Weekend Update & A Different Perspective on Andrew Cuomo's Troubles

The Weather Returns to Seasonal, Daylight Savings Time Springs Ahead Sunday, People Vaccinated Growing Rapidly & Has Raging Rupert Incited Another Rioting Mob?

March 12, 2021 / US Politics / NYC Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

This past week, we experienced a few enjoyable weather days this week, with temperatures in the 60's and 70's. But alas, all good things must come to an end, so starting tonight the temperature will fall back into the 30's and we'll return to seasonal weather for the next week or so.

Weather. The temperature high will be about 70 on Friday, returning to the 50's on Saturday and Sunday. The temperature lows will fall to the mid 30's tonight and Saturday and then fall to the mid 20's on Sunday night. No rain is in the forecast and the humidity will remain low at about 30% throughout the weekend. The wind will range from 10 - 18 mph on Friday, 5 - 10 mph Saturday and rise back up to 18 mph on Sunday.

Daylight Savings Time, where you 'spring ahead' by setting your clock ahead an hour ahead, begins early Sunday morning at 2 am. At present it gets light about 6 am, so following the change it will become light out around 7 am, and currently it gets dark around 6 pm, and following the change it will then get dark around 7 pm.

The number of New Yorkers and Americans vaccinated continues to grow quickly. As of this post some 65 million Americans or about 20% of the nation has received at least one shot. New York is staying abreast with the rest of the nation, with four million New Yorkers [state] having received at least one shot, which is 20% of the state population of about 20 million. New York City has vaccinted 1.8 million people which is also about 20% of the 8.4 million New York City residents.

And the pace of vaccinations continues to accelerate, because just this past week, in New York State over a million doses were administered. President Biden wants everyone to be eligible to receive the vaccine by early May, so that come Independence Day, we can celebrate together is a post pandemic normalcy. The nation's production of vaccine continues to grow, and the vaccine distribution / administration capability which is handled at the state and municipal level, appear to be in place to handle the growing demand.

Children are not among those eligible to be vaccinated. This is because most children do not appear to become severely ill. There are tests being conducted on vaccinating younger children ages 16 - 18, as well as some kids as young as 12, and plans are being discussed regarding vaccinating children 5 - 11.

Did Raging Rupert Murdoch's Mass Media Riot Machine Incite Another Mob by Distorting & Using #MeToo?

March 12, 2021 / US Politics / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

While watching the story of Governor Cuomo's troubles unfold, they triggered my 'spidey sense', or as it used to be called, my newsman's nose. In either case something smells rotten in NYS and as oftentimes is the case, it seems to be coming from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century & Newscorp - which includes the NY Post, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, his Harper Collins Publishing Company and possibly with an assist from Disney / ABC News where he has become the largest shareholder and where he seems to be making behind-the-scense personnel moves in the news division.

Even more than Trump, Rupert Murdoch is a trojan horse threat to our democracy. He has already turned both Australia and Britain into banana republics where he appears to change prime ministers at the drop of a hat and unfortunately most of the natives of those lands don't even seem to be aware that they're living in a mediacracy - which is a state controlled by one man's mass media holdings. Both Britain and Australia have been through at least four prime ministers within the past five years, because it seems Murdoch couldn't get exactly what he wanted on the first three tries.

Why do I think the stench is coming from Murdoch's 21st Century & Newscorp and not the Governor's mansion? Because Murdoch's gang of mendacious multi-millionaire minions too often seem not to give a damn about reporting the truth - but rather about distorting and even fictionalizing it to stoke the ratings busting fires of discontent - by attacking government officials who seem not to give Murdoch what he wants from them.

Murdoch's portfolio of wealthy teleprompter actors and actresses, seem to feign anger and outrage, in order to stoke the hyper ventillating audiences of reality contortionists Hannity, Ingraham, Pirro and Tucker into a ratings driven profit frenzy ... which the Australian born billionaire cashes in on, but also uses to brow beat those government officials who won't obey him and use our governmental apparatus to enhance Murdoch's wealth and power.

Earlier this year Murdoch's mass media appeared to help stoke the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol by feeding their audiences misinformation about the integrity of the election results and of the voting apparatus. Murdoch's mendacious minions did such a colossal job of disinforming the American public, that they are now the defendants in a $2.7 multi-BILLION dollar lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, one of the voting machine companies.

Murdoch appeared to fire Fox News host Lou Dobbs in order to pretend Fox News doesn't tolerate that sort of thing [disinforming their audience], just like they fired Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes - BUT only after years of reported sexual harassment transgressions when it became too big to ignore, and activists started boycotting Fox advertisers and the greedy 'little man' billionaire started losing money on them. Then came the "I didn't know" and yet another Murdoch inspired phony act of the most insincere contrition.

Remorseful Rupert Murdoch's quintessential phony act of contrition was performed in Britain in 2012, during the investigation into his company's [or ies'] phone hacking of ordinary British citizens for sadistic pleasure and profit. Murdoch's company reportedly hacked the phones of private citizens in order to sensationalize their personal trauma and tragedy on the front pages of Murdoch's British tabloids and TV outlets. Revealing the personal and private pain of private citizen(s) appeared to be great for Murdoch's newspaper sales, great for Rupert's TV ratings and great for rapacious Rupert Murdoch's insatiable appetite for ever more money. It was all part of his life-long, predatory power grab from the ignorant people who get their 'news' from his outlets, and make their voting decisions based on it.

So let's take a look at how the Cuomo story / stories unfolded, in search of truth - not ratings, and in search of a more behind-the-scenes account of things [also known as asking why] - not by partaking in a superficial, broadcast mass media induced, modern day virtual mob lynching, which is what appears to be happening as we speak. The virtual mob won't hang Cuomo's real life carcass like a Mussolini, but rather they will hang his reputation out to dry, based entirely on - as of yet - unsubstantiated allegations made in some cases by people who haven't even revealed themselves and to date have remained fully anonymous. The broadcast TV mass media induced mob will leave Cuomo for politically dead ... which appears exactly what the perennially angry, mean, old man - Rupert Keith Murdoch - wants. Assuming of course, that the actions and words of so many of Murdoch's apparently dishonest minions, represents his the 'Triump of the Will' or the Goebbels-like Media Fuhrer's wishes.

Step aside Atticus Finch - there's a new mindless mob in town - and it appears to be incited by the Australian born propagandist, Herr Rupert Murdoch, America's 21st century Goebbels.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report about Rupert Murdoch's mass media blitzkrieg assault on Governor Cuomo using Fox News weather teleprompter reader Janice Dean to lead a media coup d'etat by hyping and sensationalizing allegations and innuendo about NYS CoVid pandemic nursing home deaths.

Weekend Update & A Different Perspective on Andrew Cuomo's Troubles

The Weather Returns to Seasonal, Daylight Savings Time Springs Ahead Sunday, People Vaccinated Growing Rapidly & Has Raging Rupert Incited Another Rioting Mob?

March 12, 2021 / US Politics / NYC Neighborhoods / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC. Continued.

Herr Murdoch's Media Blitzkrieg Attacks on Cuomo Appear to be Succeeding

Are the Broadcast TV 'Newspeople' & NYS Pols being Manipulated by Murdoch's Mass Media Distortions?

Who's Really in Charge ... The Pols or the Billionaire who Controls an Outsize Share of our Nation's Media?

Rupert Murdoch, like Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany, is in charge of discrediting pols who won't give him what he wants, so that they lose elections, are removed from office and replaced by members of the 'Fox Nation' or in Goebbels' case - the Nazi Party. Unfortunately, for as long as Murdoch has been playing these manipulative tricks, far too many of the pols and TV teleprompter readers [aka newspeople] appear all too slow in catching on to his many manipulations. I suppose the good news is that some of the brighter reporters and news organizations, mostly found in the print media, and some of the pols, appear to be catching on.

In a review of the timeline of the 'Nursing Home Crisis', what seems Cuomo's biggest error, was an opportunistic grab for favorable publicity in his management of the CoVid statistics in New York State, by possibly Murdochizing the figures and then publishing a Murdochized book on it.

'The real' Rupert Murdoch appears envious, as he used his Harper Collins Publishing division to publish and promote another book by one of his Fox fakes the News hosts, Janice Dean, who used what seem her disingenous attacks on Cuomo, to launch the release of her own book indirectly related to the pandemic, as well as to announce her aspirations to run for NYS Governor in the 2022 election. She would make a perfect pet Governor for Murdoch, as she's been taking orders from him for 16 years, and in this manner he can have his way with our state and possibly our city politics - like he did in Australia following the promotion of another former Murdoch employee to the prime minister job.

The thing about Murdoch is that he and his people always seem to accuse others of things that they themselves are doing. Perhaps this is intended to deflect attention away from their own corrupt deceits. They accused Cuomo of capitalizing / commercializing what - at the time - seemed Cuomo's apparent success in managing the CoVid crisis. And yet Murdoch's Harper Collins Publishing division seemed to do the same with the publication, promotion and launch of Janice Dean's book, while simultaneously doing a soft launch of her candidacy for NYS Governor to replace Cuomo in 2022.

It seems that was just the beginning, as Murdoch's Fox, NY Post and Wall Street Journal supported Dean's attacks on Cuomo with a media blitzkrieg that has not let up ever since it began. This was shortly after the anarchist, democracy-destroying publisher wound down what appeared to be his last riot incitement on January 6, 2021.

Top Democratic Legislators Appear to Completely Ignore the 5th & 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution

Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kristen Gillebrand, Carolyn Maloney, Jerry Nadler & Carl Heastie have Shown all the Wisdom & Gravitas of Children

Mayor de Blasio has his Own Reasons for Pushing the Departure of Cuomo from the Governor's Mansion

Herr Rupert Murdoch's media blitzkrieg on Governor Cuomo has been so successful that even many of the hapless members of both bodies of our federal and state bicameral legislatures, as named above, have turned their back on the U.S. Constitution by ignoring both the philosophical wisdom embedded in it, as well as the following statutes included in the nation's founding documents which call for: 1) due process, as outlined in the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and 2) the presumption of innocence until PROVEN GUILTY and the right to face one's accusers, as outlined in the 6th Amendment.

It seems these top legislators are implying that the rule of law - and by association what they do for a living - doesn't matter. Why rely on laws that they and those who've gone before them have passed, when an Australian billionaire propagandist can 'get things done' by using his mass media to incite a mob to handily remove the Governor from office based on - as of this writing - completely unproven allegations - without due process? This angers me because it seems reminiscent of vigilante justice as practices in the century old lynchings / 'street justice' of the Old South, or like the 'due process' that the Trump Republicans appeared to attempt, when they stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try to swiftly 'correct' the 'election steal'.

Seriously, these are top leaders in our government, and during these tumultuous times, that this is how they respond to these - as of yet - unproven allegations is nothing short of a total embarrassment. Top leaders are supposed to be wise and thoughtful, and take a slow and measured approach to analyzing issues and solving problems. And yet the only place we've seen that kind of measured response thus far, with regard to Governor Cuomo's problems, has been by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris - both of whom have wisely declined to opine on the matter. I assume they're waiting for due process, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and respecting Cuomo's right to face his accusers.

How Murdoch Appears to have Incited Calls for Cuomo's Impeachment, While Promoting One of his Employees as 'the' Republican Candidate for Governor in 2022

Rupert Murdoch has at least a half century of using his mass media to manipulate voters' views of candidates in order to get those he favors, who seem to 'favor' him, elected. Oftentimes the public is the loser as he runs Australia like it's a colonial style banana republic, and most recently appears to have done the same in Britain, where he passed Brexit to lower his taxes and keep Downing Street [the British government] under his thumb. As mentioned above, he appears to have been instrumental in facilitating the musical chairs of their prime ministers almost annually. It seems Murdoch has rotated the prime ministers in each nation for the same reason [enrich & empower Rupert Murdoch], but for different reasons.

Australia as a Banana Republic & Rupert Murdoch as its Colonial Master

In Australia where Murdoch has a monopoly share of media, he appears to have been hellbent on reigning in Facebook and Google, in order to maintain his mediacracy there. Murdoch appears to have spent decades unwinding Australia's media ownership laws, so that he - now a foreigner - can continue to rule the nation via prime minister surrogates. He appears to have manipulated the Australian government, through the prime ministers he promoted, to force Facebook and Google to pay him fees for featuring snippets of his companies' content. Google relented and started making payments, while Facebook stood up to Murdoch which is why his Fox News, WSJ and NY Post seem to persecute Zuckerberg weekly, if not daily.

It's worth noting that one Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was a former employee of Murdoch's and Abbott, while Prime Minister, failed to file a follow up court motion, which dropped a tax lawsuit against Murdoch's company worth about $882 million. Keep this factoid in mind, as you watch Murdoch's mass media hype his employee, Janice Dean, for governor while bashing the competition - including Cuomo.

Is 'Great' Britain [that name now seems a joke] Murdoch's Kingdom, Complete with Ignorant English Serfs?

Murdoch appears to have slyly engineered Britain's exit from the European Union, by creating negative labels for the moron public, and mixing up the conversation so that a clear analysis and conversation of the issue / decision would not prevail. The reason Murdoch seemed to push Britain to make the ridiculously stupid choice to exit the E.U., seemed to be motivated by the same selfish interests Murdoch pursued in Australia. That being, so that Murdoch can continue his reign as the real British King, through his near monopoly share of media in that nation. As the saying goes, Murdoch has little influence in Brussels, but they bow down before him at Downing Street [the British seat of power].

In both cases the citizens of those nations are the losers, due in part to their own ignorance of what's really going on behind the scenes, which is where you'll always find Keith Rupert Murdoch slithering around.

The United States of America ALMOST Became Another Murdoch Colony

The Australian born billionaire Murdoch held the same behind the scenes sway with Donald Trump while Trump was play acting president. Murdoch seemed to get the U.S. Attorneys replaced, including the one in our fair city investigating allegations of sexual harassment and alleged phone hacking of competing journalists by agents of the Murdoch Gestapo.

Murdoch seemed to get the Department of Justice to look the other way as Murdoch completed an inverted [near] takeover of Disney / ABC. There Murdoch became that corporation's largest shareholder and since then he appears to be making personnel changes in the top echelons of that corporation, including in the ABC News division. Democrats look out for the manifestation of this corruption of the ABC News department in 2024. And Murdoch eked out further patronage gains from Trump, like the tax cut for billionaires and their companies, and the recognition of Israel's claim on the Syrian Golan Heights, where Murdoch and former Vice President Dick Cheney [the tag team that brought up the Iraq WMD and War] has a large stake in an oil and gas exploration company.

But in spite of Murdoch's best efforts, Trump lost the 2020 election and so the corruption cannot continue until Murdoch swaps in a new presidential replacement in 2024 or propagandistically manipulates the 'voters' choice' back to Republican control of the Senate. For more details about Herr Murdoch and his Goebbels style mendacity machine see our report series on Gotham Buzz.

Murdoch's Goebbels Style Mass Media Manipulation - Using Nazi Tactics to Build the Fox Nation?

So not to be deterred, Murdoch already seems hard at work taking down what were two rising stars in the democratic party - California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. And Murdoch seems to be queuing up Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer next.

California problems are generally well beyond the scope of our reporting, so I leave that to the journalists in that great state to keep a watchful eye on America's 21st century Goebbels deceitful efforts to manage the narratives, incite the stupid, and emotionally manipulate the morons within the masses.

But New York State is another matter. And it's a matter that matters to me. So let's backtrack a bit to see how this whole hyped up mess was begun by Rupert Murdoch and his mendacious mass manipulation machine, with an eye toward slowing down the emotional hot button madness, and seeking a more balanced, contextual and fair assessment of what's going on.

It All Started with a Murdoch Employee Who Claims "Little Old Me, I'm Not Political" as She Begins Her Soft Launch for NYS Governor by Attacking Cuomo over the Nursing Home Data

Meet Janice Dean of Murdoch's Mendacity Machine

Janice Dean was born in Canada in 1970. She appears to have come to the U.S. to work in the nineties. The most firm date I found was about 1998. She did a number of broadcast stints at various outlets before landing at Fox 'News' in 2004 where she's now the weather person. She married a New York Firefighter in 2007 and they have two children.

In July 22, 2020 she wrote an OpEd attacking non-Fox media outlets, including CBS, ABC, NBC and Time stating,

" ... I couldn’t believe that this wasn’t a bigger story. Instead, there were puff piece interviews on "Good Morning America," "CBS Sunday Morning," "The Tonight Show" by Jimmy Fallon and People magazine ..."

This is a tactic frequently used by Murdoch's mendacious media to bully other media outlets into carrying a story that the other outlets might believe doesn't warrant the coverage. Bill O'Reilly used to do this with some of his media theatrics. I recall one incident where he hyped one alleged rape by a couple of immigrants - out of a total of 173,000 rapes in the U.S. each year - to bash immigrants. And he was outraged that the other media outlets didn't carry the story [see September 2017 story about O'Reilly immigrant rape on Gotham Buzz].

Now, why would Janice Dean be calling out all the other TV networks, when she works at the headquarters of Fox News / Newscorp in New York City - where the man who controls more media in America than anyone else [Keith Rupert Murdoch] - has an office in the same building?

Why didn't Janice Dean just walk down the hall to ask Murdoch or her peers at Fox like Hannity, Ingraham, Pirro and that racist Tucker to cover it? In Shakespeare's Hamlet there's a line that seems to have some parallels here. Wikipedia gives us the background.

" ... "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to prove his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark ..."

So before the pandemic broke, Janice Dean and her husband decided to place his parents in a nursing home. Oftentimes folks who do this are riddled with guilt for making such a decision. According a January 2020 report in www.verywellhealth.com, making this decision and adjusting to the aftermath, carries a lot of emotional angst and psychological and social adjustment. These weren't Janice Dean's parents [they were her parents in law], so perhaps she and her husband argued over making the placement, before going ahead with it.

And then CoVid came along, and her in laws died during the pandemic. If Janice Dean and her husband had experienced guilt about the decision before her in-laws died, or fought about their placement into nursing homes, then the in-laws death would likely have exacerbated the emotional temperature in the couple's relationship and home. And finding an outside scapegoat - like the Governor - might ease the tensions in the couple's relationship.

Now I know what's been said in the above paragraph is all hypothetical speculation - but it's an alternative explanation for Janice Dean's vehement attacks on Governor Cuomo's handling of the CoVid pandemic. An exploration of these issues is what comes out in an investigation or a court case. It's called due process, innocent until proven guilty and the right to face your accusers as stated in the 5th and 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Let's look at some of the key facts surrounding the Governor's management of the CoVid pandemic.

Cuomo's Handling of the CoVid Pandemic vis a vis Nursing Homes

According to a City & State report on March 5, 2021,

" ... [On] March 25 [2020]: The state Department of Health issues a directive to nursing homes instructing them to accept coronavirus-positive residents returning from hospitals if they are medically stable. At the time, many hospitals - particularly in New York City - were overwhelmed with patients and were looking for ways to free up beds. The directive states that “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the (nursing home) solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.” ... "

What follows for the next two months is a sort of wrangling back and forth about the wisdom of moving patients who may still test positive, back into the nursing homes. According to the same City & State report on March 5, 2020,

" ... [On] May 10 [2020]: Under intense pressure, Cuomo rescinds the nursing home directive with an executive order and replaces it with a policy that states that nursing homes cannot accept residents without a negative COVID-19 test. ... "

Governor Cuomo says when he issued the first executive order on March 25th, he was following the Trump Administration CDC guidelines which are summarized in a June 13, 2020 PolitiFact fact checking report as follows,

"... The CDC cited two "key factors" to consider when deciding whether to discharge a patient with COVID-19 to a long-term care facility, said Kristen Nordlund, a CDC spokesperson. First, is the patient medically ready for discharge to a long-term care facility? And second, is the selected long-term care facility able to safely care for a patient recovering from the virus by implementing all recommended infection control procedures? These directives were in place on or before March 23, two days before the state issued its advisory. ..."

Where much of the conflict regarding Cuomo's management of the situation arises, is in the interpretation of Cuomo's executive order and subsequent comment, which according to the City & State report was as follows.

" ... April 23: Cuomo says that nursing homes “don’t have the right to object” to the state directive, adding that if they can’t properly isolate COVID-19-positive residents, they must transfer those residents to another facility or ask the state Department of Health for assistance. The directive does not reference a nursing home’s ability to contact the state or transfer residents to another facility if they cannot isolate them. Zucker says he is not aware of the state having received any such requests. ..."

It's important to bear in mind that this was all unfolding in the midst of the pandemic when we didn't fully know what we were up against, nor how to deal with it, and when many of the healthcare facilities in the city and state were operating at near or even over capacity. People weren't even going to the hospitals to visit sick loved ones, let alone having them stay with them and their children in their homes. See our CoVid coverage on Gotham Buzz.

How Cuomo & NYS Reported Nursing Home Deaths

So managing the CoVid pandemic vis a vis nursing homes was one issue. And it was followed by another issue, which was how the fatalities at nursing homes were reported. This issue centers around whether the nursing home patients who were transferred to the hospitals and died there, should be counted as nursing home deaths or not. As far as I know, the biggest real world implication of the reporting, is how it affects the perception of how well Cuomo and NYS managed of CoVid spread and deaths in nursing homes.

See the charts above, compiled by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, for the week ending 2/28/21 that show the current NYS performance in managing the CoVid spread and deaths in NYS nursing homes vis a vis other states. I believe the data has been updated to include those nursing home residents who died in NYS hospitals, but I have not yet been able to confirm this. These charts would indicate that Cuomo didn't do such a great job vis a vis nursing homes, as NYS ended up in the bottom quartile on both spread and deaths. Neighboring New Jersey, run by Governor Phil Murphy, seemed to do significantly better on both counts ending up in the middle.

Many of the states that did well in the two charts above were western and plains states that don't have a lot of nursing homes, are relatively sparsely populated and somewhat insulated.

ADD CHARTS SHOWING NURSING HOMES & DEATHS BY STATE which supports the statement above.

Janice Dean's Soft Campaign Launch for NYS Governor & Murdoch's Free Media Support of it

What confuses matters even more is that Janice Dean and Murdoch's media appears to be positioning her for a run at Governor Cuomo's job in 2022. This would seem to be an ulterior motive for bashing the governor and for Murdoch's unrelenting media support for her.

It seems dishonest to say on your signs and in your interviews that "Our Families Losses are Not Politically Motivated" and then announce that you're considering a run for the NYS Governor's job while you have the full [implied] support of the largest owner of media in America. I'm sorry, but this is where the stench is coming from.

Then add in what I believe to be the foreshadowing of how Janice Dean and Rupert Murdoch intend to capitalize and co-opt the #MeToo movement narratives for personal gain and profit.

To be continued. See Monday March 15, 2021 report above.