Governor Kathy's Clown's Word Police Squad

Reclaim The Net

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Wednesday tweeted that her office would come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with domestic terrorism.

As part of this plan, Hochul announced, the state would introduce more stringent gun laws, but also launch investigations into social media platforms that the governor says “promote” violent extremism.

This is happening in the wake of the Buffalo shooting, when 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who described himself as a white supremacist and has in the meanwhile pleaded not guilty to first degree murder, is charged with killing ten people in a racist massacre.

In comments cited by the New York Times, Hochul, a Democrat who is hoping to get reelected later this year, said that the state is now “doing something” in response to this type of crime.

In addition to making New York’s strict “red-flag” law on guns even tougher, the focus is on the internet, where Gendron is said to have been “radicalized.”

The governor’s executive order (obtained for you here, though note that the signed EO incorrectly lists the date of the shooting as being March 2022, instead of May 2022) instructs the State Police to establish a “dedicated unit within the New York State Intelligence Center (NYSIC) to track domestic extremism and increase social media monitoring at the Intelligence Center.”

“The unit will be responsible for developing investigative leads based on social media analyses focused on radical extremist activities motivated threats by identifying online locations and activities that facilitate radicalization and promote violent extremism,” it says.

Cuomo denies his own doctrine on nursing homes

 

Finger Lakes Daily News  

This is America's pandemic sweetheart talking here. 

"The premise of your question is factually wrong"

 "We never needed nursing home beds, we had hospital beds. We had extra beds at Javits. It just never happened that we needed a nursing home to take a COVID positive person. It just never happened."

 “I put my head on the pillow at night saying I saved lives, that’s how I sleep at night.”

Update:

"That is not quite true"

CNN

 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo argued that nursing homes "never needed" to accept Covid-positive patients from hospitals in the state.

During a press call Wednesday, Finger Lakes News Radio asked Cuomo about his administration's advisory in late March requiring that nursing homes accept the readmission of patients from hospitals, even if they were positive for Covid-19.

 

Cuomo argued that the advisory was a precaution if hospitals became overwhelmed -- calling it an "anticipatory rule" -- which he said didn't happen.

 

"We never needed nursing home beds because we always had hospital beds," Cuomo told Finger Lakes News. "So it just never happened in New York where we needed to say to a nursing home, 'We need you to take this person even though they're Covid-positive.' It never happened."

 

Facts First: Cuomo's assertion that "it never happened" is false. According to a report from the New York State Department of Health, "6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to [nursing home] facilities" following Cuomo's mandate that nursing homes accept the readmission of Covid-positive patients from hospitals. Whether or not this was "needed," it did in fact happen.

 

 On March 25, the state's Health Department issued an advisory requiring nursing homes to accept "the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals" if the patients were deemed medically stable.

"No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19," the advisory stated. "[Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."

The prototype for the nursing homes immunity law was made in New York and it's being disseminated to other states

TMI

In recent years, lawmakers have been caught stealthily copying and pasting identical corporate-friendly provisions into law in states across the country. It appears that is now happening again as politically connected hospital and nursing home executives seek to shield themselves from civil litigation and government prosecution during the COVID pandemic.

A review of New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina’s controversial new liability shield provisions shows that nearly identical immunity language benefiting nursing home and hospital executives was inserted into law by elected officials whose political apparatuses received significant campaign contributions from the nursing home and hospital industries.

The spread of the corporate immunity provisions — which appear to have originated in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration — comes amid a spate of coronavirus deaths that critics say was preventable and made worse by the liability shields. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is currently pushing a broader, national version of immunity for corporate executives.

"Our legislation was the ‎product of negotiations between the chamber and the legislature and while we always engage with stakeholders no one else wrote the final product -- which, again, was to help ensure we had the expanded health care apparatus needed to fight this pandemic,” said Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi. “I have no information about how other states may have adopted this publicly available language."  


To date, 19 states have enacted some form of immunity for the hospital and nursing home industries during the pandemic. In general, these new policies shield nurses, doctors and other frontline health care workers from liability when they are treating COVID patients. 

However, New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina go further: unlike other states, the identical language added to their laws explicitly define health care providers as including “a health care facility administrator, executive, supervisor, board member, trustee” or other corporate managers. 
That exact word-for-word clause appears in emergency legislation in all three states. In practice, it extends immunity to corporate officials who are not on the medical frontlines, but who are making life-and-death decisions across their companies.

“The new measures granting immunity to health care providers and professionals go well beyond protecting front-line workers from lawsuits -- many also provide immunity to administrators who make unreasonable and dangerous, even lethal, decisions,” said Syracuse University law professor Nina Kohn. “New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina take protection for corporate owners and executives to a whole new level by explicitly granting immunity to board members, trustees, and directors.” 

“This is extraordinary protection which is in no way in the public interest,” Kohn said. “These states are explicitly and unabashedly giving for-profit corporations and corporate executives the green light to make unreasonable decisions that put vulnerable people in imminent danger, and letting them know that they don’t have to worry about being held legally accountable for the avoidable human damage that results.”

New York stays shut down til a week into June

NY Post
 
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is quietly keeping his finger on New York’s “Pause” button — essentially extending stay-at-home and mask-wearing directives to June 7.

However, any of the state’s seven regions will still be able to phase in re-openings sooner if they meet a series of benchmarks.

Those benchmarks include a decline in hospitalizations and deaths, and a 30 percent vacancy rate in ICU and regular hospital beds as safeguard against a sudden spike in sicknesses.

“Yesterday’s Executive Order extended the underlying legal authority for the Emergency Order, but did not change the text of any of the directives in NY ON PAUSE and so the expiration date of May 15 still stands until further notice,’ the secretary to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said in a statement.

“At that time, new guidance will be issued for regions based on the metrics outlined by Governor Cuomo earlier this week.” 

But a state legal source told The Post that the new directives indeed extend the pause until June 6 or 7.

“The order specifically states it is extending dates for 30 days,” the source said. “It’s fair to conclude it extends the closures, which are directives.”

The ban on non-essential gatherings continues as the state’s coronavirus death toll exceeded 21,000 on Saturday.

Creditors are still harassing people over their debts despite the inability to pay during the pandemic

THE CITY

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has paused the collection of medical and student debt owed to New York State, ordered evictions halted and put a 90-day stay on mortgage payments and foreclosures for owners facing financial hardship.

But one key function of the legal system is chugging along unabated amid the coronavirus crisis: the collection of private debts through New York’s courts.

This week, as the governor ordered most court operations to stop, creditors of all kinds kept filing actions against people and businesses, court records show.

In New York County alone, the docket between Monday and Friday shows dozens of debt cases.

Among them: a debt buyer seeking a $35,826.73 judgment against a Manhattan man, a bank going after a $110,000 loan to a Little Italy pharmacy and a request to enforce a confession of judgment on a $96,247.56 cash advance to a Bronx medical case management group.

Sarah Ludwig, co-director of the New Economy Project, said her group has been flooded with calls to its legal hotline from New Yorkers getting hit with cases even as the city all but shuts down.

“Clearly, this is not the moment to be depriving people of their funds and subjecting them to a situation where their bank accounts are frozen,” she said.

Some of those she’s heard from “can’t get at their money to pay for food and medicine and all of the things we [all] desperately need to protect ourselves.”

The issue led her group to sign a letter with more than 60 other organizations — from racial and economic justice outfits to labor organizations to community activists — asking Cuomo and Chief Judge Janet DiFiore for an emergency moratorium on all debt collection in the state.

That would include an end to enforcement of judgments, a pause on all garnishments and levies, and stopping attorneys from serving debt collection orders.

We need an emergency moratorium on debt collection in NY!

Today, we sent this letter signed by 63 civil rights, racial/economic justice, labor, & community groups to @NYGovCuomo @NYSCourtsNews@SenKevinThomas + 16 more NYS Senators sent one too

We need action to protect NYers! pic.twitter.com/IHcwzI3zE3

— New Economy Project (@NewEconomyNYC) March 20, 2020

It takes a global pandemic to stop hyperdevelopment

6 SQ FT

 All city land use and rezoning processes have been temporarily suspended as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday. In an executive order, the mayor directed procedures “applicable to the city planning and land use processes” to freeze for the duration of New York’s state of emergency.

The city’s official public review process, or the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), involves months of evaluation of a proposed project from the community board, borough president, the City Planning Commission, the City Council, and the Mayor.

“To avoid the need to hold public gatherings and minimize the potential spread of COVID-19, Mayor Bill de Blasio has temporarily suspended New York City’s land use decision making processes,” Marisa Lago, the director of the Department of City Planning, said in a statement.

“The suspension of the City’s official public review process, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), was made via Executive Order. As of the issuance of this Executive Order, all City Planning Commission meetings, including public hearings and votes required as part of land use review processes, are suspended and the time periods for hearings and votes will not run.”

The Real Deal

Build, baby, build — but not in a pandemic.

Brooklyn City Council member Carlos Menchaca is calling for a moratorium on construction work citywide, in what would be one of the most significant industry-related disruptions since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

“I’m calling on the moratorium of all construction site work in NYC,” tweeted Menchaca, who represents District 38 including neighborhoods such as Sunset Park and Red Hook. “Again, we are putting workers in danger.”

His calls for suspension of all construction were echoed by Council member Brad Lander, who represents District 39 and is the Council’s deputy leader for policy.

“It is essential right now to build new hospital capacity,” Lander tweeted. “It is NOT essential right now to build new condos.”
 
New York’s Department of Buildings notified active construction sites this weekend to follow the latest guidance from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on the coronavirus, but as of Monday afternoon had not shut down the industry.

“We will continue to closely monitor the situation,” agency spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said in a statement, “and will issue further guidance to the industry as needed.”

Cuomo's infamous order to shelter doesn't actually do anything new

From the Daily News:

Cuomo inked the order on Sunday to remove homeless people from the streets and move them to shelters when the temperature is 32 degrees or lower. The mandate goes into effect Tuesday, when temperatures are expected to fall into the low 30s.

As homeless New Yorkers rebelled against the order and others questioned the legality of yanking people off the streets, Cuomo administration officials elaborated on the process, saying people would not be forced to leave the sidewalks.

“The executive order directs localities to conduct an assessment when necessary,” said the governor’s counsel, Alphonso David. The process involves outreach to let people know shelter beds are available and competency assessments in certain cases.

Living wage expanded

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to sign an executive order on Tuesday significantly expanding New York City’s living wage law, covering thousands of previously exempt workers and raising the hourly wage itself, to $13.13 from $11.90, for workers who do not receive benefits.

The change is also intended to frame a looming debate in Albany, where Mr. de Blasio hopes to win the authority to set the citywide minimum wage at the same amount. If Mr. de Blasio succeeds in matching the minimum wage to the living wage, all hourly workers in the city would earn more than $15 by 2019, according to the city’s projections.

The executive order will immediately cover employees of commercial tenants on projects that receive more than $1 million in city subsidies going forward. Workers who receive benefits such as health insurance will earn $11.50 an hour, compared with $10.30 before.

While cautioning that it was “notoriously difficult to develop projections related to economic development,” the administration estimated that about 18,000 workers would be covered over the next five years, roughly 70 percent of all the jobs at businesses that will receive new financial assistance from the city’s Economic Development Corporation.