Whitmer Lied and Grandma Died

by Lucas Limon

After months of searching for transparency regarding COVID-related nursing home deaths in Michigan, Charlie LeDuff announced on Tucker Carlson that he was suing Whitmer’s DHHS for answers. LeDuff, a Pulitzer Prize winner from Portsmouth, Virginia stayed true to his word and has teamed up with non- partisan Mackinac Center for Public Policy lawyers to accomplish this goal. Just like Cuomo in New York, governor Whitmer’s DHHS chose to adopt the policy of sending COVID-positive patients into state-run long-term care facilities where the most vulnerable to the disease were supposedly being protected by the State of Michigan. Predictably, this grim policy reaped outbreaks of COVID-related illnesses and deaths among staff and residents at multiple facilities throughout the state.

These death counts undoubtedly helped scare the public, bolstering the number of COVID-related deaths that were used to justify Whitmer’s draconian lockdowns and the shutting down of businesses across the state. But two years into the pandemic while eying re-election, it seems the Whitmer administration is now hiding the total number of hub-related nursing home deaths in fears of facing the same political backlash that recently plagued Cuomo’s administration in New York.

Charlie LeDuff is not alone in his calls for transparency. Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido has been urging residents to speak up if they lost loved ones in Michigan nursing homes during the pandemic. Pete Lucido is calling for a panel to review COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes. Lucido has also established a reporting and review process as a 3-page form that can be filled out by family members and turned in to the local police. This then will get the case brought to a medical review board headed up by the Macomb County medical examiner. These are the steps necessary to establish probable cause for possible crimes, including misconduct and reckless endangerment due to the fact that Whitmer created these nursing home COVID-19 hubs herself through executive order.

According to a University of Michigan researcher Marianne Udow-Phillips, the state set up 21 hubs inside nursing homes to isolate and care for COVID-positive patients. Figures show that over 5000 nursing home residents died from COVID-19, approximately 1/3 of all deaths in the state. As Libertarians, this is an inexcusable violation of our principles and regardless of partisan politics, the truth should be shared with all citizens, not deflected and buried in accusations of political witch hunts. Whitmer lied and Grandma died.