Zeldin – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Tell Truth to Lies.

David Posnett — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 23:40:35 +0000

By James Ewing

On Wednesday Jan 6, 121 members of the US House of representatives rejected the election results from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.

138 House members rejected the results from Pennsylvania.

Authorities have called this election the most secure in our history. No results, none, were challenged within states themselves. No meaningful fraud was detected anywhere, by any judiciary, all the way up to the Supreme Court.

And yet these elected GOP officials, “leaders” as they are called, chose to oppose the results anyway.

Our representative Lee Zeldin, was among those opposing the results of all contested states.

I have no doubt that the majority, if not all of these representatives, knew the election results were accurate. I assume their objections were based upon narrow ambitious calculations tying their fortunes to the deranged, personality cult of one very damaged man, Donald Trump.

We generally presume that our elected leaders have reliable information and act reasonably on what they know. We depend on our leaders to keep us informed, help us understand what is going on in their respective realms of authority. Leadership is defined as “an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction, the position or function of a leader, a person who guides or directs a group”.

Ideally, If we are to be governed wisely and well our leaders must tell us the truth, speak truth to lies, without posturing with what they think we want to hear. In 1868, a New York Democrat declared “if a man is ignorant, he needs the ballot for his protection all the more”. For our protection we need our leaders to be truthful. Rather than leading with truth, Lee Zeldin, along with his nefarious GOP congressional cohorts, have spoken lies to truth. By endorsing the lies of election fraud and thereby telling supporters that they actually had a chance to overturn this past election, Zeldin has utterly failed his leadership responsibilities. He has inflamed inane conspiracy theories and false accusations. And finally, last week, by thoughtless, senseless opposition to these many valid state election results, he almost certainly encouraged an actual insurrection with deadly violence done to our precious, fragile, and now stunned constitutional representative democracy.

Lee Zeldin can no longer claim to legitimately represent our constitutional democracy nor serve the good people of our CD1 district. He has lost the credibility, respect, and basic trust a real leader deserves. He should resign immediately from his position.

He and his various colleagues in opposition are now probably even liable for the federal crime of sedition—“conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state; incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government”.

Zeldin a terrible candidate for governor

David Posnett — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 20:54:51 +0000

Two faced Lee has a habit of pretending to be someone who he really isn’t.

Published in the Auburnpub.com and reprinted here:

In a recent letter to the editor, David Pappert, Andrew Sheridan, Rick Gagliardi and Kathy Malenick endorse Rep.Lee Zeldin for governor.

Heaven forbid!

Let me remind readers that this is the same Lee Zeldin who joined with 125 other GOP members of the House to overturn the 2020 election. Even though there was no credible evidence of election fraud, even though 60 court cases on the issue were lost, even though AG Barr and the Supreme Court determined there was no election fraud, even though Trump’s own cybersecurity official claimed this was the safest election in history, Lee Zeldin parroted the Trump line and voted to overturn the will of the people.

Zeldin’s support of Trump’s Big Lie extends to the support he offered Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene when she was removed from committee assignments based on her hateful speech and her support of conspiracy theories. Zeldin’s defense was this: “I strongly disagree with Congresswoman Greene’s statements prior to her entry to Congress, which peddled bizarre conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic tropes, and perpetuated dangerous falsehoods about the September 11 attacks. They were indefensible, wacky, harmful, and wrong.”

Yet, he voted to support her.

In my view, any legislator who participates in the fabrication that Biden is not duly elected president of the United States is not fit to serve as Governor of New York. Any legislator who puts loyalty to a defeated and disgraced (twice impeached) former president above the rule of law is not fit to serve as governor. Zeldin is a Trump cult member, and as such, in my view, he does not even deserve to serve in Congress let alone become governor of New York.

I certainly hope the GOP comes up with a more worthy candidate.

Kathryn Franz

Marion

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.

Zeldin’s “Signature Gate”

David Posnett — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 20:39:18 +0000

So now NYS Board of Elections has ruled:

Governor Zeldin?

David Posnett — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 21:17:51 +0000

April 16, 2021: by Barbara Weber-Floyd from her blog.

I have learned a great deal about Lee Zeldin over the last few years. While my journey as an activist began in response to Hillary losing the presidential race in 2016, Indivisible taught me that protesting my own Republican member of Congress sends a powerful message. We had a lot to protest with Zeldin. In his first congressional race in 2014, he ran on a platform of lies, hate and fear; Trumpian before Trump was even a candidate. Under President Trump, Zeldin went from bad to worse.

Unfortunately, despite our protests and the attention we brought to his radical right-wing record, Zeldin kept winning. He squeaked by in 2018 despite it being a blue wave year and won again last year, this time by a comfortable 10% margin, even though Biden-Harris won New York with over 60% of the vote.

One of Zeldin’s winning strategies is outlined in my October 29^th, 2020 blog post: Two Zeldins. He plays a shell game, hiding his true voting record from the electorate in a fog of fake bipartisanship. Analyzing last year’s loss, it is clear we need to do two things if we are going to defeat him in 2022. First, we need a stronger Democratic candidate, not weakened by a divisive primary, and second, we need a better strategy to expose the Real Zeldin.

After the election, Real Zeldin upped the ante with his embrace of Trump’s Big Lie. He was one of the most vocal GOP voices in the House supporting the conspiracy theory of rampant voter fraud that stole the election from Trump. His social media posts, always divisive, were virulent. Then came January 6^th. In my first blog post of 2021, entitled Complicity, I wrote about the blood on Zeldin’s hands.

Zeldin’s shamelessness makes it even more important that we find a way to erase that fake moderate veneer and defeat him once and for all. This district deserves better than Lee Zeldin. Though we will be busy this year campaigning for our local candidates, both East End Action Network (EEAN) and the Southampton Town Democratic Committee (SHDems) have begun discussing initiatives that would keep the pressure on Zeldin. One idea from both is a letter-to-the-editor writing campaign.

Then, last week, Zeldin upended everything with an announcement that he is running for governor. Because of the scandals attached to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle are eyeing this race. Zeldin has started raising money and is conducting a tour of upstate New York. He does not have to withdraw from running for reelection here yet. Next year’s primary dates for the governor’s and congressional races have not yet been announced but when they are, he will then have to decide which ballot line to be on since you can’t be on two ballot lines at the same time. I have heard he has to decide by next April.

Over the coming weeks, I will be reaching out to many of my sources in the Democratic Party and the grassroots to ask them their thoughts about Zeldin running for governor. What do they think it means, for the governor’s race, for Zeldin and for our district? And just how worried should we be that this radical politician could now climb to higher, statewide office, despite his complicity in the COVID deaths in our district and the insurrection, not to mention his complete absence from any policies or legislation that would have helped us in our district?

To begin, I started with the EEAN leadership team. We held a Zoom meeting to discuss Zeldin, which I recorded. In attendance were Sharon Adams, Rebecca Dolber Ray, Patricia Callan, Cindy Salwen and new member Corinne Bernath. Absent leadership members Syma Gerard, Lisa Marrin and Wendy Turkington emailed me their reactions.

Syma: I can only hope that it’s a wonderful decision on Zeldin’s part. That he loses in the governor’s race and is gone from the House. If both primaries are the same day, I’ve read that he can’t do both.

Lisa: I hope that Cuomo doesn’t run. He is still very popular, but in my opinion, he has been governor long enough. Zeldin is a nightmare. I am hoping he faces a primary (against Guiliani’s son, perhaps) to split the party. At the end of the day, I think we need a strong, popular Democrat and then this whole Zeldin debacle goes away. Who? I don’t know. I am staying minimally involved right now but resting up for the fight.

Wendy: I feel hopeful that Zeldin’s decision to run for governor of New York will enable the Democratic Party to find a terrific candidate to run for CD#1 and we will finally have fair, intelligent, and impassioned representation in Congress. I don’t think the great state of New York will make the mistake of electing a failed, superficial, biased, and minimally informed former Republican representative such as Zeldin to its gubernatorial seat.

Below is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of our conversation. My first question to the group was about the wisdom of a right-wing Republican trying to win statewide in Democratic New York.

Right after Zeldin’s announcement, a grassroots activist posted on Facebook, “this may be the stupidest political decision of all time.” Voter registration in New York is two to one registered Democrats. I had the same reaction and wondered why he would want to lose a race for governor rather than probably win reelection to the House?

Sharon: I don’t think he cares about Long Island anymore. So, what does he have to lose?

Cindy: I think he thinks he can win.

Rebecca: I do, too. When I heard that he was running and I know the statistics and the numbers in New York and that everyone says a Republican can’t win statewide, but after 2016, I believe none of it anymore. I think anybody can win on any given day. This is intuition not based on any set of facts, but I feel that Lee Zeldin is the kind of man who does what he is told. So, if he was told to run for governor, Lee Zeldin is going to run for governor, and I think that he probably is going to have a lot of money behind him. I’ve been told that Republicans fall in line. So, I imagine if Lee Zeldin is running in the primary, it’s because they think Lee Zeldin is going to win. If he didn’t think he could win that primary, he seems like the kind of guy that would not do it.

Corinne: I agree. I come from a family of Republicans and I had six family members last week repost his announcement, and say, “Where do I sign up? What do we need to do to get Lee elected?”

Patricia: They love him.

Rebecca: This is his time. I feel it. I feel that he is the person that could unite enough of them to change the conventional wisdom of New York politics. I also don’t know what’s going on with all these voting machines in New York. Not to get too conspiracy-minded, but there’s a lot going on. I don’t think that we should ever say there’s no way he’s going to win which is what everybody said about Trump.

One thing that scares me is the press attention he has gotten so far, when he made his announcement and on this tour of upstate New York. They are buying into the fake Zeldin. Lazy reporters just took his press releases verbatim, never even mentioning Trump, January 6th and Zeldin’s vote to decertify the presidential election. The exception was the article in The New York Times.

Patricia: That’s why I think he has a shot because there are enough crazies still out there and because the upstate people don’t really know him. If their local press just takes everything he gives them, and we know he claims things that aren’t true, then they can be fooled.

Rebecca: Not to mention that Cuomo is weak right now. If he doesn’t resign and decides to seek out another term…

Patricia: Then Democrats might not vote and then we could be done.

Cindy: I’m even more cynical. I think he views the New York governorship as his stepping-stone to run for President.

Corinne: Agreed.

Patricia: Yes. I think he has always had higher aspirations. He’s got an inflated ego and being aligned with Trump has only increased that. I could see him going first for governor then trying to go against Gillibrand or Schumer for the Senate, all in preparation for a run for the presidency.

All the more reason why we have to get the word out there about the Real Zeldin.

Rebecca: My first question is what changes for us now that he’s running for governor? Do we just wait? Do we put together a plan to attack him in the primary?

Cindy: I don’t think we should get involved in any way in the Republican primary, except for something like letters-to-the-editor to a newspaper that was so lazy that they didn’t say anything about who he actually is or fact-checked his bio. That might be worthwhile. But I don’t think we should consider trying to stop him getting the nomination.

Patricia: For the governorship or further out here?

Cindy: For the governorship. I don’t want him to be governor, but we vote in our primary, they vote in theirs and then we try to knock him out.

Rebecca: Let the primary play out because we’re not part of it and then if he wins it, then we take up the cause.

Patricia: I don’t feel comfortable just waiting. Maybe there are postcards we could write to people or let them know what Zeldin’s voting record really is, like how bad he’s been for the environment, for women. He’s such a total hypocrite. People need to know this statewide. Who better to tell them than the people he inflicted this pain on?

Rebecca: Well, I would agree with you there and I think that this might be the thing that brings all the grassroots groups together, especially if he wins the nomination. We are going to need a collaborative effort to let the state know how horrible he actually is.

Sharon: Well, going back to our list of original initiatives, we had letters-to-the-editor on our list. It might be a good time now, when we don’t have a lot of other things on our plate, to start writing those letters. We have the resources from groups that have been tracking his voting record. Also, I have a lot of back letters regarding Zeldin from The Southampton Press that I have cut out and saved. Now might be a good time for us to jump on that initiative and each take a turn to do a letter. That would be what Patty was mentioning, letting people know now about how he’s voted or hasn’t voted.

Patricia: Yes. People across the state don’t really know him just like we don’t know their Congress people.

Rebecca: I think people across the state who have been paying attention know Zeldin. But I agree, the average voter probably doesn’t. I think your idea is a good one, Sharon. In fact, what you’re saying is making me think that maybe, in addition to the letter writing, we can do something with video to tell our stories about our experiences with Zeldin. I always tell the story about how before Trump was elected, I moved back to Center Moriches from New York City and Lee Zeldin was running for his first term in Congress. He took up an office in the King Kullen shopping center and I remember thinking, “Oh, who is this guy?” So, I read about him and learned just how horrible he is on gay marriage. Having this person with his main office in my hometown, just made me feel sick and sad.

I wonder if we could do a video-based project where we all tell stories about how this congressman has affected us. Just little snippets that could be passed around on social media. It might even be easier than writing a letter. Even if you don’t have a personal story about Lee Zeldin, you can talk about how it felt to have your congressman give that disgraceful speech on the floor of the House on the same day that the Capital was attacked. We could do a whole campaign about it. “We are not actors. We are constituents of Lee Zeldin.”

I have read about the short, 30-second videos on TikTok and when they go viral, they reach a lot of people, particularly a lot of young people. This video story project would powerfully expose the fake Zeldin that he’s pushing. He is even trying to take credit for the federal funds that saved the Long Island Railroad from further cuts, even though he voted against Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

Patricia: Right. We live in his district; this is who he is.

Cindy: But wouldn’t this be more useful to the general election if he is the candidate?

Rebecca: I agree. It’s a lot to take on now.

Cindy: Besides, who knows how Republican primary voters think? They might think these are good reasons to vote for him! It would probably be like a badge of honor that he’s being attacked so much by these “radicals” or whatever he calls us these days.

Patricia: No, I disagree with that because that’s like saying he is right and we are those radicals when the truth is that he’s the radical. We’re just saying what his voting record is, what he’s done and how he’s made us feel as his constituents. That’s not radical, that’s pretty straightforward.

Rebecca: But you know what? I don’t care what they think, because I’m not trying to change their minds. I think these videos are for new voters. If I was a young person and I saw this it would make me energized to vote. We have been talking about new ways to reach out to younger voters. This may be another way to do that.

What do you think the impact is going to be on the congressional race here in our district if he isn’t running?

Rebecca: Well, my first thought was he leaves a huge hole for a Republican who could be worse than him to run, which could be a good or bad thing. That was my thought.

Cindy: I think it will be a free-for-all on both sides. But at least with a primary on both sides, then we are not as screwed as in the past when there was a contentious primary on our side and an incumbent on the other.

Trump: the worst president in the history of the United States

David Posnett — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 23:42:13 +0000

Author Karl Grossman

Reprinted from The Times of Israel

By Karl Grossman

About the Author Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury who has specialized in investigative reporting for 45 years. He is the host of the TV program “Enviro Close-Up,” the writer and presenter of numerous TV documentaries and the author of six books.

The impeachment of Donald Trump — the first president of the United States to be impeached twice — is fitting for the worst president in the history of the U.S.

The attack by his supporters on the Capitol in Washington, D.C. — lawless, an attack on democracy, a U.S. counterpart of the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s.

It was a horror representative of his tenure.

As stated in the resolution titled “Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors,” he “incited violence” against the government of the United States.” It noted that at a rally of Trump supporters before the insurrection, “he reiterated false claims that ‘we won this election, and we won it in a landslide,’” and “encouraged …lawless action at the Capitol.” And this “followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of the 2020 Presidential election. Those prior efforts included a phone call…during which…Trump urged the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffenberger, to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn the Georgia Presidential election results and threatened Secretary Raffenberger if he failed to do so.”

“In all this,” the resolution continued, Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power…”

Trump, “by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.”

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, among the most respected publications in the U.S., wrote immediately after the election of 2016 in a piece entitled “An American Tragedy” — “The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.”

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times wrote a front-page piece last month about how the “final days of the Trump presidency has taken on the stormy elements of a drama more common in history or literature than a modern White House. ….At times, Mr. Trump’s railing-against-his-fate outbursts seem like a story straight out of William Shakespeare, part tragedy, part farce, full of sound and fury.” And he quoted a Shakespearian scholar at Harvard University, Jeffrey R. Wilson, author of the book Shakespeare and Trump, saying: “We’re approaching the end of the play here and that’s where catastrophe always comes.”

It came on January 6 in the assault on the Capitol.

“If inciting an insurrection is not enough to get a president impeached, what is?” asked Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas before the House vote for impeachment.

Trump had tweeted is followers on December 20^th— “Big protest in DC on January 6^th. Be there, will be wild!”

It was wild, and deadly.

In a speech in front of the White House on January 6^th, addressing his backers who had arrived, he declared: “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue…and we’re going to the Capitol.” He added: “You have to be strong.”

Trump’s call was preceded by his lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani proclaiming “let’s have trial by combat.”

Giuliani took an oath to be an attorney to adhere to rule of law and represented Trump in many court challenges to Trump’s election defeat with claims that judges found totally untrue. But Giuliani opted instead, in violation of that oath, for “trial by combat.” The New York State Bar Association this week announced it was launching an inquiry into whether to remove Giuliani from its ranks for his comments at the Trump rally.

Trump tapped into a vein of racism and other poisons in the United States.

As a Jew with all members of the families of both my paternal and maternal grandparents who did not get out of Hungary and Poland in time murdered in the Holocaust, my heart stopped seeing one of the Trump supporters rioting at the Capitol sporting a shirt saying “Camp Auschwitz” and below that arbeit macht frei.

I’ve been amazed that some Jews in the United States and Israel have been big supporters of Trump. His throwing the Kurds under the proverbial bus — his conferring with Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Israel-hating president, which was followed promptly by the attack on the Kurds by the Turkish military —demonstrated for Israel that Trump cannot be trusted.

Trump will turn on a dime.

I grew up in Queens in New York City, not far from Jamaica where Trump was raised. There are lots of Jews in Queens, of course. And Trump learned to “play” with them.

But should any Jew — indeed could anybody — trust him? Ask that of his former longtime personal attorney whom he abandoned, Michael Cohen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, who has been full of disclosures since. Trump, he has emphasized, is a bigot. And says Cohen of the “Trump I know in a nutshell…he projects his own sins and crimes onto others, partly to distract and confuse but mostly because he thinks everyone is as corrupt and shameless and ruthless as he is; a poisonous mindset I know all too well.”

Good for the Jews, good for anybody for any length of time? No.

Carl Bernstein, the U.S. journalist of Watergate fame, says Trump “will be in our history books as a dark, dark stain unlike any president of the United States.” And Bernstein investigated U.S. President Richard Nixon, forced to resign because of the Watergate scandal.

My rabbi, Dan Geffen, wrote to congregants after the Trump-incited attack on the Capitol about the Rabbinic sage Aytalyon saying: “Sages, be careful with your words! So as not to warrant the punishment of exile and be exiled to a land of ‘evil waters’ and the disciples who follow you drink and die, and thus the name of heaven becomes profaned.”

Said Rabbi Geffen: “There are numerous times in our tradition when the rabbis instruct us to guard our words carefully. Just as Creation begins with words, so too can destruction. Just as words of Torah are like mayim chayim (life-giving waters); words of hatred, selfishness and division are like a poisoned well. What we witnessed yesterday in Washington was a sad and painful reminder of the prescience of Avtalyon’s warning and the danger that is posed to all when words are perverted and weaponized. So let us not waste our breath on equivocations and calming platitudes. What happened yesterday was a disgrace — a stain on this country and its most fundamental principles, values and ethics. Every single one of us must feel the pain and shame of this moment, because it is now a part of our shared history.”

“The future of our country and our community will be defined by how we choose to respond to the stoked barbarism on display in the Capitol yesterday. And in this simple fact, I am filled not with despair, but with hope….These are indeed fraught times. Times filled with anger, pain, grief and a loss of hope. And it would be irresponsible to suggest that the problems and challenges we face as a country are easily addressed. Nevertheless, just as words of division can be used to poison the proverbial well; words of unity, hope and purpose can help clear and purify the miasma. There is much to be done to repair the fabric of our society, and we all have an important role to play in its repair. So let each of us do everything in our power to use the ignoble events of January 6, 2021 as motivation to inspire us to work together to return our beloved country to a land truly flowing with the life-giving waters of liberty, justice and equity for all!”

Trump has been a nightmare for the United States of America.

Thank heaven and a lot of hard political work that he will soon be gone, his final days concluding with a despicable, awful, violent attack on democracy.

Stand Up For Our Democracy

David Posnett — Thu, 18 Feb 2021 21:29:36 +0000

Democracy is never a given. January 6th proved that. A wrathful president unable to accept he lost an election, an angry mob stoked by bogus claims of a stolen election, a subservient caucus of Republicans willing to do the bidding of a corrupt president. On that day they all came together in a violent clash that almost derailed our democracy.

Fortunately, the will of the people prevailed — for now. But Trump has said his political movement “has only just begun.” Already we see what that means: punishing Republicans who dared to speak the truth and acknowledged that Trump lost the election and that he incited the insurrection, and rewarding those, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who traffic in absurd conspiracy theories and seek to demonize those on the other side of the political divide.

In the coming months, each of us will have to decide if we are willing to stand up for our democracy, to support and protect it — by paying attention, by calling out lies, by working to roll back voter suppression laws, by voting for candidates who will uphold their oath to the Constitution, and by remembering that our congressional representative, Lee Zeldin, voted to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

Because if there’s one thing history has shown us, it’s that a failed coup often precedes a successful one.

Sincerely,

CAROL DEISTLER

Published in The East Hampton Star, Letter to the Editor, February 18

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.

Saw it Coming

David Posnett — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 22:26:05 +0000

By David Friedman, in Smithtown News Jan 14, 2021