Nancy Goroff – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

The Days After Election Day

David Posnett — Sat, 31 Oct 2020 15:30:32 +0000

As our democracy hangs by a rapidly fraying thread, it is critical that each of us do everything we can to ensure that Donald Trump is voted out of office, and once voted out of office, that he actually LEAVES office.

“The Day After Election Day,” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-election-officials.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage an article in The New York Times, is an account of officials and aides who are worried the president will use the power of the government to keep himself in office. Following are highlights (lowlights is probably a more accurate term) from the article for those who can’t access it:

“Even though they can’t predict exactly what will happen, their concerns range from the president welcoming, then leveraging, foreign interference in the election, to encouraging havoc that grows into conflagrations that would merit his calling upon U.S. forces.

“I think the biggest shock he had — ’cause his assumption was the generals, ‘my generals,’ as he used to say and it used to make us cringe — was he …just assumed that generals would be completely loyal to the kaiser….And when we weren’t, that was a huge shock to him….

“This shock, and his first two-plus years of struggle with seasoned, expert advisers, led to an insight for Mr. Trump. It all came back to loyalty. He needed to get rid of any advisers or senior officials who vowed loyalty to the Constitution over personal loyalty to him. Which is pretty much what he proceeded to do.

“….Having loyalists at both the Department of Justice and D.N.I….allows him, potentially, to coordinate two key agencies of the government — secret intelligence and prosecution — toward his own political ends.

“Key officials in several parts of the government told me how they thought the progression from the 3rd to the 4th might go down.

“…Disruption would most likely begin on Election Day morning somewhere on the East Coast, where polls open first….A group could just directly attack a polling place, injuring poll workers of both parties, and creating a powerful visual — an American polling place in flames, like the ballot box in Massachusetts that was burned earlier this week — that would immediately circle the globe.

“Violence and conflict throughout that day at the polls would surely affect turnout, allowing Mr. Trump to claim that the in-person vote had been corrupted….There are many scenarios that might unfold from here, nearly all of them entailing weeks or even months of conflict, and giving an advantage to the person who already runs the U.S. government. There will likely be some reckoning of the in-person vote drawn from vote tallies and exit polls. If Joe Biden is way ahead in these projections…Mr. Trump may find himself having to claim fraud or suppression that amounts to too large a share of votes to seem reasonable. Inside the Biden campaign they are calling this “too big to rig.

“No matter how the votes split, there’s an expectation among officials that Mr. Trump will claim some kind of victory on Nov. 4, even if it’s a victory he claims was hijacked by fraud….If the streets then fill with outraged people, he can easily summon, or prompt, or encourage troublemakers among his loyalists to turn a peaceful crowd into a sea of mayhem.

“…But across the government, another official argues that citizens may yet manage to rise to the challenge of this difficult election, in a time of division.

“The last line of defense in elections is the American voter,” he told me. “This is the most vulnerable phase,” now and the days immediately after Election Day, “where we’re so eager to have an outcome, that actors both foreign and domestic are going to exploit that interest, that thirst, that need for resolution to the drama.”

And there you have it. The days and weeks after the election are likely to be a referendum – not on Donald Trump, but on each and every one of us. When everything is on the line, it’s time to do everything you can. Stay tuned.

Trump Is Killing Us

David Posnett — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 13:40:05 +0000

Letter to the Editor published in The East Hampton Star, October 8

Corrosive Effects

To the Editor:

The deadliest threat facing the American public isn’t the coronavirus, it’s the toxic brew of arrogance and ignorance that Trump and his loyalists have force-fed the country: the relentless denial of the risks of Covid (it’s like the flu, it only affects the elderly, it will disappear), the mocking of wearing a mask (not a good look), the touting of quack remedies (bleach, anyone?), the lack of testing (more positive tests make us look bad), and the raucous indoor rallies.

This lethal cocktail resulted in untold suffering and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and yet Trump barely seemed to notice, stating that the death toll “is what it is.”

But recent events have finally succeeded in focusing Trump’s mind. After egregiously flouting C.D.C. guidelines (as well as common sense) by introducing his Supreme Court nominee in a jam-packed Rose Garden with no social distancing and few masks, there is now a growing list of high-profile, Covid-infected attendees. And then there was the debate in Cleveland, where part of the agreed-upon rules was that all audience members wear masks. Apparently believing they are part of an elite brethren for whom rules don’t apply, Trump’s entourage shooed away those offering masks as if they were annoying gnats. But reality finally pierced the Trump bubble, and now the president and others in his inner circle are infected.

The corrosive effects of this administration will be felt long after they have gone on to their respective cell blocks (what can I say, I’m an optimist who still believes in law and order). To reclaim our collective sanity, and our democracy, we must vote this reprehensible con man and his Republican enablers out. Only then can we start rebuilding our place in the world with a president who understands the gravity of the situation, and who has sound plans for dealing with the most serious health crisis in our lifetimes.

Sincerely,

CAROL DEISTLER

200,000 Deaths….and Counting

David Posnett — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 14:19:14 +0000

Letter to the Editor, The East Hampton Press, September 23

Grounded In Science

More than 200,000 Americans are dead from the coronavirus — a staggering number, with no end in sight — and, yet, for Donald Trump, this is little more than an inconvenient footnote to the “amazing” job he’s done fighting an “invisible enemy.”

How is it that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than 20 percent of coronavirus deaths? That other countries have managed to subdue this invisible enemy, and are returning to some semblance of normalcy?

It’s because those countries have leaders who relied on the medical experts, were honest with their citizens, and helmed comprehensive national responses — while our president “took no responsibility at all” and left it to the states to employ a whack-a-mole strategy, resulting in an ongoing wave of infections and death.

If you’ve had enough of Donald Trump, then you’ve had enough of his ardent cheerleader, Lee Zeldin, as well.

Nancy Goroff, the Democratic candidate running against Zeldin, has spent more than 20 years at Stony Brook University in teaching and leadership positions (most recently as chairperson of the Chemistry Department). Electing Ms. Goroff to Congress will ensure that we have a representative who supports policies that are grounded in science and fact, not in the wishful thinking that got us here to begin with — because, no, Mr. President, the virus is not just going to disappear “like a miracle.”

Carol Deistler

East Hampton

Trump and Zeldin Have Got to Go

David Posnett — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 19:15:51 +0000

Letter to the Editor, Published in The East Hampton Star

Danger to All
East Hampton
September 7, 2020

To the Editor:

Donald Trump is a political cockroach, lurking in the dark corners of conspiracy theories and blatant lies; shine the light of truth and he scurries away. We must keep calling him out, reminding people of the incredible damage he has inflicted on this country. From ignoring credible reports of Russian bounties on American soldiers to hawking quack “miracle” cures for Covid-19 to falsely casting Joe Biden as a radical Democrat who is controlled by “people in the dark shadows” (seriously, that’s a quote), the man is a danger to all. And those who have not only enabled him, but in fact amplified his delusional ravings, including Lee Zeldin, should be held responsible as well.

In November, we have a chance to restore sanity. Let’s not blow it.

Sincerely,

CAROL DEISTLER

Early Voting

David Posnett — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 15:22:36 +0000

I can’t wait. Voting in NY State and Suffolk county starts on October 24th, a little over 1 month from now!

In contrast to absentee ballots and voting by mail, there seems less risk of your vote not being counted if you choose Early Voting. Your vote is counted when the vote is cast, not weeks later when the mail-in ballots are finally opened, well after Nov. 3rd. You can avoid potential problems. For instance a mail-in ballot could be flagged and not counted because of a technicality, like a signature deemed invalid.

One month or more, between now and October 24th, is an eternity in terms of predicting the Covid-19 situation. Could there be a mini-outbreak? Perhaps even an outbreak related to a polling station? Just in case, you might want to request an absentee ballot. You don’t have to use it if you decide to vote in person by Early Voting.

Note: I am not suggesting that you vote twice!

In June when 6 of us voted early for the primary election in East Hampton, the experience was seamless. There were no lines. We were all done in less than 5 minutes. The poll workers were friendly and helpful, and everyone was masked and mostly 6 feet distanced. All windows and doors to the polling station were open to allow a breeze to circulate. It felt like outdoors. In June there were few voters who chose to vote early. Perhaps this method of casting your vote is still new and unfamiliar to voters. This really needs to change.

Pick your date and time now (!) and make sure you know where the polling station is. It may not be your familiar polling station if you are voting early.

Here is some relevant information from the Suffolk County Board of Elections:

We have been warned.

David Posnett — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 15:39:32 +0000

https://www.ft.com/content/27c9a6e8-ffb7-11e9-b7bc-f3fa4e77dd47

Rather than denial and political inertia from the Republican party now in power, what if we had acted immediately on what our science community understood and warned us about, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic? The resulting health, economic, and social distortions could have been limited and we might now not be facing the terrible long lasting effects of that stubborn denialism.

Well, it may be that Covid-19 is an unfortunately dark, albeit resolvable, prequel to the vastly more all encompassing and dangerous “monster in the garden”—global warming. It’s that dangerous and just that close.We have understood and been warned by scientists of global warming for over a century. We understand the long term consequences: the advancing irreversible tipping points, melting polar regions which cool our planet, desertification of global farmlands, dying coral reefs, ocean pollution, acidification and ‘’hot zones” which toxify its organic life— impairing its CO2 uptake and oxygen generation.

We’ve been warned of rain forest destruction, loss of permafrost ecosystems, methane spikes, rising sea levels, ubiquitous record high global temperatures, year round multiple mega-hurricane systems, fires in the Arctic, fire tornadoes, fires everywhere, evaporating fresh water supplies, drought, famine, war…

We have been warned of this global climate emergency.Lacking a collective carbon conscience and oblivious to long term consequences we continue, blindly, pumping heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere, rapidly drawing down our allowable carbon emissions budget which at this rate will be dangerously overdrawn in less that 15 years. By then we may have lost control with tipping points falling like dominoes unfolding into the unimaginable horror of a planetary “hothouse” with all the anticipated dystopia.

Like the pandemic warning this year we have been warned of the years still to come. The time is calling for radical dependence on science. We have the knowledge and technologies to meaningfully overcome the climate challenges which actually can ultimately improve our lives. We have the science but not the will for what is demanded of us now to literally save the very life sustaining capacities of our planet.

Facing a global climate emergency, with high risks and little time, we need science, expertise and wise, brave leadership. Our voices in government must soon be guided by alert visionary science making smart science-based decisions.

Let’s fire Lee Zeldin(R) whose dismal environmental record earns him a dreadful 13% positive lifetime enviro-score from The League of Conservation Voters and elect Nancy Goroff, PHD, who will represent CD1 consciously and undertake the heavy lifting of crafting the complex actionable policies needed to meet the enormous climate challenges we can no longer reasonably push aside. We’ve been warned.

James Ewing, Water Mill NY

Trump’s Science Denialism

David Posnett — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 19:32:34 +0000

“People don’t seem to understand that public health is a critical element of national security,” said Randall Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel.

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead”. —THOMAS PAINE

In just over three years the Trump administration has decisively diminished the influence of science in its priorities and policies.

Throughout his time in office Mr.Trump has proposed sweeping budget cuts at a variety of science based federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation among others.

In 2017, he cut Health and Human Services (HHS) funding, which oversees the Center for Disease Control (CDC), by 18%, Already considered “woefully” underfunded by many, CDC funding has been cut every successive year.

.—In 2018 he shut down the National Security Council’s Pandemic Preparedness & Global Health Security Office which was charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation. The elimination of this office, along with Trump’s proposed budget cuts for the CDC, suggests that he saw the fact based pandemic threats not worth his attention.

He shut down the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NCG) which informed the nations health care system on current medical advances along with science based practice guidelines.

In 2019 he ignored a joint HHS/FEMA/DHS exercise termed “Crimson Contagion Simulation”

which anticipated gross health care infrastructure preparedness problems, shortages of medical supplies, overwhelmed hospitals, and economic deterioration.

Three months before Covid-19 went global Trump ended the Pandemic Early Warning System (PREDICT).

in January and February, alone He was warned over a dozen times by researchers of a potential global pandemic and ensuing national security threat.

He calls the Pandemic the “Democrat’s new hoax…It is what it is…It’ll just go away…We’re in great shape…Don’t believe what you see…!”

Meanwhile Trump abruptly dismissed Nancy Messonie MD, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, for declaring the immanent dangers of Covid-19 and then demoted Dr. Rick Bright, one of the nation’s leading vaccine specialists, from the National Institute of Health. Their critical messaging, heralding science for the common good, clashed with Trump’s myopic political and economic priorities.

Our country is sorely reeling from this administration’s astounding and dangerous ignorance and incompetence.

To date over 175000 Americans, have fallen to Covid-19 largely due to failed, if not absent, leadership.

Last April Trump announced defunding the World Health Organization. We still have no national testing plan, no protective equipment distribution plan.

Trump’s science denialism reflects on this entire Republican party. All GOP candidates supporting this ruinous administration are accountable and should be definitively removed from office.

We need more Science and expertise in Government:
Vote Nancy Goroff PHD to replace Lee Zeldin (R).

James Ewing, Water Mill, NY

Sowed Discord

David Posnett — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:01:42 +0000

Trump ‘s lackey boy, Lee Zeldin

Springs
August 24, 2020

Dear David:

The past three and a half years have been a master class in the havoc that can be wrought when a president is constrained by neither truth nor decency. Starting with the size of his inauguration crowd, it’s been brazen lie after brazen lie (20,000 and counting), and a never-ending assault on the rule of law.

He has sought to end health-care coverage for millions of Americans (and continues to do so during a pandemic), encouraged violence against journalists and political opponents, attempted to extort the president of Ukraine, re-tweeted preposterous and vile QAnon conspiracy theories, actively sown discord whenever he thinks it’s to his political advantage, and most recently he installed an unqualified lackey to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service. The list goes on and on.

But Trump couldn’t have inflicted so much damage on his own; he needed help from those willing to excuse his corruption and incompetence, and in that respect, our congressional representative, Lee Zeldin, has been a standout. Parroting any number of the president’s ridiculous talking points — from how confessed felon General Flynn has been treated unfairly to decrying that Lt. Col. Vindman “is no martyr” (No, he’s a Purple Heart recipient who served his country for 20 years and came forward when he witnessed wrongdoing), to lauding the president’s “phenomenal” handling of the coronavirus. Zeldin is an embarrassment.

Nancy Goroff, a distinguished scientist with years of experience tackling difficult problems and finding solutions, is running against Zeldin in November. The choice is ours. Do we want a sycophant who has spent the better part of his last two terms supporting the worst instincts of a dangerous president, or a woman who will represent and fight for the interests of her constituents with dignity and intelligence?

Sincerely,

CAROL DEISTLER

Lee Zeldin’s Confederate Statues

David Posnett — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 18:25:29 +0000

Deeply Concerned
Springs
August 9, 2020

Dear David:

To excuse his vote against the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers from the Capitol, Rep. Lee Zeldin claims, “never to have heard from a constituent that they were concerned about statues in the Capitol”— statues honoring the men who fought to protect slavery. Well, Mr. Zeldin, I am a constituent, and I am deeply concerned.

Those eight statues were sent to Washington by Southern states between 1908 and 1931, decades after the Confederate defeat, to honor “the Lost Cause” and to celebrate the triumph of white supremacy through the Jim Crow laws that oppressed and terrorized Blacks in the backlash to Reconstruction. They were installed despite a public outcry by, among others, Union Army veterans and a congressman from Kansas who refused to “sanction an official honor for a traitor.”

Mr. Zeldin is evidently okay with honoring traitors because, he says, “The war is over and the Union won.” Imagine if Germany were to sanction statues honoring Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels in public squares because, “Hey! World War II is over and the allies won!”

We can, and we should choose which parts of our nation’s history to remember with pride. The statues Mr. Zeldin has chosen to protect represent the worst of America’s history. I hope others of his constituents will join me in choosing to stop being represented in Congress by Lee Zeldin.

ANN DAVISON

Undermining the U.S. Postal Service to Rig the Election

David Posnett — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:03:00 +0000

Will Zeldin protect our right to vote?

From: Daily Kos <campaigns@dailykos.com>
Just in case anyone thought it was a conspiracy theory to claim that Donald Trump was undermining the postal service in order to prevent mail-in ballots from being counted, on Thursday Trump flat out said it himself:

Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots…But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting…”

Trump is clearly FREAKED OUT by the prospect of mail-in voting and doing whatever he can to suppress it. Politico even reports that Trump’s aides are exploring ways that Trump can curb mail-in voting through executive orders.

The more people vote, the less likely Trump is to win. He knows it, we know it. That’s why, as I detailed in the email below this one, Trump is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, while at Daily Kos we are doing everything we can to help people vote:

Trump is using Facebook and Fox News to spread disinformation about mail-in voting, while we are using every communication channel we have to debunk those lies and tell the truth about its near-total safety and security.
Trump is filing lawsuits to keep mail-in ballots out of the hands of voters, while we are sending hundreds of thousands of constituent letters to elected officials demanding full funding for the postal service and mail-in voting.
Trump is undermining and defunding the postal service, while we are funding 28 local civic engagement organizations in five crucial swing states who are providing on-the-ground support to help frontline communities vote.
Trump is recruiting 50,000 volunteers, including veterans and off-duty law enforcement officers, to intimidate prospective voters at polling places, while we are recruiting twice that many volunteers to work on turning out the Democratic vote.

Donald Trump has a multi-pronged campaign to suppress the vote in order to win re-election. At Daily Kos, we have a multi-pronged campaign to stop him.

First, here is Trump’s plan:

First, thanks to Big Tech companies like Facebook, Trump and his right-wing allies are using social media to spread disinformation about voting, in particular about the safety and security of voting by mail.
Second, in case the disinformation doesn’t work and Americans go ahead and request mail-in ballots anyway, Republicans are spending millions of dollars on lawsuits designed to keep mail-in ballots out of the hands of prospective voters whenever possible.
Third, in the event that prospective voters are able to acquire mail-in ballots, Trump has installed a Postmaster General who has deliberately slowed down mail delivery, with an eye toward preventing as many mail-in ballots from being counted as possible.
Finally, in the event that people give up on mail voting and decide risk their health by voting in person, Trump’s campaign, via the Republican National Committee, is giving millions of dollars to Republican state parties to recruit 50,000 volunteers–including veterans and off-duty law enforcement officers–to directly intimidate prospective voters and challenge ballots at “key precincts.”

At Daily Kos, we are not going to let this campaign against democracy stand. We will fight to cancel it, every step of the way:

First, through our heavily trafficked website, and our vast email and SMS lists, we collectively generate over 100,000,000 views from an average of 9,000,000 people every month. We have used, and will continue to use, these enormous channels to combat the right-wing disinformation campaign about voting by mail, and arm millions of grassroots activists with the truth: voting by mail drives up turnout, keeps you safe from disease, and is extremely secure.
Second, while we cannot afford high-priced lawyers to combat Republican lawsuits aimed at keeping mail-in ballots out of the hands of voters, we can more than make up for that with grassroots activism. This spring and summer, we have been coordinating with dozens of progressive organizations to send millions of letters to Congress, demanding full funding for voting by mail and for election security, and we will not relent until we win that campaign In the coming weeks, we will take that campaign to the state and local level, working with allies to pressure elected officials at every level to ensure a safe, democratic and high turnout presidential election.
Third, due to reports of delayed mail delivery, we are participating in an experiment with our primary Get Out the Vote partner, Vote Forward, to determine if the millions of letters our volunteers are preparing to mail to Democratic swing state voters in late October need to be sent out earlier this year than initially planned.
Finally, we are countering Republican efforts to intimidate prospective voters at the polls by recruiting two volunteers to help people vote for every one volunteer the GOP recruits to frighten them. Further, we are providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to local civic engagement groups who are on the ground in five key swing states–Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin–making sure those organizations have the resources they need to protect the right to vote for the diverse, frontline communities who bear the brunt of Trump’s assault on the right to vote

We are fighting back against Donald Trump’s comprehensive assault on democracy with a comprehensive defense of it. However, as a grassroots funded organization we can only go as far as you take us.

Please, chip in $5 a month to Daily Kos for the three months between now and Election Day and help us cancel Republican voter suppression.

Keep fighting,
Chris Bowers
Executive Campaign Director, Daily Kos