Tag Archives: Governor Kathy Hochul

What’s Next?

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On May 3, The Conservative Review posted the following headline:

New York becomes first state to ban gas stoves and fossil fuels in new buildings to fight climate change

The article reports:

The state of New York will become the first state to ban gas stoves and other fossil fuel appliances in new buildings in order to fight climate change.

The new restrictions will go into effect in 2026 and was voted into law on Tuesday in the state budget.

Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul insisted to reporters on Tuesday ahead of the vote that they report already installed stoves will be grandfathered in and won’t be banned.

“I want to be very clear. I know people love to misinterpret this, but people with existing gas stoves, you’re welcome to keep them,” Hochul said.

“This is where our nation has to go eventually,” she added. “But I want to make sure that it’s not a bumpy road to the transition.”

The article concludes:

In response to public outcry against suggestions that gas stoves might be banned federally, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric said that no such ban was being considered.

“Research indicates that emissions from gas stoves can be hazardous, and the CPSC is looking for ways to reduce related indoor air quality hazards,” Hoehn-Saric said in January.

“But to be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so,” he added.

Aren’t these the same people who told us there would never be vaccine mandates? Aren’t these the same people who told us that the 80,000 new Internal Revenue Agents are only going to audit the rich? Aren’t these the same people who told us that if you like your doctor you could keep him or if you liked your health insurance you could keep it? I trust the Consumer Product Safety Commission about as much as I would trust gas-station sushi.

I Hate To Be Paranoid, But This Scares Me To Death

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On Friday, The American Thinker posted an article about New York State Bill A416, which would provide amazing power to the Governor of New York and members of the administrative state.

The article reports:

In roughly three weeks, the New York state legislature will vote on Bill A416, which will give the New York governor (in this case, the power-mad Kathy Hochul), as well as the governor’s delegates (i.e., New York’s administrative state) the power to indefinitely detain anyone the governor or her agencies deem a “significant threat to public health.” Despite the broad power states have, this violates the Constitution. At a practical level, it should scare the pants off every American.

There is absolutely no doubt that, under our Constitution, the states have powers that the federal government lacks. The federal government is explicitly a creature of very limited powers, while the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that those limited powers not reserved to the federal government belong to the state “or to the people.”

The Tenth Amendment, however, does not mean that states can play the dictator. Indeed, since the Civil War, states have been subject to the same constraints as the federal government when it comes to using its police power over the people within its borders. Thus, the second sentence in the Fourteenth Amendment states explicitly that

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Among the privileges Americans have is a pivotal one in the Fifth Amendment assuring us that “No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….” That deprivation is precisely what New York state contemplates.

The article notes:

No matter the language in the bill, given that the New York governor has the uncontested power to declare a health emergency, people are at risk. If you’re wondering what that looks like, look to Victoria, in Australia. There, people are locked up in concentration camps for the mere suspicion of having COVID.

And again, it cannot be said often enough that this is a disease with an average mortality rate hovering around 1% (a rate that could be even lower if people were allowed treatment with Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine early in their diagnosis). By way of contrast, this is not AIDS, which entered the West with a 100% mortality rate but never resulted in such a draconian response.

If we don’t wake up and stand up quickly, we will lose our freedom and our country.

Common Sense Arrives In New York

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On Monday, The New York Post reported that Nassau County (NY) Executive-elect Bruce Blakeman will not be enforcing Governor Kathy Hochul’s new statewide mask-or-vaccine mandate when he takes office on January 1.

The article reports:

“Come January 1st, my administration will move Nassau forward with a common sense approach that acknowledges the facts, science and progress made by our residents while also protecting businesses and jobs from any further damage created by government mandates,” Blakeman, a Republican, said in a statement on Monday.

“Nassau County is not in crisis, and should not be painted with the same broad brush as the rest of the state. Ninety-seven percent of adults in Nassau County have received at least their first dose of the vaccine and Nassau hospitals have adequate capacity to handle existing demand.”

A spokesperson for outgoing Democratic County Executive Laura Curran said the county will “continue responding to complaints” until she’s out of office on Dec. 31.

On Monday, WND posted an article about the effectiveness of the measures that countries and states have taken against the Covid virus.

The article at WND states:

A former adviser to the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has compiled a list of more than 400 studies showing that COVID-19 lockdowns, shelter-in-place policies, school closures, masks and mask mandates have failed to curb virus transmission or reduce deaths.

“These restrictive policies were ineffective and devastating failures, causing immense harm especially to the poorer and vulnerable within societies,” wrote Dr. Paul Alexander for the Brownstone Institute in an article in which he lists the studies.

Alexander said that while nearly all governments have attempted compulsory measures to control the virus, the research shows that no government can claim they have had a “discernible impact” on “virus trajectories.”

A study published in January 2021, for example, reported “in the framework of this analysis, there is no evidence that more restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (‘lockdowns’) contributed substantially to bending the curve of new cases in England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, or the United States in early 2020.”

“We’ve known this for a very long time now,” Alexander said, “but governments continue to double down, causing misery upon people with ramifications that will likely take decades or more to repair.”

Obviously, the measures being pushed in New York, California, and some other states are not based on the current information. It is good to see some of our elected officials reacting to the science rather than using the virus as an opportunity to grab more governmental power.

As The Details Come Out

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On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that Chris Cuomo has been indefinitely suspended by CNN after news of how he helped his brother with sexual assault accusations surfaced. The problem is not that he gave advice to his brother–the problem is that he used his resources as a newsman to gather dirt of his brother’s accusers.

The article reports:

The network said documents released by New York’s attorney general Monday indicated a greater level in his brother’s efforts than the network previously knew.

“As a result, we have suspended Chris indefinitely, pending further evaluation,” the network said.

The article concludes:

Chris Cuomo had previously acknowledged talking to his brother and offering advice when the governor faced the harassment charges that led to his resignation. But the information released Nov. 29 revealed far more details about what he did.

The anchor did his show Monday night without mentioning the topic. In the past, he’s said he’s never reported on his brother’s situation for the network and never tried to influence coverage. On-air in August, he said: “I tried to do the right thing,” adding he “wasn’t in control of anything.”

Cuomo interviewed his brother on the air a number of times during the first two months of the COVID-19 epidemic. It was a hit with viewers, although it violated CNN’s policy of not having Cuomo report on his brother, and was a programming choice that has grown worse with time and additional revelations.

The Democrat party in New York is changing. One indication of that is the waning power of the Cuomo family. One wonders who is going to come forward to fill the gap they have left. Unfortunately, I fear it will be the more radical elements of the party. It should be noted that Kathy Hochul, the current governor of New York, won her seat in the New York legislature in 2011 as a member of the Democratic Party and Working Families Party. Her biography lists her as a Democrat, but that is not her history. Please do your own research on the Working Families Party. They are not your father’s Democrat party.

When The Courts Defend Religious Rights

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Yesterday The Post Millennial posted an article about the Covid vaccine mandates in New York State.

The article reports:

A federal judge’s ruling on Tuesday says employers in New York’s healthcare sector must allow religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Presiding Judge Hurd said the state government of New York doesn’t have the authority to ban religious exemptions.

He issued an injunction that bars the Department of Health from reprimanding employers for granting religious exemptions to staff.

In addition: “The Department of Health is barred from taking any action, disciplinary or otherwise, against the licensure, certification, residency, admitting privileges or other professional status or qualification of any of the plaintiffs on account of their seeking or having obtained a religious exemption from mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.”

The New York Times describes a contrast between former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the current governor; Cuomo allowed religious exemptions but Kathy Hochul took them away, which in itself triggered the lawsuit.

In light of today’s decision, Hochul said the state would be appealing the ruling:

“My responsibility as governor is to protect the people of this state, and requiring health care workers to get vaccinated accomplishes that. I stand behind this mandate, and I will fight this decision in court to keep New Yorkers safe.”

For whatever reason we seem to have a lot of elected leaders who have forgotten the God-given rights the U.S. Constitution was written to protect. There is evidence that some of the Covid vaccines or the research to develop the vaccines involved embryonic stem cells. For some religious people, that is a problem. The Constitution protects the rights of those people. The Governor of New York needs to respect religious freedom. It will be a sad day for Americans if the State of New York wins this case.