Yeah, I’d like to see a cite for that too, but maybe as a one-shot, because I don’t want this thread derailed over Biden allegations.
These charges deserve a full investigation by an independent authority. It is hard to be against an investigation.
Then there are both legal and political steps that might be taken as the facts lead us. I am opposed generally to toss out an elected official, but sometimes that is the right thing to do.
That’s going to happen. I think the NYS AG is going to be appointing the independent person to run it.
Thank you.
For those trying to keep track of the accusers:
- Lindsey Boylan
- Charlotte Bennett
- Anna Ruch
- Ana Liss
- Karen Hinton
I think his lying about the COVID deaths is a bigger scandal than his sexual harassment, but either is probably grounds for his resignation, and both should disqualify him from another governor run.
Yeah, as was mentioned, with all the numbers of elected offices and bodies across the land, plus private sector boards and c-suites it is likely to happen very often… and it is something we must stop thinking we must just accept as “it is what it is”. It is time that kind of vision of how both public and corporate politics works was denormalized.
And BTW if Cuomo himself called Kim to make that threat, then he is being a monumental fool and that’s more evidence of leadership failure. Governors/Presidents don’t do that. They have personal and campaign staff or even better external (but known to speak for them) “fixers” to do that.
Like mentioned before, it probably does happen a whole lot at different scales. Just not from a Governor himself.
Conversely, actually political power structures are different than those in the workplace. Come to think of it, being an elected official does give you a better moral leg on which to push back since unlike an executive branch employee a State Assemblyman is NOT a subordinate of the Governor, but at the same time since it is a political position he is not legally protected from being driven out or sidelined out of personal antagonism.
(And please, Magiver, you know not everyone is in a position to dare management to come at them. Some people are in a weaker position and the bully will crush them.)
True: best case scenario, he loses whatever illusory presidentiabile status he may have had, but big deal, he makes it so that he finishes his elected career and moves on to set up his consultancy/lobbying office as a former governor with some lumps like every other.
Of course that depends on not discovering lumps that destroy him. and/or of his self-image being able to endure that everyone now knows his lumps.
The wolves are circling, both the NY Senate leader and House speaker (both Democrats) are calling on Cuomo to resign.
I expect he will try to spin it as his aides going rogue, and he is shocked, SHOCKED!!! that they did such a thing. I don’t think that will work but that is what I expect the strategy to be. And who knows, maybe it’ll work well enough for him to finish his term.
That worked for Christie.
Must confess there would be a certain ironic delight in seeing them both in the same boat.
Ah, New York/New Jersey, never a dull moment. Makes you long for the times it was about getting outed to your wife, or about $4K-a-trick escorts.
You’re asking for overly specific accusations. I said remarkably similar. Biden has been “credibly accused” of - off the top of my head - actual sexual assault of one woman, planting an unrequested “long slow kiss” to the head of another women, giving another woman a long hug with his hand on her thigh.
I can provide cites for this if necessary, but I assume you’re aware of all this but don’t consider Reade credible and don’t consider the rest “remarkably similar”. OK.
Regardless, my point remains that to the extent that these reflect negatively on Biden, they are not a major part of his public image due to the public having moved on. So too would be the case for Cuomo, if he manages to ride out the storm.
That might be the case if people didn’t already think of Cuomo as a bully and a jerk. Biden has this nice-guy aura that Cuomo definitely does not have.
I think you’re overly optimistic, here. Cuomo is accused of harassing people who work for him.
That tends to elicit a rather vehement disgust, at least in those who’ve had bosses who abused their power.
(And no: the accusations against Cuomo are not “remarkably similar” to those against Biden.)
Cuomo has been a bully and jerk for years. Politics is full of bullies and jerks. Amy Globuchar was revealed to be a bully and jerk and rode it out, and she’s doing fine now.
Yes, of course. And, if he hadn’t done these things, he would continue to be fine. And, if Amy Klobuchar sexually harassed her subordinates and lied about COVID deaths, she would also be in trouble.
My point was that if you’re a bully and a jerk, and you do bad things, you won’t find people out there defending you.
Did she force nursing homes to take covid patients and then lie about the number who died as a result of it?
As other have said up thread, the sexual harassment is important and will be investigated. However the nursing home deaths are horrendous.
I almost resent being put in the position of defending Andrew Cuomo. But this is kind of a misstatement of the actual controversial policy, which wasn’t a blanket policy of forcing nursing homes to admit COVID patients.
Here’s what it said:
During this global health emergency, all NHs must comply with the expedited receipt of residents
returning from hospitals to NHs. Residents are deemed appropriate for return to a NH upon a
determination by the hospital physician or designee that the resident is medically stable for return.
(Source).
The purpose of the directive was to prevent the discharge of patients from hospitals into the street. Many (perhaps most) nursing home patients require specialized care that is not available outside of the care facility environment. Many simply have no other home, and do not have families that can take them in (even without considering the need for specialized care).
The real scandal predates COVID (and continues today). Nursing homes are often understaffed, take many shortcuts in patient care, are under-regulated (for which Cuomo, as governor, bears some responsibility), and did not adequately put in place procedures to at least reduce COVID risk. Patient-to-staff ratios were (and are) terrible, low-paid staff were not trained or provided with protective equipment, staff turnover is astronomical, too many patients are crowded into facilities, and so on. This has been going on for decades in New York. The whole business is shockingly corrupt, and state regulators should be, well, I can’t say what I think should happen to them.
It’s easy to say that Cuomo’s directive was wrong.
But what was the alternative? Seriously, what’s the better idea? What should Cuomo have done?
And I say this as someone whose father is resident in a care facility and was diagnosed with COVID early last year.
All that said, Cuomo’s intentional obfuscation of the numbers is indefensible.
More:
While public health experts quibbled with the report’s self-serving claim that the governor’s policy wasn’t a factor in COVID-19 nursing home deaths, they nevertheless agreed with the report’s broader conclusion that nursing home staffers as well as visitors, before they were banned, were likely the main drivers of COVID-19 infection and death in nursing homes.
“Based on the timeline of the policy and deaths in the city, it is very unlikely that policy contributed to thousands of deaths,” said Shivakoti.
Infection control is a long-standing problem at nursing homes, Nash said, and the COVID deaths were a basic failure of infection control. That said, “it’s unclear how many of the deaths the policy might have caused.”
(Source)
This seems to be (based on intuition and experience – I’m not any kind of medical professional) about right.
In January, February and even March of last year, access to nursing homes was pretty much uncontrolled. I was able to visit my father any time I wanted, and did visit him at least once a week, as did another sibling and at least one other relative (and that relative turned out to have a household member who got COVID, although she herself was either uninfected or asymptomatic).
Staffers came and went every day, obviously, riding the subway to and from work, without the regular testing that is now in place.
There was no way COVID wasn’t going to get loose in the communal living environment of a nursing home. No way.
So, while I loathe Andrew Cuomo, and have since long before the pandemic, I’m not so quick to jump on him for this (as opposed to his falsification of the nursing home death toll).
Once again, I hate that I’m in the position of defending Cuomo. But most coverage of this supposed “scandal” that I’ve seen has been of the breathless Fox News variety.