Hochul, Local Democrats Offer Nothing to Grieving Nation But Empty Words

America needs its own Winston Churchill. Instead, we're getting people like failed Woodbury Village Trustee, Matthew Fabbro.

(Note to readers getting this by email, make sure you visit the website to get the entire version of this article.)

Pictured Above: A photo taken by “Planet Hulk” creator Greg Pak at the last No Kings protest in New York City is even more relevant today. (You’ve essentially seen the entire plot of the "Planet Hulk" comic in the third Thor movie, "Thor: Ragnarok.") Many pictures were shared by Pak from that protest, but this one captures the essence of today’s story: Talk is cheap.

It’s time to take action, and to be skeptical of those who offer nothing but words, like Governor Kathy Hochul, Congressman Pat Ryan, and former Woodbury Village Trustee Matthew Fabbro.

For those looking to take action here in Southern Orange County, your first stop should be the press conference and rally concerning the Chester concentration camp. Further information is provided below. (And yes, we know Pat Ryan will be there. More on him in a moment.)

Your second stop should be to email our friends at Hands Off Hudson Valley* at HandsOffHudsonValley@Gmail.com to ask them about how to join our Signs of Solidarity campaign. Our goal is to get as many signs on the front door of local businesses and organizations in Chester and Monroe that proudly say, “We Stand With Immigrant Families.”

*Disclosure: I am a member of the steering committee for Hands Off Hudson Valley.

The third thing you should do is read today’s story and pass it on to your friends and family. We are stronger together, and the more people know about what’s happening, the more likely they are to join the movement to take back our country and pass the Second Bill of Rights.

---

So, back on October 7, 2025, The Monroe Gazette reached out to the Woodbury Village Board concerning whether its current members support the activities of ICE; and whether the Village Board would introduce a resolution calling on Assemblyman Chris Eachus and State Senator James G. Skoufis to call for an emergency session of the legislature. One where they can demand passage of the New York For All and New York MELT acts. (This, for the record, is a question that should be asked again at upcoming Town of Woodbury and Village of Woodbury meetings after everyone has had a chance to dig out from the snow. Monroe got well over 20 inches. I know this because, at the moment, it’s impossible to open the mailbox.)

As of this writing, on January 26, 2026, Governor Kathy Hochul continues to drag her feet on passing both New York For All and the MELT Act—neither bill was mentioned in her recent State of the State address—and Skoufis and Eachus haven’t said much publicly on these bills either. Hochul received a letter from multiple New York State congressional representatives — except Pat Ryan — calling on her to pass New York For All.

Hochul did, however, present yet another anti-protester, anti-First Amendment law she would like to pass this year, this one creating a 25-foot buffer from churches, synagogues, and mosques in the event someone wants to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Let me repeat this: During a time where ICE is kidnapping New Yorkers left and right, Governor Hochul barely said anything about them in her State of the State, which lays out her priorities for the upcoming year. So here, I’m going to remind registered Democrats that the gubernatorial primary is scheduled for June 23, 2026, and you have a better choice than Kathy Hochul in the form of Antonio Delgado.

If we’re being honest, wanting to limit protests involving Gaza is the only reason Hochul is talking about this buffer. The use of bogus claims of anti-Semitism to shield against criticism is a tactic long familiar to Southern Orange County, Northern Rockland County, and Sullivan County residents for over 50 years. Just ask Rhonda Fabbro, Matthew Fabbro’s mother and the formerly un-elected Woodbury Village Trustee.

Unfortunately, the Trump regime and AIPAC-funded Democrats, including Pat Ryan, have taken a phenomenon we are all too familiar with locally and have used it as part of a nationwide, and global, movement to repress dissent using defending Israel as an excuse.

All the while, nobody is doing anything about the legitimate antisemitism caused by white supremacists, whom the FBI in 2022 called a threat to American society and who have killed more people than so-called “Islamic extremists” since the September 11 attacks in 2001. In Germany, where they are suppressing artists from speaking about Gaza, they seem to be doing very little about the Trump aligned AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, who are essentially Nazis with a fresh coat of paint. So while real antisemitism runs wild, Kathy Hochul wants to use fake anti-semitism to suppress speech.

For the record, and as a Jew, I want to remind you that criticism of specific actors in the Israeli government, like Benjamin Netanyahu, is not antisemitic. You can and should criticize them, just like you can and should criticize Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, as their criminal actions are factual and verifiable, just like Netanyahu’s. I’m not going to tell you that Netanyahu got Yitzhak Rabin murdered, but you should probably watch this video if you’re not convinced that Netanyahu represents an existential threat to Jews everywhere. Because every person he murders in our name is a cross that each of us will forever have to carry. “Never again” means nothing if “never again” only applies to us. For that statement to carry any weight, it’s up to us as Jews to defend all people from the horrors we’ve endured and to call out those who want to use the Holocaust as cover for evil acts.

This buffer might not sound like a big deal to most readers, but if you live in a place like Kiryas Joel or South Blooming Grove, that 25-foot buffer makes it virtually impossible for people to gather and protest anywhere in either village. This is because of the number of properties in both municipalities claiming to be houses of worship. In South Blooming Grove specifically, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove headquarters, where actual village business is conducted, is right next to a synagogue, meaning South Blooming Grove residents can’t even protest the white-collar criminals holding their village hostage under this proposed rule from Kathy Hochul.

This wouldn’t be the first time Kathy Hochul has gone out of her way to protect Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein. Her office refuses to turn over emails sent by both men, or sent to both men by the Governor and her staff, after over a year of delaying The Monroe Gazette’s FOIL request on the matter, citing ongoing government operations and discussions. Here, we’ll point out, that Mr. Stern and Mr. Ekstein are not elected officials, and haven’t been official village employees either since 2024, and that we specifically asked for emails from Stern and Ekstein’s United Jewish Community of Blooming Grove, and not just the Village of South Blooming Grove.

What’s in those emails that Governor Hochul and her team don’t want you to see?

Instead of Winston Churchill, we got this balding weirdo …

The Woodbury Village Board didn’t respond to our request . This includes Democrats Matthew Fabbro and James Freiband, who were members of the Village Board at the time we sent in this email.

We also asked a specific question in our email to both men, given that they are Democrats and, also at that time, were actively supporting a far-right MAGA figure named Brandon Calore in the race for Woodbury mayor. Matthew Fabbro, who lives with his mother, even had a campaign sign for the MAGA bigot on his front lawn throughout the campaign.

(Brandon Calore is still on the Woodbury Town Board and now swears he’s done with politics when his term is over, despite other activities that indicate he’s delusional enough to run against Skoufis’s sock puppet, Chris Eachus, for the 99th Assembly district seat this fall.)

I’m going to show you part of the email here because, as we’ve extensively documented at The Monroe Gazette, both Matthew Fabbro and his mother are compulsive liars who will say anything to gain even the slightest hint of power. Last week’s events at the Woodbury Village Board proved that.

October 7th, 2025:

Now let’s fast forward to the January 22nd, 2026 Woodbury Village Board meeting, at about 45:18 in the video below.

Here, after losing his Village Board seat to a big, dumb, balding, North American ape with no chin and a bad temper, Matthew Fabbro resurfaces to inform the board of a resolution from Orange County (that we’ll get to in a moment) involving the concentration camp planned for 29 Elizabeth Drive in Chester, New York.

Mr. Fabbro takes the coward's way out and does not call it a concentration camp (big surprise, given his mother’s nebulous definition of what constitutes anti-Semitism) and then asks the board to pass a resolution supporting the new county resolution.

Fabbro then stated, “People aren’t getting due process right now. There’s a lot that’s not normal in this country,” and called for the town and village to pass a resolution concerning ICE’s activities.

Go back and look at our email above. The one Matthew Fabbro refused to reply to at a later Village Board meeting, stating that the questions about ICE were not “village business.”

Now let me show you the rest of the email we sent Fabbro on October 7th, 2025. Take a look at that second to last sentence, when I said the situation in our country is not normal.

Sound familiar?

At no point after receiving this email did Matthew Fabbro, his mother Rhonda (the actual village trustee as far as she was concerned), and James Freiband discuss ICE, call for any resolutions to be passed, or express sympathy for Woodbury residents rounded up by ICE, despite the fact that they remained in power until January 1, 2026.

At no point did the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, which Matthew’s mother Rhonda runs alongside James Freiband’s wife, Willa, make any statements or advocate for New York For All and the MELT Act to be passed. (They also haven’t filed any information concerning their committee and James Freiband’s campaign finances, but that’s a different story for another time.)

So, call me crazy—or “disgusting,” as Matthew Fabbro once did from behind the table as a village trustee—but that man does not care about ICE. If he did, he would have done something while he had the power to do so. Instead, he’s offering you nothing but talk. Just like Kathy Hochul. And just like Congressman Pat Ryan.

Woodbury residents should remain vigilant of a potential comeback attempt by the Fabbros and Freibands, and prepare themselves to send both packing should their names ever again appear on a local ballot.

Empty Words, Empty Promises

Below is a transcript of Governor Kathy Hochul’s statements, delivered today involving the murder of Alex Preeti in Minneosta. A man whom Congresman Pat Ryan couldn’t even be bothered to say the name of. This, below, is the only statement released thus far by Ryan, whom instead decided to post about the snow.

While the snow was definitely newsworthy, one would think the murder of a dissident by a government death squad would matter to the former member of the military who served two combat tours. Honestly, based on his lack of urgency and will to act on behalf of his constituents during a national emergency, I often feel like Pat Ryan left his balls in Iraq.

One side note about Pat Ryan: Elon Musk’s X platform (the artist formerly known as Twitter) is now the world’s largest repository and generator of child pornography. Yet Pat Ryan, Kathy Hochul, and State Senator Skoufis, continue to use X as a platform. It wasn’t enough for them to leave the platform after Elon Musk helped kill 124,377 people last year. One wonders if hanging out with Nazis and pedophiles will do the trick for our local Democrats this year.

Now let’s get back to the Governor …

Hochul: “I need to speak plainly about something that should stop every American in their tracks. Yesterday in Minneapolis, federal immigration agents killed another American citizen in broad daylight. His name was Alex Pretti. He was 37 years old. He was an ICU nurse—someone whose job was saving lives. Video shows him doing something he was trained to do, to help people. He was trying to reach over and help a woman in need when she was thrown to the ground by federal agents.”

Within minutes of Alex Pretti’s murder, the Trump Regime referred to him as a domestic terrorist, just as they did after the murder of Renee Good.

Video evidence, verified by the BBC, show that at no point was Pretti a danger to the ICE agents, and he was disarmed by an agent well before they shot him nine times for absolutely zero reason.

(Oddly, a lot of those Second Amendment people in the Regime are real quiet about Mr. Pretti’s lawfully registered weapon and his right to carry it, huh?)

The reason the Trump Regime keeps calling the people they murder “domestic terrorists” is simple: White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, wants to invoke the Insurrection Act. That would allow him, Trump, JD Vance, Russell Vought, and yes, Elon Musk (hiding behind his DOGE flunkies that he embedded all over the government), to flood “Blue” cities with the military and suppress the protests. Much like the Iranian government is currently doing, killing over ten thousand people in the process. At the moment, the United States military is sending an “armada” over to Iran to stop the massacre of dissidents by death squads, but who’s sending an armada our way to help us deal with the exact same tactics deployed by our own government?

It’s also worth stopping here for a moment to remind people that it’s not a coincidence Trump and Miller are sending ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and others, to places like Minnesota and Maine and not Texas and Florida, whom are projected to have millions of more people living in those states “illegally” than Minnesota and Maine combined.

(Hint: These government invasions, which all those second amendment whack jobs have been claiming they need their guns to defend against, have nothing to do with people here “illegally.”

They have everything to do with provoking a violent outburst from the protestors, which is what Miller and Trump want in order to invoke the Insurrection Act. Once the Insurrection Act has been invoked, while the Trump Regime can’t stop people from voting in November, they can and absolutely will use the military to collect the ballot boxes and keep the votes from being counted. This is something Trump wanted to do back in 2020 while still in office.)

Let’s continue with Hochul’s statement …

“Within seconds, federal agents threw him to the ground and fired a shot—not one, but a barrage of bullets—into his body on a public sidewalk in America. The federal government claims the killing was justified. This nurse, with nothing more than a cell phone in his hand, was allegedly trying to kill them. That’s their story.

But anyone who’s seen this horrific video—multiple videos—knows that this is a shameless, bold-faced lie. This is not a threat that needs to be neutralized. It was a civilian exercising the free right to protest. This is a continuation of a deadly pattern—a pattern of violence.

It is well known that earlier this month, federal agents also shot a mother of three in the face when she extended a greeting to them. Two American families destroyed. Confidence in federal law enforcement shattered.

At the same time, ICE agents are arresting children. A 5-year-old returning from preschool—using them as bait. A 2-year-old taken on the way home from a grocery store with her dad. Now we have children caught up in armed engagements, scooped off the street by masked men while our federal leaders feed false narratives instead of taking responsibility.

But videos don’t lie. Don’t stop believing what your eyes tell you. Their cruelty—these instances of what is going on and unfolding in the streets of America today—shocks the conscience of every human being with a heart.”

All of this is true. We can commend Governor Hochul for pointing these things out while simultaneously calling her out for her lack of effort and urgency.

But what also “shocks the conscience of every human being with a heart” is that the New York State Legislature reconvened on January 7th.

Nearly twenty days later, the New York Melt Act has not passed. The New York For All Act has not been passed.

The New York Privacy act, which would protect New Yorkers from being literally stalked from a protest to their homes by ICE, has not passed.

And the 1.2M New Yorkers who are about to lose their health insurance as part of the federal government’s scheme to fund all this bullshit with ICE? The New York State Democratic Party, which controls all three branches of government, refuses to pass the New York Health Act because they claim it’s too expensive.

As a reminder: Everyone’s health insurance skyrocketed, and millions more lost their health insurance in order to fund ICE. That’s something you—yes, you reading this—can and should remind your neighbors of every day. “Where’d all this money come from to fund ICE?” “Well, the Republicans wanted to cut taxes for billionaires and corporations without creating any new taxes. So what they did was cut Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and the Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies, and use that money to fund the Gestapo instead.”

So, I know this is a concept people struggle with, but you can call out and call in at the same time. You can call in Pat Ryan, and thank him, for voting recently to deny any further funding to DHS and ICE. You can thank him, for speaking out about the panned concentration camp at 29 Elizabeth Drive. (You could even call in Matthew Fabbro for speaking out about ICE, but I wouldn’t go that far. Like Ryan, Fabbro had the chance to do something, and refused.)

But you can, and should, also call Ryan out for him not supporting the impeachment of Kristi Noem, the impeachment of Pete Hegseth, the impeachment of Donald Trump, and the abolishment of ICE and DHS. (All things Ryan does not support as of this writing.)

If you’re younger than 26, you might not remember, but America got along just fine without DHS and ICE. DHS was supposed to merge the intelligence apparatus of the federal government after 9/11, but the two agencies that were supposed to merge, the CIA and FBI, never did, making DHS a giant, redundant expansion of the federal government—the exact kind of thing conservatives claim they hate.

Before ICE, there was INS. And while deeply flawed—because the game the Republican Party, and more than a few Democrats, have played since the 1980s is to do nothing about immigration reform, complain that the border is broken, and then use that as the only thing they have to run on in elections — INS didn’t often wear body armor and invade entire apartment complexes resulting in few, if any, arrests.

You could just as easily bring back INS (The Immigration and Naturalization Service) and demilitarize Immigration enforcement.

But that’s not what Pat Ryan has done.

So what should “shock the conscience” is the continued insistence of the Democratic Party in New York State to offer the absolute minimum in the midst of an ongoing national emergency.

“When federal agents use lethal force against civilians and then prevent state authorities from fully investigating, it violates the basic principles of democracy. What it does is make everyone feel unsafe. Everyone.

Nationwide, over the last 13 months, ICE has detained hundreds of U.S. citizens, and dozens of people have died in their custody. Now, Donald Trump’s hand-picked leader of the Department of Homeland Security has proven to be unable and unwilling to follow the law to stop these killings.

Kristi Noem has referred to these peaceful protesters as domestic terrorists and lied about the shooting victims being the aggressors. She told law enforcement officers to put on masks and military fatigues to basically treat the American public as the enemy. She has shown a profound disregard for human life and created a culture where people feel unrestrained in how they handle encounters with the people in this country.

Kristi Noem has forfeited her right to lead, and I’m calling on her to resign as Secretary of Homeland Security or for Donald Trump to do the right thing and fire her. If not, she must be removed or impeached. And Gregory Bo, who has helped lead, defend, and escalate these operations, should also be fired.

It’s a shame I have to say this in America, but no one is above the law. No one. Not an ICE agent, not a federal officer, not the president of the United States. (emphasis added.)

Make no mistake: when these people who have abused the power entrusted to them by their offices are finally out of power, states, including New York, will hold them accountable. I’ll have more to report on further actions the state of New York will be taking in the upcoming days.

Again, we appreciate the strong condemnation. But it’s really hard to believe Kathy Hochul when she says, “Nobody is above the law,” while Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein’s white-collar crime spree continues unabated.

Like Matthew Fabbro, Governor Hochul has no credibility here. Her office refuses to comment when asked about South Blooming Grove. Ditto with the New York State Attorney General’s office, who was kind enough to send me their letter to DHS protesting the Chester concentration camp, which you can read here.

I’m not saying you should do what you now must do every time the federal government says something — which is to basically ignore it — but we need leaders we can trust and rely on to walk the walk, and Kathy Hochul, Pat Ryan, and Matthew Fabbro ain’t it.

(And yes, I am asking you to ignore everything the White House, DHS/ICE, and other members of the Trump Regime have to say. The media should be doing this as well. You can’t “both sides” fascism, despite the New York Times insistence on trying as often as possible to do so.)

So, What’s Next?

I’m going to wrap things up today by briefly talking to you about what can be done on the national, state, and local levels. We’ll flesh this out more in the days and weeks to come. What I want to get across to you now is that it’s not the time to “look at the numbers.” It’s time for bold, creative, and decisive leadership that calls for the kind of change that will prevent any of this from happening again in our lifetime. (You can’t, unfortunately, kill fascism. It’s fueled by disaster, which we will be faced with more and more through the climate emergency and the global disorder created by the Trump regime. But... fascism is also fueled by a lack of imagination and a lack of solutions offered by our representatives. One of those things we can do something about right now, by offering bold, imaginative solutions that can act as our North Star.)

Nationally

The goal should be to pass the Second Bill of Rights. If you don’t know what that is, I’m going to give you the cliff notes here, and we’ll get into it in more detail later.

In short, FDR proposed the Second Bill of Rights during his State of the Union address in 1944. The following is actual video of FDR laying out what the Second Bill of Rights are.

We can argue about how these things are implemented, but the overall goal of passing the Second Bill of Rights should be everyone’s North Star. THIS IS THE THING YOU GO ON STRIKE FOR.

I believe there should be a general strike, held on election day, to ensure that everyone who wants to vote can vote, and can do so without fear of government interference or the presence of MAGA nutbags. But the general strike should also be very clear about what it’s asking for. It can’t just be to have Trump resign, because then you don’t solve the root cause of how you got Trump in the first place. The Second Bill of Rights will effectively kill the resentment that MAGA uses for recruitment by making sure nobody is left behind and forgotten by either political party again.

I also believe the Democratic Party as currently constructed will NEVER go along with this, and for that reason, a new political party is needed that is entirely focused on passing the Second Bill of Rights and ensuring that those rights are properly protected by the federal government after its passage.

In addition, there needs to be another amendment focused on presidential power and voting rights. Specifically one that eliminates partisan gerrymandering, private financing of electoral campaigns, and guarantees everyone the right to vote by universal mail ballot voting. That amendment should also overturn Trump v. United States (which granted the president immunity from prosecution for “official acts”) and Trump v. Anderson (which, basically, did away with automatic disqualification of anyone involved in insurrection from running for office. We should make it clear in this amendment that anyone convicted of participation in insurrection is automatically disqualified from holding any public office. People forget about this court case, but Trump v. Anderson is how Trump was able to appear on the ballot following the January 6th terrorist attack on our nation’s capitol.)

On The State Level

There are five bills that must pass in 2026: New York for All, New York MELT, Dignity Not Detention, New York Privacy Act, and the New York Health Act. Anything less will represent a failure on all our parts to push the Democrats—who, again, control every branch of government—to do what is right for all New Yorkers during a national emergency.

I don’t know what you want to call these resolutions together. I call them the Fab Five for lack of anything more creative at the moment, but these five help you defeat MAGA and ICE while providing universal medical coverage to every New Yorker and protecting their privacy from the fascist individuals collecting their data to harm them.

Locally

Orange County’s government is looking to pass a resolution voicing its opposition to the ICE concentration camp in Chester. On February 5, 2026, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., you can speak during public comment and voice your objections to the Chester concentration camp. I encourage you to be there at the government center on that day.

I’ve already mentioned Signs of Solidarity and the Chester press conference on January 29.

You should also prepare to peacefully protest the facility in Chester should it open. I am assuming it will open and have reached out to the Village of Chester about any policies or procedures the public should know regarding protests at that facility. I will point out to you though that there’s really only two access points to the Chester industrial complex, and there are no laws against driving really, really slow. Take that for what it’s worth.

And no, Steve Neuhaus, Orange County Executive, has not—as of this writing—filed any kind of legal action against ICE/DHS. There is nothing in PACER or New York State’s e-court filing system at this time to indicate that his statements about this are true. As The Monroe Gazette has mentioned before, Steve Neuhaus is a compulsive liar.

But his inaction shouldn’t permit inaction by your local boards. Every village and town board should be asked to pass resolutions calling for the Fab Five (or whatever you want to call them) to be passed immediately by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

There are two kinds of people right now. There are those who understand that this is a national emergency, and we need to take bold, decisive action to bring the emergency to its end. And those who still think it’s business as usual in America, and everything is going to be just fine if we can “just get rid of that Orange bastard.”

I’m telling you those people are wrong. If you want to kill MAGA and defeat this new form of American fascism, I’ve laid out exactly what we need to do. It’s up to you to choose whether or not you want to take action, or join Pat Ryan, Kathy Hochul, and Matthew Fabbro in offering the least amount of resistance possible.