Yo Bruce, how 'bout a truce?
Oyster Bay Inspector General Brian Noone's old police badge and identity card.
Daily Point
Brian Noone's intriguing resume
Brian Noone, the embattled Oyster Bay Town inspector general now under investigation by the Nassau County district attorney, certainly has a colorful resume.
It can be found on the website for his private cybersecurity firm, Nova Venture Partners, whose “team” features some of Noone’s business buddies who are now part of the ongoing probe. The DA is reviewing deals that Noone, as the town’s Inspector general, vetted and approved that involved his business associates.
In this post-George Santos era, we found that Noone’s career bio on his website lists some wide-ranging past credentials. After studying theology in the early 1970s at Immaculate Conception Seminary in Lloyd Harbor, Noone says he served 28 years in the federal government, conducting “clandestine business operations which led to worldwide law enforcement prosecutions against organized criminal enterprises.” He also got involved in “terrorism, money laundering, kidnapping, illegal drug manufacturing, distribution and money laundering profits,” the website says. Of particular interest, his education credentials say Noone attended “numerous Interview and Interrogation” schools, including those with the FBI, the CIA and Israel. He also worked as VP of security for a large utility.
But perhaps most interesting to these local eyes is Noone’s claim that he “is currently the honarary [sic] deputy commisioner [sic] of police in Nassau County, New York.” Not quite. We checked out that credential with the Nassau County Police Department. A spokesman said that Noone had “turned in his identification” when he took on the job as Oyster Bay’s $154,000 inspector general in 2019. Meanwhile, an Oyster Bay spokesman sent us a copy of a badge and ID card in which Noone is listed as an “assistant commissioner” with the Nassau PD.
Perhaps back then if Noone had given up his other job — running his own private cybersecurity company with associates looking to do business with the town — he might not have his current troubles with the DA.
— Thomas Maier thomas.maier@newsday.com
Pencil Point
Fuming
Credit: PoliticalCartoons.com/Peter Kuper
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Final Point
Rapped response
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman's Twitter message in response to Newsday cartoonist Matt Davies' cartoon, below, of Blakeman on the hip-hop concert controversy.
As Mark Twain is alleged to have said: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
My editorial cartoon published Tuesday casting aspersions upon Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s motives in attempting to stop the outdoor portion of Sunday’s rap festival at the UBS Arena took the form of a rap parody. Soon after it was published, I received a barbed riposte from Blakeman in the form of his own rap parody.
Credit: Newsday/Matt Davies
In several decades spent cartooning in the editorial trenches, the subjects of my cartoons often responded — both positively and negatively — via phone call, email or old-fashioned pen and paper. But this was my first time engaging in a rap battle with a politician.
This is a history worth repeating. If all exchanges over different points of view were settled via beats and rhymes, we might actually get somewhere, yo.
— Matt Davies matthew.davies@newsday.com
