How does Elise Stefanik defend any of this?

Glens Falls coming home to play in state basketball tournament Thursday.

For months now, Rep. Elise Stefanik has released a daily torrent of abuse aimed at the presidency of Joe Biden.

That's politics these days, I guess.

Many will say as an excuse, both sides do it.

But not like this.

Defending Trump is an art form previously unrealized by the fibbers of the world, and our congresswoman is proudly among the best at it.

After 40 years in a job where truth was the goal and getting the story right was the only goal, the specter of another Trump presidency was more than troubling. Accusations from Stefanik and her like have festered for months.

For weeks, I have grappled with how to give perspective to Trump's past actions so it would make a difference, perhaps influence the few still on the fence about what this man represents. When I hear current supporters say they were better off four years ago, I remind them we were in a lockdown and thousands were dying all across the country. That wasn't Trump's fault, but he must take responsibility for the response.

Trump first said it was nothing but "fake news."

The stock market crashed 1,800 points that day.

Then, as it spread across the country and people began to die, he said it would be gone by April.

Not only do his supporters have short memories, many of his detractors have forgotten as well. The reality is that, well, there were just so many terrible things he did.

When Covid didn't go away in April, Trump suggested in a nationally televised press conference that "bleach and isopropyl alcohol" could kill the virus, then said, “The disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside?” It would be, almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on the lungs.”

This is the person Rep. Elise Stefanik believes will save the country.

Vanity Fair published a "Donald Trump retrospective" in January 2021 titled "A look back at the 1,462 worst days in American history."

It will refresh your memory.

This past week, I was inspired by late night comedian Seth Meyers who put together a 90-second rant of all the horrific things Trump did. He delivered it in a machine-gun, breathless cadence to squeeze in as much information as possible.

It is also worth checking out.

So with apologies to Meyers, here is my own recollection of those four years of hell:

Introduced chaos with a ban on Muslim visitors; shoved the Montenegro prime minister out of the way during a meeting of international leaders so Trump would be at the front of the photo; told Puerto Ricans that Hurricane Maria was not "a real catastrophe like Katrina" and did his part in the recovery by throwing paper towels into the crowd; he later called the estimated 3,000 deaths "a hoax;" after misspeaking and saying that Alabama was in the path of a hurricane, he took a Sharpie to the National Weather Service map and extended the reach to the state of Alabama.

When FBI Director James Comey said he would be loyal to his oath to the Constitution rather than the "loyalty" Trump demanded, Comey was fired in a Tweet; Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked to resign after he recused himself from the Mueller investigation; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was fired from leading the transition of the new administration because Christie prosecuted Jarad Kushner's father for witness tampering while a federal prosecutor; over four years Trump urged the FBI to investigate more than two dozen opponents, Democratic members of Congress and the author of the "anonymous" op-ed published in the New York Times.

Claimed he did not know anything about his personal attorney paying off a porn actress he had sex with; defended the Saudis after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered; said he believed Valadimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies regarding the Russian interference accusations during the 2016 presidential election.

Said wind turbines caused cancer; suggested that buying Greenland (an autonomous country) might be a good idea; claimed Ivanka Trump had created 14 million jobs all by herself.   

Passed enormous tax cuts that benefitted the rich and exploded the federal deficit;  tried to sabotage Obamacare; nominated Brett Kavanaugh despite accusations of sexual assault; repeatedly praised autocrats and alienated long-time allies in NATO; implemented tariffs on foreign goods which led to a trade war with China, the loss of American jobs and income for their companies; proposed a plan to let coal plants regulate themselves.

Announced that a massive migrant caravan was heading toward U.S. border with Mexico in the days before the mid-term elections in 2018 and deployed 200,000 troops to the border where there was no caravan; administration officials later admitted it was an election stunt that cost $200 million; presided over a 17 percent rise in hate crimes and a 37 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes.

Called members of the press "enemies of the people" and regularly said the press was "fake news;" accusations of "fake news" trickled down to local media in Glens Falls region as well.

Ignored first warnings of Covid; when a vaccine was found, turned down offer to buy thousands more for the country; tried to stop the Consumer Financial Protection Agency from working for consumers.

Attempted to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in "perfect" phone call, then illegally withheld $400 million in aid as punishment to Ukraine; impeached for first time over Ukrainian extortion effort; later fired impeachment witnesses Lt.Col. Alexander Vindman and U.S, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland for telling the truth.

Obstructed Mueller investigation; demanded that Joe Biden take a drug test before one of their debates; suggested there would be election fraud throughout his 2020 campaign; falsely claimed victory on election night; filed repeated lawsuits saying election results were not legitimate (all but one lost); supporters engaged in a fake electors scheme that was thwarted by courts; pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find him 10,000 votes to swing Georgia to him; egged on supporters to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell;" refused to do anything to stop rioting at Capitol; tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election, then did nothing to help him as he hid from rioters chanting "Hang Mike Pence;" refused to participate in the peaceful transfer of power; issued pardons to Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn in a clear act of political patronage.

Was impeached a second time after the January 6 riot where Sen. Mitch McConnell said this was an issue for the courts and not the Senate.

Lost sexual assault lawsuit to E. Jean Carroll and was fined $5 million; when he continued to say she lied, she sued again and was awarded another $73 million; Trump organization convicted of fraud over decades in state of New York and fined over half a billion dollars; Trump arrested in New York; Trump arrested in Georgia for election interference case; Trump arrested in Florida over illegally keeping top secret documents; 91 felony counts in all; Number of previous felony counts against 44 others presidents? Zero.

Are you exhausted?

I'm absolutely certain I've missed other significant abuses.

President Donald Trump's most prolific accomplishment was the sheer volume of lies told during his presidency.

To track the lies, the Washington Post employed a reporter to check everything he said as a full-time job.

Over four years, the Post chronicled 30,573 false or misleading claims by Trump.

What may be even more of a concern is he has made authoritarian promises that would put our democracy at risk in the future.

Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton professor considered an expert on authoritarian regimes, summed it this way:

"What Trump figured out – the autocrats that I study, like Orban in Hungry, Erdogan in Turkey and Bolsonaro in Brazil, they all do this – they operate in this space where no law actually prohibits, but soft norms govern. And because there is no law, it’s hard to hold them to account. That’s how democracies collapse.”

It's what Trump will do again.

Were you better off four years ago is not even the question.

The real question is whether we will have a democracy in four years?

Beneath last night’s one-inch snowfall is a finely raked lawn.

It's spring

Generally speaking, I consider April 18 to be the end of winter and the beginning of spring lawn work. That's the date - my dad's birthday - where the last of snow melts from around my driveway.

But since the snow was gone for more than two weeks, I decided Saturday to begin raking the yard. The March temperatures have been unprecedented. I got about half the yard done Saturday.

Later that night while returning from the Glens Falls game in Troy, I saw snow along the side of the road. My yard was also blanketed in snow.

So much for an early spring.

I hope the snow melts quickly so I can finish the raking.

Glens Falls unbeaten boys basketball team celebrates a return to the state basketball tournament.

Glens Falls back in tourney

Glens Falls is back in the state basketball tournament. It has been five years since Joseph Girard III led Glens Falls to a state championship.

Glens Falls defeated Section III (Syracuse) champion Westhill on Saturday 78-70 to advance to a 9 a.m. semifinal game on Friday morning against Section IV champion Maine-Endwell. The tournamet kicks off Thursday evening this year since after adding an additional class.

Apparently, Glens Falls had already planned for a superintendent's day and there is no school scheduled Thursday. That is convenient for students.

Glens Falls was leading by 15 at one point in the fourth quarter Saturday, but Westhill threw a full-court press on the Black Bears. Westhill scored four straight times after forcing sloppy turnovers. Glens Falls led by just three.

Things were looking a little shaky with 1:16 left for Glens Falls.

Westhill got no closer.

Glens Falls is now 25-0. If it wins Friday, it will play Saturday at 5:15 p.m. for the state championship.

Brody Holcomb gets some well-deserved hugs from a well-wisher Saturday.

Newspaper repercussions

We supplement our geothermal heating system with a wood-burning stove.

We've used it less than ever this winter and that's a good thing. One of the repercussions of The Post-Star reducing its printing to just three days a week has been a diminishing supply of newsprint to use in starting the fire.

I can't remember the last time I took any newsprint in for recycling.

Subscription failures

I had one person contact me this weekend about their credit card flagging their subscription purchase of The Front Page as "possible fraud."

The reader kept with it and resubmitted the charge.

We've had about 15 percent of the subscription purchases fail because banks are flagging Substack as "fraud" or other reasons.

According to Substack:

If the subscriber's payment fails, we'll automatically retry and email the subscriber on your behalf, asking them to update their payment method. Our payment processor Stripe will generally retry payments 3 times automatically before a paid subscription is canceled.

So if you don't see your purchase on your credit card statement, we hope you will try again. We appreciate all the support we can get.