State Senator Martin Golden’s Chief of Staff, Jerry Kassar, covers the Dyker Heights Civic Debate — WITH BASELESS INSULTS FOR RECCHIA — AND WITH A WET BLANKET FOR EVERYBODY ELSE

As a calumniating columnist, Conservative “Common[s]ense” crusader Kassar clearly owes Domenic Recchia an apology for the baseless charges in this week’s Home Reporter Kassar column

A debate where Grimm, the cheese, stood alone, and the rest had their say  —  but according to Kassar communicated without using any words

AND  —   About “Proposal #3"  —  This is the way the world ends....  Not with a bang but a whimper 

Kassar used about two-thirds to three-quarters of his column this week to talk/write about the Dyker Heights Civic Association debate. Unfortunately, he used up about half of his time/space, giving an over-edited history of the Dyker civic group and/or telling everybody where Domenic Recchia was instead of being at the great historically  institutionalized debate or forum ( See “Common Sense: Debating the debate” by Jerry Kassar, 10/20/14, Home Reporter/ Sunset News [http://www.homereporternews.com/news/government/common-sense-debating-the-debate/article_d55ccbb2-58a2-11e4-a15a-cffcb897f315.html]).

Recchia belled the cat of the Dyker Heights Civic Association  —  Kassar, and Vella Marrone didn't like that, so Kassar insulted Recchia 

In fact, passing-up on this debate, and telling the world why, was probably one of Domenic Recchia’s highest and best moments from this campaign.  It’s about time that somebody belled-the-cat of the Dyker Heights Civic Association and its president, Fran Vella Marrone. This group has long been a pawn of the Conservatives and  Ms. Vella Marrone.  Long gone are the days that the real backbone of Dyker Heights, or more accurately an older inner circle of movers and shakers in that neighborhood, have had anything to do with that group. Lately, it’s been an outpost of a Bay Ridge-based crypto-fascist cabal of two Irish-American sort of guys, who would be as uncomfortable a fit in any legitimate political party, as they would be if they lived in Dyker Heights ( a place that I am sure they joke about, especially during the holidays over toddies).

The proof of all that is in the two paragraphs of a very selective history of the Dyker Heights Civic Association recounted by Mr. Kassar, as one of the false premises of his argument against Mr. Recchia and in defense of  Fran Vella Marrone’s debate. The other false premise propounded by  Kassar is that Recchia somehow “issued an insulting denouncement of the group”; and that somehow such “denouncement” was not justified.  This “denouncement” must have been something so terrible that Jerry Kassar didn’t mention what it was, or even suggest anything that might give us any idea of what it was that so bothered the Democratic Candidate for Congress.

Given all of that, basically what Kassar did is nothing but slam Domenic Recchia, because he had the temerity to complain that the person running the debate had a conflict of interest, because she worked on the staff of Recchia’s opponent, Michael Grimm. And rather than switch moderators for the debate, Kassar, Marrone and company chose to wrongly charge Recchia with ducking the debate. By all that is right and fair, Kassar & Co. owe Recchia an apology for their original intransigence and false accusation; and Kassar owes the Democrat contender a second and stronger apology for turning that slander into a libel in his column.

Another thing that is clear about this psuedo-conservative propagandist’s column is that he didn’t want you to know what any of those who did participate in the debate or forum actually said. Even though there were multiple participants, Marty Golden, Jamie Kemmerer, Alec Brook-Krasny, Stamatis Lilikakis and Michael Grimm, not one of them is quoted.

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS, NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER

As his final insult to anybody that reads his column, Kassar made his three paragraph long comment about “Proposal #3" on this year’s ballot without making any solid recommendation about it. Basically, Kassar said the proposal involved allowing the State to incur a $2 billion bond debt to fund school technology; and that those who favored it wanted to spend the money, while those who opposed it didn’t want to borrow the money.  (Now, YOU TELL ME !  HOW HELPFUL IS THAT ?).

All in all, the discussion of ballot “Proposal #3” was a non-memorable end to a column that would be better off forgotten, except for the apology Mr. Kassar owes to Mr. Recchia.