BONUS: Stefanik missing in action defending 9/11 responders
Amsterdam `sign guy' to unveil statue of Trump on Tuesday
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The silence of Elise Stefanik is abominable, reprehensible, detestable and abhorrent to any New Yorker who experienced the attacks on 9/11.
Granted she was just a teenager at the time - perhaps she was busy at Albany Academy studying "Bullying on Social Media 101" - but in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, she is reminded that thousands of first responders descended on Ground Zero in the days afterward in a desperate search for survivors.
They breathed the carcinogenic air for hours and hours and while trying to do their part as Americans. Years later, many of those workers got sick.
Cancers were diagnosed.
And they began to die because they put their lives on the line at Ground Zero.
In 2010, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act established the World Trade Center Health program with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The program provided medical monitoring and care to nearly 137,000 responders who were at Ground Zero.
Congress often needed a push to do do the right thing to maintain the programs as more and more people suffered the affects of their work in the rubble.
And while Rep. Stefanik is busy preparing to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations - although she didn't bother to correct President Trump about who started the war in Ukraine or his characterization Volodymyr Zelensky as a dictator - for now she is our representative in Congress and her job is to represent her New York constituents.
She has once again failed in that regard.
On Feb. 11, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that unleashed Elon Musk and his DOGE initiative to find government waste and cut back spending. Among the employees who have been terminated or taken a buyouts are an estimated 20 percent of the employees running World Trade Center Health Program.
There are also cuts to research grants that fund efforts at the New York City Fire Department to determine whether employee health conditions are related to service at Ground Zero after 9/11.
On Wednesday, seven Republican members of Congress - six from from New York and one from New Jersey - signed a letter to President Trump urging him to reconsider the cuts that were made to the World Trade Center Health Program.
"We implore you to ensure that any overall workforce reduction at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is done in a targeted manner so as to not impact the vital functions of the program," the letter read. "This staff reduction will only make it more difficult for the Program to supervised its contracts and to care for its members are comprised of the brave men and women who ran toward the danger and helped in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
The letter also addressed the elimination of research grants studying the affects of working at Ground Zero.
"To fulfill our moral obligation of 9/11 survivors and responders, we must ensure that the Program not only has the necessary resources, but also is properly administered, so that Program members received the high quality care that they need and deserve," the letter continues. "We urge you as a native New York York who lived in New York City as it recovered from 9/11 terrorist attack, to reverse these actions by rehiring the terminated probationary staff,, restoring the canceled FDNY research grant contract and fencing off the WTC Health Program, which was authorized in statute as mandatory spending, from any further staff and funding reductions."
It was signed by Republicans Andrew R. Garbino, Nick LaLota, Michael Lawler, Claudia Tenney, Nicole Malliotakis, Nick Langworthy and New Jersey congressman Christopher H. Smith.
Elise Stefanik did not sign the letter.
Members of the local INVISIBLE chapter have noticed Stefanik's absence from the district as well, and when they reached out to her D.C. office to ask for a town hall meeting, they were told her "schedule was in flux."
The medical treatment schedule for those who did their part on 9/11 will also be in flux after the government cuts this funding.
In response, the INDIVSIBLE folks announced a protest regarding Stefanik's absence on Sunday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in front of Crandall Library in downtown Glens Falls.
In their press release, they complained that Stefanik's absence "leaves constituents without representation during this unprecedented and unconstitutional power grab by Trump and Musk. Stefanik has closed her offices in Glens Falls and East Greenbush. She’s embarked on a “farewell tour” with partisan supporters and corporate donors, but hasn’t appeared in a meeting open to the public in years."
The clever local INDIVISIBLE chapter included a manipulated image of Stefanik's photo on a milk carton like another missing child.
INDIVISIBLE asked participants to bring their own signs.
I hope they are large enough for Rep. Stefanik to see them.
Statue guy
Anthony Constantino, the Amsterdam sign guy running for the Republican nod in the 21st Congressional District who recently sponsored the "Cage Wars" event in Glens Falls, announced he will unveil a statue of President Trump in Amsterdam on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
The statue shows Trump in the moments after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa. and is being donated to the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Fla.
It has been reported the best way to get what you want from Trump is flattery and Constantino certainly has that figured out.
His press release did contain one interesting accusation:
"Five thousand patriots stood up for me when Democrats threatened to arrest me over my sign," it reads in the press release.
And while there was indeed controversy over the size of the sign and whether it broke zoning laws, that is not something that will land you in jail. Perhaps a fine, but no jail time.
Editorial attack
Newspapers don't write many editorials any more.
At our peak at The Post-Star, we wrote more than 200 a year thanks to Mark Mahoney. We regularly pointed out malfeasance, failures in open government while offering up solutions to problems big and small. Mahoney was so good he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
There were many times when we were criticized for the position we took and a few times when we may have gotten it wrong.
But because of the First Amendment, we were never forced to take down an editorial.
That happened this week in Mississippi where a judge forced the Clarksdale Press Register to delete an editorial that criticized city officials.
The issue was cut and dry.
City officials are supposed to notify the media when there is public hearing on proposed tax increases. When the city of Clarksdale - a city of 14,000 - didn't notify the media and that led to being called out by the newspaper.
"Your Clarksdale Press Register will be the first to say that a sin tax that would pay police to fight crime in Clarksdale is a good idea. so why did the City of Clarksdale fail to go to the public with the details about the idea before it sent a resolution to the Mississippi Legislature seeing a two-percent tax on alcohol and tobacco?" the editorial reasonably asked.
There was a simple reason, the city clerk forgot.
Instead of asking for a clarification for the reason - certainly forgivable - the city sued the newspaper and Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin ordered the editorial to be removed from its website without even giving the newspaper a hearing.
That is an obvious assault on the First Amendment.
The judge wrote the case involves allegations of "defamation against public figures through actual malice in reckless disregard of the truth..."
What the "malice" was in this case is unclear. Libel laws have always had a high standard. A newspaper would have to print something it knew was untrue to meet that standard.
And even if this was libel, the penalty has always been monetary damages, not censorship of the article.
I fear we are going to see many more abuses like this.
`This is a dictator'
The Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post has been an obvious staunch supporter of just about everything President Donald Trump stands for, but his accusation that Zelensky was a dictator made have been a bridge too far.
On the front page of Friday's newspaper, it's front page displayed a full-page photo of Vladimir Putin with a giant headline that pointed out to President Trump: "This is a dictator."
IRS cuts
Nobody likes the IRS. The reality is most of us fear the IRS.
But for every dollar that the IRS spends on enforcement of our tax laws, they collect $12 in uncollected taxes.
So it makes little sense that an estimated 6,700 IRS workers were fired in the middle of tax season.
For years Republicans have tried to cut the resources at the IRS. The only conclusion you can draw from that is they are trying to help their super rich donors pay less in taxes.
The cuts "will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that's really focused on the low income," University of Pittsburgh tax law professor Philip Hackney told Reuters. "It is a travesty."
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.
As I have written before, Sedition Stefanik is only concerned with self interest. She will do and not do anything that she thinks will advance her agenda. When she first was elected , she established a Glens Falls Office on the Circle. That location was a place where those dissatisfied with her representation protested on a regular basis. Being tired of seeing picket signs she moved her office to Warren Street. The second floor location was secluded and eliminated the uncomfortable appears of dissatisfied constituents. Shortly after that she abandoned Glens Falls as she abandoned her oath of office to represent the people of NY 21. Do not be shocked by her actions, they are consistent with an individual who has no moral compass. I have to believe that someday all her maneuvering will backfire and she will get what she truly deserves.
By dismissal of the inspector generals, joint chiefs of staff and the wholesale destruction of the DOJ and the FBI, Trump with the assistance of Musk and Putin is attempting to remove anyone that might stand in his way. The Supreme Court gave him permission. The spineless Republicans in congress are as equally guilty. Read Angus Kings' speech from the senate yesterday. I am at a loss as to what becomes of us. I still have some hope, but half of us voted for this, and I still can't understand why. Dow Jones tanked yesterday on uncertainty over dumbos economic shenagians, I won't call it policy because it ain't policy, it's a reality TV script.