The New York State Assembly waited till the last minute to announce their guests today in their show trial on COVID. Instead of bringing in Governor Cuomo or Health Commissioner Zucker or families who lost loved ones due to policies put in place by the state leadership, the State Assembly brought in leaders of elderly care facilities to use as scapegoats for the state’s outlandish and deadly policies.
At 10:00 am this morning the New York State (NYS) legislature convened its “Joint Public Hearing: Residential health care facilities and COVID-19 Upstate New York.” This was the second of two hearings attempting to uncover information about NYSDOH Commissioner Howard Zucker’s March 25 mandate, which forced untested, Covid-19 hospital patients into NY nursing homes, and to attempt to figure out why NYS has had a massive number of Covid-19 nursing home deaths, the largest in the country except for, now, NJ. The hearings were being live-streamed.
These hearings were tightly controlled by the Democratic-progressive majority of the NYS legislature. Since November 2018, New York is a one-party controlled state. There were no fewer than six committees involved in the hearings: Senate & Assembly Health, Senate & Assembly Aging, Senate Standing Committee on Investigations & Government Operations and the Assembly Standing Committee on Oversight, Analysis & Investigation.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Health commissioner, Howard Zucker, who is also a Democrat, issued the horrific and now-infamous March 25 edict forcing an astounding 6,326 untested Covid-19 hospital patients into New York’s nursing homes, resulting in thousands of senior citizen deaths and – according to the reliable Committee to Unleash Prosperity’s open source research database, which includes Covid-19 hospital deaths in its stats as all states except NY do – more than likely an estimated 13,212 NY senior citizens died from this policy, if not more. (According to Worldometers Covid-19 database Cuomo’s New York currently stands at having the highest Covid-19 death count of all U.S. states, with 32,840 deaths.)
At last week’s initial hearing covering downstate nursing homes and held on August 3, New York State Senator Thomas F. O’Mara (R,C,IP), representing NY’s 58th Senate District in the rural Finger Lakes area of central New York and also the ranking member of the Senate’s Investigations and Government Operations Committee, made sure the public knew that the Republicans had no subpoena power nor ability to call witnesses for these hearings. During his allotted five minutes at the very end of the hearings O’Mara noted “that the witness list for today, we received about this time last night. Not much fairness there.” He made it clear that both Cuomo and Zucker were not held accountable at these almost eleven-hour hearings and demanded that the Democrats “recall Zucker to be a witness at the next round of this hearing on August 10th.”
But the New York Democrats who operate best in secrecy, had no press release about today’s hearing at either the Senate or the Assembly websites and it wasn’t until almost 9:30 am this morning that the Assembly finally posted the agenda, leaving off, however, the submitted written testimony of three individuals.
It is implausible that both the Senate and Assembly only received three written statements for today’s hearings, when last week there were twenty-six uploaded to the Senate’s website.
The agenda shows the Democratic majority decided to lead off these critical Covid-19 nursing homes hearings, not with a panel of family members who were harmed by Zucker’s March 25 order, but with a panel of hospital and nursing home industry lobbyists and trade organizations. Clearly the July 15 demand of the Senate Republican Conference that the Democratic Senate Majority compel testimony, via subpoena, from Governor Andrew Cuomo, Commissioner Howard Zucker, recently retired DOH nursing home director Mark Kissinger, and others with knowledge of Zucker’s March 25 edict, was ignored. Neither Cuomo, Zucker nor Mark Kissinger were listed on today’s agenda.
New Yorker families appear to be, yet again, being denied explanations and accountability for the COVID-19 deaths of their family members in New York’s nursing homes. These deaths are due not only to Zucker’s shocking March 25 edict, but to the absolute mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis – made crystal clear to these NY families – by New York’s Governor Cuomo.
Janice Dean from FOX News, who lost both her parents in law in this crisis due to Cuomo and Zucker’s policies was prepared to speak but was not invited:
Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean says she was cut from testifying at New York’s hearings regarding coronavirus in nursing homes and called it “a complete sham” on Monday, August 10th.
Both of Dean’s in-laws died from coronavirus at nursing homes amid revelations that the state ordered homes to accept patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. Dean has openly condemned Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order, which was rescinded May 11.
The Federal government should step in and investigate. The policies of Cuomo and Zucker led to the death of thousands of elderly New Yorkers. This never should have happened.
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