Stefanik reaches new lows with attacks on Manhattan district attorney’s office
Take a look at the damage an AR-15 can do to a human body
By Ken Tingley
Eight days after Rep. John Sweeney drove off the road after an evening of skiing at Willard Mountain, slicing an electrical pole in half and knocking out power to the ski area, State Police Captain Frank A. Pace told Glens Falls Post-Star reporter Don Lehman that the congressman had not received preferential treatment.
This was February 2001.
“He was treated just like any other citizen,” Pace said at the time. “It was a minor accident. The only thing notable about this was the power outage.”
Except that it involved a sitting U.S. congressman who had recently made national headlines by helping to shut down the recount in Miami-Dade County after the 2000 presidential election.
And it never showed up anywhere on the police blotter.
A few days after the accident, a Willard Mountain bartender told Lehman he served Sweeney a couple of drinks after skiing.
State Police would not say whether Sweeney was given a sobriety check and reporters were not allowed to talk to the trooper who was on the scene.
Editors wondered if the officer was told not to issue a ticket or do a sobriety test.
After the Glens Falls newspaper published the accident information and asked those questions it was attacked by Republicans for playing politics, despite the fact the newspaper had endorsed the congressman for re-election.
Five years later, Sweeney’s re-election was derailed by a domestic violence call from his wife. DWI arrests followed in 2007 and 2009. In 2011, he told a Times Union reporter that he had become a “professional alcoholic” during his time in Congress.
The point is that the truth eventually comes out.
The newspaper got the story right.
Preferential treatment was given by the State Police to a politician to protect his image.
That’s what we all should remember this week as former President Trump is arrested and charged in Manhattan. Historically, politicians are protected far more often than they are targeted.
One reader commented on this site that the indictment of a sitting president was “sad.”
It is a sad day for our country, just as January 6 was a sad day and the two presidential impeachments sad times for the entire country.
It says something that all these sad moments have one thing in common - they all involved the same person.
Perhaps, what has been even more reprehensible over the past week is the disgraceful behavior of Rep. Elise Stefanik.
There are others, but Rep. Stefanik is our disgrace.
She has repeatedly attacked a sitting district attorney that the case is politically motivated without ever seeing the evidence or even the charges. If there is political motivation, it appears that it is coming from Rep. Stefanik with her attacks on the district attorney.
Rep. Stefanik’s allegations are unfounded because as my colleague Will Doolittle points out, the district attorney presented his case to an independent grand jury of regular citizens who made the decision to indict the former president.
Stefanik has not presented her case to a grand jury.
If what Rep. Stefanik says is true, there is no reason to trust any officer of the court from the district attorney, to the judge to the cop on the beat from Washington, D.C. to Warren County, N.Y.
The Manhattan DA’s office is pushing back that this may be “unlawful election inference” on Stefanik’s behalf.
Rep. Stefanik is telling us that the rule of law cannot be trusted.
She is saying that are local police and judges are corrupt.
She is undermining the foundation of our democracy for her own gain.
As a newspaper editor, I knew the newspaper’s most valuable asset was its credibility. We had to get our news stories right. We had to be accurate. We had to be responsible if we were to be trusted.
Our elected representatives should be held to the same standard.
Rep. Stefanik’s credibility continues to erode with actions that are unhinged.
Her descriptions of evil Democrats trying to destroy America is one we all need to stop and evaluate. Do we know anyone in our town like that? Do we know anyone in our county like that?
Her constituents should be concerned. We all can disagree on the issues, but we cannot disagree on the laws.
When you are accused, you will have your day in the court.
As president, the Justice Department had a policy that presidents were immune from prosecution.
But not ex-presidents.
No one should be above the law.
Mass shootings
After the Sandy Hook massacre, the state of Connecticut passed a law that crime scene photos from mass shootings could not be published.
Showing the damage that an AR-15 has on a small child might have a profound impact on the debate. After the latest shooting in Nashville, I wondered if crime scene photos from mass shootings should be made public. Maybe the footage of the shooter being eliminated should be shown, too.
Is this barbaric? Yes, but so are the crimes. We’ve tried everything else.
Consider this description from a Washington Post story about what an AR-15 can do to a human body:
“A single bullet lands with a shock wave intense enough to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The impact is even more acute on the compact body of a small child.”
The story is worth your review as it explores the forensic science of the difference between the damage an AR-15 firearm does and a handgun with impressive graphics.
A legend passes
There are probably very few local folks who don’t have a story about the legendary Bobby Dick.
Bobby, the legendary frontman for the Sundowners who once opened for The Rolling Stones, passed from this stage last week and will be eulogized with a funeral mass on Tuesday. I suspect the music will be good.
My personal story about Bobby goes back to St. Patrick’s Day about 15 years ago. I took my 70-something Belfast-born mother to Dango’s on Maple Street for their legendary St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Bobby was dong an afternoon gig on a gorgeous spring day when there were more people congregating outside at the beer tent than inside listening to the legend. As usual, Bobby did not miss a beat, paying special attention to my 70-something mom, asking about her roots and what she would like to hear him sing.
It’s my favorite St. Patrick’s Day story and one of the last times I spent March 17 with my mom.
Godspeed Bobby Dick and the day the music died.
Help for newspapers
As the state Legislature grapples with a new state budget, it is considering enacting the “Local Journalism Sustainability Act.” It is sponsored by our own Carrie Woerner in the Assembly to help struggling newspapers across the state.
Mike Cutillo, the publisher of the Finger Lake Times, wrote an endorsement of the measure for his readers that was re-published by the New York News Publishers Association last week.
“The act would help not only those in my seat to keep the presses rolling, providing tax credits to support the hiring of local journalists, but also to those in yours — in the form of a personal income tax credit for subscribers of up to $250 a year,” Cutillo wrote.
This is a no-brainer for anyone who is concerned about newspapers and their role in holding our elected officials accountable.
Cutillo pointed out Publishers Association statistics that showed New York had lost eight daily newspapers between 2004 and 2019.
“That may not sound like a lot,” Cutillo wrote, “but it is 13%, which is substantial. Even worse, it lost 190 of 439 weekly papers in those 15 years, a staggering 43%.”
But here is the important part from Cutillo and why I wrote my book “The Last American Newspaper.”
“You can say what you wish about newspapers being dinosaurs, but the facts show — and this is confirmed by analytics — that when newspapers and journalists go away, local municipalities’ spending increases, transparency in government decreases as more meetings go behind closed doors, and small divisions within a community can grow into chasms as misinformation, fueled by rumor and social media, escalate,” Cutillo wrote. “Local papers can help build community by encouraging regional economic growth, and they can connect us to people and issues we may know nothing about, sometimes right in our own backyard.”
This law is to protect democracy and your community from raising your taxes.
If Sen. Dan Stec supports democracy, he will vote for this measure.
If Assemblyman Matt Simpson supports democracy, he will vote for this measure.
If not, they do not believe in democracy.
thanks again,Ken. The adjectives get longer and longer, the script so repeated that clearly she and her now party are following the route that Goebbels named: if you tell a lie enough times, it willl be believed. Actually the republicans have used the same tactic since the50's...Democrats as Communists taking over our country, and Obamacare a socialist plot to kill our grandmothers. .Meanwhile, as we we all know, Biden and the democratic party are trying to pass legislation that all European democracies already have: medical care for all, paid family leave, subsidized child care....And I remember Sweeney in Florida acting like an enraged citizen protesting the "sore loser" Gore and saying the other repeated script about a seemingly stolen election. IN Idaho and other Republican states charging women with felony for crossing the state line for an abortion, allowing assault weapons to be carried around town...., posing with their children carrying guns, and attacking every action of impartial justice against a corrupt, mean, violent, egomaniac who they want as president...it's hard to believe how dangerous and insane they are...and why and how people here vote for them....Just to say, there was an incredible politicization of the department of justice under Barr and the Supreme Court--especially Alieto and Thomas--in the Supreme Court. We had a little demonstration "NO one is above the law"at Centennial Circle. A man across the street could not stop yelling "democrats are pedophiles." And that about sums up their "argument"for power. Thanks again Ken...and i thank the Post Star for recognizing the lies and the danger of Trump.(same with the Times Union)..while almost all of our Republican legislatures continue even now to endorse STefanik.
Stefanik is despicable. I shudder to think what kind of children these politicians are raising. No wonder the same problems keep recurring. Greed and power is all these people are interested in, certainly not solving the countries problems.