Another woman is coming forward to accuse Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual misconduct, alleging that he grabbed her face and kissed her without her consent outside her home — and claiming to have photographic evidence.
The woman has yet to be publicly identified, but will hold a press briefing Monday afternoon with high-power attorney Gloria Allred, according to a press release.
The married woman will detail how she “was shocked when the Governor suddenly grabbed her face and kissed her in front of her home,” according to the release.
A photo of the kiss will be provided during the briefing, the release adds.
This weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” poked fun at President Biden — about his stumbles on the stairs leading to Air Force One and on last week’s first news conference since taking office. Scroll down to Biden photo, click and see. Joe Concha lays it out.
Governor Kemp signed into law a new voting right legislation. Even before it was inked the minority rabble rousers yelled foul. This was the sign of their pea brains in low gear operation. The law, if read in its full text reveals that instead of suppressing voters rights, it actually opened up the state to more voters through easy access. The legislation also provided sanctity and security to the vote. They yelled Jim Crow. Probably the majority of them had no idea who he was.
In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which the U.S. Supreme Court laid out its “separate but equal” legal doctrine for facilities for African Americans. Moreover, public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War in 1861–65.
Georgia voters will have to follow new election rules. State Republicans there passed a sweeping elections bill that limits mail-in voting and changes absentee and early voting. Governor Brian Kemp signed the legislation into law last night.
Changes to absentee voting
Mail-in absentee voting will look the most different for voters, especially after 1.3 million people used that method in the November general election. Voters over 65, with a disability, in the military or who live overseas will still be able to apply once for a ballot and automatically receive one the rest of an election cycle. But the earliest voters can request a mail-in ballot will be 11 weeks before an election instead of 180 days — less than half as much time.
The final deadline to complete an application is moved earlier, too. Instead of returning an application by the Friday before election day, SB 202 now backs it up to two Fridays before. Republican sponsors of the bill and local elections officials say this will cut down on the number of ballots rejected for coming in late because of the tight turnaround.
Counties will also begin mailing out absentee ballots about three weeks later than before, starting four weeks before the election.
Requesting and returning a ballot will also require new ID rules: either your driver’s license number, state ID number or, if you don’t have those, a copy of acceptable voter ID. The law also allows for applications to be returned online, after the Secretary of State’s office launched an online request portal using your driver’s license number or state ID number ahead of November’s general election.
Poll workers will use that information, plus your name, date of birth and address, to verify your identity, and you will sign an oath swearing that everything is correct. This is a change from recent procedure that would check your signature on the application with those on file.
The actual absentee ballot and envelopes will look different, as well. SB 202 requires absentee ballots to be printed on special security paper, and your precinct name will now be included along with precinct ID printed at the top. Once you fill out your choices by filling in the circles for your choices, you will place it in an envelope that will have your name, signature, driver’s license or state ID number (or last four digits of your Social Security number) and date of birth. The envelope will be designed so that sensitive personal information will be hidden once it is sealed.
Changes to early voting
One of the biggest changes in the bill would expand early voting access for most counties, adding an additional mandatory Saturday and formally codifying Sunday voting hours as optional. Counties can have early voting open as long as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at minimum. If you live in a larger metropolitan county, you might not notice a change. For most other counties, you will have an extra weekend day, and your weekday early voting hours will likely be longer.
Another new rule that affects both in-person early voting and election day voting would prohibit anyone except poll workers from handing out water to voters in line, and outlaw passing out food and water to voters within 150 feet of the building that serves as a poll, inside a polling place or within 25 feet of any voter standing in line. Depending on the location, it is still possible for third-party groups to have food and water available — and it is possible for the lines to extend beyond 150 feet.
So, one of the biggest complaints concerns water. WATER, we say. Never in our life did we see anyone passing out water at a polling place. If you need water or anticipate the need for water, bring your own. The liptards tirade on the bucket brigade relates to them buying votes by wetting the beak of potential voters. BRING YOUR OWN WATER ON ELECTION DAY. THAT IS IT. YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID.
Speaking about poetic justice; A wanna be burglar was murdered by the house he intended to rob. Lehigh Acres, Florida, a religious community appealing to all denominations was the scene of this calamity.
He made one mistake by trying to gain entry into the home through a window. It slammed shut as he was partially through it. The window closed on his neck, leaving him trapped in the frame. By the time deputies arrived, Hernandez had died. Sometimes, God works in mysterious ways.
A misogynist at work, Cuomo a perverted thug, used every opportunity to sexually harass the women working in his administration. Kissing them on the lips, touching their breasts, talking dirty to them. The clock is about to ring midnight for the Number One Criminal of the Empire State. Send him to Riker’s Island. Give him a chance to meet up with one of his relatives.
Anna Ruch told the New York Times Monday that after complimenting Cuomo for a toast he gave to her friends who were getting married, he put his hand on her bare back and later asked to kiss her. The encounter was captured in a photograph, which shows Cuomo grabbing Ruch’s bewildered, worried face in his hands.
The police chief of tiny, low-crime Southampton Village — pop. 3,307, with 30 sworn officers — makes more than NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea.
That would be the top cop of New York City, pop. 8,300,000, with about 36,000 sworn officers.
Chief Thomas Cummings was compensated $441,945.82 last year, according to village documents. His annual base pay was $263,829, easily topping Shea’s $239,092.
The village is not exactly a hotbed of crime. It has not had a murder since 2008, and last year reported no homicides, rapes, robberies or aggravated assaults. It did have two car thefts, one burglary, and 42 non-violent larcenies, according to state Division of Criminal Justice Services data.–– ADVERTISEMENT ––about:blank
Cummings’ massive compensation package included $86,256.66 in retirement contributions; $31,000 in extra vacation, a $23,893.02 night differential — and a $4,000 line item called “cleaning/clothing/college.” No one could fully explain what “3 Cs” taxpayers were being billed for.
Chief Thomas Cummings first joined the department in 1987.
But that’s not all. Whenever Cummings, 57, decides to retire, taxpayers — villagers have an average household income of about $96,250 — will have to shell out well over a million dollars in post-employment costs, including $737,073 for health benefits and $503,828 in accrued leave.
His forthcoming payday came to light at a contentious village board meeting on March 11.
“Perhaps the most egregious thing is that the previous administration inserted an evergreen or perpetuity clause into his most recent contract, basically making him chief for as long as he wants to be,” Deputy Mayor Gina Arresta said, according to a video recording.
Cummings and the former mayor, Mark Epley, were allies who “saw things the same way,” said an East End source.
Jesse Warren, the current mayor, said at the meeting that the village is now negotiating Cummings’ next contract. (There are rumors that Warren wants to dissolve the department, as reported by the Southampton Press, which first covered the meeting.)
“While I can’t comment on Chief Cummings’ contract since we are in the midst of negotiations, I do fully support our Village police and will ensure they always have the resources to keep us safe,” Warren told The Post Friday.
Joe wished he he had a couple of Black Beauties with him yesterday; we most certainly did. But the Black Beauties we are talking about aren’t the ones that hurt your eyes, the eye candy type, the African American Princesses. What we are referring to is the PILL, (aka BLACK BEAUTY). To the uninitiated, a Black Beauty is a drug women would take back in the 60’s & 70’s to speed up their metabolism, thereby losing weight in the process.
Their college aged children were on to this; they raided the medicine cabinet lifting a few when exam time came around. Their brains were kicked into high gear after swallowing a couple of them. Exams passed with psychedelic flying colors. BTW, the pill was also referred to as SPEED and speed kills.
It was readily apparent that Biden should have digested a dozen or so Black Beauties before facing the press. Americans listened to his every word, but they were completely stunned by his dismal performance. Many expected it. He was no John Kennedy, that’s for sure, but he more closely resembled a wimp holding a CHEAT SHEET; yeah he had a cheat sheet. This is not the first time he did this. Back in his college days he never took an exam without one.
The consensus of the blatter spilling from his mouth was described in one word; a disaster. In fact it fell flatter than a tortilla stomped on by a bunch of illegals crossing the border. Therefore, we can conclude that his next presser will be sometime in 2022. So what contributed to Joe the ZOMBIE Biden staging? We called on our old friend, the Centenarian Don the Beachcomber to bring us up to speed (no pun intended) He concluded that Joe had four Zombie Cocktails prior to being pushed out on stage.
The zombie is a popular tropical rum cocktail. And we give due credit to Don the Beachcomber who invented it back in the 1930s. It is filled with a tasty blend of rum and fruit juices and is well known to be a pretty powerful cocktail, so much so that it’s said the original restaurant where it was served limited each customer to two zombies maximum due to the potency of the drink.
THAT EXPLAINS IT – WE KNEW ALL ALONG THAT JOE COULDN’T HANDLE HIS LIQUOR – The question arises then, how is going to handle Xi and Putin?
It is a foregone conclusion that on November 3, 2020 Zombie Joe cheated America by stealing the election. In fact his whole life has been a steal.
“Black beauty” was a drug street-name used in the ’60s and ’70s to refer to a pill of pharmaceutical amphetamine (aka speed). Strictly speaking, a black beauty was a tablet of Biphetamine, manufactured by Strasenburgh Labs, then Pennwalt Corporation, and finally Fisons Corporation, before finally being pulled from the market in 1998. Chemically speaking, it was composed of an even, racemic mixture of dextro- and levo- amphetamine, very similar to today’s Adderall. Contrary to what other definitions might say, both the d- and l- isomers of amphetamine are active and “fun.” In fact, while d-amp is technically the stronger isomer, the racemic d/l mixtures are actually more stimulating, more abusable, and create more of a drug “high.”
The term “black beauty” was also extended to include Biphetamine-T, which was a ridiculously abusable mixture of the aforementioned amphetamines, plus methaqualone (aka Quaalude). Both Biphetamine mixtures were available in 12.5mg and 20mg tablets.
The suspected gunman who killed 10 people in a mass shooting at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store this week was previously known to the FBI, according to a report.
It is widely known that when the new coronavirus emerged in December 2019, the Chinese government downplayed the pandemic threat for several critical weeks. Less commonly known is those same authorities deliberately sacrificed health workers to maintain their lies.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) calculated cover-up enabled the coronavirus to go global. By silencing doctors, Beijing not only fueled this pandemic but also compromised the world’s ability to spot the next one.
Why the CCP decided to cover up the outbreak is unclear. It may have been a reluctance to cancel political meetings, a fear of public panic—especially around the Chinese New Year—the embarrassment of another pathogen being born on Chinese soil, or the simple instinct to squash bad news ingrained into officials in an authoritarian system.
This series looks at how many experts missed the mark in the early days of the pandemic—and what we can learn for next time.
Among experts: Social scientists thought they knew what impact the pandemic would have. They were very wrong.
In the U.S.: Public health experts thought they had a world-beating pandemic response in place. That overconfidence doomed 500,000 Americans.
Pandemics are like wars. The first casualty is truth.
Instead of notifying the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of atypical pneumonia and evidence of human spread, the authorities censored information, concealed the virus, and silenced doctors who tried to warn their colleagues. Hospital leaders refused to authorize masks or other personal protective equipment (PPE) on the grounds that it would cause panic. As patients infected health care workers and health care workers infected one another, hospital leaders insisted that spread among humans was impossible—that no staff members were infected—even altering diagnoses that suggested otherwise.
Beijing’s official line through Jan. 19, 2020 was that the outbreak began in late December 2019, that all cases had been infected by an unidentified animal source at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and that no health care workers were infected. But even when the government conceded human spread on Jan. 20, it reported only a fraction of the real numbers.
These falsehoods influenced the WHO’s decision not to immediately declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a step it had previously taken over Ebola, Zika, and the H1N1 virus. It also informed the widespread belief that COVID-19 spread in a similar manner to influenza—by large droplets landing on surfaces and transferred by touching rather than through airborne microdroplets. That misdirection contributed to the early and persistent focus in the West on surface disinfection and hand hygiene rather than masks—considerably more effective.
The lack of information also meant some important early trends were missed. For example, most infected staff were in non-urgent specialties, such as ophthalmology, family medicine, and elective surgery. These specialties are not considered high risk, and patients were less likely to be sick or symptomatic—meaning health workers were less likely to wear masks than their colleagues in emergency respiratory medicine and intensive care units.
The delayed understanding of transmission dynamics cost the lives of unknown numbers of health care workers in China, contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands more abroad, and superpowered the pandemic.
Medical staff transfer patients to Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 17, 2020. GETTY IMAGES
The cover-up had various elements. First, like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002, Chinese authorities did not notify the WHO, in violation of International Health Regulations, the global rules on pandemic threats. These rules stress that any threat that infects health care workers—positive proof of human spread—must be reported. Instead, as with SARS, the WHO learned about the new threat not from Beijing but from an open-source platform devised by doctors to rapidly disseminate information and counter governmental tendencies to suppress emerging threats.
Admittedly, uncertainty is the defining principle of any new pathogen. But by Dec. 27, 2019, Wuhan authorities knew the threat was serious. By then, the new coronavirus had been sequenced, several patients without links to the market had been identified, and at least one health care worker had been infected. Both SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), COVID-19’s older siblings, both caused atypical pneumonia, pandemics, and high infection rates among health care workers.
The doctors in Wuhan understood this threat and tried to warn one another. Providing health care workers with PPE would not necessarily have contradicted the official story about no human-to-human transmission. For an outbreak of atypical pneumonia during flu season, masks are the bare minimum. After SARS, PPE would be welcomed as a prudent protective measure rather than raise international eyebrows. But Chinese authorities, at pains to maintain their fiction, rejected this compromise.
Instead, authorities engaged in a pattern of demonstrable lying and covering up, threatening doctors involved in early warnings and restricting information. On Jan. 3, 2020, when China formally acknowledged the pneumonia outbreak, authorities told the WHO they had no idea what was causing it. In fact, by then, the new coronavirus had been sequenced several times—beginning with Vision Medicals on Dec. 27, 2019; BGI Genomics on Dec. 29, 2019; Wuhan Institute of Virology on Jan. 2, 2020; and China’s CDC on Jan. 3, 2020. On Jan. 5, a consortium led by professor Zhang Yongzhen at Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced it, deposited it in GenBank, the U.S. public database of DNA sequences, submitted it to Nature, and shared it with China’s National Health Commission (NHC).
Yet the Chinese government pretended it still didn’t have a clue. On Jan. 6, the NHC gave a national briefing on the pneumonia of unknown cause. On Jan. 9, in breaking news, the NHC announced that a novel coronavirus had been discovered on Jan. 7. But China didn’t share the sequence until Jan. 11—and only after Zhang permitted it to be posted on Virologica, an open platform.
On Jan. 1, 2020, the WHO formally asked China to verify the outbreak. Instead of replying within 24 hours as required, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau reported it had “taken measures” against eight “law breakers” and warned against “manufacturing, believing, or spreading rumors.” Belying later claims that the cover-up was limited to local authorities, Chinese state media publicized this intimidating warning widely.
The Chinese government’s cover-up led WHO experts to make deadly mistakes. On Jan. 5, the WHO passed on its minimal information from Beijing in a post entitled “Pneumonia of Unknown Cause.” WHO experts knew it lacked detail but not that it was a litany of lies. The seafood market as the source seemed plausible, given that SARS began at a wet market in Guangzhou. Yet compared with Guangzhou’s exotic wildlife, the Huanan market was mundane, more remarkable for being next to Wuhan’s high-speed train station.While the Chinese government was denying human-to-human transmission, its actions on the ground told a different story. On Dec. 31, health authorities began transferring all known and suspected cases (59 in total) to Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital. At the infectious disease unit, a cast iron gate kept family members out. Inside, security guards prevented medical staff from leaving. Although isolation of patients is standard practice for contagious diseases, locking medical staff in with patients is not.
On Jan. 11 and 12, Chinese authorities told the WHO there had been no new cases since Jan. 3, consistent with their claim that the wet market was the source of all cases, given that it had been closed since Jan. 1. Again, the government insisted there was no infection among health care workers or clear evidence of human spread. In fact, at least 20 health care workers already had confirmed COVID-19, and dozens more had been clinically diagnosed—among them Li Wenliang, a young ophthalmologist who would become famous for his tragic death following his early warnings. Well before he found an N95 mask on Jan. 10, he was infected by a glaucoma patient.
On Jan. 13, a senior NHC official informed an expert delegation from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan that human-to-human transmission was occurring. Yet the next day, when the delegation visited Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, medical staff treating patients on the isolation ward, described as the “dirty zone,” were not wearing masks or goggles.
The same day, Chinese health officials apprised the government that human spread was most likely occurring. At the WHO’s daily news conference, a WHO virologist said that limited human spread, potentially among families, was possible, adding “but it is very clear right now that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission.” It is unclear whether WHO’s comment was due to the limited information coming from the Chinese government, a reluctance to challenge Beijing in light of its political and economic influence, or scientific mediocrity.
It was only on Jan. 20 that Zhong Nanshan—a widely respected Chinese public health leader—was rolled out to officially confirm human spread and medical worker infection. His admission triggered the WHO to call an emergency committee to consider whether the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Yet when the committee met on two days later, although more than 400 health care workers had confirmed cases of COVID-19, China admitted to only 16 such cases, and the emergency was not declared.
On Jan. 28, as Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and requested permission for a WHO-led mission to visit China, Xi’s agreement appeared responsible. On Jan. 29, when Li’s diagnosis surfaced, the static number of 16 infected health care workers was reassuring. When Li died, Beijing responded to the public outcry by launching an investigation into the circumstances of his punishment. But that posture of contrition only reinforced belief in Beijing’s lies.
Beijing’s announcement on Feb. 14 that 1,716 health care workers had been infected sent shock waves around the medical world. Of those, 230 people were staff at the Central Hospital of Wuhan, one of the hospitals at the epicenter of the outbreak. By Feb. 20, at the time of the WHO-China Joint Mission, the total had risen to 2,055 cases.
Chinese authorities paraded the mission participants around various cities far from Wuhan and took care to keep the 12 Beijing-approved international members from speaking with their Chinese counterparts. On the second-to-last day, select members—with no U.S. representatives included—spent less than 24 hours in Wuhan. A carefully staged itinerary included Tongji Hospital and a clinic at Wuhan Sports Center. The key hospitals in Wuhan—Central, Jinyintan, and Union—as well as the market and the level 4 biosafety lab were all off-limits. This cover-up had echoes of SARS, when Chinese authorities actively hid patients from the WHO, driving them around in ambulances while the WHO team visited hospitals.
The joint mission report stated that “transmission within health care settings and amongst health care workers does not appear to be a major transmission feature” and among health care worker infections, “most were identified early in the outbreak in Wuhan when supplies and experience with the new disease was lower.” A China CDC report published Feb. 17 contradicted both statements, as did the prior experience of epidemiologists. Pretending inexperience was implausible, given China’s familiarity with SARS. Other places that had suffered through SARS—Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore—had no COVID-19 infections or deaths among health care workers by that point. All of those places mandated masks.
Based on distorted data from the Chinese government, the joint mission falsely reassured the world there was no major danger to health care workers. In Italy, 16,991 health care workers were infected within six weeks. While authorities focused on testing new arrivals from China, the virus was spreading rapidly and often silently among unsuspecting Italians. Hospitals became hotspots, and the epidemic exploded. By mid-April 2020, 206 health care workers had died, including 119 doctors. The most vulnerable were retired doctors who had been recruited back to help address the crisis.
Nurses walk behind a barricade at the quarantined severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) facility of Xiaotangshan Hospital on the outskirts of Beijing on May 7, 2003. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Silencing doctors—the weak link in official censorship efforts—isn’t new. In 2010, India ridiculed the doctor who first published on NDM-1, the drug-resistant superbug. In 2012, Saudi authorities forced the doctor who alerted the world to MERS into exile. In 2013, the Syrian government put doctors who proved polio’s return on the “to be disappeared” list. The Chinese government is still punishing the surgeon who spoke out on SARS in 2003.
This medical censorship is particularly dangerous because physicians are indispensable for surveillance of emerging threats. The WHO’s role includes global surveillance of public health threats, but as a United Nations organization, it has no power to send investigators to an outbreak without the government’s permission. Governments worldwide downplay epidemics, fearing that trade will be hurt, legitimacy compromised, or holes in their health care system revealed. This makes doctors the eyes of the international community, essential for protecting all of us.
The Chinese government’s attempt to cover up SARS led to the revision of the International Health Regulations and an international mindset that Beijing had learned its lesson. But the only lesson that the CCP authorities seem to have learned involved how to better cover up outbreaks and manipulate international rules. Beijing, for example, was careful to cooperate with the WHO sufficiently to avoid being called out for its overall lack of honesty while concealing key facts.Trending Articles
9/11 Was a Wake-Up Call. America Is Still Snoozing After…
Domestic extremism is the greatest threat to the homeland—yet it’s not getting nearly enough public attention.
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Strengthening International Health Regulations without addressing the propensity of governments to cover up pandemics is unlikely to make a difference. After China’s SARS cover-up, WHO’s then director-general, Gro Harlem Brundtland, used her clout as a former prime minister to revise those regulations. Since then, states have not elected another former head of state as director-general.
Because the WHO, as a U.N. agency, has a limited ability to criticize governments, it would be helpful to establish an independent group of experts with the mandate to spotlight governments that flout their obligations. Similar bodies are routinely deployed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and they speak out without the inhibition that so often hampers U.N. agencies.
Beijing’s cover-up continues to this day. It let a second WHO-led mission into China but denied it access to essential data on the earliest patients recorded with COVID-19 while sending it on a wild goose chase investigating whether the outbreak could have been sparked by the virus resting on frozen food—a diversionary theory for which there is no evidence. Meanwhile, the mission itinerary included a Wuhan exhibit of health care workers portrayed in the very masks and protective gear they were denied for weeks.
Propagandists promoting the Chinese government’s ultimately successful control of COVID-19 to justify authoritarian rule miss the fatal flaw: It is precisely that authoritarian system of party-line censorship and cover up at all costs that facilitated COVID-19’s spread in the first place and enabled it to go global.
When the next coronavirus emerges—COVID-22, say—which Chinese doctors will be brave enough to report it? Which scientists will be willing to post the genetic sequence? This time, China has cost itself, and the world, the only reliable warning system in the country where it may be most needed.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on what experts missed during the early days of the pandemic. Read Ethan Guillen on American hubris here, and Michael Varnum, Cendri Hutcherson, and Ivan Grossmann on how badly wrong predictions of social change were here.
Annie Sparrow is an assistant professor of population health science and policy at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Twitter: @annie_sparrow
