These two letters were sent out the same day to different recipient lists!
SWEET LEE (Jan 21, 2021)
Dear xxx,
Ideally, the commitment of all Americans each and every day should be to work towards unity and pursue a better course for our nation. Oftentimes, we will not agree on exactly how to best move America forward, but how we debate and disagree is especially critical. Respectful disagreement is a protected and treasured American value, and there will be many vibrant debates to be had over the next four years. Let us work towards ensuring they will always remain in the spirit that serves the betterment of our great country.President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took a sacred oath yesterday to our Constitution and our country as part of yesterday’s peaceful transition of power in a ceremony that has long been familiar to and celebrated by freedom-loving Americans.The months and years ahead are filled with great challenges and great opportunities for a country that truly does need less violence in our streets, more positivity in our hearts, and more understanding among our people.
Best Regards,Lee Zeldin
Member of Congress
NASTY LEE (Jan 21, 2021)
Friends,
Today is the first full day of the new Biden-Harris administration, which means it’s the first full day of Democrats jamming through their very disastrous priorities for America.
Logan sent you an email yesterday outlining Biden’s 100 day plan that will destroy small businesses, eliminate jobs, weaken our pursuit of energy independence, and embolden our adversaries like Iran by rejoining the Iran Nuclear Deal as is.
Biden, Harris, and Pelosi have made one thing clear, friend: their priorities aren’t our priorities and the rest of us better not sit back one minute and go quietly into the night while the country we love gets rolled.
This is why my team started the 48-hour Fight for Lee Fund yesterday.
We still have a few hours until our deadline, and we still need $5,450 to reach our fundraising goal!
Join in our fight against the radical left’s power grabs and ideologies. Donate a 2X-MATCHED gift now! >>>
Thank you,
Lee CONTRIBUTE
PAID FOR BY ZELDIN FOR CONGRESS.
P.O. BOX 610, SHIRLEY, NEW YORK 11967
This is a letter sent to Lee Zeldin on Jan 12th urging him to vote for impeachment of Trump. (I was having trouble posting until now). Although I knew it would have no effect in persuading him, I thought it important to say these things anyhow.
Rep Zeldin, it is not too late. You have one last chance for redemption. That chance is joining your principled Republican colleagues to impeach President Trump.
You have been instrumental in creating the environment that led up to an armed insurrectionist mob storming the Capitol and threatening our democracy. Shortly after you were elected to your first term you addressed a meeting of Oath Keepers. Oath Keepers is one of the far right armed militia groups that went all in on storming the Capitol on Jan 6. They’ve been lusting for armed uprising and civil war for years. More recently, during Trump’s first impeachment, you were one of the Congressmen who participated in the storming of the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities) inside the Capitol during a hearing involving classified information. This, in spite of the fact that you already had secured access to the SCIF. The room was entered by force and security protocols were breached. Afterwards you spoke at a press conference praising this illegal action, thus abusing your position as a Congressman to set a terrible example of the lawless exercise of force to enter a secured area in the heart of the Capitol.
The worst of all was your vote to object to the certification of President-elect Biden’s wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania, AFTER the House chamber itself had been invaded by an angry mob baying for blood. There was no more ambiguity at that point about what the “stop the steal” rhetoric, led by President Trump and echoed by you, would lead to. It’s no use hiding behind sophistic and pettifogging language about “legal” votes and “investigations”. It was plain as day that you were aiding and abetting resistance to the peaceful transfer of power, and encouraging the delusion that the 2020 election was not free and fair, and that Trump should be declared the winner.
If ever a President fit the description of what the nation’s founders had in mind when they wrote the power to impeach the President into the Constitution, it is President Trump. Even before the election he refused to commit to the peaceful transfer of power should he lose. He in fact refused to concede the possibility that he could lose. That is the behavior of a dictator. Then, after he lost, he convinced millions of Americans that the election was rigged, broadcasting the “stop the steal” lie through Twitter and other media. On Jan 3rd he called the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, and cajoled and threatened him to “find” the votes necessary to make him the winner in Georgia, even going so far as to name the exact number of votes Raffensberger needed to “find”. This followed multiple calls and meetings with state officials overseeing elections pressuring them to overturn the election result in their state. During all this you gave your backing, even though you are a Congressman sworn to defend the Constitution, to this effort to cast into doubt and perhaps nullify the verdict of millions of voters in various states, all based on what you must have known, as a lawyer and educated person, was a lie.
Then on Jan. 6th Trump addressed a mob which he himself had summoned to Washington using inflammatory rhetoric, demanding that Vice President Pence act in clear violation of the Constitution and simply arbitrarily declare Trump the winner. The mob, as we all know, then marched to the Capitol, overpowered the Capitol police who for reasons yet to be explained fully were unaided by any other federal agency, and smashed their way into the Capitol building itself, chanting, amongst other things “Hang Mike Pence!”. A Capitol police officer was fatally injured and other Capitol police officers were also injured. The legal and Constitutional process underway of counting the electoral votes was interrupted. The Vice President, Senators and Representatives were forced to flee for their lives to a secure location. Only after several hours, when reinforcements from the Washington D.C. police arrived was the Capitol cleared of the angry and bloodthirsty mob, after an orgy of pillage and looting had occurred, including the theft of electronics possibly containing classified information. It was only through both the bravery and quick thinking of certain outnumbered Capitol police officers that much worse did not occur, including the injury or murder of the Vice President, Senators, or Representatives.
Meanwhile, as all this was occurring President Trump was in the White House watching television. He refused numerous pleas coming from both those besieged in the Capitol and from officials of his own Administration to do something and summon help to clear the Capitol of the angry mob. In fact, reports are that he appeared to be enjoying himself and was pleased by the events that were occurring at the Capitol. During the critical hours the Capitol building was occupied by an insurrectionist mob, there was, in effect, no President of the United States. Donald Trump had abdicated his responsibility to preserve and protect the Constitution.
It is impossible for me to believe that you seriously think the behavior of President Trump is not impeachable. If his behavior is not impeachable what is the meaning of the impeachment clause in the Constitution? What would a President need to do to be impeached? Commit murder? Defect to Russia? Clearly that’s not what the founders had in mind by the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
This is your last chance to change your course and act in defense of our democracy instead of in defense of one autocratic and delusional man. Think about how you will be judged by history. Think about your daughters and what kind of country they will live in. Please, please think about the good of the country instead of pandering to the worst part of your “base”. This is your last chance to redeem yourself and act as something other than a political robot.
The Capitol building symbolizes the heart of our democracy; it is the place where the people’s will — the certification of the next duly elected president of the United States — is carried out.
After hours of chaos and sickening violence erupted on Wednesday — the horrors perpetrated by the lawless mob that laid siege to the Capitol, lawmakers barricaded in offices fearing for their lives, countless attacks, and five dead — the desecration of the symbols of our democracy ended, but the legislative assaults were just beginning.
As Congress reconvened to do their sworn duty, our congressman, Lee Zeldin, in direct violation of the oath of office he took to uphold the Constitution, voted to reject the state-certified election results of Arizona and Pennsylvania. Think about that. He sought to throw out millions of lawfully cast ballots, all the while knowing full well that the results had been legally challenged multiple times and were irrefutably legitimate.
The mob may have physically trashed the People’s House, but it was Zeldin and 146 fellow Republicans who drove a rhetorical stake through the heart of our democracy, attempting a legislative coup. He should never be allowed to walk the hallowed halls of the Capitol again.
Sincerely,
CAROL DEISTLER
Letter to the Editor printed in The East Hampton Star, January 14
I tried to leave a message for Zeldin at the Patchogue office but the answering machine instructed constituents to email his office with a comment. I share the comments I emailed to Zeldin with you. I hope many take advantage of the opportunity to express our serious reservations of Zeldin’s positions. Steve Ludsin
Dear Congressman Zeldin,
I must protest your vote to challenge the electoral college and then send an email dated January 9, 2021 where you stated that you returned home from our nation’s Capitol after witnessing firsthand from inside the House chamber on Wednesday the best of America clash with some of the worst of it in a moment of your life you will never forget. I agree with your view that the vandalism and loss of life at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was totally unacceptable and there must be ZERO tolerance for violence in any form.
Sadly your constant support of the electoral college challenge due to an alleged rigged election encourages the very violence you condemn. You need to rethink your position.
Thank you for considering a constituent’s viewpoint. We both served on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council at different times. The attack on the Capitol was similar to Kristallnacht and we know what the results of that attack became.
The Trump administration raised hopes of a speedy process for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Patience is wearing thin.
By Rebecca Robbins
In mid-December, a top Trump administration official floated an enticing possibility: All nursing home residents in the United States could be vaccinated against the coronavirus by Christmas. “It’s really a remarkable, remarkable prospect,” Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, declared.
It turned out to be a fantasy.
A month later, vaccinations of some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens are going more slowly than many state officials, industry executives and families expected. Their hopes had been buoyed when government officials said long-term care facilities would be at the front of the line for vaccines.
CVS and Walgreens, which are largely responsible for vaccinating residents and workers in long-term care facilities, are on track to make at least initial vaccination visits to nearly all nursing homes they are working with by Jan. 25. The two pharmacy chains have already given out more than 1.7 million vaccine doses at long-term care facilities.
But the progress is uneven across the country and not nearly as comprehensive for different types of long-term care. For example, thousands of assisted living facilities — for older people who need less care than those in nursing homes — do not yet even have an appointment for their first visit from the pharmacy teams, in large part because states have given such facilities lower priority in their vaccine-distribution plans.
“I’ve had facilities call me, and I’ve had people cry, I’ve had people curse, because this was the first sign of hope that they’ve had in many, many months,” said Betsy Johnson, who leads a group that represents Kentucky’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
“It’s just human nature to think, ‘OK, but I was supposed to be first — and I don’t even know when my clinic is going to happen,’” Ms. Johnson said.
In Pennsylvania, teams from CVS or Walgreens are not scheduled to visit some nursing homes until February, and the vast majority of the state’s assisted living facilities have not yet been scheduled for a first visit, said Zach Shamberg, president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association.
“There’s a great deal of frustration, there’s a great deal of apprehension, as to when or if this vaccine will come,” Mr. Shamberg said.
The pace of the vaccination program has taken on greater urgency as the rapidly spreading virus continues to decimate nursing homes and similar facilities. The virus’s surge since November has killed about 30,000 long-term care staff and residents, raising the total of virus-related deaths in these facilities to at least 136,000, according to a New York Times tracker. Since the pandemic began, long-term care facilities have accounted for just 5 percent of coronavirus cases but 36 percent of virus-related deaths.
Even as the vaccination campaign accelerates, the suffering is unlikely to wane. The coming months could be “the deadliest of the pandemic” for people living and working in long-term care, according to an analysis released on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Trump administration announced in October that it had teamed up with CVS and Walgreens to lead a federal effort to vaccinate residents and workers at long-term care facilities, among the first eligible groups.
On Friday, CVS said it had given out just over one million doses in more than 12,000 initial visits to long-term care facilities. Nearly 8,000 visits are scheduled for the coming week. Walgreens said it had given out nearly 750,000 doses in nearly 9,000 visits to facilities, mostly nursing homes. The number of visits that Walgreens has scheduled with assisted living facilities “continues to accelerate,” a company spokeswoman, Rebekah Pajak, said.
The vaccinations by CVS and Walgreens were always expected to take several months because of the need to visit tens of thousands of facilities three times. The first two visits are for most residents and staff to get the two doses of the vaccine, with the third visit as a backup for people who missed the first clinic.
The idea that all nursing home residents could get their first doses by Christmas was not a realistic prospect even when Mr. Azar, the health secretary, floated it 12 days before the holiday. By that point, some states had told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that they would not activate the federal program to vaccinate their nursing homes until Dec. 28. The logistics would have been challenging even if states had put a priority on getting their first doses to nursing homes.
Michael Pratt, a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department, said Mr. Azar had been speaking only aspirationally about what states were capable of doing, since they had enough vaccine doses to cover all nursing home residents by Christmas. But that would have required that states place less of a priority on vaccinating high-risk groups like heath care workers.
T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for CVS, said the chain was making first visits to all facilities within four weeks of each state’s activating its vaccination program for nursing homes or assisted living facilities.
“This isn’t a drive-through or stadium vaccination effort,” Mr. Crawford said. “We’re visiting more than 40,000 facilities with an average of less than 100 residents, in some cases going room to room.” He said CVS was “on track and delivering on goals established and communicated early in the process.”
But a growing number of governors and state health officials have voiced frustration with CVS’s and Walgreens’ speed.
In Mississippi, some long-term facilities won’t get their first visit until Feb. 11, the state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said this month. “We’re clearly disappointed with the progress in the long-term care program,” he said.
Some states and cities are exploring ways to hasten the inoculations.
Seattle is using its Fire Department to vaccinate nearly 1,000 residents and staff at adult family homes, a type of long-term care, by the end of January. Florida hired an emergency services company, CDR Maguire, to give out doses at 1,900 assisted living facilities that had not been scheduled for visits by CVS and Walgreens teams before Jan. 24.
In Michigan, officials have asked the federal government to let them work with other pharmacies, such as the supermarket chains Meijer and Kroger, to speed up the vaccination effort in long-term care facilities, said Bobby Leddy, a spokesman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
West Virginia is the only state that has not activated the federal program involving CVS and Walgreens, though Walgreens is separately working with West Virginia to vaccinate 32 of its long-term care facilities. Relying mostly on local independent pharmacies, the state said on Dec. 30 that it had wrapped up the first round at its 214 long-term care facilities.
Some of the initially feared problems that could slow down the vaccine rollout in nursing homes have not emerged as serious obstacles, at least so far, according to facility operators and industry researchers.
Despite widespread worries that the vaccines’ side effects — which can include fevers, chills and fatigue — would cause staff to miss work and residents to need more care, that has not happened to any significant degree. And while there was early confusion about how nursing homes should get consent from residents or their families, that process has largely gone smoothly.
But other things are slowing the campaign. A significant number of long-term care workers have balked at receiving the vaccine. The virus’s spread is also delaying the process. People should not be vaccinated while they still have Covid-19 symptoms or are isolating, according to the C.D.C.
Outbreaks and cases of Covid-19 in some long-term care communities have led Walgreens to delay scheduling initial visits or to reschedule them, said Rick Gates, an executive leading the company’s long-term care vaccinations.
CVS has encountered the same issue, though it has not been widespread. The company has left the decision about whether to proceed with visits in such cases to local clinic team leaders and officials at the facilities, Mr. Crawford said.
Another factor is that some states did not quickly activate their programs to vaccinate people at assisted living facilities and similar communities. In some cases, they waited until weeks after they began vaccinations at nursing homes.
But many long-term care facilities include both nursing homes and assisted living. In those cases, pharmacy teams have been able to vaccinate only a subset of residents.
In Prairie du Chien, Wis., for example, a team from Walgreens on Thursday made its first visit to the local nursing home, Prairie Maison, to inject nearly all of its roughly 50 residents with the Moderna vaccine.
But Prairie Maison is part of a larger senior community, which includes about 50 assisted living residents. Because Wisconsin did not activate its vaccination program for assisted living until Friday, those residents weren’t offered the vaccine — even though they are in the same building as the nursing home residents.
“Vaccinating one group and not the other doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Dr. Mark Grunwald, the chairman of Prairie Maison’s board.
From Kristin Stephens
Assistant Vice President, Media Relations and Public Affairs, GREATER NEW YORK HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION
America’s 220-year history of a peaceful transfer of power — the cornerstone of our democracy — was shattered in one horrifying afternoon. On January 6, a frenzied mob incited by President Donald Trump laid siege to the Capitol, vandalizing the most potent symbols of our democracy and committing countless acts of sickening violence.
Hours later, after order had been restored and Congress resumed its constitutionally mandated duty, our congressman, Lee Zeldin, continued the assault on our democracy, legislatively, by objecting to the state-certified election results of Arizona, all the while knowing full well that the results had been legally challenged multiple times and had been shown irrefutably to be legitimate.
That 146 other Republicans also voted to deny certification in Arizona or Pennsylvania, or both, only throws the death spiral of the Republican Party into sharper relief.
When faced with a choice between truth and lies, democracy and fascism, some Republicans, like Mitt Romney, held their moral ground. Others, like Mr. Zeldin, violated their oaths to uphold the Constitution and betrayed their country.
How will we hold him accountable?
Carol Deistler
Letter printed in The Southampton Press, January 13, 2021
