Josh Riley Watch

An End To Josh Riley Watch

This is the final podcast episode of Josh Riley Watch. In two days, the JoshRileyWatch.com website will disappear. The reason? Voters in New York’s 19th congressional district have communicated their anger at Josh Riley’s embrace of some of Donald Trump’s worst fascist programs, and Riley’s failure to confront many others. Nonetheless, Josh Riley has not responded to voter pressure. He has heard, but not listened. Josh Riley Watch has attempted to hold Josh Riley to account, but the project has not been effective. So, it’s time for the project to end. Thanks to everyone for listening, and for taking action. Stay safe, if you can.

Josh Riley, Terawulf And Big Trouble On Cayuga Lake

Why are members of Congress like Josh Riley suddenly focusing on legislation to have the government pay to lay down high speed data lines through rural areas, where few people live, at a time when the availability of online work is decreasing, and when the traditional internet used by most Americans is falling apart under the onslaught of generative AI? This quest to find an answer to this question requires a complex journey with a lot of stops along the way, but for the sake of this podcast, I’m going to try to express it simply, step by step. This story could be summed up in a phrase that will sound terribly dull to most people, but I’ll explain how it’s related to the most important and dramatic political issues of our time. This story is about data centers. The term “data center” sounds dull, but what data centers do should grab your attention. Data centers are the technological infrastructure at the heart of the most controversial issues of our time: Generative AI, fascism, high utility bills, clean air and water, cryptocurrency, the economy, local political control, climate change, workers’ rights, and political corruption. Keep one thing in mind we discuss these issues: Data centers are conduits of power. Data centers consume massive amounts of electrical power, of course, and they do that into order to achieve computational power. This consumption of power isn’t done for its own sake. Data centers are run in order to amass economic power and political power for their owners. The data centers that are currently being built in massive numbers across the United States are not being constructed to support conventional online activity. They don’t help ordinary Americans and businesses with their online activities. They exist to help venture capitalists make money in two ways: Cryptocurrency schemes Generative AI hype All of this might seem like an abstraction to you, but it’s not. It’s a tangible, local issue that is affecting communities in New York’s 19th congressional district. A huge new data center is about to be built on the shore of Cayuga Lake. It’s owned By a company called Terawulf. Rural Broadband Legislation Is Primarily For Data Centers, Not Rural New Yorkers You might ask yourself what all this talk of data centers has to do with Congressman Josh Riley. It’s at this point that we need to bring the focus back to the Reconnecting Rural America Act and the Middle Mile for Rural America Act, the legislation that Riley is sponsoring along with Republicans Randy Feenstra and Zachary Nunn. FastMode, a source of news on digital technology, reports that middle mile legislation, and other bills that seem to be about bringing broadband access to residents of rural areas are, in fact, ultimately designed to provide government funding to support the creation of data centers. Kurt Raaflaub of FastMode [https://www.thefastmode.com/expert-opinion/40204-rural-broadband-expansion-and-the-ai-opportunity] explains: ”Further data center growth in the area and many urban areas is stifled due to the lack of large parcels of land and the lack of local power generation. Bloomberg reported in 2024 that there was a seven-year wait for data center power hook up in Virginia. However, as we improve data center interconnect infrastructure, we will rely less on the need for geographic proximity and consider proximity as it relates to time or latency… The current space and power challenges of urban data center operations present an opportunity for data center expansion in rural areas. The operational advantages of deploying data centers in rural areas are compelling… Ideal data center sites often need to accommodate over a million square feet of space and hundreds of MW of power to meet the needs of hyperscale customers. These specific criteria can be met by many rural areas. This means rural broadband transport networks could act not only as aggregation networks, but also as data center and middle-mile interconnect.” A sponsored article written by Bill Long, an executive at telecommunications company Zayo [https://techcrunch.com/sponsor/zayo-group/middle-mile-infrastructure-is-the-next-frontier-for-digital-and-ai-equity/], states the case more plainly. “We’re seeing additional interest in rural communities from hyperscalers — the Googles and Amazons of the world responsible for ushering in the first wave of AI. Why? Because AI workloads require a massive amount of data, and hyperscalers need somewhere to put it. Hyperscalers are investing millions in data center campuses to house this data, but the space and power requirements for these campuses are pushing them out of the large metropolitan areas and into more rural locations—where space and power are plenty and cheap. But, these data centers also need high-speed internet—and lots of it. So what does this mean? Middle-mile infrastructure will be the next frontier… By investing in the middle-mile infrastructure, we can drive faster deployment of AI. AI has the potential to transform our digital economy at an order of magnitude reminiscent of the Cloud and the early days of the internet itself. But these transformations require infrastructure that is robust and sophisticated enough to support—and that infrastructure isn’t built overnight… By prioritizing investment in the middle-mile backbone, we are providing the critical runway to accelerate the deployment of AI and ensure we have ample infrastructure in place to allow this technology to scale.” At the beginning of this episode, I asked a question: Why are members of Congress like Josh Riley suddenly focusing on laying down high speed data lines through rural areas, where few people live, at a time when the availability of online work is decreasing, and when the traditional internet used by most Americans is falling apart under the onslaught of generative AI? Kurt Raaflaub and Bill Long provide us with the foundation of a good explanation. The ReConnecting Rural America Act and the Middle Mile for Rural America Act are designed to encourage data centers owned by venture capitalists who live in luxurious homes in far away cities under the pretext of providing internet access to country folks. The bills supported by Josh Riley exist for the benefit of cryptocurrency miners and Silicon Valley corporations running generative AI schemes. Why should the government pay for the construction of vast networks of technology to enable extremely fast data transmission throughout rural America? I can anticipate some people arguing that the construction of networks of extremely fast data transmission technology through countryside is like rural electrification in the 1930s [https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/49/STATUTE-49-Pg1363.pdf]. One problem with that analogy is that the population of the United States is much less rural now than it was in the 1930s. In the 1930s, about 50% of Americans live in rural settings. Now, only 20% of Americans do. Another problem with the rural electrification analogy is that the technology that would be installed across rural America isn’t like the electric lines that were installed through rural areas in the 1930s. It’s more like installing industrial grade lines of high transmission energy towers. Rural electrification was about enabling households to have light bulbs and refrigerators. It wasn’t about building factories where there had been farms. The people who will benefit from the legislation supported by Josh Riley will be the wealthy owners and investors in digital technology businesses, not simple country folks who have never been on the internet before. People living in most parts of rural America already have access to the internet, and the vast majority of rural Americans have broadband internet access. According to the most recent report by the Federal Communications Commission, only 22.3% of rural Americans lacked high speed internet access [https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/bdac-low-income-communities-approved-rec-12172020.pdf] at the time of the report. That report is five years old, and only described data from before 2018 - seven years ago. Broadband internet access in rural areas has been improving year after year. According to the FDA, as of two years ago, only 14 percent of rural American households lacked high speed internet access. “The gap between urban and rural or Tribal areas has narrowed each year,” the FCC reported. Specifically, the FCC report showed that, between the years of 2014 and 2018, rural broadband internet access expanded at an average annual rate of 4.35 percent. If that rate held true over the last seven years, every single rural American would have broadband internet access. Of course, that rate probably hasn’t stayed steady, because the very few people in rural America who still don’t have access to high speed internet are for the most part quite far from modern infrastructure in general, and typically don’t even have municipal water access. That’s why the benefit to rural households from investment in expansion of high speed internet lines diminishes every year it continues. Another difference between rural expansion of broadband internet and the rural electrification program of the 1930s is that rural electrification took place through federal loans to cooperative networks. The Middle Mile for Rural America Act and the ReConnecting Rural America Act of 2025 don’t just provide loans. They also give outright grants of federal government money. If the legislation Josh Riley has endorsed passes into law, the American people are going to be paying to set up digital infrastructure to benefit wealthy investors, and we won’t ever be paid back. Cryptobros and generative AI scammers will profit from government assistance, at the same time that schools, health care, and disaster assistance endure harsh budget cuts. The real needs of rural Americans will be ignored while people who already have plenty of money make a killing. For more on the issues related to the Terawulf data center [https://ithacavoice.org/2025/09/environmentalists-sound-alarm-as-plan-to-convert-cayuga-power-plant-to-data-center-advances/] read the recent article by the Ithaca Voice [https://ithacavoice.org/2025/09/environmentalists-sound-alarm-as-plan-to-convert-cayuga-power-plant-to-data-center-advances/].

Josh Riley Won’t Talk About The Role Of Cryptocurrency In High Utility Bills

On the link between data centers and increases in electrical utility prices: https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/Reports/2025/IMM_Analysis_of_the_20252026_RPM_Base_Residual_Auction_Part_G_20250603_Revised.pdf [https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/Reports/2025/IMM_Analysis_of_the_20252026_RPM_Base_Residual_Auction_Part_G_20250603_Revised.pdf] Congressman Josh Riley keeps scapegoating foreigners for higher utility bills in Upstate New York, but it’s cryptocurrency miners and generative AI schemes that are to blame. Why is Josh Riley avoiding the subject? This week’s episode is about an issue that has been at the top of Josh Riley's agenda, at the top of his priorities as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. It's probably at the top of your priority list, too, because it's the rapid increase in utilities prices that we've all experienced over the last year. We're talking about utility bills that are $100, $150 higher than they were just a year ago. All of a sudden, they just shot up, maybe something like 50%. You could have a small house that's relatively efficient, and, you know, it doesn't matter. You're all of a sudden paying a significant amount of money, more every month. In these times, that's hard, because we've got inflation, because of Donald Trump's tariffs. The job market is not looking good. And by the way, this doesn't just impact homeowners, this impacts businesses as well. Businesses have to use electricity, and if they're paying more, they're making less money, which means fewer jobs. The economic impacts have been really difficult. They've been quite devastating for upstate New York. Here’s some of what Josh Riley has said about this issue “If NYSEG and its multinational owners want to hike rates on Upstate families, then they can show up, look us in the eye, and answer for it.” “I’m intervening to demand full transparency, real public engagement, and proof that every dollar NYSEG collects actually helps our communities—not corporate profits overseas.” “NYSEG is yanking millions out of working families’ pockets and wiring it overseas to their parent company. It’s gross.” “If NYSEG and its foreign parent corporation want to hike rates, they have to start answering some difficult questions about where our money is going.” There's a common element in what Josh Riley is talking about: Josh Riley is talking about how NYSEG is a foreign company or is owned by foreigners and how these controlling parent companies are overseas. He seems quite obsessed with that idea, that if your electric and natural gas, if your utility bill is high, the problem for him seems to be that that money is going to foreigners, that foreigners are somehow involved. It strikes me because this is taking place in the context of a lot of scapegoating of foreigners in other aspects in American politics these days. It reminds me of how consistently Josh Riley has blamed foreigners for other problems, like crime here in the United States, even though there is no foreigner crime wave. In fact, U.S. Citizens have a higher rate of committing crimes than foreigners do, but that didn't stop Josh Riley from supporting the right wing fascist Laken Riley Act, which gave the Department of Homeland Security the power to detain people merely on the suspicion of crimes, to deport people merely for being accused of crimes without having any right to a fair trial. He did that because the people that that law targeted were foreigners and jobs. Josh Riley said, we ought to be concerned about foreigners in New York's 19th congressional district. There was another bill that I talked about in an earlier podcast episode, which was a supported by Josh Riley because Congressman Riley said, we need to stop the foreigners from China buying up farmland in upstate New York." Of course, the real reality is that there is no massive buy up of farmland in upstate New York by people from China. It's just not happening. Once again, Josh Riley activated that xenophobia, that fear, that hatred of foreigners to justify his support for that bill. Now, with Josh Riley's inquiries into the sudden increase of utility bills, he's going after the foreigners again. I want to offer up an alternative explanation, an explanation that is backed up by actual facts, researched by professionals at a company called Monitoring Analytics, as part of a market analysis that was recently released about what's behind sudden rate increases in our utility bills. Now, this particular report has to do with mid Atlantic states like Pennsylvania, going over to Ohio and down to Virginia . But what's happening in that group of states is pretty much identical with what's happening in New York State. And this report, which I'm going to link to in the show notes, so that you can look at it for yourself. This report does not say that foreigners are to blame for your increased electric and gas bills. It's not foreigners. “Data center load growth is the primary reason for recent and expected capacity market conditions, including total forecast, load growth, the tight supply and demand balance, and high prices… It is misleading to assert that the capacity market results are simply just a reflection of supply and demand . The current conditions are not the result of organic load growth. The current conditions in the capacity market are almost entirely the result of large load additions from data centers , both actual historical and forecast. The growth in data center load and the expected future growth in data Center load are unique and unprecedented and uncertain and require a different approach than simply asserting that it is supply and demand.” Okay, the upshot is this: The primary cause of increases in your utility bills have to do with data centers. What are data centers? It's a really weird phrase that doesn’t give a full picture of what these facilities are. Data centers are gigantic sets of computer banks, often housed in old power plants or facilities that take power out of our electrical grid. Companies are setting up huge new data centers for two main reasons: Generative artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining. Now, cryptocurrency mining is not mining in the sense of going down, digging into the Earth to look for ores containing iron or gold or platinum. That's not what cryptocurrency mining is. Cryptocurrency mining is mostly happening with Bitcoin. In cryptocurrency mining is that you have computers running abstract math problems that are very, very complex, difficult to solve, take a lot of computing power . They're doing the cryptocurrency mining for no other reason than to win a repeated lottery that gives companies the chance to own a little piece of a cryptocurrency, a bit of Bitcoin, because there is an artificial scarcity in cryptocurrency markets that props them up, that keeps them going. So what you have are entire warehouse sized buildings filled with high power computers, running at maximum speed, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sucking a huge amount of electricity, and they're doing so for no other reason than to make their investors some money in the form of cryptocurrency. Of course, artificial intelligence is also a part of this. Every time you're chatting with chat GPT or you use one of those generative AI engines to make a funny little picture, that doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from actual facilities, just jam packed, full of very powerful computers, and they're running hot, and they have to be cooled, and they have to be power powered by a lot of electricity. This is very energy intensive. This report tells us what's going on with the sudden NYSEG rate increase — why your bills are suddenly higher. Generative AI is not free, and cryptocurrency's rapid expansion under the deregulation under Donald Trump doesn't come for free either. There is a social cost to this. Part of that social cost is you paying $75 or $100 more every month so that people can make money off of cryptocurrency and generative AI. Josh Riley never talks about the link between cryptocurrency, generative AI, and your higher electric and gas bills. Josh Riley is calling for hearings, and he's doing surveys and things like that, as if there is not already information that's out there, but he never talks about the role of cryptocurrency and generative artificial intelligence in the increase of your utility bills. Why is that? The people behind generative artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency were the biggest donors to congressional campaigns in the 2024 elections, through which Josh Riley was brought into office. This summer, Josh Riley voted for two bills to help Donald Trump deregulate cryptocurrency, at the very same time that cryptocurrency data centers were creating an increase in your utility bills. That’s the reason that Josh Riley is not talking about the role of cryptocurrency and generative AI. Congressman Josh Riley is correct to identify utility bills as a significant economic issue, a kitchen table issue for working families in upstate New York, but Riley is studiously avoiding talking about the role of cryptocurrency in increasing your utilities bills. Instead, he's focusing on foreigners. NYSEG has been owned by foreign companies for quite some time now. That hasn't changed. What's new is that we have cryptocurrency and generative artificial intelligence data centers. Next week's episode about Josh Riley Watch is about one specific data center that is being built right here in New York's 19th congressional district. Data centers can seem like an abstract problem, cryptocurrency, an abstract problem, but next week we're going to talk about one specific data center that is coming right here to our congressional district, and the impact that data center is going to have.  During the next week, I want you to go online, and I want you to search to see if Josh Riley is talking at all about the link between higher electric bills and the proliferation of cryptocurrency data centers. If Josh Riley isn’t talking about it, what's preventing him from speaking out?

Josh Riley Admits He Went On A Secret Lobbyist-Funded Trip To Israel

In the last episode, I asked the question of whether Congressman Josh Riley had been to Israel on a trip funded by the lobbyist organization, APAC, which is affiliated with the foreign government of Israel. A few days ago, we learned that, yes, in fact, Josh Riley did go on that trip, paid for by lobbyists, his housing, his his food, his transportation, the whole thing. For days, Congressman Josh Riley evaded this issue after it surfaced, after people from across the district demanded that he talk about it. Josh Riley was silent. Then, finally, a few days ago, Josh Riley issued a statement, and I want you to listen to what he had to say. Last weekend, I visited Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza border, to see the situation for myself and to speak directly with leaders there, including the head of the UN World Food Program, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and senior intelligence officials. The history and politics of the region are complicated, but a few things are clear to me: First, there is a severe and undeniable humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More food is now entering Gaza, but it still is not getting to those who need it most. I am demanding that the UN and Israeli government jointly develop an aggressive operation to surge aid to innocent civilians. I pressed President Herzog on this issue, making clear that it is both a moral and a strategic imperative. Second, there can be no lasting peace for either Israelis or Palestinians so long as Iran continues to arm and finance terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Hamas is inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region–torturing hostages, depriving innocent Gazans of basic needs, terrorizing Israelis, and unnecessarily prolonging the war that it started on October 7. Hamas needs to release the hostages, surrender its arms, and cede control to leaders who put the Palestinian people ahead of the Iranian regime. Third, I appreciate that so many of you feel so passionately about the war. As a dad to two little kids, it’s heartbreaking to see images from this war where so many children–Israeli and Palestinian–are caught in the middle. As Upstate New Yorkers, I hope we can give each other the benefit of the doubt and start from our shared values, knowing that we all want the suffering to end and none of us supports violence against anyone because of how they worship. And we should recognize that we can stand with our allies and their people when they are under attack while still speaking honestly (and critically) to their governments–just as we’d expect them to do with us. What do you make of that statement? Ultimately, you have to make up your own mind. But here are just a few thoughts that I have about it. First of all, it is good that Congressman Josh Riley has released this statement. What's disturbing is that it took him so long to do so. Congressman Josh Riley went on this trip in secret and tried to keep it a secret from his own constituents for quite a long time, and he only made this statement after his constituents demanded that he do so, practically hounding him to give an explanation an answer of why he went on this trip to Israel. Having our U.S. Representative engage in secret activities like this, it's just not respectful of the Democratic process, if Congressman Josh Riley is going to go to Israel while he ought to tell us what he's doing, especially if that trip is funded by a highly partisan right wing lobbying organization like APAC. APAC is advocating for the continued sending of American military weaponry to the government of Israel and taking an extremely hard line, pro-Israel and anti-Palestine. For Congressman Josh Riley to take money and to take a gift from that organization is highly unethical, and it makes this entire trip suspect. We have no information from anyone that Congressman Josh Riley met with or spoke with other than the President of Israel Isaac Herzog, who has been strongly in favor of a complete takeover on Gaza by Israel, what is frankly a genocide there and is ethnic cleansing there? The plan to clear all of the people out of Gaza , who have called that their home. It's not because of their religion, as Josh Riley suggests. It's because of their ethnicity. Their ethnic identity. This is a war crime by the government of Israel. It's really telling the language that Congressman Josh Riley uses in this statement. He uses to describe what's happening in Gaza a very passive voice. This is like what we heard from Bill Clinton back in the 1990s when he said, mistakes were made, not I made mistakes, but mistakes were made. Like, hey, mistakes were out there. What are you going to do? Josh Riley said there is a severe and undeniable humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is that. But who's responsible for it? Josh Riley won't say. He won't say what the obvious truth is. Now, there is shared responsibility. Hamas is definitely partly to blame. I am not somebody who is going to tell you that the Palestinians are all in the right, and the Israelis are all in the wrong, because the situation, of course, is not that simple. It is complex. As Josh Riley says, it is. However, the type of proportionate response and actual security action to deal with what happened on the attacks of October, that time has long, long gone by, and what Israel is doing is profoundly disproportionate. What Congressman Josh Riley says about Hamas is quite different. Listen to the different phrasing, the different tone. He says, "Hamas is inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region." When there is a problem in Gaza, Congressman Josh Riley just refers to it as a humanitarian crisis. A humanitarian crisis might be something that happens if there's a flood or a hurricane in people have their homes destroyed. It's just like, hey, things happen, right? When he talks about Hamas, he says Hamas is inflicting that unimaginable suffering. He never acknowledges that Israel is actually inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region as well. The government of Israel, who indirectly, let's face it, is what APAC is representing, it's that side that Congressman Josh Riley went on this trip. I want to point out another thing. Congressman Josh Riley says that, you know, we should all just give each other the benefit of the doubt. On this issue and start with our shared values. It's not at all clear that we do have shared values on this issue with Josh Riley. Josh Riley has been strongly aligned with Israel and has turned his eyes away from what's happening in Gaza, from what the government of Israel is doing there, the ethnic cleansing, the assassination of reporters, journalists, and the government of Israel admits that it's doing this, the targeting of doctors and of hospitals, the shooting of people who are doing nothing other than standing in line for food, the starving of huge numbers of children, and starving adults too. Does Josh Riley share the values of the Democratic Party? In a recent poll, only 8% of Democratic voters supported the violence by Israel against Gaza. Josh Riley doesn't share our values on this issue. Should we just give him the benefit of the doubt? I want you to take a look at what's been happening in this year, 2025, and it's only the middle of August so far, the amount of completely despicable activity in our national government that's been going on, sometimes Josh Riley has been standing with Donald Trump on that, like with the Lake and Riley Act, his very first vote in Congress, his second vote in Congress, to cripple the International Criminal Court and to protect war criminals from fair and just prosecution. That's how Congressman Josh Riley started out his term in office. Then, he voted against environmental regulations, and then he helped Donald Trump to keep on accepting hundreds of millions of dollars of outright bribes in the form of cryptocurrency. When we have leaders doing that kind of thing, just giving these elected officials the benefit of the doubt doesn't seem appropriate. We are not in a situation where citizens in the United States of America , where voters should just trust that their leaders are doing the right thing, and presume that everything is okay and presume that everything is on the up and up. If that's what you believe is going on in the United States of America right now, I really don't know why what to say to you because I don't think you're paying attention. Congressman Josh Riley needs to understand that he has to be accountable to us because he is working for us. He is working for the voters. He does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. He deserves our scrutiny and our criticism always. When he does the wrong thing. He needs to be watched, and that's what this podcast is all about and will continue to be. There are just a couple of other things that I want to bring up in terms of this statement by Congressman Josh Riley. Congressman Riley calls upon Hamas to unilaterally disarm and just to surrender to Israel. I think that Hamas should lay down its arms. However, we also need to think about the government of Israel. The government of Israel has proven to be extremely untrustworthy in its treatment of Palestinians. It has not just over the last couple of years, but for decades, brutalized, assaulted, assassinated, done all kinds of terrible things to Palestinians. Right now, there are plans to divide the West Bank, which had nothing to do with any kind of assault by Hamas upon Israel, but to divide it in two, to give land over to Israeli settlers. To have Hamas unilaterally disarm at the very same time that the government of Israel is saying that it is going to completely eradicate the people of Gaza from that land to force them to flee and to take that land over for itself , it seems like the recipe for a bloodbath. Furthermore, we need to think about what the American role is in this. The American role in this is that we are funders and providers of Israel's weaponry. Israel would have practically no military at all if it was not for the United States of America continually sending them more and more billions and billions of dollars worth of weaponry year after year after year. Providing that weaponry has not provided peace to the people of Israel or Palestine. Congressman Josh Riley never calls upon the government of Israel to stop its attacks, never calls upon Israel to lay down its weapons. There is a profound imbalance in Congressman Josh Riley's policy on Israel, always giving Israel the benefit of the doubt and never intervening even when the worst war crimes are taking place. To this day, we have no public statements from Josh Riley condemning Israel's actions that have resulted in, I mean, we've all seen the photographs, emaciated babies, children, men, women, people dying. The other thing that Josh Riley does not speak out about is his role in accepting a gift from a lobbyist organization that is affiliated with a foreign government. That is a serious breach of ethics that he has not explained, and he has not promised to stop that relationship. Congressman Josh Riley will tell you he's not going to take corporate PAC money, but listen to the details when he says that, because there are a lot of political action committees, a lot of lobbyists out there that are not directly associated with any corporation. We should listen to that omission, and we should listen to whether Josh Riley is going to make a pledge to stop taking lobbyists' money, full stop, to stop taking the gifts from AIPAC, a free trip halfway around the world that in any decent government would be considered to be a bribe. Congressman Josh Riley needs to do better.

Did Josh Riley Visit Israel To Meet Netanyahu During The Genocide and Famine Of Gaza?

There are some strong clues suggesting that Congressman Josh Riley was part of a group of freshman House Democrats who traveled to Ithaca last week to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. If Josh Riley went on this trip, he didn’t pay a dime of his own money to do so. The trip was a gift from AIPAC, a lobbying and fundraising group affiliated with the government of Israel. AIPAC has paid for the transportation, meals, and lavish accommodations in luxury hotels for members of Congress, a gift that in any decent circumstance would be understood as a bribe. Consider these facts: On August 6, Punchbowl News reported [https://punchbowl.news/article/foreign-policy/gaza-crisis-members-israel/]: “Roughly 20 Democrats will travel to Israel today led by House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)” According to the article, “These trips are sponsored by AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel organization.” AIPAC describes itself as the “a political tool to further demonstrate the pro-Israel community’s support for pro-Israel members of Congress”. An important additional detail comes from a report by CNN a few days before, describing an “AIPAC-funded trip of House Democratic freshmen to Israel, this year led by Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former House majority leader, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California, leaves later this week. The group is expected to meet with Netanyahu while there.” There are thirty-three newly-elected Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Only six of those thirty-three freshman House Democrats are identified as allies by AIPAC. Josh Riley is one of those six. AIPAC lists Josh Riley as one of its core allies among freshman US House Democrats, and it’s raising money for Josh Riley to spend in the 2026 congressional election (see the image below from AIPAC’s fundraising page). During the time of the freshman Democrat trip to Israel to meet Netanyahu, Josh Riley has been nowhere to be seen in New York’s 19th congressional district, or anywhere else in the United States, while his office refuses to share his location. Add it up, and it looks quite likely that Josh Riley traveled last week to Israel, on a trip fully paid for by a pro-Israel political action committee and has met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the idea that Josh Riley, as one of only six new Democrats in the House of Representatives willing to publicly affiliate with AIPAC, the trip’s financial and organizational sponsor, was not a part of the trip, stretches credulity.