VIDEO: Nieves Calls Constituent "Sub-Human" And Announces His Address Over The Radio

About a week ago, Sarah Jo at Show Me Progress wrote a disturbing post based on the experience of a friend who visited State Senator Brian Nieves in his Senate office. In the post, Sarah Jo describes the shameful bullying behavior of Nieves towards his constituents, including two people over the age of 70:

Shortly after his exhortation on behalf of the rights of citizens to bear arms, the Senator returned to his office, called the two retired teachers into his office and shut the door. There on his desk was a copy of the newspaper with my friend's LTE. Two male aides stood on either side of the Senator, arms folded across their chests, as the Senator began a screaming session that lasted close to 20 minutes. His opening salvo was "You stupid f....." He shouted, shook the paper in the man's face, walked around him several times all the while shouting obscenities and threats. Sen. Nieves was in the Navy and ridiculed my friend for having served in the Army as if that had anything to do with the topic at hand.

My friend is a large man and could probably have decked Nieves but knew enough to restrain himself. He tried talking sense to Nieves, but that just set Nieves off even more. He called my friend "doughboy" pointing to his physique which is exactly what Nieves called the aide to his competitor last August in a similar verbal assault. In fact, Nieves gave my friend a copy of the 12 page handwritten police report by the young man last summer. Nieves' point was that my friend had put his family at risk by noting in his LTE that Nieves was going out of town at a meeting. (No, it doesn't make any sense since Nieves is gone 3-4 days every week to Jeff City, but we are not talking about a rational person here.)

At one point, my other friend who was "blindsided" by Nieves' screaming obscenities, held up his hands and asked if the three of them could sit down and talk quietly. At which point, Nieves screamed at this man too. Keep in mind these are well-bred gentlemen who are accustomed to civilized encounters with other people and who may never have experienced such low class behavior in their lives. And they are both over 70 years old.

Yesterday, three letters to the editor from Nieves' constituents appeared in the Missourian that backed up this account. And earlier tonight, Sean at Fired Up Missouri posted lowlights from a disturbing facebook rant from Nieves where he calls the constituent he screamed at sub-human, evil, a bully, a thug, and a very dangerous man. Nieves also, tellingly, wrote the following:

Maybe I should make public HIS address, phone number, schedule etc etc etc....

And why was Nieves so upset? According to Nieves, it was because the constituent, Tom Smith, had written the following about him earlier in a critical letter to the editor:

We learned he was preparing to go to Cincinnati on April 28 and 29 to attend the American Legislative Exchange (an ultra right-wing think tank) and was very excited about going.

Maybe the dates didn't need to be said, but the quote is pretty benign and was used to illustrate the fact that Nieves used the conference as an excuse to blow off constituents but was later seen standing around talking with other Senators.

But Nieves response was absolutely, unambiguously outrageous. In the following video, from Michelle Moore's USTREAM feed from May 19, you'll see Nieves calling Smith "Sub-Human," a "thug," an "idiot," and "less than a man." You'll also see that Nieves goes out of his was to say "Tom Smith, retired NEA teacher from Washington Missouri" over and over and even shamefully says the street that Smith lives on:


At this point, it is beyond debate that Brian Nieves has no business being within 300 yards of a legislative body. He really is a disgrace to Missouri.