MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-02-17 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Coumo consipracies
|
wsj.com
Opinion | How Many People Participated in the Cuomo Cover-Up?
James Freeman
7-8 minutes
Feb. 12, 2021 4:27 pm ET
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) at the state Capitol in Albany last month.
Photo: hans pennink/Reuters
Your browser does not support the audio tag.
Listen to this article
5 minutes
This feature is powered by text-to-speech technology. Want to see it on
more articles?
Give your feedback below or email audiofeedback-at-wsj.com.
Numerous senior officials have recently departed New York state’s Health
Department. What exactly did they know before deciding to stop working
for Gov. Andrew Cuomo ? Empire State citizens deserve an answer and
federal law enforcement ought to be interested as well.
The New York Post’s Bernadette Hogan, Carl Campanile and Bruce Golding
break the story of an appalling abuse of power:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic
lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing home death toll from
COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear that the true numbers
would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned.
The stunning admission of a coverup was made by secretary to the
governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state
Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had
rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right
around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump ] turns this into a
giant political football,” according to an audio recording of the
two-hour-plus meeting...
“And basically, we froze,” she told the lawmakers on the call... But
instead of a mea culpa to the grieving family members of more than
13,000 dead seniors or the critics who say the Health Department spread
COVID-19 in the care facilities with a March 25 state Health Department
directive that nursing homes admit infected patients, DeRosa tried to
make amends with the fellow Democrats for the political inconvenience it
caused them.
“So we do apologize,” she said. “I do understand the position that
you were put in. I know that it is not fair. It was not our intention to
put you in that political position with the Republicans.”
Ms. DeRosa is now claiming that Team Cuomo was cooperative and
transparent in sharing information with the U.S. Department of Justice.
But New York’s failure to publicly acknowledge its nursing home death
toll and prioritize the protection of the elderly—the state instead
inflicted broad, destructive lockdowns on the general population—had
consequences far beyond New York. The state was an early virus hot spot
and its false data presented a misleading picture of Covid impact as
scientists and policy makers sought to understand the new health threat.
In the wake of the Post report, Jesse McKinley and Luis Ferré-Sadurní of
the New York Times note:
The disclosures have left Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat,
scrambling to contain the political fallout, as lawmakers of both
parties call for censure, including stripping the governor of his
emergency powers during the pandemic, federal and state investigations
and resignations of Ms. DeRosa and other top officials.
One wonders how long the truth about nursing home deaths might have
remained hidden if a few stout-hearted contrarians like Janice Dean of
Fox News, the Albany Times-Union newspaper and the Empire Center think
tank had not diligently challenged the official story.
On Wednesday the Empire Center reported the latest in its battle to pry
information out of New York’s Health Department:
Tonight the Cuomo administration released additional data on
coronavirus deaths in long-term care facilities that the Empire Center
requested under the Freedom of Information Law... The release came six
months after the FOIL request was submitted, five months after we and
the Government Justice Center filed suit, and one week after a court
found that the department had violated FOIL and ordered it to release
what were clearly public records...
Between last week’s court order and tonight’s formal response, the
department posted new death totals for each facility, including hospital
deaths that had previously been omitted. Those revelations increased the
known death toll from about 9,000 to almost 15,000—making clear that the
pandemic’s toll on long-term care residents was much worse than the
Cuomo administration previously portrayed it to be.
The recent disclosures followed months of deception in which the Cuomo
government would pretend to be vindicated by reports from nursing homes
and then when pressed for the underlying data would claim to be engaged
in a “diligent search” for records—as if it could have reached its
self-congratulatory conclusions without them.
There seems to be a pattern here. The Journal’s Jason Riley wrote in 2013:
Is New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has cited public health risks in
opposing hydraulic fracking, sitting on comprehensive research that
shows the practice is safe?
“The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared
early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as
hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York,” reports the New
York Times, which obtained a copy of the study. “The analysis and other
health assessments have been closely guarded by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and
his administration as the governor weighs whether to approve fracking.”
The state still doesn’t allow fracking. Let’s hope it will finally allow
sensible Covid policy. Let’s also hope there is accountability for
anyone who enabled the coverup.
***
Mr. Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American
Revival.”
***
Follow James Freeman on Twitter and Parler.
Subscribe to the Best of the Web email.
To suggest items, please email best-at-wsj.com.
(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Tony Lima.)
***
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
_______________________________________________
Hangout mailing list
Hangout-at-nylxs.com
http://lists.mrbrklyn.com/mailman/listinfo/hangout
|
|
