Thugs? He Called Them Thugs?

County Exec Gives Thugs A Bad Name

Nassau County Executive, Tom Suozzi, pointed his finger at the planted (as in potted) hecklers at a rally held Wednesday, verbally scratching his head, wondering how any work was getting done in the Town of Hempstead that day.

Joe Mondello (is he still alive?), the GOP Committee Chair, called Tom's retort "sophomoric." We call it, "the truth."

This blogger still recalls, quite vividly, when GOP hecklers and naysayers, most from Town of Hempstead Sanitary District 6 (we knew this, as their official Town SUVs were conveniently parked outside) showed up at the Franklin Square Public Library to boo then County Assessor Harvey Levinson. At the time, Harvey was running against TOH Supervisor, Kate Murray.

Thugs would have been too kind a word. Indeed, neighborhood thugs were heard to complain, "Hey, we've got standards, too!"

Fact is, planting agitators, heckling, shouting profanities, staging disruptive protests, and feigning civic-mindedness, has long been the MO of the Town of Hempstead GOP, especially so since Kate Murray has reigned as Supervisor.

No evidence that Town of Hempstead employees were summoned, like sheep off the mountainside, to shout profanities and give Tom Suozzi an earful?

Right. Check out Town Hall on Washington Street at any time such shenanigans are playing out. You'll find the place eerily quiet.
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From Newsday's Spin Cycle:

And it's a rousing start to Nassau campaign season!

The election season in Nassau got off to smashing start Wednesday.

Republicans to Democrats: You’re sophomoric.

Democrats to Republicans: You’re thugs.

It was great theater as the Democrats stuck their thumb in the Republicans’ eye by holding a press conference outside GOP headquarters in Westbury to announce that a former leader of the Young Republicans of Nassau, Nina Petraro Bastardi, was running for the Nassau County Legislature as a Democrat.

GOP chairman Joseph Mondello opted for a show of force instead of gimmickry, and about 100 GOP stalwarts turned out to give Petraro and her Democratic supporters a loud, sometimes profane greeting.

When Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi started to list Petraro’s accomplishment as summa cum laude at St. John’s, one heckler yelled, “she’s dumb as a rock.”

Another protester kept telling Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale) that his shoes were not shined to their usual glossy finish. Another protester, chain-smoking, kept yelling from the periphery about the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant.
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Bastardi’s mother lost her balance at one point, and Mejias accused protesters of pushing her. Another protester challenged Mejias to a fistfight.

Before the event began, Democratic operatives across the street took pictures of the protesters.

“Get a close-up of every face! I want a close-up of every face,” one young man in a suit said to a man with a small camera. “We’ll see how long they put in for lunch.”

Suozzi, citing no evidence, suggested the protesters were employees of the Republican-controlled Town of Hempstead. “It’s hard to believe there’s any work getting done in Town of Hempstead today,” Suozzi said.

Here’s Suozzi’s take on the day: “They’re yelling like an angry mob, which is how Republicans have acted over the past 50 years. They don’t have any ideas. They yell and scream, and the big thing they yell and scream is ‘No. No. No.’’” On his Twitter, he added: “GOP sent out the thugs.”

Mondello called the stunt “sophomoric,” and had this to say: “They think they can come with impunity into our house and cause trouble. They can’t walk all over us... We’d never pull that kinds of stunt. They come to us, they’re going to have to take their risks. They got what they deserved today. They tried to make light of what we stand for in the Republican Party, and we gave it back to them.”

How many days to Election Day?