By Josue Monroy
Ron Kim, the New York legislator that was allegedly threatened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a phone call after the fallout from the nursing home deaths scandal, has called for Cuomo’s impeachment.
Kim penned an op-ed in Newsweek earlier this week in which he chastised the embattled governor for his intimidation tactics and abusive administrative culture, calling them “Cuomo’s Predatory Inclusion Syndrome.” He also made reference to the more than 15,000 nursing home patients that have died under Cuomo’s watch.
“It is time to be brave, to hold him accountable, to investigate his cover-up of nursing home information. It is time to undo the bad policies that led to unnecessary deaths. And it is time to start the impeachment process,” proclaimed Kim.
In an interview with the hosts of the Youtube political talk show “Rising,” Kim, a Democratic state assemblymember, stated that he had been looking into Gov. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, for the past ten months in relation to the governor’s order in late March of last year forcing nursing homes to take in coronavirus patients throughout the state.
“The governor issued a mandate that sent 9,000 COVID patients back to nursing homes without being tested. That’s when I started getting involved, when I saw the impact of that on the ground,” said Kim in a video call.
Kim described the plight of family members of the nursing home patients being distressed by the looming threat of infections among the residents as infected individuals were housed with non-infected ones.
Around the same time, Kim alleges, Gov. Cuomo introduced language into a state budget bill that would give legal protections to nursing homes in the event of litigation taken against them in relation to COVID-19 practices.
“The governor gave a blanket legal and criminal immunity to some of the worst nursing home executives hidden in a toxic bill in the state budget last year,” stated Kim.
He continued: “I believe part of the reason that they suppressed the number of deaths and decoupled the data is to make sure that we didn’t have the tools to repeal the legal immunity.”
The incendiary accusations follow shocking admissions by Melissa Derosa, one of Gov. Cuomo’s top aides, that the administration withheld the real death numbers due to concerns involving an ongoing federal investigation. Kim alleges that this is directly linked to the immunity protections tied to last year’s state budget bill.
Last May, The Daily Poster published a story alleging that during the 2018 Democratic primaries, Cuomo’s campaign received more than $1 million from the Greater New York Hospital Association ( GNYHA), a lobbying group which represents a number of nursing homes in the state. The language added to the state budget has reflected the influence of these groups and their push for immunity during the pandemic, according to the article.
The passage in question grants immunity to any “health care facility administrator, executive, supervisor, board member, trustee or other person responsible for directing, supervising or managing a health care facility and its personnel or other individual in a comparable role” during the pandemic. At the time, this explicit protection was put forth by only two states, but has since been adopted at the federal level by Senate Republicans. Back In May, Kim led 14 assembly members in a push for legislation to repeal the protective language.
According to Kim, he and his colleagues produced multiple reports that supplemented their case against voting for the 2020 budget bill, even calling the controversial protective language a “license to kill.” Kim also said that he reached out to the United Nations when the media opted for fawning coverage of Cuomo’s COVID-19 response instead of following up on their allegations.
Referring to his current efforts seeking Cuomo’s impeachment, Kim argues that he is fighting for the “sanctity of the legislative bodies” in response to the governor’s attempt to subvert the state assembly.
“When he does something corrupt, he tries to rope you in, and then if you don’t, he’ll intimidate you and threaten your career if you do not comply with his requests,” said Kim on “Rising.”
He added: “We need to check this governor, because he’s out of control. His abusive behavior and his abuse of power, that alone needs to be checked. We have a constitutional duty when there’s willful, corrupt conduct, we’re obligated to pursue impeachment.”
Josué Monroy is a 4th year International Relations major at UC Davis. Hailing from Santa Cruz, CA, his interests include Latin American literature and politics, as well as playing music in his spare time.
Trump and Cuomo hated each other. Yet, who does one root for in the “who criminally f*cked up this Covid-19 thing the worst?” contest (relative to their level of power/influence of course) ? Wonderful to have a Democrat tearing Cuomo down and having the courage to take him on.
Wow. That’s quite a statement. I’ve known people like that, and they truly are the scum of the Earth and need to be taken down. Most people won’t stand up to them. Bravo for Kim.
I wonder what the media was doing instead? Oh, yeah, same thing they did for the last four years – there was no other story, no other item of importance except the one that began with a “T”. TDS was not only a mental illness (notice I’m defining it here), it blocked us from real news for four years and hid and gave cover to other evils that didn’t begin with a “T”.
By the way, do y’all watch “Rising” ? It’s one of the greatest news shows around. Hosted by a very level-headed liberal and a very smart fiscal conservative with moderate social views. They disagree, but don’t stomp each other down, just respectfully listen. Should be a model for society!