Is Cuomo in trouble?
You may have noticed that I haven’t written many posts about the brouhaha surrounding Governor Cuomo of New York and the nursing homes. There are so many stories these days that I can’t deal with them all, and that particular one interests me less than a lot of others because it seems to me that the right has known about Cuomo for quite some time.
The only new thing is that the Democrats have now turned on him, at least somewhat, perhaps for things like this. Then again, I doubt such threats are new behavior for Cuomo.
For some reason, the left has decided he’s expendable – or rather, that it makes sense to allow him to get into a bit of trouble at the moment. Is this a “now it can be told” phenomenon, because Trump is safely out of office? Or is there more to it? Has Cuomo made a lot of enemies in the Democratic Party?
At any rate, Cuomo is now under official investigation for his behavior re COVID and nursing homes.
Being investigated by the FBI must be leaving him shaking in his boots. NOT!
Of course this could be an effort by Harris to take him out for President in 2024.
If this was inspired by Harris’ handlers, there is a possibility that it could backfire.
If Cuomo can control what the “investigators” conclude, they might end up “proving” that his actions saved tens of thousands of lives.
Maybe the “investigation” is for the purpose of clearing Cuomo’s name while leaving just enough stink to knock Cuomo out of presidential contention for 2024, if his white maleness does not suffice. Are we cynics around here, or what?
‘Is Cuomo in trouble?’
No.
I read some (baseless?) speculation that Dems are already preparing the ground for Biden* to leave and Horizontal Harris to ascend, then appoint a new VP.
The speculation is that some Powers That Be want to be sure Cuomo isn’t in the running for that VP slot.
I’ll believe Cuomo’s in trouble when I see indictments.
I came to see the replies and I wholeheartedly agree with all of them that he will not suffer except that he will not be able to go Presidential. This is a warning shot to him to pull in his aspirations but the Dems will find great use for his bullying, vindictive nature.
What everyone else said. No way he’s leaving governorship; at worse no national office. More kabuki theater.
Looking back at past cases of this nature Cuomo has nothing “legal” to worry about. Now if was a Repub … maybe.
Most people aren’t sociopaths. There are people in the media and especially New York politics who knew what Cuomo was doing, but they deliberately chose to look the other way/not speak up because #OrangeManBad. Now they’re trying to convince themselves they’re not horrible human beings by going after Cuomo.
Mike
Cuomo is not in any trouble at all.
At worst he will get a slap on the wrist and 8 years from now, when he runs for president, it will all be forgotten.
You can hear it now what he will say; “time to move on,” etc.
Democrats are immune from criticism , from the law, from anything at all.
That should be obvious to all.
Democrats–aka leftists, Marxists, socialists– have a long sad story of killing more than 100 million in their progressive pursuit of perfection.
Stalin, 50 million+
Mao, 50 to 100 million, and the march continues
Cuomo, a mere 10-15,000.
Cuomo is a mass murderer, he knowingly and with full intent created the conditions that led to those thousands of unnecessary deaths.
But there is a profound political problem with a genuine and thourough investigation, which would inevitably result in an indictment of Cuomo.
Seven other democrat Governors are in that boat with Cuomo.
Which is why I conclude that Cuomo will be ‘exonerated’. Yet damaged enough that his Presidential ambitions will be derailed.
Of the various candidates for Harris’ VP pick, I’d guess that Pelosi’s nephew Gov. Newsome has the best shot.
The elite invariably devolve into semi-incestuous relationships, it being a necessary dynamic to retaining power.
Cicero,
Not to quibble but that’s “a long, monstrous story”…
Dems are already preparing the ground for Biden* to leave and Horizontal Harris to ascend, then appoint a new VP.
The speculation is that some Powers That Be want to be sure Cuomo isn’t in the running for that VP slot.
That sounds like the best explanation to me.
Geoffrey Britain:
I think Cuomo is guilty of gross negligence and careless disregard for life, but not murder.
“Dems are already preparing the ground for Biden* to leave and Horizontal Harris to ascend, then appoint a new VP.
The speculation is that some Powers That Be want to be sure Cuomo isn’t in the running for that VP slot.”
If this happens the one to watch is whoever is appointed. That will be who the Dem powers want as President. Ever since Ford got in the Dems have seen this type of shuffle as a way to get anyone into the presidency. But of course they may be perfectly happy with Harris, another completely unelectable President.
Boys and Girls, Cuomo is the 2020’s Teddy Kennedy. The Dems will protect and cover for him until the heat is off.
“Too Early to Say” as Zhou Enlai supposedly answered when asked about significance of the French Revolution.
FWIW, he’s not a Jew(*) and his own ethnic vote bank ‘tribe’ is headed for demographic death/swamping. AOC knocked out some ‘Legacy American’ Irish placeholder, why shouldn’t a jumped up Italian get the treatment since they’re on a roll?
Meta-analysis aside, he’s an obnoxious evil bag of excrement and if he gets rolled, well it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
(*) On the day that that awful Preet Bharara attack golem stabs his master Chuck Schumer in the back, I’ll raise a glass of Kingfisher Beer to the approaching Ragnarok. It’ll probably happen in the end. Those high caste subcontinentals are (shall we say) Peer Level Competitors in the Game of Thrones.
^^ Half-hearted apologies if my tone rattles sensibilities. But understand well… most of you get that everything today is Political (alas, it should not be!) But grok too, O People that everything in politics is now Ethnic. That also ought not be. But it is, and I sure as hell didn’t make it so. But it is.
Any attempt to discuss political developments without considering (a) ethnic angles and (b) Oligarchy/Managerialists vs. Middle Class Whites is ignoring most of the forces in play.
Zaphod, I admit I don’t always see things your way where the ethnic dimension is concerned, but since this is New York we’re talking about, it surely is a factor where Cuomo is concerned. Particularly since he’s basically a NYC pol, and such things matter a lot in that zone. If Cuomo’s base had been in Upstate from early on, things might be different (depending on where – I suspect Utica politics may be a little more ethnically driven than, say, Broome County, but that’s just me speculating).
I wonder what the governor thinks about residing in this backwater of “Smallbany,” especially after all this time. I don’t follow all of his doings; I assume he must spend some amount of time in the big city, but I wonder if on some level he feels a bit weary of being up here in the sticks. My suspicion is that this will all amount to essentially a brush-back pitch and he’ll be allowed to continue being Governor-for-Life if he wants, maybe with a few minor strings attached – his presidential ambitions kneecapped, perhaps even his emergency powers taken away, but that’s about it. But I’d be happy to be wrong. How much of a factor is AG James in all of this? I don’t know. Something, probably, but I haven’t studied her and have no plans to begin doing so.
I feel as if I should have something more intelligent to offer on all of this, since I live a twenty-minute drive from the man’s official residence. I’m sorry.
@Philip Sells:
I’m willing to be convinced that there’s more at work than Tribalism. Still, I believe it is becoming more and more a factor everywhere as our societies regress.
You may well be correct that he’ll get to linger on upstate post kneecapping. I’m a broad-stroke opiner (to put positive spin on it) and you clearly have more local knowledge.
I wouldn’t apologize for not being inclined to wallow in the mire attempting to understand the finer points of these critters’ motivations. Not doing so must redound to your credit!
Zaphod you posted:
“FWIW, he’s not a Jew”
What does that have to do with any of this?
@Mattsky:
Noticed a major concerted sniping campaign aimed at taking down NY Uber Boss Chuck Schumer lately?
Thought not.
Cuomo, distasteful as he is, belongs to Yesterday’s People in the Ethnic Game of Thrones. Are you here to tell me that Chuck and his Wall Street Backers are feeling persecuted and precarious in the Current Year? It is to laugh.
Mind you, given sufficient time, they’ll be up against the Brahmins and the AOC hordes… harder nuts to crack than Legacy Whitey.
Let’s deal in facts on the ground and can the Anti-Semitism stuff.. I’m obnoxious and blunt sure, but I’m not a Jew Hater.
Zaphod I haven’t noticed a major concerted sniping campaign aimed at taking down Kirsten Gillibrand, Sean Maloney or Bill de Blasio either.
What are the facts on the ground? So far you have only provided a Jewish cabal conspiracy theory with a denial of it being Anti-Semitism.
Zaphod reminds me of that JHS kid who lights a bag of shit on fire, leaves it on the front step then rings the doorbell and runs away.
neo,
“I think Cuomo is guilty of gross negligence and careless disregard for life, but not murder.”
No offense but “that dog don’t hunt”. This is most definitely not a case of “guilty of gross negligence and careless disregard for life”. Because Cuomo’s actions, after initially issuing his order, render that explanation invalid.
When Cuomo first issued his directive that hospitalized infected Covid-19 recovering patients who were still infectious were to be moved to nursing homes, it was reported that several nursing home directors made repeated phone calls and sent repeated emails to the New York State Health Department Director, protesting and informing him that they were not prepared and hadn’t the means to protect the nursing home patients currently residing in their facilities. Stating that infectious patients would inevitably infect the patients already in their facility.
In response, Cuomo reiterated his order through his Health Dept. Director. The nursing home directors once again protested and in a follow-up response, Cuomo is reported to have personally threatened to revoke the nursing home license of any facility that refused to take the released patients.
After being informed of the nursing home director’s grave concerns, Cuomo had to know that the result of his order would be that previously uninfected elderly would die.
That, by any standard is complicity in premeditated murder.
And Cuomo had alternative facilties; an Army Hospital and the Navy Hospital Ship to which to send the released but still infectious patients. He sent not one.
In a circumstance of mass murder, it isn’t necessary to be singling out individuals. That is a principle established in the Nuremburg trials.
The man is a monster and in crossing the line from depraved indifference to life became a mass murderer.
Geoffrey Britain:
You’re assuming a lot there. You’re assuming he knew they were right. I think he’s such an arrogant SOB that he thought he was right and that he couldn’t give up the notion that he was right. I detest Cuomo and have no trouble believing he threw his weight around and threatened people, but I have no reason to believe he’s a cold-blooded murderer.
What was his motive? The reason given at the time – which may have been an excuse, or may have been what they actually thought – was that they had to keep hospital beds free. The decision later to keep doing it was I believe his deep and abiding narcissism and unwillingness to reverse course because that would be an admission of error and used against him politically, and maybe he also couldn’t even admit to himself that he’d been in error. And then of course lying about the numbers had the same purpose – CYA.
If only for the sake of his own political ambitions, I doubt Cuomo would want to murder thousands of elderly people.
Planned Parent/hood is forward-looking.
The mob needs someone to behead.
Their anger has been encouraged and nourished by the Democrats and the media for so long now and with such blatant dishonesty that they will ALWAYS have to find someone to blame.
“OrangeManBand”, as MBunge explained above, was invaluable for a long time and was expected to provide huge dividends, covering EVERY contingency (as Cuomo’s pathetic recent blaming of DJT for Cuomo’s own decisions demonstrates). The blame was always supposed to work. ALWAYS. (Like Obama blaming his predecessor for everything; like the Palestinians blaming the Israelis for everything…)
And work it did. Like a charm. Which is why the Democrats have to keep Trump on the front burner. Forever! (Which is why DC will have to remain an armed camp for the foreseeable future. Because…TRUMP.)
Nonetheless, “IT’s ALL TRUMP’S FAULT” may prove to have a shorter shelf than the Democrats anticipated. Or fervently desire.
And—of course—to deflect attention from their own atrociousness, their own failures, their own lawlessness and thuggish behavior, they will continue to blame and denigrate their opponents, real or imagine…as Cuomo’s brother’s recent attack on Ted Cruz demonstrates so clearly. So pathetically. So disgustingly.
It’s their nature and it’s to be expected.
We are living, unfortunately, in evil times.
The squashing extends to family, as per usual in The Family.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/02/18/cnn-says-it-reinstated-a-ban-on-chris-cuomo-covering-his-brother-gov-cuomo/
neo,
I’m not assuming, I’m drawing an inescapable conclusion from the evidence and the man’s statement and actions.
What basis was there for him to decide that he knew more than medical experts? Common sense alone tells us that his Health Dept. Director had to have informed him that the nursing home directors had valid concerns. To dismiss that is to play God and given that thousands of lives were at stake, depraved indifference rose to the level of mass murder.
His political ambitions were his motive. The more people who died from the Covid virus, the more blame to heap upon Trump.
A man like Cuomo could never be satisfied with just a governorship, that man lusts to be President. And as Governor of NY had to have felt that, when the time was right he had a real shot at it but only once Trump was out of the picture.
Keeping the hospital beds free and being forced to send those recovering but still infectious patients to nursing homes would have made sense, if he had no alternatives.
But he did have alternatives, he had an Army hospital and a Navy hospital ship. Other than to make Trump look as bad as possible, there simply was no valid reason for him to send those elderly people to the nursing homes. His March 24th statement that, “They’re old, they’re going to die anyway” reveals just how unconcerned Cuomo was in sending grandma and grandpa to an early death.
I agree that its quite plausible that “his deep and abiding narcissism and unwillingness to reverse course because that would be an admission of error” was his motivation for his reusal to reverse course.
Since when does someone’s motivation for engaging in mass murder matter? All that legally counts is what happened, where responsibility lies and whether it would be obvious that the consequential results of that order would clearly and necessarily result in mass deaths. As it was obvious, it was made with intention with aforethought with premeditation.
But you know, they were old and grandpa and grandma were going to die anyway…
Geoffrey Britain:
Your conclusion is far from “inescapable.” It is quite easy to escape, as I explained. The only time anyone would be subject to a murder conviction in any situation even remotely analogous would be if the person did something like injecting someone with some invariably fatal virus (ebola, let’s say) that then killed them.
On the other hand, Cuomo might be criminally liable for obstruction of justice for hiding the number of deaths.
Neo. Can Cuomo be liable for obstruction if there were no investigation going on? Putting out bogus numbers at press conferences does not count, does it? Was there some avenue of “official” information to, say, the feds whose numbers were legally presumed to be accurate?
I don’t know what common sense has to do with politics. Is the NY state health director a politician? Why would he/she inform Cuomo of information contradicting what Cuomo wants to do? Or argue about it if Cuomo has been reliably informed?
Cuomo is a corrupt, incompetent thug who looks more like a Mafia hit man than deNiro, but he’s a democrat. How can he fail of re-election in NY? Or, for that matter, get into trouble over this?
The threat to the nursing home directors seems more likely to indicate intent.
“Seven other democrat governors are in that boat with Cuomo”- Geoffrey Britain
That would include Whitmer here in Michigan. So far she’s pretty much been given a pass by the press, but that could change if Cuomo is indicted. It would then make it more difficult for them to ignore Whitmer and the others. Let’s see what happens, could get interesting…
Wait a second. We know that Cuomo knew he had a potential problem with sending COVID positive patients back into nursing home because he INSERTED protection into the state budget protecting “corporate officials who run New York hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities from liability for Covid-related deaths and injuries.”
From this:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/andrew-cuomo-nursing-home-execs-immunity
I’ve been following this story pretty closely. Even my far left new assembly rep from Ithaca (Ivy League college town) has come out in favor of removing his emergency powers because of the investigation into the nursing home deaths.
I don’t know why the Feds have decided to go after Cuomo now, but it does seem that he is in trouble. I think it has to do with the factions dividing the Democrat party, which were outlined beautifully in that Tablet article The Thirty Tyrants.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-thirty-tyrants
To me, this is more of a signal about the Clintons’ waning power in the party apparatus. Everyone aligned with them will be sidelined.
I don’t know if there’s any truth to it but as for motive, I’ve heard that Medicaid’s block grant distribution means that the money isn’t based on enrollment… so if you have 1 or 100 people on Medicaid, your allotment is the same. As I understand it, any costs above the amount of the grant have to be paid for by the state (or they have to make it harder to be eligible for Medicaid to keep costs down, which is a political landmine for dems so I doubt that was an option). Since being dead makes you ineligible for Medicaid, killing off nursing home patients may have been a way to keep spending within (or closer to) the amount of the block grant and free up any state money that had previously been used to cover block grant overages.
It is gruesome calculus, if true.
Is he in trouble? Does the Left do shame on its own?
They will do the investigation and find Cuomo violated all kinds of stuff.
Then the FBI/DOJ or whoever is doing this investigation will do the semantic dance … and end the investigation that NO reasonable prosecutor will bring this case!
And I’ll give odds if anyone wants to bet?
OT: in other state government news, Michael Madigan resigning from IL state legislature?! Interesting. I had figured he would die first. (His district is just a skip and a hop from where I spent some time growing up.)
I am curious as to what violation of law the FBI might be investigating. Some procedural rules on federal reporting? Pretty small beer, compared to the actual outcome of Cuomo’s disastrous decision to require contagious patients to be placed in closed environments with uninfected others. Is that a violation of law? I get that it’s a violation of best medical practice, and of common sense, for a respiratory virus. Sometimes people make grossly immoral decisions which are not criminal matters.
Isn’t civil liability Cuomo’s larger exposure?
Now that could get interesting. Class action lawsuit brought by relatives of all those that died.
“Their anger has been encouraged and nourished by the Democrats and the media for so long now and with such blatant dishonesty that they will ALWAYS have to find someone to blame.”
Don’t leave their newfound NeverTrump friends out of the equation. Take a spin around Conservative, Inc. and see how many blue checks decided to crap on Rush Limbaugh as soon as he was dead. For example…
David French
@DavidAFrench
·
1h
Rush Limbaugh shaped and mirrored his generation–the angriest conservative generation. Ideas took a back seat to opposition. Ideology is malleable. The confrontation is mandatory. That’s the migration Rush made. That’s the migration millions made.
https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1362797199508316161
Mike
Off topic (and, hopefully, not annoying),
neo, would you consider doing a daily, open thread? Instapundit and Ace do this, and I’m sure other blogs do also. When I ran threedonia.com we did it, and got a lot out of it. Ace usually just posts his with no additional material, Instapundit usually includes a song lyric. At threedonia we’d headline the thread with a famous work of art or movie poster.
I assume you’re familiar with the concept. And the great thing is, you can schedule them in advance with WordPress. What you get out of it is an easy, free post that often generates many comments. Also, it can afford you some down time when you are working on other posts, or, simply, just don’t feel like writing a post(s). I’ve noticed you tend to post in afternoon and evening. A good approach may be to schedule a daily open thread for 8am each day (or 7, or 9…). At threedonia we’d do them weeks in advance. Take maybe twenty minutes and schedule a fortnight’s worth, then you’re done for awhile. Sometimes we’d have a month, or more, in the queue. It’s satisfying to see that schedule queue and know you have at least one post for each day into the future. And, they are often the posts that garner the most comments.
The way it works is that it is open for commenters to discuss whatever they want. You probably already see the benefits. You’ll find commenters will often write great posts in the comments on their own, which will spur debate, and comments (and clicks and eyeballs). It also gives commenters an opportunity to “chat” more casually. At threedonia we eventually had commenters who (through open threads) knew each others’ birthdays, would consul one another when facing difficulties, etc… And, it wasn’t unusual that we, the proprietors, would get an idea for a new post based on chatter we read from commenters in our open threads. The commenters benefitted from having an open forum where they could express themselves without the restrictions of a post topic and we benefitted from getting increased traffic and a much needed break from having to continually keep fresh posts up to keep commenters engaged, along with having a source of post ideas that we could mine.
We liked to include an image with ours (as I wrote, a work of art or a movie poster) (poetry and/or images from ballet and/or famous quotes seems like a natural for you). Initially we would do this to spur conversation or highlight a holiday. We found the commenters did not need any encouragement, and they rarely used the image in their discussions, but we kept doing it just because it was fun for us. Glenn Reynolds seems to do the same thing with song lyrics, purely for his own enjoyment, but I notice the lyrics he chooses often have some association to a current topic. Like us at threedonia, I think he just adds that for his own amusement.
(I’ll probably add this comment to your next, new post, in hopes you see it. Sorry if this is annoying!)
Rufus T. Firefly …
Put this in her email link. neo is good about answering there.
If only for the sake of his own political ambitions, I doubt Cuomo would want to murder thousands of elderly people.
How about manslaughter ? Negligent homicide ? Murder may be a stretch for 1st or 2nd degree but he is criminal. I doubt anyone would care except the VP theory sounds good to me.
Biden has now fired the State Attorney who is after Madigan so the D Mafia is still strong. Cuomo just got crossways with them.
Murder, no. Gross negligence, yes.
MBunge, that David French quote shows how far gone these people are. Rush always focused on ideas. It’s Never Trump who couldn’t get over personality.
Mike K:
See this.
It’s something he theoretically could be guilty of, but I don’t think he ever will be charged with that. Also, I actually doubt that he would be found guilty if charged with any form of homicide, even through negligence, nor do I think he should be found guilty of it. The connection between their deaths and his action is too tenuous in the legal sense.
I don’t think he’ll be tried for anything at all. But I think a case could probably be made for obstruction of justice on his part, through the coverup of the statistics.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Sounds like a good idea.
Richard Aubrey:
I think the disparity in nursing home death figures was revealed by the NY AG in a conference call of some sort, and the context was that it was done because they either were afraid of an investigation or there actually was an ongoing investigation or request by the DOJ.
See this.
exhibit a)
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2020/05/22/jaccuse/
exhibit b) melissa derosa’s mother in law, is the us atty for the sdny,
No, he is not.
The New York voters were stupid enough to put him in office thrice, and they’d do it again.
With much contempt for them, and bitterness that American tax dollars are wasted on people that put that monster that spurned medical aid in the form of a hospital ship and testing clinic early in the pandemic instead of spending it on the rest of us that have less media fawning,
Cappy.
Since Obama became president, I feel like I’ve become a Kremlin watcher in my own country. Events and media coverage are driven by politics, not by quaint notions of Truth, Justice and the American Way — Superman’s old catchphrase.
So we can’t know if Cuomo is truly in trouble or why, except that it’s mostly driven by politics, not by concern for those unfortunates who died in the nursing homes.
If Democrats wanted to keep the business ignored, I imagine they could. They don’t seem to, not unaminously, so we ask, as neo basically does, “Cui bono?”
Huxley,
I said the same thing to my husband not an hour ago.
They’ll be airbrushing Cuomo out of photos next.