New Maria DeCotis video (the Cuomo Whisperer)

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Both her and Sarah Cooper started doing these around the same time. They're both awesome.

[mercuryblues]

1. Has Cuomo talked about the Hogan test kit scam?

The tests not only are the test available in the US, but what he puchased at a large markup are useless without the regent.

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/09/larry-hogans-fake-resistance-his-purchase-of-korean-covid-19-tests-looks-like-a-pr-stunt_partner/

The tests Hogan purchased abroad for $9.5 million were "not in short supply in the United States," and in fact were available "for 20 to 30% less than what Hogan paid," the Post's Erin Cox and Steve Thompson reported.

"If somebody had come to us a few weeks ago and said we need a large order for Maryland, we would have been…capable of taking the order and fulfilling it," a CEO of a company that makes COVID tests told the Post. "We always love to ship in the United States, because it's a lot easier to ship domestically than foreign."

Even if Hogan insisted on buying the tests from South Korea — which he may have done for publicity — he still paid 38% more than the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did that same month for South Korean tests, the Post reported.

In addition to wasting a couple million tax dollars on what appears to be more PR stunt than public health measure, Hogan's claim that the tests were going to be an "exponential, game-changing step forward" was a vast exaggeration.

The U.S. testing deficiency isn't due to a lack of tests, but the ancillaries needed to make them work, which weren't a part of Hogan's Korean purchase. "Without things like reagents, [the tests] are sort of like paperweights," Montgomery County executive Marc Elrich, the Democratic chief of Maryland's largest county, told the Post.