2020 elections – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

What side of history is Rep. Zeldin on?

David Posnett — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 20:48:13 +0000

Reprinted in it’s entirety!

05.23.2021 Editorials Editorial: What side of history is Rep. Zeldin on?
By The Suffolk Times

Protesters outside Lee Zeldin’s Patchogue office in January. (Credit: Joe Werkmeister)

As we have watched events unfold in the nation’s Capitol, and followed our congressman’s role in these events, we’ve been reminded of something Ronald Reagan said when he was governor of California in 1967: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction.”
Powerful words. What he meant is that a generation can come along, even two and a half centuries after the ratification of the Constitution, and throw it all away. Not all at once, but through small steps and then much bigger steps, until the most fundamental of constitutional principles — the rule of law — is thrown aside in favor of rule by authoritarian means.
On Jan. 6, a ferocious mob, urged on by outgoing President Donald Trump, attacked the Capitol — destroying property, beating up police officers, hunting down representatives they hated, setting up a hangman’s noose outside and doing its best to disrupt the constitutional process of counting the electoral votes that gave the election to President Joe Biden.
The House of Representatives impeached Trump for the incitement — his second impeachment in four years. One Republican who supported impeachment was Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming). She said Trump lit the fuse that started the riot; she also said he lied every time he told his followers he really won the election and that his victory had been stolen.
Since then some of Trump’s more unhinged followers have downplayed the riot, saying it wasn’t all that bad. Some Republicans continued to insist that Trump really won the election. One particularly off-the-wall Republican described Jan. 6 as a typical tourist day. It’s hard to fathom that magnitude of lying by an elected official.
Now the House is moving toward a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the events of that day. Ms. Cheney, who was voted out of her leadership position by her GOP colleagues, said she supports the commission, in particular its ability to subpoena witnesses. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump loyalist, is against it.
On these two critical issues — the ousting of Ms. Cheney for her lack of support for Trump and the forming of the commission — Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) has come down on the wrong side.
As for Ms. Cheney’s demotion, Mr. Zeldin said in an email through his spokesman that he favored her replacement, upstate Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik. “Unlike the false narrative being pushed about what this is all about, the biggest reason why a change needs to be made is that when you are the conference chair it’s especially never all about you. That is not the situation faced presently with Cheney in that role,” he wrote.
On the formation of a commission to investigate events of Jan. 6, he said: “An overwhelming majority of Republicans have condemned the violence at the Capitol on January 6, bipartisan investigations are already underway in several committees, the Department of Justice has made more than 400 arrests connected to January 6, with more to come, and the Architect of the Capitol is reviewing ways to improve security and eliminate vulnerabilities within the Capitol complex.
“The duties of the proposed commission are already being carried out, but Speaker Pelosi wants to politicize this issue and distract from her party’s disastrous policies that are depressing the workforce and slowing economic growth.”
America needs to know exactly what happened that day, who supported it and which elected officials may have encouraged and supported this horrific attack on our democracy. A commission — if the House and Senate approve it — can provide the answers. It is also disturbing that Ms. Cheney, a conservative Republican, was tossed from her leadership post for calling out those who deny the Biden victory and for warning that a democracy cannot last long if its leaders lie.
In Gov. Reagan’s 1967 speech, he went on to say this about freedom: “It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”
Those who respect the Constitution and the rule of law must win this struggle.

Teens Molded by the Trump Era

David Posnett — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 21:16:07 +0000

Several recent articles have examined the influence of the Trump era on teens, at pre-voting ages. Claire Cain Miller looks at ‘What Teenagers Have Learned From a Tumultuous Time in Politics’ (April 22nd 2021 in the NYTimes). Emily Badger and Claire Cain Miller write about “How the Trump Era Is Molding the Next Generation of Voters“

Soon-to-be voters say they’re disillusioned by what they’ve observed, but many are also motivated to political action.

I was a teenager in the sixties. I remember the passion I felt when witnessing on TV a Buddhist monk sit down on a Saigon street, dowse himself with gasoline, light a fire and burn to death. I remember the passion I felt when the 6-day war broke out with many Arabic neighboring states threaten to invade Israel: I immediately went to the Israeli embassy to sign up as a volunteer! The events of the day had to have had a lasting effect on my adult views and politics.

So I understand, that for today’s teenagers the presidency of Donald Trump, the BLM protests following the murder of George Floyd and others, the pandemic, and the insurrection culminating with the storming of the US Capitol, are events that must have shaped the political views of teenagers.

In the NYT, MIller writes: “Apparently, research shows that a voting generation is typically shaped for life by what happens politically in their teen years and early 20s. What have teenagers taken away from all this? We asked 604 of them, ages 13 to 17, from around the country, in a poll by Dynata for The New York Times. A little more than half the teenagers surveyed were girls. And nearly half were Black, Hispanic, Native American or Asian-American. (We talked to more of them because Generation Z will be the first in which nearly half of the electorate is nonwhite.)”

The survey revealed disillusion, hardened political lines, but also motivation to become involved.

“Simultaneously, we have this caustic, scorched-earth politics of the Trump administration, particularly for people of color, and at the same time we see young people exercising power and influence and organizing and showing up in the marches and the election,” said Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, a political scientist at Purdue. “This is their political socialization, so we have to see how it plays out.”

A future woman president? Eighty-seven percent of them said they hoped a woman would be elected president in their lifetime; 47 percent of Trump supporters hoped so.

Confidence in government? About half agreed that government had their interests in mind. But less than half of girls or respondents who were Black, Hispanic, Native or Asian-American agreed, and only one-third of Trump supporters did. White boys were most likely to believe the government represented them. Minority girls were 21 percentage points less likely to agree that the government had their interests in mind. White boys were 20 percentage points more likely to be interested in running for office than boys of color; white girls were eight points more likely than girls of color.

Effect of the Trump presidency: In regard to political ambition it made 1/3 of teenagers of both genders less interested in running (with a larger effect on those of color.) But it also made about 1/2 of survey respondents, and nearly 3/4 of Trump-supporting teenagers, more interested in running.

By comparison, the 2020 election made 2/3 of teenagers more interested in running.

Other research has also found that for some young people who were disappointed by the Trump presidency, it awakened their interest in political involvement, according to David Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht.

“What we found is that there was great disillusionment in democracy among adolescents, especially girls, especially those who think of themselves as Democrats,” Mr. Campbell said. “Then we found this upsurge in protest activity, so the disillusionment, rather than driving them out of politics, pushed them into political activity.”

Their research also suggests that the surge of women running has been encouraging to young people — among liberals and some conservatives as well.

Young people are not likely to forget the activism they’re learning now, said Ella Robinson, a 16-year-old in Silver Spring, Md. The Trump era has taught her and her fellow students political savvy, she said, as their spontaneous school walkouts have been replaced by organized protests, with permits and tailored messages around issues like gun control and climate change.

“People in my generation are very aware that walkouts can only go so far,” Ms. Robinson said. “Voting needs to happen.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/upshot/trump-era-molding-young-voters.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Our democracy is broken. H.R. 1 can combat voter suppression and fix it

David Posnett — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 17:00:14 +0000

Mondaire Jones

Special to the USA TODAY Network: link here.

March 9, 2021

Our democracy is badly broken. Right now, Republicans in Arizona, Georgia and elsewhere are working hard to break it even further. But last week, my Democratic colleagues and I rose to repair and reconstruct it.

The For the People Act (H.R. 1), which passed the House of Representatives last week, will be the most significant improvement to our democracy since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. My colleagues in the Senate should act swiftly to send this bill to President Biden’s desk. It is required to save our democracy from the people who incited the violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th.

The For the People Act is a comprehensive bill that establishes automatic voter registration, combats voter suppression, protects our elections from foreign interference, and ends partisan gerrymandering — a process by which representatives choose their voters rather than voters choose their representatives.

But I want to focus on how H.R. 1 changes how campaigns are funded, amplifying the voices of everyday Americans.

Our current campaign finance system gives the wealthy a megaphone and silences the rest of us. In 2016, just 400 mega-donors contributed a total of $1.5 billion – more than every small donor combined. Those donors are predominantly wealthy white men, and they predominantly contribute to white candidates.

Congress isn’t just funded by wealthy people — it’s full of them. More than 50% of lawmakers in the 116th Congress have a net worth of more than $1 million, compared to just three percent of the population. This is not by accident: our campaign finance system is rigged to favor wealthy candidates. They can fund their own campaigns. They’re more likely to have nest eggs they can rely on while campaigning. And when they need extra funds, they can lean on networks of affluent family and friends.

I experienced our broken campaign finance system firsthand in my own run for Congress. When I was considering running for office, the first question insiders asked me was not what I would fight for, not whether my community was behind me, but how much money I could raise.

My leading primary competitor never had to answer that question. As the son of a pharmaceutical billionaire, he didn’t have to raise any money at all. Instead, he spent $5.4 million of his inherited wealth to blanket the airwaves with TV commercials three months out from the primary election. In the general election, I faced yet another self-funding candidate who outspent me by pumping $1.5 million into his campaign.

Against these long odds, I was elected to Congress. As an openly gay, Black, working-class candidate whose community sent him to Congress, I’m an exception. But I shouldn’t be. With the small-donor matching system in H.R. 1, candidates like me could be the norm.

Small-donor matching is simple: for every dollar a regular person donates up to $200, public financing matches that dollar with $6. A $50 donation becomes a $350 donation. As a result, small donors would matter — fixing the toxic power dynamics that threaten our democracy.

Small-donor matching has already transformed New York politics for the better. The donors in New York City elections, which have a matching program, are by far more racially and socioeconomically diverse than the donors in New York State elections, which do not. H.R. 1 would take that transformation nationwide.

The same goes for candidates. Candidates of color disproportionately rely on small donations. But because big money drowns out small donors’ voices, we typically raise less money than our opponents. Thus, we are often prevented from even making the ballot. By multiplying the power of the people candidates of color rely on most, small-donor matching empowers more people to take their seats at the table.

When we can elect people who really represent us, we get a government that really serves all of us — not just the wealthy and well-connected. If Congress had more ordinary Americans, it surely would not be so indifferent to the needs of working families. My Democratic colleagues and I in this Congress are already proving that by passing real COVID-19 relief in the American Rescue Plan. And we’re just getting started.

For at least a decade, Democrats have promised that when we had the chance, we would fix our broken campaign finance system. It’s taken over 10 years, but we’re here. It’s time. If the Senate fails to follow through — if we compromise with corruption — we risk confirming many Americans’ beliefs that billionaires and corporations have captured both parties, that our elections offer no real choices, and that our democracy is a swamp in need of a strongman to drain it.

So let’s fight for H.R. 1 and its small-dollar matching program like our democracy depends on it — because it does.

Rep. Mondaire Jones represents New York’s 17th Congressional District, which includes most of Westchester County and all of Rockland County.

‘South Country Unites’ says Thank You

David Posnett — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 18:33:53 +0000

Seen on Bellport.com The Village News:

South Country Unites Celebrates Inauguration Day

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021, members of South Country Unites, SCU, displayed yard signs in front of their homes to commemorate this very special day. They wanted to thank those committed, honest, hard working citizens, across 50 states and the District of Columbia, who made democracy happen. The members of SCU dedicated their display…

• “To all people who spoke up for justice and integrity

• To candidates for offices big and small, who believed that they can make a difference

• To campaign staffs, who in the time of COVID-19, planned and instituted a new, safer way of campaigning

• To petition carriers, door-knockers, phone and text bankers, letter writers – those who felt strongly that the best candidate must win

• To Boards of Elections in thousands of counties across our country who justly implemented voting laws, set up polling places, distributed ballots, hired and trained workers, and who counted and re-counted millions of votes under pressure

• To poll workers, who believed enough in free and fair elections to work 8 or 12 or 16 hour days with face masks and gloves, risking serious illness, to assure that each eligible citizen voted

• To the poll watchers who volunteered to assure that voters were treated fairly and laws were upheld

• To judges and public officials who sought to assure fair and free elections

• And to the voters, 161 million of us who made a voting plan and implemented it to assure that our voices were heard”

“The Members of SCU, THANK YOU! We honor your commitment and your hard work. May we all continue to work to support our fragile, 233 year old experiment in democracy. May we support President Biden and Vice President Harris as they and we, the people of the United States, address the difficult problems that lie before us.”

Photos courtesy of South Country Unites

White History MonthGot

David Posnett — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 20:25:32 +0000

https://twitter.com/ambermruffin/status/1358037733684355074?s=20

Got this from my friend Joanne: its hilarious and a great video.

Rabia Aziz sent this out tonight. Since I was clueless about Amber Ruffin, I played it thinking OMG, she must be talking about some Trump racist saying we need a white history month, will this never end. Instead, we got a fascinating American history lesson about something that’s been vaguely talked about but this really put it all together. Thank you, Rabia. I wish all of you could have learned as much as I have over the past three years from Rabia and Miss Lillie about the American history we aren’t taught.

Take care, JoAnne

Lee Zeldin Must Be Held Accountable

David Posnett — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 22:45:25 +0000

In this weeks Long Island Advance, by Shoshana Hershkowitz

Two-faced Lee. Version 2021

David Posnett — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 21:54:11 +0000

These two letters were sent out the same day to different recipient lists!

SWEET LEE (Jan 21, 2021)

Dear xxx,

Ideally, the commitment of all Americans each and every day should be to work towards unity and pursue a better course for our nation. Oftentimes, we will not agree on exactly how to best move America forward, but how we debate and disagree is especially critical. Respectful disagreement is a protected and treasured American value, and there will be many vibrant debates to be had over the next four years. Let us work towards ensuring they will always remain in the spirit that serves the betterment of our great country.President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took a sacred oath yesterday to our Constitution and our country as part of yesterday’s peaceful transition of power in a ceremony that has long been familiar to and celebrated by freedom-loving Americans.The months and years ahead are filled with great challenges and great opportunities for a country that truly does need less violence in our streets, more positivity in our hearts, and more understanding among our people.

Best Regards,Lee Zeldin
Member of Congress

NASTY LEE (Jan 21, 2021)

Friends,

Today is the first full day of the new Biden-Harris administration, which means it’s the first full day of Democrats jamming through their very disastrous priorities for America.

Logan sent you an email yesterday outlining Biden’s 100 day plan that will destroy small businesses, eliminate jobs, weaken our pursuit of energy independence, and embolden our adversaries like Iran by rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal as is.

Biden, Harris, and Pelosi have made one thing clear, friend: their priorities aren’t our priorities and the rest of us better not sit back one minute and go quietly into the night while the country we love gets rolled.

This is why my team started the 48-hour Fight for Lee Fund yesterday.

We still have a few hours until our deadline, and we still need $5,450 to reach our fundraising goal!

Join in our fight against the radical left’s power grabs and ideologies. Donate a 2X-MATCHED gift now! >>>

Thank you,

Lee CONTRIBUTE

PAID FOR BY ZELDIN FOR CONGRESS.
P.O. BOX 610, SHIRLEY, NEW YORK 11967

Letter to Zeldin about Impeaching Trump

David Posnett — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 22:15:38 +0000

This is a letter sent to Lee Zeldin on Jan 12th urging him to vote for impeachment of Trump. (I was having trouble posting until now). Although I knew it would have no effect in persuading him, I thought it important to say these things anyhow.

Rep Zeldin, it is not too late. You have one last chance for redemption. That chance is joining your principled Republican colleagues to impeach President Trump.

You have been instrumental in creating the environment that led up to an armed insurrectionist mob storming the Capitol and threatening our democracy. Shortly after you were elected to your first term you addressed a meeting of Oath Keepers. Oath Keepers is one of the far right armed militia groups that went all in on storming the Capitol on Jan 6. They’ve been lusting for armed uprising and civil war for years. More recently, during Trump’s first impeachment, you were one of the Congressmen who participated in the storming of the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) inside the Capitol during a hearing involving classified information. This, in spite of the fact that you already had secured access to the SCIF. The room was entered by force and security protocols were breached. Afterwards you spoke at a press conference praising this illegal action, thus abusing your position as a Congressman to set a terrible example of the lawless exercise of force to enter a secured area in the heart of the Capitol.

The worst of all was your vote to object to the certification of President-elect Biden’s wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania, AFTER the House chamber itself had been invaded by an angry mob baying for blood. There was no more ambiguity at that point about what the “stop the steal” rhetoric, led by President Trump and echoed by you, would lead to. It’s no use hiding behind sophistic and pettifogging language about “legal” votes and “investigations”. It was plain as day that you were aiding and abetting resistance to the peaceful transfer of power, and encouraging the delusion that the 2020 election was not free and fair, and that Trump should be declared the winner.

If ever a President fit the description of what the nation’s founders had in mind when they wrote the power to impeach the President into the Constitution, it is President Trump. Even before the election he refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power should he lose. He in fact refused to concede the possibility that he could lose. That is the behavior of a dictator. Then, after he lost, he convinced millions of Americans that the election was rigged, broadcasting the “stop the steal” lie through Twitter and other media. On Jan 3^rd he called the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, and cajoled and threatened him to “find” the votes necessary to make him the winner in Georgia, even going so far as to name the exact number of votes Raffensberger needed to “find”. This followed multiple calls and meetings with state officials overseeing elections pressuring them to overturn the election result in their state. During all this you gave your backing, even though you are a Congressman sworn to defend the Constitution, to this effort to cast into doubt and perhaps nullify the verdict of millions of voters in various states, all based on what you must have known, as a lawyer and educated person, was a lie.

Then on Jan. 6^th Trump addressed a mob which he himself had summoned to Washington using inflammatory rhetoric, demanding that Vice President Pence act in clear violation of the Constitution and simply arbitrarily declare Trump the winner. The mob, as we all know, then marched to the Capitol, overpowered the Capitol police who for reasons yet to be explained fully were unaided by any other federal agency, and smashed their way into the Capitol building itself, chanting, amongst other things “Hang Mike Pence!”. A Capitol police officer was fatally injured and other Capitol police officers were also injured. The legal and Constitutional process underway of counting the electoral votes was interrupted. The Vice President, Senators and Representatives were forced to flee for their lives to a secure location. Only after several hours, when reinforcements from the Washington D.C. police arrived was the Capitol cleared of the angry and bloodthirsty mob, after an orgy of pillage and looting had occurred, including the theft of electronics possibly containing classified information. It was only through both the bravery and quick thinking of certain outnumbered Capitol police officers that much worse did not occur, including the injury or murder of the Vice President, Senators, or Representatives.

Meanwhile, as all this was occurring President Trump was in the White House watching television. He refused numerous pleas coming from both those besieged in the Capitol and from officials of his own Administration to do something and summon help to clear the Capitol of the angry mob. In fact, reports are that he appeared to be enjoying himself and was pleased by the events that were occurring at the Capitol. During the critical hours the Capitol building was occupied by an insurrectionist mob, there was, in effect, no President of the United States. Donald Trump had abdicated his responsibility to preserve and protect the Constitution.

It is impossible for me to believe that you seriously think the behavior of President Trump is not impeachable. If his behavior is not impeachable what is the meaning of the impeachment clause in the Constitution? What would a President need to do to be impeached? Commit murder? Defect to Russia? Clearly that’s not what the founders had in mind by the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

This is your last chance to change your course and act in defense of our democracy instead of in defense of one autocratic and delusional man. Think about how you will be judged by history. Think about your daughters and what kind of country they will live in. Please, please think about the good of the country instead of pandering to the worst part of your “base”. This is your last chance to redeem yourself and act as something other than a political robot.

Corporate America Weighs In

David Posnett — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 22:35:06 +0000

From Robert A. Cohen, Esq. and Laura Ahearn

Source: Washington Post

Zeldin: undermining America

David Posnett — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 23:46:02 +0000

https://forward.com/news/388707/after-alabama-shocker-will-lee-zeldin-face-music-for-embracing-trump-and-ba/

Letter to the East Hampton Star:

Dear David,

Hours after Trump’s zealots stormed and ransacked the Capitol, Lee Zeldin voted “yes,” objecting to the electoral vote count that certified Joe Biden’s Presidential win.

Preventing that certification was precisely the goal of the violent mob. Knowing that the attempt was doomed to fail in any case, a refusal to join in that goal would have been the morally right thing to do.

To justify his vote, Zeldin claimed that “many of my constituents have been outraged and demanding that I voiced their objections.” While it’s true that the majority of CD1 voters supported Trump, no evidence suggests that more than a minority of these disappointed voters believe the thoroughly discredited assertions that, to quote Zeldin, “rogue election officials, secretaries of state and courts circumvented state election laws.”

My husband and I worked for 17 hours at an East End polling place on Election Day, witnessing first-hand a scrupulous, bi-partisan adherence to procedure.

We are also Mr. Zeldin’s constituents, and we are outraged at his pious calls for unity after having cast his vote to support the entirely partisan effort to undermine American’s faith in the very electoral process that keeps him in office.

Annie Davison