{"id":23954,"date":"2020-08-08T14:29:09","date_gmt":"2020-08-08T18:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=23954"},"modified":"2020-08-08T14:29:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T18:29:09","slug":"pennsylvania-patriots-show-up-in-force-in-lancaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=23954","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Patriots Show Up In Force in Lancaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

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#REOPEN PA!, COVID-19<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Patriots Turn Out in the Thousands at the Capitol to Defy Gov. Wolf\u2019s Mandates as Resistance to Mask Laws, Lockdown Intensifies [INCLUDES PHOTO ESSAY]<\/h1>\n

BY TREY
\nLancaster Blog<\/p>\n

Braving sweltering summer temperatures and even higher humidity, more than a thousand patriotic Pennsylvanians took to the steps of the Capitol in Harrisburg on Wednesday, calling for an end to Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s authoritarian lockdown of the Keystone State.<\/p>\n

Speakers and attendants included several Lancaster County residents, as well as leading GOP state legislators including Rep. Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon) and Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33), as well as State Rep. Frank Ryan, among others.<\/p>\n

ReOpen PA co-founder\u00a0Matthew Bellis<\/a>\u00a0was among the keynote speakers, and\u00a0Joel Saint<\/a>, pastor of Independence Reformed Bible Church in Lancaster County and a regular contributor to Lancaster-blog, was interviewed by local television reporters.<\/p>\n

Speakers had harsh words for the governor and his transgender Secretary of Health, Rachel Levine, a political appointee and former pediatric psychiatrist with no background in public health policy who has directed the state\u2019s bungled COVID response.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been at this since mid-April \u2013 where is the data behind your decisions?\u201d Bellis rhetorically asked the governor. \u201cGovernor, give up your power!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellis noted that the governor and Levine have not released any info on where the supposed infection hotspots are, but closed down bars, restaurants and churches, effectively killing businesses and harming churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIgnorance breeds fear, and fear has become a virtue, and that has become a weapon,\u201d Bellis said. \u201cTruth gets drowned out and people languish under poor leadership because of that fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy has a community effort to manage a disease become the most political issue of the day?\u201d Bellis continued. \u201cTruth will out\u2026and someday your chickens will come home to roost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellis concluded telling the cheering crowd \u201cYes, we want to win, but it\u2019s more important that you stand . We must stand firm.\u201d<\/p>\n

This protest comes just one week after Wolf petulantly announced new coronavirus regulations on businesses that mainly target bars and restaurants, citing new cases despite the increase in offsetting new tests and rapidly declining mortality rates.<\/p>\n

Wolf was particularly upset by the fact that citizens throughout the Keystone State continue to operate in open defiance of his unlawful, unenforceable mask mandate. An order released July 15 reduced indoor dining capacity at businesses in the retail foodservice industry from the current 50 percent to just 25 percent, among other restrictions.<\/p>\n

Christine Wartluft, co-owner of Palmyra Italian eatery\u00a0Taste of Sicily<\/a>, which has now racked up $10,000 in fines for allowing customers to eat in their dining room before they moved to the \u201cgreen\u201d phase of the state\u2019s reopening plan, told the crowd that the restaurant was 100% open despite the latest orders, and that \u201cWe\u2019re not going to pay one dime of those fines!\u201d<\/p>\n

The actions at Taste of Sicily reflect a growing rebellion in the state against Wolf\u2019s orders, with businesses refusing to follow mandates that don\u2019t have legal backing, and citizens refusing to wear masks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis governor preys on the weak, but we aren\u2019t going to pay a dime for this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Saint was interviewed by ABC 27, and it was the usual thing where the \u201creporter\u201d asked a question, Saint gave his factual response, and the \u201creporter\u201d then went on to editorialize and give his opinion that the factual response was wrong. (And the stations wonder why no one watches local TV news and no one respects TV \u201cjournalists.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Diamond talked about legislation he is sponsoring that would limit future declarations of emergency by governors, and called on Levine to resign or be fired for her epic mismanagement as well as her pulling her own mother out of assisted living even as she was ordering senior homes to accept COVID patients, which lead to 69% of Pennsylvania COVID deaths being among seniors.<\/p>\n

Mastriano called Levine and Wolf science deniers for creating policies not based on sound science, but rather flawed models.<\/p>\n

Below is a photo essay of the great turnout, people and signs.<\/p>\n

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Old Glory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Mastriano working the crowd.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Mastriano again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Pastor Joel Saint schools an ABC27 news puppet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is an antifa nerd, doing nerd things, but armed with a baseball bat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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See? There\u2019s the nerd\u2019s baseball bat disguised as part of his sign.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This woman could have taken that nerd.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Thank you for your service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Facts back this up. Deaths of despair and overdoses are skyrocketing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Liberals (the real racists) don\u2019t know how to process this one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Even more useless than masks\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another state legislator on the right side of history.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Two BLM hobos apparently got lost on their way to a George Floyd memorial, or something,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/www.lancaster-blog.com\/pennsylvania-patriots-turn-out-in-the-thousands-at-the-capitol-to-defy-gov-wolfs-mandates-as-resistance-to-mask-laws-lockdown-intensifies-includes-photo-essay\/#<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}