Below are all of the speeches and my coverage of the Harrisburg, PA - Voice of the People rally - on the steps of the Capitol on September 1, 2007.

It was a beautiful day out, though it did become a tad hot actually standing under the sun for the whole rally. People started moving towards the shade under the trees next to the steps after awhile. The crowd at the event numbered between 150-200.

Now I'm going to stop there because it is being reported in newspapers that there were skinheads amongst us. First of all any skinheads that were there were not invited. Secondly I suspect that at least one of these so called skinheads was a plant. The guy I saw walked onto the steps with a shirt on and walked around for about 5 minutes, then he walked to the center of the crowd and took his shirt off and started making aggressive stances. Many of us were eying him and waiting for him to do something.

I can guarantee you that this guy wasn't invited and there was security watching him at all times. I'd also like to point out that being bald doesn't automatically make you a skinhead.

There is another report from the same paper, the Times-Leader by Steve Mocarsky, who actually was at our rally, unlike the other reporter above, and he doesn't mention anything about skinheads screaming at protesters, because it didn't happen as far as I know.

Counter-protesters were small in number and not vocal. I'd estimate about 25 if you look at the pictures. According to the paper above it was supposed to be a silent counter-protest, but when they first arrived I did hear Mexican music being played loudly for a bit. They dispersed quickly and I didn't even realize they were gone until much later.
Two of the scheduled speakers pulled out, Reverend Jesse Peterson due to threats on his life and Congressman Paul C. Broun of Georgia, because his wife was receiving phone calls claiming that there were racists speaking at this event. Another disinformation campaign and threats from the opposition.

I'd like to ask you a question, when was the last time you heard of a patriotic American calling some illegal alien supporter and threatening them in order to disrupt one of their protests? You haven't - and you know why- because we are in the right and we know it. Even all the rumors about skinheads and Nazi's and the KKK attending these events, not once have you heard of violence occuring at one of these rallies or threats being issued. Even the paper above that claims skinheads were there - though only gets confirmation from one that he's a member (and I'm suspecting it's the threatening "plant" above I mentioned) - does not include any racist or violent confrontations. That's because they don't happen!

The Capitol building itself was quite beautiful with artistic statues on either side of the entryway. They gleamed white in the bright sun. I'm into that kind of thing and the effort put into them was quite intricate as you can see below.

The people that attend these events are polite, yet at times they get quite vocal. When they hear of a travesty of justice or a wrong doing they'll let you know.

It was good to see Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe there. He is the founder of the State Legislators for Legal Immigration, a quickly growing group of state legislators across this nation joining together to end illegal immigration. I first met Daryl when I covered his "National Security Begins at Home Rally" - an SLLI event at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia on July 27, 2007. He's a good guy - who is looking out for not only his district - but the whole country.

Police presence was adequate for the day. There was also a local festival going on down at the water that Ruth and I went to after the rally, so I guess the cops were pretty busy between both events.

The Speakers

I personally thought there were too many speakers for this event. So many, that a few speakers didn't get to speak, like Ruth from Illegal Protest, who I personally know spent hours and hours researching and preparing her information and speech. So that is one black eye against this rally. However, the speakers they did have were pretty well known and very good with the information they delivered. You can see all of the speeches below on video, but here are pictures, from the event, of each speaker.

John Clark from Americans for Immigration Control was the emcee for the event. While John Clark paid me some respect with the introduction he gave me - and some good words about Digger's Realm - I simply was not impressed with him at all as the emcee. His speaking was fine, but he interrupted both myself and Frank Scavo during our speeches (among others I heard who simply ignored him). He actually threw me off in a portion of my speech, as you can see below, though I have tried to edit it out a little. It took me a second to regain my composure and where I was. My take, if you're going to invite someone to speak and they come with a prepared speech that they spent hours on, don't interrupt them. It may piss John off to read this, but I'm sorry, I don't pull any punches.

Joey Vento really tore up the crowd with his great "everyguy" speech on illegal immigration.

Dan Smeriglio called out Daryle Lamont Jenkins across the street from One People's Project. Daryle and his group One People's Project apparently had it out to put an end to this rally before it even began along with the ACLU. I refuse to link to this dirtbag's site, but here's a quote on the rally

Speaking of which, we cannot close without giving a special shout-out to our friends in Keystone State "Skinheads" and the assorted Nazi lot that turned out. They are claiming it was a good day for them, and they are absolutely right. It was - for them. We, however, had bigger fish to fry in VOTP and the bonehead crowd was simply the oil. VOTP could have simply distanced themselves from them, but one, the Nazis were the majority that came out for the anti-immigration crowd, and two, organizers made hatemongers a part of the rally in the first place!

Now scroll back up to the pictures I have above and tell me that the majority in them are Nazi's. See this is what we are facing folks, outright lies with no single seed of truth in them.

Daryle's One People's Project are known to accuse people of being racists - with absolutely no facts - and then posting their names, phone numbers, addresses and employers on websites. Isn't that nice to smear and slander people without proof?

Daryle apparently has been spreading rumors on the Internet that Dan is a child molester to try and smear his name. Dan was quite pissed and Daryle actually crossed the street and joined our crowd as people all gave him the evil stink eye. I caught this great picture of Daryle who apparently felt bad. Is poor Daryle going to cry now that he is not behind his keyboard sniping from a distance? Boo hoo hoo.

All in all the rally was a success. Even with my gripes about it, I felt that the mission of the rally was successful. I wish there were more people that had attended and I wish they had a different emcee, maybe some chairs or something as well and a water vendor (apparently all of them went to the festival), but it went off well and the speakers were great. Unfortunately some of the speakers didn't get to speak and that will be made up for soon with a web exclusive speech of what the people in Harrisburg missed. Details on that soon.

Videos of all the speeches below - in order.

John Clark opening statements and discussions on threats against speakers:

Speech by State Representative Daryl Metcalfe

Speech by Ed Kowalski

Speech by Robert Goldsborough

Speech by Joey Vento

Speech by Frank Scavo

Speech by Frank Jorge

Speech by Peter Gadiel

Speech by Dan Smeriglio

Speech by Mariann Davies

Speech by Dan Amato

Speech by Paul Topete

Speech by Retired Lt Colonel Michael Huff