From The New York Times: Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll. The intervention was the earliest action yet known in an effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that concealed how many nursing home residents died in the pandemic.
Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic…
The number had not been made public, and the Governor’s aides rewrote the report to take it out. This was in June; the report was released in July.
...But Mr. Cuomo and his aides actually began concealing the numbers months earlier, as his aides were battling their own top health officials, and well before requests for data arrived from federal authorities, according to documents and interviews with six people with direct knowledge of the discussions, who requested anonymity to describe the closed-door debates.
...The changes sought by the governor’s aides fueled bitter exchanges with health officials working on the report. The conflict punctuated an already tense and devolving relationship between Mr. Cuomo and his Health Department, one that would fuel an exodus of the state’s top public health officials.
The total number of deaths reported was accurate — but the way they were reported had the effect of disguising how many of them could be attributed to the way the state handled patients in Nursing Homes. This part is particularly damning:
But the July report allowed Mr. Cuomo to treat the nursing home issue as resolved last year, paving the way for him to focus on touting New York’s success in controlling the virus.
“I am now thinking about writing a book about what we went through,” Mr. Cuomo said four days after the report’s release, his first public comments about a possible book.
By that point, he was already seeking formal approval from a state ethics agency to earn outside income from book sales, according to a person with knowledge of his planning at the time.
The Wall Street Journal has also published a report on this:
Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths
...The changes Mr. Cuomo’s aides and health officials made to the nursing-home report, which haven’t been previously disclosed, reveal that the state possessed a fuller accounting of out-of-facility nursing-home deaths as early as the summer. The Health Department resisted calls by state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months.
There’s a lot of hubris and karma in this story. Cuomo’s longstanding reputation as a bully who creates a toxic work environment is coming back to bite him bigly. People are now speaking up who would have kept quiet if Cuomo hadn’t been weakened by this.
The accusations against Cuomo by three women regarding inappropriate sexual behavior would likely have never surfaced if he was not already under fire. His most recent press conference after nine days of silence included a remarkably humble Cuomo confessing to being ashamed and embarrassed, and having been totally unaware that his attentions were seen as hurtful.
At least one of his accusers is not accepting his statement as an apology. Via Talking Points Memo:
Charlotte Bennett, one of the women accusing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of sexual harassment, has said that she did not perceive the governor’s Wednesday remarks addressing multiple allegations of inappropriate conduct and workplace sexual harassment as an apology.
“The fact is that he was sexually harassing me, and he has not apologized for sexually harassing me. And he can’t even use my name,” Bennett, a former executive assistant and health policy adviser, said of her former boss during a CBS interview that aired Thursday night.
...Cuomo is facing similar allegations from two other women, Lindsey Boylan and Anna Ruch. Boylan also worked with Cuomo in the state’s economic development agency, and served in his administration from 2015 to 2018.
None of this should really be surprising to anyone who has been following his career as governor. This isn’t the first time information has been suppressed, inconvenient facts ignored, and everything spun to make Cuomo look good.
He has weathered previous scandals, such as when the Moreland Commission investigation into corruption in the state began to come a little too close to him and his allies —so he shut it down. It’s not that New York’s government does not lack for corruption: just ask Dean Skelos, Sheldon Silver, or Joe Bruno. It’s bipartisan, part of the pay to play culture of state politics — which come to think of it, isn’t exclusive to New York either.
Will more women come forward? Will there be more revelations about how Cuomo handled the pandemic? Stay tuned, because investigations are ongoing.
For more on this story:
The Democrat’s problem of Andrew Cuomo, Agonistes
BREAKING: Cuomo Emergency Powers Extended; “I feel terrible — I am sorry”— but won’t resign
IOKIYAR, but IACIYAD
It’s OK If You’re A Republican, but It’s A Crime If You’re A Democrat.
Whataboutism is deservedly ridiculed when it’s a transparent attempt to change the subject or charge someone with hypocrisy, but legitimate when a wrong is acknowledged and it is an honest attempt to place it in context. So...
There is of course the problem of the huge gulf between Democratic accountability and Republican accountability. No one in the GOP by rights should be allowed to express any opinion about Cuomo’s sexual misconduct. Their former guy serial adulterer and accused rapist is still the party’s leader, and the only crime they care about is disloyalty to him.
However egregious what Cuomo did playing games with the nursing home numbers, it pales in comparison with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who has systematically underreported case numbers, attacked people for trying to report them honestly, and is now distributing vaccines with blatant racism.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has pursued a policy of death through “freedom”.
Governor Greg Abbot of Texas and Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi have both lifted all pandemic restrictions in the name of ‘opening up the economy’. Abbott is attacking the Biden administration’s attempts to address immigration by blaming the spread of covid on immigrants flooding into Texas. Paul Krugman ponders the spectacle of Republicans who give “owning the libs” a higher priority than keeping people alive.
(Joy Reid at MSNBC has a scathing commentary on DeSantis and Abbott.)
There’s also Abbott seeking distraction from the total failure of Texas state government to cope with a disastrous freeze, collapse of the power grid, and the massive damage to water systems that followed.
If nothing else, the pandemic has made clear for those with eyes to see that there are two separate standards of justice, morals, whatever for Democrats and Republicans. The Republican Party is morally bankrupt and has been for years. The last four years just dragged it all the way into the open.
It has also made clear just how much denial is still going on in the media. (If you want chapter and verse, you really need to follow Eric Boehlert at Press Run Media. Think seriously about subscribing.) The Republican Party has become a right-wing authoritarian cult — but try to say so in a comment on a NY Times editorial and see if it gets published. Speaking of which...
Sara Robinson’s 2006 series at Dave Neiwert’s old hangout Orcinus begins “Cracks in the Wall, Part 1” with a description of authoritarian leaders and followers. Robinson’s piece is drawn from John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience. That book is based on the work of Professor Bob Altemeyer who summarized his research in The Authoritarians.
Both books should be mandatory reading for anyone involved in political journalism theses days, but Robinson’s article is an excellent quick summary of the personalities we’re dealing with. (Neiwert’s articles on Fascism and Right Wing extremism/eliminationism are also worth a look.)
When you see phrases like “The cruelty is the point” or “Shamelessness is their superpower”, Robinson’s definition of authoritarian personalities explains why these are features, not bugs in the conservative world these days for both leaders and their followers.
So in light of this, Andrew Cuomo’s transgressions need to be placed in perspective. To use a healthcare analogy in the time of a pandemic, Cuomo is the equivalent of a chronic and potentially serious infection, but one that is treatable. It can’t be ignored or excused, but it’s not immediately fatal. (Except perhaps for Cuomo’s political future.)
Against that, what is happening on the right is the equivalent of a metastatic cancer that has been developing for decades. It is life-threatening, and it will kill us all if we can’t get it under control. A complete cure is probably impossible, but we need to get it into remission and stay on constant guard against a recurrence IF we do manage to get it under control. Passing this would be good start.
Given how serious it is, it is no wonder that a lot of people are in denial about it. But hey — the real crisis is the gender issues of a vegetable toy and the cancel culture of a children’s author, right?
