The following opinion is special to the Mirror by Paul Plante
25 May 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
Dear Senator Jordan:
As you may recall, on 29 December 2020, I forwarded to your office a communication from myself which stated in relevant part as follows:
As this COVID crisis continues to ravage New York state, and its senior citizens, with reports of older people in Rensselaer County being found dead in their homes alone, your office was the only one to reach out personally with a phone call to senior citizens like myself confined in our homes by Governor Cuomo’s “Matilda’s Law” to let us know you were thinking about our health and well-being and to leave your number if we needed aid or assistance.
As this tumultuous year draws to a close, I wanted to reach out to you to let you know how much I appreciated that phone call as an older citizen of New York state!
No other agency or office has bothered to do the same, and the Town where I reside is allowing me to be harassed and intimidated in my home with impunity, with the result that my health and well-being are jeopardized.
It is sad that a sense of responsibility towards the citizens in your district is not to be found in the other public officials in that district besides yourself, which is a sign of the times that we are in.
end quotes
As you will recall, after the legislature made Andrew Cuomo into a virtual dictator with power of life and death over us, to the detriment of over 15,000 elderly who perished in nursing homes, on March 20, 2020, over a year ago now, the governor imposed virtual solitary confinement for many elderly citizens of New York with his decree in his Matilda’s Law, enacted by the governor to protect his mother, that people like myself must remain indoors and can only go outside for solitary exercise.
Having survived the Cuomo-imposed COVID WINTER myself in solitary confinement, which would be deemed a form of torture if I was incarcerated in a prison where I would still have some basic rights, as a Matilda’s Law survivor I have some thoughts to share with you along with this pertinent question, to wit:
Now that the “economy” is “opening up” for everybody else, is somebody going to sound the all-clear for those of us still locked in our houses due to Matilda’s Law out of fear of the governor’s well-known wrath for those who dare to not follow his decrees, or like prisoners in a medieval dungeon, are we simply going to be left to rot?
Will our torture in solitary confinement never end?
Which brings me to the unthinking, unfeeling manner in which the whole thing was done, with no thought given whatsoever to the needs of the rural elderly such as myself who move with difficulty, which is something Governor Cuomo is totally indifferent to.
Overnight, I and who knows how many other older people were literally stripped and shorn of our support systems and essentially tossed out into the cold, with regard to the task of keeping ourselves alive this past winter, when there was two feet of snow on the ground and no one around to clear it away so the old folks could have oil or food delivered.
I was stripped of acupuncture for pain relief, physical therapy, human company and access to medical and dental care, and I think if I had actually been incarcerated in solitary confinement, I would have had access to better care, plus a guarantee of being at least fed, because if I was incarcerated, somebody would have been responsible for keeping me alive.
Not so with Matilda’s Law, however, where the elderly were left to have to fend for themselves, or die.
As for me, I am on the other side of the winter now, very weak and physically diminished, with trouble walking, as a result of this Cuomo-imposed solitary confinement which even kept us from having contact with family and grandchildren, but I am still alive.
How many others aren’t, Senator Jordan, as a result of being put into solitary confinement by Governor Cuomo, with no one even bothering to see if they are alive?
How many more old people did Governor Cuomo kill with his unthinking, unfeeling Matilda’s Law, where he locked us up and then threw away the key and walked away without a backward glance?
Where will justice for those people come from?
Or does anyone in power even know that they ever existed?
Paul Plante says
In the end, of course, as was the case with Joe Stalin’s holodomor, nobody will ever really know how many old folks in New York state Andy Cuomo, the Democratic Socialist governor of this state, managed to kill off with his Matilda’s Law, and his bringing COVID into nursing homes where it could wreck havoc on the old folks confined therein, and truthfully, nobody is even going to look for those numbers, because well, hey, come on here, people, they would embarrass the governor, and that is something we just cannot have!
We do know that Andy lost enough people to have reduced the population so as to lose a congressional seat, but that was a small and temporary price for Andy Cuomo to pay, considering what he got in return for ridding the state of a bunch of old, non-productive people really not good for much at all except taking up needed space for Andy’s illegals, who have to be settled somewhere, while sitting on piles of money that could be put to much better use elsewhere, because what do old people really contribute to the economy, anyway?
In the rural areas of the state, which is most of it, people like myself have been on the same land for sixty and seventy years, never seeing a need to leave it and go somewhere else where the grass is always supposedly greener, and so, now, with land prices going up for the developers, and land always hard to find, we, like the Native Americans, have to be gotten rid of, and when COVID came along and proved it was capable of killing older folks, Andy was given the weapon of mass destruction against us that he needed to rid the state of excess, unwanted, unneeded baggage, and the rest is now pretty much ancient history, because like Joe Stalin with his holodomor, Andy Cuomo will never be held to account for all the deaths he and his health commissioner Howie “Dr. Death” Zucker caused with COVID as their weapon of choice.
Paul Plante says
And this is as much about a pack of gutless, sniveling, craven cowards known as the New York state assembly and New York state senate abrogated (evade a responsibility or duty) and abdicated (fail to fulfill or undertake a responsibility or duty) their duties to the New York State Constitution and the citizens of New York state by suspending the Constitution and its protections, and instead prorogued (of a legislative assembly be discontinued without being dissolved) themselves and made Andy Cuomo a dictator in fact with life-or-death powers over us, especially the elderly, that the cravens in the New York state legislature would know Andy Cuomo could not be trusted with, and yet, notwithstanding, the cravens handed him that power over us without a question asked.
So besides Andy Cuomo, whose hands should the blood of all these dead older people killed by Andy Cuomo and Dr. Death be on?
Paul Plante says
31 May 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
RE: Thoughts of a Matilda’s Law survivor on Memorial Day
Dear Senator Jordan:
As I sit here this Memorial Day in what I have come to consider as my prison cell after Governor Cuomo imposed a severe lock-down on all of us in New York state over the age of 70, a prison cell that used to be called my home, instead, before Matilda’s Law, a prison cell where I have spent the COVID WINTER in solitary confinement, as if I were a prisoner in a SUPERMAX being punished for some infraction, too weak to do as I have done for many years in fulfillment of a vow to a lot of dead veterans of combat to keep Governor Cuomo safe to not forget them so long as I draw breath, which was to go out to various veteran’s memorials as well as my father’s grave to play Amazing Grace and Taps in remembrance of them, which this year I did from the confines of what I think of as my prison cell, I was forced to have to think of a lot of new additions to what was already a long list of names to remember, names of more dead veterans who are no longer with us, not because of combat, but because of COVID spread throughout New York by the actions and policies of Governor Andrew Cuomo and his health commissioner, known to us veterans as “Dr. Death, and that has me thinking about why that was so – that Governor Cuomo was given such life-and-death power over us.
In a state with a Constitution that is supposed to establish the structure of the government of the State of New York, while enumerating the basic rights of the citizens of New York, how did we end up with Andrew Cuomo as a dictator over us with the right to strip us of our basic rights while condemning many of us to what amounted for many to be a death sentence?
How, I ask myself, could that have possibly happened that in New York state, Andrew Cuomo was able to gain powers of life and death over the citizens of the state similar in scope to those enjoyed by Joe Stalin of the Soviet Union, who could destroy people at will, with no consequences, just as there will be no consequences for Andrew Cuomo for all the lives he and Dr. Death wasted with their COVID policies which resulted in COVID being spread all through the state, as well as in the nursing homes.
And the only answer that I can come up with is that the members of a craven and cowardly New York State Assembly and the members an equally craven and cowardly New York State Senate abrogated their oaths of office pursuant to Section 1 of Article XIII, Public Officers, which section states that members of the legislature, and all officers, executive and judicial, except such inferior officers as shall be by law exempted, shall, before they enter on the duties of their respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of …………, according to the best of my ability,” and in doing so, abdicated on their responsibilities to the people of the state whom they are supposed to represent.
Which raises the question this Memorial Day, when we veterans remember the fallen who, unlike the cowardly and craven members of the New York State Assembly and Senate who granted Andrew Cuomo the dictatorial powers that caused the deaths of so many elderly in New York state, including veterans, did not forsake their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, of who is really responsible for all those deaths, besides Governor Cuomo and Dr. Zucker, also known as “Dr. Death.”
And it would have to be those same Assemblypersons and Senators, would it not?
The dead think so, anyway, and I with them.
Sincerely, Paul Plante
Viet Nam 1969
Paul Plante says
3 June 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
RE: Message of Matilda’s Law survivors in Rensselaer County
Dear Senator Jordan:
First of all, the duty of being a voice for the Matilda’s Law survivors of Rensselaer County has been delegated to me, first of all because I am an engineer licensed by the State of New York to protect and safeguard life, health and property on behalf of the people of the State of New York, and in that capacity, I am quite skilled in the art of forensic analysis, and have in fact appeared on behalf of the people as an expert witness in hearings before the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, as well as in the New York State Court of Claims, and so am trusted by them to speak knowledgeably and truthfully and factually on their behalf.
Secondly, I am further qualified to practice at the associate level as a public health engineer, and in that capacity, in 1986, I undertook an extensive investigation of public corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health on behalf of then-New York State Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod, which investigation resulted in a lengthy Report of Investigation by Dr. Axelrod in March of 1989, which Report was filed with the Rensselaer County Clerk as a public document, as well as the Rensselaer County District Attorney, as where corruption is, so too the commission of crimes.
What I can testify to on their behalf as their concern, and it is indeed a valid one, is that once that Report of Investigation was issued by Dr. Axelrod, as a citizen of the state, I took a copy of the Report to the office of the New York State Attorney General, and there is where the matter died, the Report was buried, and things turned ugly for me, because I was now an “enemy of the state” for having exposed that corruption in the State Health Department going back to 1978, and I was specifically the enemy of the New York State Attorney General, because the New York State Attorney General is the lawyer for the State of New York and will do anything and everything in its power to keep people like myself with evidence of corruption in New York from ever getting to court, so that the New York State Attorney General cannot be trusted to do any kind of independent investigation that would demonstrate the state was wrong, nor can this Attorney General be trusted because she was endorsed by Andrew Cuomo and he helped her amass a million dollars for her campaign.
Nor can the Republicans and Democrats in the New York State legislature be trusted at this point to do anything other than what will be done by the Attorney General, which is another cover-up like happened in 1989.
What is needed is an independent grand jury investigation pursuant to §6 of Article I, the Bill of Rights, of the New York State Constitution, which section provides in relevant part that:
No person shall be subject to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; nor shall he or she be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself or herself, providing, that any public officer who, upon being called before a grand jury to testify concerning the conduct of his or her present office or of any public office held by him or her within five years prior to such grand jury call to testify, or the performance of his or her official duties in any such present or prior offices, refuses to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent criminal prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, shall by virtue of such refusal, be disqualified from holding any other public office or public employment for a period of five years from the date of such refusal to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, and shall be removed from his or her present office by the appropriate authority or shall forfeit his or her present office at the suit of the attorney-general.
The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law.
end quotes
There is the only path to justice for those who did not survive the COVID WINTER because of being locked away in solitary confinement by Andrew Cuomo with no thought whatsoever for their well-being, which brings us to a Press Release from Governor Cuomo on March 10, 2020 entitled “Governor Cuomo Accepts Recommendation of State Health Commissioner for New Emergency Measures to Contain Novel Coronavirus Cluster in New Rochelle,” to wit:
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today accepted the recommendation of State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker for new emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus cluster in New Rochelle.
The Governor has deployed National Guard troops to a Health Department command post in New Rochelle to assist with the outbreak.
The troops are mobilizing to deliver food to homes and help with cleaning public spaces in the containment area.
end quotes
Why there and nowhere else?
That is what the dead want to know, and it is up to us still living to press their case home for them.
Respectfully,
Paul Plante
Paul Plante says
5 June 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
RE: Clarifying the Request of the Rensselaer County Matilda’s Law Survivors
Dear Senator Jordan:
At this juncture, let me make it very clear that we, the survivors of Matilda’s Law in your senatorial district, do not expect anything from yourself for us as individuals, and the dead are past worrying about anything at this point in time.
Rather, we are requesting that you use your good offices as a Senator to see that a Grand Jury is empaneled in your senatorial district so that Health Commissioner Howard Zucker can be called to account before the people to explain his actions as New York State Health Commissioner subsequent to 17 January 2020, when the following was sent out by the State Health Department, to wit:
TO: Healthcare Providers, Healthcare Facilities, Clinical Laboratories, and Local Health Departments (LHDs)
FROM: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)
Bureau of Communicable Disease Control (BCDC)
SUMMARY
• The enclosed Health Update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides updated information about an outbreak of a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China that began in December 2019.
end quotes
Subsequent thereto, the Office of the Governor released the following press release, to wit:
GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO
January 24, 2020
Albany, NY
Governor Cuomo Outlines State Response to First Two Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in United States
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of actions to raise awareness and prepare New York State in response to an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced two confirmed cases in the United States – one in Washington State and one in Chicago.
The State Department of Health currently has four persons under investigation for novel coronavirus that are under isolation as their cases are being tested at the CDC.
While the risk for New York is currently low, the Governor is calling for increased vigilance to ensure New Yorkers are protected.
“As we learn about the first confirmed cases of this novel coronavirus in the United States and potentially in New York, I want to assure New Yorkers that we are prepared,” Governor Cuomo said.
end quotes
And if the risk for New York was indeed low, and if they were indeed prepared, why did so many people in this state die, so that it is only second to California in body count?
Getting back to the record, it continues as follows:
GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO
January 26, 2020
Albany, NY
Governor Cuomo Announces State’s Continued Response to Novel Coronavirus as Three More Individuals are Identified for Testing in New York State
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York State’s latest efforts to prepare and respond to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now confirms three cases in the United States.
“While the experts still believe the risk of catching this novel coronavirus is currently low in New York, I want all New Yorkers to know we are prepared and continue to take all necessary steps to keep people informed and safe,” Governor Cuomo said.
“I have directed the Department of Health and other state agencies to continue working closely with the CDC, the World Health Organization, our local and federal government partners, and New York’s healthcare providers to ensure we stay ahead of this situation.”
end quotes
And again, we Matilda’s Survivors come back to the same questions of why are there so many dead in this state if the Governor and Health Commissioner Zucker were prepared and taking all necessary steps to keep people informed and safe?
Thereafter, another press release followed, to wit:
GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO
January 28, 2020
Albany, NY
“My message to New Yorkers is: take this coronavirus seriously, take proper precautions, stay informed, but also feel confident that our Health Department and this administration are prepared and ready.”
end quotes
And considering the death toll, were they really prepared and ready?
And if they were truly prepared and ready, and yet all these deaths occurred anyway, then there would have to be culpable behavior on the part of someone either in the Cuomo administration or the State Health Department, and the only way to get those answers is to empanel a grand jury pursuant to §6 of Article I, the Bill of Rights, of the New York State Constitution, which section provides in relevant part that:
No person shall be subject to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; nor shall he or she be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself or herself, providing, that any public officer who, upon being called before a grand jury to testify concerning the conduct of his or her present office or of any public office held by him or her within five years prior to such grand jury call to testify, or the performance of his or her official duties in any such present or prior offices, refuses to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent criminal prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, shall by virtue of such refusal, be disqualified from holding any other public office or public employment for a period of five years from the date of such refusal to sign a waiver of immunity against subsequent prosecution, or to answer any relevant question concerning such matters before such grand jury, and shall be removed from his or her present office by the appropriate authority or shall forfeit his or her present office at the suit of the attorney-general.
The power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law.
end quotes
Anything your Good Offices can do to make that happen will be to your credit as a Senator and as a citizen of the state.
Respectfully,
Paul Plante, NYSPE
Paul Plante says
7 June 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
RE: Request of the Rensselaer County Matilda’s Law Survivors for grand jury investigation
Dear Senator Jordan:
With respect to our request to you as Matilda’s Law survivors in your senatorial district that you use your good offices as a Senator to see that a Grand Jury is empaneled in your senatorial district so that Health Commissioner Howard Zucker can be called to account before the people to explain his actions as New York State Health Commissioner subsequent to 17 January 2020 pursuant to §6 of Article I, the Bill of Rights, of the New York State Constitution, which section of our Constitution makes it clear that the power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments or to direct the filing of informations in connection with such inquiries, shall never be suspended or impaired by law, New York State law requires that each grand juror be given a copy of Article 190 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law (“CPL”) to read and to use as a reference while serving as a grand juror, and accordingly, in communicating with your office concerning this matter of importance to those of us in your senatorial district who did survive the isolation and solitary confinement Matilda’s Law imposed on many of us, to our detriment, we are using the New York State Unified Court System Grand Juror’s Handbook, a public document each person in New York over the age of 18 should be familiar with, as well as Article 190, which Article is included as part of the Grand Juror’s Handbook so as to make our petition for a Grand Jury in this matter in conformance with the provisions of Article 190.
As Chief Justice Janet DiFiore states in the Message From The Chief Judge at the beginning of the Handbook, like voting, grand jury service gives the citizens of this state the opportunity to participate – in a very direct and personal way – in our democracy, and we are very much for that, as we believe you are, as well.
Of importance, under the heading “The Role of the Grand Jury in the Criminal Justice System,” it is clearly stated that the grand jury is an arm of the court, and it is not an agent of the prosecutor or the police.
Thus, the Grand Jury is the only body that we trust can be kept independent and free of partisan political pressures.
Now, with respect to the kinds of partisan political pressures that can be expected to brought to bear to attempt to derail this Grand Jury investigation, in the section of the Handbook entitled “Grand Jurors’ Questions,” it states as follows:
Grand jurors may ask questions about the law.
They may also ask questions of witnesses about the evidence.
Generally, the prosecutor reviews grand jurors’ questions for witnesses and permits only those
that are relevant and legally proper.
end quotes
Accordingly, great thought must be given to the questions to be presented to Dr. Zucker ahead of time, given the power a politically-appointed prosecutor has over the process as an editor and as a censor, which takes us to this section of the Handbook, to wit:
Deciding Which Witnesses Testify
The prosecutor can call any witness believed to have relevant information.
Also, the grand jury may direct the prosecutor to call witnesses or to recall witnesses who have already testified.
When the grand jury directs the prosecutor to call a witness, that request must be honored.
However, the prosecutor may ask the judge to limit or prevent a witness’s appearance.
If the judge concludes that the witness’s appearance would not be in the public interest, the witness will not be called to testify.
end quotes
And hence, to prevent another cover-up like what happened in 1989 in Rensselaer County after Dr. Axelrod issued his Report of Investigation of corruption in the Rensselaer County Department of Health and the New York State Department of Health, it is critical that what truly is in the public’s interest in your senatorial district be made incandescently clear before the request is made of the Court to convene a Grand Jury, so that a politically-appointed prosecutor cannot sidestep the issue.
And that is something we wish you would put some serious thought into – what really is the public’s interest here?
And were the actions of Hoard Zucker as Health Commissioner in this matter subsequent to 17 January 2020, according to the well-developed record, consistent with promoting the public good?
If according to New York State Public Health Law § 203, entitled Commissioner; qualifications, the commissioner shall be a physician, a graduate of an incorporated medical college, of at least ten years’ experience in the actual practice of his profession, and of skill and experience in public health duties and sanitary science, then why was our COVID death toll so high?
Respectfully,
Paul Plante, NYSPE
Paul Plante says
7 June 2021
New York State Senator Daphne Jordan
188 State Street, Legislative Office Bldg., Room 508
Albany, NY 12247
RE: Request of the Rensselaer County Matilda’s Law Survivors for grand jury investigation, continued …
Dear Senator Jordan:
As we Matilda’s Law survivors in your senatorial district press forward our request that you use your good offices as a Senator to see that a Grand Jury is empaneled in your senatorial district so that Health Commissioner Howard Zucker can be called to account before the people to explain his actions as New York State Health Commissioner subsequent to 17 January 2020 pursuant to §6 of Article I, the Bill of Rights, of the New York State Constitution, which section of our Constitution makes it clear that the power of grand juries to inquire into the wilful misconduct in office of public officers shall never be suspended or impaired by law, we would next draw your attention § 190.05 of Article 190 of the New York State Criminal Procedure Law, titled “Grand jury; definition and general functions,” where we have as follows:
A grand jury is a body consisting of not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-three persons, impaneled by a superior court and constituting apart of such court, the functions of which are to hear and examine evidence concerning offenses and concerning misconduct, nonfeasance and neglect in public office, whether criminal or otherwise, and to take action with respect to such evidence as provided in section 190.60.
end quotes
For our purposes, with respect to Howard Zucker, we are looking at misconduct, nonfeasance and neglect in public office, which takes us to a news article posted by WRGB entitled “Rensselaer County officials working with state and federal officials on coronavirus issue” by WRGB STAFF, Monday, March 2nd, 2020, which article served to enlighten us as to just how pathetically stupid the response in New York state, the epicenter of COVID in the world, really was, and how negligent and derelict Andy Cuomo and his Howard Zucker really were with respect to COVID, as follows:
With confirmed cases of coronavirus in the nation and the state, Rensselaer County health officials took part in calls with the Centers for Disease Control and the New York State Department of Health regarding the issue.
At this time, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the county.
Federal and state health officials have termed the spread of the illness nationally and in the state as “isolated” cases.
end quotes
For the record, that is on March 2, 2020, 54 days or nearly two months AFTER the CDC issued a public health alert about COVID to state and local health officers, state and local epidemiologists, state and local laboratory directors, public information officers, HAN coordinators, and clinician organizations, which would have included Howard Zucker, that we were being told by Federal and state health officials, presumably Howard Zucker, that the spread of COVID nationally and in the state were “isolated” cases.
Getting back to that article which really captures the incompetence of this state’s response to COVID, we have:
“We want residents to know that our team at the Health Department is monitoring this situation closely and working with state and federal officials to share information and get updates.”
“However, there is no need for undue concern or worry,” said County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
“We have been informed that New York State remains at a low risk for coronavirus.”
end quotes
And now New York state is second in the nation with COVID deaths,
Why?
In a rational world, how could that have happened?
Respectfully,
Paul Plante, NYSPE