A vote for Trump was a vote for beating police officers - Explain, please!
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Explain to me how you can support this.
Explain to me how you can look yourself in the mirror this morning and call yourself an American who believes in the rule of law.
Of doing the right thing.
You know who your are.
There are 18,066 of you in Warren County who voted for Donald Trump knowing he promised to pardon those accused of beating police officers within an inch of their lives on Jan. 6.
They showed it live on television.
You must have seen some of it.
They held congressional hearings where those same officers testified about the brutality they faced.
Some of you here in Warren County had the audacity of putting a "Back the Blue" signs in your front yard this past fall.
Explain that to me.
Explain it to me like you would explain it to a 6-year-old how you reconcile supporting the police and beating the police in the same breath.
Rep. Elise Stefanik had the gall to call these animals "hostages" on national television.
Surely, you've heard the story of police officer Michael Fanone.
Fanone was dragged down the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a man named Lewis Wayne Snoots who held him down while others beat him. Fanone's badge, radio and taser were ripped off his belt and the mob screamed they should kill him with his own gun.
"Back the blue" indeed!
All 18,000 of you are hypocrites.
While Snoots held Fanone down another rioter named Kyle Young handed Daniel Rodriguez the officer's taser.
Rodriquez plunged the taser into the side of Fanone's neck just below the left ear.
There is video to go with it if you are skeptical this happened.
You can hear Fanone scream over and over again.
Explain to me why the screams do not bother you.
Explain to me what the punishment should be for the brutality of a man trying to protect and serve.
And explain to me why you are supporting Donald Trump's release of these animals.
It was one of his first acts after becoming president again Monday. He was fulfilling a campaign promise. That's why you voted for him.
Where is the outcry from all of you good and decent people?
Why aren't the police officers and sheriff's deputies in this county standing in mass to protest the release of criminals?
Where is Warren County Sheriff Jim LaFarr's statement of protest?
Or Washington County Sheriff Jeffrey Murphy in Washington County?
Or Warren County Republican Party chairman Tim McNulty?
Or Warren County chairman of the Board of Supervisors Kevin Geraghty?
They are all good Republicans.
Silence means support.
Where is the outcry on social media, in newspaper letters to editor, in calls and letters to your representatives?
It's time for you 18,000 to decide what else you will allow.
There is house down the street from me on Aviation Road sporting a brand new Trump sign. That tells me he approves of assaulting police officers and that he is cheering the release of felons.
Prosecutors wrote this about Daniel Rodriguez after he was found guilty in court:
“Rodriguez’s criminal conduct on January 6 was the epitome of disrespect for the law; he battled with law enforcement at the U.S. Capitol for hours, nearly costing one officer his life, in order to stop the official proceeding happening inside.”
He pleaded guilty to four felony charges including conspiracy and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Snoots pleaded guilty to an assault charge and was sentenced to nearly six years in prison.
Young was sentenced to more than seven years as well for assault.
They have all been released for their actions that day.
Their records are clean
They have been forgiven and will surely be honored as heroes in some circles.
Maybe right here in Warren County.
Dan Stec is running to represent us in Congress. I'd like to know where he stands on beating police officers.
Anthony Constantino, the sign guy from Amsterdam and a rabid Trump backer, could make things right by putting up another sign saying "No Jan. 6 pardons," but I think that is unlikely.
Steve McLaughlin, Chris Tague and Robert Sullen are all possible candidates to represent us in Congress. They need to weigh in on where they stand on beating police officers.
There is no other issue.
That question needs to be answered.
The entire Republican Party is on the hook for this one.
You either back the blue or believing in beating the blue.
On Monday night, the retired Michael Fanone appeared on CNN.
"I have been betrayed by my country," Fanone said into the camera. "I have been betrayed by those that supported Donald Trump. Tonight, six individuals who assaulted me as I did my job on January 6 as did hundreds of other law enforcement officers will now walk free. Six individuals who have threatened my life and made threats towards my family members as well as countless other Jan. 6 defendants have threatened me because they see me as spokesperson for law enforcement for this event. My family, my children and myself are less safe today because of Donald Trump and his supporters."
Yes, he was speaking to those 18,000 from Warren County.
And not one of you is saying a word to defend yourselves.
Bayou snow
Just this past week, I was strolling around New Orleans on a balmy 70-degree day.
This morning the winds were howling and the snow was falling with temperatures in the 20s. Few cars were on the roads and fewer people on the streets. It has not stopped all day.
And without snow plows, snow shovels, snow blowers or salt, the white stuff is just piling up.
One woman outside my son's building was very frustrated. I asked if she could help. She said she couldn't figure out how to make a snowman.
The National World War II Museum, where my son works, announced it is closing for the next two days. I suspect many other businesses will shutter as well.
The good news is that the temperature is supposed to be back to 70 by the weekend.
I've spent some of the hottest days of my life in the heat and humidity of New Orleans. That seamed a long time ago on Tuesday.
Hard to believe
During a recent trip to Richmond, Va. my son revealed a fact neither of us previously knew.
The states of Alabama and Mississippi simultaneously celebrate Martin Luther King Day and the birthday of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
Alabama and Mississippi have laws celebrating Lee's birthday on the third Monday of January each day. Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday.
It's hard to believe those two ideas can still co-exist in some parts of our country.
Second term
Several New York Times columnists were asked to put in perspective President Donald Trump's first term and what his second term means for the country.
"I was right about his essential character," David Brooks said. "But I don’t think I appreciated how much our system of government depends on unspoken norms. The whole office of the presidency is a public trust for the common good, not some princeling’s piece of personal property. Trump smashed all that. That’s important; the moral ecology of the nation is fundamental, and gets powerfully influenced by the person at the top."
"There’s a quote by Milan Kundera, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” I have been flabbergasted by the mass amnesia about what Trump’s first term was like — the chaos, incompetence, cruelty and degrading fusillade of lies. It’s an open question, I think, whether the public recoils when they’re faced with all this again, or whether we’ve all become too numb and cynical," Michelle Goldberg said. "I expect Trump’s second term to be more effective than the first, and thus more dangerous. If Trump orders the military to help with mass deportations or to crack down on protesters, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would certainly not defy him. Corporate America, and especially Big Tech, is fully onboard in a way they weren’t before. It makes me crazy when Trump apologists point out how often he was thwarted in his first term to argue that we shouldn’t take all his crazy threats seriously, when all the people who thwarted him are gone."
Not words that will help you sleep better tonight.
Politifact
The work of the folks at Politifact, a non-profit online fact-checking site, may be more important than ever.
It has a list of 75 Trump promises it is tracking. It calls it the "Maga-meter. It currently has a a comprehensive fact check on Trump's inaugural address.
Consider Politifact's analysis on what Trump said Monday:
Tariffs - Most economists say tariffs do not "enrich" the country levying them. Arguing for his plan to enact tariffs, Trump said, "Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens." Our reporting has found that most economists disagree that tariffs will "enrich" Americans, and real-world examples of tariffs working that way are rare. Consumers in the tariff-levying country often suffer in these deals because prices rise, they said.
Panama Canal and China - Trump, who repeated his goal of taking back control of the Panama Canal, misled about the canal’s operations - "And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal," Trump said. That’s false. The Republic of Panama has owned and administered the Panama Canal since Dec. 31, 1999, when Panama took over full operation.
The Panama Canal Authority, an autonomous government entity, governed by an 11-member board of directors, manages the waterway. China does have influence in the canal. Three defense experts who carried out fieldwork in Panama — Carla Martinez Machain of the University at Buffalo, Michael A. Allen of Boise State University and Michael E. Flynn of Kansas State University — wrote in a Jan. 13 article that Trump’s Dec. 25, 2024, claim that Chinese soldiers are operating the canal was false. However, the experts wrote that Chinese companies do have a stake in the waterway. The experts added, "While these ports are managed by the Hong Kong firm, authority over the ports and the canal is still maintained by the Panama Canal Authority, an agency of the Panamanian government."
Every good citizen should be using Politifact and supporting it.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
The Episcopal Bishop who courageously preached the concept of mercy and compassion, directed at Trump and his family from her pulpit yesterday AM, was rapidly labeled “Nasty” by our pervert Prez…a label he utters whenever opposed by a Strong Woman. He is demanding an apology from “this so-called bishop” and her church officials.
The physical unease evident in the whiplash effect it had on him, and everyone seated around him, was palpable. “Shock and Awe” took on a whole new meaning watching Himself and his cadre scowl and twitch and pout as she delivered her soul-deep sermon which they could not escape while on Live TV.
Bishop Mariann Budde is my new hero. She has held this job as Bishop of Washington since 2011. A married mother of two, she has advocated for human rights throughout her many years of ministry. She criticized Trump’s use of military force with tear gas to disperse crowds protesting Trump’s use of an upside down Bible for a photo op in front of St. John’s Church in 2020. She will no doubt remain a target for this false god and his motley crew of pseudo-Christians in the days ahead. A modern day Joan of Arc willing to face the fire of Trump’s burning rhetoric.
You’re right, the entire GOP is complicit.
But it is even worse. Yesterday Elise Stefanik testified in her Senate confirmation hearing that Elon Musk did not give a Nazi salute.
Musk gave a Nazi salute. We all saw it.
But the GOP is now accepting of criminals and Nazis and they will simply tell you reality is false.