`Elise exhaustion’ is real and getting worse

By Ken Tingley

Over the past two years, I have written 343 columns in this space and 46 of them have concerned the actions, votes, social media assaults and what we used to call in the old days - some real whoppers - perpetrated by Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Many of you are suffering from “Elise exhaustion” and I apologize for that.

It was bad enough when those congressional creatures crawled from their lairs for a few months every two years scavenging for campaign contributions and votes, but now they are with us constantly with their tweets, and posts and relentless attacks that have left our communities divided and pitted one American against another.

Mike Morgan at Adirondack Broadcasting invited me to be part of an entire radio show devoted to what he seemed to imply was my relentless criticism of our congresswoman.

Those 46 columns are certainly reason to come to that conclusion. I have devoted more time and words to the “Elise-ology” over the past two years than any other subject. I’ve become a bit of an expert.

The criticism of my criticism certainly left me a reason to review.

“Why do you dislike Elise so much,” I’ve been asked.

But it’s not Elise, its her actions I usually reply.

History is funny that way.

The actions of public figures leaves a long and colorful trail that often leads to a clarity you don’t find in the moment. That is the importance of history.

It’s what I found when I studied former congressman John Sweeney’s record over a decade for my book “The Last American Newspaper.” When the newspaper aggressively reported on the strange circumstances of a late-night car crash in Washington County in 2002, it was met with criticism by readers anxious to expose a liberal bias. But years later, Sweeney admitted to being an alcoholic at the time and further reporting found that the State Police had attempted to cover up the accident and his drinking that night. Further reviews of his personal life and ethics violations while in Congress showed an individual not acting in the best interests of his constituents.

So if you go back and review my writings about Rep. Stefanik, you won’t find any one overriding complaint, but a serious of reactions to her lack of human decency and willingness to craft regular pronouncements of fibbery into some version of the truth. While no complaint against her is egregious enough to be an indictment in and of itself, when you pile one upon another and connect the dots, you see a public official who rarely shows public decency while performing her job.

She seems to believe she is at war with horned Democrats and evil writers intent on destroying America.

But I hope you consider the evidence.

Stefanik voted against the American Rescue Plan - it provided $1400 in relief to individuals millions of dollars of needed funds to local counties and cities - at the height of the pandemic while regularly opposing mask and vaccine mandates as elderly people all over the North Country were dying and cases growing and stressing the resources of local hospitals.

When Congress changed its rules to allow members to vote by proxy during the pandemic so they did not risk their health, Rep. Stefanik used a proxy so she could attend a fundraiser at Mar-A-Lago.

While voting in Washington, she shouted her oppositions to the infrastructure bill, but when she returned to her home district she took credit for a bridge project in Ogdensburg and other building and funding projects around the district that she had voted against. She also voted against making contraception a fundamental right of individuals.

After objecting to the Pennsylvania electors after the Jan. 6 riot, she went on to blame Nancy Pelosi for being responsible for the riot. She called the 1/6 committee a total sham despite the fact many of the key witnesses were fellow Republicans inside the Trump administration. She reported that a Mayfield teacher was fired for supporting her opposition to masks and vaccines only to have the school district say no teacher was fired. When legislation was proposed to ensure the transition of power after a presidential election so Jan. 6 could not happen again, she voted against it.

During her re-election campaign, she said she was for democracy, but refused to debate her opponent.  She accused three different TV stations of being in collusion with her opponent. When she bragged that she had brought $600 million to the North Country as congresswoman, North Country Public Radio reviewed the actual figures and could not find anywhere near that sum. She accused her Democratic challenger, Matt Castelli, of being part of a deep state conspiracy to overthrow the government without any evidence. She accused another challenger, Bridie Farrell, an Olympic speed skater and sexual assault victim, of being a liberal Democrat before Farrell had taken a single position.

Where she once talked about bipartisan cooperation, she now sought only division. She blamed President Biden for bare supermarket shelves, higher gas prices, the shortage of baby formula and putting Christmas in danger. And this was just in the first months of his presidency.

When a solution was proposed for the baby formula crisis, she voted against it.

She said New York Democrats were trying to rig elections and she proclaimed that all main stream media would be a target. When $20,000 of her campaign funds went missing after being mailed, she promised to investigate the United States Post Office.

At the beginning, Elise Stefanik looked to be a person we all could rally behind. After defeating Matt Doheny in the Republican primary, she said this:

“You believed from the very beginning that we deserve a representative in Washington with new ideas, fresh energy, and an independent approach in order to shake up a failed Washington,” Stefanik said that night.

After reading about her stands of the past two years, the questions is whether she has delivered.

After the shooting in Buffalo, The Times Union wrote in an editorial it was concerned that some of her campaign ads matched the reasoning why a young man went on a shooting rampage in Buffalo.

It said replacement theory “has seeped into the mainstream political discourse in the Capital Region, where Rep. Elise Stefanik has adapted this despicable tactic for campaign ads.”

In November 2020, officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency reported, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Yet Rep. Stefanik “amplified the false conspiracy theory anyway.”

“I have concerns about the software, the fact that Dominion software - and it’s not just Republicans, it’s Democrats who have raised issues about the process and making sure we have the integrity in the counting process,” Stefanik said in an interview with the conservative TV outlet Newsmax in December 2020.

Dominion is suing Fox News and others for more than $1 billion.

No wonder you have “Elise fatigue.”

Taken individually, you may conclude from each of my 46 columns about Elise Stefanik that I just don’t like the woman. But put them all together and you may come to a different solution. I think it gives you a clearer view of who Rep. Elise Stefanik is, what she stands for and whether she is representing us appropriately in Congress.

And this is just the highlights from my reporting.

Nader newspaper

According to the Poynter Institute, the 88-year-old Ralph Nader is getting into the newspaper game at the community level.

The former Green Party presidential candidate is launching the Winsted Citizen in his hometown in northwest Connecticut. There is currently no other newspaper in the community.

The nonprofit newspaper will be digital only. Nader put up $15,000 to publish the first edition and hopes the community will support future editions.

Trust eroding further

In the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate, American trust in the media was at 72 percent. It is now at 34 percent.

Northshire event

I will be speaking at Northshire Books in downtown Saratoga Springs on Wednesday at 6 p.m. about newspapers, journalism and my latest book “The Last American Newspaper.”

I will be signing books afterward.