Josh Riley Dithers While Trump Attacks Ithaca
Donald Trump attacked your home town of Ithaca.
which side are you on, Josh Riley?
Welcome to Josh Riley Watch - a podcast that gives constituents in Ithaca, Tompkins County, and the rest of New York’s 19th congressional district information about what their U.S. Representative, Josh Riley, is doing in Congress.
So far, Josh Riley Watch has focused on Congressman Riley’s votes on legislation in the US House of Representatives. There’s a lot more to being a member of Congress than just voting on bills, however.
Most legislation in Congress never even gets a vote by the full House. There have been a large number of bills rushed to passage outside of the ordinary legislative process this year, but in the normal process of legislation in Congress, the first step of moving a bill toward a vote is for that bill to be sponsored by a large number of representatives.
The authors of a piece of legislation are referred to as its sponsors. Other members of the U.S. House who want to show that they support a bill can join in as co-sponsors. Sponsorship and co-sponsorship of all bills is listed online for everyone to see, even when legislation fails to get a committee hearing. Sponsorship and co-sponsorship of proposed amendments to legislation is also listed.
So, what legislation has Representative Josh Riley sponsored and co-sponsored so far?
Nothing. Josh Riley has neither sponsored nor co-sponsored any legislation in Congress yet.
Sponsoring a piece of legislation is a big deal. It involves writing a proposed law and then going through the organizational procedures to introduce it as a bill before the US House of Representatives. It’s understandable that Josh Riley has not sponsored any legislation yet. He’s only been there a few weeks.
Co-sponsoring legislation, however, is not so much of a big deal. It’s the congressional equivalent of clicking “like” on an article or picture that someone else has posted on social media. There’s a bit more too it than that, but not much. A co-sponsorship is a simple action that a member of Congress can take to support the forward progress of a bill that they believe to be important.
Is it too much to expect that, after several weeks, Congressman Josh Riley and his staff would have found some worthwhile legislation to co-sponsor? I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
A few days ago, Josh Riley issued a short statement on freezes in federal funding in which he declared: “I’m fighting back.”
We all know what fighting looks like. So, what is Congressman Josh Riley actually doing? How, precisely, is he fighting back? It’s easy to talk about fighting, but actually putting up a fight is another matter entirely.
So, last week, when Donald Trump issued a memo that resulted in large numbers of federal government agencies shutting down, Josh Riley called it “bullshit” and said “I’m fighting back.” That was several days ago. There’s no sign of any action from Congressman Josh Riley on this issue.
Since that statement was issued by Representative Riley, Donald Trump and his fascist oligarchs have been busy wrecking the federal government. They didn’t take the weekend off.
Elon Musk sent a team of computer engineers to multiple federal government offices to connect their own private, unauthorized computers to official government networks. These engineers are Musk’s private employees. They aren’t government employees, and they haven’t passed any federal background checks. Elon Musk himself has been refused security clearances after background checks found reason to believe that he had multiple compromising encounters with agents of foreign governments.
Elon Musk himself has no position in the US federal government. He has no legal authority to do anything in any US government office. He isn’t even authorized to deliver the mail.
Public servants in offices dealing with matters ranging from federal payroll to foreign aid appropriately refused Elon Musk’s demands that he and his hackers be granted access to US federal government computer networks. Elon Musk’s team then told the government officials that if they didn’t comply with Musk’s demands, armed US Marshalls would be called and would force computer access to be granted.
No one has appointed Elon Musk authority to use the US Marshalls as his own private armed militia. Nonetheless, Elon Musk appears to have gained control of the US Marshalls, and is using them in order to gain control of other federal government agencies.
Overnight, Elon Musk declared that Donald Trump had given him permission to shut down the United States Agency for International Development. Donald Trump hasn’t actually issued any public statement to that effect. Furthermore, neither Elon Musk nor Donald Trump have the legal power to shut down any federal agency. That’s because federal agencies are established by and are funded by acts of Congress. It is against the law for the President to defy acts of Congress, and there is absolutely no legal right granted to any corporate CEO to come into the federal government to seize control of armed US forces to force government agencies to shut down. Within hours, every federal official who attempted to stop Elon Musk from hacking into secure federal government computer networks was told that they would not be allowed to remain in their jobs.
All of this is against the law. It’s happened anyway. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are flagrantly breaking the law, seizing power for themselves.
As of this morning, US intelligence agency officials explained that their top secret computer networks are no longer secure. Computer networks holding classified secrets have been compromised by Elon Musk’s raids. It is possible that Elon Musk has given information about US intelligence agents and other highly sensitive information to Donald Trump’s networks of oligarchs, or even to representatives of foreign governments.
Expanding Elon Musk’s grip on power, the Trump Administration announced that several government agencies, including the entire US Department of Defense, would cease communications with journalists. From now on, it was declared, all public communications by these government agencies would be available exclusively on X, Elon Musk’s politically extremist social media network.
The fascists are taking action. They’re not just talking. They’re busy forcing radical changes by both legal and criminal means.
At the same time, Josh Riley has done nothing. He has said nothing. He has not made any public appearance or issued any statement.
Here in New York’s 19th congressional district, these actions are directly impacting people’s abilities to access basic federal government services.
Over the weekend, federal government web sites were shut down. This morning, the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Partners Network, and its web site at Rural.gov were closed down. The work of the Rural Partners Network has been to help farmers and people living in small towns to gain funding, technical assistance, training, and other development resources with the purpose of creating jobs in rural communities.
Congressman Josh Riley is a member of the House Agriculture Committee. The sudden closure of the Rural Partners Network is precisely within his declared area of interest and expertise. During his campaign, Josh Riley promised that, if he was elected, he would represent the interest of farmers in Upstate New York. Now, as the Trump Administration, or Elon Musk, or whoever is actually in charge in Washington DC, has shut down farmers’ access to the federal government by illegally closing down the Rural Partners Network, Josh Riley appears to be doing nothing about it.
I will gladly report any change in this situation. If Congressman Josh Riley finally stands up and does something, anything, in the face of a massive criminal takeover of the federal government, I will report on that action.
In the meantime, as Josh Riley remains silent and out of sight, all I can honestly report is that our district’s congressman appears more intent upon hiding from his responsibilities. At the time when America needs leaders with integrity Congressman Josh Riley is failing even to show up.
Josh Riley failed to show up this weekend in his hometown of Ithaca, this weekend. Just a quarter mile from Josh Riley’s home, a large crowd of protesters gathered in the cold, filling up the Ithaca Commons.
As Josh Riley continued to be absent and silent, his constituents gathered on Ithaca’s public square to speak out against the fascist takeover of the American government. They condemned recent raids by federal government agents. The people of Ithaca declared their resistance against Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
At the protest, I came across a person I had last seen last summer, as we joined together in Danby to volunteer for Josh Riley’s campaign for Congress. We spread out into the countryside that day, going door to door to encourage our neighbors to vote for Josh Riley. I still remember the conversations I had with voters that day. Not a single one of them said that they wanted to shut down the federal government. No one said they wanted Elon Musk to take control of America. Nobody expressed any interest in a crackdown against immigrants.
Everyone I talked to told me about the one reason they wanted to vote for Josh Riley: They wanted to send someone to Washington DC who would have the integrity to stand up to Donald Trump.
It was unsettling to come across my fellow volunteer yesterday at the protest in downtown Ithaca. So much had changed since we last saw each other. Now, like many other people at the protest, she told me of her outrage, which was not just against Donald Trump’s decision to target Ithaca for government raids against immigrants, but was also directed at Josh Riley’s decision to help Trump’s anti-immigrant raids by passing the Laken Riley Act.
Here’s what she said to me:
“My name is Marnie Kirchgessner. I'm a lifelong resident of Tompkins County and my grandson is the seventh or eighth generation in living in Tompkins County. What I grew up believing in terms of democratic values, what is happening in government right now is absolutely horrifying to me and everything that my family has always stood for.
I am very concerned about the lack of visibility of Josh Riley. I am appalled that he could find me as often as twice a day to ask for money, but now I have no idea where he is. I understand that he was in the hospital and I feel sorry for that. But I would hope that he would have the experience to hire competent staff to communicate with his constituents.
You know, the whole point of Trump's administration is cruelty. I have family members by marriage who are immigrants. I have a godson, I guess he was, in fact, born here in America, but his parents were not, and I am absolutely appalled that people who may not be guilty of anything can be locked in jail. I thought that this was America.”
The voice you just heard from yesterday’s protest in Ithaca wasn’t coming from just any citizen of Tompkins County. Her name is Marnie Kirchgessner, and she is the chair of the Democratic Committee in the Town of Danby. She is a member of the Tompkins County Democratic Committee.
As Marnie mentioned, although Josh Riley has not taken the time even to cosponsor one piece of legislation in Congress, has not spoken out against the seizure of power by Elon Musk, and has done nothing to try to protect the Rural Partners Network from closure, Josh Riley is finding the time to raise money for his 2026 re-election campaign.
On Friday, Josh Riley sent out text messages to people across New York’s 19th congressional district, telling them that he was facing an urgent deadline. He asked us all to send him money.
Josh Riley did not say anything in that message about his vote for the Laken Riley act, a new law that allows the federal government to send people, even children, to places like the new concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, on the basis of nothing more than false accusations of shoplifting. He didn’t say anything about his vote to help Republicans protect war criminals from the International Criminal Court.
Instead, Josh Riley asked this: “Will you chip in before midnight to help us reach our $25,000 goal?”
I donated time and money to Josh Riley’s campaign last year, but now, in response to this fundraising effort, I have this direct message for Josh Riley: Before you ask the people of New York’s 19th congressional district for another penny of their money, you need to prove that you deserve to keep your job. Do something. Take action to represent the people here in our time of need.
When you voted for the Laken Riley Act, and you attacked the International Criminal Court, you gave assistance to Donald Trump’s efforts to replace American democracy with fascism, and you know that is not what the people of this district elected you to do. You may have hoped that these votes protected you from the anger of Donald Trump, but I ask you to, for a moment, stop thinking about yourself and your needs. Instead, I want you to think about protecting the people of your congressional district from the anger of Donald Trump.
As a reward for your votes endorsing his grab for power, Donald Trump attacked your home city of Ithaca, New York. Where were you, when federal agents armed with guns searched the streets of Ithaca?
Donald Trump chose to make your home city of Ithaca an example, to target your neighbors, to make us afraid, to force us into submission. Donald Trump responded to your submission on his fascist legislation by attacking your constituents. The lesson is clear: A compromise with Donald Trump won’t win you any favors, Congressman Riley. Trump rewards nothing but absolute obedience.
Are you going to offer him your obedience?
Do you remember how, just a few days before the election in November, the State Theater in Ithaca was filled with people who watched Natalie Merchant sing a song for you? Do you remember the name of that song? I was there. I remember. Let me remind you. It was a favorite of Pete Seeger: Which Side Are You On?
“Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?
Which side are you on?
…Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organize.
Which side are you on?”
Congressman Riley, you face a choice. You need to choose a side. Are you going to defend the people who live in your congressional district, or are you going to continue to stand by and do nothing while Donald Trump attacks our communities?
The job of a member of Congress is not to keep their head down and try to blend into the crowd in order to stay safe. The job of a member of Congress is to lead. Ithaca and Tompkins County elected Josh Riley to Congress in order to represent us.
You’ve had enough time to get settled into your new job, Congressman Riley. It’s time for you to do more than talk. Get to work, Josh Riley!
Represent!