{"id":96805,"date":"2018-09-18T09:12:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T13:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=96805"},"modified":"2018-09-18T09:12:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T13:12:16","slug":"letter-working-to-elect-brindisi-to-protect-the-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=96805","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Working to elect Brindisi to protect the middle class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"LETTER: Working to elect Brindisi to protect the middle class<\/strong><\/p>\n

To the Editor:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy is not a spectator sport.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know who first said it, but I\u2019ve embraced it strongly since the 2016 election.\u00a0 Until then, I WAS just a spectator.\u00a0 Now I read about issues, write articles for a newsletter, volunteer for campaigns of candidates I believe in, and protest against the policies of our government and its elected officials when I don\u2019t agree with their actions.<\/p>\n

Recently, in Sherburne, I did just that.\u00a0 Congressional Representative Claudia Tenney was attending an event celebrating the Trump tax law that was passed earlier this year.\u00a0 I strongly disagree with many aspects of this bill.\u00a0 Bottom line: it added to the deficit, and the Republicans are talking about reducing programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (and denying Federal employees their planned salary increase) to compensate.<\/p>\n

I joined a group of about 30 people from around the 22nd district to protest outside this event.\u00a0 Subsequent to it, a recording of the entire event was posted on Facebook.\u00a0 In it, Ms. Tenney can be heard to say (these are only two excerpts from her talk\u2026the entire talk is available on YouTube\u2026and these are the exact words):<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we lose this election, we\u2019re going to have socialism, which is probably\u2026they\u2019re all probably Colgate professors and things like that back there (pointing at the protesters).\u00a0 I went to Colgate.\u00a0 I can speak with authority on that.\u00a0 Cazenovia, Hamilton\u2026you know, they don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to make a payroll.\u00a0 They don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to fight every day whether you are a business owner or a small dairy farmer.\u00a0 And I look and I see them talking about abolishing ICE and raising taxes and that\u2019s their solution to everything and so socialism is the problem and it\u2019s something we\u2019ve been fighting in New York\u2026and we know it all too well.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are against all of us.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just me.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I represent.\u00a0 It\u2019s you. There is something wrong with you if you are a business owner or you are conservative or you care about your community.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just that they disagree.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Point of clarification: we were NOT advocating abolishing ICE or raising taxes.\u00a0 We are advocating that tax breaks go to the middle class, not the top 1 percent who are getting most of the benefit of the tax law that Tenney voted for earlier this year.<\/p>\n

I, along with many others, am working hard to elect Anthony Brindisi to replace Claudia Tenney.\u00a0 Her talk in Sherburne reinforced why: she sees many of us as enemies, not constituents; she disparages those who disagree with her and she doesn\u2019t vote in the best interests of the people of her district.<\/p>\n

Ms. Tenney: MANY of us in Cazenovia and Hamilton know what it\u2019s like to have to make payroll every week.\u00a0 We are NOT against business owners (many of us ARE business owners).\u00a0 And we most decidedly DO care about our communities.\u00a0 It\u2019s why we are working to make sure you become #onetermtenney.<\/p>\n

Maureen Zupan, Cazenovia<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LETTER: Working to elect Brindisi to protect the middle class To the Editor: \u201cDemocracy is not a spectator sport.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know who first said it, but I\u2019ve embraced it strongly since the 2016 election.\u00a0 Until then, I WAS just a spectator.\u00a0 Now I read about issues, write articles for a newsletter, volunteer for campaigns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23678,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letterstotheeditor","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-pbn","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/letter-to-editor.gif?fit=342%2C248&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}