Stoned
Daily Point
A Stone’s throw from Trump
There is no shortage of connections between Roger Stone, the longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, and Long Island politics. Stone was arrested Friday after a federal indictment was unsealed -- accusing him of trying to cover up his involvement with WikiLeaks in 2016 and the release of hacked emails that would damage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
Stone was first mentioned in Newsday clips four decades ago, when the Young Republicans National Federation honored Joseph Margiotta, then head of the Nassau GOP, one of the most power political machines in the nation. In 1979, Stone was chairman of the Young Republicans group and wanted to thank Margiotta for his support and his grooming of GOP leaders. Stone told Newsday that Margiotta’s Nassau club “sends to the national meeting a county delegation larger than any other state delegation.”
One of the most recent connections of Stone to Long Island politics involved GOP Congressional candidate Dan DeBono, who last fall waged an unsuccessful fight against Tom Suozzi in the 3rd Congressional District. Stone endorsed DeBono the day after the GOP fixer sent his considerable list of followers a fundraising letter by DeBono that boasted of his conservative credentials. While Stone left the impression that DeBono paid him for the endorsement, DeBono denied it. DeBono said he had no idea why Stone sent the letter, saying he had met Stone only once at a Queens County GOP fundraiser in February that featured Rep. Lee Zeldin as the keynote speaker.
At his impromptu news conference Friday on the courthouse steps in Florida, Stone said he was “one of the president’s oldest friends” and possibly one of the earliest supporters of a Trump presidency. Point subscriber Eugene Dunn shared with us Friday a November 1999 letter from Stone on “Trump Exploratory Committee” letterhead that said the developer “will decide early next year whether to seek the Reform Party presidential nomination.” Stone signed the letter as director of the exploratory committee. Trump, however, never made the third-party run that might have changed the outcome of the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
Rita Ciolli
Talking Point
King doesn't sweat the small stuff
Reps. Peter King and Lee Zeldin are among the 25 House targets for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s first campaign ads for the 2020 cycle.
The digital ads, geo-targeted on Facebook, show a picture of what appears to be a Coast Guard helicopter and rescuer hard at work, with text saying the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and Transportation Security Administration employees have missed a second paycheck, thanks to [insert name of GOP congressperson].
The ads appeared in Facebook’s political ad archive even as President Donald Trump announced the government would reopen despite the lack of a deal for border-wall funding. A DCCC spokesman said in an email: “We’ll roll the ads until paychecks have been sent.”
Pre-deal, King and Zeldin had both voted against recent Democratic appropriation bills now likely to form the core of the proposal Congress will vote on shortly. However, King crossed party lines earlier in the month to join Democrats in funding legislation.
But the point of the ads is to tie the two Long Islanders to Trump regarding responsibility for the government shutdown -- a shutdown that has affected law-and-order personnel within the GOP base.
The DCCC’s news release announcing the ads calls King and Zeldin and the other 23 Republicans “vulnerable,” and those vulnerabilities may have been part of what convinced Trump to seek an end to the standoff Friday.
King, for one, wasn’t worried about the ads in particular.
“They can run all the ads they want,” wrote the Seaford Republican in an email to The Point just before Trump’s shutdown deal broke. “If the Democrats want to politicize the Coast Guard not getting paid, that’s on them. I never pay attention to b.s. cheap shots.”
Mark Chiusano
Pencil Point
A new kind of liberty

Gary Varvel
For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/opinion
Final Point
The perks of “retirement”
For some politically connected Republicans in Nassau County, and Hempstead in particular, the system never stops giving.
Joseph J. Kearney, 76, has resigned from his position as executive director of the Nassau County IDA after eight years on the job, but he’s not retiring … again. Technically, Kearney already retired once, as the Republican and former Hempstead Town Council member collects a $17,182-per-year state pension, with his last employer listed as the State Senate.
Now Kearney is headed from his $190,000-per-year job at the IDA to a $160,000-per-year job as deputy Republican Board of Elections commissioner. He will join former Hempstead supervisor Anthony Santino, now a $160,000-per-year administrative assistant at the BOE.
Kearney, whose relationships with local Republicans are strong, was selected for that job by Nassau Republican Committee leader Joseph G. Cairo Jr.
Also in Hempstead, the board voted 7-0 this week to appoint Thomas Willdigg as the town compliance officer to review town contracts.
Willdigg, 67, of Massapequa, is a former Nassau County Police Department detective with decades of law enforcement experience, according to a copy of his resume provided by the town. He will be paid $150,000.
Willdigg also receives an annual pension of $136,589 for his years with the NCPD, and he appears to have used at least some of that money wisely. In the past decade he’s made about $4,700 in political contributions in New York, including a combined $2,610 to the Nassau County Republican Committee and the North Valley Stream Republican Committee.
North Valley Stream is the center of Cairo’s power base.
Willdigg was selected after a process that began in 2017 failed to identify three or four finalists.
Lane Filler