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My goodness, Being Frank, where the only way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to Being Frank, where the only way to be is well, Frank. I'm your host, Frank Wereborne, and I'd like to thank you for joining us on what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where no conversations out of bounds and all points of view are welcome. We record live to tape, and I always give you the date so you have some context
and relevance. It's the fifteenth of May, when my guest applied for and was granted permission to attend Congressman Mike Lawler's town hall meeting on May third and somers New York. She knew was bound to be contentious, of course, just how much so couldn't have been predicted by her or anyone else for that matter. Lawler, a Republican, represents the area's seventeenth congressional district and is currently running for reelection.
Is considered by both parties as one of the most important elections on the national stage, as the seat will be key on who will control Congress. In the previous election, Lawler staged an upset with a win in a traditionally blue area. However, since then he has been dogged by criticism that he talks one way and votes another. Despite presenting himself as the GOP's moderate voice of reason, his votes tend to be very much along party lines, citing
most often with President Donald J. Trump. His constituents regularly made requests for a public town hall style meeting where they could ask the congressman questions in real time. However, despite promising them, Laura did not schedule any until recently,
and that turned out to be a disaster. During that first meeting in late April, held in Rockland County, Lawler was roundly booed and frequently in interrupted by the crowd, who found his responses to questions as evasive and therefore unacceptable. They came for answers and felt that they got none. With that in mind, Lawler's camp dug in and instituted strict rules in additional security measures for the Somers meeting.
Registrations and IDAs would be required, amongst other things, Questions would have to be submitted in advance, and follow ups would be limited. As my guests observed during the meeting, Lawler had no real interest in addressing their actual concerns by directly answering the questions. Instead, he treated it more like a campaign rally. So when my guest's frustration reached the breaking point, she pressed the congressman by blurting out from her chair, I'm paraphrasing where you draw your red
line when it comes to President Trump's agenda? A completely legitimate question and one that many others in the crowd wants it answered as well. But instead of diffusing the situation by simply answering the question, lawless people doubled down and used five burly New York State troopers to forcibly remove my guest when she refused to leave for disrupting the meeting. Now, if you could see just how diminutive she is, you would understand the absurdity of using that
kind of brute force. It was obviously designed to send a message that descent to us approved would be crushed. The backlash was swift and overwhelming, with My guests becoming an overnight celebrity, granting interviews to multiple news outlets around the country and world. The feedback has been both positive, with many praising her for what the late John Lewis called good trouble and negative, with others saying she got what she deserved for not following the rules. One thing
is for certain, the Act changed her life forever. So that any further ado, Let's meet the latest defender of the First Amendment, Emily Finer. Emily, thanks so much for joining us, and I met what I said. You're a busy lady right now. You're very much in demand.
Well, fortunately my fifteen minutes is starting to wayne, so it's getting a little less hectic. But thank you. It's nice to be here, Frank, and.
I'm going to talk a little bit about that the effects that instant overnight fame, especially in today's social media world, can mean for you. And we'll get to that, but first let's talk a little bit about Emily Feiner. You have a long biography, impressive as a social worker, But why don't you tell us what you think is most important that people should know about you in your background?
Oh my goodness, I don't know what's most important. I think that what people don't know is that I grew up in a family of activists. My father was a litigant in a Supreme Court case that was about his First Amendment right to free speech, and he went to jail at the end of that court case. That's widely held up as a as a real mistake and an example of McCarthyism and the evils it brought to this country.
What just what year was that, Emily, I might do you recall it was.
Decided in nineteen fifty. He was arrested in nineteen forty nine for making a street corner speech in defense of black civil rights.
It gives thank you.
Yeah. So I grew up in a family that, you know, on the weekends we were often protesting. I grew up protesting the Vietnam War. I grew up marching for the rights of working people to organize. I grew up marching for civil rights. So being an active member of my community is not, you know, foreign to me. I certainly was raised to do that. But I had never encounter the kind of sort of state sponsored violence and state sponsored restriction of my rights like I did that night at the Lawlertown Hall.
We're going to talk about that, obviously in much more detail as our conversation continues, But you know what I knew, your father, Irving Finer I was kind of a trusted friend. I was in media, so he would often come to me for advice, media advice about certain things in his platform. And I always found him brilliant, but to be completely transparent, he could be irascible, let's say, at times, because he was so strong in his opinions. And I used to
say that, you know, politics is a complicated thing. You know, people have to like the message, but they also have to like the person delivering the message. What did you take from him in his role? As I said, he was very strong, He was a hardcore social and he was brilliant. I mean I loved to talk to him, but he could also this is be intimidating, partially because of his brilliance and he was, but also, as I said, his straightforward, kind of, for lack of a better word,
in your face personality. How did you balance that and what did you take from that?
Oh?
Boy?
So I think you know, in my younger years, I was sort of embarrassed by my father's presentation and harascibility. You know, I have a very clear memory of being at a political you know, a night where the election returns were coming in and my father, who must have been in his sixties at that point, charging you know, at much younger men in there were, like forties, because he was pissed off at the Clarkstown Democrats and I
was mortified. It's really funny, though, over the last couple of years, I've understood my father so much better because you know, I remember one saying to him, why do you do this? Like why so over the top, And he would say, because it gets their attention when you do it politely, it doesn't. And you know, my dad developed his style in many ways as a reflection of one of his great heroes, Vito Marcantonio, who was a belief openly. I think he was elected as an open
socialist to the United States Congress. And Vito Marcantonio he wrote a book called I Vote My Conscience. He's a really wonderful historical figure and spoke the truth at a time when people weren't. And he apparently had the same style as speaking. And I think my father really gloned on too that. He also, as a boy, knew Feararella LaGuardia.
His parents owned his candy shop in Harlem and then in the Bronx, and Fiarella LaGuardia would come to the candy shop when he demanded that all the little slot machines get taken out of all the little mom and pop shops across the city because they were bankrupting working people. My grandfather made a deal with Varela LaGuardia that he could keep the slot machine because this was at the
height of the depression. He could keep the slot machine long enough to pay for his daughter, Regina, to complete her degree at NYU in music, and LaGuardia agreed and then came to the shop when my aunt graduated college, had a drink with my grandfather and they chopped up the one arm bandit. So I think, you know, he was emulating these folks. For me, that's not exactly my style. But I can also be pretty heed it and passionate about things. And I understand now why it was hard
for him to control himself. When you see people around you ignoring evil and promoting evil, and you see people dying, you see people suffering, you see families touring apart. If you're not really angry, I think there's something wrong with you.
Yeah, you know, And with perfect segue, and so let's get into some detail about what happened that day in somers it's all leading to that. You know, the mindset, your background, et cetera. So lead Obviously we've spoken in you know, pre programming interviews, et cetera, and I gather it wasn't in your mind necessarily directly to be disruptive.
I think people have to understand that, because some of the negative comments have printed to you as an agitator, that you went in there with the attitude that you are going to break up the meat no matter what. But I don't get that from you. So lead us in what was your mindset going into the meeting in the first place, and then we'll go through what happened as the meeting went along. But what kind of mindset did you approach it in the first place.
Yeah, so let me just say I am a five foot woman. I don't like crowds. And while I'm certainly pretty assertive and I have no problem speaking up when I am in a large group of people, that's almost the last thing I want to do. I really want to just sort of blend in. And while I have been really active in both electoral and issue oriented politics,
I've always supported other people. It's not like I want to be the spot by I was elected twice to public office, and then in a third run, I was defeated for a higher I've never put myself out there again. It's like not my thing. So let me just say that I went there not even prepared to ask a question because I didn't know what the process would be, and I was sort of I thought, oh, they'll never call it me, you know, like there's hundreds of people.
But I was there because I wanted to see for myself and hear for myself how the congressman would answer questions. And I wanted to be supportive of my neighbors who are you know, we are all really concerned about what's happening in our country. And so I was there to lend my presence to this cause, to be part of a group of people seeking answers and trying to sway their congressperson to do the work that they were elected to do. I did not go there with any intention of disrupting anything.
Yeah, I think it's important to make that point because there have been again false accusations of paid prose testers coming to these meetings. I mean, Indivisible Rockland has been running some of them, and you've seen what I put the promo out for your appearance, some of the comments and one in particular about how people were it's part of it's part of an organized plan by individual Rockland to disrupt and damage, et cetera. And I have no I have no evidence of that, and no one else
has been able to produce any evidence of that. So talk to that a little bit.
Well, you know. So one of the things that's really been fascinating about this for me is what happens when you go viral, And what's really clear to me is that everybody projects onto you what they want you to be. You lose your individuality, which is why I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and speak for myself because I have seeing things said about me, I mean, by people who support me that just aren't true. You know,
I would never claim to be a moderate. I have seen that I am a moderate who has supported both Republicans and Democrats, because in one interview I was asked, have you ever voted Republican? And I answered truthfully, yes, I have. Twice, nobody asked me who those Republicans were, when or why, so they assumed I was a moderate. I think if you know, if they had asked, they would not have come away with that with that impression.
But also this notion that I went with Indivisible Rockland, of all of all groups to disrupt this event is really ironic because I have had some real problems with Indivisible nationally as well as locally. I have real concerns about that group and that movement, and then the leaders locally I've had some disagreements with, and I've been really reticent to join with them. So I have been going to Tesla takedowns that have nothing to do with Indivisible Rockland,
and I went to a couple of their events. That is true, But to think that I would be working with them behind the scenes to have this happen is really silly and really indicates that somebody doesn't know me and and sort of the internal workings of Rockland County politics. It's just sort of weird Fox News o an news talking points that don't at all speak to the reality.
Let's talk about those talking points and reality, because you mentioned social media, and even before then, we tend to live in a SoundBite world, segmented, and I think mostly everybody has seen the segment of you being carried out, but it doesn't really provide all the context of what led up to it. So if you could walk us through exactly what happened, what you did to quote unquote provoke this response, your response to their response, et cetera.
But let's begin setting up what was going down before you were literally removed from the meeting. If you could, it helps us with some context of exactly what went on.
Yeah. So I've been to a lot of meetings with a lot of different public elected officials. I have never ever seen anything like this. This was you know, I visited the White House. I think it was easier than this getting in. You know, when you when you drove into the venue, you were stopped at the entrance by one of Lawler's staff members who required that you produced the QR code that was sent to us to get in. It was essentially the ticket to show that we had
in fact been registered for the event. We did that, then we parked and we had to stand in a line in the rain. They made us wait in the rain and then opened the doors, and in order to get in, you had to produce that QR code one more time and then show an ID that showed that you were a resident of the district, and that was to also a lawler staffer who also had a list of all of us. I think it was checking us off. Then you walked into the venue and we were wanded
as though we were going to a concert. Then we had to go to a table and give our name. They found us on their list, checked us off, gave us like a little raffle ticket, and tore off the other piece and put our first initial and our last name on that piece and put it in a little barrel that was used to pick out the questioners from And a member of the press later told me that the reason why they did that was the press would not be able to contact questioners afterwards because they would
not have their full names. So I was called as e Finer, not Emily Finer. How would they know who I was? And then we still are not done yet, Frank, because then you had to walk towards the door to get into the auditorium, and there was this huge stand up sign with rules for the event, and those rules were no standing up, no taking pictures, no taking video, no taking audio, be polite, no calling out things that clearly indicated that Mike, congressperson wasn't there to hear the
concerns of his constituents. He was there to try to have a controlled event that he could use to promote himself. Because anybody who's watching the news or looking at social media, or or you know, driving down the street, quite frankly knows that the electorate is not happy. That people are pretty angry, they are frightened, and they need to know that Congress is going to do their job of oversight.
And he didn't want to hear that. That was pretty clear, so that there were these there were these rules, and you had to verbally say to his staff person, yes, I agree to the rules, and they would not let you in unless you said that.
It was really people. People can't see my jaw dropp It was chilling. The only stream my George just hit the floor.
Yes, it was. It was chilling. It was intimidating. It was clearly meant to tell.
Everybody you will, you will toe them.
Are absolutely, then it's not over yet. We were not allowed to go find our seats. We had to be escorted to seats by another lawlor staffer, so they knew exactly where people were seated. People reported to me that these staffers, random staffers who they did not know, knew their first names. They were clearly sitting people where they wanted them and assigning their staffers to keep an eye
on us. That I mean, I truly believe that. And Aaron Crowley was my staffer who was on me from the beginning of the eating gave me two warnings right away. And I wasn't calling out Frank. I mean, I may have had a raised voice, but I kept saying to the people around me, my husband, my friend, you know, oh my god, he's not answering the questions. I was not screaming and yelling.
You were involved in effuse, Okay, I was exclaiming, yeah, as I would be.
You know, there's four layers of security at this at this event. There are the lawlor staffers, There are the somers police who were managing the traffic in and out of the venue. There were private security, and there were the New York State troopers. Mister Lawler is very scared of his constituents, that's all I can I can imagine. So, and if you're scared of your constituents, you probably don't respect them a whole lot. So the event they started
asking questions. They rolled the little barrel that they had put all the little tickets in. The first questioner, surprisingly was my husband, and he was not prepared to answer your question or ask a question. And he got up and he did ask a question, and Congressman Lawler, I
guess he answered Chris's question, I think. And then there were a few other questions, and there was this pattern of, you know, him taking the question and then pivoting to what he wanted to talk about, so never really quite answering the questioner's points, and people were calling him on it, and people were yelling and saying, you know, you didn't answer the question, or what about the second part, that kind of thing, and he stopped at one point and said, okay,
I'll answer the second part, So you know, he was aware that people were upset about that. I was then called I was like the fourth or fifth questioner. I was called. I stood up, I asked the question. You saw the question. I told you I didn't have a question prepared, which is true. So when they called my name, I turned to my friends and I said I don't have a question, and a friend of mine said, I
have one, you want it? I said yes, So you know, it was a great question, but I am not going to take responsibility for it because I did not write that question, but I asked it, and it was, what's your red line? What will it finally take for you to exercise your constitutional duty of oversight against a lawless administration? And he didn't answer that. He spoke nothing about what his red line would be when he would be willing to shut this down. He talked about the appropriations process
because that's what he wanted to talk about. And I think that that's about his line that he voted for the budget, but it doesn't even mention Medicaid and Social Security and he's going to get the salt and you know all that stuff. So everybody at that point was groaning and exclaiming, including me, and I said, answer the question. And I did call out when I said answer the question. But I want to be really clear. My behavior was consistent with the behavior of eighty to ninety percent of
the people in that hall. And I was not nearly as loud as most of them, and I was not as profane. I wasn't cursing, I wasn't I wasn't, you.
Know, hysterical. It wasn't like a screaming, angry, hysterical voice. You wouldn't describe.
It as he's not answering the question. That's how I said it.
Okay, right there, Why do you think then you were single? We have to find out what happened. But obviously, but continuing then, I want to ask that question, why a bar of all people, with so many people calling out, why you? But but please continue with the process. Then what happened?
So my question was over. He didn't answer it. The next person asked a question. It was about terriffs, and at that point Congressman Lawler said something to the effect of, you need to understand the tariffs only impact the cost of imported goods. They don't affect the cost of domestic goods. And everybody in the place was like groaning and calling out, and I said, oh my god, he doesn't even understand basic economics in a voice like that. But Aaron Crowley
was standing right near me and said, that's it. You've been warned twice. This is your third time. You're out of here. And I said, you are talking, Why are you picking on you? I'm an I'm trying to think what I said. There's something to the effect of, why are you picking on a Jewish woman? You're a anti
semon Yeah, yes, yeah, please yes. And I said that because two friends of mine, who were older Jewish women, were at the Rockland event the week before and told me that they had been asked or told to leave by a lawler staffer. And they said to the lawler staffer, why are you only targeting Jews, Because like they had seen who they were carrying, you know, asking to leave, and they were mostly Jews. So I thought, you know, I had that little data point in my head and
I and that's so I said that to her. Well then she was like, you accuse me of being an anti semi. You need to leave. And then she called the security people over and she said, she's calling me names, all kinds of names. I said, she was an anti Semita. I did not call her names, but the private security folks asked me to and I said no, repeatedly. This happened, and you see this on the video. They said they would have to get the police. I said, get the police,
but I'm not leaving. And then the New York State troopers came and asked me to leave, and I refused to do that, and then they picked me up and I went limp, and they carried me out of there, and I threw up a couple of peace signs.
What was your thinking? If you can remember, what was your mindset at that moment when you're literally be bodily removed from this place by five burly guys. What's going through your head?
Well? You know, as I said to someone else, when you are an adult, it's never a good thing. When you're being picked up like it means you've either had an accident, you know, something bad has happened, and it's really disconcerting to lose control of your body like that. I mean, I had no say in what they were doing to me, so I think what it happened so quickly, it's really hard to remember what was going through my head. I think mostly it was disbelief.
And.
You know, I just remember at one point they got me down to the aisle that went out of the auditorium, and that's when I saw this huge telephoto lens, you know, sticking out at me, and I realized that there was somebody photographing this, and quite frankly, I was mortified at that. I thought, oh, this is going to be terrible.
I'm not in the best position, literally.
Not at all. It was pretty mortifying. And then and then they brought me out and they sat me on the ground and told me to leave the building and that.
It ended there. There was no arrest or anything, no charges after.
That or well passing, and that I should leave. So I was really calm inside the thing. Once they got me out, I got a little more salty, and I was, you know, exclaiming about Nazis and fascism I think again, not yelling, but just sort of like yeah, mumbling, and they told me to leave, that I was trespassing. I refused to leave a few times. People around me were clearly hoping I would leave, including my husband, I think, and a friend of mine was in There is an attorney.
He came out and said, Emily, just leave, like you made your point. Go So we went to dinner, which was actually better than going to jail, so good.
Fair enough. We ever frightened, we ever actually frightened at all, either physically or maybe emotionally, that this could really lead to serious things? Will you ever frightened dur the event or after first drawing? And then we'll talk a little bit about it after. I want to talk about the after effect.
I think I was frightened when they picked me up, would they drop me? You know, would they hurt me?
So there was some physical thing.
I don't think I was fearful. I think I was more like determined. I just knew that I had done nothing to deserve to be thrown out of there, and I knew it was wrong. So it wasn't hard to sort of say, no, let's talk.
Of the after effect now. And you mentioned viral. You became the definition of viral almost overnight, as I said, interviews came over, Robert Reich interviewed you, some very heavyweight people internationally. Was it was seen, it was discussed. Talk about that as an experience. First, did you expect it? And then what was it like once it happened?
Boy, No, I didn't expect to go viral like that, no. I you know, Jennifer Cabrera, who is the person who was so smart and realized that she needed to video what they were doing to me, was carried out after me, and you know, she's gotten like very little media attention. And that's an interesting thing to me because Jennifer is a Dominican younger woman who has brown skin. I'm wondering why. I'm actually not wondering why she wasn't also going viral.
But I think it's really important to mention that this doesn't happen without Jennifer and her quick thinking. And because she is the chair of the Westchester Putnam Working Families Party, she's a co chair, she was able to get that video to their comms team, who put it out really quick. So I started getting messages and there were people in
the hall who knew me right. So very early on, one of the members of the Indivisible Steering Committee texted to somebody else on the Indivisible Steering Committee, Emily Finer just got carried out of the Lawlor town Hall. That person was at an event in Rockland County with one of my closest friends hands her the phone and so I got a text when I was still inside the building that said, oh my god, did you just get carried out of the Lawlor town Hall.
Wow.
So that's when I sort of knew people are going to know about this. I knew that it would get press, I didn't know how much. And while I am mostly retired, I do maintain a small private psychotherapy practice. So my immediate concern was for my patients, because you know, therapists
should have some anonymity. It's not about us, it's about the people we're trying to help, and our personalities and our political beliefs certainly are not the focus of treatment, right, So I was concerned about how this would impact them. I woke up Monday morning to a text from one of my patients with my picture saying is this you?
Wow?
So I responded with yes thoughts with a question mark, and the response came back pretty quickly. I am so proud you are my therapist. The next patient I saw was on Tuesday morning, and I do my work, you know, through telehealth, and so it's on video and when and the next patient came into my room, he said, oh, you made bail, so I knew he was okay, and that sort of I don't have many patients, it's really part time. So that sort of repeated itself over the week.
A couple of people hadn't seen it at all. I didn't mention it. I mean I assume they didn't see it. They didn't mention it. I didn't mention it. So I was somewhat relieved about that, but then the call started coming and you know, I have no media like experience. I don't know how to do all this, and that was really weird. And then the Facebook posts, the Blue Sky, Twitter, the Instagram.
Overwhelming overwhelming low of information.
Wow, and people can find you, you know, like it's not hard. People were calling me on my cell phone. It was crazy, but I've met some wonderful people, like one of the people who called me was the Yippie pie thrower, the guy who like pied William F. Buckley and Anita Bryant.
Wow. Wow, well no, could you? Would you say overall the feedback has been positive or negative? Can you is there a percentage? Could you say? Seventy percent positive? Mostly positive? What do you think.
So you have to seek out I would have to seek out the negative, I think, you know. So my direct messages through these platforms have almost uniformly been good. There was one person who wrote, LOL, You're an a hole. Okay, that's fine, and I haven't gotten any other messages like
that directly to me. My friends have sometimes sent me links to things that people have said online that are really critical, and on Blue Sky they've been very critical of me because they found some of my old posts, one of which was that I didn't vote for Kamala Harris in New York State. I wrote in Hindra jab for president because I knew I lived in a safe blue state and I could do that. And so I'm excotiated there as a racist and having voted, you know,
to advance my ego or something. That's interesting. But somebody sent me a post to a Rockland County page where people were being very critical of me, and somebody said, you don't know her. I do, She's a good person or whatever. And then somebody who I had known since childhood, who I knew I did not share political views with, but who I shared a friendship with and had a connection with around some similar hardships we had both had as younger people. And that person said, I've known her
for a long time. She's really problematic. Her father was not a good person, you know, sort of that kind of thing. And I was really shocked that, you know, I never would have done that to her. And I was shocked as somebody who I considered, again not an ally politically, but certainly a friend with a long, deep history, who not good friends, but always interested in how we were doing, always pleasant to one another when we saw
each other. For someone like that to do that, I realized, Wow, that's that really says something about our culture and our society and where we're at now and how we disagree. And it made me reflect on how I disagree with people, and I don't ever want to do that to someone, So I'm going to be really careful in the future.
Interesting, I want to talk about that in a little bit more detail too, But you mentioned social media and some of the postings, and I or a local post from a local citizen too that was a cartoon of you being carried and the people in the background were wearing T shirts that said hate on them. Obviously, cartooning is to be and to push the envelope, but when you see something like that, how do you respond.
Well, that particular cartoon was so over the top outrageous, Like, you know, they have this picture carrying me out, they age me quite a bit, and they put a crown of thorns around my head. You know. Really, that to me was so hyperbolic, And of course the hate lawler T shirts were hyperbolic. I don't think that the crowd
came there because of some visceral hate for Lawler. I think the crowd came there because they wanted to implore him to do his job to protect them from from Musk and Trump and all the harm they're doing to our country. And you know, it was really reductive and it was clearly meant to incite. And I think that's you know, it's a playbook from Trump at all, and they've all learned it really well.
How can we make this a so called positive i e. Learning experience? What positive can we ultimately take out of this action?
I think I think the most important thing that people got from this was that even normal, everyday people who have no power. I have no power, I have no platform, can make a difference if you stand up. You know, I've gotten so many messages that said, you know, thank you for what you did, and now I realized that I could be doing more. I am. Probably the best experience after this was yesterday I showed up to work my shift at sup Angels, the local soup kitchen and Nayak and.
They, I'm a terrible person. Now you're even volunteering to feed hungry people. How awful?
I know. I'm the worst, just the worst. So there I walk in and this woman comes up to me who I do not know. I've never seen there before, seen her there before, because you know, the volunteers changed depending on the day and availability and stuff. And she goes, are you the woman who you know? And I said, yes, I am, and she said thank you very much. And then this younger woman came up who looked like she was probably in high school to me, and the first
woman says to me, this is my daughter. And she saw you too, and she recognized you when you came in. And this young woman, I think she must have been like sixteen, seventeen eighteen, I don't know how old she was, she said thank you. You really were an inspiration to me. And I was like, well, you know, my work here is done. That to me was the best response I had gotten, that this young woman could gain inspiration from my act.
Has it changed your life? And if so, this event house up you hinted at it just now with your new empathy, a new found empathy. Expand on that a little bit. How has it changed your life?
It reminded me of community. I would say, you know, I have lived in Nyak most of my life and Nike's a really small community in Rockland County is really small. Everybody knows everybody. I've been around a long time. There are times I think that I get frustrated with and sort of you know, I'm just over it, you know. I often say about when people say how wonderful it is, like, oh, I've been too long at the fair, you know, I've just seen so much. My mother owned a business here
for fifty years, you know. But it was great that my community had my back, including people who I had been sort of at onced with, you know, Indivisible Rockland. They certainly did me there, but once I went there and did that, they had my back. They were really supportive. So we can disagree on some things, but we all know that we have to stand together against this kind of tyranny. And we all know that it's not okay to have our fellow community members dragged out of a
town hall for asking questions of their elected officials. And I really appreciate my community. It's always sort of interesting to me how time brings around a reminder that you know what, this is your community, and they're pretty awesome. So that was good. It also made me think about how I have responded to people I don't really know, and how I've made assumptions about them and who they
are and what they believe. And you know, I know that everybody has a story and you can always find a path to empathy for anybody, and I need to be more open to that, and I'm going to work on that because that's certainly what I wished people had held for me, more space to know who I was and what motivated me.
Wow, this has been fascinating, Emily find it. Really we had a little bit more to go. Were going to take a quick break. I'm sure what he is enjoying it. It's a little bit more to go. So I don't want anybody to go anywhere just yet. This is Being Frank the Intelligent Conversation podcast and I'm your host, Frank Lobono. We're back with more right after these brief commercial messages. Please don't go anywhere yet.
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Welcome back to Being Frank the Intelligent conversation podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. Of course, I'm your host, Frank Lebono and our engineer as always as mister Neil Richter. You know, we bring our audience a fresh topic just about every week and stream from Hudson River Radio, located in beautiful and historic Stony Point, New York. But remember you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts, and because every Being Frank is archived, you can listen
to any of our programs anytime you like. Find a link to Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page or at our website Hudson Riverradio dot com. Find the icon, click and you're there. Right back to our conversation with Emily Finer. I've been calling her the new voice of for Nack's First Amendment rights, and we've had a wonderful conversation. I want to continue it, Emily, and you've mentioned some of it going up to this point, But what are your most serious concerns going forward?
Democracy? I mean, I truly believe American democracy is gone at this point. I mean, I wonder can we put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Even if we were able to end this unconstitutional mess we're in. I worry about
the future of this. I worry about my children living under a totalitarian dictatorship, an anti democratic regime, and what will happen to them, and what will happen to the world when when the United States is no longer the leading power proposing a sort of ideal of liberal democracy. I mean, we we've never lived up to our promise, but we've always tried to evolve in that direction, and
now we are no longer evolving in that direction. Now we've got an administration that believes in the unitary executive, and we've got a Congress that is unwilling to check that, even though that is a you know, a made up legal doctrine by the Heritage Foundation lawyers who made it up so they could they could impose their will on America.
I'm frightened of Christian nationalism, and certainly my congressman has adopted many of the tactics of Christian nationalism, including, you know, hijacking my identity as a Jewish woman, so that he talks a great game about anti Semitism, but in so doing exposes his own anti semitism as he sort of just makes Jews into one indistinguishable mound of people who all believe the same thing. We are not. We are a diverse people and there are you know, in the
diaspora in America. You know, there are many Jews like myself who are unhappy be with what Israel is doing, who don't support Israel, who are crying out for peace in Gaza, in the West Bank and Palestinian liberation. And mister Lawler wants to make it illegal for people to do that. That to me is incredibly anti Semitic. And I think it's really important that people be allowed to advocate for peace of all things, without being accused of being a terrorist or supporting terrorists.
Emily, and we've discussed it during the break too. You know how natural conversation can flow when you have respect for one another in each other's opinions. Ours tend to be like minded. One of the criticisms I get is most of my guests tend to be like minded. That is what it is. I'm willing to have an open conversation with anyone who's will to have it. But how do we get to it. We've becoming more fractured by the day, not less. How will we overcome that you
have any thoughts. I know it's cut maybe a rhetorical question, but what are your thoughts on that? How can it be done?
You know there are people who are doing this. I can't remember the name of the organization, but here in Rockland, I know that. I think it's Allan Stein and Hutter Humr I think is his last name. They've been going around as a Palestinian and a Jew talking about how we talk to one another. I think, you know, there are The New York Times has that thing they do where they have all their columnists of different points of view addressing one thing and talking to one another. So
people are modeling how to disagree without being disagreeable. I guess I think tensions and passions are so high right now that's really hard. But I also think it's a lot easier to be respectful to someone when they're right in front of you and you're talking to them and you're looking in their eyes. I think that when you're doing this over social media, it is much easier to be really rude and say terrible things to people. And you know, somebody said, you know, never say anything on
social media you wouldn't say to someone's face. And I think that's probably a pretty good rule. You know, if you wouldn't say it to my face, don't say it on social media either.
Fair enough? Yeah, what is the future for Emily fire Hoole? What does it look like for you? Now that's your media celebrity. You've been on being Frank. I mean, it's what else is there?
I've reached the pinnacle.
Honest question. What does your future look like? What do you plan on doing?
Certainly, you know, I plan on continuing to work for the country that I want to be in. You know, I will continue to organize, I will continue to show up, I will continue to speak out. I will fade back into obscurity and no longer will my phone ring and ring and ring, and I'll be able to enjoy my family and maybe travel a little and continue my work
with my patients. I don't think that this will I think this will be something I'll look back on fondly, and I hope my kids will look back on it fondly, and I will just be here to be a part of the movement that shuts down fascism in America.
And we find we want to thank you for being Frank. Right here with your intelligent conversation. Really appreciate it. This was great. I can't wait to hear the whole thing again. This is great.
Thank you so much, thank you, it was a pleasure. And thank you Neil.
Of course you are for special thanks to our listeners who take time to go so voice in their lives. Remember we offer a fresh topic just about every week. Catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts that includes Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and all the others. Check us out on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. Like us and leave us a comment too. Of course, I always give you two last little treats at the end, the slogan that we think is appropriate, and some good
local music from some great local musicians. First, of course, we've got to go. We talked about making good trouble, so we got to go to John Lewis and he said, do not get lost in the sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggles not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It's the struggle of a lifetime. Never ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble. Necessary trouble I think Emily Finder understands that word for word. Okay, here's some
closing music. It's from the Scoop. They're absolutely terrific and very appropriate music called raise your hands for Engineer and Neil Rictor. I'm your host, Frank Lopono. We hope to have you join us on the next being. Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank.
Thanks everybody, and tell you why.
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Praise your handso raise, y'all said, yeah me raiseel said the strain may where is day? And don't speaker? Let me when they come. Rachel ansle, ratel ansle RASI raid yalla, raise hand, raise j'allad mais y'all handle?
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