WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  July 16, 2020

Topic category:  Breaking News!

Governor Cuomo's Abhorrent Nursing Home Order Beggars Belief


Note to brave and bold Janice Dean: If you have a suitable platform, please demand that Governor Cuomo produce any science and data that supposedly supported his executive order and if he does not produce any, please say "Have you no shame?"

Governor Cuomo's abhorrent nursing home order has been rescinded, but the persons who died as a result are still dead and their loved ones are still grieving.

One of the many is Janice Dean, a Canadian Meteorologist appearing on the Fox News Channel. She is a co-host and the weather anchor on Fox and Friends. She married Sean Newman, a New York City fireman, and they have two children whose paternal grandparents died prematurely because New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who repeated ad nauseum that he follows science and data, ordered New York nursing homes to admit persons who had tested positive for COVID-19.

To date, Governor Cuomo has not explained why he thought that it was safe to treat nursing homes as hospitals (assuming that he really thought that).

I am not a health care expert, but I have spent more than enough time visiting nursing homes to realize that putting persons with a dangerous transmissible disease in one is a threat to the residents and the staff there. It beggars belief that Governor Cuomo was so ignorant as to believe his nursing home policy was safe. Especially in light of Governor Cuomo's expressed concern for his own now elderly mother and devotion to science and data.

Unless Governor Cuomo is a secret member of the Flat Earth Society, his issuance of that finally rescinded order that caused so much grief to so many people (including Janice Dean and her family) beggars belief.

Anything that seems so strange as to require a previously held belief to be brought low can be said to "beggar belief." For example, the Flat Earth Society, as might be guessed, promotes the view that the earth is flat, like a pancake. Most people would agree that this view beggars belief - the belief in question that is "beggared," that is, reduced or impoverished, being the widely held view that the earth is spheroid, like a baseball.

Did Governor Cuomo simply make a mistake? Fox News' Brian Kilmeade seems to think so. But Governor Cuomo consults experts, even when he doesn't follow their advice. When advised to have New York State buy about 16,000 ventilators, he decided that none should be bought. But he did seek and consider expert advice before prioritizing other things.

Mediaite reports (www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-janice-dean-tears-into-andrew-cuomo-for-tone-deaf-comments-on-covid-response-shows-his-arrogance-and-indifference/):

"Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean has been incredibly vocal blasting New York governor Andrew Cuomo over failures in New York’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. Her husband’s parents both died from coronavirus in nursing homes.

"This week Cuomo unveiled a bizarre poster about the progress New York has made and joined Jimmy Fallon for a lighthearted interview.

"Dean appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Wednesday — guest-hosted by Brian Kilmeade — to express how disgusted she was by the way Cuomo has talked about the crisis this week.

“'It’s not funny. It’s tone-deaf. And it makes my heart hurt because we are still mourning our loved ones,' she said. 'And we think that part of the reason is because Governor Cuomo allowed over 6,000 covid recovering patients into nursing homes for 46 days straight.'

"Cuomo dismissed criticism in recent weeks when asked about the thousands of deaths in nursing homes.

“'He’s blamed everyone except himself,' Dean said. 'He’s blamed God, Fox News, the New York Post, Mother Nature, everyone except the person who signed the order for recovering patients to go into nursing homes and spread the the virus like wildfire.'

"'The one thing I will say, Brian, is that that poster is showing how egotistical he is,' she added. 'and that’s why it’s getting play on some of the channels in the mainstream media that were not covering this devastating order. So for that I am really glad of his arrogance and his indifference to people who have died because of his order.'"

Janice Dean said that she would have forgiven Governor Cuomo if he quickly acknowledged a "mistake."

Since Governor Cuomo's order remained in effect for 46 days, Governor Cuomo apparently did not consider it his mistake and therefore it is fair to ask whether it was his shameless political miscalculation masquerading as health care policy and calling it a health care policy mistake is a mistake.

God bless Janice Dean and her family. Hopefully, she will have the opportunity to testify at an upcoming hearing on the avoidable nursing home catastrophe in New York (and, curiously, other states with Democrat Governors).

Note to brave and bold Janice Dean: If you have a suitable platform, please demand that Governor Cuomo produce any science and data that supposedly supported his executive order and if he does not produce any, please say "Have you no shame?"

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


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