From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Republican Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the House subcommittee, explained that ‘the Cuomo Administration is responsible for recklessly exposing New York’s most vulnerable population to COVID-19’

Former New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo personally edited state COVID-19 statistics to downplay deaths caused by his placement of contagious people in nursing homes, a new congressional investigation found.

For months, New York was the hardest hit of any state by the pandemic, due in large part to the coronavirus spreading within the state’s nursing homes. Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 over sexual harassment claims, ordered that nursing homes cannot turn away patients diagnosed with COVID-19 despite the fact the virus was most dangerous to the elderly.

He initially tried to blame nursing home deaths on the Trump administration by claiming that a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance forced him to put the infected back in nursing homes (the CDC actually called for elderly housing decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis). But even the office of New York Attorney General (and fellow Democrat) Letitia James found Cuomo’s administration undercounted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by as much as half.

A 2021 report by the Judiciary Committee of the New York State Assembly found that Cuomo and his senior aides edited state COVID-19 reports and undercounted nursing home deaths “on multiple occasions” to “strengthen the defense” of his order by excluding COVID deaths that occurred once patients left their nursing home.

On Monday, the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a memo confirming those findings, National Review reported.

“The Cuomo Administration is responsible for recklessly exposing New York’s most vulnerable population to COVID-19,” subcommittee chair Brad Wenstrup, a Republican from Ohio, said. “Today’s memo holds Mr. Cuomo and his team accountable for their failures and provides the most detailed and comprehensive accounting of New York’s pandemic-era wrongdoing.”

The committee found that Cuomo assistant Stephanie Benson emailed top aides to get out a “report on the facts” to prevent the governor’s nursing home directive from becoming a “great debacle in the history books. Cuomo has publicly denied involvement in creating the report, his former adviser, Jim Malatras, testified that Cuomo made his desires clear to the authors through his aids and handwritten notes, and even reviewed and edited the document himself multiple times.

Former New York State Department of Health official Dr. Eleanor Adams told investigators that her department did not independently author the report or was it peer reviewed. Others testified that the decision to remove out-of-facility deaths from the count came from the New York Executive Chamber, i.e., the governor’s cabinet.

Cuomo himself testified before the subcommittee this week, where he continued to maintain his innocence. He did, however, admit that he never spoke to anyone at the CDC or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about the scientific justification for his nursing home directive before issuing it.

In Florida, a grand jury impaneled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is currently investigating the manufacture and rollout of the COVID vaccines. In February 2024, it released its first interim report on the underlying justification for Operation Warp Speed, which determined that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated.

In May, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch penned an opinion identifying America’s COVID response measures as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” against which Congress, state legislatures, and courts alike were largely negligent to protect constitutional rights, personal liberty, and the rule of law.

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta pro-freedom pastor’s lawyers pointed out to the Calgary Court of Appeal that he did not ‘incite mischief’ but encouraged peaceful protesting.

Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski is appealing his conviction over a sermon he gave during a Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.

On September 10th, the Calgary Court of Appeal heard Pawlowski’s case after he was criminally charged for delivering a sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade.

“Pastor Artur did not actually incite mischief,” Pawlowski’s lawyer, Sarah Miller, told the court.

In May 2023, a court found Pawlowski guilty of mischief and breaching a release order for his sermon to the protesters.

Pawlowski is also facing a serious criminal charge of “willfully damaging and destroying essential infrastructure,” which will be ruled upon once a constitutional case brought by his lawyers is heard.

Pawlowski’s conviction stems largely from a sermon he gave in Coutts on February 3, 2022 to a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana.

At the time, he told the large crowd of protesters who had gathered in support of the trucker strike to peacefully “hold the line.”

While Pawlowski’s lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.

Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.

He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months, which he has said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.

During the appeal, Miller admitted that there was mischief at the protest but pointed out that Pawlowski was not part of it.

“We’re not saying that there was no mischief afoot. We’re saying it’s not on Pastor Artur,” she said.

Indeed, Pawlowski recently posted his speech on X, formerly known as Twitter, as evidence that he did not incite violence or mischief of any kind.

“Here is again my entire sermon to the truckers delivered by me on private property in a supposedly free and democratic society!” he wrote.

“For those words, the conservative Canadian government locked me up in prison!” he continued. “Please support my fight against this totalitarian regime! I have launched a lawsuit against them, and you can become part of this fight for freedom!!!

“Be blessed and stay strong in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ!” Pawlowski declared.

Here is again my entire sermon to the truckers delivered by me on private property in a supposedly free and democratic society!

For those words, the conservative Canadian government locked me up in prison!

Please support my fight against this totalitarian regime! I have… pic.twitter.com/tbZRc80yTZ

— Artur Pawlowski (@ArturPawlowski1) September 10, 2024

Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-premier Jason Kenney.

The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.