WASHINGTON – FEMA announced federal emergency aid has been made available to the state of Texas to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in areas affected by a severe winter storm beginning on Feb. 11, 2021 and continuing.

Critical thinking, as we’re taught to do it, isn’t helping in the fight against misinformation.

NEW REPORT CONCLUDES THAT CUOMO’S CONTROVERSIAL NURSING HOME ORDER MAY HAVE RESULTED IN AT LEAST 1,000 FATALITIES
by Kevin Ryan

A new report has found that New York nursing homes that took in patients under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s controversial mandate had death rates that were significantly higher than those that didn’t.

The analysis, which looked at a period from March 25th to May 10th, determined that the order was associated with nearly 20% of the 5,780 nursing deaths that occurred during that time.

The report was released yesterday by the Empire Center for Public Policy, an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in New York. It analyzed the nursing home data that was finally released by the New York State Department of Health after months of stonewalling state and federal legislators and investigators.

The Cuomo administration forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive in an effort to alleviate overcrowding in hospitals. Cuomo later rescinded the order after nearly two months.

The Empire Center found that nursing homes had escalated death tolls after accepting virus patients into their facilities, averaging 9.3 more deaths per facility than those that didn’t, according to the report.

“The findings contradict a central conclusion of the Health Department” that “admission policies were not a significant factor in nursing home fatalities”.

“This analysis indicates that the guidance may have made a bad situation worse,” the Empire Center said of Cuomo's order.

The DOJ, the FBI, and the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office have all announced investigations into Cuomo's pandemic response.

As we’ve reported previously, after being subpoenaed by the Arizona Senate and then suing the Senate to prevent a Senate audit of their 2020 election results, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (MCBOS) agreed to have an audit if they could pick the auditors. The two firms they picked they claimed were the only two who were certified by the governmental body the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC). However, we found that these firms were not certified at the time they were selected by the MCBOS:

Arizona Senate Passes Bill Strengthening Its Investigative Powers Amid Maricopa County Vote Audit DisputeThe Arizona Senate passed a bill Thursday that would grant the Arizona legislature the authority to subpoena election records like ballots and tabulating equipment, and ignore any laws to the contrary.

The Senate passed Senate Bill 1408 on its third reading in the state’s upper chamber along a 16–14 party-line vote, with Republicans voting for and Democrats voting against.

The bill amends a portion of the Arizona statutes such that county election equipment, systems and records, and other information that is under the control of county personnel “may not be deemed privileged information, confidential information, or other information protected from disclosure.” It also subjects such records to a subpoena and stipulates that they “must be produced” and the legislature’s authority to conduct related probes “may not be infringed by any other law.”

The rule change is to be retroactive as of Dec. 31, 2019, meaning it would apply to records around the November election.