4 April 2021: Ethical Lapses, Silence, and Willful Blindness

Do the ends justify the means?

You know Governor Cuomo's situation is bad when his example is used as a benchmark for evaluating the poor performance of other public officials, as in this first opinion piece:

All it took during the Trump era to become a hero was do something snarky in opposition to Trump. You could be a complete failure at life, your profession or whatever – but hero status was within reach even for the biggest losers.

Take New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was botching his COVID response badly when he wasn’t, allegedly, sexually harassing female employees. He was deified by the anti-Trump media because his news conferences were the opposite of Trump’s.

Cuomo sent thousands to die in nursing homes and covered it up, but hey, screw Trump, am I right?

That's the full reference to Governor Cuomo's COVID nursing homes deaths scandal in an opinion piece that questions the performance of U.S. public health officials.

New York stays quiet with COVID-19 data for juvenile detention centers

This second report looks at Team Cuomo's "silence" in not reporting the extent of COVID infections among youths housed in state juvenile detention facilities.

According to data obtained by The Imprint, from March through September 2020 there were 26 coronavirus tests taken in juvenile lockups. At each of the two largest facilities, just one youth offender was tested during the six-month period when New York led the nation in infections and dozens of adult prisoners were dying.

The data released by the state reveals another surprising statistic: Although 67 staff came down with COVID-19, there was one lone confirmed case among the hundreds of detained youth — a girl held in the Harriet Tubman Residential Center in Sennett.

Unlike 27 other states, including California, Florida, Texas and New Jersey, New York has not publicly reported coronavirus data for its youth prisons. The now-dated March to September figures were sent to a reporter four months after a Freedom of Information Law request to the state’s Office of Children and Family Services.

It's a little early to tell if this might become another Cuomo administration scandal, but it bears the hallmarks of Team Cuomo's cover-up of the full extent of COVID nursing home resident deaths and a very similar scandal involving the administration's COVID policies for disabled group homes in New York.

Why Did Black Politicians Shamelessly Rally to Cuomo?

This last analysis piece by Margaret Kimberley of the Black Agenda Report explores the apparent willful blindness to Governor Cuomo's COVID nursing homes scandal on the part of "Black Politicians", who are accused of looking to cash in on the support they are providing to Governor Cuomo. Here's an excerpt that focuses on Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals:

“Cuomo contributed to the deaths of thousands of people.”

Not only did his feud get in the way of sound policy decisions but it was later revealed that Cuomo allowed COVID-19 infected patients to be sent to nursing homes , where they infected other patients and staff. Other states made the same decision but Cuomo also worked with the nursing home lobby to absolve them of legal liability. Cuomo also directed his staff to lie and claim there were 10,000 COVID related nursing home deaths when there were actually 15,000.

While editorials and other politicians call for Cuomo to resign there is one group that has been quite vocal in supporting him. Black politicians, clergy and so-called civil rights leaders have rallied to his side and disparaged any efforts to dislodge him or to face impeachment by the state legislature. They have deliberately emphasized the sexual harassment allegations and downplayed the issue of death and double dealing with nursing home and hospital lobbies. They know that many people are wary about judging issues of personal behavior so they downplay the serious issue of death and conflicts of interest which would be of greater concern if they were given attention.

Kimberley's analysis goes on to name names and to call out their hypocrisy in one of the most hard hitting pieces we've seen covering the political response to Governor Cuomo's scandals. Do read the whole thing!