Daily Point

Blakeman not wrong with far right

Since Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed an executive order last week stating the state’s school-mask mandate would now be optional by district, he’s been ripped by prominent Democrats, as well as education leaders. Gov. Kathy Hochul, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, and a bevy of legal experts say Blakeman cannot force districts to take a vote on whether to bypass the mandate by month’s end, either.

The response from the Republican establishment, though, has been muted, and party insiders say that’s because mainstream GOP officeholders see no advantage in touting a legally impotent executive order, or in making enemies in the anti-mandate community by opposing one.

But on the far right, where much of the energy that pushed the GOP on Long Island to big gains in November’s elections, Blakeman’s order has quickly made him a hero … and made Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone a lobbying target.

The Facebook page of Suffolk County’s Moms For Liberty, a local chapter that’s garnered 5,000 followers since launching in May, is asking that residents "TELL BELLONE TO STAND WITH BLAKEMAN," and arguing that the state mandates on masking in schools, as well as the masking for county workers and in businesses that Blakeman also tried to stop in Nassau, should end in Suffolk.

Monday, Bellone told The Point his office has received dozens of emails and phone calls asking that he follow Blakeman’s lead, and some have been quite aggressive, and even profane. Bellone also said they’ve gotten calls opposing Blakeman’s move.

On the Facebook page of "Long Island Loud Majority," whose members and leaders have been central to Long Island rallies opposing mandates on vaccines and masks, they’re pushing a new hashtag, #IStandWithBruce. That post asks that members "flood social media accounts" with support for Blakeman because "special interests are mobilizing with smear & fear-mongering propaganda."

When Long Island school board seats and library trustee positions were won by conservative political newcomers angered by curricula they say focused on "critical race theory" and school policies relating to COVID-19 last year, the energy was coming from the grassroots "Patriot" wing of the GOP. Promotions for seminars led by locally elected Republicans on how to win school board seats are now a frequent fixture on the pages.

Whether the tightly controlled Republican Party will keep the reins or cede them to this amorphous group of activists is unclear. But Blakeman, a bulwark of that GOP establishment, is taking great pains to convince the newcomers he’s with them.

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Pencil Point

Getting it together

Join Or Die by Randall Enos, Easton, CT

Join Or Die by Randall Enos, Easton, CT Credit: Randall Enos, Easton, CT

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Quick Points

There will be consequences

  • Cyber Ninjas, the Florida firm whose review of Arizona’s 2020 presidential vote was widely ridiculed, declared itself insolvent and laid off all its staff after a judge fined it $50,000 a day for contempt for refusing to surrender records of its review. Perhaps someone should do an audit.
  • Experts say we have to learn to live with COVID-19. OK, but will we be living with a death rate like the flu, or like the one we’ve been seeing lately? And if it’s somewhere in between, how much death can we learn to live with?
  • Newly released texts show that numerous Fox News hosts served as unofficial advisers to former President Donald Trump. Not that we needed the texts to know that.
  • Since being banned from Twitter, former President Donald Trump’s favorability ratings have improved and Twitter’s user numbers have increased. Wait, this was a win-win?
  • The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol requested that Republican Rep. Jim Jordan cooperate with the investigation. Jordan declined. The pleasantries are over, now what?
  • Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson said anyone who believes the "big lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump is not demonstrating leadership — but Hutchinson did, just by saying that.
  • New York City Mayor Eric Adams named his brother Bernard, a former police sergeant, a deputy NYPD commissioner in charge of the mayor’s personal security, saying, "If I have to put my life in someone’s hands, I want to put it in the hands of someone I trust deeply." And the only person who fit that bill was his brother?
  • New Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and new NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell made history when they assumed their offices. But with Sewell now criticizing Bragg for prosecution policies she says are too lenient, they’re no longer making history — they’re following it.
  • He was a defiant one in refusing to play stereotypical film roles, stayed cool in the heat of every night, and blossomed like a lily in the field to become one of the great actors of his generation and a trailblazer for legions of Black actors to follow. RIP, Sidney Poitier.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie

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