanding organization which supports small business in PA, and which is one of the sponsors of our Constitution Day Educational Workshop entitled Everything You Wanted To Know About "ObamaCare" (But Didn't Know Who to Ask) at DeSales on Sept. 17th. Additional details are available at www.meetup.com/lehigh-valley-coalition-for-health-care-reform.

Tom wrote:


Thank you for joining the discussion Tom. I am guilty of not attending any of the candidate forums that you put on. Speaking for myself it was simply because I already knew the issues and the candidates that you had attending. Ditto for the candidate evaluation paper. But I'm sure for for some it is valuable to have.

It's the politicians that are in the more local races that tend to be a mystery to myself, and I imagine others also. Those campaigns tend to consist solely of yard signs and name recognition - where they stand on specific issues and general governing philosophy remains unknown in most cases. And we did briefly touch on this topic at the last EB meeting, about the logistics of simply knowing the names of all the candidates in the Lehigh Valley, let alone their records and views. We cannot possibly do that, especially with the limited volunteer base that we have.

I did attend SB1 - even though I'm a radical sort of "Separation of School & State" guy I found it very interesting.

If anyone wants to hear my opinion anymore, since I have become the pariah of the tea party thanks to someone who will remain unmentioned, I will offer this.

Our regular meetings have lost attendance because I believe that our members have become saturated with information regarding the debt, the debt ceiling, global warming, educational issues and the oncoming storm. In my opinion, They want to be able to speak to our elected officials, and want to be given an avenue to do such. And the Tea Party, was supposed to be such an avenue. Most people are busy and do not have time to go out and make appointments and meet with our representatives on an individual basis. And honestly whats to stop that legislature to say A to one person and B to another. There is power in numbers.

Now going back to the tea party being such an avenue. The tea party was supposed to be able to bring our elected officials to us, so that we can speak to them in one powerful voice about the issues we cared about.... the tea party was the 'angry mob'. Now we are the 'ticked off kitty'. We do have these candidate nights and we have seen one legislative panel. My opinion of why these turnouts were low was because people are just to busy to have more then one or two meetings a month with the tea party. Those meetings should be the regular monthly meeting and then their committee meetings, if they so choose.

Think back and remember, when did we have the biggest turnouts at our meetings? It was when we had people like Sam Roeher and DA Morgenelli at our meetings. With that being the case, We should be having the 'big name' meetings during our regular monthly meeting. Not saying we should have inviting just one legislator, INVITE THEM ALL. Can you imagine the entire Lehigh Board of Commissioners in front of the tea party? What kind of teeth would we have then???

and thats my humble opinion.

I disagree with Joan in only one sense here - I think everyone respects and cares about her opinion and I disagree that anything any one person has said about her has made her a "pariah" in any sense of the word. EVERYONE knows how hard Joan has worked for LVTP and how much time, effort, and emotional energy she's given to the organization.

I think she's absolutely right about why the one legislative workshop and the previous candidate forums have not been all that well attended - MOST members of LVTP have made time in their busy lives for one, max two meetings per month. Scheduling additional sessions sadly waters down participation.

Not anywhere in her comments, though, did Joan suggest "endorsing" candidates - just as she never did in the past.

Dear Pariah,



Really? I dunno, I think that's your opinion... no more valid than anybody else's opinion. That's why we're here to talk it out! I've heard quite a few of us say we don't come to the monthly meeting to hear (or be lied to by) politicians. I am in that camp.

Sam Roher was out of office and no longer a candidate when he spoke so the policy we currently have in place would not have prevented him from speaking. Morganelli though was in office, and although I realize I'm in the minority in this - the fact is that the speech he gave was probably no different than the stump speech he would give to any conservative leaning group. It was political red meat he was feeding us IMHO. But I know you guys loved it.

I'm not saying the policy we have now is perfect though. It could prevent an excellent speaker who is running for some minor office miles away from us from speaking.

As for bringing the candidates to us... if a politician is currently not holding a townhall now --- why on earth do you suppose he would want to come to us? The ones that will come to us will most likely be the ones willing to say what we want to hear, and that will be for political gain. And it has little to do with tax regs (I believe), it has a lot to with who and what we are - not to be a bullhorn for politicians. That is the main reason for the policy.

Or at least that's my opinion.