Cuomo’s Horrible Track Record
Please consider Why Do Democrats Pretend Andrew Cuomo Did a Good Job With COVID?
Key Points
- In March, he appeared in front of a display of New York state–branded hand sanitizer and announced that his people had come up with a method of making the product that was cheaper than anything being done on the open market; it turned out that the state was, in fact, actually just buying the sanitizer from an outside vendor and putting it into bottles that said “New York” on them.
- He declared that the New York City subway needed to be shut down for hours every night to be disinfected, a disruptive policy that still persists even though infectious disease experts concluded months ago that the coronavirus does not spread in an appreciable way on public surfaces. Pressed in November on what kind of evidence he was using to justify the continued closure, Cuomo’s office referred a reporter to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which could not provide any.
- Most concerningly, Cuomo’s administration admitted this month that it had been excluding nursing home residents who died of COVID but didn’t technically die on the grounds of their facilities from its official count of COVID-related nursing home deaths. Since many such residents died only after being hospitalized, this had the effect of making the state’s nursing home outbreak look thousands of deaths smaller than it actually was.
- Cuomo’s office appears to have compiled the more comprehensive, accurate data months ago but didn’t release it until the state’s attorney general—who is elected independently of the governor—issued a Jan. 28 report alleging that nursing home deaths had been undercounted.
Cuomo a Villain All Along
The National Review comments on the The Cuomo Investigation Confusion
There could be as many as three — maybe even four — ongoing federal investigations of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, all focusing on the Coronavirus Task Force he established last year.
When Democratic governors not only turned a blind eye to but actively encouraged the throngs of left-wing protesters who blithely ignored the states’ COVID restrictions during the summer, they elucidated a toxic double standard: Economic and religious liberties were curbed, and small businesses were ruined, all in the name of quelling the virus; but protests (and their attendant rioting) were given a wide berth.
Besides potential civil-rights liability, the Cuomo administration could face problems because the nursing homes that the state oversees receive lots of federal money through Medicare and Medicaid. If the federal government was provided with misleading information about nursing-home-related deaths, the state could be in violation of the federal False Claims Act, which DOJ may enforce by filing civil lawsuits. Consequently, in October, the DOJ’s Civil Division reportedly requested the same information the Cuomo administration had previously supplied to the CRD.
There are allegations that the Cuomo administration lowballed COVID-related nursing-home deaths by nearly half, reporting over 8,000 when the actual figure was over 15,000. What’s more, as National Review reported Friday, a watchdog group, the Empire Center for Public Policy, alleges that, between the time it was issued on March 25 and rescinded two months later, Cuomo’s nursing-home order may have been responsible for over a thousand deaths. The questions then become: Did state officials provide DOJ with false information; did they withhold data they were required to surrender; and did they intentionally hide the true nursing-home death toll?
What the Polls Say
Despite the above, the Slate notes that a Siena College poll taken after the nursing home scandal broke found that 83 percent of New York Democrats still approve of Cuomo’s handling of COVID, with more than 80 percent also saying specifically that they approve of his work “communicating with the people of New York” and “providing accurate information.”
Explanation
This is easy to explain. Democrats look the other way when their clan is attacked and Republicans do the same.
There is no doubt the Republican Senators who voted to convict believed what they were doing. I suspect there were a lot more too but politics got in the way.
The National Review says “Several entities are probing the evolving nursing-home scandal at once. Biden’s DOJ must pick a lead prosecutor — and soon.”
I agree. But don’t hold your breath.
It all comes down to this: The party is more important that either principles or the Constitution.
Willingness to look the other way explains both Cuomo and Trump.
Mish
From a purely tactical political point of view I would say that somebody in the party sees Cuomo as a political rival and needs to be taken down. Biden because of his age will be a one-term president so if you want to become the next one you better start scheming, planning and smearing now.
I’d say at this point the 2024 Democratic nomination is Kamala Harris’s to lose…but I expect her to be able to get nominated barring some horrible screw-up.
The most important thing to know about the Democratic Party is that they always manage to nominate their absolute worst candidate. This goes to the many promises they’ve made to all their identity politics driven constituency.
On the other side…..today I’d bet Mike Pence is the pick…but I’m less certain.
A lot can happen Kamala is not a very popular figure even among Democrats. She doesn’t have her own constituency nor does she have Obama’s oratory skills. You never know but she could be a problem. Pence could be a good candidate but we are far from that yet. There will be unexpected turns, back stabbings, grandstandings, betrayals, loyalty tests, cooperation and some things I haven’t thought of. Politics is the best entertainment ever which is why primates invented it a few million years ago. Never a dull moment.
Everybody is thinking Trump is done…..I think that is probably wrong…..we shall see.
Larry Kudlow: Texas power outages are ‘the consequences’ of electing Joe Biden
Never let a crisis go to waste. Larry Kudlow is either willfully ignorant, or he’s a deliberate liar. You pick.
Unless there is an meteor with my name on it indeed we will.
From what i’ve seen it is related and an attack on Texas.
My guess is that most New Yorkers still perceive Cuomo as having done a good job on the way he handled the COVID response. Except for the people who already hated him.
Of all the things you criticize him for, the only one that has much real possibility of political fallout is the nursing home reporting…..
And…..it isn’t a given that the way they reported the numbers (obviously to make them look better than they were) actually led to significantly larger numbers of COVID victims. The allegation that it led to a thousand additional deaths is unproven and unlikely to be provable.
And….it pays to remember that at the height of the April NY peak a thousand people a DAY were dying…..and Cuomo got the numbers down, and he did it quickly. Overall I’d rate his response as way better than most….
Bitcoin explained
(Neo-) Bolsheviks have been known to “purge” their ranks from time to time.
The bigger question is what kind of ‘punishment’ is fit for someone that knowingly put covid patients in nursing homes causing numerous deaths.
The same punishment for all the fools in power that said masks don’t work
Is this site 100% liberal?
Ron Desantis. Kristy Noem. Etc, etc.
Obama and Eric Holder administratively implemented a policy at the DOJ, that elites, VIP’s (CEO’s of big corporation for example) are not prosecuted or certainly do not serve jail time, for many of their crimes.
It will be interesting to see if Governors are included.
Don’t worry, he will probably pay. You have the wrong view of the “liberal” press, which has a much better track record of going after wrongdoing on either side of the political spectrum than the right wing press. It takes a little longer because the liberal press actually needs to gather facts (instead of hearsay) in order to publish their articles.
The subway sanitizing issue isn’t a big deal. At the beginning of the pandemic no one knew and besides it sure would of helped if we had the federal CDC issuing scientific guidelines instead of every state having to duplicate efforts. If he took too long to repeal the order then it is another story but it isn’t criminal, just a waste of money at most.
The other issues are most likely is a state matter (instead of federal) and give a chance for the state to investigate them. The DOJ probably isn’t investigating Texas or Florida on their pandemic response right now either.
Don’t pay much attention to the National Review they are somewhat paranoid like you are starting to be. Look at the situation, there is no official federal government agency or individual now (as opposed to the Trump administration) consistently lying to the public and actively trying to either prevent the truth from emerging or facilitating the spread of false information. Relax, it takes some time to gather information instead of just putting together a few headlines.
New Yorkers are not looking the other way on Covid handling. The reason he’s not polling worse on it is a comparison with his other 49 Governors far too many of which did less than nothing. He’s still seen as stepping up unlike say the Governors of Florida, Georgia or South Dakota. The issue isn’t one of stepping up but having stepped up and made some mistakes. Vaccine rollout in New York is not going smoothly , just like in Germany and this may be what changes perceptions.
Define “stepping up” please. If it is like “did a good job” then you can’t say he did that. If “stepping up” means being a media animal then you are right.
Love the leftist apologists. This is the same Cuomo who said he didn’t trust the experts about COVID. Not even Trump was that dense and tone deaf.
Loyalty to party over everything else will ruin this country.
If stepping up means falsifying data to make him look better then than yes he did step up.
New York is a Democratic state. If Cuomo faces an end to his political future in the state he will have to be primaried. It’s doubtful a Republican could take him on even now. On the national stage he’s done. His political ambitions which clearly centered on the white house are over. Cuomo’s daily press briefings and book on how to tackle Covid-19 were clearly part of a bid for President maybe as early as 2024.
What we see coming out is that Cuomo has enemies coming from his autocratic style. The bullying and trying to control the narrative bring back images of the Moreland commission where he created a panel to investigate state corruption but when they began to look into his own doings he disbanded it and declared mission accomplished. Ironically the reason this wasn’t investigated is because of Donald Trump who stupidly fired Preet Bharata just as he was beginning his investigation into Andrew Cuomo
His presidential aspirations are probably over. Like Gavin Newsom he didn’t do a good job and it not about being perceived as fucking up, he really did fuck up.
Also it looks like El Paso avoided the worst of Texas disaster not by listening to state officials but going their own route after the deep freeze of 2011 and joining the western grid of the US.
While what Cuomo did was in a pandemic and perhaps mistakes that occurred happen because of the very fact government didn’t quite know how to react to a deadly strain in New York, we know the disaster in Texas was completely avoidable. This man has been saying it for a long time but apparently the Texas politicians and energy industry didn’t heed his warnings:
Thanks.
Bringing the Texas energy fiasco into this discussion on New York’s C19 handling is the epitome of blind partisanship that Mish was trying to explain.
Good example of Whataboutism.
Arguably that is not whataboutism in the sense of being a logical fallacy. Whataboutism would be defending Stalin by saying whatabout Truman who dropped a-bombs. Pure deflection. Casual_Observer was making a argument in that the situations are different in that the risks in NY were not understood at that early time but they were understood in TX.
Thoughts on the items quoted above from the Slate article:
Hand sanitizer – He’s a politician. A showman. Not unlike every other high-profile politician. Being a showman is part of the job. So, pfft.
Disinfected subways – Some “experts” think that this disinfection is not needed. One might ask them whether they clean up after themselves. Do hospitals make special efforts to disinfect their Covid wards? Does disinfecting subways do harm other than the cost and time? Subway disinfection sounds like a judgement call. Know any politicians who have a record of perfect judgement? So, pfft.
Tweaking the Covid nursing home death counts – Yeah, that’s more than a little sketchy. But, news flash: Covid death counts all over the world are sketchy. If you take them seriously in your job, you might want to reconsider your career. Normally, this death count tweak issue would be an instance of unfortunate but normal data noise if not for one thing: Cuomo went with the strategy of pushing old folks with Covid in to little, isolated groups. Unexpectedly to someone deaf, dumb, and blind, that turned out to have been really bad for those people (and, probably, their care givers). But, maybe better for all other people! Do you know which, what, or how much? Apparently, other governors (MA, CT, NJ) concurred with the strategy. That decision may be something to keep in mind when Cuomo or the others are looking for votes. But, pfft.
Didn’t release good data – Horrid data is one of my personal hot buttons, so, yeah, Cuomo is the devil, and an evil person, and should be tarred and feathered, and blah, blah, blah. So, if you agree, don’t vote for him. Ah, but it’s too bad horrid data is the norm. So, pfft.
If you’re outraged – or even a bit disgusted – by all this, then note who was kissing Cuomo’s tail this year. Ignore them in the future. Or use them as negative indicators. Hell, that group may include Slate or the National Review!
Because getting Trump was more important than anything else…the derangement syndrome still exists. I remember when Cuomo blamed Trump for all the Covid problems in NY. Turns out it was that meathead Cuomo. All the Cuomos are as dumb as 2×4’s, belligerent and act like characters in a mobster movie. Their Dad was a failure as well, but has a bridge named after him. The Cuomos always preside over the worst NY economies.
Doesn’t matter. Impeachment has become meaningless after Democrats weaponized it for political reasons. Now anything can be considered impeachable offense.
Yes, like lying to Congress about the details of a blowjob.
I should add that Clinton should have been convicted on principle and the world would be a better place for it. But impeachment always and forever is a non-starter because it requires the defendant’s own party to convict.
Just like money gets debased by the Fed, so does impeachment by Democrats.
I agree. Using impeachment as a political weapon against Clinton, and in the first impeachment against Trump has debased it, and so even when a President commits clearly impeachable offenses, as Trump did Jan. 6, people just don’t take impeachment seriously anymore.
Impeachment in all practicality is nothing more than the strongest censure the House can give a President. There will never be a conviction.
Nixon resigned because the Republican senators went to him and said they would vote to convict, rendering impeachment unnecessary.
He killed alot of elderly, bring the charges
Interesting to note, however, is that many who are now after Cuomo over this issue spent most of 2020 arguing that “those old nursing home folk were about to die anyway so can we even count them as marginal Covid deaths?”
Until both sides use one standard and don’t pivot as soon as their interests are threatened, this baloney is what we will get.
It’s worth noting the Dems made Al Franken resign over posting a few slightly inappropriate photos. Compare that with the GOP’s tolerance of Trump’s never ending misdeeds.
Yes, its all baloney, both sides are now fenced in the capital grounds with razorwire borders? I thought piglosi did not like border walls? The rule of law is dead, republic is now lost, all we have left now is that reality to sink in to the masses. CONgress on one side of the fence, and US on the other. They will get rid of the razorwire by this fall….Uh huh, sure, that wall is in place FOREVER!
You know something is seriously wrong when a Slate article goes after Democrats. Let’s take a deeper look.
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Please dont equate left leaning news sites with sycophantic news like Fox News or others. Unlike most conservative outlets, even left leaning outlets are not afraid to go after their own. The owners of Slate formerly owned reputable news sources the Washington Post and Newsweek. The one thing that should have been learned by now is left leaning news organizations dont ignore the truth no matter what it is.
21st Century Conservatism boils down to the Qanon binary of “Us vs Them”. Us is perfect. Them is cannibal pizza pedo sex dungeon.
21st Century Conservatism is the angry losers of the information age trying to justify retribution for their loss. The jocks are furious at the ascendence of the nerds.
In the 21st Century, Conservatism crawled up donald trump’s ass, and died.
It’s old fashioned Manichaeanism — the same flavor of black and white, good and evil in which they were inculcated in church since they were born.
Slate like many news organizations is in financial trouble. They had to cut their staff’s remuneration and fire journalists. News organisations make their living on exposing bad behavior in government officials and others and generating outrage. That is the role of a free press and why a free press is so important. That a certain press organisation has a political lean is not something new either. It was standard practice for most of the Republic’s existence and it survived nicely because there was very rude competition between viewpoints and many times a paper would try to shut down rivals using not to legal means. It didn’t work because barriers to entry were low and there was always a market for different viewpoints. In that sense today we mirror what has gone before. Barriers to entry have never been lower and even if you close one news site another one will spring up so it’s useless to try. Embrace the free press.