#KillerCuomo Should Be In Prison for His COVID-19 Lies

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Twin_Moose

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Is Whitmer next?


Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) administration refused to answer questions from legislators Thursday about her coronavirus nursing home policy.

During a House Oversight Committee meeting, chairman Rep. Steve Johnson (R) acknowledged a representative from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) declined to participate:

“Most of your guys got a letter last night from the director (MDHHS’s Elizabeth Hertel) in response” to the announced hearing, he said.

“We asked them to testify, we asked them last week. We really wanted them to testify, because there are questions that need to be answered. They refused to testify. They sent us this letter instead,” Johnson told the committee.

The committee chairman indicated the letter claimed MDHHS has “the greatest data out there,” but did not share any of it.

“I’m just a simple guy, but in my mind if you have the best data out there, wouldn’t you share it with people?” he said.

Johnson said the data reported by the Whitmer administration indicated Michigan has the 14th highest coronavirus-related death rate in the country per 100 residents.

The U.S. Department of Justice attempted to get data from Whitmer’s administration in August, and the governor issued a joint statement with now-embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). The pair argued there were partisan motivations for probing the large coronavirus-related percentage of nursing home deaths.

“This is nothing more than a transparent politicization of the Department of Justice in the middle of the Republican National Convention,” Whitmer and Cuomo, who is embroiled in his own nursing home death scandal, said, according to the Daily Gazette.

“It’s no coincidence the moment the Trump administration is caught weakening the CDC’s COVID-19 testing guidelines to artificially lower the number of positive cases, they launched this nakedly partisan deflection,” the duo said.

“At least 14 states — including Kentucky, Utah and Arizona — have issued similar nursing home guidance, all based on federal guidelines, yet the four states listed in the DOJ’s request have a Democratic governor,” Whitmer and Cuomo claimed.
 

Twin_Moose

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spaminator

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New York attorney general to oversee Cuomo sexual misconduct probe
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Gabriella Borter
Publishing date:Mar 01, 2021 • 12 hours ago • 3 minute read • comment bubbleJoin the conversation
In this file photo Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo speaks during a press conference at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 26, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City.
In this file photo Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo speaks during a press conference at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on May 26, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City. PHOTO BY JOHANNES EISELE /AFP via Getty Images
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office cleared the way on Sunday for an independent attorney with subpoena powers to investigate allegations against him of sexual misconduct.

The governor’s office backtracked on its original plan to choose its own investigator after widespread criticism from fellow Democrats.

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“We will hire a law firm, deputize them as attorneys of our office, and oversee a rigorous and independent investigation,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

Cuomo, one of the nation’s most well-known Democratic politicians whose popularity soared during the early months of the pandemic, has been accused by two former aides of sexual misconduct, sparking criticism from fellow Democrats that ranged from calls for his resignation to appeals for an independent investigation into his behaviour.


Responding to the latest allegations that emerged on Saturday, the governor denied making any sexual advances and initially ordered what he said would be a “full and thorough outside review” led by a former federal judge, Barbara Jones.

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But following sharp rebukes from Democrats, Cuomo reversed that decision – and issued a statement late on Sunday saying he “never intended to offend anyone or cause harm.”

Cuomo said he is often jocular around the office and in public, citing his frequent press conferences that included plenty of banter with members of the media.

“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended,” Cuomo said in a statement.


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‘PAINFUL TO READ’

Cuomo on Saturday ordered what he said would be a “full and thorough outside review” led by Jones. But that move was quickly rejected by leading Democratic figures including U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who said she found the accounts of Cuomo’s former aides Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett “extremely serious and painful to read.”

There were also demands for an independent probe from several other Democrats. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told CNN’s State of the Union that President Joe Biden supported such an investigation. Others, including New York State Senator Alessandra Biaggi and New York City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, went further, echoing Republican calls for Cuomo to resign.

In the latest misconduct allegations, Bennett, who worked for the governor as an executive assistant and policy advisor for nearly two years until November 2020, told the New York Times that he had asked her about her sex life, including whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men.


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Her account was published days after Boylan, another former aide, wrote in an online essay that the governor made several “inappropriate gestures” toward her while she worked for the state government from 2015 to 2018, including sending her a rose on Valentine’s Day and kissing her on the mouth.

Cuomo has denied wrongdoing in both cases. Reuters could not independently verify the women’s accounts. Attempts to reach both women have been unsuccessful.

Cuomo rose to national prominence for his daily televised briefings early on during the coronavirus pandemic, when New York was the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States.


The allegations of sexual misconduct follow a report issued in January by James’ office that cast doubt on his administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis in nursing homes. It said the state health department significantly undercounted the death toll and implemented policies that may have contributed to it.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday that there now needed to be two independent investigations, one into Cuomo’s conduct and another into the nursing home deaths.

“Questions of this magnitude cannot hang over the heads of New Yorkers as we fight off a pandemic and economic crisis,” de Blasio said in a statement.
 

Twin_Moose

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NEW YORK – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday issued a statement addressing sexual harassment allegations from two former aides. Cuomo says he acknowledges some of his actions may have been “misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.”

Earlier in the day, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would investigate the allegations and dismissed a suggestion by Cuomo that he appoint someone to investigate the claims.

“To clarify, I do not accept the governor’s proposal,” James said. “The state’s Executive Law clearly gives my office the authority to investigate this matter once the governor provides a referral. While I have deep respect for Chief Judge DiFiore, I am the duly elected attorney general and it is my responsibility to carry out this task, per Executive Law. The governor must provide this referral so an independent investigation with subpoena power can be conducted.”

Questions have been raised about some of my past interactions with people in the office.

“I never intended to offend anyone or cause any harm. I spend most of my life at work and colleagues are often also personal friends.

“At work sometimes I think I am being playful and make jokes that I think are funny. I do, on occasion, tease people in what I think is a good natured way. I do it in public and in private. You have seen me do it at briefings hundreds of times. I have teased people about their personal lives, their relationships, about getting married or not getting married. I mean no offense and only attempt to add some levity and banter to what is a very serious business.

“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.

“To be clear I never inappropriately touched anybody and I never propositioned anybody and I never intended to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but these are allegations that New Yorkers deserve answers to.

“That’s why I have asked for an outside, independent review that looks at these allegations.

“Separately, my office has heard anecdotally that some people have reached out to Ms. Bennett to express displeasure about her coming forward. My message to anyone doing that is you have misjudged what matters to me and my administration and you should stop now – period.”

Is this a deflection attempt away from nursing home deaths?
 

Blackleaf

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Cuomo has been getting away with murder

Too many in the media have failed to scrutinise the NY governor's handling of Covid.

Cuomo has been getting away with murder

TIM BLACK


COLUMNIST

2nd March 2021
Spiked

‘It’s all been exposed’, said Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York. ‘The lies are exposed. The incompetence is exposed. It’s like low tide in the ocean. Now the whole shoreline is exposed. There’s no question as to what was under the water.’

This was last October and Cuomo was talking to the New Yorker about President Trump. But his words serve as a more fitting description of his own administration.

For Cuomo was once the Blue State hero of the Covid crisis. The man who, for most of last year, was deified by the liberal, anti-Trump set for his handling of the pandemic even as it ripped through New York State. Pundits fawned over him. Blue-check tweeters confessed their ‘Cuomo-sexuality’. And some went so far as to suggest he be parachuted in as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. The Guardian was still talking about him as a prospective US attorney general in any potential Biden administration as late as October last year.

Cuomo fuelled the lionisation. And he revelled in it. He staged daily pandemic briefings, in which he presented himself as the tough-talking but compassionate leader of the hour, doing what was necessary. He even let out a tear as he passed a directive, named after his mother, Matilda, imposing social-distancing measures on the old and vulnerable. And, without fail, he blamed Trump. He addressed Trump. And he positioned himself as the alternative to Trump.

America’s political and cultural elites loved him for it. His pandemic press briefings won him an Emmy, and his political grandstanding earned him a book deal, for which he produced the grandiose, state-of-the-nation address American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.

But now ‘it’s all been exposed’. All that media veneration, all that blue-check cheering, and all that vainglorious posturing, was no more than thickly applied concealer – a cosmetic overlay disguising the ugly reality of Cuomo’s governance.

We knew, of course, that New York had suffered tremendously during the pandemic, recording nearly 50,000 Covid-related deaths so far. Up until California’s Covid death-toll crept above New York’s a fortnight ago, it was the highest in the US.

Yet what has now been exposed is Cuomo’s own rather nasty role in the botched response to Covid. First there was the advisory notice issued by Cuomo on 25 March 2020, urging nursing homes to take back into care older patients who were then in hospitals – a decision that allowed Covid to wreak devastation precisely upon those at risk from it – as it stands, nearly 15,000 people in nursing homes have died from Covid. Then, in April, Cuomo’s office introduced a so-called immunity clause, protecting hospital and nursing home executives from the threat of lawsuits stemming from the pandemic. Moreover, those executives protected by Cuomo’s ‘immunity clause’ also just happened to have donated over $2million to Cuomo’s political campaigns, as part of their lobbying arm, the Greater New York Hospital Association.

So, not only did Cuomo’s decisions aid the spread of Covid in New York’s nursing homes, his administration, palms greased, also went out of its way to protect the owners and managers of those very same nursing homes from the potential lawsuits of bereaved families. To use Cuomo’s own words, ‘there’s no question as to what was under the water’ – incompetence, back-covering and callous decision-making. And if that was not damning enough of a man who was conjured up by himself and his influential fanboys as the virtuous opposite of Trump, it has since emerged, in a report from New York’s attorney general, that the Cuomo administration was undercounting nursing-home deaths by 50 per cent. So, to the incompetence, fatal decision-making and back-covering, we can now add lies.

That Cuomo is now also under internal investigation after two women made sexual-harassment claims against him only adds to the stench emanating from this most rotting of idols – something not helped by his decision to appoint a former federal judge with close ties to one of his friends to head the investigation.

But perhaps just as shocking as Cuomo’s borderline corrupt mishandling of the pandemic was his ability to get away with it for much of the past year. Where was the political opposition? The press scrutiny of the man the New York Times dubbed the ‘politician of the moment’? After all, the decision to send elderly hospital patients back into New York’s nursing homes, despite everything we knew even then about who was most at risk from Covid, was taken in plain sight. As was the decision to ensure nursing-home owners were immune from prosecution. The ground for questioning and criticism was always there. It was just that few seemed willing to step foot on it.

And what of the under- and misreporting of Covid deaths? Where were the journalists hunting this story down? There were some. But many skated over and around it.
Yes, he was regularly interviewed on CNN’s weeknight news-analysis show. But that is hosted by Cuomo’s younger brother Chris. Cringey Cuomo Prime Time may have been; interrogative it was not.

This lack of scrutiny was not limited to Cuomo’s influential siblings, either. It stretched across the media landscape, and even the Atlantic, as British media indulged Cuomo’s pandemic posturing. Cuomo, it seemed, could do no wrong, even when he clearly was.

But, then, he wasn’t Trump. Better still, he positioned himself and his Covid response in opposition to Trump. And, as such, many in the media, dominated as they still are by anti-Trump sentiment, were only too willing not only to spare him scrutiny, but also to fete him.

The story of Cuomo’s fall is not only that of a deeply flawed politician. It is also the story of a deeply flawed political and media culture. So gripped has it been by myopic anti-Trumpism that it has been unable to see the failings of opportunist anti-Trump hacks like Cuomo. Because, well, they’re the good guys, aren’t they?