Sightings: The Final Chapter

There's a quote, "good things come to those who wait." For what it's worth, they sometimes do.

I started this blog in January 2008 because several people, including Joe Meo, of the Whitemarsh Republican Committee, didn't appreciate my comments regarding Jim Matthews back room deal with Joe Hoeffel. You see, I was then secretary of Area 6, and often would send an email out chronicling Jim's behavior and expressing my opinion on the matter. Because they didn't appreciate me using my position for a bully pulpit (although most of my detractors have and still do so), I did cease sending the emails.

Instead, I decided to start the blog to express myself and offer my opinions.

Over the years I've chronicled Jim's lies, the impact his actions have had on our county and the price we are all paying for it. Over the past 3+ years, I've never been wrong in anything I've posted about Jim Matthews. I've been aggressive in my endeavor, and never apologized for what I have done, while bringing to you the antics of a power-hungry egomaniac. Today, Jim Matthews was arrested and charged with perjury and false swearing. He was arraigned in District Court in Norristown at approximately 11:55 today.

What, me perjure?

I'm very happy about this. Why? Because, for 3+ years, I've been pissed off that my time was wasted asking people to vote for Jim Matthews. Because I believed that Jim wouldn't turn his back on our party, no matter how much he disliked (read despised) Republican Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr.

I thought Jim Matthews was an honorable man. I was wrong then, and when I realized I had been duped along with so many of the people of Montgomery County, I started this blog to call Jim on everything untoward that he has done since taking office.

You might ask, why did you stop blogging suddenly, about a year and a half ago? Well, I had been out of work for a while, and writing my blog was not as important as my families financial standings, which were in dire straits for a while. It also had started to disrupt the peace and harmony of my home. So, I backed off.

Fortunately, Jim became a caricature of himself in the waning year of his tenure on the board of commissioners, his ego getting in the way of solid, Republican governance. Jim Matthews can single-handedly be blamed for the financial mess the county now "enjoys".

Back to the present...Jim was arraigned today on charges of perjury and false swearing to the grand jury. Jim also broke a gag order placed upon him by the grand jury, according to NBC10 reporter, Deanna Durante in her report this afternoon (watch video report on NBC10 page).

Over the past year and a half, one of my principal desires has been to be present at the "perp-walk" if Matthews was arrested. Today, that desire has been fulfilled. During my lunch break, I was able to not only watch the "perp-walk", I was able to sit in on Matthews arraignment in District court in Norristown, in front of Judge Hunsicker. The hearing was pretty much vanilla, over and done in minutes, with bail being set at $50k (unsecured) and a preliminary hearing date of December 16th being set. The perp-walk was the real treat, it was an early Christmas present:

Yes, that's me, heckling Jim.

Needless to say, a journey of just 2 months shy of 4 years has pretty much come to an end. This will probably be my last post on "Writemarsh" about Jim Matthews, as this day has pretty much reached the apex of my reasons for starting this blog in the first place...to see Matthews brought down in shame for the egregious behavior he has displayed as a Republican and as a human being, for the past 4 years.

Funny thing, I wasn't the only person telling people what a bad man Jim Matthews was. Bruce Castor told us from day one not to trust Jimbo. In today's Times Herald, Republican Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr. was quoted as saying:

“Jim Matthews lied to the voters, to his supporters, to his contributors, to the party – those things don’t surprise me, but when he lies to a grand jury, that is a crime. My experience is that perjury cases before a grand jury are almost always successful for prosecutors. I cannot recall a perjury charge in any court that I’ve ever worked in or around that did not result in a guilty verdict, because it’s such a rarely used charge. A prosecutor only uses it when they’re sure they’re going to win.”

Final note: as I was writing this post, Jimbo resigned as Chairman of the county commissioners. They say rats usually are the first to jump off of a sinking ship. Good riddance.

B.
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Montco GOP Launches Last-Minute $300K Ad Buy

According to PoliticsPa, The Brown/Castor campaign has purchased about $300k worth of ads to run now through election day.

Unfortunately for their opponents, the ad department "require a 24 hour turnaround for new television ad buys", which means, even if they could buy ads on Monday, they miss 3 days of air time.

Must be nice to have such a tremendous war chest, and have a lot of money left over at the end of the campaign, huh, Joshy? Explain that to Leslie on Tuesday night, when she's feeling like I once did, when I came in last in an election...

To see Brown/Castor's other ads, click here and here.

B.



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Epic Fail, Part Deux...

Not only does Joshy-Boy and Leslie's ad fall RIGHT NEXT TO Brown Castor's endorsement by the Intelligencer, The VERY NEXT DAY, news of Josh's admitted meeting with the Tea Party Patriots, A GROUP THAT LESLIE AND JOSH BLASTED JENNY BROWN FOR BEING PART OF (although she's not).

Understandably, I call BULLSHIT, Josh and Leslie...retract your commercial and recant the lies you've been telling about Jenny Brown. You just can't defend this.

Oh, and the "Epic Fail, Part Deux"? That this, too, gets posted on the very left-leaning Politics PA, RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR CAMPAIGN AD!


Tea Party Josh Shapiro?

By Ali Carey, Contributing Writer

In the highly contested Montgomery County Commissioner race, associating your opponent with the Tea Party has become the barb de jour.

Democratic candidates State Rep. Josh Shapiro and Whitemarsh Township Supervisor Leslie Richards have been hammering one of their Republican opponents as “Tea Party Jenny Brown.” Earlier this week, their campaign aired a 50’s sitcom style thirty-second television ad featuring Brown, a Lower Merion Township Commissioner, and incumbent Montco Commissioner Bruce Castor. The ad specifically calls Brown, “the only candidate who met with the Tea Party.”

But that may not be true. As it turns out, Shapiro met with a local Tea Party Group during his 2010 re-election campaign.

According to Ed Boyd of the Philadelphia Tea Party Patriots of Eastern Montco, Shapiro attended the group’s monthly meeting on October 14, 2010, at the North Penn VFW in Glenside.

“Now that Josh Shapiro has finally admitted the statement is false, there is no other recourse than for his campaign to pull all of the blatantly disingenuous radio and TV ads, and to make sure the falsehood is not repeated in any future campaign mailings and statements,” said Brown in a statement.

The Shapiro/Richards campaign argues that the claims in their advertisements are accurate, because Shapiro was a candidate for State Rep. at the time, not County Commissioner.

“Long before he became a candidate for county commissioner, Josh met with constituents who belonged to a local Tea Party organization and challenged their viewpoints head-on,” said campaign spokesman Frank Custer.

He reiterated the campaign’s charge against Brown.

“Jenny Brown, as a candidate for county commissioner, went to see the Tea Party, embraced their partisan principles and sought their support.”

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One Response to “Tea Party Josh Shapiro?”

Bob Guzzardi, Ardmore Penna. says:

October 29, 2011 at 12:04 pm

Josh Shapiro lies! Jenny Brown Tea Party? Josh Shapiro Socialist? Frankly, I am shocked at Josh’s lie. Even though I disagree with Josh on issues, I had thought his word was good. This is very upsetting. dr. bob and I are Tea Party and are active with Kitchen Table Patriots in Bucks County. While we, enthusiastically, support Jenny Brown, Jenny Brown is not what I would consider “Tea Party”.

Although Jenny Brown shares some of the ideas and policies of Tea Party, just as Josh Shapiro and Leslie Richards share quite a few Corporatist – Socialist Redistribution of the Wealth ideas, does not make Jenny a Tea Party person or Josh a Socialist. Very bad logic; the fallacy of the undistributed middle is well known and frequently promoted in political campaign rhetoric.

Name calling obscures the serious fiscal issues facing Lower Merion and Montgomery County. While fiscal common sense is on of the Tea Party principles, it is not the only one. Just as Big Government Spending, Borrowing, Taxing and Unionizing is only only one piece of classical fascism-communism.

ShapriroRichards need to resort to name calling to distract from their records of Big Government, Big Spending, Big Borrowing and Big Unionizing. .

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Bruce Castor: Josh Shapiro ‘lied’ about Tea Party meeting

It seems that the Shapiro/Richards team is continuing to be disingenuous with their TV commercials. In a taped forum on Larry Kane's "Voice of Reason" TV show, Shapiro finally admitted he himself had met with the Philadelphia Tea Party Patriots.

When pressed by Castor during the taping of Larry Kane’s “Voice of Reason” show Thursday, Shapiro finally admitted he had met with the Philadelphia Tea Party Patriots — Eastern Montco.
“(Shapiro) even lied directly to the voters on the show,” Castor said. “I didn’t have any objection that he had met with the Tea Party, but that he said Jenny Brown is bad because she did.”

Boy...they called Jenny Brown an extremist...what does that make Joshy-boy? A liar, that's what. Read the whole article here: Josh Shapiro ‘lied’

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Montgomery Co. Commissioner's Race Heats Up

From 6ABC:

The battle over who will run Montgomery County is on. The Republican candidates include incumbent Commissioner Bruce Castor and Lower Merion Commissioner Jenny Brown, and the Democrats State Representative Josh Shapiro of Abington and Whitemarsh Supervisor Leslie Richards.

The four are vying for the 3 commissioner seats and whichever party gets both its candidates elected will run the government in the state's third largest county, and will control its 2,000 at will non-union and non-civil service jobs.

Then:

"I think people who have been paying attention are just really frustrated with all of the fighting that's been going on and all the bickering," said Leslie Richards

Unfortunately for the short-sighted (and deceitful) Richards, the so-called "bickering" has been Republican Commissioner, Bruce L. Castor, Jr. fighting for the people of Montgomery County, trying to keep Jimbo and JoHuff from spending our county into a deficit. For all his "bickering", Matthews and Hoeffel have spent us into a shortfall that threatens our bond rating significantly. We may slip from AAA for the first time in a very long time, because of their blatant mismanagement of our county finances.

Read the entire article here: Montgomery Co. Commissioner's Race Heats Up

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Epic Fail!

There is nothing worse than spending all that money to put your ad on the most liberal politics page in the state, only to be upstaged when your opponents get a major newspaper endorsement as the top line item!







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Brown-Castor Campaign's 2nd Television Commercial

Whodathunk that this press conference by Josh, (with Leslie looking on, annoyed) would become the "gift that keeps on giving"?

Thanks for being in the state house too long, Joshy-boy.




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Intelligencer Endorses Brown-Castor Ticket for County Commissioners

The Intelligencer had one editorial board sit down with all four candidates for County Commissioner (at separate times) and here's what they came up with: Josh and Leslie have no credibility, no plan...otherwise, their campaign is full of shit.
When given an opportunity to expand on their platform, Richards and Shapiro are a one-trick pony...No Tax Increase. From the Intelligencer:

Shapiro and Richards are limiting themselves with their no-tax-increase pledge, and they’re taking a big risk in doing so. If Castor, after four years as a commissioner (albeit a marginalized one), says he doesn’t know the extent of the county’s financial woes, it’s difficult to figure out how Shapiro and Richards can be so confident about not having to raise taxes (emphasis mine...ed.)

Exactly. Full of shit. See, Jim-Turd and Joe The Huff have screwed this county up so badly, even a sitting county commissioner (Castor) doesn't know the extent of the problems they have caused. Castor has voted "no" on every big project (and three budgets) that he thought could wait until the county was in better financial condition, but in Castor's own words, "Two beats one".

Similarly to Huff Huff and Jimbo, Richards spent without regard to who would have to foot the bill in Whitemarsh, increasing our debt here almost tenfold...from $1.8 million to over $15 million and will leave the mess - one she helped create - for others to "clean up". The next administration will surely have to raise taxes in Whitemarsh, and Leslie gets out with no culpability. Full. Of. Shit.

For the past 4 years, The Intelligencer has not often been kind to Castor...they have, however, been fair in their assessment of the candidates running for commissioner this time around. Their pick? Read on:

It’s our belief the Republicans have the stronger, more credible game plan. That’s why our endorsement goes to Bruce Castor and Jenny Brown.

Read the entire article here: For commissioner in Montgomery County: Bruce Castor and Jenny Brown

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Leslie Richards Attacks Jenny Brown's Husband

Quite egregious, considering families have always been off-limits during campaigns.

Leslie back pedals, and says "I was not making any personal attack..."

Yeah, Leslie, and I have this bridge in Montco that I'd like to sell the voters....




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