Andrew Cuomo’s deadly lie
Pandemic causes lowest numbers since 2010
The people who hand out Emmy Awards should ask New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to return the one they gave him.
Cuomo received an Emmy for what they called his “masterful” COVID-19 press briefings. The media lauded those performances, extolling his honesty and transparency. It now turns out he was as honest as many other politicians and as transparent as a brick.
The New York Post, which increasingly practices journalism that should shame the major media, reported last week that a Cuomo aide, Melissa DeRosa, privately apologized to Democratic legislators for withholding the number of people who died in state nursing homes for fear that the real numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors.
Cuomo was once called “The King of New York” by The New Yorker magazine and similar fawning could be found in other media outlets before and during the early stages of the pandemic. Now it appears his kingship may be coming to an end. There have been calls for his resignation, even impeachment.
Adding to the pain already inflicted on family and friends of those who died because Cuomo had allowed — some critics say “forced” — many elderly people with COVID-19 into nursing homes, was the governor’s callous statement: “Who cares if they died in the nursing home or in the hospital? They died.”
Ah, such compassion from a member of a party that likes to style itself as compassionate.
Cuomo’s deplorable comment is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s statement about four American diplomats murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. She told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing: “Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans. What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Comments like these are what contribute to the cynicism many Americans have toward our leaders.
CNN, which employs Cuomo’s brother, Chris, didn’t appear to do much to look into nursing home deaths in New York or fact-check the governor’s claims. When Chris Cuomo had his brother on as a guest, the two often joked as if they were attending a family reunion. If shame has any meaning these days — and it doesn’t — CNN and Chris Cuomo should be repenting in sackcloth and ashes.
Among the few seeking the truth — other than the New York Post — was Fox meteorologist Janice Dean. Her parentsin-law died after being infected with the virus in a New York nursing home. In an essay for foxnews.com, Dean wrote: “We lost them both to COVID last spring as the virus ravaged their long-term care facilities. Their death warrant was signed as an executive order by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who put infected patients into the places where our most vulnerable resided.”
Dean added, “(Cuomo’s) executive order on March 25, 2020, allowed hospitals to transfer over 6,000 COVID positive seniors into their long-term care facilities ... at least 15,049 seniors have died after contracting COVID in their nursing homes. That’s an increase of more than 63 percent from what our governor and his health department were officially reporting.”
The last New York governor to be impeached and removed from office was William Sulzer in 1913 during the Tammany Hall scandals. He was convicted of misappropriating funds.
Covering up the number of deaths and arguably contributing to them is a far worse offense. The state legislature should begin impeachment proceedings and remove Gov. Cuomo from office.
“We’re going to win so much that you’re going to be sick and tired. You’re going to say, ‘Please, please, Mr. President, we’re sick and tired of winning.’ ”
When then-candidate Donald Trump spoke these words, he must have been referring to Democrats, because they have been the only ones winning since he was elected president. President Trump, while spending much of four years under investigation, lost the House, got impeached by Congress, lost Arizona, lost Georgia, lost a second term presidency, lost Congress again, lost the Senate, and still made time to get impeached again.
Surprisingly, this seems to be the blueprint of what the Republican Party wants to be. Republican senators acquit Donald Trump during his second impeachment hearing, and he is still clearly the leader of their party. Democrats should not be disappointed that Trump’s still in the political game. After all, I doubt Democrats are sick of winning, and with this republican formula, there is still far more winning to do.
Tim Bradley,
Saint Augustine
TALLAHASSEE — The COVID-19 pandemic ended a decade of record-setting tourism numbers in Florida, with the industry seeing a 34% drop in visitors in 2020 compared with the prior year.
The state tourism-marketing agency Visit Florida posted preliminary figures from the fourth quarter and for the full year late Monday, showing 86.714 million visitors to the state during 2020. That was the lowest annual total since 2010.
Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young said an estimated 20.625 million travelers in the fourth quarter “exceeded our expectations.” Still, the visitor count for the year might be reduced as figures are refined.
“Please note that due to the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on data used to produce visitor estimates, the numbers provided below are likely to face larger-than-normal revisions as new data become available,” the agency said in a note posted online with the tourism estimates.
But Young remained optimistic as the state continues to slowly expand marketing efforts across the nation.
“Many of Florida’s top origin markets were under stricter travel restrictions in Q4 than the previous quarter, but thanks to our advertising in the Southeast, visitation from those states remains strong,” Young said in a statement. “Visit Florida’s marketing has been integral to Florida’s economic recovery and will continue to propel our tourism industry forward in 2021.”
The state attracted a record 131.42 million tourists in 2019, the culmination of year-to-year growth since 2009 when
Florida had 80.879 million visitors.
The hospitality and leisure industries welcomed 82.315 million visitors in 2010 and 87.307 million in 2011. Since 2015, the state had drawn more than 100 million visitors a year.
The new estimates were released as the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee advanced a proposal (SB 778) that would eliminate a potential Oct. 1, 2023, repeal date for Visit Florida and allow the agency to carry forward unused money from budget year to budget year.
“No one is going to argue that tourism is not the largest industry in the state of Florida. We live by it or we will die by it,” said committee Chairman Ed Hooper, a Clearwater Republican and sponsor of the bill. “And whatever we can do to encourage not only the 22 million of us that travel intrastate, but 131 million who hopefully will come back and visit what we have to offer and spend their dollars here, cannot be overlooked. And we will not recover economically until that piece of that economy returns to near normalcy or normalcy.”
Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-North Miami Beach, questioned the state spending on the agency, noting with a “scarcity of dollars” it doesn’t make “good fiscal sense” to allow an agency to roll over unused dollars.
“I’m a fan of the idea of Visit Florida, but I think we can get a Super Bowl winning quarterback, probably for free, to make a lot of good pitches for the state of Florida as opposed to paying some people,” Pizzo said. “I need to see the real accounting and forensics on this.”
During the 2020 legislative session, House leaders repeated a push to end Visit Florida, questioning the effectiveness of spending for statewide marketing.
A compromise was reached with the Senate and Gov. Ron DeSantis as the pandemic took hold to extend Visit Florida’s operations for three years. The agency also received $50 million in state funding, the same amount DeSantis has requested for next fiscal year.
The House version of Hooper’s bill (HB 675) has not been assigned to committees.