MONESSEN (KDKA) – Monessen is a 3rd class city in southwestern Westmoreland County, and like a lot of former mill towns, Monessen has witnessed better days.
Mary Baumgardner said “this town was once a lively neighborhood, now it’s dead.”
When the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Mill was going strong, there were thousands of good paying jobs here. But, those Wheeling Pittsburgh jobs have vanished, and so has a lot of the population. The city’s tax base has eroded, empty store fronts sit along the Main Street, and blighted buildings and homes are numerous.
Presumptive GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump will deliver an economic message, in the shadow of that once thriving steel mill Tuesday afternoon. His speech is entitled “Declaring American Economic Independence.”
Monessen Mayor Louis Mavrakis told KDKA TV’s Ralph Iannotti Monday night “if ISIS was to come to Monessen, they’d keep on going, they would think it was bombed already, that’s how bad it is.”
Trump was invited to Monessen by the city’s Mayor, who describes himself as a lifelong Democrat, frustrated by empty promises he’s heard over the years from career establishment politicians. Mavrakis said he and his wife worked for the election of Obama in the last two presidential elections.
He said “my gripe is very simple….the very communities that built this country are the ones suffering the most.”
The Mayor has fired off two letters to President Obama, looking for federal assistance for his distressed city. He got no response.
Why does he like Donald Trump?
“He’s telling me what I want to hear, no one else is saying that, I have to believe the guy. I’m 78 years old, I’ve heard this same rhetoric over and over ‘we are going to do this for you.’ They get elected, and forget about you,” he said.
Mary Jo Smith is a former Monessen Mayor, and the current Monessen Democratic Party Chairwoman. She says Mayor Mavrakis is all wrong’ explaining ” you are elected as the Democratic Mayor of Monessen, elected by Democrats, why are you reaching out to a Republican?”
Earlier this month, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was in town for the “Trump Rally For National Training Day & Volunteer Registration.”
Gosh, this Mayor should be careful. Obama might send some refugees there.
Thanks for the thread nikos!
Good Morning!
Flyover America has been hurting since the 1960's. These communities are highly representative of the economic plight Trump is campaigning to overcome. The question is, can St. Clairsville and Monessen outvote Cleveland and Philadelphia?
My thought is that the current system operates with a presumption that the refugee candidate is suitable, and unless there is reliable evidence of some terrorism sympathy, the candidate is admitted. I submit that this burden should be reversed. It should be incumbent on the immigrant to show that they will assimilate to US culture, and will be a net positive.
Trump is supposedly to release a policy or a paper that deals with the subject.
This is a brilliant decision by the Trump campaign. The Monongahela river towns, Monessen, Donora, Monongahela, Charleroi, and Brownsville, are but shadows of their former days when JFK visited the area.
After the JFK visit, good things happened like the widening of Rt. 906 to mitigate the rock slides that were damaging vehicles, and closing the road. Many photos of JFK posing with locals hang in the bars in the area.
Hope that I can catch the live streaming this afternoon.
I live about 10 minutes from Monessen. I go right over the Charleroi/Monessen bridge that spans the Monongahela river. That photo with Kennedy speaking in downtown Monessen is now a ghost town. Drugs and shooting have found their way in. The place were Trump will speak I pass almost everyday on the way to my daughters house. It is part of the now gone Monessen Steel Mill. The ending of the first “Robocop” movie was filmed in the old mill before it was razed. Once in a while I see Tom Savini walking down the streets in Monessen. He has a movie makeup school there.
My e-mail from Erick Trump was shuttled into the Junk mail box...
Seems to be a problem with various Trump based fund raisers.
Isn’t this the second or third town that Trump is visiting, that Kennedy also campaigned in? Not counting the obvious ones like Dallas, LA, etc.
FYI, “third-class city” is a legal classification under PA law that determines how much independence from Harrisburg a city may have. Philadelphia is the only “first-class city” under the law. Pittsburgh and Scranton are “second-class cities”. All others are designated “third-class”.
Actually not a snide KDKA dig at Monessen.
Trump Campaign Announces Expansion of Team
(New York, NY) June 28, 2016 - Today, Donald J. Trump announced the expansion of his campaign team making several appointments as he continues to build his operations in advance of the general elections.Jason Miller will serve as Senior Communications Advisor, where he will work with the existing team to build out a full Communications Department to deliver victory this November. Mr. Miller will work with several areas of the campaign to ensure messaging coordination and implementation. Mr. Miller has managed campaigns and shaped messages for successful House, Senate and gubernatorial races in addition to serving on the senior staffs of two presidential campaigns.
Michael Abboud is joining the Trump Campaign as a Communications Coordinator. Formerly with the RNC Communications Department, Mr. Abboud will work to execute the campaign's rapid response and daily messaging, as well as providing candidate briefings on daily news and breaking stories.
Alan Cobb will serve as the Director of Coalitions for the campaign, organizing and managing the numerous coalition groups that currently support, and will support, Mr. Trump for president. Previously, Mr. Cobb served in several roles for the Trump Campaign including as a Senior Advisor. Mr. Cobb managed statewide, political and issue campaigns, served as the Deputy State Director for U.S. Senators Bob Dole and U.S. Senator Sheila Frahm and served as a Campaign Advisor to the 2014 campaigns of Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Pat Roberts.
On the appointments, Mr. Trump stated, "As we continue to work to defeat Hillary Clinton this November, I am constantly building a superior political team. After winning the most votes in the history of a Republican primary contest, we are taking our messages to the people so that we can Make American Great Again."
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Previously unseen footage from 10/13/62 taken in Webster Pa of JFK on his way to make a speech in Monessen Pa - (youtube Video)
================================================================================== "The two superpowers plunged into one of their biggest Cold War confrontations after the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane making a high-altitude pass over Cuba on October 14, 1962,
thanks for the invite and the history of these places.
having a late breakfast of cappuccino and cheddar grits. I now go out to garden first thing, and end up spending hours out there..... it’s paradise, but tiring! I should be in good shape by fall, though ;)
Good morning or good afternoon, as the case may be- everyone!
Thank you once again for the thread nikos.
30 minutes until show time.
ALL ABOARD!
Implicit in the visit is the thought that the prevailing circumstances at the close of WW II can be resuscitated. There is no replacing the jobs at obsolete steel mills. The reason those mills are gone is because it was more competitive to make steel elsewhere.
It makes for good theatre however. Just imagine...... the steel workers union members can actually be steel workers and not glass workers
Got back in the house just in time to hear DJT. Another Dr appointment. Good news is got to hear Rush give the rats and media hell as I drove the long detour back home.
Actually could agree with him.
This was the BEST yet! It really connected with me, Trump on message with how our politicians have aggressively pursued globalization, which has made the financial elites rich and powerful as it hardwires our economy into funds specifically that expand their power and global assault on democracy, this is all the elites anti-democratic agenda by people such as Obama, Hillary Goldman Sachs Clinton and such political pigs and their globalist open borders despots who rig the system and who do not want anything to change because of the way they rigged things!
We actually have a great future as Trump says as we free ourselves from these globalist elites, and screw their funds as I made $15,000 this Friday in investments in politically incorrect funds such as gold funds, Swiss Franc, Nordic Banks ETF et all, I didn’t lose - all this other crap is fear mongering by the elites and attempts to punish us who want our sovereignty and freedom. But millions of investors such as myself will realign and re-balance and we will come back stronger than ever, today the DOW was up, we will not allow the globalist elites to hold us down and control us.
Trump 2016
The media and Hillary will continue on with the narrative that Trump lacks specifics.
Even though he’s killing them on specifics.
Thanks for the ping and watching it live now!
After the rally, I poked on over to Twitter to see what the reporters covering Trump cherry picked out to get outraged over (ignoring rest of speech of course). They didn’t like that Trump used the word “rape” in reference to China. They were outraged, I tell you, outraged.
Anyway, I thought Trump did great today, but I was disappointed he didn’t seize on that Benghazi report on Hillary at the rally, talk about the Secret Service Hillary book, or mention Brexit. He focused on jobs, though, I suppose because he gave his speech on jobs today.